So the April 2023 patch is coming and I worry that these 3 civs are going to be low or even bottom tier. I will post my own suggestions for fixes and buffs to these 3 civs, but I wanted to know if you had your own.
Britons- Range bonus changed to ########## Bodkin Arrow, and Bracer are free, but keep Yeomen and now get Thumb Ring and the faster Archery Range is changed from 10% to 20% to match other team bonuses.
Italians- Receive Halberdier, Silk Road has Foot Archers and Infantry cost -5% Gold, receive Siege Engineers, and a new bonus of Crossbowman Upgrade for free.
Vietnamese- Receive Blast Furnace, Archer HP bonus applied to all Archers and increased from 20% to 25%, new bonus of Archer Line and Skirmishers cost -40% wood.
This doesn’t sound like to much, where did you get that idea? 11
This sounds like a complete new game, Age of Archers
I didn’t know that these 3 civ need so much buffs
It’s common knowledge that Vietnamese and Italians are considered really bad, always bottom 10, and Britons were mid tier at max before the recent nerf to their team bonus in 1v1 games. Infantry getting buffed makes these civilizations go from situational to abysmal, while cavalry civs remain untouched. Meanwhile cavalry doesn’t just hard counter archers, it extreme counters them. We are shifting the meta too much as Britons, Vietnamese, and Italians are all Archer civs and all 3 are below average on 1v1 Arabia, 1v1 Arena, and 1v1 Nomad. The massive buffs to infantry is going to turn archers into an even matchup for them, and cavalry will still dominate the meta. Of the top performers Berbers, Franks, Huns, Mayans, Hindustanis, Gurjaras, and Slavs only 1 of them the Mayans are an Archer civ, which was why I excluded the Mayans as they are the only archer civilization that needs to be toned down rather than buffed.
If I would change Italians I would
A) Move Pavise to Imp. Increase the effect to +2/+2. Increase Cost accordingly
B) Make Silk Road a civ Bonus (not TB)
C) Add new Castle Age Tech “Piastra” (Meaning plate)
This bonus gives basically the Effect of the current Hauberk (+1/+2 armor to Knights) but also +10 HP. It should be comparably expensive for a Castle Age tech so it’s only really pickable on the way up to imp or with a castle age all-in. Maybe something like 300 F / 300 G or so.
D) GC get +1 Range.
E) Change the effect of Sicilians “Hauberk” to “Infantry units +2/+1 Armor”. And return their initlal 50 % reduced bonus damage taken bonus. I know that looks like “back and forth”, but I think this just fits the civ better. Against civs with strong ranged units their Serjeants will be amazing in the lategame. And before they have skirms that receive less damage from other skirms which is also nice.
This would give Sicilians the “identity” of being slow at the start but having special scout and archer rushes which have resistance against counters. In the midgame they have their strong boom and resistant Knights and in the lategame amazing options in their Donjons, Serjeants, Champs, Halbs, Light Cav… A lot of stuff. Maybe their Cavalier fall then off a bit, ### with the other options they have, I don’t think that’s a problem at that stage.
The Idea for italians is to give them strong Knights vs Archers and Strong GC vs Knights. For both you need a castle, but then you have unique options other civs don’t.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Their team bonus is already 20% faster Archery Ranges and is getting nerfed in the upcoming patch specifically because it’s so strong.
Please understand that giving them both Thumb Ring AND free ranged Blacksmith techs is absolutely insane. It would not only make them the strongest civilization, period, but also the most hated.
I probably should have put this in the previous post, but eh, too late.
Italians do not have Halberdier to emphasize Genoese Crossbowmen, which are already a fantastic anti-cavalry unit. Having both Halbs and Genoese would make cavalry almost impossible to win with, for enemies.
The change to Silk Road is kind of interesting, and I would like to see the UT have a use in non-team games, but 5% is far, far too small. For Condottieri, that’s only a reduction of two gold per unit, and a whopping one gold for Champions & Arbalesters.
Crossbowman upgrade being free gives Italians a very huge power spike in early Castle. I’m not too sure just how strong this would be as I’m not the most knowledgeable in this field though, so others would have to determine if it’s good or bad. If it’s compounded with all these other buffs, however, then it’s too much.
Italians already have cheap Bombard Cannons and all other University techs are discounted. Giving them Siege Engineers would make their BBCs broken.
Not sure how to fix these 3 civs without overbuffing them, though. They’re just that weak compared to the Franks, Mayans, Huns, Slavs, Berbers, Hindustanis, and Gurjaras. Buffing infantry just makes the Britons, Italians, and Vietnamese go from bad to borderline unusable. They also have weak early economies so military boosts are more important. As Vietnamese and Italians also were bad in HD and Britons were trash in the Conquerors, I think they need it.
And before you ask why they were so bad, Italians and Vietnamese were the 5th and 2nd worst civs in HD and Britons in Conquerors were basically nerfed into oblivion without any attempts to rebalance them. They were also the worst water civ in Age of Kings, on account of being the only civ without the Cannon Galleon back then. That or we could bring back Teuton +5 Range Town Centers and give Teutons Bracer and Thumb Ring. They were called Death Stars for a reason.
I’m trying to give them something good in the new meta, as clearly infantry will continue to get stronger as cavalry, which extreme counter archers would still do so.
Incas have halbs and kamayuk. Saracens have mamelukes and one of the strongest camels before dynasty of India. By this theory, I think Incas should lose halbs to emphasize kamayuk and Saracens should lose strong camels to emphasize mameluke.
I am not sure halbs+GC will make cav civ unable to win. But if you can manage to mass GC, why bother with halbs, especially in team games where GC can often mass up but not in 1v1. Hussar+GC is a better combo imo.
But GC should be less oppressive to cav civs that lack good siege by being more easily countered with non-siege units.
Tbf genos are countered even by mediocre siege and skirmishers with only 4 range, and they are worse than arbs against infantry, especially After gamberson
They are pretty much countered by anithing non-cav honestly. A One trick pony with a meme elite upgrade to boot
Britons have a 49.3% win rate before their nerfs, Italians have 44.9%, and Vietnamese have 44.9%, based on 1v1 game statistics. Also none of these civilizations have Gambesons and Gambesons makes archers even worse against Champions, which they already only soft countered, while getting extreme countered by Knights and Scouts.
While I would like it for historical reasons, it would be redundant with the GC, which performs very well as a anti cav unit.
2 less gold in Imperial age for an arbalest hardly make the difference… besides Italians are already solid in imp, so I don’t see the purpose of this change.
That is the only imp buff on which I agree, as with units like houfnice or other BBC, italians BBC wouldn’t be that broken.
That combined with cheaper age ups and ballistics would be too strong…
I may agree for a buff to their early or mid game, but sometimes smaller.