Poor eco, as I said. Average eco civs, like saracens, Ethiopians, Vietnamese… they spare way more and also have some military bonuses. Especially in feudal age.
The italian eco is bad because otherwise cheaper fishing ships and cheaper dock techs would make them broken on water. That is why the eco has to stay bad.
This is the reason to me
Yeah infact for example ethiopians get to Castle Age with 400 more resources which Is more than italians, and also have an Amazing army bonus for archers, and way Better siege than italians…
Italians do not suck don’t get me wrong, but aside from water, they are luckluster and Need a feudal help and sowmthing unique for archers.
That could also come at the cost of some water bonuses of balance Is a concern
it’s literally comparable to what Britons, Lithuanians or Ethiopians get in terms of extra resources through faster gathering rates or just a flat out addition to the stockpile.
which they are. I would rather not go into the balancing of water maps as water maps are broken and disliked for a reason, basically whoever is first to Feudal and able to spam more docks generally wins… Let’s focus on land eco, Italians here are not bad, better than Byzantines, Magyars, Celts, Spanish etc. all civs that are also picked on land maps, let’s stop wanting Italians to be Chinese-tier on Arabia, they don’t need buffs.
Celts have the strongest eco bonus in the game probably
That is. Ethiopians are way better in eco and in military.
Similar to italians, yes. And to be they deserve a buff as well. Not sure if the tower buff is enough to help them
strongest early game eco bonus in the game.
400 resources and a narrower tech tree > ~275 resources and a wide tech tree. Yes I would hope so. No Handcannoneer, inferior cav, worse infantry. Almost like every civ is balanced and has a certain focus.
you get a buff, you get a buff, everyone gets a buff!
Spanish are fine. Strong civ on Nomad/Arena.
Yes, for feudal and and castle indeed.
The two things can concide but all good archer bonus are taken. Extra MA is meh, extra speed is considered risky (even if we should wonder how much speed this means). Probably extra PA and MA may work (anticipate pavise).
Or move towards a defensive bonus like Byzantines
Except factual data shows they are below average in everything outsider wwater so yeah, it’s not a matter of making them chiese tier, It Is about making them average tier.
And how can one say that celts with wood bonus have worse eco than italians with no eco bonus and plain worse than ethiopians Is beyond science
Other civs you mentioned like britons have actual eco bonus which makes then flexible outsider of just more resources, and also have other bonuses like discounted TC which helps boom even more, and lithuanians have more food right from the bat, which is hugely more flexible than just 75 food while you hit feudal age and 120 when you hit castle…
Italians also as i have shown are plain worse at Archer play than other non Archer civs, at least until late Castle Age, and behing a hetfy paywall, which is nowhere to be seen on other archer civs that have something impactful way sooner and/or for free
Again, facts shows Italians are weak in everything that hasn’t water, which is not the case for others naval civs like Vikings or saracens. If they too strong on water, then nerd then on water and buff them on land, plain simple
The comparison with saracens is more than enough to show that Italians are lacking something
That would do as well and would make a Better use fot their others uni tech outsider ballistics making Better use of the uni discount.
Maybe something like “defensive structures and houses are built X % faster” but that would overlap with spanish
winrates aren’t the be-all, end-all of balancing, there can be a number of reasons why Italians are bad statistically on land maps, including low sample size, people not using their niche strategies (“fast Ballistics” for example is a fairly advanced strat even for 1400+ elo).
Rest of your post, I don’t agree with anything you say pretty much, I think Italians are fine as they are, the civ is stellar on hybrid/water maps and OK on land maps, the civ’s identity is ultimately naval but even on land maps they are OK IF played to their strengths (and I’m guessing most people don’t).
You also have to realize that until like ~1500 elo, most people are cav spammers anyway, spamming Knights is a very easy strat but also not something Italians excel at. To use Crossbows, you need specific timings, including being earlier up to Castle Age but also knowing where to strike, which assumes good map control, maybe a forward Siege Workshop. Most low- and mid-elo players cannot map control properly, let alone be aware of the concept of timing push etc. Which is why you see noob, “button click” civs like Franks or Berbers be at the top and harder to play civs like Italians or Malay at the bottom.
tl;dr: Italians are harder to play but not UP, which explains the low winrate. We are still at a level where most people in low- and mid-elo can ONLY execute mass Knights to an acceptable degree and suck at every other strat (including booming with Skirms, fast Ballistics, FC into UU etc., all of those, people are generally horrible at utilizing).
