Make Lombards to work automatically.
You say them what you want to do. Change one recource, two or all at the same time.
But from this point lomards would work automatically until the next order.
For example: If you want, lombards would change food for gold and wood for the rest of the game without innecesary micro.
What about improving Usury card a bit ?
Honestly, I dont think lol-bards are that difficult to utilize. and are balanced as is. italy’s weakness in late game is lack of unit scaling and -1 factory to which the lombards just dont quite make up for
I’d prefer pavs werent the weird unit of being both overpriced, yet op if you invest 3 cards in them all on a civ with xp malus and a great shadowteched age4 skirm. its just this weird spot where they are to pricey and dont scale well in age2 off italian age2 eco, take too long to tech up in age3, and are basically replaced in age4. really thought a few patches back they were fine, would like to see some effort done on them since in 1v1 they just underperform most the time yet i hear in nr20 or some teams they can be just oppresive.
I don’t mind the lombards as they are, as a concept, but mechanically, I would also like a rework:
In my humble opinion, they should work in the following way:
Coversion speed changed: the first lombard build exchange resources at 1.5 res/s. Every other lombard built increase the speed by 1.5-0.25*n° Lombards.
Example: with 250 food invested, you get 1.5 coins and 1.5 wood with 1L, 2.75 with 2L, 3.75 with 3L, 4.5 with 4L, and 5 with 5L, so the maximum conversion speed is the same.
Conversion value: with 1 lombard you exchange resources at 1:1 ratio, so 1f=1w=1c. Each additional lombard, generates a 5% additional resources.
*Example: if I invest 250 coins, I get 250 food/wood with 1L, with 2L 12.5 extra resources, with 3L 25, with 4L 37.5, and with 5L 50, always evenly split between the 2 resources.
HC Deposit Cards: Luccan and Sienese cards removed. Monte di pietĂ , genoese and florentine cards stays as in the new patch, so now the HC can ship just coin investments.
Architects: now build lombards again in 120 seconds instead of 100. Maximum amount of architects reduced to your equivalent age (so 1 in age 1, 5 in age 5 and so on…).
Usury: all investments last 10% more (from food and wood investment lasting 20% more).
Guardia di Finanza: now have the effect of investing the 5% coin received from enemy units killed directly into your lombards, in order to have always a small trickle of resources invested.
This one is mostly in order to alleviate the micromanaging of the lombards.
My suggestion is aimed at relieving the enormous burden of micromanagement that this civilization bears. I believe that easing it a bit in such a way that lombards could be used more effectively would be sufficient.
In case you didn’t know, the Lombards produce food ( at a rate of 1/sec ) if you insert all three types of resources at once, but you need high-level micromanagement to do it properly.
Agree, with the problem of Italians in their late game. Its infantry is weak without being cheap. The bersagliere loses against all other skirmishers in treaty battles, his musketeer is useless because is too weak. I’m not sure whether the addition of giving them carbine cavalry is a buff, a nerf, or doesn’t change anything. Not to mention that the Lombards do not compensate for the absence of a second factory and economic theory. After this patch, Italy is still the trash civ in the treaty that almost no one wants to play.
Italy’s economy needs buff especially for late game & treaty.
Some possible ways for solving this issue :
â—Ź Improving lombards & their investment mechanisms
â—Ź adding 2nd 
â—Ź adding economic theory card
do you know that lombards produce 1 food per second if you put all recources at the same time?
This becomes 2 per second with lombards third age card.
This bonus would be more usefull if lombards would work automatically. This is because often you can’t employ the micromanagement necessary to keep them running constantly
i just keybind them to a control group
but what might be a good compromise, is make a sound when out of resrouces. you still have to use your brain, but like the old aoe2 farm sound know when its “oout.” this i think wouldn’t be too hard nor would it upset balance at all. Just a nice QoL.
I do this too. But even with that, if you want to play with lombards, you need more micromanagent that any another civ.
Maybe in some moments you are in a combat and you can´t to be all the time puting resources in them.
Maybe cause I play haude but a quick macro never bothered me to much. Besides the old rts sweatlord in me is always hesitant for the ai to invest resources automatically for me.
