Portuguese has only 2 active bonuses about gold discount and more HP of ships.
Even it has better gold discount bonus now, the effect is still a doubt.
If Italians will get that new archer bonus, Portuguese can not have the same one.
So even we just talk about the Italians, maybe we still have to consider about other civs.
Yes that will be the best ideal situation but we still are mentally prepared.
Italians has best navy in the game, sometimes even better than Viking.
There already is a topic talking about portos, so if you have suggestion you can go there and talk about it.
Here is the link: 
Yeah true, and I donāt want to buff them in water. The problem is, that water is a lot less common than land, so basically italians are a civ that you see only in full water maps (not even hybrid). On land itās like there are 34 civs (35 - italians).
Also, while most land bonus could still be used on full water maps (eco bonus are always useful, and militay ones can be used for landings) water bonus cannot be used on pure land, and on hybrid they have a situetional and limited use.
I donāt want to make italians OP on land, just viable, so that their archers (they are classified as an archer and navy civ, but wile their navy is good, their archer are pretty generic for an archer civ) have a viable and a bit out of the ordinary strategy.
A military bonus has the huge advantage it has a negligible effect on water.
An eco bonus has the advantage to potentially make them nicer to play, or even more original. Up to now, regarding the proposals for eco bonus:
The military bonus and the age up buff are the easiest ones. But there is the risk they result either negligible or such that they do not push an identity for the civ.
The general discount is very standard but probably a bit weak.
The gold trickle is the most diverse, which is good and bad at the same time. Probably it is the easiest to balance
Yeah but we are talking about free or a bit more armor, nothing too crazy.
Itās not like we want to give Italians xbows insane range to kill onagers or thay discount them by a third and give them a bonus to trash any buildingā¦
Why would they be more original? I mean, that their options, if you give them an eco bonus you just see the same strategys. It would be just a bit easier to implement them.
While +1PA or free archer armor could actually change their strategy, hear me out:
To me this is a more original and radical (without be OP both on land and water) change that they could get.
Plus, the free armor itās a small eco bonus too, since you save 100f in feudal, 150f and 150g in castle, and 250f and 250g in imp, which combined with the cheap age up itās nice.
The +1PA is a small eco bonus too, since it means that every age you can delay a lot your archer armour upgrade (eventually though you have to grab them).
The eco setting can be given a more specific identity.
I like the +1PA option, but still they would remain the weakest archer civ. Ethiopians would just be better since more dps is better for archers, and with better eco. Viets would have similar archers up to pavise and better eco. Britons and Mayans would remain miles ahead, as non-archer civ with better eco, like Japanese and Vikings.
Again, +1PA is better than nothing, and I would prefer to see them with +1PA instead of what they are now, objectively too weak (the age up discount is too small).
Despite not that great, the other proposals help to make the civ different, which is the most important thing imo. Fine if a civ is not top tier, but the civ should be original and decent. Vietmamese are a good example. Same for celts. Currently Italians are both weak and without any signature feature. On land they literary miss a bonus until to a modest +1/1 from an UT.
a consistent improvement of the age up discount (consistent means more than 20%), balanced with the dock discount, could give them a real original playstyle based on quick age up.
The one relic gold trickle is a very original bonus, despite modest, opening to some innovative strategies. For instance italians could upgrade scouts with bloodlines without mining camps, after a whileā¦
I repeat I am not against the +1PA, I was one of the first people supporting the idea of armored archers, I just would like to see Italians as a different civ, more than another archer civ weaker than the current archer civs.
If I want to play archers, I will pick vietmamese of Ethiopians over a +1PA Italians.
A better age up or a gold trickle would make me pick italians to do something different
Yeah, but a lot less weak, and then they can compensate with their flexible tech tree.
Yeah, that true, but at least they could perform a straight archer rush in feudal, and then they would still have GC, condos, hussars, all units that viets donāt have.
To me the most important thing is to make them viable, not necessarily unique.
