They have anti-cavalry archers, super cheap hand cannoneers, and they provide Condottieri fast infantry that are strong against gunpowder units, decent against buildings, and most importantly, they share them with the whole team.
An Italians + Goths combo, for example, with Condottieri and Goth UUs mixed together, feels almost impossible to stop.
With Hindustanis, for instance, it feels like there’s almost nothing you can do against Italians.
Please don’t explain obvious things like “just rely on your pocket player with another civ.”
I really need your advice on how to deal with Italians specifically, considering they seem to counter almost everything quite easily. When you have bad archers, and no heavy scorpions you are kind of dead.
Hindustani HC are insane, with a hussar meatshield I think you can bruteforce the condotierri. Ghulam don’t work, but you still have fu skirms against genoese, you’re better than a lot of civs.
Your long-ranged Hand Cannoneers and Xbows would handle Genoese Xbows easily while they are distracted with Hussars. Condottiero wouldn’t counter your composition either.
It’s one of the few cases where a Hand Cannoneer counters an archer.
For which maps you talk exactly?
On Arabia Italians are quite slow before getting into their late game armies, on closed maps they also have slower boom than other civs as well.
Every maps you can confront Condottieri with a civs that have shit archers. For example Franks or Hindustanis. With Franks you can still clean condottieri with cavalry or UU. But with Hindustanis, it’s like terrible. Condottieri counter camels + HC.
To be honnest I think giving condottierri to the whole team is too much. Or at least their should be a tech.
Any team member can almost instant switch into Condotierri, it doesn’t need any upgrades, it’s made from barracks and it’s very descent againt many units.
u out kite them with your long range HC, theres nothing the italians can do on their own and u put bunch of skirms infront of HC to manually target the archers.
It depends so much on the type of map you play. But from your question, I’m guessing it’s something like Black Forest or Arena. In any case, like all civilisations of this type, they suffers from BBC with +1 or +2 range. And since they have no siege rams, they also suffer against the Britons.
As a TG, it is difficult to give advice without knowing the other civilisations.
In 1v1, the Hindustan have such a better echo that they can usually get away with it anyway, especially if the map is a little open. If you are talking about a TG, it always depends on who your pocket is. But probably your best options are BBC + HC.
For pity’s sake. Once you have a large mass of HC, you only have to worry about a few unseen BBC shots.
Honestly, I would go full Ghulam, unless your partner has something better. Not least because the Ghulam (once stacked) cleans Huskarl.
Condottieri feel only really strong on Water Maps where it gives you a strong unit in Imperial Age without needing to upgrade anything.
On Land Maps it feels underwhelming as your opponents will have upgraded land units which are generally stronger.
Genoese Crossbowmen have -1 range so they are very susceptible to Siege Onagers and Bombard Cannons. As Italians Bombard Cannons have -1 range, too, it’s harder to push your opponent’s siege back, or a team mate of yours has to provide Bombard Cannons.
Outside of gimmick strategies like a 2vs2 with a Goth for a Fast Imp discounted Condottieri they do not feel particularly strong for team games.
Well this is in a team game so, have you tried using champions to cover you HC’s? For sure, both Italian GC’s and HC can annihilate them, but your HC’s should be able to pull the win if their condos get held by the Champ wall.
On another note, how go ghulams trade into condos? I get that HC’s would eat them alive, but if they can tie with condos then they may be a better alt for low armor huss.
Edit: Also, is there any room to use CA? They lack parthian tactics, but even then, they have all the basic dps upgrades so can those be used over HCs to counter low p.armor blobs?
Yes I tried, champions are doing well but the time you need to get champions vs instant condo early imperial makes them not really valuable. And right after you make champions, Italians can instant switch to cheap HC.
VS Italians I feel always on defense with no solid window to attack.
Honestly as Hindustani I feel like I can always play with either my insane HC or my insane camels, on top of my insane economy. If Italians are actually a matchup when they have to think a bit about their composition, then it’s fair.
But on top of their insane eco and insane gold units, Hindustani also have good skirms.
(and good ca)
(and good monks)