When you have a long growing season, what the IIs consider "old wood" has time to develop.

It is a very good idea to prune IIs as IIIs when they are young.

I have mostly threes in my garden, with (I think) only two twos: Dawn & The President. Because my garden is very small, my clematis are all crammed (err, grown) together on a few adjoining trellises. For ease of pruning, I just prune all my clematis (with the exception of two type 1's on a separate trellis) back hard each late winter. That way, I don't have to sort out intertwined vines to separate the 2's from the 3's.

My Dawn always blooms very early - but only at the very bottom of the vine on what's left of the old wood post-pruning, and, then, later in the season, it reblooms higher on the new vines. The President is about to open now, up about 6' off the ground on this season's new growth.

I prune all 2s and 3s right down to the ground in the winter, and have had great success doing so. The vines come back more vigorous, and with more basal shoots every year. To me, one of the best parts of pruning this way is it delays blooming on type-2s, so more bloom times line up, which is a more impressive show than it would otherwise be.

unpro, you don't list a zone. so I can't tell if you live in zone 5 or zone 9. I guess that would make a big difference as my zone, 6, is right about middle.

In my zone you will get more blooms if type 2's are left unpruned. But there are plenty of years when I need to trim them down for cleanliness; they bloom later (and smaller) but still bloom.

I had Mrs. Cholmondeley for years and treated her as a type 3; she did great that way (except I got tired of the wilting during rainy seasons). Niobe and Piilu die down to the ground each winter, treating themselves to a type 3 pruning, and they do great as well.

I'm in zone 5 - south central michigan.