Spanish who do not have crossbows for some arcane and mysterious reason.
Absolutely! Also because it is quite tedious to create another civilisation of archers & halberdiers.
They should be like the Poles in some ways. Where in front of the archers and bbc, you put hussars mainly. Except that the Condottieri are an infantry unit rather than a Cavalry unit, which by the way has no bonus attack against Eagles and cost 35G, so they are extremely situational.
In closed/hybrid maps, yes. In open maps, not really as timing is key. Mass matters a lot for any archer-unit. At most, there is a late game transition after elite upgrade and transition will be smoother. You still have to rely on xbow and arbalest from range before GC mass and elite upgrade.
Besides, elite GC should at least take +100% pass-thru damage from scorpions as penalty for +1 range.
Ahh. Now I understand. I psychological buff to Italians civ players.
I am not sure, but it should be a remnant from when Camels and Ships had the same armour class. I’m not even sure if it’s enough to make the Genovese decent against ships.
From a game mechanics point of view, a fast castle is only justifiable if you can produce a unit that can do damage quickly. Otherwise you will inevitably fall behind.
This is true. One could add a side effect to Pavese whereby archers on foot also move +15% faster.
And Silk Road would also need a useful side effect in 1vs1 (even at the cost of reducing the discount, which is far too strong in TG).
Anti-ship bonus is intended as a design but not only for camels. Genoese xbow were deployed in naval battles historically. Losing anti-ship bonus but getting anti-spear bonus loses its uniqueness.
What if the “Gunpowder units are 20% cheaper” was turned into “Gunpowder & Towers are 20% cheaper starting Castle Age”, and then make Pavise UT additonally enable Genoese Crossbowmen to be trained at the Towers.
Also unrelated but it’d be nice for the Condottiero to get the royal heirs treatment on their resistance against gunpowder.
I will root for Condo being trained in Towers with no stat downgrade upon Castle age. Then team bonus allow both Italians and allies to train in barracks.
Edit:
Team bonus allow both to train from barracks in imperial age.
I won’t mind a defensive bonus for Italians.
You gave me an idea, why not make a nerfed version of Silk Road a civility bonus and free up space that way?
SpiritOfTheLaw in its video of the Italians gave an example with 40 Trade Cards, which net saved 2000W 750G. That makes about 19G for a unit. So you could put ‘trade unit cost -20%’ as a civ bonus. It would save 10G per unit. That would be about half.
“Gunpowder units and Trade Unit are 20% cheaper.” No need for a new line 11.
It doesn’t seem very elegant if I may say. I like the idea of having a nerfed version of the Condo in the previous age much better. If you could pay for the Elite version you could also make the unit stronger than it is now.
I mean that Condo to be trained in towers in Castle age and team bonus allow Condo to be trained in barracks in imperial age. It is far more expensive to train in Castle age as towers probably delay castles and TC.
So… in the upcoming patch, Italians apparently will gain Pavise as a civilisation bonus, from Feudal Age, Silk Road will be moved to Castle Age and cost reduced, and they will gain a new Imperial Age unique tech “Pirotechnia” improving (significantly) hand cannoneers.
I think this might honesly be overpowered. The changes to Silk Road are absolutely fine, but the other changes, on top of receiving no nerf, is I think power creep at heart. Italians were fine, especially on hybrid maps. But they are being insanely buffed with no compensation.
I guess this is in the context of all civs being improved more than necessary, but still. At the very least, they should pay for Pavise (as they currently do) and Silk Road should be made a civilisation bonus (staggered to -20/-35/-50% cost of trade units in Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age).
And then we will judge the Imp tech when we see its effect, but I’m scared of the “Shatagani effect”. Hindustanis are insane in Imperial already, and already have a Gunpowder Tech. With Shatagani, they are simply impossible to stop without some specific units few civs get. I worry Italians would join this category.
I am still wondering how the new UT works exactly.
Yeah, archers in feudal with +2 armour could be a problem.
We need the Condottiero in Castle Age