not according to some on this forum 
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Check it again. It is Elite Serjeant and Teutonic Knight (not ElitTeutonic Knight) and Huskarl (not Elite Huskarl).
Sicilians’ skirms are good for skirms wars, but lacking the last armor they are less effective vs arbs or HCA. The lack of TR isn’t a big problem instead for skirms.
I would instead give them hussar, since even with their bonus, it would means taking 6 hits instead 5 as it is now. Just for comparison, a generic LC/hussar takes 3 hits from a halb.
Also, they need a buff on their monastery and something for their late game.
Their tech tree is simply weird, they have no late game strong unit, apart from FU cavaliers, which isn’t always enough if you lack paladins or a bonus that makes them overall stronger.
Another option would be to leave their tech tree as it is, and significantly buff the serjeant, but probably that would require a nerf of first crusade.
Sicilians vs chinese at 00:09:27 and sicilians vs berbers at 02:12:54.
I think that the sicilians aren’t that bad in the end. Their farm bonus into scouts and then knights is really good. I found myself more times with them that I was flooding both or wood or food than anticipated, and sicilians knights destroys castle age camels.
I thinks that their main problems are 2:
- Some of their unique aspects (bonuses, UTs) are ridiculously strong
- To compensate that there have a terrible tech tree.
And example of the first is their transport ship bonus, that makes so that it’s enought to click to point A to point B and who cares about it, you don’t even have to pay attention to the TrS since it’s basically invulnerable.
The second instead is the cause for their weird transitions. Like in castle age, knights and skirms are basically their only options. Archer miss TR, monks miss redemption, and donjons aren’t that viable. Faster building TCs is nice for booming, and their castle drop are super strong, but then you find yourself with not that useful UU.
But overall, there is potentian for sicilians, maybe more than for burgundians, and honestly, at the release of LotW I mistakenly think that the burgundians were hands down better designed than sicilians.
In imp is even worse, since cavaliers is all that you have, and most of the times that it’s not enough. Yeahs you also have halbs+siege, but that have no bonus and it’s a situational combo.
In my opinion their tech tree should be better in Imperial Age. Donjons are underwhelming. Serjeants are pretty meh. Their economy bonuses and military bonuses are not the strongest, but enough.
You save tons of wood, their farming bonus is good
100% faster built TC=2 free villagers, which is very good in early castle age
A change which I thought:
First Crusade: Knights and Cavaliers +1/+1 armor. It is simple and combines well with the less bonus damage to replace Paladin. The +1 armor is a minor thing, but the real benefit is the +1p armor which can make Sicilian Cavaliers the best Cavaliers out there.
Other changes, I would like to “SEE”:
There exists a different Serjeant unit with the same Castle Age stats and the Donjon shows the Feudal Unit being upgraded to this unit so that players are not confused. If you look at the tech tree, both the Castle and Donjon Serjeant show 45 HP 1/2 armor and 5 attack in Castle age too.
Donjon description: gains +50% HP and +1 arrow each age (obviously it starts with 1000 HP so this description can be a good one since otherwise it doesn’t explicitly show an upgrade like the Guard Tower or Keep).
I had another Idea regarding sicilians.
There were 2 things bothering me:
A) Why they are classified as infantry civ? Their only infantry bonus is the serjeant which is countered by champs (Which is completely fine).
B) Defensive application of first crusade. As you only get the full value of first crusade you want to place 5 tcs. So you try to outboom your opponent. He will try to punish that with agression. Now you need anything in defence. You click first crusade. But the serjeants don’t perform well, because you don’t have the upgrades yet as you preferred to boom. By the time you got the upgrades your serjeants are basically gone and you get raided.
This means that first crusade has only offensive applications which is bad for a tech you need to place booming buildings for.
So what could be the solution? It’s pretty obvious and I don’t understand why we haven’t found it yet:
Free infantry armor.
It would help the sicilians also in their whacky early game. It would help in the donjon rush, it would make first crusade an interesting defensive tech.
Then I have also something to say about the first crusade in general. At first, I think it is still a bit too much in potential, second I would like to have some tradeoff, as it is the more powerful the earlier you get it. Third it may be a misleading bonus as it may trick players into placing too many town centers too early. 5 TCs are a lot. It would be completely fine to give the full effect to 4 TCs to make it less punishing to go for it.
My best Idea so far is to increase the cost by 50%, researched instantly, but let it pay back half investment over 5 minutes and after these 5 minutes the serjeants will spawn. If you click it a second time, the instant serjeants will spawn, but the repay trickle will stop.
This would also be a solution for the analysis done in this thread:
So you would get the secondary effect of the UT immediately. If you go for the knight rush you get your conversion resistance, which can be heplful. If you go for the boomy attempt, you can research the tech and wait until you “need” it because of the enemy agression. The longer you wait the more you get paid back your investment.
So, first crusade:
Enables: Call to Weapons: Each Town Center (max 4) spawns 7 Serjeants.
Units are more resistant to conversion.
Pays Back half of it’s investment over 5 minutes if Call to Weapons isn’t researched yet.
Cost:
600 F
600 G
Research Time: Instantly
So the tradeoff is either to get call to weapons for the offensive usage, which is slightly nerfed and more costly. Or to research first crusade for defensive purposes, waiting for the right moment to use. As the then spawned serjeants would already have the armor upgrades they could perform much better to fight off the enemy.
Also if you make an 1 TC all-in it can be useful to get first crusade just for the conversion resistance because you would get paid back 50 % of your investment.
All in all, this would make the tech less abnoxious but give it more utility in the exchange, fitting almost every playstile you want to go for with sicilians.
Another Idea could be to give Sicilians an infinite gold trickle once they researched first crusade (from the crusade raids) and a tech to call back the crusaders from the promised land. Stopping the Gold trickle but spawning the serjeants in the tradeoff. So instead of paying back half the investment, Sicilians would get 1 Gold / Second once researched first crusade, stopping when the recall is made.
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Infantry is their only FU line of units. Not only is their UU Infantry aswel, but even one of their UTs spawns said UU.
Sicilians are pushed into Infantry, Knights and Siege. Even their 50% less Bonus Damage trait, is conducive to Infantry and Knight play.