Post your thoughts on the DLC here

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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by helln00 »

I am liking malta more then italy now that I am playing it tbh, Italy feels like a lot of busy work with the lombards, shipment timing with the papal stuff and also the unit comp is really awkward in age 3 since there is no skirm and the paviser doesn't have a future upgrade path.

Malta on the other hand has a simple but flexible unit comp, you can have a really strong eco with that tower card and your units just get stronger the more you play case of that extra HP
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by Garja »

I think 5v and less crates was better for Italy. Pavisiers definetely need the guard upgrade and possibly one more base damage upgrade. Right now the unit is simply not abusable at all even with full ups.

And btw the multiple resistance mechanic is terrible. Siege resistance is basically useless (isn't going to do any good anyway vs artillery) but the slow animation is painful for micro (both against artillery but also when kiting vs cav).

Lombards are also relatively useless for supremacy. They just make it easier to balance resources for the mixed cost shipments but that's it. Wasn't it different in Napoleonic Era where they would actually return more res than the investment?

Overall Italy simply doesn't have a strong strategy, something that if they get away with is scary for another civ. They're supposed to build a decent eco and balance resources waiting for opportunities to use the various merc cards but that just isn't a way to win games competitively.
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by ShinkuroYukinari »

Garja wrote: ↑
28 May 2022, 14:08
I think 5v and less crates was better for Italy. Pavisiers definetely need the guard upgrade and possibly one more base damage upgrade. Right now the unit is simply not abusable at all even with full ups.

And btw the multiple resistance mechanic is terrible. Siege resistance is basically useless (isn't going to do any good anyway vs artillery) but the slow animation is painful for micro (both against artillery but also when kiting vs cav).

Lombards are also relatively useless for supremacy. They just make it easier to balance resources for the mixed cost shipments but that's it. Wasn't it different in Napoleonic Era where they would actually return more res than the investment?

Overall Italy simply doesn't have a strong strategy, something that if they get away with is scary for another civ. They're supposed to build a decent eco and balance resources waiting for opportunities to use the various merc cards but that just isn't a way to win games competitively.
Age 3 Pavisieri are still fairly usable, and in age4 we are likely expected to transition to Bersagliere and the trumpet spam.

Id consider siege resistance to be actually quite nice in cases where stagger mode doesnt spread out your units. The splash damage is minimised a lot. Plus if youre versing units like Abus or Grens.

if you invest coin, for every 300c you get 225f 150w. Plus there are strats where you focus on food eco with furrier/spice trade and use lombard for the rest, making it an efficient trade. Hyperfocusing on Lombards is rather slow, but they can find their uses on food maps for example.

I'd say its more a matter of finetuning builds rather than Italy being bad, since it has so many interesting aspects we need to learn how to use properly.
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by Garja »

ShinkuroYukinari wrote: ↑
28 May 2022, 15:12
Age 3 Pavisieri are still fairly usable, and in age4 we are likely expected to transition to Bersagliere and the trumpet spam.

Id consider siege resistance to be actually quite nice in cases where stagger mode doesnt spread out your units. The splash damage is minimised a lot. Plus if youre versing units like Abus or Grens.

if you invest coin, for every 300c you get 225f 150w. Plus there are strats where you focus on food eco with furrier/spice trade and use lombard for the rest, making it an efficient trade. Hyperfocusing on Lombards is rather slow, but they can find their uses on food maps for example.

I'd say its more a matter of finetuning builds rather than Italy being bad, since it has so many interesting aspects we need to learn how to use properly.
Age3 pavisiers are basically the Dutch skirm version of xbows. Still loses to most other elite archers, doesn't challenge the countersystem. It's not abusable, it's just "good". And considering it's pretty much the only interesting spammable unit it's clearly not enough.
Also the guard upgrade is a must just because standard xbows have that. Besides I wouldn't even want to switch to Bersaglieri when I spent 2 cards to up Pavs.

