Lances, actually, there isa difference.
Seeing as Lance Cavalry was missing in the original game, not all civs have one still, and it was by far the most common weapon for Cavalry in general, in this period; i disagree that we have enough Lances.
All Knights should have been Lance Cavalry.
Donāt worry @Sylux1000, I didnāt forgot about answering your suggestion.
So, as you can see, the stradiot perfectly fit every cav necessities that the venetians may have and more, but at a high cost. In fact, we all know how much important trash is for civs nowdays, and the stradiot is the completely opposite of a trash unit. If you need cav, you can have it, but the gold that you spend of that UU is hurting your late game.
Giving trash knights, even bad ones (but with still higher base stats than an hussar) go in the opposite direction. Venetians already have FU halbs and skirms (the latter are even 20% faster in imp) and they have hussars that at least have all 3 atk upgrades. And this work well with their tech tree.
If on top of faster moving xbows you add trash knights in castle age, I fear that it may become either OP (a too fast and cheap combo) or useless (in the case that the cost for a knight is too hight, like 200f for example).
Still, if you donāt like the fourth crusade UT, we can recicle the other UT that I didnāt use, the schiavona UT (a sword, check on a old post). I thought that this could give some sort of infantry bonus, but I didnāt find anything useful or original.
If you have some ideas for this UT, Iām open for suggestion, but for now the relic bonus is the ādefinitiveā one.
Yeah, well in italians the word is the same for both so I didnāt know.
Yeah I know, the knight line model isnāt accurateā¦ but still, giving the stradiots something that wasnāt a lance could be a way to make it original, and they did used hammers and maces so it would accurate.
The stradioti used javelins, as well as swords, maces, crossbows, bows, and daggers. They traditionally dressed in a mixture of Ottoman, Byzantine and European garb: the armor was initially a simple mail hauberk, replaced by heavier armor in later eras. As mercenaries, the stradioti received wages only as long as their military services were needed.[37][ā¦]
Source:
NOTE: Iām still working on the naval UU, the galeass. Thatās a bit more trickier, because on the water balance there is less room for new original units, but I think that I have the right ideas, I just need to find the right balance.
If there is an albanian civi the stradiot should be the support unit like the condo.
Thatās way, way too much of a power spike. Moreover the lack of the need of upgrades is also saving tons of time and resources compared to knights.
I like the idea of mercenaries (that is units costing only gold), but I think this is a concept which should be implemented for all civs, not just one.
I also think that we have too many cavalry units in the game at this point, I would rather have some infantry units tbh. For example it could be interesting to have some kind of heavy infantry with plate armor (not the upgrade) and a warhammer. Could have some armor piercing capabilities, like the leitis.
I like the concept of the venetian civ, I think it could catch the devs eye if the next DLC sells well.
Itās a bit different, the condo is a barrack UU, the stradiot instead would be castle UU, so not sharable.
Meh, goldwise, itās about 300 in castle age, which is 3 stradiot. Foodwise yes, you save a lot of food, but every stradiot that you train hurt a lot your late game. However we could balance the stats around a bit, for example it could have less MA than a knight.
I think that thatās too complicated, and it woul require a change to the core meccanics of the game, which is something out of the scope of this topic.
I thought of giving them an infantry UU at the start too, either with a warhammer of giving them the schiavoni, but there isnāt a lot of original bonus to give to infantry.Considering also that most of the times infantry isnāt really viableā¦
I guess that if we follow the kind of huskarls, berserkers and woads the unit may be goodā¦
Even if we give this infantry unit the whole gold-only theme, it wouldnāt be worth, the cav-gold-only is worth because for an high price you can fill in your only weakness.
However, thatās why I decided to give them the condos with +1 atk, to at least partially fill in this gap.
Well, I hope so, it would be a great satisfactionā¦
I would argue that food is (in most situations) more valuable than gold in castle age though, as thereās still plenty of gold around and it is mined pretty fast.
Oh no I agree on that, the point is, it doenāt really help you in training more units thought, since their main units are asrchers (wood and gold) and stradiots (gold). But it can be seen as an eco bonus to help you boom by making more vills (very indirectly, becaus you wouldnāt need all those techs in every game) which is fine in my opinion, since they donāt have any eco bonus.
