The pup patch has some nice ideas. But that’s about it. Overall it’s a complete mess that turns the game upside down and creates crazy imbalances. There is just too much. Some civs benefit greatly, some civs lose tremendously.
Here’s a list of things that are gonna be real terrible:
First of all melee inf in imp is dead. It got nerfed from so many angles, it’s completely dead. Why even keep barracks? For spears only, I guess…?
French knights with 322 hp in castle. Thank you, but no thank you.
Great Bombards and Zhu Xi bombards for some reason are the only bombards with splash dmg. And now you can’t even counter them from afar. Janissaries still kill cav very quickly and can repair bombards, Sipahis are by far the best horsemen in the game (Otto just gets everything it seems) and it’s going to be a real issue to counter all that without ranged anti siege. The Otto villager vizier point is also just laughably overtuned.
I am not against removing the anti siege meta, but the way it’s done won’t make the game better but much more imbalanced because it affects the various civs so differently.
Freaking English Longbows and Rangers with ridiculous range and very good dmg vs their siege counter is gonna be awful. Just awful. Imperial age games will be terribly imbalanced. Why is there even a +2 range for archers tech? Why? Not cool. Especially not with the 100% accuracy nonsense all the ranged units have. If you wanna copy AoE2 (the siege changes make it seem like that), why not copy the good stuff from the game?
HRE got nerfed so hard in every aspect. You have to go Meinwerk now, because Aachen is terrible: It offers the worst army in the whole game by far, there is nothing good anymore and the effectiveness was reduced. Relics were nerfed as well and non-Aachen play was not improved, it’s tedious and annoying (age II monastery or prelate tc production that doesn’t stop vil production is needed). HRE is turned from a very good civ into probably the worst civ of them all. Especially in lategame. HRE was slapped and kicked and mistreated in so many ways, why even keep it in the game? It never gets new things anyway, it’s always changes to existing things or mergers of existing things, while all the other civs get the cool stuff. Why not just remove HRE and be done with it? It got trashed.
Why was China Ming buffed? Yuan is so very op and that’s why Ming was not used as often, so they buffed Ming… What? Bring both down to 10% (speed/hp). It’s completely crazy. Ming is an option and not an obgligation anyway, it’s a full on bonus for China, not a must. With the new biology freaking China, the civ with the most unique things and units, gets 45% hp on cav. Are you kidding me? That’s just ridiculous. China knights and horsemen have more hp than French. Plus all the other gadgets they have. It’s too much.
Cataphracts and Imperial Guards are completely mental now. Way too much value for 1 pop. Way too much.
Siege is gonna be so imbalanced between the civs now, it’s not even funny.
The new Otto cav archer is ridiculous. What a devastating kite god… Awful to play against.
The scaling of some units is just so much better for some civs than for others. Eventually it’s gonna be ranged and cav all day… The worst metas after siege metas.
…the list can go on and on
There are so many consequences of these changes. Some civs win the lottery with it, others lose everything… house, wife, kids… All gone.
The patch must not go live like this. It’s just awfully imbalanced. Basics of the game were changed and all the civs react differently to it. If this is gonna be the patch for Redbull, then it’s gonna be an completely unnecessary own goal. The game’s balance is just gone now. Some civs just get so much, others are treated like unwanted stepchildren. I really do not understand it. There is SO MUCH fine tuning needed for this patch. It just cannot be released like this. It will hurt the game, its image and integrity.
I love the game and that’s why I am really sad about all the changes that are happening and that do not seem like they were really thought through. French only get 5% from the Biology change, which is great due to the fact that 1 pop units can’t have too great of a value. But freaking Cataphracts and Imperial Guards get 10%? Madness. And then China with 45% hp on cav… Come on. It’s not okay at all. It’s imbalanced.
Edit: Another problem that still persist, but has nothing to do with any pup changes is that OotD is affected too much by debuffs like Buddhist monks and Camels. It’s too effective and has no real counterplay. At least in regards of the Buddhist debuff. It’s 60 seconds and can’t be countered and that makes OotD armies much much worse to the level that they can’t win any engagement cost efficiently at all.
It feels to me that they gave imperial age a lot of changes to create a snowball effect. I’m glad they did a PUP for a patch with so many changes, very curious to see what does/doesn’t get changed from the last week of feedback.