And they would still be unique with 2 UU and their water play.
Well, it would be the same that itās now, just a bit betterā¦
I donāt see how they would be more unique than now.
If I have to judge it just for the uniqueness, noā¦
Itās not that original (similar to aztecs or Indians) and the impact on the civ it would be negligible, so the Italians wouldnāt change their usual strategy at allā¦
Think about it, it wouldnāt improve scouts, or knights, and they would still have the same problem for archer rush.
Also, italians arenāt really a gold dependent civ, they donāt have paladins, SO or a costly UU.
With those bonuses, Italians would be able to beat etiopians, and maybe britons and mayans too.
As for viets, they are the anti-archer archer civ by definition, so itās fine if Italians archers lose vs theirs.
But what would you do different in practice?
In late game yes, in feudal and castle being able to survive more vs skirms and other archers is better.
In general one relic gold trickle is close to a +1 vill. Which is a fine boost, despite it is not starting from dark age as goths, mayans, Chinese, old persiansā¦
Some strategies from such a bonus:
Everything is modest, the bonus is not clearly game changing. However it allows you to play in a different way, and it is not difficult to balance:
So a good first guess for balancing this gold trickle is dock discount at 33% (or less) in castle age. I would set 30%ā¦
We can do the computation for imp as wellā¦
Every civ can for whatever build order or strat, it simply may not be optimal. Also, being a one trick pony is fine simply because all civs are different: Franks can still go for xbow, but it would not be optimal. Should we give them arbs? Brits can still go kts, but it would not be optimal: should we give them bloodlines?
They are not a one trick pony, since they can go both for arbs or cav and be effective
Who are you to tell whatās boring for other people lmao
And ffs stop with this siege trash stuff, because thereās only 2 outcome: being op or being too costly
Winrates show that being an one trick pony is actually more than fine.
Franks are literally the case study for why AoE2 civs just need their main strat to be strong enough, to be competitive, and not actually have an abundance of options.
The only generalist (jack-of-all-trades) civ that does well, is Chinese, and that is because of the progressive tech discount that eases transition.
All other generalist and open-teched civs actually tend to do worse than the one trick ponies, by a significant margin.
Letās assume that thatās correct and balanced:
That would help in water too.
It usually need more than 1 vill, also you would still need to send vills to gold if you want to advance to castle age.
Plus, gold isnāt much of a problem until imp, for the first 3 ages wood, food and partially stone too are more important than gold (itās the reason why turks have the worst eco bonus).
That simply would bring back the old vikings slow mirror warsā¦
Yeah, the problem is that italians pony isnāt that good as franks one (or other civsā¦).
Thatās why I would like for them to have a small land bonus for archers, so that their one trik pony becomes a little better.
I would have agreed before, specially with Free Archer Armour upgrades, but now the Condottier is really strong. Italians basically have an Eagle Warrior.
In imp, but you are dead way beforeā¦still a small boost to their eco/military to get imp is very needed. Something like one of these:
The problem is that Italians are exactly the same in early stagesā¦
They do Age Up sooner, though, and with less resources.
I am talking about a nice strategy to go for on land. For water balance it easier to say you have +1 vill. I am saying that having a virtual villager on gold allows you, on land, to research fletching (or bloodlines if going scouts) in situations where you would be forced to build a mining camp.
In water this does not make sense (as in an archer strategy) since you are already on gold. In water battle it is just +1vill. In land it can be used in a slightly different way (see example of fletching in towers and bloodlines in scouts).
The important message is that it is still 1 vill. For water and land, sorry if I am not that clear.
Sometimes you wait a lot before putting vills on gold. However, if you do (for instance you open archers) then read the bonus as +1 vill.
Sorry but I do not understand. I have computed the number to maintain the resource advantage they have in castle age. If I have not performed a computation mistake, this is exactly the number that leaves everything as it is now. Maybe I did a computation wrong, but the logic is this: