Condotiero got buffed last balance patch, they are broken in water maps.
So i don’t think italians are going to get more buffs for now,the civ is not bad it is actually really good if well used, their initial discount allows you to queue one more sc or start the agression faster, so it is not bad it is just not as great as others, but it compensates with the water bonuses, if they somehow nerf the water bonus which is a must, then you can justify a buff for their early economy, something like boosting even more the age up discount, about their UU GC it is quite strong with bbc on the back and hussar as meat shield, reducing training sounds reasonable considering it should be weak vs other archers, more range or armor is a bad idea.
A big part of the game is counter play. The switch to LS really isn’t as expensive as you make it sound wrt dealing with ram + pikes. Remember you don’t need FU LS to fight that build. Part of the strength of a civ like italy is its open tech tree. You’ll just have to deal with tech changes as opposed to a single strong build like britons or franks.
For someone who apparently plays Italy so much you don’t know your uu very well. If you aren’t fighting cav this is completely false. Range is false either way.
In comparison a mangudai for roughly the same tech fee, gets more damage against evrything,AND more damage against siege and more armour. Damage is the most important thing on an archer not hp.
How do britons fight goths? How do mayans fight goths?
Picking the counter civ to archer civs is like the worst example you could make to justify a civ needing buffs.
Isn’t it something like 70% or more of all matches are played on arabia? So because Italy is OP in an extremely niche situation they deserve to be weak elsewhere? Weird logic…
I think this is the best idea. Especially if the mil bonus doesn’t affect water play (which shouldn’t be too hard)
Well, one discussed bonus in summer were the extra armor for archers, but koreans will receive the extra armor upgrades. Maybe extra melee armor (almost useless in feudal except against scouts).
Another early military bonus would be: First militia is free, or barrack spawn a free militia after being built. Only one militia per game. I am not convinced about this.
Military building discounts…
Faster wall building…
I don’t know, honestly.
Instead, I would suggest free elite skirm upgrade.
Hey, there are already a lot of topics talking about Italians balance, I’ll link some of them (the ones I started a lest) down here, so you can get a bigger and more comprehensive view about them and what are more most shared proposals.
To summarize though, here why I disagree with some of your ideas:
I too proposed this some time ago, but then condos were buffed (+1 atk and pavise) and now having them in castle age would make them OP, plus I one think that the unit is in a good spot right now.
Further expanding Italians tech tree (which is already flexible) would require to balance it out by removing other units, or nerfing some other bonuses, which isn’t really what Italians need.
The point it’s not that having halbs and champs it’s too much, thee are 2 reasons what Italians don’t have halbs:
They would basically have the full trash tech tree and all FU, which only spainish have right now, but they (for balance reasons) also lack even xbows.
The idea is that Italians, instead of using the same counter of everyone else can count cavalry with their GC, changing the game and making it more interesting.
champs and halbs really field different roles, vs meso civs for example is more important to have the former than the latter, vs goths it’s the same thing, so you basically would excahnge one weakness (partially covered by hussars and GC) with another.
I also play a lot with italians, and I think that you should change you late game composition. For example GC should be used only vscivs heavy on cavalry, while usually arbalests should be the choice.
Also, don’t start by creating condos and archers, it’s a lot heavy on gold as a combo, and hussars are a much better choice, since it cost the only resource that isn’t used for archers.
You can always mix in condos later on, when the enemy trained a lot trash and surprise him, or you could try a fast imp condo rush, and then again transition into hussars and archers.
You can also use the cheaper age ups to try and rush him with archers, knights or scouts, instead of waiting every time the Imperial age.
However here is a summary of several proposals that we came up with for Italians:
GC training time reduction at least by 4 seconds
reducing the cost for elite GC or increasing the elite GC range by +1
foot archers train 25/40% faster
foot archers get +1 PA as a bonuses (that stack with pavise)
all archers armors tech are free an researched when aging up
rebalance the age up/dock discount ratio from 15/50% to 20/40%
Having fishing ships bonus back to minus 15 wood and/or with +2LoS
Yeah, I mostly use them against cav, as a substitute to pike, so I was referring to bonus dmg… Ad for range, don’t know what I was thinking, must have confused them with arbs
Not so much, they are behind civs like Britons, viets, mayans, etiopians, Chinese, and even civs like vikings and Aztec, who have worse archers but a better eco to back them.
It doesn’t get more range, and it get more atk only in the forum of a +2 bonus damage vs cavalry, the base damage it’s the same
It’s risky to go archers only, usually infantry civs have also skirms.
And while pike+rams is a strong push, condos can be spammed by barracks pretty fast, and they can handle both without needing any blacksmith upgrades, and you can more easily reach imp with italians. I mean pike+ram pushes are usually late.
You can also use onagers and BBC with your archers, with some hussars.
All civs are particularly weak vs another civ, and strong vs others, italians are simply vulnerable vs goth (though, they have FU champs, and can rush them) but they also destroy turks, for example.
Yeah don’t worry, I’m a noob too on both micro and macro but at least in theory those are the strengths of italians.
As for the food eco, well you simply need more practice, like everyone else.
Probably Italians will be the worst Arabia civ if the reveled balance changes are true. Paired with Indians for 1v1. Even if the GC is fixed.
I am assuming the GC will not get a buff to become capable of carrying the civ (like plums of mangudais). At most Italians will get an anti-cavalry unit, but still no land eco, no early game bonus and no late game pop efficient units.
Let us see also if, after the buff of Koreans and Portuguese italians and Vikings are still the only water civs
As for Indians (dominant in TG Arabia only), Italians are playable in only one map. But similar to Indians, they are terrible in the standard 1v1. we may have to accept this…
Still I do not like that these two civs are designed so bad for 1v1 Arabia, but at least now we have gained turks, Koreans, Portuguese, Bulgarians and Tatars…
I didn’t read the details, but before I stopped, it seemed to me that there a lot of civs that got new bonuses, and if I’m not mistaken Italians wasn’t among those (I just briefly read the list of the civs changed, not the details…).
Now yes, they could have changed the stats of some units, or the tech tree, but still we spent month trying to find suitable and not OP solutions for a new bonus for Italians, so seeing that they weren’t changed it’s a bit underwhelming…
As a generic buff it’s ok, but I don’t think that it will improve Italians that much, since in the end their gunpowder units are already cheap, and they will always prefer xbows/arbs to HC…
You are right. If you want no spoilers, I just say that all the civs on the same level of Italians will get very solid buffs.
Yeah, but it is still something just for imp…
Exactly
Not sure if this can fix Italians. Actually a solution would be a huge buff for GC (stats and TT). It should become something like ckn, mangudais, plumes… I mean, something carrying the civ. But unless GC gets something like an anti archer bonus or similar things, I am really skeptical.
Also people do complain about a string UU (even if the civ socks without it), like for the letis…
With the exception of a spoiler about tartars (which I luckily already forgot) I was able to get until now without any substantial spoilers
But you can confirm to me that turks, portos, bulgarians and koreans are buffed and received new bonuses right? And Italians instead don’t.
(you can say which civ are confirmed to be buffed, it’s enough that you avoid writing the changes)
I don’t think so, italians were always designed by alternatively use both standard arbs and GC, depending on the situation.
So I don’t think that GC will suddenly become the better choice over arbs…
I think they should be though… Have them create at the Archery range in imperial age, and there would be no reason to have Arbs instead of them (you can also save up on upgrades)
I disagree, the 2 units, despite being similar, were designed to fill different roles.
The arbs are the generic range unit, designed to be massed and with a slight bonus vs infantry, but overall all good vs everything.
The GC instead is a specialized unit, designed to fill the void of not having neither halbs (or pikes with bonuses) and camels, though to be used in smaller quantities (though not small as they are now…) bulkier and more resilient. With a predisposition to counter cavalry, but sacrificing some versatility for that.
I wouldn’t like for Italians to lose that flexibility, it’s also boring when a UU is just a buffed version of a standard unit, you should choose between the 2, and be rewarded when you do the correct choice, and punished when you choose poorly.
Also, while training GC in ranges would partially solve the problem, this would require for them to lose one their 2 UT, and I don’t think it would be wort onestly, since both pavise and silk road are good techs.
but at least in theory those are the strengths of italians.