Italians Unique Tech(Silk Road) Change and Bonus Buff

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

The current Imperial Age unique Tech ‘Silk Road’ currently decreases the cost of trade units by -50%.
(Kind of useless by imperial age)

I suggest changing that to be a base-line bonus as the 5th civ bonus for the Italians.

As for the Imperial age unique tech It should be switched out for something that will strengthen the civilization as a whole - feel free to make suggestions below.

I suggest:

+1/1 armor on their ships in general

Or perhaps

+1-3 or so range on their Galleons

Added sept 15th:

Silk Road: Trade units cost reduced by 50% and enemy docks’ and markets’ line of sight becomes visible.

2

Imperial is normally when you start trading.

That’s just copying the Portuguese tech Carrack

Idk, could be an option, but I don’t really think it is totally necessary.

9 Likes
3

Silk Road is a great tech. It allows you to heavily invest in trade and at a much cheaper cost in the late the game. Unless the map is very closed like black forest/Mich trade is very unwise to make in the early game. Even if you lose a trade cart you can quickly replace them at a much cheaper cost.

The game is mostly a balanced around pros. And so far I heard pro saying that you should not invest heavily in trade early.

7 Likes
4

It’s within reason to start trading in the middle of castle age, usually in a trickle which leads to consistent carts, and often enough you’ll stop at 25 or so carts which doesn’t take very long at all. It’s certainly possible that half or more of the trade carts would be created by the time imperial has begun research, let alone reached.

5

That doesn’t always happen in a pro game while you’re trying to do that you’re being raided by horse arches and other units on a very open map like that of Arabia.

1 Like
6

Utilizing the ‘select all carts/cogs’ hotkey goes a long way in microing said carts. Keeping them in a group and keeping them useful in open raidable terrain is key until a good wall is up.

7

Ok, SR it’s useless in 1v1, but it’s crazy good in TG, when you save so much even if you just lose some carts after a raid.

But if that is bugging people soo much I can see added a secondarey effect… even if other changes to the civs should take priority…

Yeah because Italians are so weak on water… they aren’t at all widely considered the best water civ…

And the first one is already the portos UT… the second one is broken… actually, both are broken when you add them up on the Italians tech tree and bonuses for water.

You want to add a secondary effect to silk road? Here it is:

  • Your first market spawn a relic when the UT is researched.
    or:
  • Markets can “train” one relic for a price.

Here it is, a considerable effect even for 1v1, which doesn’t change much its effect on TGs.

Other ideas could be:

  • Market is reset on the initial state (70/130 food for example, 85/115 if you have guilds).
  • Vills also cost 50% less.
8

it’s balanced around fairness, not pros.

9

Usually, you trade in imp, and Italians have a cheaper age up, so they can easily wait a bit. But even if you need to trade sooner, you can still benefit from the tech if you need to train more than 10 carts, considering that most likely some will die, and you will need to replace them.

Exactly, your enemy will get less value by killing them.

2 Likes
10

Stop at 25 carts?? Anything below 60 is insufficient in imperial age.

Normal you start trading in early imp when you walled everything up and then heavily during the end of imp when gold is running out

As a civ bonus 50 cheaper trade from the start could be op.

I would thought change the effect to trade units are 25% cheaper but for the hole team. But that’s just change for the sake of it.

11

Well, it depends on the civ. Normally I have at least 30 to 40 trade carts. 50 to 60 farmers, and 30 lumberjacks. Late game, no gold mines left. If I am playing as the Persians on a closed map.

12

This is the effect of carrack first of all.

And second of all Italians absolutely don’t need a naval buff of any sort.

3 Likes
13

Is balanced for fairness, especially for Pros.

14

fair and balance has nothing to do with skill.

15

It does
Is fair that you get stomped by War elephants? or Teutonic Knights? No right. But were you skilled or competent enough to do a counter option to avoid that situation?

16

Yeah on paper the Persians are unstoppable if they are left to boom safely. Mass trade carts, villagers and whenever early on so they can have a huge economic boom early.

But they should be raided long before they reach their full potential. Not just left to boom so they can unleash war elephant spam.

3 Likes
17

I don’t think you have a point

18

What would you suggest as a buff for them as a unique tech for anything in the civ?

19

That’s the main problem, italians in imp don’t need anything both on water and on land (ok maybe they could use minor changes on land, but nothing that can be addressed with an UT…).

People with italians mainly complain about 2 things:

  • their weak feudal age
  • the lack of siege engineers

The useless SR bothers a bit, but giving it a small secondary effect for 1v1 may be more than enough…

5 Likes
20

How about this as the additional bonus to Silk Road:

‘Enemy MarketPlace and Dock Locations are always Visible(includes current and to be built markets/docks)’

It would give a reason to have cheaper carts being in 1 vs 1 by having obvious Market/Dock trade/raid potential. And it would be a great help in teamgames to utilize for raiding trade routes. Similar to the earlygame bonus for vietnamese for town center locations.
@DoctBaghi