New italians after the update and further ideas for the next ones

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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So, since it seem that on the post-update topics, the italians are the most discussed civ, I thought of making a separate topic just for them.

First, I like to talk about the new condos, how they fell and work. In my opinions they are in a really good spot, they have some occasional use, their stats are good and the need of a castle act as a buffer, so they are neither OP nor useless as before.

Still, they need testing, so I appreciate your feedbacks.

We should keep in mind that if we discuss of further buff to the civs, since we should avoid to indirectly buff them in order to prevent them to be nerfed again (for example, buffing their cheaper age up is an indirect buff to the condos rush too).

Second, I would like to talk about further minor buff to the civs, specifically to their archers.

First of all, the Trainig Time of the Genovese Crossbowmen (TT of GC for short) should be reduced.
That has being discuss over and over, and all (or most of us at least) seems to agree to TT reduction so that it is more similar to other archer UU (all of them have 16-18 seconds of TT, GC have 22 seconds).

Then there are the discussion regarding a bonus to their standard xbow line, since pavise alone (+1/1 armor) an a pretty lacking eco seem to put the italians archers even behind other non-archer civs (like aztecs, that lack TR but compensate a lot with faster TT and better eco).

There are 2 main ideas for a potential bonus:

  • Giving italians a bonus of free archer armor upgrades:
    So basically the idea is similar to magyar free melee attack bonus, it would require a blacksmith to work (even if you still have to build one for the other upgrades) and when you age up, you instantly receive for free that age archer armor upgrade for free.
    That allow them to save some resources and time, and you would have a small time window when you easily outech your opponent, but then after a bit he eventually can catch up, and so in the end you still end up you your pavise arbs with nothing more.
    The genral idea, is to close a bit the gap between italians archers and other archers civs, like britons, mayans, viets and so on, but by putting them on the same level.

This bonus help the italians more defensively than offensively, but it could give them a small help for archer rush too.

  • The second idea is to give them a bonus that in feudal age, their archers (standard xbow line only) have +1PA for free, stackable with the blacksmith upgrades and pavise techs (basically +6PA in the end).
    So the idea is again to close the gap between italians and other archer civs.
    Righ now, italians arbs with pavise are about on the level of etiopians and viets if you confront only the pure stats of the xbow/arbs and you let them fight (without considering micro of course), all other archer civs are stronger. And a lot of non-archer civs with better eco are better too.

The problem is, that both etiopians and viets get their bonus for free (let’s call it the “resources” problem ) and a lot sooner (the “time” problem ), so to compensate that, on the late game after buying pavise, their arbs should be more powerful.

So the +1PA would act as a bonus that let you archer still keep up with other archers civs on a military level from the faudal age (solvig the “time” problem ) but still with the eco disadvantage.
Then pavise would come into play on mid/late castle, and their arbs would finally be better, since you pay for them (solving the “resources” problem ).

There are also some variants of those 2 bonus (some stronger, some weaker), that I’ll link here below, but I would prefer to talk about the condos and the 2 main proposals for archer before those:

  • The +1PA start from castle age
  • The +1PA is instead +1/1 (both MA and PA) stackable with pavise, though there isn’t a lot of difference between +1 and +2 MA.
  • The +1PA affect both standard xbow and skirms (a bit like when old pavise affect them in AoE2HD).
  • Italians get the free archer armor upgrades bonus and pavise is buffed to +1/2 for standard xbows line (GC and condos still get +1/1 only). For that we could also consider a small cost increase of pavise.
  • They get a free bonus (either in feudal or castle) that their standard xbow line get +1 attack.

The last 2 secondary proposal are for sure the strongest, and they are borderline OP, still they worth discussing in my opinion.

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Sorry, I hope it’s not a problem if I answer you here @Flopdos4957, it’s just that there are a lot of separate and sparse discussions about italians, and the more we keep them together the better it is (there will be a link to your post under here).

To answer you, italians vs turks is already a bad match up for turks, even before the buff to the condos.
The condos were always good vs gunpowder, but now they are more viable in general, and versus some units like EEW or huskarls.

Still, I don’t think that they are a good arena units, yes you could find a way to use them occasionally, but they can be easily stopped and countered by walls and archers.

Maybe they could be used with a fast imp strategy with an agressive castle foward (since you need it anyway for pavise) or with some BBC (which are cheaper, but you need an university and chemistry) and/or siege towers.

There are some possibilities, but nothing too crazy.

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I have said this in another post, but yeah. Armor bonuses can work. I would go for a +1PA.

The problem of the civ, however, is that it has nothing special at all…

Still, if you compare to viets, they would have weaker eco and weaker skyrms.

People may say that Italians are good on water. So compare them to Vikings. Same level on islands, but Vikings have infinitely superior eco.

Italians also miss some sort of string late game unit compared to civs like Koreans (which now have a better eco).

In general a civs with bad eco should have a strong late game (or vice versa). Italian late game is fine but for sure they are not a powerhouse.

The only map they excel is islands, but they cannot hold the comparison with vikings that are way superior in all other scenarios.

