As it is affected by pierce armor in a weird way it increases the damage by about 12% per unit hit against infantry and about 11% for non-infantry.
However what I only realized today is that the UT addresses a weakness HC and other gunpowder units usually have: Overkill.
I haven’t run extensive tests, but I can imagine that dealing 2-4 damage here and there while the main targets take 17 / 27 damage will actually kill individual units faster, thus making a group of Italians HCs very powerful.
I don’t think that’s actually the case. Even if my own estimation of the new Italian UT is off, the price discount does give Italian hand cannons a niche in which they outperform Spanish and Turkish hand cannons (namely, fast imp situations - extra numbers due to the price discount beats out extra hp and extra attack speed).
Having played with the UT a little bit, it feels like the hand cannons (with Pirotechnica) are better against clumps of units. Without UT, they sometimes will have most of their damage absorbed by an already-dying unit. With it, they get a bit of a weak scorpion effect (and better accuracy). Overkill is still an issue, but it isn’t as much of one. I don’t think it’s OP, but it feels stronger, even without considering the cost discount. But it does look like the tech is easily worth picking up if you go Italian hand cannons (and costs the same resources as the hand cannons).
So the PA is before the x0.15 multiplier. Otherwise it would have been only 1 dmg against all but the weakest units (4.05 - PA or 2.55 - PA depending on the +10 bonus).
How deep does it pierce through ? To see if trying to flank an enemy line formation is worth it.
From my testing it seems it deals damage to every units in front of the target, but only deals damage to one unit behind the target.
Not sure if that’s intended or a bug.
What’s the effect of their increased accuracy? I’ve heard that extreme accuracy is actually a bad thing for gunpowder units because of the increased chance of overkills. How true is that?
Nah, if that were the case janissaries wouldn’t have had their age 3 accuracy cut down.
The overkill happens when you focus fire too many HC’s on a single unit, same as any other ranged unit. Otherwise the increased accuracy alone adds alot more dps that’s otherwise lost as missed projectiles.
They are quite good against a group of archers or skirms that are grouped up in a small area (like 50 of them all standing on 2-3 tiles). But that’s the only scenario where you’ll see much of a difference.
I happened to try out the new Italian HCs in this match (link for those interested) against Hindustanis. In practice, the Hindustanis HCs seem to be much stronger.
It definitively makes the Italian HCs among the bets in the game, and boost it notoriously vs Infantry, but their perfomance vs other units isn’t that big.
The biggest up seems to be how it changes the performance vs other ranged units.
Archers and skirms are sort of soft counters to HC’s and it seems that between the this and the cost reduction, that relationship might go the other way now - bar gold for skirms.
Also notable that with this italian HC’s can sweep up even Hindustani HC’s. The smallerst changes look like the performance vs heavy cavalry and siege units.
Did they really think that by giving three stacked bonuses to already fully upgraded hand cannoneers and expecting it to be balanced?
Italians are supposed to be an archer/naval civilization, not supposed to have an overpowered hand cannoneer that renders other hand cannoneers into irrelevance.
Hand cannoneers used to have 35 HP and 65% accuracy. Now there are discounted 40 HP hand cannoneers with 90%!!! accuracy + pass through damage! Not surprised they even shredded the fully upgraded skirmishers.
But they will still be defended by “ehm, you shouldn’t let the Italians research it, it’s your fault blah blah” furiously rather than addressing such poor balance decisions in the last few years.
Do you do anything except complain? If they’re so good why not use them yourself instead of your turk woes subtext
Are we sure hes not the Turk guy who got banned?
He’s mot posting mega bombards so he isnt vinfriss
That’s not how it works. It’s 17 minus armor, then that’s multiplied by 15%
from the look at it, they are indeed OP with cheaper price and the UT.
That’s what I wrote 2 posts beneath…