Italy General Discussion

[BusiestCarp6234]

I think that this patch is obviously intended to make the Italians be like the British, having a good production of units through shipments.

Although that doesn’t take away the fact that the Italian units are still a bit deficient because of their lack of military upgrades and cards, not being able to make it profitable as the British. I would like an improvement in this aspect.

I would also have loved an improvement to the basilica shipment issue. I would propose that by aging the units increase as well as their cost, eg:
Schiavone and Papal Guard :
+2 units - 3 years
+4 units - 4 years
+6 units - 5 years
Papal Lancer:
+1 - 4 years
+3 - 5 years
Papal Zuavo:
+4 - 5 years

[toaf17]

Maybe a church technology that allows training papal units in the amount u mention. Now, they are useless in treaty like all the civ.

[DoctBaghi]

@Tapiseiro

They do that many times. They overbuff something and the next patch they nerf it or even overnerf it.

See the case of hackapellit for example and how they have destroyed It after a crazy overbuff.

Yeah but that I don’t think that it was intentional, also Italy is hardly over buffed just because of the 2 new cards.

@Nevonidas

Italy has a dangerous FI, and now better with the next update.

I mean, Italy FI is strong and viable but not really that OP, in the end Italy lack any kind of super power unit with tons of upgrades.

@Nevonidas

But I would also like the pavisiers to be stronger or that they could be improved at age 4 and 5.

Yeah, it should the effect of the papal guard age up, or some HC card to do so.

@Nevonidas

Lombards will only be effective because of the new cards that provide an exaggerated amount of resources and not by themselves.

Lombards aren’t bad, especially now that they are more flexible, it’s an effective way to exchange resources, although I would like to see:

• advanced lombards also affect a little bit the training of outlaws and mercs
• a buff to the usury HC card (maybe having it generate gold like a tavern)

@BusiestCarp6234

Although that doesn’t take away the fact that the Italian units are still a bit deficient because of their lack of military upgrades and cards, not being able to make it profitable as the British. I would like an improvement in this aspect.

Italy do have some units that have quite a lot of upgrades actually:

• halbs and pavisiers get tons of upgrades, the main problem is that those are 2 problematic units by themselves
• bersaglieri get +30% attack, but it’s hard to justify getting 2 age 4 card in the deck just for them, so probably alpine troops should be buffed a little bit.
• their cav isn’t bad, they have +30% melee attack, and the dragons can also have a reduced RoF.

@BusiestCarp6234

I would also have loved an improvement to the basilica shipment issue. I would propose that by aging the units increase as well as their cost, eg:
Schiavone and Papal Guard :

I believe that papal units overall are fine, it’s a way to let Italy always have infine shipments of units without occupying cards slots in their decks.

I would like though a age 2 HC card that would allow so send some papal guard from the HC, it should be called swiss company, and it should give a number of papal guards and swiss pikes.

@toaf17

Maybe a church technology that allows training papal units in the amount u mention. Now, they are useless in treaty like all the civ.

It could be, the problem is that it would be strong in non-treaty games…

Maybe it should be an expensive tech inside the capitol, unique to Italy.

[Nevonidas]

Nerf Italy FI, nerf Revnak

[toaf17]

yeah, agree, or basillica tecnology in age V, but a little bit expensive.

[BusiestCarp6234]

@DoctBaghi

Italia tiene algunas unidades que tienen bastantes mejoras en realidad:

Italy has the worst Euro units in the game:
Musketeer:
Italy: 15%hp + 15%damage
France: 15%hp + 15%damage + promotion(¿?)
Spain: 25%hp+ 20%damage + unction(¿?)
England: 50%hp +30% damage
Portugal: 30%hp+ 30%damage

Hussars
Italy: 15%hp + 30%damage
France: 30%hp + 30%damage + 15%cost
Spain: 30%hp + 30%damage + unction(¿?)
England: 30%hp+30% damage
Portugal: 15%hp + 15%damage

Dragon:
Italy: 15%hp + 15%damage + 2.7ruf
France: 15%hp + 15%damage + 15%cost +(rev. x2 vs cav)
Spain: 15%hp+ 15%damage + unction(¿?)
England: 30%hp+ 30%damage
Portugal: 30%hp +30%damage + 4.0 range

Crossbowman:
Italy: 45%hp + 0.15 -(pavisier has an extra 20%hp, and no Roman tactics data is taken).
France: 25%hp + 15%damage + 0.1
Spain: 30%hp + 35% damage + unction(¿?)
England: not comparable
Portugal: 25%hp + 25%damage +promotion
Malta: 30%hp + 30%damage + (50hp%cards)

Ranged light infantry with rifle:
Italy: 15%hp + 30%damage
France: 35%hp + 15% damage
Spain: 20% damage + unction(¿?)
England (Ranger): 35%hp +15%damage
Portugal: 30%hp+ 30%damage

Halberd:
Netherlands: 40%hp + 40%damage
France: 10%hp + 0.1 armor + Promotion(¿?).
Portugal: 15%hp + 15% damage
Italy: 30%hp + (1 damage and siege every 12 units = ¿?)

