Potential Feudal Buffs for Italians?

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Still, some knight/scout strategies will be easier to do because they could save a bit of food from squires instead of husbandry. This is for helping in their army transitions, because burmese have infantry bonus, cavalry UTs, free wood-upgrades and monk tech discounts. They can commit in siege-monks/cavalry/infantry but if they suffer to transition to other comps. So having the barracks techs applying to other units would help to transition from/to infantry comps.
And archers civs would still have a lot of advantage against them.

Agree, because their archers are so bad… But at least they could outrun enemy archers. That is the reason I propose the bonus for burmese archers and cavalry.

Speed: archers gain a defense against slow enemies, but they still couldn’t handle enemy massed cavalry or massed archers. Cavalry remain more and less the same (they would save a bit of food from using squires instead of husbandry)

Damage to buildings: Both archers and cavalry would gain a boost in castle age. Cavalry archers without thumbring and the last 2 armors, but with the expensive heavy cavalry archer upgrade and parthian tactics would start to make sense. I would nerf manipur cavalry so their cavalry wont became too OP in imperial with too much damage bonus against buildings. Thus, in imperial cavalry would remain more and less the same.

For archers is a good bonus specially against infantry or cavalry without husbandry. But burmese archers has no thumbring so even the micro potential is pretty subpar due to ramdomness.

One possible solution for both of us is leaving the squire buff for italian archers, and the arson buff for burmese units. Even so, the transitions for burmese army compositions would be much easier than now.

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You would save between 50 food and 150 food. For castle age, it’s not a lot. At this point anyway, isn’t it better to give them free squires and husbandry? At least that would be 250 food saved.

I wouldn’t still train any archer as burmese, and against CA I would still struggle.

It’s better to not even bring it up arson for archers…

I’m convinced that not even squires for archers, even at half strength, will even be implemented…

It’s too strong for them, and there isn’t the will to buff Italians on land or the early game.

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5% faster archers is just ok. I would still pick Vietnamese (affecting also skyrms), Mayan, Britons, and Ethiopian bonuses. All these civs have also much better eco and halbs.

I have always thought that this civ needs a feudal buff… let’s see, I trust the devs… they have started to care about quite frustrating things like gunpowder and militia line that seemed to be untouchable…

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If you say so, I just hope they give them SE and the bonuses for condos, and I would settle for that.

They did hear me out though on the sicilians TB…

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Hussar+GC+BBC is a late game composition that Italian players often use. Infantry is doing not very well against the composition. Cavalry is even worse. Archer are not really a counter, just doing ok. The only counter to this is siege.(halbs+onager+BBC) Lacking SE is intended design to leave weakness of this composition.

Btw, I think we see Italians thread a bit frequently.

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It was bit that I didn’t see them actually… oh well, they don’t hurt anybody.

Well, I don’t see GC that often…

Now, hussars+arbs+BBC, now that I see it often, but italians are far from the only ones that can pull it off. And the problem is always the same, they usually don’t get there…

As for SE, with all incredible strong BBC that we have in the game, would generic FU BBC be really a big problem?

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This is going to sound kind of meta/weird but bear with me.

I think a feudal age buff for balance purposes is misplaced. I think a buff to encourage people to revisit the civ with an open mind is what’s needed. I fully expect such a buff to need to be reversed. I’ll explain:

One of the problems with assessing Italians and whether they even need a buff is that 1 castle genoese xbow + X is basically the strongest option they have against: foot archers, infantry, cav archers, cavalry. This holds true for all of castle age and up to early imp. At least I can’t find a more cost-effective combo, maybe someone else can comment on something more cost-effective. This kind of makes sense given the unit’s high melee armor/HP as well as bonus damage and +1 base damage.

The unit is basically everything you could ask for in a well designed castle age foot archer UU: very flexible due to bonus damage and +1 base damage, high HP, 1 melee armor, 100% accuracy by default, castle also has a UT that benefits the UU and a generic complementary unit (xbow).

But lets be real here, castle age genoese has only become a good idea and practical within the last year. The castle age genoese xbow + associated techs have been a moving target since day 1. 50w/50g → 45w/40g. Reload 3 → 2. TT 22 → 18. University techs -33%. Pavise 550/300 → 300/150, affects foot archers + condos rather than genoese alone. Not only that but most UU are relatively stronger in imp than castle age and this was true for the geneoese xbow. However now it’s one of those few unique units which is relatively stronger in castle age. Not to mention almost no one thinks about mixing UU and regular units because frankly it’s a stupid idea for all but a handful of UU (Genoese, Boyars, Mameluke, maybe some others).

