Seeing people voted for techs like sipahi, chieftains or atlatl you might not have been the only one 11
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I haven’t voted for it as worst, but pavise is pretty much the 6th pick i had made given the chance. Extra armor on Archer is almost useless, especially only +1/+1. And does not even apply to skirmisher.
It’s basically mathematically worse than vietnamese bonus HP but payd
It applies to three units and it doesn’t cost gold so it’s a pretty good tech imo. At least for a castle age one. I’d think pavise is surely among the top 10 castle age UT.
Also Medical corps and Paper Money are both like, a trickle of basically nothing 
what? it costs gold. 150 infact. it’s a cheap tech i give you that, but it apply to one unit that does not even exist in castle (condottiero) and that is not strong to begin with, and to archers, for which armor is almost useless. again, it’s mathematically worse than vietnamese HP bonus in castle age, and they gain that for free
You’re right it does cost gold (sometimes it would be better to check stuff before claiming it 11) but not much so who cares. And sure it doesn’t fundamentally change how strong your units are but it improves your main units for basically all situations making it better than most other castle age UTs that are rather niche. I get it in 9 out of 10 games I play as Italians. And btw just because it’s a UT does not mean it has to be better than other civs regular bonuses. I mean most civs with arbs would love to have 2+ range or faster firing archers as cheap castle age UT.
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the problem i see is that that tech is literally the only direct buff for archer italians have, so it better be good. other archery civs are defined by a unique bonus, while italians do not. that’s why i always stress about a feudal buff for italians archer with my favorite being +1/+1 armor for archers and skirms, so that when you get pavise, you double down on that and the +2/+2 combined starts looking interesting, even if still mathematically worse than vietnamese bonus. so it’s not the bonus tech per se, it’s the fact that it carries the civ archer identity and does not do that
i obviously get the tech in almost every game simply because it’s still a buff and it’s cheap, but that does not mean i get it gladly or it’s strong.
then factor in your other unique tech for italians is Silk Road, presence of which in the game still bugs me as its just horrible, and you can see why pavise look even more lackluster
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Okay but tbf don’t expect a castle age UT to carry a civ. In fact most civs castle age UT are pretty useless (or at least very situational). So it shouldn’t replace a good civ bonus or an imp UT.
In the end Italians is a late game oriented civ that shines in flexibility and deathball comp. Before that point it is mainly characterized by cheaper stuff mostly related to archer play. Imo that already is enough to qualify it as an archer civ. Not the archer civ you default into on arabia but very strong in basically every other map type.
Huns should get a tech that increases the cavalry archer’s range and Mongols should have a tech that gives them a grenadier or thunder crash bomb.
Regenerating 15 HP per minute for a 250 HP unit is joke.
It should be doubled or tripled.
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I voted Greek Fire (Byzantines) cause it’s not used in most maps, and even on water maps I’m not sure it makes much difference anyway against the Vikings you’ll obviously be facing.
And voted Cuman Mercenaries, but I agree the Huns UT is even worse! 50% less relic gold has no impact when almost nobody relies on relics for gold income anyway.
Water UTs are similar to monk UTs. You do not build a castle when you are going water/monk…
Other bad UTs are ofc celts and mongols.
Silk road is useless in 1v1 for an already weak civ and probably worse than several team/civ bonuses affecting trade units.
Huns are okish atm. Yes their imp UT is bad, but at leat now it has a reson to exist…
I’m very surprised that Flemish Revolution doesn’t have more votes. In my opinion, it’s the worst technology in the game.
Do you mean the design of the tech? Because I think in a competitive game it’s not a bad tech. It’s expensive, that’s fore sure, but it can win you a game just like that in some circumstances.
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Stronghold could also add Castle HP (Great Wall has the Tower HP) to make up for the lack of Architecture.
I actually think the Hun UT is pretty cool (not good in ranked tho), to the extent that I’d hate to see it scrapped. Unpopular opinion of course, but 100 extra years in wonder games is pretty significant, and cutting relics in half is pretty useful in FFA (yes, I know civ design isn’t primarily balanced around those modes, but it’s nice to throw those players a bone every now and then, as long as the civ is still good in ranked). IMO it should keep both of these current features, but also gain functionality that makes it better in competitive play. IIRC in AOE1 the Macedonians had some crazy bonus like having 400% of the normal conversion resistance. We don’t have to be that extreme, but serving as a cheaper (possibly stronger) version of Faith for the civ is one option. Another idea might be adding perhaps a bonus 10% anti-building damage modifier to all their units to reflect their status as “the Scourge of God” and overthrower of cities.
Some UTs are a dreadful combination of boring and (nearly) useless. Even in a high res situation, I don’t know that something like Royal Heirs or Greek Fire are ever worth getting. Inquisition is an iffy one as well, where by the time you have a Castle, you’re better spending your res on conqs than on monks and a situational UT. Mostly I’m in favor of reworking techs over scrapping them, but I’d rather they actually made the Missionary useful (by giving it an Inquisition-like bonus for free…since missionaries were literally “conversion specialists”) than having an iffy tech and a meme unit in the same civ.
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Yeah, I mean the design. I don’t like one time techs in general, but this one is badly designed even for one of those.
The main problem with Greek Fire has been its accuracy. There have been calls to give the Romans/Byzantines the Fire Tower, which would add a coolness factor to that tech. It is a fine upgrade under some circumstances.
Why not have Atheism reduce the gold generation of enemy relics to zero? Would it be too unfair?
Yes lol. Relics are already a pain to get
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