This is in general the concept of the civ, the starting gold allow you to get more vills on food/wood by delaying the mining camp, and later on they can go heavy on gold to get more food for booming, but thus way you burning minutes out of your late game, so if you donāt close the game, you loseā¦
However, I suppose that the concep of agold only unit may be applied to an infantry UU too, but I donāt see as effective as a cav UU. Donāt get me wrong, I started by thinking of an infantry UU, but simply that doesnāt fit well with the civ in generalā¦
However, I supposed itās worth a shot, what if instead the venetians would get a unfantry UU, the Schiavone (it could be called fante de mar too) that cost only gold (letās say about 35), and doesnāt need any upgrade (except for elite)?
Ok, since many people wanted an infantry UU, the thing get into my mind, so since theorycrafting is fun, Iāll try to design an infantry UU.
Know that the āofficialā UU is still the stradiot.
So the UU could be called Fante de Mar, but itāll probably be translated into Marine in english. Schiavone is another option, but less accurate.
So the Unit (Elite) should be:
Cost: 40 gold
TT: 12s
Elite U: 900f and 600g
Like the stradiot, itās unaffected by any upgrades or tech except for its elite upgrade.
Stats:
@Exradicator also suggested to give them an armor-ignore bonus, like the letis, but I donāt know if that would be viable for an infantry unit (for letis is mainly their relic bonus and itās low cost).
Another idea could be of giving it the same charge meccanics that the coustillier get, which could be fun, but we should see how it works beforeā¦
As for the appearance, it should have a shield and either a warhammer or a big chest-sword.
Not going to lie, I wouldnāt want the devs to āzoomā further in Europe when there are still regions in the world which arenāt or just barely covered. We have an entire architecture set/subcontinent with the size of Europe represented by one single civ.
I assume that this would be the 6th civ using the Mediterranean architecture set which seems IMO excessive for such a small area of the world map
Nothing against your concept per se, just stating my opinion as I said before.
I wouldnāt want Condottieri be shared either, especially considering that itās the Italian TB. A Venetian-Italian alliance would be useless.
Yeah, but the game is full with such cases, like persians, berbers, tartars, mongols and franks TB are useless when they are allied with aztecs, mayans or incas, or like viet Tb with turks, or like turk TB with all civs that donāt have HC and BBC, or like indians TB with all civs who lack camels.
So it wouldnāt be the first case of a TB that donāt work with all civs, in this it would be for just one civ.
Yes, as I already said, I donāt mean that this should take the priority over other reagions less covered, but Iām not an expert on those reagons, so I suggest about what I know.
I simply think that this design have potential, and with the venetian history it fit all the qualities for being a worth additions to the game, if itāll be implemented Iāll be happy, if other civs will instead take priority, Iāll understand.
I am back 11
I agree on what you are saying. My point was that, since the UU is a gold only unit, and in practice it is the only available cavalry option, a trash knight may have sense. Assuming the knight misses BL and 2 armor techs, it would have similar HP of a FU hussar from, say, slavs. Same MA and less PA. Ofc, less LoS and weaker vs monks.
It would have more attack. You can balance this by removing the last attack upgrade. To fix the infantry (I guess you want them FU) you can use a similar approach of malian farimba. Your imperial UT should give +2(3) attack to infantry (condo) and +1 attack to archers. This way, infantry would remain as it is now (+1 attack over a FU counterpart after the UT).
In this way, the civ has two options in terms of cavalry:
There is no overlap. If you have gold to spend, there is no reason to prefer the trash knight.
Everything I am saying is because I feel the civ is missing a trash cavalry option. However, if you think that a hussar without two armors is decent (in this case we disagree), then ofc you should keep the civ as it is.
As comparison, malay have similar standard trash option of Venice, but they have a special fourth one from the UT.
Yeah but plus base 3 atk.
I canāt, they should have FU infantry, and fixing it with a UT isnāt just messy, but itās a nerf. An UT shouldnāt compensate for a base tech, especially not for blacksmith ones, since it would probably be expensive and you canāt always rely on castles.
But thatās the whole point, I donāt want to give them cav for all the time, they arenāt a cav civ.
