The Italian Wars

The Italian Wars Historic map loading screen

The Italian Wars is a historical map released with Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition - Knights of the Mediterranean.

Civilizations

All players must be of one of the following civilizations:

• British
• French
• Germans
• Italians
• Ottomans
• Spanish

Description

1494 - 1559

A series of violent wars over Italy. Fought largely by France and Spain but involving much of Europe, they resulted in the Spanish Habsburgs dominating Italy, shifting power from Italy to northwestern Europe.

Features

Objectives

• The game starts with a timer. The player with most captured city-states win.

Starting conditions

Players start in a fortified city. A large river separates four influential Italian city-states that must be captured and retained. The map also has four royal palaces, two each for the Houses of Bourbon and Habsburg.

City States

City States must be captured to win. Each of the four city-states offers unique upgrades, units, and resources. All City States have one Trading Post and two City Tower sockets, while they can have either a Papal Embassy or a Great Bank.

• City-State Trading Post: Is the center of the City-State, and needs to be claimed from neutral City Guards or Enemy. Capturing the majority of them grants victory to the player or team. It allows 5 technologies and a City Defenders call to arms that spawns 14 City Guards for 400 food and coin.
  • Fortified City State (II): Trading Post and City Towers hitpoints greatly increased. City Towers damage increased. 250 wood, 200 coin
  • Pike and Shot Drill (III): Military buildings' work rate increased by 40%. 600 coin
  • TEAM Puppet Rulers (III): TEAM villagers gather resources and construct buildings 5% faster for each TEAM City State controlled. 300 food, 300 coin
  • Condottiero Army (III): Ships 1 Li'l Bombard and 8 random local Mercenaries. 1500 food, 1000 coin
  • Artillery Innovations (III): Unlocks Industrial Age artillery. 1,000 food, 600 coin

• City Tower: Helps defend the city state. Unlike the Battery Towers in the player's starting base, they are unaffected by Outpost upgrades, instead having their own technologies to research.
  • Cannon Towers: Equips City Towers with cannons, doubling their attack and giving them 3 Area of Effect. 500 wood, 400 coin
  • Trace Italienne: Doubles City Tower hitpoints. 800 wood, 400 coin

• Papal Embassy: generates XP (2/s), trains mercenaries (Elmetto, Swiss Pikeman and Armored Pistoleer), and has 4 technologies:
  • TEAM Patron of the Arts: Papal Embassies generate XP twice as fast. 100 food, 100 wood, 100 coin
  • TEAM Papal Legation: TEAM Ships a collection of 500 experience and an additional collection of 100 experience for every 10 minutes the game has lasted. 300 coin
  • TEAM Papal Blessing: All TEAM units in the vicinity of a City State slowly heal. 400 coin
  • Excommunication (III): Disables Homecity shipments for all enemy players for 2 minutes. 400 coin

• Great Bank: generates coin (1.5/s), trains mercenaries (Landsknecht, Cannoneer and Li'l Bombard), and has 4 technologies:
  • TEAM Taula de Canvi: Great Banks generated coin twice as fast. 200 food, 200 wood
  • TEAM Medici Patronage: All TEAM Market, Mill, Farm, Granary, Rice Paddy, and Hacienda technologies are 50% cheaper. 500 food
  • TEAM Bank Loan: TEAM Ships a chest of 500 coin and an additional chest of 100 coin for every 10 minutes the game has lasted. 200 wood
  • TEAM Mercenary Bounties (III): TEAM Enemy units grant a small sum of coin as well as experience when defeated. 300 food

History

The Italian Wars, also known as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, refers to a series of conflicts covering the period from 1494 to 1559 that took place in the Italian peninsula. The primary belligerents were the Valois kings of France and their Habsburg opponents in Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, supported at different times by Milan, Venice, and other Italian city-states. They ended in 1559 with the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, which established the Habsburgs as the leading power in Italy.

The 1454 Italic League (created after the recognition of Francesco Sforza as Duke of Milan) achieved a balance of power in Italy and resulted in a period of rapid economic growth which ended with the death of Lorenzo de' Medici in 1492. Combined with the ambition of Ludovico Sforza (fourth son of Francesco Sforza), its collapse allowed Charles VIII of France to invade Naples in 1494, which drew in Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Despite being forced to withdraw in 1495, Charles showed the Italian states were both wealthy and vulnerable due to their political divisions. Italy became a battleground in the struggle for European domination between France and the Habsburgs, with the conflict expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland, and the Mediterranean Sea. Other external powers were involved for short periods, notably England and the Ottoman Empire.

Fought with considerable brutality, the wars took place against the background of religious turmoil caused by the Reformation, particularly in France and the Holy Roman Empire. They are seen as a turning point in the evolution from medieval to modern warfare, with the use of the Arquebus or handgun becoming common, along with significant technological improvements in siege artillery. Literate commanders and modern printing methods also made the wars one of the first conflicts with a significant number of contemporary accounts, including Francesco Guicciardini, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Blaise de Montluc.

After 1503, most of the fighting was initiated by French invasions of Lombardy and Piedmont, but although the French were able to hold territory for periods of time, they could not do so permanently. By 1557, both France and the Empire were confronted by internal divisions over religion, while Spain faced a potential revolt in the Spanish Netherlands. The Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis largely expelled France from northern Italy and established Spain as the dominant power in the south, controlling Naples and Sicily, as well as Milan in the north.

Trivia

• Taula de Canvi is based on an Aragonese Crown institution, described as the first-ever public central bank.

Gallery

Allegory of the supremacy of Charles V over his enemies.

Detail of a tapestry depicting the Battle of Pavia with the alleged portrait of Galeazzo Sanseverino, woven from a cartoon by Bernard van Orley (c. 1531).

The Battle of Pavia, the most important battle in the Italian Wars.