Yes not what I meant. It’s not like Italians now have to go for keeps, they still have cheaper techs for ships, cheaper fishing ships, cheaper age ups and a full dock tech tree.
They do not suck, but they are no more that good in imp. They still suck on land.
If this is the final civ I agree, but the devs can now comfortably add a land bonus even in eco without making them broken on water.
Boosting the age up discount can work
It would be very good thematically and also would somehow justify a so weak early game. BBCs would not become OP for sure. However what the civ needs is a land bonus (eco or military) starting in the early stages
Italians definitely need something else, let us hope that devs continue to follow this way…
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I have tried italians in ranked. Here you have my low elo thoughts.
Map: megarandom (a land map surrounded by water. Allied TC started together)
Ally: bulgarians (my bro)
Enemies: teutons and incas.
Basically we did not use water a lot until the end (well, we made fishing ships but were raided by a galley squad). In late game, I teched into galleons and cannon galleons to harass their base while ny bro was holding them and we won.
Until that moment, I was having good feelings on land. I was able to mass 25 GC who killed a lots of teuton cavalry and kamayuks, using bulgarians hussars as a meatshield.
Discounted ballistics plus discounted chemistry plus discounted imperial age was a nice shock. I noticed suddenly that i had resources for imperial (thanks to the discount) and after reaching imperial I could research those techs without inconvenient.
I dont know if they need much more or not, but last time I played italians (in 4 lakes, 2 months ago) they felt more clunky…
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As also sotl pointed out, the problem is and was the early game. Giving Italians paladins, SE, SO, SR and elephants would not fix this.
I think devs should really add something whose value shines in feudal age. Maybe 20% cheaper age up could be ok.
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One new bonus coming to my mind is this: all units deal +1 bonus damage
Ofc I mean this is for instance +1 attack for pikes vs knights, but +0 vs e.g., militias
True, the map was easily wallable. The oponents walled as well…
First attack was an enemy castle drop.
As an early eco bonus, besides buffing their age discount:
Herdables have +2LOS (but are converted as always). This bonus is negligible but helps to scout at early game and make sheep avoid danger better in some maps.
Also, a scouting bonus like this can be used to push deer with your scout earlier
This is one of the rare cases where I disagree with SotL. Italians do have an average feudal age, but it can snowball from castle onwards.
On arabia they always be weak, but now on a hybrid map, when for example there is fish, they aren’t bad at all. They have cheaper fishing ships and need less food to age up, then tanks to their fish-boom can more easily afford uni tech and get to imp.
I mean, now they save on age ups, they save on fishing ships, on uni techs, on gunpowder and on trading in TG. Basically you start small, but as the games goes on you save more and more.
That’s why instead I would like for them to eventually save more on their already existing bonuses, like age ups, uni techs (like adding SE, buffing a bit the percentage, discount on the building…).
At this point that’s their theme, let’s stick with it (I would have preferred the free xbow tech, but at this point…).
Meaningless on pike line and gunpowder units, but really strong on archers, skirms and GC.
It wouldn’t be broken, but I don’t think they need it either…
Not much of a noob friendly bonus though… not everyone use herdables to scouts, and some struggle to use it effectively.
The real strenght of italians is to be able to be the first to get canon galees, because of cheap ageing up and cheap tech cost and cheap fishing ships. being able to produce cannon galees asap on water map is extremely powerfull in my opinion !
Well, italians are probably the only civ that can effectively use CG and ECG, thanks to the discount on the techs and unit itself. However CG dies to every other ships, so if you first didn’t get control of the water with galleons and FFS, CG becomes kind of weak.
Now with just 33% discount on docks Italians saves 326 resources less for CG and ECG upgrades, which should be added to the 450 resources less from the other techs.
Although those 326 resources less is less important, because when you research them it’s so late in the game that you have the resources.
Still, this should be considered…
I do not think that the water is the problem. Overall the imperial nerf has been huge, but it would be fine if the civ got what it needs.
Italians are too weak in the early stages. Assuming they will be fixed one day, they could get a feudal eco bonus. This could help also on water. Even if at this point a military bonus could work as well.
Technically they do have an eco bonus, which are cheaper fishing ships, which work well with cheaper age up. I know, it’s useless in Arabia, but still another eco bonus would stack up with those 2 on any water and hybrid maps.
At this point, I would stick with “discount-kind” of bonuses. Even though I don’t like the idea of a civ that has only discounts, at this point it’s the safest way to balance them. I have to put aside my personal preferences for the most logical way to achieve balance.