The idea for the civ is that their UU is an exception on their terrible cav, that they need to be careful to field. Their main units will be archers and infantry/siege, the UU is to use in small numbers to support those units, like killing skirms or sniping siege, or act as a meatshield.
The UU is already strong, the idea is that if you use it, you should be careful, because every stradiot hurt your late game (to balance things out), but if then you have another trash option, well the thing is nullified.
See, if I gave them trash knights, people would simply train stradiots first and than spam trash knights, without caring if they use all the gold or going for their main units.
Well, most civs donāt have all of 3 trash options viable, the average is on 2 of them. Venetians would have FU pikes and skirms. I gave them hussars but basically with no upgrades just for the super late game raids, but the idea is that the civ should be super aggressive and gold reliant, so the game shouldnāt drag into a trash fight.
Still, your skirms are also 20% faster (faster than a rattan) so conbined with their terrible hussars can pull off the late game raids.
They may be similar, but there are actually several differences. Venetians would have a lot stronger early game, considering that they have more resources and faster archers. For that they donāt need a trash unit for the late game. Malay instead are more versitile, they can go aggressive (but not as much as venetians) but they can also play the long game, for that having an anty-trash trash unit help a lot.
Insteat for venetians, their relic UT should help them keep using that gold intensive units for a bit more. Combined with saving resources on cav upgrades and university techs, you can actually field more stradiot that you think.
So Iām still working on the Galeass desing, in the meantime, I decided to make a post with all the hypotetical bonuses that I designed for the venetians, but that I end up discarting them, for several reasons.
I thought that this may be fun, and it may be helpful for other civ designs.
So here they are:
I end up discarding this bonus because I thought it would be too strong. You would be able to go for water risgh when the match starts, and this would have been too much in my opinion. Also, on pure land maps, more wood help little, thatās why instead I gave them the gold bonus.
I thought of also giving them both +150 wood and +150 gold, so to buff both water and land (you could build your barrakcs earlier or have more wood for archers), but with faster archers it was too much in my opinion.
In the end, as they are now, venetians can send 2 vills to straglers to collect wood with the 4 new one sent after that (after that you research loom, for less TC idle time in case you donāt have food), and send one to build a dock (that count as a house too) to have your FS out right away, but this way you slow down vill production.
Though, if the faster archers would be nerfed to 5/10/15% as it was suggested some times (instead of 10/15/20%), the +150 wood may return along with the +150 gold to compensate.
NOTE: This is actually the only bonus that I keep in the back of my mind, since I consider it may come back in a special situation, like a nerf on the archer speed.
I remove it because it would have worked too well with faster archers, and I opted for a bonus that it would have helped in feudal too.
Let me explain it, archers are 80% accurate in feudal (it becomes 85/90% with xbows/arbs), which means just some arrow that miss here and there. When for example raiding vill, you usually easily compensate that by moving the archer closer (so in general with micro), so the faster moving archer (so better micro in general) is better than 100% accuracy overall. The 2 bonuses together instead were too much, and alone not worth, so I ended up discarting it.
Now this one despite being one of the originals was discarded (and momentarily substitute with the +150w) because I felt it was too strong. The aztec bonus (from which take inspiration) has just being nerfed, and this one depite being concentrated in just one resource, it was really strong (itās a lot less walking time).
They were discarded because I didāt want to stole the italiansā spotlight, and it was bonuses that would cam in pretty late, too much for the fast and agressive venetians.
I simply discarded this one because LoS alone isnāt a big deal, but it was too much with all other water bonuses, that in my opinion better represents Veniceās history.
So thaāt pretty much it, if Iāll remember more, Iāll add those later.
What do you think? Was I wrong to remove some of those bonuses? Would you keep them? Or I did right? Let me know.
First, nice idea, also interesting balance.
But for me itās still too close to Italians . I would like to see a different role for venetians.
An early bonus for fishing is a nice thing,- i would like an wood bonus of like 75-100, not more.
but then the focus should be on the market: So all conversions to Gold could cost nothing, but from Gold still the full amount. Unlike Saracens the venetian market only works in one direction.
Instead of having one more archer civ, they could have a bonus to skirms or general counters:
Castle age Tech āPrivincial Mercenariesā replaces the wood cost of skirms, spears and Stradiots with gold, but gives them +2 pierce / +4 melee attack, which makes them both more commonly usable. This is where the market comes in handy.