The siege resistance is still useless even if you get falcs to shoot them. Not only they gonna die anyway, but also they're gonna take more damage from ranged units. (btw stagger mode always spread units if you micro out small groups). If I'm versing abus it could be useful yes, except I have to switch every new batch of unit which makes them stop for couple seconds. The problem is the animation, make it instant and it becomes an asset rather than a liability.

I understand Lombards have some use, it just seems not worth the investment. Kinda like University for Hausa, they're good for some specific influence strats but overall if you skip them you usually have more competitive builds.

You can finetune builds for sure, but it's just like there isn't a massable unit or anything really abusable that makes for a scary strat. Again, everything is generic, lot of different units but with occasional use.
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by ShinkuroYukinari »

Garja wrote: ↑
28 May 2022, 15:56
ShinkuroYukinari wrote: ↑
28 May 2022, 15:12
Age 3 Pavisieri are still fairly usable, and in age4 we are likely expected to transition to Bersagliere and the trumpet spam.

Id consider siege resistance to be actually quite nice in cases where stagger mode doesnt spread out your units. The splash damage is minimised a lot. Plus if youre versing units like Abus or Grens.

if you invest coin, for every 300c you get 225f 150w. Plus there are strats where you focus on food eco with furrier/spice trade and use lombard for the rest, making it an efficient trade. Hyperfocusing on Lombards is rather slow, but they can find their uses on food maps for example.

I'd say its more a matter of finetuning builds rather than Italy being bad, since it has so many interesting aspects we need to learn how to use properly.
Age3 pavisiers are basically the Dutch skirm version of xbows. Still loses to most other elite archers, doesn't challenge the countersystem. It's not abusable, it's just "good". And considering it's pretty much the only interesting spammable unit it's clearly not enough.
Also the guard upgrade is a must just because standard xbows have that. Besides I wouldn't even want to switch to Bersaglieri when I spent 2 cards to up Pavs.

The siege resistance is still useless even if you get falcs to shoot them. Not only they gonna die anyway, but also they're gonna take more damage from ranged units. (btw stagger mode always spread units if you micro out small groups). If I'm versing abus it could be useful yes, except I have to switch every new batch of unit which makes them stop for couple seconds. The problem is the animation, make it instant and it becomes an asset rather than a liability.

I understand Lombards have some use, it just seems not worth the investment. Kinda like University for Hausa, they're good for some specific influence strats but overall if you skip them you usually have more competitive builds.

You can finetune builds for sure, but it's just like there isn't a massable unit or anything really abusable that makes for a scary strat. Again, everything is generic, lot of different units but with occasional use.
Thanks to the Lombard you can mass Pavisieri efficiently without having a bunch of vils chopping wood.
Only downside i can think of for Pavisieri *not* having a guard-imperial upgrade is that it would give italy 2 units with similar purposes. An ageup option could be nice tho, there are such for others.

I understand why they have the animation to begin with, but yeah, speeding it up would be really helpful.

With the Lombard gold you can get upgrades, and even invest it back into the other resources if you have a surplus, or hell, get Culverins. Lombards offer Italy the ability to do a lot of good "on the fly" decisions so long as you actively use them.

How often do you use the Basilica or shipments in that style? I can assure you that Schiavoni trade extremely favourably with enemy skirms, and Papal guard in cover mode can tank a frankly absurd number of shots while providing solid protection from Hussars. If you use the Lombard, and you should, your resource production is more efficiently geared towards training Basilica units, and ESPECIALLY the Schiavoni, which pair up excellently with a Musketeer Mass, which is easy to do with Italy since you're already gonna focus your eco on Food thanks to the Lombard.

Also, shoutout to Marco Polo on maps with herdables, and especially team games.
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by leg[] »

Italy is confusing: why have like a custom factory building that needs micro and time to build up? Their lategame/team units are good: I can see Elmeti and spamming their unique skirmisher being a good combo.

Even so I've preferred Malta. Trip to Jerusalem probably is nice option for a longer game. Fixed gun is only a bad meme, the sheep scout can't eat people thus is mostly a waste.

