Italians/Strategy

The Italians Focuses on a strong naval force, booming, and in their Gunpowder

Strengths
In water maps Italians are one of the best civilizations, They have almost full dock technologies ( except for heavy demolition ship), they can research all of these technologies very quickly due to their discount bonus of these technologies and also saving a lot of resources( Shipwright for example only costs for the Italians 500 food 150 gold, instead of 1000 food 300 gold) the extra line of sight of their fishing ships are very useful for exploring in early game, their unique technology "Silk Road" also benefits your trade cogs ("Silk road" plus "Shipwright" makes trade cogs cost reduced 70%). Considering the Cannon Galleons are Gunpowder units their 15% discount in their costs is very helpful, use Shipwright to reduce the cost to 35%

In land, the Italians are very well balanced civilization, they age up very quickly due to their aging discount, so using a "fast Castle" technique with them is a clever idea. They can also boom in land, they have almost all economic technologies, and their Silk Road technology is very helpful in late game when all gold mines have been taken.

Their gunpowder discount helps much in late game, they have all gunpowder upgrades, complete Blacksmith techs, and almost all the technologies of the University, so in late game you will have strong Hand Cannoneers, strong Bombard Towers, and Strong Bombard Cannons in land. Italians have the only Unique unit that is also a team bonus and a gunpowder counterunit: the Condottiero, Condottieros are also a pretty fast infantry, if you have allies that are infantry based (like Goths, Celts or Aztecs) their shared Condottieros will benefit from their respective bonuses and unique techs. Italians have also the only archer that have attack bonus vs cavalry the Genoese Crossbowman, ( normally cavalry is used for overtake archers) this archer gives to Italians a opportunity to reverse the unit circle, the Pavise technology improves Genoese Crossbowman armor (+1/+1) so it is also very well armored archer

Weaknesses
The Italians have mainly two weaknesses: cavalry and non gunpowder siege units. They lack both Hussar and paladin upgrades and don't have camels, they also lack the siege rams, siege onagers and heavy scorpions upgrades so their main siege unit in land is the Bombard Cannon.