Well everyone, I think its time to talk about Italy again. I’ve really been wanting to learn them and I’ve reached some conclusions of what I think it needs - but I’d other people’s thoughts as well.
First off, can I please have a cavalry shipment that doesn’t cost so much of every resource? I’m not bothered by age 2, but 5 huss would be a game changer here. 7 or 8 age 4 wouldn’t hurt either but those are more niche cards even for cav civs. I really just want 5 huss as an option.
Age 1 is painful in the first minute. I’ve said before but I think 4v to start instead of 3 would be a really nice buff to the civ in every game mode that won’t break anything other than improving their age 2 time. I know italy has a strong eco by the end of age 2 but it takes 2 cards for a civ with a huge shipment penalty.
Papal units - can we ship these just as units without the huge cost? Like a 10 papal guard shipment age 3 or some papal Zouaves age 3? (not sure how many is fair). I don’t like floating so many resources to get the decent shipments, and its especially bad because its all 3.
Lombards - lol. I consider these a joke. They serve so little purpose in my opinion. Its not the worst thing in the world to turn wood into food and coin to help your hunts and mines last longer, but the other direction it seems like you’re losing out by burning up the natural res. Why is there no benefit at ALL to trading res at first? You’re just floating resources on nothing and the building gains you nothing, thus never paying for itself (without shipments, which are so SLOW for this civ!).
Shipment penalty - why? Why is this shipment penalty so high? With the exception of like, 6 grens this civ has the most mediocre shipments of any DLC civ. Other penalty civs have big perks like a free vill or 2 cavalry. Italy just gets nothing.
Church card. Enough said. Way too high cost on everything to ever be useful in a real game.
Pavisiers. So mediocre. Not worth the shipments either. Why would you upgrade the worst unit you have with expensive penalty shipments with 2 entirely seperate cards, neither of which is worth it on its own. At the very least put one of these in age 2 where its justified using.
There’s some other issues like mediocre late game performance, I’d love other’s opinions on this as I’m a 1v1 sup player and don’t see those things as much. What things do you think Italy does well?
) And the unit scaling isnt the best so many civs like otto or france arent really bothered by your mixed roster. Not to mention so many revolts or FF timings are just so good that your basic dudes plus super slow mercs are often too little, to late. Semi ff or age2 civs tend to have some strong units to survive age3/4 timings but us? we get free towe- oh wait, thanks ladder lammers >:( Lol-bards are also weird in that they are on paper good value, but not 1 factory but kind of needed to get mercs/xp but also not good and can be built early but then not fully used early also did i mention not very good?
)
