Personally i like this tree civs but as you can see they are not used at all.
Italians: I think they can focus this civ more to archers, taking out hussar upgrades and goving them a bonus in wich archer get plus 1 attack with any relic they take till 3 or 4(not affecting genoese crossbow) (wich have sense to me as italie has been a religious center since a long time ago, so giving them a little religious- military power wont be that crazy, i think ).
Turks, as their main power and identity is gold and they are kind of weak in late game as thei dont have any trash I think there are two options, first you can give a little bit more of power to their hussars making the sipahi affect them to. Or you can make their gold mines last longer and reinforce their late game as they would have gold access trough a longer period of time
Portuguese, I think this last one makes less sence and can be kinda crazy but i imagined a way to give them a little bit more of power is to give them a khmer farm bonus but with gold and i personally dont think this will be broken as gold will finish earlier for them so they will lose this advantage eventually (not as khmer farms that can last forever in the game ( i dont think khmer is broken now)). Or I have two more options that can be less crazy, firstly you can give them hussar reinforcing a little bit their power against skirms and late game or you can give feitoria littlebit more of poer making them more rentable as the game goes on.
This is a personal opinion and ideas that i think can give the game more balance than it has now(i would love if you agree with me you can support my idea and if not please leave your comment below respectfully)
Italians archers are good enough. They also have FU champs, good cavalry (only lacking paladin), full gunpowder and almost fu monks. What italians lack is imo a stronger economic bonus. I think that a larger discount in aging up could work, and at the same time remark their identity.
About turks, I don’t see their gold dependece as much as an issue as their weakness against arbalest in imperial. It’s hard to solve without giving them eskirm. What I would like to see (not saying it’s what has to be done) is giving them steppe lancers and replacing the “Gunpowder technologies cost 50% less” for someting like “steppe lancer +1 pierce armor in castle age, +1 in imperial”.
Buuuut SL are in a need of a rework themselves, so they need to have a role first and then we could think of giving them to turks.
Portuguese not only are a weak civ, but also imo a tasteless one. Like, their only intresting aspect is their gold discount, but as it is so general of a bonus, applied to a lot of units you don’t feel they have an identity as for example, britons archers, mangudai micro, or malian infantry have. That civ is just too boring to play, at least in non-water maps. I would support a portuguese rework with a intresting twist in market or trade as an economic bonus, but similar to saracens. Hand cannoneers in castle age could be another fun aspect.
Give Italian Archer-line +1 pierce armor in the Feudal Age, the Italian eco is good enough, but they have nothing else. It perfectly fits the armored archer theme. + Genoese Crossbowman TT has to be fixed asap
Turks, they are terrible against Archers. Give them Elite Skirmishers, fix Janisarries and Artillery’s cost should be halved or the stone cost replaced by wood.
Portuguese are an A-tier Water and Arena civ, but they’re pretty much useless on open maps. Organ Guns should be more tankier and lose their minimum range + they deserve Squires and Shipwright (or nerf Italians and Vikings on water).
Plus there are 3 more bad civs, Indians which are relegated to Arabia TGs, where they are completely broken, Koreans which don’t have cheaper siege for no reason and Bulgarians. I’m not gonna mention what they lack, because they lack everything, completely useless civ, old Khmer or Vietnamese lvl.
They are a few discussion about same civ balance changes I will just write about Turks.
Making SipahI affects Hussars good idea but I think Hussar is the best unit in the game so it could be though (to enemy) bonus. And it is similar as Mongol bonus. If sipahi effects Hussars I will start playing as Turks instead of Magyars.
I thought adding Steppe Lancer to them (Which does not change their lack of trash specialty) and making Elite Lancer upgrade free. Just like what they did when they are adding Lancers to Mongols
could another buff help them against archers?
eg knights +1/+2 PA in Castle / Imp?
I do like the SL +1/+2 PA suggestion, but it might make SL feel less special if they get too common.
Okay I also write about Turks. Turks already have bonus about Hussar as they get upgrade free and it is already good bonus. Other civs need huge amount of upgrade cost to get Hussar.
Mongols has already extra HP of Hussar and mongols don’t have last armor upgrade to balance it. If Turks get Sipihi on their Hussar, I will start playing as Turks instead of Mongols/Tatars.
Adding gold last longer bonus is good idea but I think double bonus of Mining Faster + Last longer is too strong or not fit (Any other civ don’t have that kind of double bonus to one resource). I just prefer to make their gold mining bonus increase to 25 or 30% from 20% which can be effective eco bonus and they can produce their expensive unit much faster with gold and game end early before game last long.
Italian and Portuguese are top tier civs on water maps, Turks are very good on arena and closed maps in general, the balance changes you suggest would completely break them on these settings.
Just because these civs are bad/mediocre on arabia, it doesn’t mean that they are bad civs overall and they need changes
Sounds good.
Sounds like you’re not worried it’ll make them S++ tier.
Not all civs need to be sameish. It’s ok if a civ has to close out the game before gold runs out. Just consider Portuguese, which have the exact opposite design, and eagle civs, which also fall off incredibly in post-imp.
The problem is Turks don’t even have particularly good units. Give me Paladins anyday, rather than any current-state Turk unit.
I’d be worried +1 PA Knights would be overpowering vs archer civs.
I totally agree that these civs need a consistent buff, but imo in a slightly different way.
Italians
They are too weak on land, so a buff must be land-specific. Extra PA of free armor techs for archers or a similar military bonus may work. Another option is a land-specific eco buff, like military buildings-50w.
Turks
Turks desperately need a way to play without gold. Some options are a market bonus or an extra trash unit (even genitours if properly renamed).
Portuguese
A small eco bonus would fix them, they already got a good buff in the last balance patch. I would go for some starting resources or for a buff on TC techs (like 50% cheaper and faster to research). Aging up is not a tech, btw.
This might allow to make interesting build orders, if you save half villager time per tech.
Also, it makes town watch and patrol an interesting option which fits portuguese.
Some months ago someone suggested make non_elite scopions a trash unit for them, replacing the gold cost by wood.
They would lack siege engineers and the elite upgrade, and cost a lot of wood.
Turks problem is not their trash… People that lose with turks in trash war have played turks like 40 minutes wrongly before. It is the problem of their castle age transition that make them weak versus xbow.
And giving Italians any bonus that you already posted for any other civ that has problems shows that this bonus would be not helping Italians with their boring land identity. Italians without cheaper universities and monasteries, comon
I still like the proposed idea for turks of getting access to Chemistry in castle age. This makes sense and will be very interesting, turks struggle a lot in early castle mainly because of not having Eskirm and pikeman. Gold mines lasting 25% longer could replace their actual faster gold mining.
Italians is a top tier water civ, if they receive a buff to land, they’ll need a nerf to dock bonus. Free archer armors seems very fine.
Portuguese could receive squires, arquebus fixed, a buff to organ gun and with eventual buff to HC could be enough.
I’d give that buff to every gunpowder civ. Gunpowder civs not having a bonus for Petards is one of the few head scratchers I have left about balance. Even non gunpowder civs like the Tatars and Chinese have a petard-like bonus with the Flaming Camel and higher HP Demolition Ships.