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It is uncertain how great the impact of Italian’s buff on the win rate is. It may be too early to discuss further buff. Besides, you cant keep the topic alive for a long time. It is better to discuss later.

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This is true. Probably @DoctBaghi (or someone else) can open another topic on the future, but maybe here we can discuss some impressions we have.

My feeling is that the overall position of italians have been affected negatively. Italian competitors got a significant buff. For instance the new condos are not suitable for a fast imp since they do require a castle.

So Italians have the same problem of the previous patch (bad eco, and basically no military bonuses) but the competitors now are stronger.

So they still need something to make them viable in the early stages plus the reduction of GC TT. But on the last point even the most conservative people agree on…

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Unfortunatly, we can’t give them too much :pensive:
We should just focus on making it more viable on pure land maps, and settle for them to be a powerhouse in full water.

That’s why I think that +1PA on arbs would work, combined with FU hussars, cheaper BBC, new condos and GC that actually don’t take forever to train, it could work.
It’s not OP (still lack some powerful units like paladins, halbs or SO for example) but having arbs with +4/6 armore could give them the late game buff that they need. Just for comparison, rattan have 4(elite 6) base PA and plumes have 4(elite 5) base PA, both have also more HP and, faster, so it’s far from being OP.

Otherwise, lets just give them free armor and buff their archer rush a bit.

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I agree with this general idea, even if my feeling is that they should get a more original bonus, even at the price of pushing them away from the water meta (now Portuguese and Koreans should be capable of holding Vikings).

Also water balance is easier. In the sense that if you nerf Italians on water too much, you can just buff a water specific bonus the next patch. Assume you nerf too much the dock discount in order to extend it to economic techs. Next patch you can just buff the fishing ship discount…

But still no nice eco buff comes to my mind. Currently +1PA sounds as the best thing…

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About condos I agree.

About the TT of GC is something that simply has to be fixed.

About the archer in general, it is something that has been discussed from a long time, and it’s not being improved by the last update.

I like the new changes, but I don’t think that they improved the civ that much.

With this topic I want to discuss both the impression on the new patch (condos) and future changes.
@AbuzzJam4677680 if you think that it’s to sooner for the second, just talk about the first.

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But why renounce one civ in the water meta, especially if there are ways to buff them on land without touching the water meta.
It’s ok if they are a water civ to be stronger there, they just have to be viable and enjoyable on land.

I think that if we can avoid nerf/buff that then have to be fixed/correct with opposite buff/nerf we should, or at least try to, since it’s less work for the devs.

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I guess it would improve the gameplay. Currently Italians are very boring to play on land and they can be put in the water meta (if they are pushed out) by a proper tuning of the water bonuses.

Still I have no good ideas on this and I am supporting the +1PA at the moment…

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I think that the free armor is the bonus that would make the italians gameplay more intresting while the +1PA is the strongest.

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First of all, thanks for creating this topic @DoctBaghi, I know it takes time to write these kinds of detailed posts.
I thought quite a bit about this, and in the end I think that giving +1PA to archers and skirms from feudal is the best approach.Oh, and the TT reduction for GC, of course.

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You are welcome. It’s always a pleasure when you write a post about your favorite game, thought, maybe I shouldn’t have done it just some hours before and exam at the university. :sweat_smile: :joy:

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Probably it’s the best, but it’s good to have alternatives like the free archer armors, just in case people say that it’s OP.

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How do you see the idea of giving them an original eco buff and tuning the water bonuses to leave them as they are on water but more decent on land?

I mean, assuming we can find one.

The tuning ofc would be iterative…

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I think it’s certain that the impact will be non-existent considering it’s only the Condos that have been brought from Utter Garbage to slightly viable in Imperial Age and that a lot of other civs got buffed much stronger.

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Difficult to balance it.
First, we should think about an eco buff, wich isn’t easy since there are 35 civs, but it’s also far from impossible.

Seconds, we should balance it with the dock tech and FS discount and the cheaper age ups, so that the Italians are neither stronger nor weaker in water, but they become a bit (not too much) stronger in land.

It’s a difficult task onestly, but I’m open to discuss it.

Also, technically, the italians have an eco bonus, in the forum of cheaper fishing ships, that it could mean either a bit of wood saved, or more FS (6 for the price of 5), the problem is that you can’t use it in pure land maps, but that is a problem of other civs too (like japs and malay), so it’s fine in my opinion.

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Italians for sure need something more, but I think that the condos now at least are in a good spot, so it’s something.

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The strongest italian eco bonus the the dock discount. In feudal Japanese and malay are superior. You can tune that bonus to give them the original eco buff…

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It’s not properly and eco bonus the dock discount.
I see an eco bonus something that allows you to gather more resources, that’s why I consider the cheap FS more of a eco bonus (more FS - > more food).

For japs it’s partially true, but faster gathering FS is worse than simply more FS, but japs, FS are a lot more difficult to raid.
As malians, their real power comes in late castle/imp, with THEIR fish traps.

You can decrease the dock or age up discounts, but you have to be careful, it would require a lot of math and testing.

Also, consider that now their condos rush is pretty good, we should avoid buffing them even indirectly with an eco bonus, since then people would complain about it.