I was confused about: the royal units (Arbalest), I guess it's researched in age V or happens automatically? No clue wtf it is doing.
It feels Malta needs a better culverin more than Italy does, almost like they swapped those 2 by mistake, it makes sense even historically Italy would get the 'Arbalest' archer.

For Malta my interest is in getting to age IV and then grant flame throwers upgrades: the rockets serve well for general anti-buildings or support, so it somewhat makes up for bad economics. Over-time you will do more damage with a unit that can do 2 or 3 roles in 1, once they get both upgrade cards, and if making the right plays. I've even beaten clearly better players with less flamethrowers and micro, hilarious. Also a euro-type civ with only 1 factory: and the eco seems purposefully bad with Malta; but free cav upgrades? the civ to me is all about a mid-game push, otherwise is just average.

After using it more, it's clearly good for a 1 on 1 or just a general euro civ but seems more focused on booming with more defensive buildings while rushing. If you look at their cards and their perks, one hint is they get a powerspike by booming earlier due to free cav upgrade but those units cost 10-30 res more. Their boom with 2-3 tcs might be one of the best in the game with the gathering card sent, but it's timed, if you exhaust most natural resources, it's back to normal farm/estates, which are not as great as for some other civs. Flamethrowers have great potential to beat infantry rushes with micro, but they are overall weak to spam and end up being a waste on the battlefield in lategame. Might as well buy a few 'basic' cannons as a boost, instead of continue spamming flamethrowers, it's usually good to only have like 10 to 15 flamethrowers and direct them to soften up or defeat infantry/dragoons. Still not sure really what their ideal unit comp is, other than having fairly basic/beatable units that you can just spam out, and other civs can do some specific things better. Hospitallers seem cool, but their charged pistol card also is pretty slow to recharge/underwhelming, they are pretty weak in lategame as a generic infantry unit, even being so tanky. I feel a lot more comfortable with a powerful civ like Aztecs or Japan if I were to go lategame or had to fight against 2 players at once,where probably Italy is the better of the two from the dlc for that too, otherwise you are stuck with basic euro-themed units that aren't too great in all cases. Flamethrowers with the cards seemed great except they're so underwhelming against other cannons and any cavalry, makes them a rather bad choice to make more than a few and send out splash damage. You can definitely win, and I have won, but you don't want to be in a tough situation while using this civ as there's nothing special to get you out.

disclaimer: didn't buy it anyway :food:
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by fei123456 »

I feel like new civs are mediocre in every dimension. They seem to have variaties of possibilities, but none of them are really superior.
SemiFF with slow age up and elite xbow pikemen sounds really dumb. And the bombard just don't fire sometimes.
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

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fei123456 wrote: ↑
28 May 2022, 21:53
I feel like new civs are mediocre in every dimension. They seem to have variaties of possibilities, but none of them are really superior.
Italy for sure feels that way. Malta has atleast one strong option. I am perfectioning a build that I think adds to the xbow/pike start.
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by duckzilla »

Sounds good up to now. Everyone expected completely overpowered new civs and, instead, they are mediocre. Devs seem to have an understanding for balance.
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

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I think they just listened the wrong advice and ended up with bad tuning for cards and stuff.
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by look »

i feel it lacks units for italy, maybe they would need skirmsh to be decent.
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

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duckzilla wrote: ↑
28 May 2022, 22:04
Devs seem to have an understanding for balance.
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by Thrar »

As others have noticed, vils with greatcoats now show 203 HP rather than 202. I wonder if that's a general change to always round up HP for display (those vils actually have 202.5 HP) to get rid of the oddity of having units at <1 HP showing as 0. Has anyone seen a living unit at 0 HP since this update?
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by EAGLEMUT »

Thrar wrote: ↑
29 May 2022, 14:35
As others have noticed, vils with greatcoats now show 203 HP rather than 202. I wonder if that's a general change to always round up HP for display (those vils actually have 202.5 HP) to get rid of the oddity of having units at <1 HP showing as 0. Has anyone seen a living unit at 0 HP since this update?
I just tried in scenario editor to give my Dragoon 0.01 HP and it displays as 1 HP
So yeah, it seems the rounding for display got changed.
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by helln00 »