I agree that the balance has shifted greatly in favor of a handful of civs with these changes, english gonna eat good with this patch
How else is melee supposed to be played? With focus fire? You seem like you would be happy with a 100% ranged meta. Well, good for your, but I am not game for that kind of shiz.
It has great early to mid potential, yes. It’s not a bad tech and the best thing for HRE in the whole patch. But that’s it and the cons for the civ altogether are way greater. Especially for lategame. You pretty much have to play Meinwerk now, if you don’t want an absolute garbage army. But the Meinwerk gameplay is not really good. The eco build up feels punishing, there is no good mechanical foundation. HRE was nerfed a lot and probably the most in relation to other civs, while already good civs become much much better. It’s not a very well designed civ and it scales way too much with its landmarks that never are balanced between themselves, so there always is a just a good or a bad choice and most of the choices revolve around the same landmarks. If you think that this patch is gonna have a good balance, then I think you are not understanding how vastly different the civs react to these changes. There is a huge imbalance.
Currently yes, because Aachen is overtuned and the civ is built around it. On pup the civ got hammered. And overall melee inf was nerfed for all civs by a lot in lategame. Naturally that hurts a melee focussed civ that only has MAA that are better than average the most. Meinwerk was always inferior, because its eco is not very good and especially not vs Aachen. But on pup Meinwerk is the only way to spice the army up. HRE has the most basic units with the least bonuses across the board. They are pigeonwholed into Aachen and MAA and that got nerfed. If HRE was better designed, it would be less crazy value landmark focussed and had a better basic foundation outside of landmarks, which are too defining for the civ. If you go Aachen on pup, you have a worse eco, weaker relic defenses, 180 hp lategame MAA, 10% speed for all infantry units, pathetic 100 hp Landsknechte and the worst buff mechanic in the game in inspired warriors. That’s everything they bring to the table. And all other civs have various buffs… Hp here, attackspeed there, dmg here, unique units there, synergies here, aoe buffs there and so on. HRE does not have a good design.
Trust shneider isn’t a fan of range units. But at the same time i want even melee units to require some micro. Take for example the way you have to micro horseman +archers vs spears + archers. Both teams have to focus fire while also playing a game of chicken with teasing their melee towards the front then pulling said melee back.
I’m confused to what you’re talking about? Achaen radius got reduced? That’s not landmark breaking that you lost an outer ring of farms buffs??? Also its a HORRID RTS game design that you can sit in your base the whole 20min game and contend and even WIN?? HRE versatility has not been touched in a negative way but instead its earlier aggression potential has been buffed with meinworks.
Also take a look at what you’re saying? you’ve given zero EXAMPLES of this BAD?
Most games resolve in feudal castle so all imp changes dont impact the vast majority of games. Next the imp cost changes hav been made specifically to force MORE decisions rather than age, click all upgrades and mass army.
Army tactic HP IS an issue and has always been an issue? for examples crossbows do not kill maa without heavily micro’ing the crossbow, then when you add 20%hp and in the case of HRE infantry, speed…crossbows absolutely do not cost effectively kill imp elite tactic hre maa?? Thats a balance issue, and favors the ez A move GG.
I wouldn’t say that you don’t have to micro melee inf. You can a-click every unit and every unit is potentially better if microed well. If you try to keep MAA away from cb fire by pressuring the cbs with horsemen and micro your spears vs the opponent’s cav or do the same with your archers vs his spears than this is a lot of micro. Some units need other units to be more effective. MAA are all around brawlers, so you send them in. But you wanna protect them from their hardcounters and don’t want to run them right into them, thus mindlessly a-clicking them is not smart. Micro is the interaction of the different unit types and not sending one unit type into another unit type and claim that these are the only units that need to be microed (I exaggerate a bit, but that’s for the clarity of my argument).