For the damage of some units only the ranged damage is taken, except heavy cavalry.

And I am not taking improvements of the unique units that these civs have and Italy does not, like artillery, special cavalry, grenadiers, etc…

[SilverAMS]

I admire DoctBaghi determination in trying to wrap his head around the papal state civ (italians), and his willingness of using it even with all the design shortcomings… BTW, it seems that in the PUP the Bersagliere got buffed since its negative multi for cav went from 0.5 to 0.6

[BusiestCarp6234]

@DoctBaghi

Creo que las unidades papales en general están bien, es una forma de dejar que Italia siempre tenga envíos infinitos de unidades sin ocupar ranuras de cartas en sus mazos.

Papal units are bad units:

The papal halberdier has less damage and siege. And its biggest advantage is damage absorption, something halberds can do with micro in cover mod.

The Schiavone can’t even beat a long shot Archer( British longbowmen).

*The Schiavone shot first having the advantage.

The zuavo pontifico is fine, as long as it faces infantry not higher than 2 pop cost. It also subtracts a point that it is so weak vs cav.

Papal Lancer is the only unit without complaints. Maybe in treaty games the same thing happens to the zuavo, it can’t be mace well, not being of much use.

[toaf17]

Totally agree, I also add that they have the worst heavy artillery in the game, the papal bombard.

[toaf17]

the papal units could help Italy in the treaty but now are useless, impossible to get a decent mass by his train mechanics, at least they should arrive faster like IV 10 dragoon card of Haudenosaunee because they aren’t free and cheaper.

[toaf17]

yeah, he shouldn’t try to convince the players that italy is so perfect.

[DoctBaghi]

@SilverAMS

I admire DoctBaghi determination in trying to wrap his head around the papal state civ (italians),

I never said that the Italian civ and the papal units shouldn’t be buffed, actually you can find several suggestions on how to buff them in the older posts.

Just because I disagree on the buffs or that I think that overall they can be used in the right conditions doesn’t exclude a buff, and of course those are just opinions overall…

@BusiestCarp6234

Italy has the worst Euro units in the game:
[…]

True, in fact I suggested several times some buffs to some of their units, like:

• giving them halbs royal guards
• improving the alpine card for bersaglieri (it’s not much worth as it is now)
• several changes to the pavisiers

@BusiestCarp6234

The Schiavone can’t even beat a long shot Archer.

And this is a biased statement, see this is what I’m against, like to prove someone point you just make partial statement and purposely don’t take in consideration some other aspects of a unit, or a bonus or whatever.
(I’m not talking about you @BusiestCarp6234, I just take your statement as an example).

Like, where is written that schiavoni counter archers? Schiavoni are a counter skirm infantry that have a multiplier against rifle infantry, saying that the schiavoni doesn’t even kill archers is a statement that implies that they are bad at killing any anty infantry skirm, leaving out everything else.

That means that the schiavoni couldn’t use a buff or that they should counter archaic infantry as well? Of course not, I’m the first to think that, but it doesn’t mean that when I take in consideration the unit I should just take a single example and generalize on that.

If you would have written that the schiavoni isn’t worth because they can’t counter archers, then it would have been an entirely new story.

@BusiestCarp6234

The papal halberdier has less damage and siege. And its biggest advantage is damage absorption, something halberds can do with micro in cover mod.

I’m the first to think that the papal guards needs some buff, but here again you forgot to mention that they have a range change ability that increase it’s speed and extra snare units, covering what is arguably the biggest weakness of the halbs.

Does that makes them good? Again no, but with partial statements we don’t go anywhere…

@BusiestCarp6234

The zuavo pontifico is fine, as long as it faces infantry not higher than 2 pop cost. It also subtracts a point that it is so weak vs cav.

Zouaves are good but for example I would like to see shipments of 5 units, 4 for me it’s just too little and I personally struggle to mass them even to a decent numbers to be a support unit. Although I recognize that they are beasts and they have 5 speed, on pair with the bersaglieri.

