This is hilariously OP, These things take half pop space so you can have like 200-250 in a 200 pop game, 40 food Karambits is just hilariously broken, you can continously spam them with their fast production
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Let us seeā¦ some options are:
- free archer armors or extra armor as civ bonus
- balancing between dock tech discount and age up discount
- pavise UT becomes a civ bonus. Italians get a new UT (even very weak)
Overall an option not touching the water game is preferable
About Silk Armor,
I agree with, I think a lot about why only pierce armor.
Well, it always requires testing, but itās a change that could work, and if it reveals itself to be OP, they can simply increase the cost again.
I mean, one of the main reason for the HC are never being use is that they are locked in imp behind chemistry, so people usually prefer archers that can start training before.
A cost reduction would incourage to transition to them and it would help mass them.
Making them less heavy on gold would also resolve another big issue, which is that usually, by the time that you unlock them, gold is starting running low, while food is less of a problem.
Iām not saying that thay should become a trash unit (that would definitely be OP) but they should be buffed on the same concept of the letis (proportionally speaking).
I have reservations regarding these two upgrades. More durable archers may make Italians more aggressive. Italians has never been an early aggressive civs in aoe2. This may dramatically change the role of and strategy played by Italians.
At least this should change the water game meta a bit. I guess the age up discount would not be more than 25% as Byzantines only get 33% discount on aging up to Imperial age. This may help Italians a bit in early game. But I doubt if this buff is enough to compensate the nerf in dock tech. Late game water maps meta would be changed.
If Italians really needs a buff, I personally prefer them to play fast castle more efficiently rather than feudal rush. In other words, discount in resource/time is more preferable while not aiding Italians in feudal rushing. For example, Aging up is 5% faster per archer garrisoned in town center, up to 25% or 1% cheaper per archer garrison in town center, up to 5%.(stackable)
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typically rushing requires eco and Italians miss it. The goal of these two options is more giving them something in the early stages to survive to a rush (instead of rushing). Also extra armor is way less powerful than extra dps (like Ethiopians for instance, which have also superior eco).
I am pretty convinced that you can find a decent balance to make the water meta similar for Italians. Overall what matters is that they should require the same villager time (or resources) to put, for instance, a war galley in the field. We can compute this mathematically.
Byzantines are one of the most different civs from italians, so even if they share a bonus is not a big issue:
- infantry: Byzantines have buffed halabs while Italians have pikes. Conversely Italians have FU champion and condos
- cavalry: Byzantines have discounted camels, paladins, but no bloodlines. Italians miss both paladins and camels, but they have bloodlines
- archers: Italians have discounted HC and a UT for arbs. Byzantines have cheap skyrms
- siege: Italians have cheap BBCs, while Byzantines have SR
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i like this idea, but I am not sure it is balanced. Now Portuguese are much better.
@Parthnan will like this 11. It can work actually, even if I do not see them becoming viable in 1v1 this way, simply because it is not their role
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Iāll simply link my answer on the other topic, so if other people want to read it they can without me spamming the same posts:
The idea is to give some help on their archers. Righ now, the italians have pretty standar archer for being an archer civs, and their xbows fall behind even other non archer civs, like aztecs, that lack TR but thanks to their great eco can outproduce italians.
The free armor upgrade is a small bonus that give them a small window of time after aging up when their archers are better, but in the end they would have just +1/1 like now.
The +1PA stackable was thought because with pavise, the italians essentialy pay for a worse version of the viets bonus, which is also better for other reason, so that way the italians could compete with other archer civs at least on the military side, with +1/2 arbs (as for eco, they would however be behind cvis like mayans, britons, viets and so onā¦).
I fear that now this is out of the table. Condos have been buffed again, and now they seems to be in a really good spot, but buffing the cheaper age up bonus woul also buff their condos rush by a lot, and people would start complain again.
Free armor or +1PA are more defensive kind of bonus, their effect on rush would be limited and a lot behind bonus like more range (britons), cheaper archers (mayans) or faster RoF (etiopians) or even free tachs like TR (tartars) , they would also lack any eco bonus.
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An basically it is usles to kill vills, which is the goal of the rush, so yeah an armor bonus seems the best way!
None really complained about italian condos in the past. The problem was fast imp into condos of a civ having both eco and infantry bonus. Italians miss both and their condo armor requires a castle which is not that great for a fast imp.
Actually this could be even positive since it clearly pushes italians towards a civ focused on aging up asap as @JonOli12 explained somewhere else.
But this would require a specific topic to see how feasible it is. My impression is that, overall, this balance will end up with a general water nerf for them (I guess @Szebo210 likes this 11) which can be accepted, but not sure if we want to go back to Vikings warsā¦
They would be more resistant to skirms, other archers and scouts, so they would survive longer and that woudl transform in more hits on vills, but when you compare it to other bonus like cheaper-more archers, more range, more HP, more RoF, this seem a lot more weak.
Plus, itās a temporary bonus, since those are upgrades that everyone grabs sooner or later, so the bonus basically vanish after a bit.
Trust me, they did, and now, on pure raw stats, they are even stronger (same attack and PA as before nerf and +1MA). The only thing is that is buffering it right now is that they require a castle for use their maximum power.
My fear is that if they buff then even indirectly (with the cheap age up for example) people would start complain again, and then they will be nerfed again.
Right now they seem in a really good spot (not OP, nor useless) so it would be a really pity to see them nerfed again.
There are more āsafeā ways to balance italians.
Please no, at least now there are italians can take them in a fair way in tournamets.