Ofc it was. Ranged was buffed, there are all around more counters to melee infantry now, cavalry was buffed and age IV melee inf lost 20% hp bonus, which was somewhat offset by the +4 melee armor vs other melee units but nothing else. Melee infantry in imp is A LOT worse now. The whole patch nerfs melee infantry in a lot of ways. And MAA are the only above average unit HRE can muster with Aachen. That plus the reduction in radius is a hefty nerf. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely hate the fact that HRE is balanced around Aachen. That’s a terrible design. So I welcome nerfs that try to change that and make the age II landmark choice an actual choice. But you need to buff that civ in another way then, too. Otherwise it’s just nerfed and redcued in its ability. HRE is already plain af and only is successful because of it’s overtuned eco allowing to spam basic boring units forever. Every other civ usually gets compensated for nerfs or the inferior landmarks receive buffs, while the superior ones remain untouched. Delhi House of Learning for example, or the Kremlin buff a year ago, the College of Artillery changes, the Wyngard buffs, the Farimba changes now…
The +3 dmg from Meinwerk are not the savior. Horsemen end up having 19 dmg in imp. Sipahis are better in many ways and also have 21 dmg. And Otto has a way better overall army in general, too. So why would +3 horsemen and spear dmg be such a great buff that makes all the nerfs to HRE irrelevant, if Otto can do what HRE can do now, but more effectively? It’s a good tech, better than Riveted Chainmail was, which now is just gone, but eventually HRE was still hit with the big nerf hammer. Bigger than any other civ. Japanese melee in imp was also heavily nerfed. Everybody will swtich to ranged and cav and the civs with concepts for and bonuses to that will benefit the most. It’s no rocket science.
If you now always go Meinwerk and spam spears and horsemen/knights all day long then this civ changed from boring to boring. Every other civ has a better unit roster balance than HRE. They all have way more ways to improve generic units by techs or buffs or simply have more unique units that can actually be spammed or are just very strong, unlike this wimp of a Landsknecht that just isn’t cost effective. He can be devastating, but if 3 LK slay 7 spears and then die, then it was only barely worth it. And usually they die before they can achieve that. If you are floating gold you are probably ahead and can just spam them. They won’t be cost effective, but the opponent will think “oh snap, they are so strong”… On Pup they have 100 hp in imp while archers have at least 7 range and springalds kill them as collateral. Lategame Landsknecht disabled.
If the goal was to nerf melee infantry while buffing everything else, okay… cool. Let’s see how that works. But you cannot forget melee infantry focussed civs over that. If you buff everything and nerf melee infantry as well, then you kinda disable melee infantry civs and need to redeisgn them or rethink all the changes.
Imp is just as much part of the game as feudal. All aspects of the game need to be viable for all the civs. Otherwise it would be pretty dull, especially since there are more game modes than 15 minute 1v1s. And on some maps, 1v1 matches tend to go imp. Imp is just as important to be balanced as any other age. The worst part of RTS games is if they are designed in a way that if one civ/race/whatever reaches a certain point on which the balance shifts tremendously. And for AoE 4 there are civs that simply end at a certain point while other civs still have various options and can still scale further. And that needs to be balanced. Optional things can’t be simply mechanics of imbalance. Why should a game like AoE 4 do that to itself?
You are the first person I hear complaining about melee infantry being generally too strong aside of the occasional Palace guard/HRE and English MAA/Ghulam complaint. I’ve never heard a pro say that melee inf is too strong. And if you nerf the one core military strength that HRE has, there needs to be a compensation. Especially since there are ranged and cav focussed civs that benefit greatly from all this. Springalds, as soon as they work as intended, will ruin melee inf. Archers have a greater range, handcannons are better vs melee inf as well, cav is tougher… And then melee inf lost the 20% hp bonus in imp. That all comes together. It removes melee infantry from lategame.
Last but not least: This is not only about HRE. The patch touches a lot of things and I have listed a lot of things. I’d say that this is enough about HRE. The patch is still full of other changes and imbalances, if you ignore HRE. This thread is not just about the state of HRE on the pup. 9 and 11 range longbows, 322 caste age French knights, 391 hp Chinese Ming knights, 1 pop monsters in form of Catapracts and Imperial Guards, Grenadiers being a thing now (another nerf to melee inf esp.), range being able to counter mangos, Great Bombards and Zhu Xi bombards are way harder to counter now, siege is in a very weird spot anyway now and will still be built a lot… There is so much to talk about. Most importantly these changes affect all the civs completely differently. The game will become very imbalanced with the pup patch. That’s not hard to understand, I’d say. The balance changes greatly. Everything changes. And the meta will develop into masses of ranged units, horsemen and heavy cav. And spearmen, because of all the cav, but no more lategame melee infantry. Which is especially interesting because the dominance of the heavily armored knights ended in the 16th century (the central time period of AoE 4 lategame) and then it was all about infantry.
