Give Italians 25-33% longer lasting berries and make Petards affected by the discount. I consider Italians to be the worst land maps Italians are terrible they have one relevant bonus Dark and Fuedal age in castle age they get 33% off ballistics and Genoese Xbows. In imperial age the Italians have some actually strong and versatilein imperial age but even in games that reach the 45m mark they don’t have even a 50% winrate because by the time they reach imperial age they are already behind.
Longer-lasting berries can make will give them the boost necessary to reach their imperial age strength. You might be concerned about how this would affect them on water maps . On full water maps longer-lasting food bonuses doesn’t really matter. This is a gamemode where you can build fishing ships and all of your military cost wood and gold the only thing food is used for is villager, age ups, and technology in 90% of games. What is important is faster-collecting food in DA because that allows you to allocate more villagers to wood or click up faster.
Even if this did make Italians OP on water maps I would still support this change. this might sound elitist but no one cares about water maps and I don’t think the devs should prioritize them when making balancing decisions. Portuguese were a top 5 civ on Islands and then they were given 33% wood generation from berries. People complained at the time but it was mostly about how this helped the Portuguese on land maps and the lack of people complaints shows how few people really care. IMO a lot of the people who complain about how the balance changes affect niche game modes don’t care it themselves but don’t want to see those who do get hurt which is admirable but not how balancing should be done.
Worst civ??? Italians are wayy better than Bengalis, Dravidians and Persians on land maps (if not more), also they currently have a map where they are quite good (Arena).
I don’t think they need early game bonus. Just make Elite GC upgrade cheaper and give them +1 attack or +1 range. And maybe make Pavise free for generic archer line.
These civs have better than Italians until Early Imperial.
Bengalis’ +2 villager in Feudal Age and another +2 Villager villager in Castle Age is stronger than Italians eco bonus (75f in late Dark Age and 120f 30g in late Feudal Age + 33% cheapr ballistics). +3/+3 armor Monks are also very strong bonus. On the other hand, Italians have Knight in Stable. Bengalis Light cav has +2 bonus against Skirmisher. Bengalis is overall stronger.
Dravidians 200w, 25% faster attacking Skirmisher and 50% cheaper Man-at-arms upgrade is clearly stronger than Italians Feudal Age. Italians have only 75f saving from Feudal Age. In Castle Age, amount of eco bonus increases to 195f 30g+ 33% cheaper ballistics. In return, Dravidians has 33% cheaper Siege, 50% cheaper Pike upgrade and another 200w (total 400w) in Castle Age. Only advantage of Italians in Castle Age is that Dravidians doesn’t have Knight. Dravidians is better.
Sicilians is better than Italians in the early game, too. It is harder to measure power of Sicilians’ bonuses than 2 civs above but taking 33% less damage from counter unit is solid bonus. Scout, archer and Skirmisher become very tanky against Spear&Skirmisher. Scouts even can engage to Spearmen, cost efficiently when it has number advantage. Other civs’ Scout can’t do this because 2+ Spearmen always give enough amount of damage to enemy scouts to make up their cost. Italians has literally no military bonus in early game.
As for eco, Sicilians eco bonuses is as good as Italians. +100 stone, 125% more food on farms, 100% faster creation time of TCs. 125% more food on farms is especially very strong, it is practically unlimited food (+450f instead of generic +200f) after 2nd farm upgrade.
Italians is of course isn’t terrible at every stage of the game. If opponent doesn’t finish Italians, Italians’ earl Imperial with 20% cheaper BBC, Hand Cannoneer and cheaper University upgrade is more than enough to finish opponent. However, Italians’ early game is really terrible. Only bonus is 190f 30g discount + 33% cheaper ballistics and Italians has no military bonus. Italians needs military bonus, free Crossbow upgrade is my favourite proposal.
Sorry, I meant to say the Worst early game without imperial age they would easily be the worst civ. though I do consider them to be bottom 5 on open maps. and they are better on arena because they can reach their post imp Comp Italian but they are overshadow by Op civs like Turks and Bohemians.
These seem like late-game bonuses Italians suffer in the early game. In imp they get FU Hussar, Arbs (with pavise), Discounted HC, and BBC In Imperial Age, Infantry UU which requires no upgrades, Also the imp is when you research university upgrades besides ballistics.
Could also work and it fits the theme, but I prefer something that kicks in earlier.
Let alone the fact both are rightfully nerfed there, and Italians are still A tier on arena, they have everything there (monk rush, fast imperial, powerful army comp of Hussar+Genoese xbow + Bombard Cannon). on open maps they are just average at best, and wayy better than Bengalis, Dravidians, Sicilians and even Burmese.
Free xbow is just insanely overpowered and any timing attack with Italians won’t have any counterplay.
