Condottiero Puns

######January 1500

For the past two weeks, Margrave Francesco II has been wintering in his rural villa located in the Mantovano countryside town of Marmirolo, falconing and whoring the days away. Two months had passed since he had marched into Milan alongside the conquering French forces as a sergeant of sellswords, a Condottiero commander. The French King, Louis XII, stayed in the city for six weeks, during which Francesco was able to arrange several meetings and to work out a contract which would place him in French service, but family business had forced the French King to return to Lyon.

Francesco, with no reason to remain in Milan and present himself as a potential target for Sforza loyalists, returned home as well, but a month in the Palazzo Ducale had run him down. The palace was packed with courtiers, all on edge due to the moodiness of his pregnant wife, Isabella D'Este. Francesco loved his wife, but her pregnant state had made her irritable, a shift from her usually socially sharp self. Isabella's previous two pregnancies had resulted in baby girls, which weighed on Isabella as she knew she was expected to produce a boy, and yet, could not. And a stressed wife who can't produce a proper heir is no wife worth having, and Francesco didn't need that in his life right now, so he tactically retreated from Mantua to Marmirolo to spend the rest of his winter.

It was here at the Gonzaga villa of Marmirolo, the site of an aviary which housed over a hundred birds of prey, that Francesco could spend his winter, falconing in the day and whoring in the night. Not a care in the world as his wife dealt with her third pregnancy or as the world around him prepared for a plunge into war. It was here that his squire, Luigi Finzione, would find his lord one chilly January morning, hooting and hollering at his falcons, his breath visible in the air as it blasted out of his excited mouth.

"Look at these magnificent birds!" roared Francesco. "Beautiful, strong, and brave! Diving from one target to the next, killing with such power! Just like me!"

Francesco was no stranger to boasting, and Luigi was no stranger to hearing these ridiculous constant self-promotions. Luigi rolled his eyes at such ridiculous ideas and presented a letter towards his lord, but did not dare to interrupt as Francesco continued to compare and contrast himself and a falcon. It was only after several more moments of boasting that Francesco stopped to catch his breath, allowing Luigi to clea

Just how good are they? They have all blacksmith upgrades, but no 2HS. Can condottiero make up for this well?

I just tested them and here are the results. They are the second unique unit of the Italians and are a "quick anti-gunpowder infantry unit". They win against Jannissaries, but I was surprised that they don't win with a larger margin.

https://preview.redd.it/klf3qiyhev651.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=0164da5a361f285a3573df1fa8f1c1699cb740f1

For the tests I assume PostImperial Age, no micro and equal resources, for example 35 Condottieros (50F, 35G each) vs 28 Elite Jannissaries (60F, 55G each). Then after the fight I count the HP of the winning unit and > 60% HP would be an A-Tier counter. I did all that 5 times to get a good average.

Disclaimer: This is not a ranking of how useful a unit is overall. It simply measures how well units do when patrolled into each other. Units have many attributes such as speed, range, attack damage and armor. This mostly focuses on attack and armor by design. So Teutonic Knights are expected to perform better than Mangudai (bc they can't make use of speed and range). This approach has its shortcomings but can hopefully still be useful because you know how it was created. Let me know what you would change :) (More detailed explanation is in the beginning of the video)

Before speaking, Im from non-eng country, so my eng skill is not fluent.

Anyway, i dont know how to request condottiero from other counturies.

I can find offering it from diplo status, but i cant find where to request it.

Im ally with Castille, so i want Castille to send me his troops

I hope you do not downvote without reading the post here. Hear me out.

Considering that this game is supposed to be balanced around ranked play, and it is built to be played mainly that way, and that we also have these 7 units which are basically never seen, there is a responsibility to make these units viable for serious use in ranked play.

TOPIC OF THE THREAD:

So the question is, will lowering their cost slightly really break the game?

Will it truly have grim, negative consequences?

If yes, why?

If no, why must we avoid doing these steps?

You can choose “Yes” or “no” for each unit seperately if you want

.