Honestly it doesn’t surprise me in the least that people still believe things like the castle age genoese is bad, because it was terrible for a long time. On top of that people tend to overestimate the cost of a castle. The net cost of an Italian castle (castle cost - houses saved - 1.5 tower equivalent - 1.75 production equivalent) is around 25% of the sticker price. Your estimate based on preference will vary.

So realistically I think for Italians the best thing for them is a strong buff that gets people to use Genoese xbow in castle age. In my opinion the first order issue is getting people to treat the castle age genoese as a viable strategic advantage for the civ. I fully expect such a buff to need to be reverted.

So in that sense a feudal buff could be good, but I think focusing on balance misses the point that the history of italians has left players feeling understandably confused about what the civ can and can’t do.

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Ok, I can agree with you, but what do you do until you gat that castle?

Also, to make GC really viable, you should give them the same range as xbows, which onestly I’m not a fan of.

Usually, UU that are often seen, are the UU that are a clear improvement over the standard UU *(mangudai, keshik, CKN, berserkers and such…). UU that trade something for another are more difficult to use, and usually the civ have other options too.

Well, here I disagree. They are great against cav, and pretty “meh” against infantry, but not bad by any means.

But they aren’t that strong against CA, since they can usually out-micro them, and especially foot archers beat them, since they can micro them down, and overwhelm them with higher numbers.

More HP and armor really doesn’t change things…

Anyway, back to the main topic, what “buff” do you suggest to make the Italian GC strategy more viable?

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What Italians do before castle age is a little like asking what Mongols do after feudal. In some sense you have to use what is available in castle age to inform your choices in feudal age. Just like the Mongols have to use their early game to get an advantage.

For example vs foot archers what usually prevents you from using mass skirms vs archers in feudal? Small numbers of pretty average cavalry which mop up skirms as well as the inability to turn a win into damage in castle age. Genoese xbow solve both of these problems as it only takes 7 to one shot a villager and 2 shot any knight. This takes just over 2 minutes of production to get to. More importantly the option to use genoese in castle age influences what can be used in feudal.

All things considered, just a castle as a fixed cost to go from full skirms to something actually threatening and flexible isn’t that expensive. I dont see any theoretical reason this wouldn’t work at 2k+ but at the same time I can’t be sure of that.

In terms of a buff that would encourage people to use it in castle age you could do something “visible” like +1 damage -1 bonus damage for both regular and elite. I fully expect this to be OP in castle age. But if it encourages people to take GC seriously then hopefully they will still take it seriously after it’s returned to its current state.

Like I said the whole civ has been slowly approaching balance for so long I think people need to treat it more like a brand new civ at this point. And just like a brand new civ with an OP UU sees play hopefully this would do the same.

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Well, the castle age GC already have a +1 attack over the xbow, so maybe this is just for the elite GC.

In castle age, what keeps them back, as I said, is the need of a castle and the -1 range over the xbows ans skirms.

In my opinion, until they have 4 base range, there is no way that they simply become the preferred choice always. At least they should give them the 5 base range to the elite if they want the GC to become the main go to unit.

That strategy is used in pro games, but from what I have seen, the usually go heavier into xbows, and switch into GC in late castle age, or imp.

Maybe then, my buff for the 15% faster building fortifications may help in this direction. You wall easier in the feudal age, and then you save time into building the castles for GC.

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Why would -1 range matter vs infantry, knights or cav archers in castle age? Especially the last two because you’re doing like 2-3x the damage per hit and aren’t outranged.

More importantly the net cost:benefit of the unit doesn’t change much between castle and imperial. That ratio actually increases slightly in Imperial age with elite genoese vs imp units which means it’s relatively a worse unit. The opportunity costs are also not decreasing in imp. These two conditions are sufficient to conclude if the unit is viable in Imperial it is also viable in castle age.

The only trick is scaling the number of castles appropriately for the size of the eco. Just like you might go 2-3 castle genoese + X in imp you can go 1 castle genoese + X in castle age.

This is all just to say that I do not see any reason for why the unit is so underused. There might be good reasons but after attempting to verify people’s stated reasoning and failing to verify it I’m at a loss.

Forget about perfect balance for a second and think about the range of buffs you can give Italians without making them ‘broken’. Something like +1 attack -1 bonus damage to both GC versions probably doesn’t make them broken as people currently play the civ. However it intentionally forces people to explore what the unit can and can’t do. People will immediately think it’s overpowered to have a 7+2 damage archer with bonus against cav in castle age and test the crap out of it. By doing so you get a ton of data. You can then nerf the castle age version and leave in the buff for the imperial age version if desired.

