Potential Feudal Buffs for Italians?

Well that’s certainly up for debate. Tier lists can be discussed endlessly, point is just that they performed well and were picked not only picked at the end but also among the first two picks. Granted there are some bans but still in a lot of drafts they were chosen super early in drafts and this across the whole tournament from early to late rounds.

Bohemians? Italians should be the single best civ vs bohemians as condos kill every unit they can make in the long run. So you’re basically forced to go monk rush here and while bohemians do that better than Italians they still a decent civ vs that strat. And for defensive against Burgundians Italians also is one of the better civs as fast paladin only works if you surprise and flemish rev is op anyways but with good arbs, bbc, condos and cheap uni upgrades Italians is agaiin one of the better civs vs that. Portuguese I also don’t see why Italians would struggle here.

Cheap bbc makes more than up for this.

Fair enough and I don’t want to interrupt the discussion about that. Point is just as the civ is very strong on two map types and at least decent on open ones that sounds already pretty balanced to me.

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Emm no, arbs kills condos pretty easily, and condos themselves aren’t that great…

Not really… portoghese have the same gold cost, and SE, and and UT… basically any good gunpowder civ have SE, it’s needed for that +1 range, otherwise other BBC can snipe yours.

Thanks. And for the most I actually agree with you, except for some small points. The fact is that most maps are arabia style maps, arena and water are more niches.

Anyway, what about instead of the TR bonus? Is that OP too?

Well first off Italian arbs are way better than bohemian arb and also you can just add skirms behind condos. Btw are condos are pretty strong on arena now. Easy to mass, move quick and they can basically take down any gunpowder units super fast. They also don’t die that fast to arbs bc of 5 pierce armor, movement speed and good hp. In fact they can even counter an early imp arb push and only start losing when arb numbers are very high. But that’s a situation you don’t want to get into as bohemians anyways.

Yeah but se and ut are so expensive that you only see them late game and while Italians have better eco and more unit variety you usually don’t want to tech into gunpowder too heavy vs italians since the condo switch can happen so fast that you’ll lose all your units in one blow. I mean what makes portuguese strong on arena is the fast imp feitoria thing and that can be tricky to both execute and defend from. How that plays out will usually decide the game and not some theoretical se in late game.

Tbh I dont think that would make a huge difference. First off I’m not a huge fan of having techs one age earlier but anyways in feudal thumb ring would be way too expensive even if it’s a bit cheaper. I guess you could get on your way up to castle. But then why not reduce cost techs of ranges a bit in general? So that xbow and tr would be somewhat cheaper? I mean I’m not too convinced Italians really need that as cheaper age ups, cheaper uni techs and unit variety already stack pretty well. But if I were too propose something like that I’d go for this one. Yes it’s not feudal but it’s early castle so imo early enough and Italians don’t tend to stay too long in few anyways bc it doesn’t really fit their playstyle.

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Yeah but at that point skirms and manganels/BBC counter bohemians composition better…

Unless you panic, I don’t see reasons to use condos.

Unless you have all the upgrades, including the UT, they don’t do much… hell even castle age xbows can deal with them.

Yeah, they are fast, have decent HP, decent armor, but far from an huskarls, and the attack isn’t that great…

I meant that if portos can have the same cheap BBC, SE and a UT, italians can get at least SE. Almost all other gunpowder civs (and some non gunpowder civs too) have way better BBC.

You just need BBC. If you have cav or arbs to screen your BBC Italians condos are useless.

Also, SE would be affected by the uni discount for Italians.

To avoid exaggerating… just TR doesn’t risk to be OP…

That was the main idea, save some resources and some time. Sometimes you may be able to get it even sooner, but for the most is a late feudal buff.

Problem is that the uni itself still cost a lot…

I prefer to leave civ bonus alone currently. Minor buff seems ok. But both of your proposed buff are pretty strong.

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Me too generally speaking. Originally I thought of giving them a discounted uni as a additional bonus, but then bohemians came up with that…

Then again, these 2 ideas came to mind, and even if I wouldn’t add them right away, I thought that it was worth to at least discuss them.

They of course haven’t to come in their strongest form. The fortification bonus may be limited to just “walls are built 15% faster” and the TR bonus could be limited to the early access, or the discount, not necessarily both.

In the end, they might be decent buff for other civs too, and we still have a certain amount of civs that aren’t that good o arabia.

In general I am very favorable to a feudal buff since the only thing the civ has in feudal is 75f spared. Probably the worst feudal age in the game outside water.

This is okay but I doubt it can be nice to play.

This would give an expensive tech in feudal for a civ with probably the worst eco.

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I think that it’s not that necessary, but I had those 2 ideas, and I thought that it doesn’t hurt to pass them through the forum.

