Agree, The republic of Venice, Genoa, and Florence were so different to each other, in so many aspects, that I think they deserve to be a complete civ of their own.
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As an italian myself, i can say that only in my region, the dialect.variety is important. Of course nowwdays is not like in the past. Where basically each 30km there were differences 
from north to south. Imagine that where i live (pre alps, north) in the valley there are little villages (almost inhabitated now) and the elders there told me that each village used to have their own dialect( the villages are quite close eschother) some of them used to have influences from french or german. Dunno why… we used to have austrian dominande and also rules from napoleone
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in my opinion it should be a defensive civilization, which like the Chinese, based on the buildings built, can change the government managed by the family in charge at that moment, with a strong economy, focused on gold, given that in Italy if you had some you could buy everything with gold, religion must be important, but with different management from the Holy Roman Empire. you should be able to place churches around your city, with the possibility of having changes in it, for example for each church, the radius of it, would allow the villagers to have gold, every Once the resources are placed, such as every 10 resources 1 gold, the church should provide a home for the villagers, so that they can take refuge inside it, it should be possible to create small fortresses, similar to those of the Sicilians on AOE2, of the larger Towers with the possibility of some bonuses, such as producing units ###### #### in exchange for gold etc., the grape fields should be present, given that wine was important in Italy, I think that city centers should be different from normal, they should allow the production of military units in exchange for gold, without stopping the production of villagers, obviously everything would make the civilization new and fresh, with the point of making everything original but balanced with other civilizations.
TC could be similar to this, with a large tower, which perhaps allows you to have more vision in the area.
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Why?
What is wrong with Variant concept in the practice, aside of weird names ( Zhu Xi’s Legacy) and weid choices ( Zhu Xi’s Legacy, Order of Dragon and Jeane of Arc)??
It works same as subfactions in Command & Conquer3 Kane’s Wrath (the expansion), which is absolute fine concept
The Italian states could share architecture, language, common mechanics and maybe same italian units
The language could be issue only for “hardcore” linguistic nerds, who are not majority, we could say, that there are many german dialects (Bavarian, Saxon etc) and HRE do not use it, same with architecture
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As I read these posts here, I still think, that many missunderstand, what I want to suggest
The generic medieval Italian civilisation is non-sense in AoE4.
To have multiple Italian civilisations with own unique mechanics in AoE4 is also non-sense and unrealistic, there are many other interesting candidates in medieval world - Spain, Ethiopia, Khmer Empire, Korea, Hungary… Vikings… To design mechanically unique civilisation is more dificult in AoE4 compare to other AoE games
The best candidate for Italian civ in AoE4 is Venice,
With variant civ concept we can add few more civs to represent multiple Italian states in AoE4
so lets say, for example, Venice is main civ, and Gennoa and Sicily are variants, or there is no “main civ” (it does not matter)
these italian civs would share common mechanics like Ayyubids and Abbasid Dynasty share House of Wisdom aging and Golden Age mechanics, but would have unique units and tech inspired by history
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Because variants try unhistorical things, I mean, they don’t represent actual Civs, at the moment. The Ayubbids kind of do but that wasn’t the original name as we all know. That’s why I think variants are not the best tool for this. You can’t use variants as they are now to represent a Civ, you can use them to spice up the gameplay of an existing Civ basing possibly on a inner subfaction.
The HRE was an actual united Empire though, Italians weren’t.
I understand you.
In a way, if at some point the devs create the Danes, Norwegians and Swedes, I suppose that initially the first one that comes out would be considered a classic civ, and the other two variant civs, although in theory at a historical level: the three have a same viking origin and it’s not that one originated from the other. So with those civs I don’t think there should be main civ, but they are all variants of each other.
I suppose the same thing would happen with Italian civs, like Genoa or Venice, I suppose whichever comes out first would be the parent civ and the other two variants, at least a variant in the sense of sharing a roster of base units.
In fact, if Zhu Xi Legacy had come out first before the Chinese Civ, one might wonder what name they would have given to the Chinese Civ that we know: Celestial Empire? Well, that would be for another debate.
With the Order of the Dragon already out, which apparently they have saved a lot by creating it (it doesn’t even have new Landmarks), I hope that the same does not happen for the Italian Civ.
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I mean, a good worked variant Civ is that of Zhu Xi with respect to his original Civ, with a new rooster of unique units and Landmarks, to take advantage of the Architecture, troops and weapons that the Medieval Chinese culture had to take advantage of, but it was too much for 1 single civ.
