maybe, but a new unique tech in imperial doesn’t address their problems. italians are strong in imp, their issue is getting there
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I think silk road can affect allies as well at least. If change it to team bonus, UT become small buff of Condo and allow ally to train Condo in barracks or even market.
Plus ally Condo should be unaffected by ally bonus and techs and work like converted units affected by Italians researched techs.
Given Italians does not receive gambeson, there is at least some room to buff Condo thru new UT, like atk+2 or +10hp. Condo can intrinsically have -5 or more dmg from gunpowder like shotel from cav and bonus dmg against eagles.
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Silk Road is a pretty sneaky tech if you take advantage of it. It lowers the cost of trade carts enough you can get your money’s worth from a sneaky trade cart even if it dies after one trade.
It’s not always viable to trade with an enemy market, but when it is, it can really win you the game.
What would be fun is if Silk Road also boosted their LOS significantly so you could use them to scout.
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Which is why I said they should get a general buff.
The problem is the synergy with spanish and bohemians. This combo will have an almost broken level advantage during that market transition period.
I think that Italians UTs are fine. They either need a buff to their bonuses, or an additional bonus.
I’m not really bothered by that actually as the opponent can just throw Persians+Hindustanis and maybe another Spanish.
I should’ve been more clear. What I mean is, these types of bonuses will give certain civs such huge advantages in team games that the entire team game meta will become stale. It’s like Spanish on nomad maps. We don’t want everyone picking like 4 civs on team games because of the huge advantage they have.
Not really. It will be actually better, because then players would need to choose - they want to faster civ, but without bonus for trade (like Britons) or they want to slightly weaker, but more focused on late game trade (Italians).
My idea was:
Make Trade Cart discount Team Bonus (maybe make it weaker, because now is free, maybe 30%?)
Italian Imperial Tech: Grandi Companie - Allies can train Condotiero in their Barracs, Italian Condotiero is 10% faster (dont stack).
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I’m talking about closed maps like black forest. The advantage on such maps is so huge that you’ll almost always have to pick italians.
If you get trade carts 50% cheaper, it might be worth trading even under heavy raiding. Meaning, opponent’s cart raids are less effective. This might make them a must pick even on open map team games.
Well, my reply won’t change. We have too many of these civs already and having another 1 of them is not a crazy idea any more.
What if Silk Road just had a secondary effect that only helps in 1v1?
For example:
Trade Carts/Trade Cogs can be garrisoned in Markets/Docks and provide a small Gold trickle.
The Feitoria costs 350 Gold 300 Stone (17.5 Gold and 15 Stone per population) and provides 96 food, 42 wood, 60 gold, 18 stone per minute.
Italian Trade Carts/Trade Cogs cost 25 Gold (and have 1 population) plus some Wood and the Dock and Market cost Wood too but Wood is definitely not as valuable in Late Game.
So I think a rate of 6 Gold/Minute (0.1 per second) would be balanced.
Compared to a Feitoria that would mean 120 Gold/Minute (twice as much) with 20 Population but 0 Food, Wood and Stone.
20x 50 Wood + 2x 175 Wood + 20x 25 Gold = 1350 Wood 500 Gold compared to 350 Gold 300 Stone for a Feitoria
The return of investment for one Trade Cart/Trade Cog for the Gold only would be 4.17 Minutes. (That ignores technology cost and Wood cost)
This would practically be a 1v1 only bonus since you can just use them for trade in a team game, which gives you a lot more Gold.
It can still be helpful to be able to garrison trade in case of a raid.
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- Rename Silk Road to Merchant Republics.
- The current effect is kept, and it also spawn a Merchant for the player and every ally.
- The Merchant can generate gold, like a human-shape relic. Protect him like protecting the King to benefit the economy.
Fair enough, we can agree to disagree. I don’t think there should be any civs which have any bonus/UT outside team bonus that affects everyone else, unless it’s pretty generic/weak like cuman mercenaries.
Berbers UT say hello and it isnt weak at all.
eh, I wouldn’t call it strong by any metric. It is a decent bonus, and is certainly useful for pumping out UU, especially for civs like mongols, but again, not close to being as strong as the proposed italian buff. It’s not even in the same dimension.
What if the replacement Imperial UT unlocked a third UU, the Da Vinci Tank, as a nod to AoE3? That would be fun.
It can work, and don’t forget saving resources from Ring Archer Armor
But remember that Archers priorities researching Fletching, Bodkin Arrow and Bracer first than the armor upgrades
As a former Italians main, I’d note that I only got Silk Roads in games where I was actually producing trade. I also note that I’d get it before I’d build trade carts, which resulted in it quickly paying itself off. There isn’t much reason to produce trade units before you can imperial age (mining gold is faster). And by that point, the tech isn’t that expensive.
I never got trade units before getting Silk Road. The only time I’d make an exception to this is if I was on a map that doesn’t have enough gold to make it to imperial age. But in the general case, if I wanted trade units, I would get it and it would quickly pay itself as I make my trade carts. But as a civ bonus, it wouldn’t really provide much benefit until late imp anyways because that’s when gold mines starts becoming scarce enough (or dangerous enough) that the lower value from trade becomes attractive.
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I’ve actually done this in a Black Forest game. It still isn’t ideal, since your allies are also losing trade carts, but I kept on building trade carts because they were rather cheap for me and I preferred having their units in my trade line than attacking my main base. Admittedly, I also had a lot of excess gold that game. I also built a market in a safer location for my allies to trade with (and in case they destroyed my far-away market). And my team did win that game.
I think of Silk Road as a second team game bonus, something which is nice for the Italians since Condos are situational (though when they are used, they tend to be a potent option).
They’ve given this treatment to a few water-bonus techs. I think that this would be a nice buff to the tech, though it would rarely be applicable.
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