@toaf17

yeah, he shouldn’t try to convince the players that italy is so perfect.

II’m not, I’m just trying to see the wider picture and give equally attention to their strengths and weaknesses.

Also, I’m not a treaty player, so I believe that it’s understandable thay my suggestions doesn’t fix Italy on treaty.

When I criticize a treaty change, it’s just because I fear they such change can make the civ OP in other game modes.

Onestly I believe that civs should just have different balances for treaty, to get rid of the problem one and for all…

[Vladimatt5454]

I think design wise Italy is a very interesting civ - They have an extremely potent boom, more potent than other boom civs(ports, brits,) They tend to reach their powerful boom status faster than the likes of ports and brits, but at the tradeoff of having weak/unimpressive units. They sort of remind me of russia but more eco focused, trying to use large amounts of mediocre units with their large resource pool. Unlike a traditional boom civ their powerspike is in the midgame rather than the lategame, I sort of like that dynamic about them. They outscale you to the midgame but then you can also sort of outscale their boom if you survive long enough, since their units aren’t particularly powerful. I like that concept about them, I think the civ would be far too safe if they had an oppressive lategame.

[Blademaster1215]

Italy is a terribly designed civ ATM. In a game where Ashigaru musketeers, Mexican Soldados and Swedish mercenaries exist. Italy’s military is gimped by a shit papal unit design. Most of the papal units would be used if they could be trained like regular units even it it was limited to the churches and they’d still be a low tier civ will all their other shortcomings

[BusiestCarp6234]

@DoctBaghi

Schiavoni are a counter skirm infantry that have a multiplier against rifle infantry, saying that the schiavoni doesn’t even kill archers is a statement that implies that they are bad at killing any anty infantry skirm, leaving out everything else.

The Schiavone, according to its description and multiplier is against light infantry, not infantry with rifles, so it should do more damage to foot archer units.

@EliteRiflemann can confirm this for me.

@DoctBaghi

If you would have written that the schiavoni isn’t worth because they can’t counter archers, then it would have been an entirely new story.

Use the long shot archer ( British longbowmen) because it is a good example, but it also fails against other types of units:

[Blademaster1215]

I thought “longshot archer” meant British longbowmen, yumi archers beating them is a bit shocking though. Maybe they should get a higher multiplier vs light inf.

[toaf17]

that unit seeems even more uslesss than i thought

[BusiestCarp6234]

I saw this image, it seems that the Lombard is in his code an option to convert 100 of food in a villager, but it was never concrete. Maybe it was too strong, but if instead of giving villagers, if the other way around.

I propose the card:

Indebtedness: Automatically converts your aldes in 150 of each resource, and deposits it in the lombardo, also makes the lombardo work 10% faster for 5sec.

*Note: Works with allied villagers but does not give resources to them.

Also when you put 100 villagers in a single game, you get the 100 years loan achievement.

[DoctBaghi]

@BusiestCarp6234

The Schiavone, according to its description and multiplier is against light infantry, not infantry with rifles, so it should do more damage to foot archer units.

I see the multiplier only against skirms and muskets type infantry, and they counter them well enough, so for that I say that they do what they are supposed to do.

I personally also think that they should do way better against archaic archers too, but maybe that’s for balance reasons. Also Italy can also go for pavisier to counter other archers which are decent for that purpose.

@BusiestCarp6234

I saw this image, it seems that the Lombard is in his code an option to convert 100 of food in a villager, but it was never concrete. Maybe it was too strong, but if instead of giving villagers, if the other way around.

That was an early bug where the lombard investment keys were seen as tech keys, and so shipped a vill too, which of course was broken…

@BusiestCarp6234

Indebtedness: Automatically converts your aldes in 150 of each resource, and deposits it in the lombardo, also makes the lombardo work 10% faster for 5sec.

I didn’t understand what you suggested here, could you elaborate? I’m curious…

By the way, I believe that the lombards are usable in non-treaty games, and you can have some successful strategy around them, but they still need some love overall…

[BusiestCarp6234]

@DoctBaghi

I didn’t understand what you suggested here, could you elaborate? I’m curious…

what I propose is to be able to sell your villagers in exchange for a Lombard investment. Example:
1 villager = 100f,100g,100w.
and by selling villagers the lombard will work faster (10%), for a short time (5sec).

In this way you could make continuous push strategies, or go up faster in exchange for selling your late economy, etc…
You could also use the villagers to accelerate the obtaining of the resources of the financing cards, etc…

Going more in line with Italian civ design.

Also with this you could improve the Usury card, making the villagers, when selling them give more resources.