Time to Buff Italy

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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Good Afternoon,

I am creating this post to demand some buffs for the Italians. They were severely over nerfed and all the data available to the players proves this point. I have below some statistic samples that help support the fact that Italy is the weakest civilization in the game by a margin. Now a lot of people wish to say that Italy is strong late game but again, the statistics really do not back that up. Even in team games they severely underperform and there is a correlation between strength to games played for a civ.

As you can see from the Sunbro’s grid below Italy has an abysmal 55 civ score. On top of that they have only two decent match ups vs Hausa/Malta.

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Based on this image below taken from the Free Food Party website the statistics show that Italy SEVERELY underperforms at almost every single level. The only decent level being 2k but even then it is less than 200 games.

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For buffs I would be pretty open but any strong FF civ (which is Meta now) completely overwhelms them. From what I can tell it seems Italy Tempo is too slow for them to even obtain their power spikes. Outside of a few merc. shipments the power spikes are nothing special and they’re out performed by many civs.

Personally id like to see a buff to lombards since it is part of their unique identity or an architect on age up. Perhaps have them offer a trickle of each resource (very small) even without a resource investment but allow invested resources to increase the trickle. Otherwise the Pavisier 50 wood costs really makes them underperform even xbow timings compared to other civs. Perhaps a 50 food cost 30 wood costs instead would be better.

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Perhaps an improvement in gaining experience will allow Italy to take advantage of its cards a little more and compensate for all its shortcomings.

Another possibility would be to give something similar to the Spanish gold card, but that is deposited directly in the Lombards. (maybe wood to maximize profit)

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All the financier cards should be a recurring investment.

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Rework lombards, they are no replacement of a factory. They need to be a replacement of a factory. How to do that? Either A significantly better exchange rate, B allow 5 of them to produce a trickle of all ressources permantly without pay in cost in age 2 upwards with more of them beeing allowed to be built the higher the age is where 4 of them are equivalent to a factory and 5 in imperial are an upgraded factory just spread out.

Readd armored pistoleer inf (remove the team tag) and make armored pistoleers 300 c and 3 pops.

Take a look at their roster again. Bersagliere are probably too costly.

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Same for malta as well both have been overnerfed. Italy did get an extra cav damage card in age 2 that effects all cav and makes papal lancers the best cav in the game now when fully carded/upgraded. Pavisiers also got a late game buff which makes them the strongest xbow in the game in imperial and it is pretty much better or on par with the maltese arbalester before that. Pavisiers are extremely underused and underrated.

I do agree with you that they need a buff and as someone else said I think giving lombards a permanent res trickle would be nice and a way to compensate for lack of a second factory.
Papal bombards also need a significant buff they’re absolute trash currently and lose to every other artillery.

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I don’t necessarily agree with what is said about the pavisier. He is not underestimated at all, he needs too many cards to be a correct unit. And this recent buff in the Imperial Age have no meaning, because few people reach the Imperial Age, and an archaic unit like the Pavisier must overall be efficient in the first ages and not in the last, where in the more wood becomes rare!

The bersaglieri is not a problem either, it is fine as it is. The problems in my opinion are completely different:

The Paviser : I don’t like them at all in their current state.Because they need a certain number of cards for them to all be just correct. Then because it is not the tanky unit that it should be, and not more versatile than the identity of the unit suggests by these formations depending on the situation which lends itself to it. Next, I would like to say that the bad state of this civilization is mainly due to a bad conception. A conception which should have been that of African civilizations, it was self-evident for everyone… The flaws of this conception are revealed especially with the basilica when the shipping queue congests that one of your metropolis. The developers wanted to make Italian civilization a melting pot of Italian city-states where all the units would be accessible to us without making a choice. But this direction naturally implies restricting and limiting some gameplay elements, such as the basilica and the economic importance of the Lombards (whereas is a important characteristic of the northern states of Italy). This is why Italy has access to a whole list of new units, and that’s good, except that for some of them they have imposed restrictions to balance them. But is rather poorly done and we can see it clearly.

As there is not really hope to remake this civilization, I propose these changes:

Pavisier: remove the melee damage penalty against heavy cavalry (x0.75 > x1), this would be better suited to the unit which has a halberd. Modify damage resistance when going to age 3 (20% > 30%). Which also involves modifying the “Heavy Paveses” card, for example in that way: keep the 10% life point increase and that of resistance, but increasing hiscost (35/50 > 50/ 65). Like that, the Pavisier turns out to be an interesting choice at age 3 without having to build a deck around this unit. Also, with the heavy paveses card which makes it reach 40% of res is more in line with the defensive crossbowman it is without breaking the unit thanks to an increase of his cost. This could also vary Italy’s strategies, instead of always rushing the Age4 for Bersaglieri. I believe that the pavisier with these modifications can get Italy out of this bad state and finally become an interesting option worthy of this wonderful unity!

Schiavone: becomes a permanent unit in Lombards also unlockable at age 2. As it should be. Then modification of its range at age 4 (as is already the case with age 3) 20 > 22. This is a consistent buff that the schiavone deserves.