I feel like the lombards arent the core issue anyways its how bad itsly scales. Obviously hard to balance between architects and lombards but with its lackluster infantry, crappy 1 papal bombard, and solid but not s tier now cav you just cant play jnto most civs late. Dunno how to fix but feels a bigger issue than just lombards can fix imho
It realy feels off and Italy is punished a lot since the beggining. I hope to see changes too, some of the issues are the lombards, the lacking factory, the scaling of the army, the problematic high pool of choises in its deck, etc. Many cards are in age 2 and 3 so you can’t play properly tbh. Too much micromanagement for a less rewarding game. Papals are still bad options too. Firstly before March italy and then the Revolution Italy(USA) got nerfed. Someone playing Italy right now feels sad. Everyone outscaling you in the late game and if you try to FF or FI the reward is an army that interupts your shipments. It is funny to play ok but I think 2 or 3 cards need merging. Another issue that you unlock pavissiers upgrades you need to do a specific age up which is the only Civ doing that. If not a factory there are some options i think could be applied:
Either of 4 choices could help at the economic issue this Civs encounters.
Alongside these i think the initial nerfs from investment cards need to be reverted at some point. This will happen so another parameter is fullfilled and that is the Papal Units.
Papal units need reduced arrival time. I don’t mean like regular units, but a lot less than a shipment, maybe half a shipment or 1,75/4 of it. Another proposition is that they can receive the mercenary boost from V age. Then i think it will be ok both for early and late game.
Maybe a merging of the IV ages cards of the army too since 3 cards for army in age IV let alone useless it’s kinda stupid. You get upgrade for pavisiers, skirmishes and musketers in 3 different ways. why would i want to have 100 upgrades for one unit(pavisier) to be useless late game and use another one. Kinda strange.
Maybe, if they add the possibility of transform the musketeers in redshirts as they did in the case of dragoons into carabinieri should help a lot Italy, especially in treaty,
I think Italy needs the following cards plus some changes.
Engineering School: Artillery train time -30%; Heavy Cannons and Gatling Camels train time -10%; Papal Bombard train time -35% (Italy only has one factory, so it should be -35%)
TEAM Engineering School: Artillery, Fixed Gun, Siege Elephant, Flamethrower, Ram, Mantlet, Haudenosaunee Mantlet and Papal Bombard train time -15%; Heavy Cannon, Great Bombard, Rocket, Flying Crow, and Gatling Camel train time -5%
Fulling Mills: Villagers gather food from herded animals 300% faster
Improved Grenades: Grenade troopers get +20% attack and +25% siege attack
TEAM Grenadier Guards: Musket infantry and grenade troopers get +15% hit points
Artillery Hitpoints: Grenade troopers get +30% hit points; artillery get +15% hit points
Merchant Republics: Trading posts can now deposit generated resources directly into the Lombards and each native trading post generates 0.20 food that is invested directly into the Lombards.; Trade routes generate 35% more resources
Guardia di Finanza: Adds coins equal to 5% of the cost of all enemy units defeated by the player directly to the Lombards for the remainder of the game.
Theaters: Upgrades the Tavern to the Theater which can train Elmetto and Li’l Bombard; Elmetto use -1 population and Li’l Bombard use -2 population (I would like all civilizations to have their own version of Theaters that would allow them to train their local mercenaries)
The engineering cards are to compensate for the lack of a factory and highlight the natural advantage of civilization, artillery.
The cards that benefit the grenadiers are designed so that the civilization focuses a little more on siege and to improve the musketeer and artillery a little.
The Fulling Mills card is to give you an alternative initial boom that favors the use of grenadiers, helps in situations where hunting is insufficient or simply favors FI.
The first two modified cards seek to somewhat solve the excessive micromanagement of the Lombards and the last card is so that Italy can train the local units that belong to it. (I also think these cards would help fans of treaty games and settle this issue)
I want to clarify that the Theaters cards should enable the local units of each civilization and give them some exclusive bonus, in this case it is a lower population cost, but other civilizations such as the Spanish and Portuguese could have other changes. For example, the Spanish Cannoneer could be trained from the barracks and get an improvement to its defense, while the Portuguese Cannoneer could have more damage and base health.
personally i like the idea of theaters for every civ, the finanzia and the trading posts(though natives would be inbalanced in that much food, should be like 0,2 food to begin with). Hulling would break Italy and we will see a lot of mad FF and FI strategies, the idea of very fast albanian company drives me crazy. Italy supposed to play with pavisiers i think. I dislike the idea to age up with a specific age up though to upgrade them. Many limits to late game of Italy. Grenadiers would break the Italy i think. I think the only unit should be pavisiers to focus. Maybe an Age IV buff. Bersaliers need changes tbh instead of musketeers. Bersaliers maybe to have the trait of absording damage like armored pistoleers and a group buff for pavi and bers instead of pyke and pavi could be better.
