Let’s say a potential Venice civ gets the Castle technology “Marco Polo’s Friends” - You can recruit mercenary units from Asia in your market. (Some AoE 3 vibes here)
What could be balanced and fit to a certain degree. Think of Italians as the base of Venice.
Out of the things Marco Polo did, bringing mercenaries back wasn’t one.
To better represent the Venitians, I’d rather spice up the Italians a bit, such as :
With these 2 it will feel much more like a merchant republic.
I would like to make a thread on Venetians and ruminate on their potential bonuses.
But I’m a very, very casual player.
Started to think of Marco Polo cheat codes and thought Venetians could have a bonus regarding exploration. Like gold for map uncovered or when they find a relic around.
But the point here is the mercs: Condottiero and Steppe Lancers are easy choices.
Condo is a no brainer and the Lancer a nod to the Stradiots or lighter stand-in for a Byzantine ally.
The Italians wouldn’t have a monopoly on exploration. The Saracen Ibn Battuta travelled more than Marco Polo did, the Spanish & Portuguese had explorers to expand the known world (though some like Columbus were Italians hired by the Catholic Monarchs) while Marco Polo mostly travelled the already known Silk Road to serve as an envoy to Kublai Khan…
One issue with the Condo is they made it fit one specific role (anti-gunpowder infantry, why not) while real condottieri formed all-rounded armies with infantry shooters and cavalry. They are better represented as mercenary units that you can hire… thinking about it, how about doing this for the Condo :
Recruit a Condottieri army : 5 pops, contains :
In a similar way to how the Chinese recruit their armies in AOE3.
I meant that exploration gold as a bit of a nod to the classic cheat codes. But again, rumination.
That’s beyond the scope of my knowledge of game mechanics and mechanisms.
Not so sure there should be several types of Condos.
One of my “big ideas” for Venetians is that they should have a cheap unit: the Fante di Mar a.k.a. Venetian Sailor.
A half-decent infantry unit that can be produced from the Archery Range so you can skip the Barracks units. (Maybe have the A.Range count as a Barrack for the purpose of unlocking the Stable)
Maybe it could throw a spear as a sort cheap Ratha.
In that case, maybe they could be moved to a new shared building?
Why not, from a mercenary tent.
I like this batch training idea of units,its similar to buying the services of a mercenary company.
That’s exactly what I had in mind indeed.
If you recruit a company of mercs, you don’t get to tailor it as yoy would a regular army (let’s train 1 man-at-arms, 2 archers, 1 coustillier, 1 squire and 1 page per lance and make 100 lances into a compagnie d’ordonnance)
Italy doesnt really need the merchant, beetwen condos and cheap trade it gives you that feeling good enough, the cheap university techs also help for that
We could use a more unique Italian navy (?), although maybe something in late game for galleons is good enough
Warfare in Italy was weird. A lot of states relied on mercenaries for particular roles, say the city watch or infantry for a siege as places like Bari had modest populations. And employment was seasonal.
But when it comes to AoE 2, I don’t think getting a potpourri of mercenary units is useful. Players usually focus on one or two units. AoE is not exactly a “combined arms” game unless games get too big.
If the discount of the batch was really attractive or it came with rare a unit (say a monk or a battering ram) it would be attractive for the investment it would require.
But im a filthy casual. Not sure how to approach this conversation.