Fan Design of a Potential New Italian civ

What if u call it the Italian States(Italy), so maybe its maybe fits more the USA/Mexico model. To show more the differnce of the states, but maybe it would be too general than maybe Italy better.

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Thats very interessting, learned something new today, thx u very much. :slight_smile:

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I would love to have italians as infantry focused civ, the Armata Sarda was more infantry than cav after all… And pls, no crap from WoL mod for italians, they have been done dirty there

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Of course,it would be the type of the United States/Mexico model,and to advance in age through the Italian city-states…

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Of course,it would be the type of the United States/Mexico model,and to advance in age through the Italian city-states…

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Think nothing of it…you can always learn new things…

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Since we might get a civ reveal next week, I’m updating this civ design with the most recent ideas/version. Those are mostly random ideas and changes that came to mind and never made it here because I never had the time to make into a comprehensive civ design, but now I’m posting them anyway.

I’m doing this mostly because there is a small chance that the next civ will be the Italians. Now I believe that it’s unlikely to get them now, since it will probably be some other civ. And in the small chance that it will be the Italians, they will probably be already designed, so they don’t need any late suggestions.

But still, if it will be the Italians, I want to compare my latest design of them with the official civ, or in the worst case keep suggesting a design for them in the future.

In addition to the building shipments and carts, each age up also unlock a tech and a special HC shipment inside the church, similarly on how it worked before with the university.

So the new age ups locks like this:

From the start:
Have the advanced market card already unlocked.
Don’t need a church card to get special upgrades.

CITIES:
From Age I:

Venice:

  • Add 1 carpenter shipment.
  • Unlock the cheap dock and advanced dock cards.
    Church:
  • Munde: TPs gives back 15% more resources.

Genoa:

  • Add 1 merchant shipment.
  • Unlock extensive fortifications, coastal defenses and cheap outposts.
    Church:
  • County of navigators: Italian explorer and outposts get +100% LoS.

Florence:

  • Ship a bank wagon
  • Unlock stonemasons and tulip speculation cards.
    Church:
  • Condottieri: mercenary HC shipments contains 33% more units for the same price (min 1 extra unit)

Milan:

  • Add an 1 architect shipment.
  • Unlock the advanced arsenal and theaters cards.
    Church:
  • Permanent militia - TCs can shoot even if empty. The attack increases with the ages. If it’s garrisoned it’s like having extra vills.

Rome:

  • Ship a church wagon. Increases the church build limit of 1.
  • Unlock cheap church and master surgeons cards.
    Church:
  • Thites: churches generate crates of gold based on 10% of the resources gathered by nearby vills.

From Age II:
Bologna:

  • Ship a university wagon. The university is a building that buff XP generation on nearby buildings. (NOTE: it can be called academy if it’s too confusing with the hausa uni)
  • Unlock improved buildings and advanced trading posts cards.
    Church:
  • Academy: the university can slowly train units unique to the HC or crates of XP.
  • Adds a “2 doctors” shipment.

From age III:
Naples:

  • Add 3 cardinal shipment.
  • Unlock advanced mills and advanced estates cards.
    Church:
  • Lemon orchards: transform all estates into lemon orchards, which makes them generate food too (2:1 gold:food ratio)

From Age IV:
Turin:

  • Ship a fort wagon.
  • Unlock castramentation and heavy fortifications cards.
    Church:
  • Modernization: all falconets are transformed into heavy cannons and all mounted crossbowmen are transformed into carabiners. The new units also replace the old ones at the foundry and stable.
  • Adds a 4 doctors shipment.

NOTE: Church shipments of UUs cost gold, and the UUs are shipped like from the HC. Such UUs can also be sent from the HC, but the Italians can only send 1 for each with a standard shipment.

MILITARY:

Pavisan Crossbowmen gain the ability "Deploy Pavise: it give a +50% ranged resistance for 30 seconds to all xbows but it forces them to stand still. Xbows also absorb part of the damage direct against other units behind them.

Schiopettiere/Bersangliere a cheaper and faster moving musketeer with less HP and melee attack. The bersagliere (guard) upgrades increase the RoF of both melee and ranged attack.

Mounted crossbowmen don’t get extra ranged resistance anymore when dismounted.

Man at arms unique archaic heavy cavalry units, it’s available in the age 3 but it’s very gold expensive. When killed, a dismounted version (man at arms) of it spawn.

Capitani di Ventura HC shipment transform your explorer into a Condottiero buffing it’s stats and allowing him to train the local outlaws and mercenary.

Unique Units from the HC or university:

  • Doctors: a buffed surgeon. It can sabotage enemy buildings by poisoning them. A poisoned buildings works 15% slower, and train units with 15% less health.
  • Architects: a vill that can only build, but build as fast as 5 vills. It can be garrison inside buildings to buff by 25% its offensive and defensive stats.
  • Merchant: it’s a vill that can just gather from crates or can slowly generate them. It can be garrisoned inside markets and TP to get a better trades of resources (not XP).
  • Carpenter: it can be garrisoned inside a dock to make it work faster, or inside ships, to buff their stats.
  • Cardinal: it buff villagers nearby to gather faster. If put inside a building it can have it work faster.

Lol, well since on last post I wrote that it won’t probably be the Italians on the next DLC, now I admit that I was wrong :joy:

Bets are now opened on what we got right about the design of the civ, both on my original design and your many ideas :joy::joy:

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Well, let’s see what I was able to “predict” and what not, comparing my fan design for the Italians civ and the Italians released with KotM.

