I mean, on one player it’s ok, but multiply that bonus by four player… it would mean that in every 4v4 every team would have a Spanish and an Italian.
And would still have to came up with a new UT.
I mean, not top tier or very good. But at least fishing ships and gillnets are cheaper.
While on arabia we agree that they are very lacking. I believe that the conditional bonus is even easier than the military one to balance
Yes, it helps for sure, but even here Mongols bonus (for example, but it could be celts or another civ…) it’s still better, like most of the other pure land bonus.
And they are far from being on the level of japs and malays, which both have a lot more food and also both save more wood.
So they aren’t top tier (behind japs and malays) and not even mid tier (behind Mongols, Celts and such…).
How many tiers are there? If you divide the civs in 3 groups, italians are in the strongest one…
Still I do believe we should discuss this conditional bonus option. It opens so many possibilities
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I didn’t dived in tiers, but if I have to I would put japs and malay in the S tier, and mongol and Celts in the A tier.
Now one could think of putting the Italians behind japs and malay in the S tier, but if they are weaker and lose verus the civ of the A tier, you can’t put them in the S tier.
Assuming that there are 3 tier, probably italians would be on the B tiers, along civ like portos, berbers, cumans… for sure they would on top of those, but still a bit underwhelming for a water civ.
Here I would put italians a bit higher than berbers. There are even people saying that Italians are in the top 5 in hybrids.
Anyway, don’t you think the conditional bonus is a very versatile option? It would fix perfectly all the land maps.
Italians could be at least decent in all the maps but islands. Without balance issues.
Well, of course every one can have their opinion, but while with their eco can be decent, their military lag behind a lot of other civs.
Well, personally, you know that I don’t like bonus more similar to aoe3 than aoe2, they are 2 different games, and I’m skeptical that it could work.
However it could work on paper, but there is still to consider how it would affect the condos fast imp.
You can propose one:
If Italians have no fishing ships, then the following holds:…
What would you put?
My proposal was: every TC generates 20f/min from feudal. Up to 100f/min as max effect.
Mine has a minimum effect since the fast imp is the start with the longest dark age
It is still a boost to their condos fast imp.
Then, even if it could work, personally I don’t like trickle for free in aoe2.
It’s not that little…
It is. By definition a fast imp:
- has a long dark age
- is fast
A trickle bonus starting from feudal is then the less affecting it. Because its rewards increase with time (and a fast imp is fast, so you it takes a short time to get to imp where the trickle gives you resources). Moreover a relevant portion of the time is spent in dark age.
You can make the computation by yourself, but it is less than 2 condos boost. To balance a fast imp the trickle option is actually one of the best possibilities.
Maybe I was not clear in explaining the mechanics, sorry. But it is actually perfect for that goal.
That’s only you are on a map like arena, but it changes if you are on a map like arabia.
Some days ago e hera tested the new condos on arabia, he age up from dark a lot sooner than standard arena games and instead spent more time in feudal, for 2 reasons:
- he could harass the enemy with some archers (praying to God that the enemy didn’t train skirms) in order to buy more time for it’s fast imp.
- he had more units to use to defend himself (spears and skirms).
Then he proceeded in castle (spending less time as he can and using the castle as his age up building) and then imp into condos.
So that’s why I think that a little buff to their archers would help them more than an eco bonus, italians would be able to put up a good fight in feudal and make some real damage, and then close the game either in castle or imp.
But in such strategy it would become strong, it’s not that impossible or difficult to simply spend the time that you would spend in dark instead in feudal, it even better if you consider that you can grab the eco upgrades.
The effect is still very modest, you can compute it easily 
I don’t know… Well let’s hope that they’ll get at least something with the next patch, especially less TT for GC, and then maybe something else.
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So @DoctBaghi, I will try another proposal, which satisfies your requests:
- it is a minor military bonus
- it affects archers
- it is not from aom
Before someone says it is OP or useless, let me compare it with the +1 attack we have discussed.
You will see that this bonus is almost always weaker and does not make, at all, archers OP.
The bonus is this:
Archer-line shots one extra ckn-like arrow.
The extra arrow deals 1 piece damage and 0 melee damage (for a ckn is 3 pierce and 0 meele and the extra arrows are 3 for the normal, 5 for the elite).
Vs almost all the units
The bonus is weaker than +1attack since the extra arrow is inaccurate. So sometimes it has no effect, sometimes it is equal to a +1 attack.
Vs high PA targets (huskarls, rattans, Lithuanian imp skyrm)
Archers deal +1 damage if the extra arrow hits. Still all the mentioned units hard counter archers.
vs rams
Archers deal 4 damages. This is not comparable to e ckns which deal 16 damages I believe. Basically you need 4 arbs to have the same dps of one single (and cheaper in gold) ckn. If you do think this is too much, the damage of the extra arrow should be set to 1 pierce, -3 melee, to have just +1 vs rams.
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I’m not against +1 attack, nor I’m against an eco bonus (I just fear that people may think that the fast imp into condos may be OP), the only bonus that I really don’t like are the trickles (but it a personal opinion, I don’t deny that it could work on paper).
If we want to buff the attack let’s just increase the attack, it’s not that one extra arrow it would be OP, but it wouldn’t be that historically accurate, plus the double xbow is kinda the trademark of the Kmer.
I’m not against bonus damage, I just argued that eventually vs the skirms it shouldn’t be too hight, but if it’s just +1 vs all archers (skirms included) it could work.
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If the second arrow hits, there is no difference between a +1 and this bonus.
Despite some specific circumstances, the bonus would be weaker or equal to a +1 attack.
Also cumans and China have that bonus. For cumans I guess it just represents the ability of the cumans with bows
No I know but that’s the caratteristic of the Kmer and chukos, italians xbow never showed such technology.
I mean, I know that balance came before historic accuracy, but still there has to be a limit.
Yeah that’s true, I mean, I guess we could explain the second arrow with the Italians ability to fast reload the crossbow to shot right after the first one… but that’s a big stretch…
Can we talk how overpriced the Elite GC upgrade is? For 750f 900g you just get +5HP, +2 bonus damage and -3 TT which is still awful long. It used to remove the terrible 3 reload rate handicap so it was somewhat worth, now that’s not the case either
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that does seem awfully expensive for an upgrade, and it’s widely acknowledged that their training time is excessive.
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