Despite both italian royal guard units are artillery (Spingarde & Galilean mortar) but unfortunately italy has no card to improve them (Artilley HP - Attack - Range - Rate of fire - Reload time - Moving speed - …)
Nothing
9 Likes
I bought the DLC for Italy and haven’t played them much after the first two weeks.
If I wanted a good age 4 skirm I’d play Britain.
If I wanted good culverins I’d play France. If I wanted great culverins I’d play Iro or Japan and just have the best.
I like the idea behind their economy (though the Lombard needs a buff). Their military just feels like a rubberstamp of European, making the same muskets and hussars and falconets with less upgrades on them, but with basilica units thrown in.
100% agree. Give them a +2 range card for their culvs. Give them SOMETHING.
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Agree, maybe this card also should benefit the papal bombard too, they are really bad now.
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Mortars do more damage than regular mortars and the papal bombard has the deflection ability which means your artillery units near the papal bombard are tankier. They are unique enough and won’t need additional cards.
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I like the unit, and it works as a support when it’s not exposed to enemy counter fire, but that can be said about most of artillery.
If heavier artillery, in general, isn’t a focus then it isn’t but maybe there’s a way to transform Papal Bombard into a but more advanced version of itself, or just tweak and improve the default stats of the basic unit. I agree it needs a maybe more visible twist and/or some direct buff, even researchable.
As usual, I’m in favor of giving more range, but in this case, maybe increasing the splash damage area could be interesting, along with more resistance so it’s harder to snipe. If HP is set in stone.
Visually it’s nice, so at least there’s that.
3 Likes
Dutch Coehorn mortars is 20% more damage for the whole team.
Russia gets 30% more damage, reduced train time and halved coin cost.
Portugal gets their mortars replaced by an intercontinental ballistic missile system.
Italy gets royal guard mortars. That’s 10% more attack and HP. The worst of the list by far. This is supposed to be a unique strength of the civilisation?
Papal bombards taking extra damage from nearby fire is a HARD NEGATIVE not a positive.
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I’ve recently read a new book with a short story from the life of Leonardo Da Vinci working for the Sforza. And even he couldn’t workout strong cannons like the french culverins. So no artillery isn’t italy’s thing.
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This last point is incorrect. The royal guard artillery units added in kotm for Malta and Italy only boost 10% attack or hp, not both. Iirc the Galilean Mortar is 10% more hp. Might be the other way though. Point is the royal guard arty is only half as good as royal guard is supposed to be.
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If you look at the drawings of the two versions of the spingarde in the Codex Atlanticus, it’s clear that they conceal ingenious insights for the time. The first was mounted on a trestle and held with wooden pegs along a perforated ferrule; this solution allowed the height of fire to be varied and was designed for large spingardes. Then we have the second design: a spingarde equipped with a rotated shaft that allowed transport and a canopy or mantle that was intended to protect the gunner (I would like to see this other design of the spingarde for Italians, which would justify the choice to give them more hit points).
Moreover, Leonardo’s commentaries on his weapons’ design were about shock and awe. His designs explicitly aimed to make men and horses afraid.
These interests in exploiting men’s emotional frailties in war are revealed in his 1482 letter to Ludovico il Moro (Sforza): “I have certain types of cannons, extremely easy to carry, which fire out small stones, almost as if it were a hailstorm, and the smoke from these will cause great terror to the enemy, and they will bring great loss and confusion …”
Of his design for a steam-powered cannon made of copper, he wrote that “the sight of its fury and the sound of its roar will seem like a miracle”.
Also, Leonardo da Vinci’s design for the 33-barrelled organ is generally regarded as the basis for the modern-day machine gun.
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Do your Age Insiders really think Italy needs BUFF now? Excuse me?
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To be fair Portugal before the current patch had at least 2 Artillery cards.
Mortar Range
Artillery HP. Used to be 30% to all
But now its 15% for Cannons
and 30% for Grenade trooper.
