the Italians don’t have halberdiers, so they don’t want to research all the infantry upgrades anyway;
it still costs 50F 35G (as much as a Serjeant):
however their cost cannot be reduced significantly otherwise they would become cost-effective against Champions (among other units) without the need for all those upgrades;
or even more lethal as landing units on islands, which is why they were heavily nerfed in the past;
the Italians already have Arbalests with Pavise, which is already their goto unit (along with the Genoese Crossbowman or HC) so even without the Condottieri you don’t want to play HC against the Italians, you have no reason to.
So how are they used? By the Italians, as a small power spike in the very early imperial age (very rarely) or to try and take out enemy bombards cannons (rarely) or in TGs, because for some bonus combination they become very useful (see Goths). Nothing else.
Hence my proposal to give him a horse!
This would give a number of advantages:
the Italians have Hussars, so they are more likely to seek all cavalry upgrades anyway;
the only upgrade they would save on compared to the Knight-line would be Cavalier, so their cost could be similar and not disproportionately larger, e.g. 50F 80G (to stay on the subject of mercenary forces);
if we calculate that Paviseis still effective, the difference in upgrade cost is almost entirely reduced;
as landing units would be only marginally better than the Cavaliers;
when I investigated the effectiveness of the Condottieri I realised that currently in the game the only melee cost-effective unit against the elite Janissaries are the fully upgraded Paladins: they might be as effective as Paladins against gunpowder, but regular Cavaliers against other units.
Of course, they would retain their mechanics, namely the bonus attack against gunpowder units, and being available to allies in TGs. I would also take advantage of this change of model to give the Condottiero a coat of arms of another Italian state to better represent the whole of central/northern Italy, example:
Personnaly I like that they are infantry, in the campaign they stand out: we have cavaliers (italian lords), archers (italian cities armies), and among those we have condotierri who fight differently. At least it is how I see them in the campaign.
Even regarding the unit in general, I like that they counter gunpowder as an infantry unit, it makes them unique. Because as you pointed out, heavy cavalry is already pretty good against hand cannons, so having an even stronger cavalry against HC is not very interesting. Like the cataphract, the condotierro is a cool unit design.
I also think their timing is stronger than you think, in pro team games I have seen them shine many times. But at my elo no one makes them because every Italian player i encounter tries to go for the genoese.
Although I agree that they should be a better counter to the other gunpowder units. Because against janissaries, the huskarl is strictly better despite being labeled as “anti-archer” and not “anti-gunpowder”.
Also, regarding the specific changes you suggested in your post, if you increase its condotierri armor class it will take 4 less damage from cataphract, jaguar warrior, and so on (which I think was the issue when condotierro was released). So it’s not a good fix. And imo having Burgundian hc overperforming is not a big deal, why would you make hc in this matchup? It’s not like Italian pikes are a threat.
They introduced the Condottiero class not by chance, so you can only get reduced damage from gunpowder units.
For Burgundians (and Hindustanis), HCs are more flexible. They are not only made against infantry. However, why do these edge cases have to exist?
This is true. They are more used in TG than in 1v1. Another reason why the unit should behave more uniformly.
The problem is that I could not balance the Condottieri against the Janissaries. They have no bonus damage to ignore, and even doubling the bonus attack does little besides look a bit ridiculous.
Nor can they improve their statics too much, because they are a readily trainable infantry unit. Sure, they could be slightly better as a generic unit (like 2 more attack, and a slight bonus damage against eagles) but it’s really a HP pool issue.
Then as I wrote in the other thread, the only way to fight elite Janissaries (and someone suggest giving them a bonus attack against cavalry as well) in melee, is by outnumbering with Cavalier or directly with Paladins. Incidentally something tested without a meat shield, which is very often not true.
I think the Burgundian bonus of +25% damage is never gonna work as intended, because of armor. Maybe it’s +25% against a unit with 0 armor, but for any other unit it will increase. For example against a savar, you will deal 17-8=9 damage, + 25% of 17 (so 4 i guess), for 13 in total (which looks more like +40%). And so on for all armor values. I don’t think you can realistically fix it.
Regarding the jannissary, in the modding editor I remember you can affect different values to “shown attack” and “attack”, so maybe you can pretend its 17 base attack, but behind the scene it’s actually 7 attack, with a + 10 against cavalry, infantry, archers, … but not condotierri. Although I don’t know if things like cavalry archers receiving the bonus twice happen. If not it could work.
edit: working like this, a janissary would do 11 damage to a savar, not 9. not great
Yes, but against infantry it is worse, because +25% base attack and +25% bonus attack. It’s basically a double bonus, although it’s not clearly written. In fact, I believe that against infantry, +12.5 is rounded up to +13.
I prefer having condos as an infantry unit. It keeps them from having the weaknesses that cavalry units have (such as taking large amounts of bonus damage from halberdiers). Making them a cavalry unit would make them compete even more for the roles that hussars and cavaliers fulfill (which would make condos comparable to longbows - a unique unit that plays a role very similar to a generic unit).
Condos as they stand are often best used as an early imperial age unit, as they don’t require much in the way of upgrades (mainly armor upgrades). Condos also have a strong use case against Bohemians, who can deal with them by going for their archer-line - inferior when compared to the Italians, or by going for scorpions (not their strong point). I have also played a 3v3 where I went for Italians condos after seeing my flanks had gone for cavalry (mainly because going cavalry myself would lead our to our comps all having the same counter units). And of course, there are team game sling strategies where one player goes fast-imp into condos.