The only original defensive bonus I can think are:
Lowering the price of repairing buildings (good against persian douche)
Stone walls availavle in dark age (maybe with worse stats) seem interesting especially with their university bonus but would be useless in arabia
And watch towers available in dark age would be broken unless they have far worse stats
Another possibility is making their archers, skirms or pikes regenerate, or skirms and pikes being trained faster
Simply give Italain Archers (including Skirms and Genoese) free 1/1 Armor in Castle Age, following with Pavise, now for Genoese, Condotieri and maybe Pikes. This will reinforce Italian theme as Archer Civ, and also buff Genoese. All without touching water play.
Villager +5 HP to take 1 more atk?
That could lead to a new villager boxing meta in nomad.
I would make this bonus triggers later, like after loom or feudal age. Or maybe after wheelbarrow
Or better, instead of plain 5HP, we could split the effect this way: villagers receive 1 extra HP per TC tech researched.
So, after feudal age +loom they would have 42 HP which os not enough against militia, maa, or villagers, but it would be useful against archers or against scouts without attack upgrade.
After wheelbarrow or town guard, then they could resist one extra hit from maa, villagers, or scout with upgrades
hahahah you say im cherry picking? chinese specifically have an amazing eco, maybe the 2nd best
just because you dont know what an eco bonus is, doesnt mean they dont have one. discounted military is an eco bonus.
another good eco bonus
yes because thats how everyone plays, we all play the niche maps and styles that tournaments play /s
and thats your conclusion? 
“heres a load of info that has nothing to do with it, and therefore italians dont need a buff”
yes its totally ridiculous that a unit with only 50 hp has armour as well. totally /s
at least we agree on something
sounds good, we’re seeing very unique stuff in the new DLC, in comparison this isnt much. could simply kick in at feudal for simplicity
It reminds me about the polish regenerating villagers, which is nice but not broken.
Making the bonus kicking in feudal could be enough and “comboes” with their tiny feudal discount. However, splitting the bonus per TC tech researched, as I edited in my post while you replied this, would enable interesting game decisions, like researching TC techs for the sake of villager tankiness or not.
yeah thats also a cool idea, as it gives them resilience while trying to get through the ages as opposed to being an aggressive civ like aztecs
I agree with the idea of giving Villagers extra HP per TC tech.
I always thought the Aztec bonus for their Monks was pretty fun, so I wouldn’t mind it being recycled for other civilizations & their units.
However, assuming this Italian Villager bonus gives +5 per tech, then their Villagers would have 65 health after Loom, Hand Cart & Town Patrol. This sounds a little bit too much for my liking, so I would suggest dumbing it down to +3 per tech (55 total) or +2 (50).
In my former calculation, I would add only 1 HP per tech, but I considered “ageing up” as a tech.
Given that “ageing up” is not considered a “tech” by other civ bonuses like Portuguese one, I would add 2 HP per TC tech to get a similar effect in feudal age. I prefer to limit this bonus to 2 Hp because the main difference is obtained with 3 HP in feudal age, and loom is researched in darkage.
Eventually, 50 HP villagers are still cool against non fully upgraded units in imperial. And it resembles Spanish Suppremacy but without being OP.
I was thinking more of trash one
True but here “harder to play” means that the strategy you need is more risky and it is easier for your opponent to force you in a fatal mistake. So, even if pro players should make fewer mistakes, they also play vs stronger players (other pros that can induce them in errors). So at the end even pro players just prefer knight/xbow play, since it is a more robust (end hence better) strategy.
This is what I was mainly thinking of. This bonus is useful to survive if the training speed boost is large, and its power drops in the later stages were stronger ecos can just reproduce it with more buildings.
Basically you can set up a spear or skyrms defense to counter a scout (using spers) or archer (using skyrms) push. Similar in castle vs kinght/xbow. In general full trash defense is considered not ideal since you are spending too much food without creating units efficient in killing vills, but at least give you a way to survive the early stages.
I say this is fine but the help should arrive earlier (in feudal). Consider also if I remember correctly +1/1 armor is weaker than viets HP bonus when it comes to xbow vs knight, but you are the master with this computations!
this may work, but is it really a boost? As soon as you are outnumbered by the stronger enemy ecos, your vills will still be idled. The trash bonus may be more effective imo. Still this HP is something helpful, so I would say “a good option”.
what about additional armor for their defensive buildings and walls? this would also fit historically with their sofisticated architecture. Or maybe defensive structures and walls could cost a bit less, following their “discount theme”