Acting of the TT would help both the GC and the fact that pavise is too weak compared to viets. Even if it is 50% reduction of TT, GC will not become OP imo. Still you need a castle and probably still slower than ckn. However it would effect also arbalests, so not sure if 50% is too much (britons have 20% but also for skirms).
Giving the effect back to skirms is another option, which I like, but a bit less since it does not fit the priorities of the civ.
Got the point we are just talking abot the UT, and not about the civ, but since the civ lacks in several things, I would say that the best option is to exploit the ut to fix one of theseā¦
Nah the UU archer should have more incentive than that of a counter unit, considering the castle costs and the significantly higher upgrade cost and the extra wood cost. Rattan isnāt a simple anti-archer, its better than arb in every way except frame delay and I guess 3 less hp than viet arb. The Elite should get more attack. It wonāt make them OP because the range is still holding them back vs siege and bracer skirms.
About Pavise, I think they should just make it cheaper similar to leather archer armor or apply it to skirms as well
But it would still be worse than the viets bonus, that is free.
So you are suggesting to decrease the TT of arbs too? It could work, if you consider that Britons get 20% for free, italians could also get 20/30%.
Well, looking at the big picture, if they buff the Italians they donāt necessarily have to buff them through pavise, so of course a buff is welcomed, but my question was about the comparison with the viets bonus.
I donāt mind that they have just 10 max attack, they trade the less range and standard attack for a strong bonus, and they can still do their jobs vs champs and halbs, while also being good vs cav.
They are different longbows or chukos, which simply have an higher damage output.
Of course if you are against meso or goths you shouldnāt go for GC all together.
My suggestion is, in addition to free archer armors as civ bonus (which is for the civ, not for the tech), pavise does:
option 1-> archers (archer line and GC) +1/1 armor, -30% TT
option 2-> archers (archer line and GC) and skyrms +1/1 armor. But in this case TT of GC should be reduced independently. As a unit buff.
Since italians are declared as archer civ, option 1 makes more sense. However option 2 is stronger and italians desperately need land buffs.
I would say that free archer armors + option 1 is a good way to make italians enjoyable. They will remain weak, unless you compare them with Turks, which personally remain the biggest balance problem (but this is another story)ā¦
Ok, after some thoughts on this, Iāve come to the conclusion that pavise should be buffed to +2/2 only for the standard xbow line, while remaining +1/1 for the GC.
Of course this is just my opinion, but try to follow my reasoning:
So as I already said, pavise and the viets bonus, have almost the same effect on the pure stats of single units.
If you buff pavise to +2/2 you would make Italians xbow better than viets one head on, which is only fair, since they need to build a castle and pay for the upgrade.
Viets bonus would still be better on general, since it affects more units, it start on feudal, and itās free.
It would differentiate a bit more the GC from the standard xbow.
I personally think that it would be better than letting pavise decrease the TT of GC, which is something that should be fix directly, and it would also be better than letting pavise affect other units, like the skirms, which now is the Lithuanians UT.
That way, italians arbs would be finally unique.
Another solution could be that xbow line only get +1/1 as a free bonus that stack up with pavise (+1/1, so +2/2 in total after being researched).
Some time ago were proposed a bonus of free armor for archers as the Italians when they age up, but some people complained about the fact that italians would have saved too much resources (combined with the cheap age up).
With this bonus, they would still had to research the 3 armor techs, but they would also have an armor advantage every age (maintained only if they spend the resources on the armor techs) and in the long run, pavise would have more value, since it would really make Italians arbs better than viets one, but only after building a castle and researching a tech.
Considering other civ bonus in the game, we have bonus that give more HP (20% for viets, 30% for Mongolsā¦) we have a bonus that give +3PA and another that gives +2MA on infantry, another that give +2 range on arbs and so onā¦
So +1/1 for free in feudal, and a maximum of +2 after a UT seems reasonable.
