And this have to do with my reasoning?
And by the way, I never said that I’m against whatever nerf or adjustment to the bersaglieri, just that I don’t see how the problem can be the free guard. If they want to increase the cost or base training time a bit that can be reasonable, or if they want they can just nerf the FI a bit, like staggering the number of architects per ages.
Dev didn’t get any experience from Ashi still creating Insurgente and Bersagliere such as these units with faster speed, but nerfed Lakota WC aura without revert.
yeah, they need nerfs, but Italy also needs too many buffs, is the only unviable civ in treaty, and most of the players avoid that civ because is so bad in that modality.
Do you want to nerf Italy?
Ok, here’s my idea, let’s remove all the investment cards, convert Lombard Advanced and Usury cards into technologies and add another factory to Italy.
This is what they want right? 
It would be enough to stagger the architect limit per age, and the lombards too if necessary.
Like:
Age 1: 2 architects and lombards limit
Age 2: 3
Age 3: 4
Age 4: 5
I was being sarcastic, besides your idea does not change anything, in any case what can be done is to increase the cost of the architects to 200 gold and make the investment cards have less resources.
I clarify, I do not want the Italians to be nerfed, in any case I want them to give a buff to the Rush strategies of all civilizations or to add a new strategy to the game that is to effectively counter defensive strategies.
Obviously this is just my opinion.
They just need to not stack linearly so that you can’t just pile on a bunch of Architects to get one building up very quickly. That fixes the problem without needing to impose a build limit. It could even be as harsh as the penalty for building with multiple Settlers so that it wouldn’t pay to put more than 2 Architects on a build. The penalty could then be lifted by the Freemasons card which would allow the Architects to work together.
FreemasonsArchitects move faster, build faster, and no longer have a penalty for stacking builders.
Some of the build speed improvement could be shited into the Stonemasons card so that you’d have to send both to get fully upgraded Architects.
I think that it would nerf the architects’ mechanics too much, and that’s probably the reason why devs chose to give them a t/n formula instead.
Considering that the architect’s value per second may change depending on the building he has been constructing (a Lombard costs 100 wood and coin and takes 100 sec., we get 2 res/sec, while a house costs 100 wood but takes 80 sec., resulting in 1.25 res/sec.), the crucial aspect that actually gives them value is if they wether finish the building they have been on or not.
Architects are not actually gathering resources and storing them in stocks like villagers, meaning that if they don’t complete the building or if it gets destroyed in the process they lose most of their value.
If you give them the villager formula, it would slow down the overall building process and increase their time of vulnerability while constructing, thus resulting in much more chances to make architects lose their value during a game.
Maybe a little too much, for the Freemasons card comes in AgeIII, hence Italy would be a lot more vulnerable to well-executed early rushes.
Although it could effectively lower the overall building power, I am of the opinion that it wouldn’t do much in Age III and IV.
The strength of Italy, in the right hands, comes from the ability to both turtle and sort of boom at the same time, the former via outposts and walls, and the latter through Lombards’ shipments (both res and XP) and fast built Town Centres and docks.
If you consider that the outpost builders limit is 4 architects, as I was previously saying, it wouldn’t make much of a difference in Age III, having still 4 architects on them with this proposal. Things would get worse in Age IV, having 5 architects again at your disposal with the ability to build or rebuild for a few architects seconds.
Let’s consider these numbers: If you manage to send the Freemasons card, your architects would build an outpost without paying for the foundations in just ≈23 secs (150÷1,65÷4=22,7), even less than 4 settlers, which must pay them in order to build (3⋅t/(n+2)->50⋅3/(4+2)=25); Town Centres, in the Basilica bonus range, would be built in 27secs (225÷1,65÷5=27) for free.
If you consider that decks through which Italy has been doing well in higher Elo don’t even have this card, you can pretty much understand my doubts regarding the effectiveness of these nerfs (apparently 4/5 architects on a building are already enough effective and don’t require further boosts).
So, what can be done to make FI strategies less effective and see some more variety of strategies with Italy? (I’m looking at the pavisiers or even worst at the 900res/60secs Schiavoni which pretty much can’t see play).
There is no easy answer to that, Italy needs both nerfs and tweaks to weaker units to balance things out, and it would require some testing.
I would consider setting the Architect training limit to 3 and giving the Bersagliere a bigger penalty against cavalry (as it was intended in the beginning), with some tweaks to pavisiers and Schiavoni.