So yes. Italy needs an Artillery upgrade card.
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The deflect ability isn’t a negative tho. The papal bombards absorb damage and spreads it evenly amongst the units. Which means ALL of the protected units live a little longer.
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To answer the topic, no, I don’t think they need a unique artillery card. They were never known as an ‘artillery civ’ so you’re lucky they have a Papal artillery unit and an artillery ‘nod’ to Davinci.
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Papal bombards are free, they are meant to be a tank units. having 3 culv shot culverins and mortars are supper annoying besides the papal bombard itself is a super tank which is annoying to deal with once there are two of them because once again they tank for each other.
but papal bombards are still bad, too slow, low damage vs infantry, and heavy in pop. Maybe an art card isn’t really necesary but at least a buff of papal bombards.
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In treaty they need too many buffs, now they are the worst civ by far in that modality.
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Spingards aren’t that bad actually, yes extra attack like basilisk is better, but extra HP aren’t bad either, especially on a unit that have already a lot of HP, and it doesn’t require a HC card, but just an upgrade that is actually quite cheap.
Mortars instead are a bit more lackluster… +10% attack is nice but the unit is just a bit better at what they already do well, the unit is still super niche, but still it’s not a big deal, Italy already have a flexible military.
The strength of Italy artillery comes mostly from their numbers, they can get 3 falcs with the age up and then ship either 3 culvs or 2/3 papal bombards, which leads to a big power spike.
It’s +10% attack, the +10% HP is the spingards.
Italy is really weak in treaty, that’s why most people want to buff it. In general Italy has some problem, but also have some strengths.
It spread them among just other papal bombards, not all units, but it’s good overall, the main problem is that you are wasting an expensive unit for being just a sponge damage.
Probably being able to send a second factory in age 5 would help, and getting guard and imperial pavisiers would help too, as they would be a tanky ranged infantry.
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So it’s a positive that the really expensive unit (the Papal Bombard) which is slow as treacle to reinforce and replace and very difficult to mass, is absorbing the damage for the muskets or skirms or dragoons I can near insta-replace and immediately have back on the field?
You haven’t thought your position through. You have this upside-down.
If the papal bombard transferred some of its taken damage onto these units so it survived longer, it’d be beneficial.
They are not free. They cost shipments or they cost factory seconds.
So you’re either losing out on massive resource/unit/upgrades, or you’re losing out on vast quantities of resources.
They are extremely expensive compared to other cannons. Especially considering they die stupidly due to their damage soaking disadvantage.
2 Likes
I don’t know why people here on the forum state that papal bombards cover all other units’ damage. This isn’t true, they only take the damage incurred by your other artillery units.
Papal bombards’ ability that needs a buff is the other one, Holy Fire. It should deal more damage other than having more AOE.
Also, “Papal Bombard” should be an Age IV shipment in the Basilica (it’s a Papal military unit, so why it should make an exception? Italians don’t even get the second factory), and the “Papal Arsenal” card should also let you train the shipments in your Basilicas in Age V, this way every Basilica would have their own shipments queue.
Then, I want to make a consideration on the deflection ability: Papal bombards synergize well with Lil Bombards (shipped through Age IV “Mediterranean Mercenary Army” infinite card shipment), which are more fragile but deal 400 siege damage with a 4-sec ROF instead of 7 sec. This mercenary artillery should be unlocked through the Mercenary Contractor to be more accessible (The Li’l Bombard speaks Italian, and the Elmetto too, which should be the other mercenary unlocked).
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The main problem, is that in a culvs war, the enemy culvs will simply target the papal bombards first, since they out-range them, so you have to either sacrifice an expensive unit, or you have to keep it in back of your own culvs, and then you can make use of it’s bodyguard ability, but you are not using its damage output.
I wouldn’t mind it, but it’s a super late game buff that wouldn’t really improve the bombard on their weaknesses.