With the new patch out, I wanted to start some discussions about the balance’s problems of some civs that, in my opinion, needs to be adressed.
I’ll start with the italians for 2 reason, one, they are among my favorite civs (along with spanish and bizantines) and two, I already discussed some of those arguments in past on some pre-pacth discussion (so it’s easyer to remember everything).
So here they are:
Give their Fishing Ships their +2LoS bonus back, in top of their discount
So in the april patch they fixed the italian’s discount bonus from being -15w (60w in total) to being -15%w (64w), i played around a bit and while it is a nerf in practice, but it’s a good one, since it give a bit more opportunities in feudal for other civs to have an edge, while at the same time is still helping them a bit.
The reason I want to give them back their old bonus is for helping them on ibrid maps, it never was a strong bonus (the disc. helps more) but it was also underrated, since it helps them on the aspect that their FS needs less attention.
For every civs the problem with FS is that when they run out of deep fish, most of the times they don’t go idle (that way you could easly see them on the idle’s button and manualy scout for new deep fish rigth away) but they automatically go to the shore fish, wich is a waste, since FS have the lowest gathering rate on SF than anything else (and even more of a waste now that vills can gather them more effeciently).
Having more LoS helps them to see more/sooner DF and go work there, so it transfomr in less attention and micro-management to dedicate to them, in maps like 4 lakes (to name one) where more attention is required in the land could help them a lot, and combined with their disc. bonus could make a good bonus (still behind japs or malay) that help in different direction.
The time that takes to train Genovese Crossbowmen
So, right now a GC takes 22s in castle age to be trained from a castle (650stone and 200seconds to build). All other UU archers takes from 16s to 18s to be created, other UU too takes less than a GC needs (like organ guns or war wagons).
Now let’s compare it with some normal units TT:
A xbow takes 27s to be trained, a knight 30s, both can be trained at a building that cost 175wood and takes 50seconds to be build.
So in a land map, in castle age, it’s safe to assume that by the time you build a castle your enemy has 3 stables (if not more), it means that for 3 knight created by your enemy, you have 1 GC and you are to roughtly a third of the cration of the second, after 2 minutes you have 5 and a half GC vs 12 knights, after 10 it’s 27 GC vs 60 K, this maintaining the 1:3 ratio, since for every castle you build, your enemy can easly respond with 3 stables.
So even if the GC have a strong bonus, they will always be outnumbered, yes you could also go pikes, but you would invest resources in 2 units that couter the same tipe of units (istead of 2 units that complement each other weakness).
I’m writing this discussions (more will follow) because i would like to see more diversity on the online games, italians for example are played almost only on full water maps, it would be nice to see them more on land/ibrid maps too (and their UU too), as for a lot of other civs, which aren’t played nearly enaugh.
I know that there are people that are fine to play only a couple of civs, or to just use them on the maps where they shine, but some small changes here and ther could make the game more diversified and enjoyable.
Recently, goth and teutons received some buff, and now you see them more often online, I would like something similar for a lot of other underrated civs.
PS: Also, please, in responding here don’t bring up any “statistic data”, as I already explain more and more times, those data aren’t reliable, but most importantly, they are just raw data, whitout the proper analysis and interpretation are useless and even worse, misleading.
Italians are already (one of) the best water civs. They really deversed a nerf. I dont really think Italians need a buff again on water maps. So i disagree with this idea.
I feel Italians arent that good on land maps. I wouldnt mind if they get a slight buff. Although i really dont think they are really last tier on land. I dont really know if yours suggestion it the best buff. I havent played Italians too much on land maps.
In my idea it isn’t a water buff, since on full water maps have little to none impact, it’s for more ibrid maps, where you don’t benefit much from 50% cheaper dock’s techs, since you make docks only to have some FS (and maybe a fire ship or a demo time to time). The idea was to reduce the attention needed on maps like cross.
Yes, but to explore you would still be using galleys in full water maps, it’s not like you would scout the enemy with a FS, it would be both a waste of working time and they would do a poor job in comparison, it would help only for finding more deep fish and avoid going idle/on shore fish.
Time 5:05 - more LoS on FS.
I would rather disagree on the first one. If you want to make them better on hybrid maps without buffing them on full-water maps, rather just make them better on land, since they are already amongst the weakest civs on land. I also think they should receive some small buffs on hybrid maps, but this isn’t the right way to approach the problem.
Genoese buff: Of course, I agree. This has been a topic for a while on forums, and the big majority of the people agreed on this one, I don’t know why the developers still didn’t implement it in the game. Honestly I think if the creation time is decreased by more than 3 seconds, this is enough to make them as good of a hybrid map civ like they always should have been. They neither would be like really bad on land, I mean they still would be a worse than avarage land civ, but the difference between the top land civs and italians wouldn’t be that big, so they italians could actually have a proper chance of winning.
But it would help them without making them OP, it was such an underrated bonus to me, and it would make some game require less attention, it’s more a convenience than a buff.
I disagree, chukos and longbows are a lot more powerful and versitile, and can counter cavalry well enough too, also plumes and rattan are strongher than GC in their respective field.
I don’t think that any of those are worse than GC, but still, all of them take a lot less time to be trained.
EDITED: Maybe only the elephant archers are weaker, and they still have a more reasonable TT (only 3s more for a unit that have 280HP).
Longbows and chukos can take paladins head on if they are massed (and it’s not even their jobs), and in theory GC could to, but they still need a certain mass (yes you need less, but you can’t fight one on one), so that’s why a lot of people require this minor change.