OMG!! yes! i love this idea! imagine! condos MIGHT actually get used! but then again if they actually made HC viable condos might start getting used anywayā¦
also to add, lets not forget parthian tactics effects units differently, so im all in favour of allowing it to buff archer line better than GC
Wellā¦ I am for everything buffing embarrassing civs like italians or Turks. Extra armor is too similar to vietmamese but can work. It is also stronger than free archer armors. However, the free archer armors is perfect for Italians, so I am more to tune pavise in another wayā¦
I mean, italians get terrible UUs, so I would exploit the tech (which is currently too weak as pointed out by comparing civs bonuses and UTs) to fix some of the problems italians get.
+2/2 armor is good, reduced TT is also good. Even an attack bonus vs archers can be good. Currently GC is one of the worst units. I said somewhere else but it is way worse than ckn, including vs cavalry (considering cost, TT, and the fact that cavalry is paired with skirms).
Pavise could help in this direction. Even a massive reduction of TT makes sense, similar to cumans UTā¦
Tartars bonus make CA actually better than viets ones, so no sad face.
I actually propose this tech a long time ago too, but now I think it will change little for condos onestlyā¦ though it wouldnāt hurt.
Viets have extra HP, and with this, italians xbows would actually be better with pavise, which is only fair considering that they pay for it.
I think that my way, it would be more balanced resources speaking, while actually buff their archers line too (putting them finally on the level of other archer civs). Still, free armor itās not bad, and it would be better than nothing.
This is just for arbs, not the GC (they would have only +1/1), in my opinion arbs with +2/2 would actually give the Italians finally an out of the ordinary units.
Well, but if we decrease the TT it would be enough.
The right reduction of TT can be the one making GC training faster (I repeat, faster) than ckn. They are still more expensive and weaker. Moreover GC is a counter unit, so it has to be trained very fast. Currently that TT makes it unplayable.
Italians are weak on land, so the fact that arbalests are affected is not game braking
In my opinion, +1/1 on arbs only (+2/2 in total) and minus 3/4s on GC TT could be enough for making them a good civ.
Even a civ that you could pick on land.
The problem of pavise, in my opinion, is that alone +1/1 is neglectable, but if you stack it up with another +1/1, even on just one unit, it could be a good bonus.
It could really be the bonus that italians need.
It could, but it is similar to vietmamese in some sense. I am still fine with this proposal, but if pavise affected the TT, you will fix both the problems: currently it is too weak and GC is unplayable.
Overall, italians do need a fix on land. Even +1/1 armor as civ bonus works. Free archer armors is just a weaker implementation.
Still my feeling is that free archer armors + massive reduction of TT as additional pavise effect, make Italians with a sense on land in a more linear way.
Again, the extra armor is stronger (not op considering we are talking about a weak civ), but the TT reduction is more unique (no similarto viets), introducing an arbalest spam and a GC which does really its job.
I like the theme of āarmored archersā as the italian military bonus
Personally, I would go for free archer armor upgrades, as you suggested, plus a buff to pavise from +1/+1 to +2/+1 (I think +2/+2 is too strong).
Genoese crossbowman is however a problem on itās own: it needs a really big buff. Imo, increase the damage of 1, decrease the training time a bit and also increase the damage against elephants, they really suck right now against those, since their bonus is the same against cavalry and elephants. It needs to go from +7 to +12 at least.
Then thereās also also the issue of the condottieroā¦it has been overnerfed. Now itās basically useless. Problem is that if you buff them too much, italians get too much of a power spike in impā¦perhaps we need an elite condo upgrade only for italians (not shared with allies)? Iām not sureā¦
I see this is well accepted by all the community. I do hope that devs will see this, since it is simple, needed and effective, following the italian theme.
+2/1 is not that different, +1/2 makes more sense. It works, but the main point is that GC needs to become decentā¦
GC is decent vs eles, considering they are slow. The problem is that GC is very bad overall, especially if you compare with ckn:
high cost
huge TT
small attack (compared to other UU)
If the idea is of a ranged pike, it should be smammable (cheap and fast to train), as a regular counter unit.
If you want to leave it that expensive (for me it is unacceptable that it is more expensive than a ckn), at least it should be trained fast. So pavise can help in this sense, by applying a huge reduction to archers similarly to cuman UT for scouts.
Condos are clearly overnerfed, but I would fix before italians (basically free archer armors + GC buff, e.g., via pavise) and then HCs for all the civs. If HCs become something decent, then conods will get a role.