1. War Elephants : 200F 75G to 200F 60G. Intentionally left at 200F, to ensure they basically can’t be massed even after buff.Never ever seen in anY serious 1v1 or TG, around which the game is supposed to be balanced. NOTE : This will not buff the persians, it will only make their totally unviable(in a serious non-DM setting) unit slightly more viable, but still hardly used.
2. Shotel Warrior, Condottiero : 50F 35G to 50F 30G. Both cost double the gold of a champion right now, hence rarely seen. Even in situations where the civs should really go for these unique units, we still see only generic champs, LC or halbs. A small -5G change, nothing too much.
3. Teutonic Knights : 85F 40G to 80F 35G. (Need I explain this one? xD) Champs with +2 extra melee are now better in practically every situation.
4. Turtle Ships : 180W 180G to 150W 150G. They are never seen in actual play, even in situations where they could shine, due to the still prohibitive cost. So we again end up with generic Galleons/Fires practically every time.
5. Steppe Lancers : 70F 45G to 70F 40G. Not risking them becoming too powerful by suggesting a small -5G change. We should atleast get to see them
6. Siege Towers : 200W 160G to 150W 100G. The only unit more hopelessly broken than Elephant Archers right now LOL. There is literally no downside to reducing its cost. Think about it. LOLOL.

Hello,

I'm trying to put together a costume of an unarmored Condottiero / mercenary captain going about daily life, right at the start of the 15th century. I'm having a devil of a time finding sources though - it's all bust paintings which don't fully illustrate the outfit, or full body that's also in full harness.

Hive mind of reddit, please help! Both with source images, and pictures of your own awesome costumes.

So the Condottieri now received +1 attack and are affected by pavise, giving the Italian Condotierro +1/+1 armor. For every other unit this would be a huge buff, but is it enough for the Condotierro?

Compared to the champion,

- you have still 3 less attack

-2 less bonus attack vs buildings

+but train 2 seconds faster,

+ have 0.1 faster attack speed,

+10 more hp

+0.3 more movement speed.

+In addition for Italians you now have the same pierce armor, and 1 more melee armor.

+In addition you save 1900 ressources for upgrading.

-However, you lack the bonus damage against Eagles(+8) completely. and have

- almost twice the gold cost (35 vs 20)

Now when do you usually build infantry? Against eagles, as trash counter and sometimes to destroy buildings.

None of these the condotierro can provide, although so many of its stats are better. It does have +10 armor against anti infantry units, but the list of units that have bonus damage against infantry is quite short (cannon galleon, slinger, hand cannoneer, Jaguar warrior, cataphract and plumed archer). The condotierro remains good against none of these except hand cannons, which are an extremely rare occurance anyways.

What do you think? Are condotierros viable in anyway now? I feel what they are lacking is some bonus damage to eagles, but because of their high speed, that might potentially be too strong of a counter then?

Pretty much what the title says. Slingers are also included in the list, among Cataphracts, Jaguar Warriors & Plumed Archers, that does full Infantry Damage to Condottieros new "Condo Armour". I know the 5.7 Beta thread is stickied, but I wan't people to know and there are so many replies to the post, it'll probably get buried and unnoticed.

It does make Italian vs. Incas matchups more interesting. What was before a difficult unit for the Incas to deal with in general is now, in turn, completely countered by the Incas.

> Also, Italians & Portuguese finally have flags on their gates now, but that isn't really important.

These units are slightly overpowered and have very few limitations besides being imperial and just needing a Barracks and an Italian ally given that they have:

• The +10 anti infantry armour

• Stats compatible to that of a 2h Swordsmen to Champion

• Ready as soon as you hit imperial

• Fast creation time

• Extremely fast Movement Rate

• Very few hard counters

• More hard when it's Malian Condos

So how do we balance this slightly overpowered unit?

• Add the castle requirement back?

• Require a tech to unlock? (like cannon galleons)

• Nerf their stats

• Give them a weakness to other melee units? (Like Champs vs Eagles?)

• Reduce their Movement Speed?

• Reduce creation time even more?

As stated before, any civs with infantry bonuses benefit from these units even more such as Slavs with splash; Goth with cost reduction and 133% faster rax spam; Aztec/Burmese/Japanese with insane attack bonuses; Malians with the PA; Celts with the movement speed and Vikings with the HP bonus (and anti cav bonus though I'm pretty sure it doesn't apply)? But the hp bonus alone makes them insane vs melee units regardless which is better than Malian ones in this case.

