I made some math in this post, go and double check please, but to me 20% and 40% is the best compromise.
But I also believe that it could stay as they are those 2 bonus, and made some other smaller changes.
I think you can work on the percentage as you like.
Age up 20, dock 40 is stronger on water (still a bit nerf compared with today). Age up 20-25-30 and dock 33 is a more relevant nerf on water, but a more solid help on land.
Even other ideas as age up 15-20-25 are good.
It depends on how much you want to nerf Italians on water and help them on land.
The point is that reducing the dock discount to improve the age up, is a very good way to balance Italians!
Good job 
You canât buff them on land too much, otherwise you need to lock condos behind an upgrade, or nerf the disc. on the gunpowder, look at the bizz, to balance their -33% on imp they have insanely high upgrade costs on their cataprhacts.
Itâs not just about the nerf on water, itâs too much just even just for land.
20%-40% for all ages is enaugh, they could even keep the 15%-50% but receive the small buffs on GC and condos (and FS). The idea behind it would be that they struggle to survive, but then they have powerful and unique (and viable, not like now) units to punch back.
It would be an high risk high reward kind of strategy.
My point is that balancing that way (20-40 or another combination) is a good option. The more the percentage are closer, the weaker Italians are on water and the stronger on land. Fine with 20-40 as first try, it can always still updated if the problem remains.
I like also the idea of armor for Burmese with a possible small nerf to arambai.
Could we find also a nice proposal for the Turks?
If we find, I think I can edit my post so every one can see the suggestion of the community from this discussion, which is very proficient in my opinion.
Onestly, if we get the 20%-40% itâs already a lot I think, not even sure the devs will ever consider it. Thatâs why I press more about improving a bit their UU and FS here and there.
I fell like itâs more probable that they hear and make this small changes than a big one like buffing the discounted age ups.
However, the important thing is the sooner or later they address them and give them something.
I just think genoese crosbow is very strong if you add it to your regular crosbows. You donât have to go full genoese crosbow.
The biggest disadvantage of archers sometimes is that they canât choose what battles to take, because they are slower than knights or CA.
If you have a group of archers running around the map, they might be vulnerably to be cleaned up.
You just need to add some few genoese crosbows your gruop or archers wonât be vulnerable to knight and CA any more. You will say âthey are contered by skirmsâ of course they are archers, even though they are hard countered by skirms, archers are still probably the most dominant unit with this path finding. And you as italian can always counter skirms with your fully upraded cavalry or huzars.
I feel then that if you guys really want to make GC an almost always âmust to goâ unit just to see them more in the game, then you should take out bloodlines or nerf italian cavalry, just so that the civ doesnât get really dominant with those already strong GC.
The bonus of going cheaper to next age is not only a matter of saving resourses like âyou save the resourses to do 1 knight, thats not too muchâ. Well, apart from saving resourses, you might also click up earlier and thats a huge advantage.
Surely there is 35 civs and someones are better in some situations but I donât see italians as weak civ on land although they are defenitely not one of the best. I never say â24â when i get italians as random civ.
Yes, it is just that having Italians, Turks, or Burmese as closer to other civ is more enjoyable when you get them.
I mean, several people complain about Italians too strong on water/weak on land. Or Turks agaisnt archers and in no gold situation. As previously people were complaining about Vietnamese, which for me are really nice now, although very far from a top pick.
I like the ideas proposed to change Italian balance and to give Burmese armor anyway. I guess that the majority of the community is happy about teuton/viet buffs. Similar things may happen with other civs⊠we have a balance every month (thanks dev!)
Genoese crosbows are good for what they are made.
Some civs donât really have a good answer to genoese crosbow. As an italian player you are really strong against Cavalry civs which donât have bracer. Normally cavalry civs dont have such good skirms to counter your genoese crosbows. They might need to make onagers.
You as italian also have cheaper bombard cannons to counter onagers.
Sure, late game is ok for Italians, as for many weak civs btw
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In my opinion not only late game. Surely most of their bonus shine at imperial age but they still have a nice scout rush on open maps, still have a nice fast caslte on more closed maps like arena or BF.
I would say turks and portuguese are the only civs that are actually bad at early game. Maybe also magiars with no eco bonus on closed maps⊠All civs are different.
I think the only civ that needs a buff is portuguese and maybe a slight buff for turks but I am not really sure about what could be a good buff for them, and yet still keeping the identity of the civ.