Home City and Age Ups:

So as HC I had suggested either Rome, Turin or Florence… I was completely off since they choose Venice…

For the age ups instead I suggested a sistem in between the US and the african age ups, where you choose and Italian city state and that automatically ship some unique cards, and unlock techs at the church.

Here again I was completely off, but being the Italians an european civ, I didn’t completely excluded a standard politicians age up sistem.

Unique Buildings:

Here I suggested a unique building that buff xp generation and gives back unique techs, which was the university. I also suggested that they had unique upgrades at the church without needing a HC card.

The italians released have the basilica, which is a bit of a mix between these 2. The basilica gives you a good trickle of XP and ship unique units, but still have a church card, so I’ll call this as not completely unpredicted.

The lombard instead I completely didn’t saw it coming. A gold generation trickle through some bank shipments or HC card, or a better exchange rate at the market were considered, but something like the lombard definitely not.

Economic Bonuses:

In my design, Italy main eco strength came from getting immediately and for free shipments that improve your building, and to free building wagons.

The KotM Italians instead have an economic bonus that is a mix of the aoe3 british and aoe2 burgundians, which is actually really good, and even if not that unique I definitely prefer this version.

I also thought of a version for the architect too, but my idea was of a vill that could only be shipped, and that build faster and buff defensive buildings stats. The architect introduced instead is a pure economic unit, with 2 way of building that really rewards micro and decision making. It’s not bad, it’s not either strong as what I suggested, still I like the decision making and the planning that the architect requires you to do.

Military:

In general, I thought of the Italians that’ll mainly rely on infantry units, and especially on archaic units, and on that I predicted it well. The only difference is that I thought of an unique musketeer and not modern skirms. They instead have gone for the generic musketeer, and a special late skirm.

Cavalry is mainly generic, with a strong but expensive archaic unit, and a late game modern ranged cavalry unit shipped through the church.

I also thought of a mainly generic artillery, with a lot of shipments of lil bombards. I predicted this quite accurately too, except for the royal guard culverins and mortars, which I thought it would be the xbows and the musketeer/dragoon.

On water, I predicted that they had the galleys and galeasses. The second ones are almost exactly as I thought of, except for the ramming ability. They didn’t get the galley, but at least they got the new battleship with an unique ability.

Unique Units:

Pavisiers: I knew that they would have gone for this unit, the only difference is that I imagined the pavise more like an ability, similar to the caroleans, not changing stances like the african units. I also thought that they would have at least all upgreades up to imp, but they instead have only the veteran one.

Bersaglieri: on this one, I thought it would have been a musketeer unit, although the way I design it made it quite similar to the unit that will be introduced. A fast moving skirm unit with low melee damage and good ranged damage, the bugle I didn’t predict though…

Papal lancer: that I missed on a little bit. The papal lancer is basically a lancer strong against all infantry. I thought that it would be more of a strong melee units that counter other cavalry on melee, and that could keep fighting as a dismounted unit when killed.

Schiavone: that too I missed… I personally thought that it would be the mercenary version of the carolean, with strong ranged and melee attacks, although the released version is similar on that…

Papal guards: I didn’t thought that they would have gone for an unique unit on this one, only that the Italians could have a way to train swiss pikes.

Galeass: my design was quite similar, a strong warships that can attack in all directions with a ton of cannons.

Revolutions:

I was completely off on this one, but mainly because I expected that they introduced new revolutions. They instead have gone for the ones that are already in the game, so they make sense…

I also suggested something like an embassy to ally with foreign powers, but I guess that it has partially introduced with the royal houses minor tribes.

General Features:

The arsenal buffing docks and the gondola cards can be seen as something similar to the water boom that I suggested if you aged up with the venetians.

The presence of a lot of mercenaries cards is also something that I had in my fan design.

All in all, I believe that I predicted quite well the military side of the civ, but not too much the economic/age up side.

Still, there are some ideas of how to improve it or buff the civ in the future, like giving them a university somehow, or enabling the imp upgrades on the pavisiers, which is something that they do miss. But still, I’m happy that we finally got the Italians, and they are designed quite well for almost all parts, maybe just some small notes, but nothing big.

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You are the real nostradamus xd…

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I wish :joy::joy::joy: more than half of what I imagined end up being different :joy::joy::joy:

Still, it was kind of fun to try to design and predict how a civ will end up being…

Yes, with the fact that they put the Italians more or less as the Ensemble Studios had in mind I am satisfied…

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I actually believe that they have gone even further out of the ensemble studios “confort zone” with the italians of KotM.

The free vill with a tech and architect are actually classic features, but the basilica, lombards, early techs and pavisiers are more similar to newer civs.

Of course, half and half… so that they maintain the essence but also take risks, that is the good thing that FE got out of the community of aoe 3, which is much more open than that of the 2…

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Yeah, all in all, I like a lot the new civ, it’s unique but not too much. The vill bonus is a little bit too much similar to the british one, but it’s soo good that I won’t complain, and with the early market it gives an unique synergy.

My 2 main complains, which shouldn’t overshadow all the good work, but neither being ignored, are:

  • pavisier stuck at the veteran level, without any mean to upgrade them further
  • the lack of an university building, or something related to that, being the Italians the first to have university as we know of in the modern days

Maybe the last one could be the solution to the first problem also. Italy could have a unique HC shipment that gives them an university, that can research non economic upgrades sooner (extending their bonus) or that could give them unique upgrades, like the pavisier guard and imp upgrades, or galleys (another absence from the Italian roster).

But those are just random ideas from the top of my head…

Sure sure,I understand…

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