Italians are mostly fine, but they lack some uniqueness in their strategies and they underperform a bit in land maps, Condottieri come too late to really affect most games and you rarely see the Genoese Crossbow used. Since apparently it is too much to hope for a Halberd inclusion (even though every archer civ gets it and Historically Halberds were incredibly popular in italy)
I think just adding one more range to the elite version of the Genoese Crossbowman, making it effectively a better substitute to the arbalest, would be a sensible buff, making the unit more viable, giving Italians a go-to strategy with map control using castles, in a way similar to mongols, where the rush for a castle is real, even preferring it to multiple TCs.
Does somebody agree? Or do you think Iām full of it?
I love italians, because of Genoese Crossbow man, they are my favourite civ. They do struggle against siege though. At least if they had siege engineers.
Maybe we need to stop making every civ strong on every map? We already got Portuguese who are top on any map at any moment of the game and that is bad balance, powercreep is real.
So no Italians donāt need a buff, esp not one that unneedesly buff them at Imperial.
They canāt really substitute arbalest in most cases even if they have same range. +1 range makes them better vs arbalest and cavalry archers. Killing cavalry and not weak vs ranged units will be problematic in team games. They will need extra weakness, like take more dmg from scorpions/mangonels.
I agree about halberdiers, but clearly they donāt have them for balance issues. Iām not sure Italians would be any sort of OP with halberdiers, but oh well. As Italians as a civ in a good spot right now, and the game suffers from power creep, it would be difficult to justify buffing them (halb or Genoese crossbowman).
However, I must agree with the initial proposition that from a unit-base perspective it would make sense. Perhaps the non-elite could lose its one melee armour, making the civ even more Imperial Age oriented? And the elite upgrade cost could be decreased.
Again, this is the sort of thing that should not happen alone, but to make up for Italians being too weak, if it occurs one day.
In short, the sources I have always read have always spoken to the contrary.
True, but it would be enough to rebalance the Genoese crossbow, which today is a more expensive, slower to train and in 80% cases weaker version of the Armenian Composite Bow.
Sure. Since when āsourcesā are a determining factor in AOE development? We have american civs with halberdiers, not to mention iron weapons and wheels in general.
No issue at all with italian halberdiers.
Man Italians donāt even need halbs because the Genoese Xbow is supposed to be their main tool to deal with Cavalry, and Spanish are already the civ with complete trash units.
I would go to be able to train condottieri in Castle Age (a downgrade version) then upgrade them in Imperial. The team bonus stays the same, train condottieri in Imperial only for allies.
Economy buff based on Lombard League can be good, can it? Silk Road is imperial trade tech, but Lombard League was since 1167 (maybe castle age). We can change trading (or generating gold) bonus into something good.
Pavise is also a tech I wanna change. Italiansā unique techs feel plain.
the idea of giving the Condottieri also an age before is interesting;
Pavese can have a side effect whereby some units on foots move 15% faster.
Let us not stop at the name or skin of the unit, that is just a generic representation of a more abstract idea.
The point is that the Italians have never been an infantry civilisation. In fact, they should not even have access to the Champions too.
During the Battle of Legnano (1176, against Frederick Barbarossa) communal militias (peasants, armed with lance and shield) fought with the support of light cavalry. In fact, under the emblem of the autonomy of their municipalities, the municipal infantrymen resisted against a militarily superior army, and moreover on horseback.
Either way, the Italian city militia were the first to use the āHand cannonā and that from Italy the āHand cannonā passed into Flanders and from there spread to the Germanic Holy Roman Empire and England (1314). Soon all Italian municipalities, especially the Duchy of Milan, armed themselves with many gunpowder weapons. Combined with the fact that they began to use smaller regular armies, and not to call together all the men of the countryside.
Even if we see the history of the most famous mercenary companies, the story is about the same. This is because, on the Italian peninsula, major clashes can be considered a rare outcome of a tactic predominantly based on movement and the search for the best position to force the enemy to retreat or to discover the weakest side for a possible attack. Fighting āItalian styleā meant avoiding unnecessary bloodshed.
The only exception I can think of is against the Swiss. The Black Bands at Caprino had 200 heavy cavalrymen, 300 light cavalrymen and 3000 arquebusiers. They used so many cannons because the Italians had no heavy infantry, and had no idea how to stop the heavy infantry of the Swiss (ex: Landsknecht).
While I agree elite GC may not need to be more anti-cav and making a bit more universally useful, I disagree to remove anti-ship bonus. This makes GC more unique and valuable in hybrid maps.
To be fair, the Halberd has been the staple of the Swiss guard for centuries now, and Swiss mercenaries have always been the vast majority of the Vatican Army, so most of central Italy saw extensive use of the Halberd since the 15th century, also, the Halberd was so used in Italy that there is an actual type of Halberd called āItalianā (those with a downward curve on the back spike)
Pietro Monte and Giacomo de Grassi both wrote treatises for Halberd combat after 1530 and there are loads of Halberds in museums all across the world, having been found in Italy or made by Italian smiths.
I Understand, but the notion of having one more range makes the GC more appealing, justifying an earlier castle for production rather than having to spend on Xbow upgrades and then being too late to switch to GC in imperial (and not having Halberd for an emergency switch)
Basically, the buff would be to change the meta rather than to buff an actual unit. At the moment, Italians struggle mostly against powerful cav civs, wich is ironic, givent their UU
I disagree, if you have the same range as an arbalest then they are objectively better than an arbalest in any single aspect, except for creation time (castle) so this would put pressure on the Italian player to put castles up quicker and start producing, giving the Civ a more unique identity, and giving a more viable response to cav.
Sure, but here we are talking about its use on the battlefields. Do you know how many Swiss Guards there were in 1506, the year they were conscripted by Pope Julius II? 150. Only 150. Or do you know how many Swiss guards were there to defend the Pope during one of the saddest and most saguest sacks of Rome, that of 1527? Only 189. This is because they were only the Popeās personal escort, not an actual army.
The Italian armies were never as strong as the Landsknechts (who instead made extensive use of it), which contributed to the decline of the Italian states in the 16th century. Also, in the 17th century, when the use of firearms became more widespread and perfected, the halberd was transformed into a parade weapon, adorned with engravings and openwork, and indulged somewhat in the shapes of iron and especially of the axe, which by its very position lent itself to degeneration into a decorative figure.
The German guards in the service of the princes of Piedmont in the 17th and 18th centuries, the guards of the Duke of Parma, the veterans of Naples, when they guarded the court, had halberds. This is why Italian museums are full of Halberds, they have all been well preserved because they were not used in battle 11.
They were still incredibly popular, even though we might not have confirmed use in combat. Not to mention that in most of Europe the situation was pretty much the same! Only the Landsknecht really used them as a baseline, but itās not like french or english or burgundian armies saw it used more than the Italians. Historically it would make more sense for Italians to have Halberds than many other Civs, but apparently the devs will never give it to them because for some reasone Spanish need to be the only full trash civ.
Still it would be a reasonable buff without making them OP. Personally I rpefer to see Civs rely on their UU, so iād love to see a buff to the GC