Even better it should be explicitly communicated that the change might be overpowered but they are testing it out to see what Italians need. This should hopefully increase the amount of testing.

I’m not thinking about balancing the civ. I’m thinking about trying to verify if players actually can’t use a very strong tool or if they only believe they can’t use it. Both outcomes have a perk: if it’s the former (even though I don’t see how it could be) you’ve got a problem and they need an eco buff. If it’s the latter, hopefully this encourages the player base to be less averse to building the castles and the problem remains resolved after the castle age version is reverted.

Like I said it’s very meta and data-oriented rather than balance oriented. I don’t think this flavor of the month type stuff is a good idea in general but the shitshow that was genoese xbow balance since it’s release justifies doing this IMO. I don’t think any unit has been buffed as much since release. Sometimes you have to reset people’s expectations because those expectations are no longer rational. I’m well aware of reasons not to do this so we don’t have to get into those. I just think it’s an option that needs to be considered.

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Because units that are either faster or have more range can decide when to engage and when not. Unless I play a defensive game, and for those too you struggle, you can’t force engagements.

And yet it is, both at low, medium and high elo players…

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I don’t think that it’ll be OP, I that it’ll change little…

Hell months ago I anticipated the idea of a castle age chemistry for Italians or turks.

Well that’s for sure. I personally was more focused on the condos, but the GC can use some attention too.

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But my point is this doesn’t make sense. 1 range does not significantly change the ability to engage against infantry or cavalry or cavalry archers relative to xbow. Why would it? And we know xbow can be used effectively against all of these targets. So what exactly prevents xbow + genoese xbow from being a superior version of pure xbow vs these targets? I know it works better for me you just move 1 range closer for everything and adjust for the extra attack delay. But this doesn’t say much about what it would look like if it was meta.

This has been true for almost every strategy at some point in time. The inca trush should have been OP prior to DE, people barely touched it. The Hoang rush should have been used significantly prior to Hoang, it wasn’t. The Saracen market should be automatic/second nature for basically everyone above 2k because its been around for 20 years but it isn’t. I’m just saying this means almost nothing for a unit like the castle age Genoese Xbow which for all intents and purposes was awful until DE, and kinda meh to use prior to the recent discount and university discount. The relevant question is: Can the GC in it’s current state ever become a meta staple for Italians? I think the answer is yes.

7 base attack on an archer is extremely strong in castle age. 10 GC could 2 shot a mangonel or scorpion, not to mention the fact they already survive a mangonel hit. They would kill eagles in half the time as xbow, you turn xbow into a rather soft counter once the GC have pavise, most infantry die significantly faster compared to xbow, and of course you still have the same dps vs cavalry. I have faith that pros with excellent micro could turn this into something extremely overpowered.

I think a feudal age buff would be good but I also think it ignores the larger problem of how a civ’s history can influence how people play it today. People aren’t robots but many people here treats them as such for the purposes for analyzing civ design. The statistics for civs has to pass through players first so if there’s any important gaps that’s going to affect the statistics for the civ. This makes looking for possible gaps in how players use the civ just as important as analyzing the civ itself.

Anyway that’s all I have to say about this.

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A GC buff is ok to me, also considering that the unit has a ridiculously overpriced elite upgrade. Even if the unit is more a problem than a plus for the civ since Italians do hot have halbs.

Anyway, the feudal bonus is way more important since atm the civ has a too bad start to even arrive in a decent position in castle age. Still probably the worst feudal age in the game

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Probably the speed bonus on archers makes a lot of sense…

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  • Squires affects the Genoese Crossbowman.

Simply that, they GC would compensate a bit for their -1 range, and it would be historically accurate, since sometimes the pavise shield was manned by more than 1 soldier.

Other ideas may be:

  • Coinage have foot soldiers give back a quarter of their gold cost when they die.

  • Supplies affects knights.

  • Conscription can be researched in the castle age.

The latter aren’t bonuses for the Italians, but since there have been a tons of idea, I might as well throw them in here, for any civ that might need a buff.

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But why? Italians do not need ANY buff. They are fine, why do you want to change them?

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Can’t wait to play vs arbalests with 5/6 armor (as much as a cavalier).

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I like them all but I agree that they are not meaningful for Italians. They are also castle age bonuses.

I do not like this. Buffing archer speed from feudal is really something that can help, but a gc buff acts only after a castle drop… it is too late