Yes, I suppose 0.2 food per native position is more balanced, but Guardia di Finanza, why do you think it would be unbalanced? In my opinion it would be a good way to encourage a Rush with Pavisiers.
ÂżHulling would = Fulling Mills?
I like those crazy FF and FI strategies, but if that stresses you out a lot, I guess they could give this card to Italy for second or third age. (I don’t want to break civilization, just have more options)
No, actually Italy’s idea is to go to FI to replace the pavisier with the Bersaglieri, this unit should not even have an imperial upgrade. (not because I don’t want it, but because it was not designed to have it)
Yes, that seems more like a punishment on the part of the developers towards players who wanted to be able to improve the pavisier at the imperial and guard level. (I’m not claiming anything, but personally that’s what I think)
I don’t think so, they would just be a little stronger grenadiers, they would need many improvements to really be a broken unit. (the English and Ottomans would still have the best grenadiers in the game)
The problem is that the pavisiers is an archaic unit that is designed to be replaced as quickly as possible. (Italai needs to be able to improve more units, for example its musketeers and grenadiers)
I understand that the Bersaglieri is the flagship unit of Italian civilization, but I think it wouldn’t be bad to give it some variety.
The Bersaglieri is the replacement for the Pavisier, it makes no sense to improve both, in any case I could accept a card that transforms the Pavisier into Bersaglieri.
Regarding the absorbing damage skill, I think this skill should belong to the Italian priests.
PS: no priest, monk or any variant of this unit should cost population especially when they are so underused and not usually profitable
I think Italy needs two things late game.
1, a better eco.
2, better gunpowder infantry. Late game Bergs don’t trade well with skirmishers and Italy Musketeers aren’t good.
Fix for eco:
Florentine Financers (age 4):
Reduce Lombard coin investment to 1500 from 2300.
Add a new ability: When enemy buildings or units are killed 5% of their cost is deposited into your lombards as long as there is room.
This would make the lombards more useful as many people have been asking for while improving Italy’s eco. Is it huge? No. But it would help.
Fix for Military:
This one is trickier. The problem is an age 4 combat card would just make the FI stronger and more powerful, and Bersaglieri are good until late game.
I think it need to be an upgrade behind a forth tech with the advanced church card. That way it’s a shipment and a cost. It could be made expensive so it hurts your tempo and is designed to be affordable in 4th/5th age once you have a maxed out eco. I could even see locking it behind age 5.
[insert name]: age 4/5
Cost: 1000f, 1000w, 1000c
Adds +10% Ranged armor to Bersaglieri.
Italian Musketeers gain +2 range and +20% hp.
Such a tech would give Bersaglieri 35% Ranged armor after it comes in and Italian Musketeers would be very solid, though a bit low on attack compared to British and Portuguese Musketeers, but still very good.
I agree with most of the cards, especially Guardia di Finanza:, the card is so bad in the sense that has a limit in the gold gathered, that was so stupid IMO. Maybe the extra 15 % can be merged into the Garibaldini card in all rifle infantry, that helped a lot the weak Italian infantry.
Finanzia would be ok, i didn’t say of imbalance, vice versa i like the idea, i only said about 0,6 food would be imbalanced. Pavisiers are good units on its own, they are not supposed to be replaced fast(at least in my opinion), they got 2 insane buffs on age 3 (like Malta’s which i played and used a lot), while maintain its mass costs a lot less than a Bersaglieri, i believe Bersaglieris are not for masses, but to be able to have 10-15 in army like Griots in my opinion(i do this myself). With musketeers and grenadiers buff it is like making a second-OP Britain. Italy’s traits are in other spot and should be. The absortion of damage from papal units for example is nice effect, i think Bersaglieris need to have this, too, to be able to fight later on battles without breaking the early game since it’s playable atm.