Oh, I see what you mean, Yeah that’s the same way of accomplishing the same goal, though don’t know about the numbers.
Do they need it? Probably not, but I think it’s a little bit difficult to keep the army on the field when you need Hussars forward to kill ranged siege and/or archers/skirms but also need to use them as your primary Ram cleaner. Having a little bit more damage against rams (2 damage in castle age) isn’t going to suddenly make them amazing against rams. They don’t fire multiple arrows like Chu-Ko-Nu.
Further, if you really take a look as to what civs we’re likely to see this make any real deal against, it’s basically just Mayans and Chinese, and it wouldn’t be hard to argue that Italians have a really miserable matchup against both of these civs right now. Damage against rams on the Genoese would make the unit more reasonable in these matchups.
They would still be more expensive and train from castle, but still why is it so bad if the GC makes arbs pretty much obsolete?
Mangudai and Camel Archer > CavArchers , Woad Raider and Berzerk > Champions, Magyar Huzsar > Hussar, Rattan Archer > Arbalest, …
There are quite a few examples where the UU of a civ is pretty much a straight up upgrade, leaving their generic counterpart only a very niche role and personally I’m fine with that and can’t see why Italians can’t be a civ where the UU relegates the generic pendant to a niche use.
Because the Genoese, with 8 range, has only one counter in Siege. It already killed Infantry and Cavalry, leaving archers as a soft counter and siege as a hard counter. One more range means Genoese counter archers, cavalry, and infantry, leaving only specific, niche counter units (like Huskarl) or siege as viable counter options.
Berzerks get a bonus against Cavalry but they were already good against cavalry and it doesn’t make them archer-resistant. Rattan Archers are archer resistant but Siege and Cavalry still is the answer. You are suggesting that having a unit counter all three trees of basic army options is no big deal. This is a foolish suggestion. As I’ve already mentioned, they have Hussars and/or BBC to deny you the siege necessary to handle Siege, and the Genoese will kill absolutely everything else. This will give the Italians a one-unit composition with the option to blend in counter units.
As for the Mangudai, it counters everything when it’s massed, and there’s good arguments to be made that it should be / will be nerfed, so if you’re thinking it’s no big deal if the Genoese can suddenly counter everything and outclass the Arbalest, you’ve probably not thought it through.
Only on paper… GC are one of the few archers that lack any bonus damage vs infantry (even vs pikes) and have less range, so while they aren’t countered by infantry, they aren’t either a counter to infantry.
There is a recent video of the viper that actually show that yes, GC kills Tarkans, but barely, and that also show all the flaws of the GC vs other cavalry units.
On a direct fight, actually plumes wins and by a decent margin, then you also have to consider that plumes can simply outrun them whenever they want.
Not when you look at the difference between the pike bonus and the halb bonus, but I agree, the bonus damage it’s their problem.
This could work, or you simply reduce the cost of the elite upgrade.
Almost all units that have a bonus vs cavalry have also a bonus vs ships, but still I would never train GC to use them vs ships.
They survive a manganels shot, but then any arrow one shot them, so it’s still better to avoid them, and having one more range it’s actually better to micro against them.
