Right now, but also in the past, the Condottiero in the game has always found himself in a strange position.
In theory it should be used to counter gunpowder units, but in reality it is rarely used for this purpose and there are many reasons for this:
- it is not that effective (more on that here);
- 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:
As usual, I invite everyone to discuss this topic. I know it can be a big change, but I believe it is for the best.