The simplest and safest way would be to buff the 2 already existing discounts, so age up to 20% and adding SE to the 33% uni discount.
But there other ways, like extending the 33% to the blacksmith (not necessarily to all techs, even just to one line, like archers attack), though, I don’t think that such more drastic change is really necessary.
Just hypothetically though, the save for 33% cheaper archers attack would be 33f and 16g for feudal age, 66f and 33g for castle, 100f and 66g for imp. I know it doesn’t seem much, but you have to add it to all the other discounts.
20% cheaper age instead would be 25f more in feudal, 40f and 10g more in castle age, 40f and 40g more in castle age. But on top of that you would add 200w and 165f of SE in imp, so it’s less in the early stages, but way more in imp.
Well, extending the discounts is surely an option. There are several ways to do that:
- cheaper age up + SE follows very well the current status and theme. The only disadvantage is that it may be too limited in feudal
- extending the discount to other techs is also possible. Like archer attack or TC techs. However the idea is less attractive for me
- fishing ships and farms are 15% cheaper. Small for sure, but effective and elegant
It also possible to include a new type of eco bonus. I am still convinced that a gold trickle would be perfect, since it is strong where the civ is weak, in feudal age (and in trash wars but this is less relevant).
Further options to discuss may be the military bonuses. Similarly to Sicilians, a generalized bonus can carry the civ:
- units attack 10% faster
- units deal extra bonus damage (the opposite of Sicilians)
- faster moving archers (already discussed in the past)
- trash units +1 attack (fine on skyrms, quite strong on scouts)
- trash units attack 15% faster. This sounds interesting especially in feudal age
Probably staying coherent with the current theme is the simplest thing, but also the other options could be discussed
This one is my preferred at the moment. It may still seem weak on arabia (the idea is that if you survive feudal you are gradually rewarded in castle/imp), but on hybrid maps they would become really strong.
Think of nomad or 4 lakes for example, cheap fishing ships into cheaper age ups into gradually arbs+BBC that are both FU and cheaper on some important techs. This is what Italians should achieve.
It would be 9w saved for farm, basically a farm for free each 8 farms, it wouldn’t be broken, but it wouldn’t be a big deal either.
I wouldn’t go down that road… I already think that in time the sicilians will suffer from a similar fate of the Italians…
You also leave more doors opened for eventually future civs. I think that with the last update, the Italians were really improved, they aren’t on the same level anymore, so I would keep going that way since it seems to work.
It wouldn’t directly help against the cav but it would have a pretty good effect if they were mixing skirmishers or some kind of archers in to help their cav, plus you might get pavise before you research all of the infantry armor upgrades if you’re mainly archers so it would give them some armor earlier
Nobody plays water maps anyway so not much of a bad thing but i get ur idea
it is also very usefull
are u kidding me? they get cheaper feudal age allowing them to go very easy for scouts into archers and a faster castle time plus cheaper balistics so the civ is very good in my mind
People are complaining for the water nerf. I agree that the water map are minor, so I wanna say that the overall change is positive.
75f. This is all you have until the end of feudal age when you click up. Imo it is by the worst feudal age in the game.
The problem is that once you get to castle age you will be very behind both in military ( other civs have a military bonus, like Ethiopian faster firing archers or viet stronger range units) and in eco (Ethiopians/Vietnamese get more).
The civ is ok in castle age and in imperial age (ok but nothing too powerful, at all), but is extremely underwhelming in the earlier stages…
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We passed last 3-4 years of Italians war and prior to that 15 years of Vikings war. Now Italians, Portuguese and Vikings all are roughly almost same in water. Caravan could always counter Longboats but Portuguese was so weak compared to Vikings until last couple of months. There is very little chance to go back to Vikings war days imo. I think current water meta - after this patch - is like this :
Italians > Portuguese > Vikings > Italians = Japanese. Honestly Japanese is not that far behind compared to these 3 either.
Actually I just tried to make a joke like this one that people are saying after RBW3 -
Viper > Hera > Yo > Viper = Lord
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Overall Italians remain good on water, I agree.
The problem I see is that they lost their strength to remain one of the worst land civs. That is why people quite said.
However if the Italians will be fixed on land (let us say by improving the age up discount and adding SE, just as example), then they will be perfect imo. Decent on land, solid on water. Now they are still missing the land
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How would you label this under civ bonuses though? And its a stealth buff to water if its the attack discount.
What about cheaper archery range tech? It doesn’t help in feudal. But it means if you can make it to castle age you get a leg up much easier.
I really don’t think they need siege engineers. It kicks in so late and it’s not where they are weakest.
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