The game is as good as I could have hoped for at launch. I will probably start playing SC2 again (along side AOE 4 some) until hotkey customization and some bug fixes come in future patches.
I spent about 130 hours on HRE playing quick match and skirmishing to create build orders.
They are a strong civ, I think better than most give them credit for.
I only have a few requests for them.
Prelates should attack move with your army and stop to heal nearby healable targets that are injured.
Maybe I have not found it yet but the health bars are very āsee throughā when not selecting units so I canāt easily see who needs to be healed or repaired. When the units are selected its just fine. (Before anyone misunderstands this I have the health bars always on already.)
I have issue with how the units interact in combat. But maybe some of it will be fixed with more hotkeys. Right now the only way to stop my prelates from walking to their death is to give them their own hotkey but I already need separate hotkeys for my Springalds, scouts, main army, siege, and roaming late game wood/mining vills. (Iād like to be able to put prelates in my main army hotkey but when I retreat they go to the back of the line which is now the front line and die.)
There are a few more complaints but overall its been a good time. Canāt wait to see community made maps, The devs made some beautiful maps but some are more annoying than fun to fight on.
If you have any HRE questions you can ask me.
As far as I know, Aachen Capel/Regnitz is the way to go unless you are doing some Burgrave/ram all in then you want Meinwerk unless you can hit your wood line too then AC then is pretty good with Burgrave also.
If you can get 2 relics in your Regnitz you are good to go. If you get all 3 then your opponent should be scared. Iāve yet to lose a game where I either got all 3 relics in my Regnitz or did a fast castle Burgrave all in.
As for Imperial itās almost always Swabia. HRE does not require many vills to begin with so Swabia makes us very safe against counter attacks. since we can reproduce any vills that die for free and fast.
Against civs without early knight I just go Meinverk rush at Age 2. Two rax, MAA, ranged armor and rams its hard for most people to stop without Knight + Archer. Or of course you can just play safe into Aachen, Regnitz FC.
I have 50+ hours and the more I am convinced itās a mediocre game. Trying hard to like it, but itās just not good enough. The problems it has rooted in game design become more and more apparent, nevermind the missing features. I went back to play a bit of AoE2 and SC2 and they are just so much better, the difference in gameplay quality just shocks me. They are so much more fun to play.
The Mongols just pack and go away xD they avoid rams 100%. Thatās how I got smashed.
Also if your enemy builds outposts, spearmen, and archers. Rams with Meinverk are no good. And enemy goes to Castle before you.
youāre supposed to go MAA not rams, you just get rams if you need to. mongols can unpack but who cares, hes gonna be chased around by MAA plus spears and archers tickle MAA especially with +1 armor upgrade
Iāll tell you my most common build order but its kind of long so ill cut out the details like at certain points you want the prelate to individually buff units at the beginning.
6 on food, make prelate first
send the first 2 sheep to the gold side of your TC (so Aachen can hit gold and food.)
4 vills to gold (buff them)
2 vills to food
2/3 vills to wood (depends on if your wood is going to be hit by AC or not)
when the first 1 vill goes to wood thats when you start AC. It should be built 2 tiles away from your base so you can get 7/8 farms.
2 vills to food
2 vills to gold
after this its pretty much all vills on wood and a little more on food because you need wood for farms when sheep/berries run out.
There are a lot of little details but get your barracks with your first extra 150 wood, and make an extra prelate if you didnt hit the wood line with AC.
MAA against almost everything early, you can get 4 or 5 spears vrs cav rush so you have a slightly faster age up. You will get castle before you opponent and they will likely attack you if not you will boom harder than them if you get 3 relics.
Play with it, there are things i didnt mention like how and when to get the first prelates to line up with when RC is finishing. And build AC with the 4 vills on gold btw.
Thanks mate, I will give it a practice and see how it does! I might integrate it into my current build order then repost my hre build order. Many thanks again
I usually get 4/5 spears so I can age up quickly. constantly pumping MAA from my 1 rax till can afford to add 1 more around the time I age up ill get lvl 3 MAA and mace and escort my prelate to the relics. The problem is if he raids my base while im gone protecting my prelate ill have garrison and emergency repair but its a small price to pay to get relics. They cant stop me from getting them but they can hurt my economy.