Tbh I wouldnāt like to have to deal with this kind of stuff, as itās quite unavoidable. Imagine doing a good job at gaining the relic advantage but itās nullified because the opponent clicked a button?
I would rather take 66, as letting your monks die is a losing strategy no matter what, and at least at 66 the āinsuranceā feels good enough. Then again, itās one of the countless niche techs so itās not too bad if it remains that way as many other civs have got the same treatment.
Ballistics is pretty nice as it prevents the enemy from making your units useless with micro, and stray bullets still deals tons of damage. On the other hand, if it had a thumb ring effect, it would feel useless when there is micro and it would be completely mental in situations where there isnāt micro.
Itās quite a nice tech. Not game breaking but itās a bit of a QoL to have TCs attack raiders by themselves. Plus the Malian combination of no bracer and arb is unique and fits the theme of the civ of having an early Imp spike, in this case by using arbs + super fast chemistry.
That free range was completely busted, especially as it was a team bonus. It would single-handedly get Koreans banned out of BF/Michi games.
On the contrary, I believe itās quite useful. Get conscription, and then your shotels will be created in 3s.
I think they just didnāt want to make Mongols stronger, and itās a pretty easy to add flavour to the civ.
If I understood well, Black forest players were salty about feitoria+bombard tower+arquebus combo.
Itās really good in team games, and itās in the same vein as port/spanish bonuses so itās fine to leave as is.
Ethiopian hussars are pretty bad tho, and canāt raze buildings like Shotel can.
And their generic cav also become sieging beasts, as each of them outperform every other equivalent from other civs when sieging buildings.
Letās say it again: Ethiopian hussars are bad. They donāt have plate barding armor, so they end up with less pierce armour than shotels, and they donāt have bloodlines so they only get 1,5 time the HP, while still having only half the attack. And they still are countered by halbs while Shotels have no trash counter. They are good at being cheaper and thatās it.
Since there is a lot of conv on the shotelās viability Iām going to let you ponder on the meaning of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKl9m2_Z6Jg
Actually after Mahout+Husbandry they will eventually outspeed villagers. Still bad at raiding.
Thematically it doesnāt fit the civ too much. Cuman had to work for others and adapt to not disappear, while Huns were basically bullying the other barbarians into joining them, so I donāt see them being generous with their allies like that.
SoTL did mention knight rushes with the free res in his civ review, so I guess some people who watched it will try it.
Even ethiopian camels should still be cost effective. I did a test at some point to see how bad cuman camels are in imp and turns out they trade equally with generic cavalier. So Ethiopian camels should definitely work.
So now Chinese would almost never make Chuks and only make arbs.
Actually that would be pretty nice for ships, and that would compensate for the removal of shipwright in DE. But for archers, the second arrow would miss all the time, especially without thub ring, and there is no real need to give them bootleg chu ko nus 11
That would be stupidly overpowered. Better against archers and faster than normal infantry, you could just flood the enemy eco with no drawbacks.
Persian towers are bad so no one make them, but Persian TCs with this would be ridiculous.
They are already so good, and the Viet arb only has got 3 more HP than them.
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Well, of course I didnāt mean that they should get the TR effect, I just clarify since it seemed that there were a bit of confusion.
The lack of the TR effect is actually great, since stray bullets still deals a ton of damage, and that way you reduce the probability of overkilling a unit.
Their generic cavalry is mehā¦ they can help a bit vs standard buildings, itās the arambai that really shine with that tech, since they can destroy every building, they can even help rams to deal with castle quikly.
Maybe they could give a bonus of instant building houses, so that if you have the wood you can simply build them and free the vills sooner. It would have a practical effect without buffing too much the civ.
Its not just a button though, needs 500f 500g and 1v1 Huns in late imp arenāt even that strong
heās asking for a discount on UT tho
unfortunately no, FU War Elephants (0.86) are slower than wheelbarrow vills. They should seriously get a speed boost for all they cost
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Sure, but I donāt know how the target of the tech could counter this, and Huns arenāt the worst either. On another note, what about diplo games?
I said this because he was using the fact that once they had +1 free range for free to make the tech cheaper. To me itās not a good reason to buff it.
oooooooooooooops I forgot to give wheelbarrow to the vill 11
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EXACTLY. THIS. Is what I have been saying since a loong while.
Buff War Elephants PLEASE PLEASE
They are too unviable 
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the slow speed of the war ele reminds me of a TG yesterday, ally drops THREE castles in my base, and starts spamming war elesā¦ leaving his side of oasis fairly open, with only a single layer of stone wallā¦ i tell my ally heās gonna get rektā¦
so of course the guy was wiped by hun paladins before we could reach his base to defendā¦ like wtf really what do people thinkā¦
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I mean youāre still spending 500g in the very late game to reduce not remove relic effect, I donāt think the tech will still be viable. But yeah idk how thatāll work in diplo
considering Koreans had +4 in total at some point and now its +2, I donāt think buffing the cost is too bad considering Furor Celtica and Drill are similiarly priced and have better effects imo.
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sounds fair enough
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Why is everyone so over-cautious so as not to buff the War Elephants in any way whatsoever?
Even when the truth has been clear now since a long time that the OG Elephants are way too slow to make any sense or even recover their prohibitive cost in any battlefield?
Battle elephants are strong but in only very extreme situations. They are a unit afterall that is not intended to be used in half of the games. Any BF 4v4 game which becomes post-imperial and has a persian player, elephants will surely be used. No need for any changes.