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How did you manage to make a post with less than 10chars?? Please teach us oh wise one!
Please no 
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If they were to nerf that in general it could be an idea.
But yes people will hate you for this Iām sorry. 
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I know that Iām insisting on just 2 bonus, but in my opinion those are both the one that affects the balance the least and that are more historically accurate, since Italians states used to have professional crossbowmen as military, and they used both heavy armor and big shields (pavise).
Yes I like the proposals. There are still some other ways to implement an archer bonus, which we may discuss:
- an attack bonus vs a specific class of units, for instance as persians have. It could be +1 per age vs archers or skirms or a flat +1 or a flat +2 and so on.
- an armor bonus vs anti archer attack, like condos and cataphract have. This fits the game idea of having units resistant to one of their natural counters (condos and GCs)
Personally, the idea of an anti-archer bonus fits them (I include +1PA in this).
Originally italians had a ranged option vs every unit class with pavise skirms. Now they lost that identity and making their archers to fit that role seems reasonable.
Italians may become the ranged incas/byz.
If we assume to stay on a military bonus, my preferences are (starting with the one I like more):
- +1 per age vs archers starting in Feudal
- +1 PA
- free archer armors
- hidden armor bonus vs anti archer attack
I would personally go for +1PA to archers and skirmishers starting from feudal. Including skirms gives them some flexibility at least, since otherwise everything revolves around a single unit.
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This bonus means:
- no changes vs knights
- no changes vs eagles
- no changes to resistance to building fire
- the opponent will not engage an archer fight with the same numbers. Still other archers civs have way superior eco. Vietmamese are also a counter pick. Mayans have infinitely superior eco and vs Italians may just go eagles. Britons and Ethiopians would be still in a better spot because of the superior eco and better archer to micro. Chinese are so superior that if you want a balance game you have to give italians cobra cars
The bonus overall is not OP, but clearly puts a military advantage vs non-archer civ (still Japanese/Vikings would have a superior eco).
If may work, but it would be a sort of Vietnamese bonus. Still I like it, overall the effect is similar to the anti archer attackā¦
We donāt have much choice in terms of bonii. We need some military bonus which doesnāt impact water balanceā¦italiansā top choice is ranged units, so a bonus to archers/skirms makes the most sense. Free armor upgrades is nice, but in the end itās just a minor discount/eco bonus, it hardly gives italians a decent advantage. +1PA should give italians a better chance at fending off attacks during feudal and getting safely to castle age, where they can start making use of their strengths.
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my manā¦ i know i come with āmind blowing ideas like camel archers get + 1 attack vs cavalryā
but have you even remotely considered how this will change archers vs skirms? from 18 hits to 7ā¦ and thats FU skirmsā¦ nevermind the sub par skirmsā¦ (5 hits to kill the non FU skirm like franks) while theyāre killing you in minimum 7 hits, italian arbs will obliterate skirms
youāre killing FU arbs in 5 hits intead of 7ā¦ thats way more powerful, and dying in 8 hits instead of 7.
8 vs 5 hitsā¦
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Yes but with GC that have a bonus vs cavalry there isnāt a lot of options:
- cavalry is GC specialty
- infantry wouldnāt be that big of a deal, since they already are good vs infantry (and they got cheap HC too).
- maybe other archer? But you would have to exclude skirms.
- buildings already exist for other civ.
- maybe siege? I donāt know if people will be in favorā¦
You canāt deny skirms bonus, at that point itās more balanced +1PA.
Also thatās kinda similar to rattan, and I know you want to avoid for Italians to become more similar to them.
Free archer armors tough would affect archer, skirms, CA, HC and GC for every age, it it more flexible in that aspect.
The problem is that itās difficult to not include skirms, plus for counter archers ESkirms would still be better.
If it could be possible to differentiate skirms from other archer it could work, but +1PA would be easier to implement and it would have a similar effect.
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not that im against it, but would make GC very tanky (13 hits to die instead of 7 for a vanilla FU arb) would give them some consolation for their low range
i wouldnt mind this. but even +1 bonus damage means in castle age weāre killing mangonels in 25 instead of 50 hits. S Onagers in 24 instead of 35
this could help them vs mali/goths before the transition from archers into HC, but might be too good since it has such a big impact on huskarls?
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also donāt forget rams
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No the +1PA bonus has be designed to affect only standard xbow line. At the best skirms too, but not the GC.
The GC get the TT reduction of around 4 seconds.
Yeah but HC are already underused, I donāt want to give more reasons to donāt use them.
Yeah basically out of the standard 4 counter to archers, cavalry would be countered by GC, manganels and rams would be countered by standard xbows, it would remain only skirms.
Which again, they are the best counter to archersā¦
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That would be even better. I am fine as long as it at least includes both archer-line and skirms.
Well free archer armors is a tech that eventually you would research every game that you make use of at least one of those units, wich means saving some resources (feudal 100f, castle 150f 150g, imp 250f 250g) but more importantly out-tech you opponent every age. It would good for archers rush or fast imp into HC.
The downside is that overall you units would be the same as they are now.
As for +1PA, you would still have to research the 3 techs (maybe you can delay them by a bit) but the time effect would be similar (having more PA than your opponent when age up), plus, in imp your arbs would actually be better than the enemy ones, and they would be able to compete with britons, mayans, viets and etiopians.
The downside is that you donāt save any resources.
This bonus is thought for standard xbow only, it could be extended to skirms too, but I would prefer to limit it archers to be sure that at least one of the 2 gets it.
Then you counterintuively end up with arbalests with more PA than a guy with a giant shield on his back? GC and arbs will both take 10 arb hits to die. It also means thereās multiple cases where arbs are actually harder to kill than GC (example Persian xbow, 20 vs 17 hits)
I understand balance comes first. But is there no other way?
Guess itās good for Italy either way.
Just means thereās even less incentive for Italy to train their UU vs non cav civs. Making that upgrade to EGC even more expensive than it should be.
Yeah I know it seem ridiculousā¦ but no more than mayans using metal crossbows.
In my opinion itās either that or free armor bonus, there arenāt a lot of other opinions that donāt disturb the balance too much.
But of course Iām open to discuss other ideas too.
The idea is that with the reduction of TT for GC should incourage people to go for them whenever they face a good cavalry or cavalry archers civs, but also to easier the transition to them, or even have just a few of them for discourage the enemy of using cavalry support units.
While the standard xbow with +1PA should be used versus all other civs.
If you think that standard arbs shouldnāt have more PA than GC then you can support the free armor argument.
Italians already save enough resources
I was just proposing the idea, in fact I said that the bonus could be even just a +1. Or +2. Here to discuss.
Do you think that even a +1 or a +2 would be OP?
on water yes. On land it is a big issue: they have the weakest eco in the game plus no military bonuses. So I would say that on land they should save much more if it comes to an eco buff instead of a military one