Italians: In need of a slight buff?

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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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
  • having interchangeable military buildings

I hope I didn’t forget anything…

4 Likes
22

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

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Thanks for the suggestions Doct, I’ll try that, even though my ability to maintain a decent food eco is non existent

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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 :joy: 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.

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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

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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…

1 Like
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I don’t want any spoilers on the upcoming patch, but from what you are saying Italians wouldn’t get anything, am I right?

But after all, I onestly expected that, they are usually seen as super powerful on water and that seems enough…

Let’s hope for a fix of the GC at least…

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on the civ bonuses front? doesn’t look like it. but we don’t know whats going on with unit costs, training time, etc for the most part.

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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 I said, let’s hope to see at least the GC fix…

31

And a big gunpowder buff :crossed_fingers:

This would be very good for them because of cheaper gunpowder (of course) AND condottiero as a counter

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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…

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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…

2 Likes
34

With the exception of a spoiler about tartars (which I luckily already forgot) I was able to get until now without any substantial spoilers :joy:

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…

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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)

3 Likes
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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.

2 Likes
37

Everything you said here is right.

All archer civs having an archer UU, have a UU which outclasses arb. For Italians it may be similar, but in that case it is no more a matter of TT. GC should get a huge buff to carry such a bad civ, like a bonus vs archers in addition to its current one. Maybe this is the way Italians can be fixed…

38

:+1:

You can’t make the GC good vs cavalry and archers at the same time. They could receive a bonus for infantry, maybe just pikes, or maybe a bonus vs eagles (since after all are the meso version of cavalry…) but you can’t give them a bonus vs archers.

Also, vs archers italians would be better off simply using their FU skirms, instead of GC.

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I disagree further, It’s true that the genoese are anti Cav, but they cover the role of Arbs even better than arbs themselves, so why not have them in Archery range?
There is no real flexibility, everything the arbs can do, the genoese Excel at, furthermore, I would even consider renouncing to the Arbs tech, if it meant GC from archery range. Instead of having a UT for it, you could have it so that GC can automatically be created from Ranges when Imp is researched

It’s like jannissaries, the only real reson for turks to go hand cannon it’s because jannissaries are too hard to train from castles…

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That’s not true, arbs are cheaper, more spammable, have +1 range and a bonus vs pikes.

The GC have 1 lesa range, but more HP and melee armor, they don’t have any bonus vs infantry, but they have one vs cavalry, and are more expensive.

The 2 units clearly are designed to fit 2 different roles.

Italians have this thing where they can counter everything from range:

HC → infantry
GC → cavalry
BBC → siege
FU skirms → archers

But then there is the arbs, both as a generic response (since not every time you can predict what you enemy is going for) and as a unit that you can trai earlier on, since most of these things comes in late.

It’s not true, while GC they aren’t bad vs infantry, arbs are better thanks to their bonus, range and cheap cost. When you are facing an infantry civ, you have no reason for using GC. You go for arbs and then maybe HC.

There isn’t such thing, both the other 2 civs who can do that are blocked by a UT, because so you have to build at least a castle.

That’s not true, janissarys can be trained from castle AGE, and have more base atk, so you have plenty of reasons to use them instead of HC, unless again you are facing infantry, then HC are better because they have a big bonus vs them.

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This is exactly what I was saying, there is no reason for turks to go HC, and while HC have a bonus vs Infantry, it is counterbalance by the Jannissary higher attack

Partially true, GC might have no Bonus againts infantry, but it’s balanced by higher HP, so they usually trade the same (unless micro is involved, then it’s basically down to the cost of the Arbs)

As for the more spammable it would be solved by training in archery range. 1+ range can be negligible

But after all this I would love to see this change but I don’t think it would be the best move, Either reduce the cost of the GC, buff them or halve the cost of Elite and they would all be decent buffs for Italians… (Maybe have GC train faster, considering they were, after all, mercenaries)