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At least in the fandom concepts of Venice and Genoa civs, and let’s say Sicily, these have enough unique landmarks to differentiate themselves from each other. Let’s hope that if one day they create them, whether as variants or classic civs, they will at least give them their own set of Landmarks, challenging masteries and unique units and not just reskins of other units. Same with Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
Well, I agree with You here, these 3 choices ( Zhu Xi’s Legacy, Order of Dragon and Jeane of Arc) are bad. I would choose real and interesting “entities” from history. I do not have deep knowledge of chonise history, but what I understand, “Zhu Xi’s Legacy” is completely fictional civ with no base on real historical movement or something
Otherwise, the concept of variants itself is good and interesting,
I could imagine The Hussites as HRE variant for example
Now, they revelead The Order of Dragon - its game concept (Quality units over quantity) could definitely work for chivalric order like Teutonic Order or Templars
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The way I see it, Zhu Xi Legacy is China 2, but with another name to not make is obvious.
I always thought that China as a culture has so many unique units and possible Landmarks, that one civ wasn’t enough for all of them (I guess because it would be too broken in balance terms). So this other civ takes advantage of this to include more landmarks related to religious buildings, philosophy, science; as well as units that were discarded from the initial model.
Outside of the name, it is practically historical China but focused on another build and roster of units. Of course, in order not to call it China 2, they planned a substitute name for China, and therefore Jade Empire, a fictitious name but one that they believed sounded cool. Well, it didn’t work for them, and they used the alternate name. Outside of the name, it seems like a good civ to me, at least I confirms that most of the new Landmarks are based on historical buildings.
Before they came out with the variant civ concept, I always had my doubts if the Bohemians deserved their own civ in Aoe IV, just like in Aoe II, or it was preferable for their unique units to be new HRE units.
However, with the idea of variant civs, and the fact that even an Order of Knights can create a new civ, the Hussites (A military religious movement) would be a good variant Civ idea.
At least unique units would not be missing (“Flail Rebel”, Hussite War Wagon, Warrior Hussite Monk, Hussite Mortar). Of course, unlike the HRE, they should at least have their own set of Landmarks, but in architecture, language and set of units, they were practically Germanic.
Definitely. Now I look forward to a future where they release the Teutonic Order as a civ.
Of course, in theory I think that these could exist without being a variant of other civs. They practically occupied Estonia, and created a state around forts and castles of the Order. They could be in that respect similar to the Delhi Sultanate.
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Hi, first of all I want to say that before writing this post, I’ve read many members of the AoE4 community discussing in order to bring in the new game the Italian civilization. When I first read this posts I was so enthusiast to see that italians and non-italians are interested in playing this Civ, however due to historical facts Italy was divided in many States from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Risorgimento, when this nation finally was united under one flag, so that would bring to our minds the question “who should represent the Italian Civ in the game?” In my opinion anybody can, it would be reductive to give attention to only one of the States that composed the Italian peninsula, (yes, I’m referring to you Genoese/Venetian lovers), because of the many differences in terms of wealth, culture and approach to combat. However in this many months I’ve read a lot of community’s ideas and after the release of “the Sultan Ascend” DLC, and the implementation of the “variant civs” I think we can find a compromise. Rather than creating one big civ and then releasing all the variants civilizations (Venice, Rome, Florence…), we could think of something hybrid that focuses on one of the most important mechanics in the game, LANDMARKS. This could be the key for ceasing the many dissatisfactions around the topic, imagine starting the game with our usual bunch of villagers (and of course as a starting unit our everloyal Condottiero), and in a few minutes after we have done collecting resources we are ready to evolve to the next era, and here my idea takes form. Imagine setting up your strategies and tactics on the wonderful landmarks that made Italy famous (ex. Santa Maria del fiore, Duomo di Milano, Arsenale Veneziano…) giving to the players different approaches to the match their playing. Just to make an example, the player is about to age up from age 1 to age 2, and he/she has to choose between Santa Maria del fiore (so Florentine militia/pikes and banks) and Palazzo San Giorgio (so Genoese crossbows and naval commerce), as you can see the approaches are quite different and can vary the course of actions where the match takes place, and if you choose one you can’t play with the other élite forces. Of course I didn’t mention in the post about balance, technologies or statistics in general, only because the other members of the community have done a wonderful work, and I invite the readers of this post to read them in order to have a different point of view, and more clarifications on the many possibilities ahead of us. The landmarks-City states dream team of this civilization would be in my opinion: generic Italian civ (Age I); Rome - Amalfi/Naples (Age II); Florence - Milan (Age III); Genoa - Venezia (Age IV). I didn’t include Sicily due to the fact that during the Middle Age they had a different cultural root (Norman derivation). Have a great time and I hope you’ll understand it and find it useful. P.S. I’ve wrote this same post on Reddit almost one month ago, so if you find the same post on the other platform it’s okay.
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How about them as a new civ Italian City State. And you pick a different branche through your age up. Like you have a line of Genoa buildings, a line of Venice buildings, Vatican, Firenze, Siciliy etc. And you pick a line by building Age 2 buildings.
So if you pick a Genoa building, you get access to pick between two Genoa buildings for Age 3. And two Genoa buildings for Age 4.
And likewise if you build the Age2 Venice building, for Age 3 you get to pick between two buildings etc.
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