Lastly it would be nice if they could trade with themselves, at a reduced effectiveness, which Venetians actually liked to do very much.
I actually see them more similar to persians and malay than Italians.
So you mean to set the commodity of sell to 0? That would be highly abusable, saracens have 5% and they are really good, with 0% would mean that they wouldnāt need to gather gold, but just to put more vills on wood and sell the extra wood.
Trust me, I tried to give them a market bonus, but there isnāt a lot of room for maneuver, and the mai bonus is already taken.
So instead I made them a gold civ, with more starting gold, an UT that tribute you Gold, and a gold only UU.
I donāt really see the point of transforming a trash unit into a gold unit. Trash units are way more important than gold units. Also, why should I want +2 on skirms when I can simply train arbs that would have more atk and RoF, or having +4 on halbs that already do 32 damage vs cav?
This would be broken, it would mean infine gold in 1v1, people would choose only them.
This is reasonable, I initially gave it to the Venetians, but then I feared that it would be OP with the starting gold and faster archers.
Yes i this direction it is abusable like saracens. But you forget the saracen abuse only works because it is both directions. Here it would only be one direction . Also the other way around is more abusable because gold miners work faster and donāt need investment. It wouldnāt be as broken as saracens, but of course it will have some usefull utilizations.
I see several. First it depends on the ressources you have available. But more: You could use your countert to also put some pressure on your opponent. Forcing him to react to this threat. Normally your counters become useless after you won a fight. If you overproduced you have an army of uselessness left. This wonāt happen with stronger counters. Maybe my +2/+4 are not ideal, but i just wanted to show the concept: Counters which stay useful even if your opponent decides to change his composition.
I said at a reduced rate. Donāt qoute only parts 
It should be comparable to portuguese and compensate the āgold countersā which are a bad thing in a trashwar thatās the purpose.
Maybe both combined would be a bit too strong, but if you split it like +75/+75 this would be ok and comparable with other starting bonusses.
I quote pieces of post only to give more accurate answers, but if you prefer I can use the brackets [ā¦] so people know that itās not you full message.
As for the gold, even at a reduced rate is potentially infinite gold. Portos have another way of generating gold that was so nerfed that itās basically useless.
This isnāt even AoM, because there you have the limit of trading with just your TC, but can build your TC only on predetermined spots, not everywhere like aoe2.
Well, first counter is pretty generic as a term, I think you meant pikes and skirms, which are both counter and trash.
Well usually for them itās better to have them in numbers than have them strong (the reason why bizz trash is one of the best), the strength of the trash units comes from the infinite trainability that they have because they donāt cost gold, I onestly donāt see any of them exchange that for a bit more atk.
If I want strong units, Iāll just train gold units and mix them with the trash I need. Like the halbs+arbs combos, when halbs counter cav and the arbs do the DPS. Or skirms+knights. Also, basically any units after castle age can kill vills.
I mean, even if an halb would have the same atk of a champ I donāt see the point, if I have gold and want an high DPS unit Iāll just train champ, if I instead want to play the long game Iāll keep my trash goldless, because once you research the UT there is no going back.
The problem is that when an 100 wood is equal to 100 gold in the market, why gather gold at all?
I mean, all the vills that would go to gold can simply go to wood, and the extra wood then becomes gold in the market. Thatās is way easier and efficient because usually wood is more accessible, is gathered a bit faster, and the upgrades are prioritized.
Also, for the first 2 ages itās a way more important resource, so youāll never risk to run out of it this way.
Thatās why even the saracens that have the highest commodity have it at 5%, and itās already strong that way.
I thought of giving the commodity set to 0 after an UT in the late game, but even that itās super strong when you think of a 1v1 trash war, when you can get gold for the same amount of resources that you are selling.
Usually, the market go for 100w = 19/23g in late game, now immagine having a civ that itās not only super aggressive, but in the late game also have 100w = 100g.
No the gold needs to stay at +150, because that way venetians can both go for a Drush into M@A or for an FC both without gathering gold, and thatās how I designed the civ.
Still, as I said on a previous post, they could get both 150w and 150g, they donāt have any eco bonus after that, just a discount on university (which helps, but itās not a big deal).
This could be balanced by nerfing the archers speed to +10/15/20% to 5/10/15%, and it would be basically a boost on the water maps but a nerf on arabia style maps, which Iām not sure itās a good thing.
Right now, venetians can still go straight for a dock. You build a house with 2 vills and then you gather wood along with the first vill trained. In the meantime you send the scout and a vill to build a dock (this vill then go to shore fish). This way you have 25w in the bank and you need only another 50w, by the time the dock is built you should have enough wood for a FS, which would be roughly about the time of your 3/4Ā° vill come out. After gathering a complete tree, you put all vills in the TC on sheeps, then send other 3 vill to gather wood from stragglers to get enough for a lumber camp and from them on is basically the same build.
Now having +150w would mean that you can build a house, a dock, 2 FS without the need to gather wood (so all vills go straight to sheepās). Then you still need the stragglers to get the 100w for the LC, but I fear it may be too strong on hybrid maps, and too weak on pure land maps (there the extras wood doesnāt really help you until you go for a barrack, or you wall, but walking has been nerfed).
Consider also, that on an hybrid map, even if you go with a standard build, by the time your enemy will have a FS out, youāll have finished to train your second, and that advantage keeps building up, because you take less both to build the dock and to train FS.
Still, if you think that itās not OP, I might do a poll, because I never completely discarded this bonus, but it shouldnāt come at the cost of the +150 gold, thatās imperative.
So, after @casusincorrabil suggestion, I decided to hear your opinion on recycling the the +150w bonus at the start, what do you think about it?
0 voters
Let me know under here what do you think about it and if you have other solutions to balance this out. Keep in mind though, that the +150g isnāt not changeable, and the archer speed can be nerfed but not completely removed.
Well now I understand what you meanā¦ no I want only the tax to be set to 0% in that direction. Instead of 100=> 19, 21=>100 as saracanes it goes to 100=>20 and 23=>100 as venetians (still need tech opposed to saracens). Maybe you can get an early advantage of not having to build a mining camp, but for sure not infinite 1:1 gold in the endgame. This would be broken, indeed. Just easier to get Gold via the market if you need it.
Thatās your preference. I actually like to go p.e. just skirms in feudal, just to be prepared of some archer pressure. It is also common to build a few spears preemptively. I would like to have a castle age tech which makes this units stronger in general. Of course they would still not be optimal against militia line, but they would be a dangerous threat many opponents will have problems to deal with.
It would give the venetians a very nice powerspike. It is possible that you could even just skip walling with them, just produce more trash because you can produce more trash than usual without any danger of being caught of guard.
With the market bonus you can ignore gold mining at first and mining stone instead to build a castle. If there comes some militia line aggression you can just convert your stone and build militia and archers.
And with the castle age tech you can upgrade all your trash to useful units.
Aswell as i think for the spear line and UU +2/+2 armour +2 atk (to bring the UU to almost (bloodlines!) knight stats) would be more useful than +4 atk. For Skirms +2 atk is actually really strong and worth the Gold in my opinion. I would always prefer a +2 atk skirm in my composition to a generic archer.
Combine it with militia or knights and you have a extremely strong castle age combo with only two type of units.
But of course this are my preferences, everybody has his own opinions.
I just thought this would give the venetians a very unique playstile with many options other civs donāt have. If you donāt like convertig your skirms and halbs to a bit stronger general purpose gold units you donāt have to do it - the market bonus, UU and starting ressources can help you with all other strategies, too.
Whilst if i look at your concept the venetians would just be another nav/archer (gunpowder xD) civ, comparable to itlaians, portuguese and koreans. Of course this is a natural combo, but i donāt think we actually need another nav/archer civ. Thatās the point. I like if the new civs have some really new tweeks that you can try to play. Maybe it is as useful as the cuman extra tc, but maybe it opens comepletely new strats like the tatars sheep spawn.
I donā't think it is predictable, but this is what makes it interesting, to try make it work. Not like the burgundians, where you are pushed to some borderline broken standard strategies until it is hotfixed. This i actually donāt like. It makes it a boring game, everybody knows whatās coming and the game is decided only via if the burgundian player can hit the eco with the powerspike or not. Thatās not how aoe should be played.
50 gold is enough for a drush. with 150 gold youād like to go fast feudal archers. If you want to boost the militia just give them a direct bonus. +150 gold in the beginning almost forces you into archers, my opinion, especially if they move faster. If you want too boost their milia - maa potential, just give them a free uprade and +50 gold. This would boost their militia rush potential but also keeps open many other strats without breaking them.
I actually donāt see why an archer civ wants to make a feudal maa rush. Itās not worth it in my opinion unless you get most of the techs for free, then you can have a nice feudal unit composition.
This would actually be ok: only +50 gold, +50 wood, but free maa and feudal blacksmith upgrades for attack (archers + infantry or both infantry uprgades). This would give them some early aggresion potential against opponents which tend to fully wall themselves. Iād like that.
This wonāt work. youāll have some tc idle time if you try this. But +150 wood would indeed be broken on water maps because you can get out 1 fs before your oponent could build a single one and have 2 more in total. So +75 is actually fine, it gives you 1 fs more and the time advantage on water against all other civs.
In Total, 125 ressources at the start are nice, especially if they come with some other benefits like the one-purpose UU, faster archers and an improved maa-rush. If you compare it to other civs with strong early bonusses, they usually donāt get any upgrades or immediate bonusses to any of their lines. OK Franks are a bit the exception but their early eco bonus is more like 100 food + farm upgrades. This makes them already the strongest civ in the game at most levels of play.
Faster moving archers can be abnoxious, especially at higher levels. This is also where an early eco bonus has the highest impact. Meso civs will have big trouble dealing with them, lacking the scout line.
Meh so itās basically a saracen bonusā¦ I donāt see as that useful or originalā¦
But, there is no problem on making trash stronger, itās actually pretty common. I mean, aztec skirms, japs halbs, bulgarians hussars.
Thatās a good thing, I donāt like very much for venetians, because despite having decent foot trash, I would like for them go heavily into gold units (arbs, condos, militias, UU) to better represent the mercenaries theme, which Italians venetians heavily used.
Another thing is to transform the trash units into gold units, that doesnāt make sense.
Iām not sure you understand how the UU work. Itās base stats are already equal to FU knights, and the whole point is to not need any upgrades for them.
I donāt know why you keep comparing them with italians, or portos or koreans. The only common thing is the condo and the architecture.
Italians have good cav, venetians would have terribile cav, italians lack halbs but have champs, venetians is the other way around.
Venetians arbs have more speed and atk, italians ones have more armor. Venetians have good siege, italians donāt but have cheap BBC.
Venetians are actually more similar to mayans on land and persians on water, with a bit of Malay.
They would be another archer civ but in the end you are either an archer civ, a cav civ. You may have a trash, infantry or siege bonus, but you need either good cav or good archers, and the archer theme fit the venetians historically.
I think this civ is innovative enough, you have a huge amount of gold with relics, you can go either with a drush or to a FC same as easily.
You have mayan archers but with the option of cav too, you have a cav that isnāt affected by upgrades that cost only gold.
+150 allows them to go for an FC without the need to gather gold or skip loom. Or go for a drush into again FC or archers. Thatās whatās give them flexibility, the many open options.
If I donāt give them +150 then the goldless FC isnāt viable, you would need to gather gold.
Thatās the main reason of the bonus, the drush is a side option.
Because as you stated, pure archers are usually countered by skirms, which many people (like you) prepare in advance. Going for for M@A or scouts help you to deal with enemy skirms.
Free M@A upgrade or free melee atk are already take, so definitely not original. Free ranged atk is a too strong bonus, because it also affects ships and towers.
With +150g instead you can go for a drush into M@A into archers, so to deal with both walls and skirms.
Or you can go for a fast feudal into scout aggression into FC, and then for the whole feudal age you donāt need to gather gold.
Maybe at the start, but after some practice is doable, consider that you have 2 minutes (4 vills and loom is necessary) to gather 125w or less(a tree) and 50 food between sheep, shore fish and deep fish.
Itās basically like not finding the sheep right away, only that in the mean time you have 2 FS super early.
Meso would simply use skirms, which are more effective than scouts.