This is the real advantage to me. Indeed, for microing britons and Ethiopians are still much better than a small speed boost.
But with extra speed you can keep the archer mass alive, which is very helpful especially if you have a bad eco, especially in feudal where there are no knights and eagles are a pity to train.
It is way less useful if you are forced to keep a position, like to keep a Forward gold
It’s not only that. You are giving a civ with good timings also the luxury of having a more mobile version of the unit that at the moment still rules the meta for the sake of making it better on arabia
Infact speed is not the way to go. Archers do not need more speed and mobility, that would make them too strong.
Thus why i much more like armor. Not that strong, but Italians do not need a big buff. They Need a small army buff from feudal that gives their archers and identity, and a look at their UUs (condos bonus vs eagles and maybe more? Geno xbows Better Elite upgrade)
It clearly depends on how much extra speed is given.
Armor, fast hp regen, but maybe even something more creative like a secondary effect as the units recently introduced
Agree. I think a normal archer with the same speed of a rattan archer shouldnt be OP in the absence of extra pierce armor.
In feudal age, archer speed is good for raiding or against skirms. Against infantry or towerw it shouldnt be significantly helpful because how archers fight against them. Against scouts… Maybe?
However, in castle age, italians archers can have extra armor, so extra speed would make their archer as mini rattan archer that dont require castles for production.
In my opinion, a civ with faster archers shouldnt have full archer techtree… Maybe they should miss thumbring or the last archer armor.
To be honest, a nerf for the Italians would be a good idea such as removing their cavalry archer because Italians didn’t use horse archers.
I like the idea even if the civ actually needs a buff
remove cavalry archers and give something in addition would be good since no one uses CA with italians anyway
they need a feudal “thing” for their archer, since atm they are the sole archery civ with nothing going for them. Chinese at least have cheaper tech which also affects their archers from feudal. italians just have cheaper ballistic and pavise which is worse than vietnamese 20% HP bonus at that stage but payd
This sounds like a good idea.
I wonder if there are other options in addition to armor or speed
options are infinite, i just think italians do not need anithing big and a bit of armor would make their archer feel cool and have a “thing” and would make Pavise less bad since armor is incrementally good, having +2/+2 after civ bonus and pavise would be something like vietnamese bonus. probably still worse but at least unique, and on theme with italians “armor theme” represented by their fine art in blasksmithery and in game by full blacksmith tech and pavise. would be perfect buff to help their feudal play and give their archer a “thing”
add then a buff to elitè genoese upgrade or simply make it cheaper, add bonus vs eagles for condos, and italians are perfectly fine and done
This is my real only complain about the extra armor. Italians would be just worse than viets. Worse arches (until pavise) worse eco.
Maybe +1/1 armor in feudal and extra +1/1 armor in castle age (total +2/2) would work better. But then a new pavise should be given (hp regeneration? Less TT? Speed?). Or pavise could just affect UUs and maybe skyrms (no archers since they altready get +2/2)
I mean, I would like to see the extra armor bonus (even if I would prefer speed), just saying that a straight +1/1 would still leave Italians clearly behind Vietnamese.
yeah that’s true but italians do have others assets and do not need a big buff to be good even on land. their “eco bonus” is more flexible than vietnamese one, and they have discounted tech, and much better water. better cav also to complement arbalest. i like vietnamese a lot, but i just think that italians need a little buff for feudal more to make their archer feel unique over others than actual powers, even if that +1/+1 would add a bit of power to their archer in feudal, castle age and on pavise and discounted ballistic and chemistry are fine for me, they just lack a feudal buff and an identity, and that would make they the “armored archer” civ, which would not be the best, but would be unique
To be at least comparable with viets, I would consider this. Maybe I am wrong, with the computation/memory.
A knight deals 10 dmg/hit to a xbow (assuming same blacksmith techs for attack and armor). So it kills:
If you provide hp regeneration to the +1MA xbow, then if it regenerats 2 hp during the fights, it would survive 4 hits with 1hp.
Just saying that combining hp regen and extra armor would be pretty ok to match viets. I would even give pavise another effect if needed for balance
I do not like regen on archers also because It does not fit anywhere near italians. They are not bulky or phisically strong as Vikings berserker for example.