When even TaToH has said there's nothing you can do vs condos when you're still in castle age and they are more resilient and reliable and on par with champions and even some imp civs have a hard time (namely Turks for example).

Condos seem a bit too OP and could do with a slight rebalance to make them not so OP. Only heavy cavalry can take them down and condos can be paired with halbs/camel/any anti cav unit easily.

As much as I love this unit, their power spike is a bit too excessive.

Fun fact: Malian Condos can shrug off plumes better than Huskarls can and stand up to Catas and Jags better vs most other infantry (but it isn't advised to send them vs those units as they still outclass them)

Samurai still rock though! Go JAPS!

Condottieros are seriously unbalanced in so many ways. They have great stats for early Imp, come out quick, are pretty cheap. Early Imp they are so fucking hard to counter. I don't think anything does well but knights, but just throw in some pikes not like you don't have the barracks up. Even archers don't do that well- condos are going to have 5 pierce armor real quick, are quick themselves and have 80 hp. You're not going to have chemistry for a few minutes so condos are going to take 4 damage and wreck your shit. Not even mentioning that the completly wreck gunpowder units. If the other team has Italians you cant even think about gunpowder which makes so many civs predictable and one dimensional. I've found what works best against them is Champions, but have fun waiting for THS and Champ to research with 40 Condos at your gates or around your rax.

Worst part is that everyone on the Italian team gets them! How do you deal with Malian Condoskarls, Aztec Condos with +8 attack, Viking condos with extra hp and cheiftans or whatever other infantry bonus an already OP unit gets. Look at the Mali Condotierro/pike combo, can't counter this til Champ/Cavs. Both take forever to research and Cavs dont even do that well vs this combo.

I dont even know a fix to this, if they added a research time to the unit that would help a bunch but that still leaves the fact that they completely shit on gunpowder civs. I'm not trying to say that this unit doesn't have any counters. The problem comes in that they come out instantly, the whole team gets them, and the counters take time to research. Honestly think that the devs should remove the shared Condo bonus, its just too hard to counter and if you play random a lot of civs are just SOL pls nerf.

For reference I'm ~1950 HD and mainly play Arena.

24 condos cost: 1200 food, 840 gold

16 palas cost: 960 food, 800 gold

Just wanna leave this as a shout out to my flank from a few days ago who resigned cos he was scared of 15 persian cavaliers while i had 8 raxes ready to pump out viking condottieros constantly.....

So today I got absolutely wrecked by this.

Setting: 4v4 Green Arabia, +-1800 elo (HD). Me as spanish flank.

I did a scout rush, killed some vils, enemy flank made spears, so I went to raid other players. First pocket (Italians) was fully walled, so I went to the other pocket and did some damage. I then did 3tc mini boom, whilst doing 1 stable knights and saving for a castle to make some conqs. My pocket was attacking my enemy flank, whom I joined with my cavalry. We again did some good damage.

However, then the enemy Italian pocket went Imperial, and within minutes my base was flooded with condos (I had palissaded, but oh well). The other enemy pocket sent camels our way to kill my and my allies' knight defense, and we lost soon after.

So:

1. What could I have done differently? Because I really don't know. Maybe castle up sooner? Get luckier with my other pocket (who was just booming)?

2. How viable is wall+fast imp+condos as arabia pocket?

3. If you're a meso pocket civ with an italian ally, is it better to fast imp into EEW or into condos?

If you look at unit stats (upgraded):

• Champ: 70 hp, 17 attack, 4 armor
• Condottiero: 80 hp, 14 attack, 4/5 armor

A full upgraded champ and condo need 7 (i.e equal) hits to kill each other... I tested in editor, sometimes the champ wins and sometimes loses (both 1v1 and in groups). Against halbs and hussars, remaining hp in 1v1 fight:

Halbs: Champ 52, Condo 56 Hussar: Champ 28, Condo 24

So overall, condo = champ in raw strength + anit-infantry armor + gunpowder bonus + train way faster + move faster (attack speed seems same).

I always thought condottiero has only limited use against gunpowder but thats not the case at all.. it can fully replace the champ.