Silk Road is honestly a useless tech. No one ever researches it, even in team games, because pumping out trade isn’t usually a problem in team settings. I feel like it should be replaced with something more useful for 1v1 situations.
Maybe a tech called “Renaissance,” making Monasteries and Universities work 100% faster? I feel like the Renaissance is a more notably Italian thing than the Silk Road, so it should be referenced.
Your proposed tech is pretty useless as a late Imp tech.
I agree though that Italians should get a News tech and probably get Silk Road as a civ Bonus.
Italians is relatively complete in the late game. Maybe you can slightly buff gunpowder or Condo or archers.
I’m sure @DoctBaghi has something to tell about this.
I think that italians should get a buff in general. Their win rates, especially on land maps, has been atrocious.
Maybe it can be a Castle Age tech, moving Pavise to Imperial Age.
They would get yet another discount as a civ bonus. Might as well.
Their archers will have more time to be generic then. Pavise already come pretty late currently. Many games end before imperial in current meta. I even think its fine to have this bonus once reaching castle age at least.
Yeah, I guess that wasn’t such a good idea. But the effect I gave to Renaissance is useless in the late game.
Make it to TB but reduce the discount to 20% or maybe 15%.
Condottiero is available for Italians regardless.
New UT - GC and Condottiero trains 50% faster and your allies can train Condottiero.
Condottiero needs to be a shared unit because they are mercenaries.
Unlike the other 2 shared units that make little sense to be a team bonus.
The trade unit discount should just be a civilisation bonus.
Maybe only apply the discount to Gold so they are not too cheap in early game.
The Weakness of the Italians is not really the late game anyway so a new Imperial Age UT won’t help that much.
They don’t have much helping their early game, 15% cheaper Age up isn’t that big of a bonus, maybe if it was also 15% faster that could help.
I thought about that. But allies can train Condo will be such a weak UT. Now I edited it to another effect of the UT.
What if it also reduced the cost of villagers by 50%? That could be interesting as an imperial age tech, and make it more viable for 1v1s.
Wait I have an idea:
What if you get a little Gold every time an ally trains a Condottiero?
Not sure if that would be technically possible.
Making it a team bonus and maybe a new bonus leaning into their archers strength against cav with something like “archers train x percent faster and gain +y melee armor” or something?
How about removing Ring Archer Armor and making thr blacksmith
archer armor upgrades give double effect to archery Range units? That can compensate a bit their weak early game while their late game is untouched, also makes Genoese Xbows better in castle age.
Being at 4/4 armor in Castle Age is significant in xbow v xbow. Sure Armor is still secondary to damage and yes you will still be 1 hp beyond dead from a direct mangonel shot but im unsure about this. Vs some units this is more durability than. Vietnam extra HP albeit with a smithing cost but va other crossbows its way superior
For me, pavise could go into Imperial Age and be buffed to +1/+2 armor
And then add a new Castle Age tech, where even your proposal of 100% faster techs would not be useless, but probably would need something
Italians could use a buff asyde from the techs. Like making their water bonuses a bit weaker in return for a inique buff to Archer units or some other ubique buff for Land play
Then, genovese crossbows need a rework to elite upgrade as it’s bad right now. Needs something added like melee armor or +1 damage or much cheaper cost
Not really much actually… everything has already being said, italians needs little no none buff in imperial age, and it’s hard to buff their early game too without a deep rework.
Yeah, the benefit from Silk Road isn’t bad, it’s just better as a civ bonus rather than a tech you research long after having bought as many trade units as you need. It’s like giving a trickle of gold for stone mining or berry foraging with an Imp age UT.