Then for the basilica, there is not much to do except change the speed of expedition through the ages: Age 2 + 5%, Age 3 + 10%, Age 4 + 15% (I think it also increases by 20% in age 5). And a modification of the Papal Arsenal card as follows (Speed +33% > +10%).

Papal bombard: For the bombard I will slightly increase the aoe damage: 4 > 4.5. Don’t forget that she gets a good skill with the Papal Arsenal card.

For the Lombards, I agree that they are missing something, I leave that to others…

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Pavisier is like 15% more hp for 5 extra res at base, and higher base hp scales better with the upgrades compared to maltese xbow for example. You don’t really struggle with wood either due to lombard deposit cards and architects making your buildings. It is really a great, cost effective unit throughout the game the only bad thing about it is the firing animation is a bit weird but it is certainly a good unit. Just as the maltese xbow is just a regular xbow without all its card so is the pavisier. Unless doing FI I’d choose the pavisier over the bersaglieri, the latter is only good because of free guard tech and speed to just run all over opponents eco but if you’re not rushing to industrial and have time to upgrade your xbow it is worth using.

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I’ve only played a handful of games total with italy so take my suggestion for what it is - I think italy just needs to start with 4v instead of 3 and it will completely adjust that early tempo to a better spot. The units and everything look pretty ok to me for supremacy, but its like wading through molasses to try to get rolling early game. If its slightly too good then, drop 50f from starting crates and adjust from there.

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I actually like this alot
Make them infinte sends
Could balance a few or make it 1rst time as good as currentz 2nd+ not as good (like the age4 one 2300 1rst time, 1600 2nd) for at least a few

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Italy could probably use a Musketeer combat card or church tech. That and/or the church tech should replace your goons with the fancy ones and they should be made more upgradable. Being able to train the fancy carbines would be fun.

Italy in Treaty is pretty trash atm. It doesn’t need to be good, but it could survive being less-bad.

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Yes, but you also age up like germans with german eco maybe even better due to earlier techs at market. So thats a tricky balance.
Maybe make the lombard 1 vill be 2 vills base, hell 4 with adv politician its not like italy has an age2 vill shipment so that would help the inital age2 stumbling block.

Tbh with my many italy games its not age2, or age4. Its the fact range 16 to 18 range shit animation pavs and basic goons die to most proper goon skirm civs and our musk huss are meh so unlike say brits or mexico our musk falc huss aint special. I dont think staying in age3 long at all is viable but most civs can foece the issue so imho here is the biggest stumbling block. A semi ff civ with a weak age3 or slow age3 thx to slow pricey mercs and no good skirm is awkward

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The church tech should make them trainable either in addition to or instead of your regular goons as many other civs church techs now do. The italian church card is very poor, perhaps the worst in the game closely followed by maltas.

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Giving usa goons 3x cards may be overtuned

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Yeah, I could go either way on the order. At least Italy gets faster firing goons. Malta’s might be less garbage though… idk

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Italys goons aren’t bad now you have the new age 2 cav attack card and cav combat and potentially faster fire rate from the church card tech, the church card in general is bad though like you don’t need another basilica when you can get 2 from uffizi card. Revolutionaries from losing settlers is also a useless tech and finally the carbine cav is also so expensive at 2k wood and now it changes all goons to carbine cav and considering goons cost more than carbine cav that seems a strange thing to do, they are only vet CC after all not like they are guard or something. They should at least be like consulate units with +10% stats.

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Yes, but you don’t have a 6v shipment that comes with 2 obnoxious raiding units. If anything maybe just trade a food crate for a vill?

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I meant like Spanish Gold or Jesuit Influence, not an infinite shipment. Although an infinite age 4 card for Lombard deposits could also be good.

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I agree, Carabinieri and Risorgimento technology needs to be improved.

The wood cost of the Carabinieri technology is excessive, I propose changing it to 1000 or 2000 food, in addition to allowing us to train and improve the Carabinieri.

Risorgimento is basically a semi-revolution, maybe they could give us a Redshirts for every villager instead of every villager killed and enable their training in urban centers. (obviously it would have to be a more expensive revolutionary, maybe 150 or 200 food)

Edit: Yes, I think we already had this conversation, we both agree that investment cards should be like Spanish gold. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Currently it really gives no value. You’re getting 1600 res worth of vet carbine cav and 10% faster fire rate for goons and it costs 2k wood plus the church card itself. If you convert goons to carbine cav you’re actually losing value not gaining it. It is far better to just send cav combat or the age 2 cav attack card to buff your goons 15% rather than wasting a card and 2k wood for a tiny fire rate increase.

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I think the developers made this unit too circumstantial, the good thing about the Carabinieri is that it has a multiplier against mercenary and outlaw units, but not being able to train them and the cost in wood makes them not really worth it.

The 10% increase in attack speed is actually something I like. Since I usually use Argentina, I realized that it affects the two unique units of the revolution and, believe it or not, it makes a difference, so I would prefer that this effect be maintained. :slightly_smiling_face: