i would still very likely go capped ram or onager vs archer civs, and SE would especially help the onager
I agree. Thus their UT is almost acceptable since it is insanely powerful. Their donjon drop is unrivalled though (im not sure what to call it. Its sooner than a castle drop and spreads like a tower rush) Its almost impossible to stop it going up. And as i proved in another thread, with it firing 7 arrows and more hp in castle age it will beat any other tower (11 in imperial) The serjent is incredibly hard to kill and doesnāt stop building.
And their scrush is meant to hinder the enemy eco enough to put both players on par. And while they will suffer from pure builds (like pure cav) their own cavalry will perform vastly better in mixed battles (cav + pikes) so i think their castle age does have some good things going.
And when they fix the bug. The serjeants being able to repair siege is huge. Especially repairing trebs(who survive better vs BBC and onager) ,or even mangonels who are more likely to survive.
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From what I have seen, the cool thing is that serjeants donāt get interrupted while buiding/repairing if attacked. I like them as a unit, I donāt think they are op since they attack kinda slowly and donāt deal incredible damage.
Back to italians: I think italians are not too far from being an average civ on land. They still have a couple of issues, mainly the weak early game and the overpriced GC upgrade. I still donāt think that giving them SE at the uni would make them OP, as they lack any kind of power unit. At least the onager upgrade would be more viable like that.
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I think that most of the time Italians will however have ranges, since archers are still their best option. So I donāt see a big utility from thatā¦
I donāt deny that they donāt have a strong feudal (though, itās on average) but in my opinion their weakest moment was in castle age. Thatās when they should shine and now they do in my opinion.
Still, I 100% agree on the 20% cheap age up.
Thatās true, but they may have to give up something else, either another uni tec, or a units upgrade, to get SE.
I mean, I would give them SE without taking away anything else, but I fear thatās not how others see itā¦
But their UT, UU and UB makes them a 1 trick pony. Their UT will become annoying like a goth flow, and their donjon rush can be denied by tower rushing them first (your towers lose, but they also cost less, so you will have a better eco overallā¦).
Ok, just a quick poll to see your priorities:
What of the following potential buff for Italians would you prefer? (if you would be forced to choose just one)
- Giving them SE
- Age up discount to 20%
- University cost less wood
0 voters
In case you want more than 1, write down which combination you would prefer.
nah, solid cavalry, solid archers only lacking thumb ring, their not a 1 trick pony.
none of the above, i want to wait until we see what the new buff does before buffing them more.
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I would say that 20% age up is not enough for feudal, so I would suggest to strengthen the late game with SE.
But I would add a stronger feudal option, like:
- 33% discount extended to tc tech or other techs like armor techs/attack techs
- a military bonus, like faster moving archers or units attacking 10% faster
- some unconventional bonus, like tc spawning 2 archers as the old tatars did for the ships
- apply a Saracen-like change to the UT, where part of the effect is anticipated as civ bonus (e.g., archers get +1/1 armor but pavise affects just the italian UUs)
Alternatively, we could try to rework the age up discount into something else. Perhaps a discount on unit upgrades (i mean techs like maa, crossbow and so on)?
I agree with you, but we are just talking, since there are a bit of discontent with the recent changes, I try to mediate by suggesting small bonuses that maybe wonāt be necessary, but at least they wonāt make Italians OP eitherā¦
20% cheaper age up would mean that in feudal you would have 100f more and you would need 160f less to click up, itās not weak.
They donāt need to become a chinese on steroids or to have their UT become a standard bonusā¦
They arenāt an arabia civ, but with this recent patch they are overall better.
Instead of asking right away for some crazy bonuses letās try to find a new meta for them, then if they still are weak, letās buff what they already have.
But why, the age up bonus isnāt bad, the problem until now was that on pure land map wasnāt followed by anything else.
I mean, the bonus can be buffed, but replaced? Italians then would lose their dark age bonus and in feudal they would be even worse (they would save on M@A? BL? those are weak discountsā¦).
They got buffed like some months ago and now they are fine imo.
GC are fine!. of course it would be easier to mass halbadiers + arbs.
Even so, GC are still strong and the production time actually got reduced some months ago. They donāt need any buff.
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I just figures that the university buff makes fast imperial strategies even more viable. I will try that in TG next time in arena.
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Their TT was for sure the thing that kept them back, and the fact that was reduced really help them a lot.
As for their stats they arenāt bad, but the point is that the Elite upgrade really cost a lot for what it offers (+5 HP, 3s less of TT and +2 damage vs cav).
This and having 1 less range, makes the arbs almost always the vast choice.
So in my opinion either:
- reduce the cost of the elite upgrade
- give something to the EGC
As for the most recent buff, I donāt really see the point of having them cost only 5g less onestlyā¦
You do have super cheap fortified walls and masonryā¦
Is this really a buff, or is this maybe just referring to the Conq bug, where they would have either 0 or 100% accuracy on each shot until moved?
If you do that, you are just going to get an S tier civ.
Italians are already balanced! We donāt need to buff all civs! we just need to slightly nerf S tier civs slowly.
Are you? Arbalester 350 food 350 gold. Elite Genoese 900 food 750 gold.
I never really understood why elite upgrades are always so extremely expensive.
Well for Infantry and Cavalry it makes sense, because you are having 2 Imperial age techs for the standard version of the unit. But for archers I really dont think they need to be that expensiveā¦
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Arbalest donāt destroy cavalry as GC do.
GC just completey counters many civs.
Ok, Iām not in favor of giving them cazy buff new bonuses, but italians an S tier civ?
Arbs onestly do just fine vs cav when you mass them, which isnāt that hard to do. GC on the other hand struggle to counter even cav sometimesā¦
And no, GC donāt counter many civsā¦
And even if they did, its a matter of getting to the point where you can have enough of them in sufficient numbers to even pull it off.
3 Likes