I am not really sure about if teutons really needed +2 on imp. Maybe +1 knights was enough of a buff, considering teuton economy is already great with those cheap farms.
But +2 champions was a great idea and now with supplie lines, the civ has really become more versatile.
Vietnamese was way worst than right now italians
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You can start with xbows and then transition to GC, but not both at the same time, you wouldnât have te resources to add another unit tipe, and my ranges would probably be busy training skirms.
You need 14 to one shot a knight, itâs not a small group, once I have so many Iâll go with them.
And at least, your GC still needs to outnumber the knights.
Of course but how many units do I need to train, pikes, xbows, GC and knights at the same time?
There is no need for a nerf on their cavalry, they have no eco or military bonus on land maps, and there GC still fall behind every other foot archer UU as strength.
A lot of civs with faster gathering bonus or discounts can click up a lot earlier than Italians on land maps.
You can bring you experience here, as we can, so if the two are different you shouldnât take it personal.
Again, they donât make miracles, as an archer they still need to be massed, and from a castle.
Everyone got skirms, manganels and ram.
Yes in imp after chemistry, not in castle, the moment we are talking about.
They donât have to be good, everyone got BA for castle age, and in imp they will still be cost effective.
All.
They have the best scout rush, maybe second to huns and molgols only.
I think that, in any case, the Italian balance (dock tech-age up) and the Burmese armor would very appreciate by the majority of the community. You fix the issues about Italians to strong on water and weak on land, or the fact that Burmese are too fragile.
For Turks some ideas are around giving them spammable skirms. Like much cheaper/faster to create from castle age. Still baby trash and bad vs archers, but more playable.
For Portuguese I proposed somewhere TC tech cheaper and/or researched faster. For example 50% cheaper loom allows them to drush with no gold, while 33% faster wheelbarrow is the time for an extra vill in late feudal. May it work?
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They still are archers so they benefit from the same blacksmith.
And its not that expensive considering arbalest is actually really cheap
And you donât really need to one shot a knight to trade well against knights. Not even the strongest archer units can one shot knights that easily.
Crosbow vs knight is something a lot of arabia games you see. Generic italian crosbows (or viking or bizantine etc) already trade well because crosbow is a good unit, but the enemy might still beat you with knights if he gets you out of position or with low numbers. When you add genoese crosbow on late castle age (like 3 or 4) to your crosbows, suddenly you start to trade way better against knight and you kind of obligate your enemy to switch into skirms, which is really costly at that stage of the game and some civs donât even have blacksmith for skirms (like burmese) or even donât have elite skirms, or maybe switching to skirms is not going to worth a lot for some cavalry civ like frank o persian.
You donât need to train them but you still have them. Isnât it good?
If you buff their genoese crosbows, then i think they should lose huzar at least AT LEAST.
I am not taking this personally belive me, I am just giving my thoughts about a civ that for me is fine to play with, you can do it so aswell thats the point of these forums i guess.
But its not always really good to end going skirms as a persian or as a frank, I guess.
Italians are versatile enough that can kill any unit your enemy does with almost no problem.
You donât make scout rush on black forest, but yes I agree their scout rush is worth for magyars to not have eco bonus, awell as their really good tech tree on late game.
Not all. You can go for 20 pop scout rush with italians. Can make a really fast fast castle
Why are you keep saying they have no eco bonus? They have cheaper age up. Its not like they have to have an insane eco bonus to be actually fine
How do you counter mangonels at caslte age as an archer civ???
Perhaps with making mangonels your self, of some few knights. But thats not only a problem of italians⊠How do you counter mangonels at castle age as vietnamese or viking?? Mangonel is a good unit and thats why they are made, because they are good, but its not actually a problem of italians.
And GC donât make miracles but they are still good for what they are made.
Yes but itâs still one of the worse eco bonus without the other coming from the dock. Maybe only portosâ gold disc. is worse.
Didnât understand what you meant, but still, manganels have even an easier job conutering GC with they less range.
Never stated that is a problem for Italians, only that you still have them as a option to counter GC, so they arenât that OP if out of 4 counter (cavalry, skirms, manganels and rams) 3 still work.
Yes but you still need a good number of them, and stables will always outproduce you.
You were saying that italians have trouble fighting skirms, mangonels and rams at castle age and i told you âwell, every archer civ has that same problemâ but its still not that hard to stop, just make your own mangonels at base or even make some few knights.