I’m actually less enthusiastic now than before about them… :sweat_smile:

The fortification bonus seems to incourage just Trush strategies, while I thought it for a better protect, fast and smooth feudal age.

The TR bonus instead should have played into their already existing strengths, by saving on expensive archer techs. Giving access to it in feudal was to made their feudal age less conventional, but for the most the tech would have probably be researched on the way to imp.

I still think that an eventual bonus should be small, so that’s why I suggested those 2. I thought of a market and monastery one too, but I had no good ideas…

The only other thing came to mind looking at the bohemians, and how they usually use the arbs instead of the early HC. The HC in fact is an expensive unit, and as they are now, they are difficult to mass in the castle age.

So basically, italians and bohemians could exchange a bonus each:
The italians gunpowder bonus would be changed into:

  • Cannons units (BBC and CG) Cost 20% less. (so HC aren’t included anymore).

Bohemians bonus then get charged into:

  • Blacksmith and monastery cost 100 wood less. (so university isn’t included anymore).

So then, they can exchange the bonuses:

  • Italians get: university cost -100 wood
  • **Bohemians get: HC cost 20% less
    (bohemians then should lose the arb to balance that)

I know that it’s not a feudal buff, but at least their early castle age would be better…

As a feudal bonus, you can make italians able build an university and research certain techs in feudal.
But what ones? Ballistics and guard tower would be OP, albeit expensive (even after discount)for feudal.masonry and fortified walls could be interesting for walling

Ballistics is the only one that make sense. It’s not OP, since it will anyway research it while going to castle age, or in super late feudal.

Getting masonry for just palisade walls isn’t that useful, since it’s just about 15HP more. The armor is more useful, but anyway in feudal only M@A are a danger to buildings, and you see them rarely.

Treadmill crane is the only other upgrades not OP, but again it’s not useful either. It’s effect it’s too small to be useful, unless you make it free.

All the other are either OP or useless even in castle age.

But the main problem rest, you can’t anticipate a 200 wood building to the feudal age, even if its techs cost less.

To be moved to the feudal age, the uni should cost way less, maybe even less than the bohemians uni.

That’s why I suggested to instead anticipate TR, that way you don’t have to worry about another building.

I think blacksmith (just building not tech) and market available one age earlier is fine enough to help resource exchange and catching up opponent. But Italians probably remain unchanged in next two patches.

BS and market in the dark age?

Ok but at what point? Italians doesn’t have an eco that allows them to get those buildings much earlier, nor to get upgrades earlier or exchange resources.

By the way, I remembered that ballistics affects ships too, so having it in feudal age is out of the question.

You know what could be cool? That berries, when exhausted, gives you 25 wood for each bush (like, you gathered all fruits, so you can chop the shrub).

This would give them a total of 150 wood. It’s a pity that this bonus too is out of the question since it would buff their water game too.

Oh well, it can be used for another civ…

Maybe Italians can have berries that gives a bit of gold, like the aoe3 etiopians (I think…).

better stone walls in the dark age.

But we are talking about a feudal bonus. I consider feudal buildings in dark age as a dark age bonus.

And having other buildings available is out of question. (monastery for herbal medicine?)

Which nobody will use, since it prevents you from building 2 TCs, and they takes longer to build.

To gather relics in feudal age and win any relic war?

A monasty in the feudal age should have limitations, but even if you prevent monk from grabbing relics in feudal, you can still place them near the relic in feudal and grab them as you reach castle.

The first monastery upgrade researched is free, (monks available in castle age, Monastery and herbal meds available in Feudal age, and so on) it would work only without the ability to build monks early.

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What benefit you have from herbal medicine in feudal? That’s an upgrade useful only when you have a castle and expensive units to heal.

And what can do a monastery without monks…

Let’s say you have a tower rush x men at arms - they have the option to quickly heal, lower hp pools means a much faster full recovery to get back in action - or another extreme a late tc rush x men at arms rush of course having the first upgrade researched being free means that the first upgrade is optionally any of the techs available at any point in the game.

Another boon to this is already having a monastery up by hitting castle age to get those monks out.

It also has the effect that if you get herbal meds early your buildings can heal ally units quickly. So say, mass eagles.

It’s a super situational case, that help on a very specific strategy.

It does nothing to help the Italians general weakness in feudal age.

It may also help in a defensive fashion; It provides units/pikes, etc a quick way to fill up on hp to defend from each raid in quick manner.

By garrison them on TC and feudal tower? It would be way better and useful to just give them free infantry armor koreans-style.

No, at this point it’s better to just fix and improve their castle and Imperial age, even if this means that italians will still be underused in Arabia-style maps and tournaments like RBW.