I just wish Relic would communicate more. It’s tiring to worry so much about one’s favorite game so short before the biggest tournament for it.
no sir; please open the game up as soon as possible and load the combat scenario mod that allows you to pit units vs units; and make an EASY TO REPLICATE experiment of MAA (no upgrades) vs Crossbows (no upgrades); and A MOVE into each other… Do it several times and let me know just how many times you get the crossbow mass to win?
Also you canNOT optimally A-move horseman into a composition with spears, the horseman will simply die before they do anything effective. Horseman of all the units absolutely have to be ####### when the enemy has a reasonable amount of spears.
But i will agree the purpose of MAA is to have a unit you can more or less A-move and have it at least hold up as a frontline/meatshield unit. The issue with the live build is that certain civ MAA do so much more than frontline that they trivalize needing to have any other units; aka HRE MAA as the biggest prepetrators of single composition MAA masses that consistently and easily puts the opponent on their back foot.
Currently with full upgrades you can ABSOLUTELY mindlessly A-move Eng MAA, HRE MAA and Chinese PG; they are extremely cheap, tanky, fast*, and quickly replacable compared to the more expensive HC or vunerable crossbows.
No, the patch pulled back in the power of melee across the board, but like you just mentioned grew the power of other units which HRE and other have access to. So HRE’s net versatiliy didn’t change, the powers just shifted from a singular unit to multiple.
Again I mention, most games do not make it to imperial; and the +3 appears in feudal; the impact is HUGE. +3 spearman now beats all other light melee infantry except onna-bugeisha (which cost gold) and +3 horseman is effectively a cheaper Ghazi Raider (ghazi raider is a very good unit); all this on top of your MAA in feudal, your powerful eco with prelates, and your faster infantry?? I don’t see how you got weaker in age 1 thru 3?
I disagree with this opinion? You went from Aachen always, maa single unit spam to now at least 2 maybe even 3+ unit composition/transitions? I think it’s a good RTS change if the game forces each player to switch up compositions periodically to adapt, that’s the definition of RTS, IMO.
This speaks to how much you are likely a single unit composition spammer? Landsknecht are meant to be mixed with some kind of meatshield (typically MAA, but spears, horseman, knights also work); do not merely spam these expensive glass cannons and A move them.
Absolutely there are other issues that should be addressed like rangers vs siege and whatnot.
Season 9 I believe is slated to release after Wololoo.
I see what you mean. And yeah, HRE MAA are very versatile. That’s why HRE got nothing else really. If their core army gets nerfed, they need other buffs. Meinwerk will make horsemen, knights and spears potent, but comes at a cost of an annoying and mechanically badly optimized eco. Aachen will be a complete trash army. It’s like playing a basic civ without any bonuses almost. It’s very bad, it felt terrible on the pup. Nobody can enjoy a civ that plain, so Aachen is dead unless you are fine with spamming boring basic units with no bonuses, no flavor, no identity. But why would you ever wanna play Aachen HRE if there are so many other civs that just have way more options, are way more fun and way better designed? I really don’t see the point of HRE anymore. For me it’s not just about winning, I much more enjoy the unique differences of the civs. That’s why I am so unhappy with HRE in general. Its identity, which never was great, got a big hit. It’s such a bland and boring civ. That’s already the case for live, but much more with the pup changes. Just an awful civ. Plus Palace Guards are way better against crossbows than HRE MAA. And China got so much other stuff and unique things. It’s so crazy how little HRE actually offers.
Regarding the other thing: If you fight with raw crossbows vs mass MAA on an open field, you deserve to lose with crossbows I’d say. That’s not how you play them. You wanna bottleneck MAA and bodyblock them with a meatshield. Crossbows are very efficient vs MAA if done right. And MAA need to be protected from crossbows, if they can’t reach them well enough. On live crossbows kill MAA with 10 shots. On pup it’s 8.2, so effectively 9, but if there is a meat shield hitting the MAA, 8 will definitely suffice already. That’s big. Very big. Because it leads to chain reactions. MAA will die notably quicker.