Ethiopians Crossbow is better, 18% faster attack and stronger eco bonus (200f 200g and free Pikeman). On the other hand, Italians earl Imperial is overwhelmingly stronger. I renounce my first idea. +1/+1 armor can be civ bonus and giving useful UTs instead of Pavise (Medici Bank) and Silk Road (trace italienne) is another option.
your right that it is too powerful but not without counterplay Towers, and walls should be able to buy enough time Generally in games where one player clicks up earlier the other has map control which buys time. Malay could always reach castle age early crossbows rush and no one was complaining about them.
Malay and Italians boni are not that comparable imo. Malay is having villager lead with resource penalty in feudal age, which is somewhat like Chinese start. Italians does not help aging up faster significantly but suits certain tight build.
As claimed by AOEstats.io their winrate is pretty bad at all stages of the game on Arabia at 1200+, 4th worst in the game infact lower than SIcillians, Burmese and Dravidians. I won’t be including a screenshot for that for the sake of brevity, my own laziness and because you can check it yourself. They can also just always be nerfed for specifically Arena also
That’s between 188 and 248 extra food for the civ that already saves 195 food on its way to castle age, it wouldn’t make them OP on just water maps, but on all maps.
Dravidians +2 vills is stronger as a bonus on an absolute value, but it means that they have no advantage before that, while the Italians cheaper age up allow them to click up before and not be behind in eco.
As for armored monks against cheap ballistics, they are really 2 different bonuses, hard to compare…
But again, you can age up 1 vill faster to feudal while still be ahead in eco, and food is harder to get than wood.
Sicilians scout rush is solid but beside that they aren’t that great, the farm bonus kicks in so late… again, the bonus is better on an absolute value when you look at the numbers, but they save on a key moment of the game, and if timed correctly can be really strong.
Not all civs needs military bonus, but anyway they just increased the cost of the crossbow upgrade, I hardly doubt that they’ll give it for free for a civ that can already age up faster.
I believe that this too would be too strong, but as a fun experiment I think it can balance it by stealing something from the romans:
give them a new bonus, now archer armor gives double the armor
remove the last armor upgrade
switch pavise and silk road rearranging their cost a bit too.
That way you have early armor but not for free and not immediately, and you don’t break the middle to late game.
But if course it’s a terrible change, as it steals romans identity…
I agree that italians needs some buffs, but I believe that we should be very careful, as their cheaper age up bonus is one the best bonus of the game taking it singularly.
In my opinion, their feudal and early castle age are solid, their discount can help a lot, but often you can’t survive early pressure by the opponent, so that why I would suggest to recycle the old pre-DE koreans bonus of faster building fortifications, tailored around the Italians:
-Towers and castles are built 15% faster. Walls are built 100% faster.
This way you would be able to wall early on open maps (the maps where the civ struggle) being more safe and going up to imp where your Civ can shine. The bonus also doesn’t help much on water or close maps, so you wouldn’t make them OP on those maps.
Getting castles up faster would also help with the genoese mass, as you would train them a bit earlier, and while you would be far from being a tower civ, having towers building faster and with cheaper upgrades would make for a nice synergie.
It’s also nice on the historical side, as the first star forts were born in Italy, and for some time they even call them the Italian fortress.
Only winrates aren’t enough, just see MBL now how well is doing with Italians on Arabia.
Koreans specifically lost that bonus because was creating completely unfun situations for both ofensive and defensive situations, also yes, a broken bonus for quickwalling is what Italians need…
Just an “alleged” example of a single Pro is not enough, they are but a single person and thus would only have a very small sample size of playing with and against Italians. Compare this to the thousands of examples that form up the statistics I showed you, that detail how Italians perform at all stages of the game with what strategy, etc
1200-1800ish ELOs are by no means bad at the game, that is generally good enough to consistently trounce the Extreme AI on all Land Maps, and players with 1200 ELO above are the top 25% best players, 1500 ELO above is top 5%
This game isn’t and shouldn’t be made exclusively for Pro players, as AOE2 exists to be more than purely a spectator sport and is as an actual game that thousands of casual players of varying skill levels enjoy, and thus should primarily take in the experience of said casuals in mind as opposed to a few dozen pros.
Could you be more specific and àctually include the example you’re going to bring up, you could be saying “My Dad a pro player, did well with italians on Arabia” and it would hold just as much effective weight
Koreans had 33% on towers, not 15%, and it was broken because that was coupled with faster stone miners and free tower upgrades, things that italians wouldn’t have.
As for quick walling what would be the difference? What really matters is to get the foundations down, not the whole building.
Anyway this is just one idea…
The problem is, that italians are a solid civ for the pro that can make the most use of their bonus, and an incredible frustrating civ for all other mortals that can’t.
I get it, they aren’t a garbage civ, but that doesn’t mean that they could be improved for lower elo too…
