Sicilians on water

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Maybe I’m wrong, but to me is seems that the sicilians should be a B tier navy civ (other than an infantry civ), but they don’t really have much of that in my opinion…

They have a FU dock tech tree, with everything they need, but then no bonuses of any kind for water maps, not even a small one. Their eco bonus of more food on farms can be seen as a wood bonus, but only in the super late game…

The only exception is their TB, and it have problems of its own: basically they incourage the civ to play their donjons rush even on water maps… but still I like the concept, since being a TB means that an eventual frank ally can better perform a landing.

So the fact that affects transport ships isn’t a problem per se, the problem is that it’s their only water bonus, and that the extra defense that it gives to the TS is ridiculous, and requires no skills or attention to be used, since you can simply click from one point to the other without needing any other action, knowing that your TS is almost immortal…

Those 2 are my main concerns, and I know that the civs is young and that it may be early to suggest changes, but I had these 2 already ready from my old “venetian civ concept design”, so I’m basically just borrowing them.

Here is the 2 changes to their bonuses that I would made:

  • Castles, TC and docks are builded 100% faster.

Not a big and powerful bonus, but docking a bit earlier and having fish out sooner than your opponent is always helpful. And especially in dark age, it less time spent by vills to build.

Then instead of Transport ships +5 carry capacity and +10 anti-ship armor I would change the bonus in:

  • Transport ships have +5 carry capacity and +6 LoS.

This would make their transport ships having 11 LoS, which is one more than Japs galleys in feudal age.
This would still improve their landings, but now they would at least require that they are carefully micro-managed, not just clicked on the enemy shores because they can’t be killed.

As you see, I didn’t give them crazy, now bonuses, I just suggested 2 small changes to 2 already existing bonuses, sicilians won’t still be a top tier water civ, but this would make them a bit more viable, and a bit more balanced, helping then on not relying only on their donjon rush.

2

The devs stated that the Norman Kingdom of Sicily was actually weak on the Sea, losing several battles against other Italians and the Byzantines, but that they were good at landing and raiding, and that is what they wanted to secialize them in.

All the Sicilians Docks is geared towards helping them land and attack, not actually hold Water against a good Water civ, they are supposed to lose against Water civs.

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Yeah I know, they lost pretty bad against the venetians one time, but still even if most of their strategy is around a landing, I think that my suggestion still represents a more balanced version of them.

The dock bonus is doesn’t make a water civ, but it give them a chance to support them against an vikings onslaught.

The transport bonus instead is a nerf, but not because they needed one, but because I personally don’t like bonuses that don’t require any skill/attention to being used.

I mean, I don’t think that I give them OP bonuses…

4

They are supposed to lose against ALL Water civs on the Water, however.
Sicilians are a Land civ with 2 bonii towards Disembarking (Transports bonus and 50% Bonus Damage resistance).

All you are supposed to do as Sicilians on Water, is mass a few War Galleys, and then brute-force disembark on the enemy landmass, where you should start making Donjons and pumping out Serjeants.

You are not supposed to even try to hold Water fights, against a true Water civ, just disembark and build Donjons.

5

laughs in demo

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6

Yeah I might exaggerated a bit :sweat_smile:

And my suggestion was aimed at improving that, not in making them a full water civ.

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But there is no need to, we already have Vikings, Ports and Koreans for Water balance, Sicilians should just stick to being the Super Transport civ.

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I meant improving the transport strategy, not the general water strategy.

9

Sicilians are useless on water: No eco bonus or water military bonuses.

1 Like
10

They are not completely useless, they just cannot contest Water long term, and should just focus on disembarking 50% resistant Cavaliers and Serjeants.

As a Landing civ, they are quite good, they just cannot do much else on the Water.

11

its still new and i dont necessarily see it working but on reddit the guys were saying it might be an option to shield your navy with transport ships

but either way, nevermind the vanilla and boring aspect of water, the pathing there is terrible sometimes… its really bad. have you tried to move a group of ships and clicked repeatedly in similar spots, your ships will literally keep adjusting position within the formation… instead of keeping position within the formation like they do on land, making grouped movement atrocious

so i think trying to force a non naval civ to be good on water(and not buffing it on land at the same time) is going to have much of an affect for most players…

https://aoestats.io/maps/RM_1v1 sort by play rate… <1%