After doing some testing, I came to the conclusion that 3 architects with the Freemasons card have the same building power as 5 of them without the card.
Considering that a Town Center needs 250 architects seconds to be built for free, if we do the maths we get 50 secs with 5 of them (250÷5=50), and 50,5 secs with 3 of them after sending the card (250÷1,65÷3=50,5).
It means that if you want the same building power, you’ll need not only to free space in your deck for this card, but also send it, translating in -1 less shipment (XP was one of the issues raised). These changes would also prevent architects to reach the quite low building times I considered before with 5 of them and the Freemasons card.
Regarding the Bersaglieri, they would be even less effective vs. cavalry (which with good micro and the snare effect wouldn’t have problems taking them down).
Doesn’t seem that Italy need nerfs, has a pretty weak eco in early game and no boom options apart from Lombards. Their units are regular also, and having no skirmisher until age 4 makes them poor versatile.
0 voters
Italy needs a nerf for its FI turtle strategy and some tweaks to incourage more gameplay in the early game.
It is true that before getting the new lombards cards Italy struggled a lot especially in age 2, but it’s also true that it’s not worth to stay in age 2 as Italy.
No, but the idea is to slower their FI while still maintain it a viable strategy and to avoid Italy just turtle so effectively already in age 1 or 2.
The architect limit can be even of 1 and +1 from the age 2 onwards, but lombards should be at least 2 starting in age 1 probably.
Increasing the cost of the architect to 200 gold again could be another solution too, as it slow Italy on massing them and stacking them onto a single building.
It doesn’t have to be the same rate of settlers, but it can be a middle of the road between now and settlers.
That’s easier thought for a player to reach the maximum potential for the architects, and also stonemasons is an age 3 card, which isn’t that hard to rush.
Well, it’s not clear what you meant with “easier” here. Compared to your proposal and the other one, since I didn’t change anything about the Freemasons card, you could do the same thing and send the card. The differences would be that you would end up having 4 and 5 architects boosted by the card in comparison to the 3 architects I proposed. So, it would actually limit the architects building power if in both scenarios you would send the card.
I have been thinking of a proper function to give to the architects, considering @M00Z1LLA proposal, without slowing them too much.
If we consider a 2⋅t/(n+1) one, which is slower than the current t/n one but faster than the 3⋅t/(n+2) villager one, we are getting exactly the same building times of 3 of them with the t/n formula, considering 5 of them on the same building.
In fact, 5 architects with the Freemasons card would build a Town Centre in 250⋅2÷6÷1,65=50.5 secs considering this formula, which is the same time we saw previously with 3 architects with card or 5 architects without it building with the t/n formula.
Also, 3 of them on the same building with this formula would build as fast as 2 of them with the current t/n one (for example, a house would be built in 80⋅2÷4=40 sec, considering 3 architects and the 2⋅t/(n+1) formula; 80÷2=40 sec with 2 architects and the t/n formula).
All things considered, it could be enough to just replace the current architect formula with this one, without changing the Freemasons card or some other card that could make architects reach excessively fast building times.
People are over complicating this issue. Italy is only an issue at very high elo where it has a much higher win rate than other civs and only the FI is the issue. at 1700 elo or below which is the vast majority of players italy is balanced.
All that needs to be done is limit architects per age, increase their train time a bit and possibly revert cost to 200 coin. That nerfs the FI and italy remain the same at all other elo ranges.
I disagree. There is a lot of Italian fast industrial at the 1200-1300 level. In fact it’s the only strategy you ever see.
Yet win rate at that level remains normal.
winrate remains normal cause many try italy out for the first time right now , but anyone on mid-elo who played this civ a couple of times and practiced the FI will kick your ass. its ridiculous. You can have the entire map with stagecoach and water and still lose .
That’s pretty much my experience. I’ve dominated many a player only to get shafted in the end.
Yes, this is expected. As I said, it is only a matter of time until the FI creeps down the ELO levels.
Once they get the fort up and plop it amid their tc’s and Lombards it’s an easy cruise to age 4 and the inevitable unit spam. Even better if they can park the fort between you and the town is close to the edge of the map.
Then again git gud may be the prescription for this.
I play mostly Brits. that civ can do as little to prevent this strat as it can against a rush civ. There is simply no way to get ahead of the curve being so slow. Even with advanced artillery. You may get the fort down but it will be the last thing you do.