I have only just realised Italy has like 3 unit upgrade cards (2 are specific to the pavisier), like in a drawn out situation I feel like Italy really struggles
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by ShinkuroYukinari »

helln00 wrote: ↑
30 May 2022, 11:19
I have only just realised Italy has like 3 unit upgrade cards (2 are specific to the pavisier), like in a drawn out situation I feel like Italy really struggles
I found that Bersaglieri maxed out are on par if not slightly better than French Voltigeur for only 5 gold more, so it doesn't appear as bad as on first sight. Plus Royal Decree helps with Dragoons alongside the +15% combat for all cav card. It's not as bad as it appears initially
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by helln00 »

ShinkuroYukinari wrote: ↑
30 May 2022, 11:34
helln00 wrote: ↑
30 May 2022, 11:19
I have only just realised Italy has like 3 unit upgrade cards (2 are specific to the pavisier), like in a drawn out situation I feel like Italy really struggles
I found that Bersaglieri maxed out are on par if not slightly better than French Voltigeur for only 5 gold more, so it doesn't appear as bad as on first sight. Plus Royal Decree helps with Dragoons alongside the +15% combat for all cav card. It's not as bad as it appears initially
they have the same base HP as skirms and less range amour and I think from the guard stats it has 16 atk as base, besides the speed I am not sure what the advantages are
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by ShinkuroYukinari »

helln00 wrote: ↑
30 May 2022, 12:34
ShinkuroYukinari wrote: ↑
30 May 2022, 11:34
helln00 wrote: ↑
30 May 2022, 11:19
I have only just realised Italy has like 3 unit upgrade cards (2 are specific to the pavisier), like in a drawn out situation I feel like Italy really struggles
I found that Bersaglieri maxed out are on par if not slightly better than French Voltigeur for only 10 gold more, so it doesn't appear as bad as on first sight. Plus Royal Decree helps with Dragoons alongside the +15% combat for all cav card. It's not as bad as it appears initially
they have the same base HP as skirms and less range amour and I think from the guard stats it has 16 atk as base, besides the speed I am not sure what the advantages are
I doublechecked. Bersaglieri fully carded have about the same damage thanks to base damage being higher and having access to the same effective damage increase(Alpini is +15% dmg)
HP-wise, it's a 5% advantage for Bersaglieri if France player doesn't run Wilderness warfare, and otherwise fully carded. It does get noticeable with the card though, albeit it's a rare addition in normal games due to age 2 being tight in space already. Treaty-wise, yeah, Voltigeur are far more durable since you can afford to give them 20% extra HP.
Ability is the key one here ultimately, cause good stuns can ensure more effective damage is utilised well. I would need to run some tests to see how impactful the ability is in a fair test.

So i would say that overall Bersaglieri have the advantage of needing less upgrades and better performance until fully upgraded, at which point it goes from on-par to Voltigeur being better. In a Treaty setting though, yeah, Voltigeur are stronger thanks to durability and Wilderness card.
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by Garja »

Ranged resistance is more valuable than some HP. 20% only for a skirm is a huge handicap.
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by gibson »

Bersaglieri simply don’t feel that great when you use them. In fact, really the only Italian things that feel good are xbows when attacking buildings and papal units, which are very awkward to get and impossible to mass.
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by helln00 »

I just sorta realise this but pavisier dont have melee attack in range mode, which arguably makes them pretty good since they wont try to melee units that make contact
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

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helln00 wrote: ↑
31 May 2022, 14:59
I just sorta realise this but pavisier dont have melee attack in range mode, which arguably makes them pretty good since they wont try to melee units that make contact
Diddn't notice that. It's actually important because they can't stagger while keeping the ranged armor.
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Re: Post your thoughts on the DLC here

Post by DragonFruit »

Apparently Leonardo's tank can pick up treasures

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