Also the problem is that you think the bonus needs to be comparabile in power to vietnamese but i disagree. I think Italians have assets that vietanemse do not have, and also have water going for them, so their Land Archer being slightly weaker is ok, since they have broader options to compensate like FU hussar and cavalier
The problem i see atm is they completely lack a unique thing to give them an identity. They do not need something strong per se, they need something that makes you say " oh i wanna try Italians because their archers get this cool unique bonus" something you cannot say atm
Other than that, the +1/+1 bonus would be worse in Castle in some MU, but would still be somewhat equal in Archer vs Archer and Archer vs skirms situations if my math is correct, and then when you add pavise to double down on it, suddenly it’s equal in most situations (both 5 kits requires from a knight), much better in Archer shootouts (generic arbalest would do 4 damage, meaning 10 arrows required, while vietnamese requires 8 arrows) while still being worse against mangonels, and not applying as much on skirmisher, nor to CA unlike vietanamese one, so they would still be different
So all in all, It would be a perfect buff to give their archers strenght and identity. If then it’s too strong, something can be taken from their water prowess to balance new land capabilities if needed
I completely agree with this.
Again, I am very favorable to an archer bonus like +1/1 armor. Just trying to figure out other options. Given the fact that they have a armor UT, the buff you propose is very reasonable.
I was thinking that at least for archers. But agan, everything is fine atm to fix the civ in the early stages, even a bonus not acting directly on archers.
But they are already fine. They are not strong on open maps, but they are not weak either and they are pretty good in basically every other settings.
Every time you think of something like this, you have to keep in mind that you are buffing also their late game. Their archers are already good, with this bonus they would have 6 pierce armor
which would not be signiicant since they have 40 HP anyway and things that do damage at range to them either deal a tons of damage (like castles) or deal damage that ignores armor (like skirmisher). it would be meaningful in archer shootout, but it’s basicallly the same as the vietnamese HP bonus which no one complains about and it’s even considered somewhat lackluster for archers, and it’s free, and it applies to skirm and CA as well, while you would get the same effect, or better but only for archer vs archer situations, only in late game, and just for archers alone.
at the end of the day, armor is really the least important stat for archers.
PA is overall a much stronger stat tha HP, compare for example Burmese Elite Battle Elephants to Vietnamese Elite Battle Elephants, with just 2 extra PA Burmese eles take 320 shots from arbalest before die, while Vietnamese ones only up to 140 shots, both are ofc quite resistant to arrows but best ones are clearly Burmese ones.
Current Italian arbalest takes one extra shot than ordinary ones (same for vietnamese arbalest), with 6 PA enemy arbalests will need 10 shots.
If the armor is the least important thing then I don’t see how it will helps Italians in feudal, where they are at the weakest?
Which is one of the most common thing in the current meta
No, it’s not. Vietnamese arbalester tank 8 shots, Italians would tank 10. This means that the italians arbalesters would be really good in imp in one of the most common situation, the arbs vs arbs fight
Now, let’s analyze a couple of other options.
In feudal and castle it is just a straight up better version than the Korean, because it is still free and on top of that you can get your usual armor upgrade for a +2 defense in feudal. Archers have 30 hp and in an archer vs archer fight with full upgrades they would take 3 hits instead of 4. This means 10 hits instead of 8. if we compare it to viet archers (FU), they take 9 hits.
Now, let’s talk castle age (not considering pavise): italians crossbows could tank 9 hits instead of 7. Now, here vietnamese can tank 9 hits from other crossbows, just like italians, but the latter on top of that, also have bonus on the university with cheaper balistics. If we count pavise (and we should not, since it requires a castle), italians crossbows get up to 4 pierce armor, which means that they tank 12 shots.
Those bonuses also influence the fights when skirmisher are mixed, wether you think it matters or not, and cav archers. Pierce armor is an incredibly strong stat in aoe2
So, it is a bonus that influence the early game (since you are facing someone having straight up way better archers than you), probably forcing the opponent at either outmassing you or going for skirms. Going for skirms or outmassing you means you are later to castle age (which usually you are going to be anyway since they need less res to click up) and that would lead to a really strong castle age transition with the immediate balistics.
The problem is, that this also buff them on arena/closed maps (a settings in which they are pretty good) by making their arbs just straight up better (and it kinda matters when you are rushing imp to get the arbs power spike) and on hybrid maps (again a setting in which they are already good) by giving them better options.
You people continue to repeat that what they need is a buff to their military to make them more competitive on open maps, but forget that a military bonus makes them better in basically every other setting except water.
Not every civ has to be equally viable on each setting and on top of that they are not by a wide margin the worse civ for open maps