Slitherine

I mean, yes, they lost against the Romans. But, other than that, is there evidence that nearly all their Hoplites were low quality?

I think the quality rating in FOGII is according to the relative performance of each party in the historical records. It reads like the Etruscans lost more than the Romans did. Quality may reflect their organization, their morale and their command efficiency.
BTW, raw Hoplites are only 25 POA short comparing to Roman bulky average Hoplites. However, they lost +1CT modifier in the recent patch but the price has not changed. Perhaps their price could be decreased by a little.

I think Raw troops are priced just fine. They are still dangerous if they pull off flank attacks, and they are already so cheap that you can take advantage of their numbers to stretch out a line or have reserves available. I think the general agreement among MP players was that the trash hordes were overall too powerful before.

Now, that being said the Etruscans were never a powerful army, but then again I don't see why they should be. Some armies are pretty great all rounders, some are highly situational, and some are... idiosyncratic.

Besides, Etruscans can rely on a large cavalry of high quality.

Ex. with a medium force size :

• Etruscans : up to 4 units of veteran armoured Cavalry

• Romans : up to 2 units of above average armoured Cavalry

(not to mention a lot of LF)

These are mostly MP arguments, but I was thinking history. I do not really see why they should necessarily not be citizen hoplites or italian foot.

So I was not really thinking to make them cheaper. I was thinking to make them not raw.

I think letting them have access to an elite infantry unit in the late army would be fair. It is ludicrous to think the army that gave the Romans such a bloody fight at Sentinum did not have some variety of royal guards or palace regiments.