Nice! I look forward to seeing your version of how to play HRE. Iām still learning a lot myself. currently Iām trying to figure out the timing when to add the second siege workshop. I think that is supposed to be the first building after Swabia finishes. Because your wood income blows up a lot when Swabia comes.
I play Delhi and this is beyond irritating when my scholars run in it like track stars to be a meat shield. At least some attack would make up for it? Right now control grouping is the only answer it seems.
And, is it just me, but are the hitboxes incredibly finnicky? I canāt count how many times I have idles next to a sheep since I didnāt click perfectly or even struggle to pick up a relic if it just came out of an opposing monastery.
Hotkeys are a huge issue too. Not sure why it was released without at least that functionality too.
Hey Mesh, I can share my name and Elo. But I think Viper said it best, āshould I do the builds that I know are going to win or practice new things since the game is new?ā My Elo likely doesnāt reflect most peoples skill in the game right now.
That being said when you asked me to tell you me Elo I logged on and played 4 games and won them all, the last guy was really good his Elo was 1302. If you want to get high Elo just do a Burgrave all in over and over again :D. That dose not sound like fun to me though.
Also I am new to the AoE series Iāve played SC2 at the grandmaster level if that means anything.
My name in AoE4 is Jesus is Lord and my Elo is currently 1209.
To be honest I donāt skirmish as much as I should, maybe ill start doing more but comp has always been stressful for me.
Youāre right, the hitboxes are strange in this game. It must be a nightmare for the devs to make the hitboxes work well with everything being so small and close together.
imagine if your scholars just stopped and healed the elephants/infantry after they take damage. Thatās how medivac work in SC2 and its really convenient.
Neat. Iāve played 120 hours of pure HRE myself (literally only played HRE lol) and play at the 1300 Elo level (ingame name Mafiale). So we are pretty equal in skill one could say, considering that the game is very fresh and elo doesnāt always reflect the real skill levels completely. There are some points in your original post I would like to talk about:
Prelates should attack move with your army and stop to heal nearby healable targets that are injured.
This might be personal preference but I literally never noticed that. Granted I donāt have my prelates with my army most of the time (only for wololos). Usually my prelates stand in my eco and buff the villagers, injured units I send back to the base to get healed back up. I donāt think prelates as they currently are are a good adition to a mobile army, just because of the fact that they are much more valuable when buffing up your eco. Also, the military synergies the prelates have (u know the technologies from the monastery) are really neglegable (and very micro intensive) and their movement speed is slowing down the whole army.
I have issue with how the units interact in combat.
Yes. This also imo includes villager selection. If you box in 10 vils and a prelate the prelate has Q priority and messes up your selection if you just want to build simple house. Considering these are units that should stand in your eco I find that frustrating.
I think the Burgrave palace is very clunky to use. As someone comming from other strategy I constantly try to keep my ressources low. With the 5x bonus it feels very weird sometimes to wait for 500 food and 100 gold to train 5 at a time but maybe it is just a matter of getting used to it. I think this landmark stands absolutely no chance against Regnatz though.
I played the closed beta and made a feedback about schoolars (delhi prelates) where, if I have an army with at least 1 schoolar, I couldnt right click targets to attack, neither I could attack/move without my schoolars walking to their deaths while my army stand back fighting.
Also, they didnt change anything from the hotkeys. Theyāre a mess. Building a stable for mongols is completely different than building a stable for britons. Also, making man at arms at barracks is W, while in a keep is Y+Q. Thereās no standard.
I canāt ungarisson 1 unit without ungarissoning all of the same units etcā¦ (I made nearly 2000 words topic with bugs, feedback and screenshots in closed beta)
Stuff like this made me not buy the game (yet). I just paid a month of game pass to not miss the launch and will wait for these QoL improvements before commiting.
Burgrave palace feels like the āwin moarā option to seal the deal if youāre winning and pushing and Regnatz the safer pick as long as you can secure some relics.
With HRE hit boxes is a pain in the ā ā ā ā¦ when you get the church destroyed with relic inside you cannot simple take them again, is so hard to click the relic when is near a buildingā¦