Italy needs unique artillery card

If papal bombards are weaker than heavy cannons and rockets then arent they about the same as the regular bombard?

I reckon they have less aoe and base damage but that trades with much less severe negative multipliers and more durability.

All in all, not the worst thing for artillery pieces.

Ok, but this has nothing to do with what I wrote. Culverins are meant to counter artillery, this isn’t just a Papal Bombard problem. You have spingardes with more hit points, either with the Royal Guard upgrade and the deflection ability.

The Papal Bombard is an AgeIV unit and the card comes in AgeIV. What do you mean here? Also, Italy is really weak in treaty, the changes I proposed would help to mass a little bit this unit, and at that point, the ability would surely make a difference with that buff.

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Aren’t weaker in terms of hp, but they perform worse than other heavy artillery units. They are really slow to try to save them in a culv. war. They aren’t cost effective in terms of pop, they cost 8 pop and u get something that makes the same damage to infantry that horse artillery only by a little bit more hp. IMO now Papal bombard is the worst artillery of the game in terms of cost-effectiveness.

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Still in a culv war papal bombard is weak by his speed, they are the slowest artillary of the game, try to save them is really hard.

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Portugal is historically understandable because they hired german scientists in the medieval times, the portuguese were way ahead of their time. Then their northern european scientists invented swivel guns. The portuguese warships were the first to have massive use of cannons with more flexiblity of their cannons.

No, of course it’s not a papal guard problem, but being slow and not having a great range means that the PB will mostly just be shoot down at the beginning, being against culvs or not.

The deflection ability doesn’t really help much if the bodyguard unit is the first to be sniped, at that point you ar just using it as a meatshield… which is in contrast with the idea of an unique heavy cannon with buffed stats.

On standard game, such change came in the really late game, as you need to get to age 4, and then send in the papal bombards and the papal arsenal card, so by that time the game might be already decided… (I’m not against it though, it could be useful time to time).

In treaty the problem of Italy aren’t the papal bombards, their problem are the lack of a factory, the lack of a tanky skirms (or any unit besides papal units).

That’s exaggerate too though… it might not have more attack than an horse artillery, but it still have better stats, and it’s more comparable to the ottomans great bombards, where one have more attack and the other more HP.

I agree that some tweaks are necessary, maybe a bit more range or speed, but they aren’t overall bad, and they still are an heavy cannon.

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If you compare side by side stats, papal bombard, great bombard, ethiopian mortar, flying crow and rocket are like the same. Rocket recently got a multipler buff tho

Ok, let’s do the math to better show the deflection ability potential and how to optimize Papal Bombards’ cost-effectiveness.
In the culverins’ war scenario you depicted, you want to put your Papal Bombards out of your enemy’s culverins’ range, behind your culverins, and in the range of your deflection ability. It’s important to don’t go asap into Bombard mode with your Papal Bombards.
Without any buff or upgrade, culverins have 280 hit points and 40 siege damage with a 4x multiplier vs. artillery, it takes 2 culverin’s shots to destroy a culverin. Now, with Papal bombards, you are going to cover up to 25% of the damage incurred by your culverins, so your culverins will take 120 damage per shot. That translates into 3 culverins’ shots to destroy a culverin. You’re winning these wars if you manage to keep your Papal Bombard at distance. Things get even better when you get spingardes.
Your hard counters are culverins, if you manage to win the culverins war you can start outputting your damage. Also, you could be doing a lot of damage to the cavalry that tries to close the distance. Your Papal Bombards are doing ≈60% more siege damage against cavalry compared to Heavy Cannons (200x1.6=320, 430x075=322,5). Besides, in your army composition, there should be other units to further protect them and damage incoming units.
Papal Bombards are slower than Heavy cannons (both in speed and ROF) but effective against all units, have more hit points, and can protect your artillery. Is their 8 population cost justified? I would consider changing it to 7, yet they need to deal more damage with their ability. Powerful, but slower.

Of course not, but the thread was about Italians’ artillery. I made some other proposals to help Italy in treaty, from the Basilicas’ shipments to mercenaries. The lack of a second factory should be compensated with some tweaks to Lombards and the introduction of the “Papal Bombard” shipment in the Basilicas, as I said in my previous comment.
Guard and Imperial upgrades for the pavisier? That’s fine, we already discussed it in the other thread, they could be unlocked with The Papal Guard politician, the former coming discounted in place of the Helberdier’s Guard upgrade, with a nerf to “Roman tactics” (15% down from 30% for both hit points and attack, the same that already happens with pikes and halberdiers).

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they both have 4 ROF iirc

and deflection absorbs 30% of the damage, so its slightly better

They both have 4 AoE, not RoF; Papal Bombards have 7 RoF, while Heavy Cannons 6.
Deflection absorbs up to 25% of the damage, I tested it.

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but otto bombards are faster, have better attack and cost 7 pop. Otto bombard is better that italian by far. if they cost only 7 pop they would be fine, but no idk why they cost 8 pop.

the problem of italy in treaty can be resumed as “weak army and economy”.

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