Again: Crossbows are not supposed to win with MAA directly in their face. They are ranged for a reason. Should they win now in lategame by face tanking, then this is not a good thing. Because that’s not how they are supposed to counter them. Arbaletries can do that, but crossbows can’t. Arbaletriers are also a weird unit. It has only upsides, is strong against its counters and doesn’t have a tradeoff. No slower movement speed, no higher cost (in fact they can be made cheaper). Together with the buffed biology, French armies will probably dominate in castle and scale very well into imp. From zero to hero pretty much.
To your other points:
Well, MAA or rather melee inf were not nerfed once, not twice… No they received quadruple nerfs. And I am pretty sure that it’s too much. Less effective against cav due to buffs to cav, less effective against ranged due to buffs to ranged and springalds counter them now directly, and less effective in imp due to the elite army tactics nerf. In my book that’s a removal of lategame infantry without actually removing it.
And I said that the game is not all about feudal. I actually don’t care if HRE or anybody does well in feudal and early castle, if it sucks in imp. Doesn’t change the fact that the civ is badly designed. All ages matter. The game is not all 15 minute 1v1 matches. The imperial age is not uncommon. It’s an equal part of the game and should be treated as such. Why should some civs explode in imp, while others cease to exist almost? What’s the point? Why have a civ like that? I personally don’t enjoy feudal age and HRE was already good there anyway. I play it, I try to win during it, but I much more enjoy exploring all the ages in one match. This is not Starcraft. Age of Empires has several ages for a reason, not as a gimmick. That’s why it doesn’t appease me one bit should HRE now be very strong in feudal with Meinwerk. Why should it be the only civ that gets a pathetic imperial age? Why should it be the one civ that never gets anything really new? They have one unique unit that is a niche unit and even that got trashed for imperial. The +3 dmg shift the focus of HRE, while its core strenghts and unique unit gets a big slap. Landsknechte never really were cost efficient. And now they are really a waste of money. Springalds in castle, 2 range for archers in imp, 100 hp fully upgraded… They die before they do anything. 100 hp in imp is ridiculously pathetic with all the changes.
Also: There are other civs that are very good in feudal and they do have a good imperial and many buffs and options. Why should HRE be this boring, bland and lame civ that offers nothing but annoys so many people? I want to enjoy that civ, not apologize for it.
Don’t get me wrong. I like that HRE has a different way of playing now. But why does it have to come with ruining the usual way and turning it into an even more basic civ than before? Nobody will ever enjoy Aachen anymore. You can still play it, but why would you? You field only shit units with no mechanic behind it other than spamming shit units. One dimensional play was exchanged with a different type of one dimensional play with the option of still playing a rather strong eco civ, but with the most boring unit roster in the whole world. So this option is only something for masochists. How can anybody say that this is good? Unless one hates HRE ofc, then it makes perfect sense.
I love versatile armies. But you do not get rewarded for that with HRE, because there are no good bonuses across the board. On pup you can build a different army now, but your core strength was ruined. It gets a whole new identity, while other civs always get the option of doing the stuff they did before while getting buffs to underused things. When is the last time HRE has gotten something new? Not a change of something that existed before. I mean something actually new? Like all the other civs. Sipahis were basic horsemen at first, now they are chads. Ghazi Riders were newly introduced. Ghulams are new and so are Keshiks. Wyngard got completely unique units and so does Farimba now. The handcannon elephant for Delhi was also added and is not vanilla. English got a King, Mongols got Khan’s hunters, the Hui Hui Pao didn’t exist before, access to Jeanne’s unique units was made easier… What has HRE ever gotten since release? It’s always MAA and that stupid Landsknecht with its weird design, when it should be a formation unit that grows stronger in numbers and should have different versions: A light one with a pike/halberd and a heavy one with a greatsword called Doppelsöldner. And they should get bonuses from fighting in formations, like Landsknechte actually did. But no, they are weird glass cannons to be sprinkled in. I find that really awful. If there is one civ that deserves to get something competely new, it’s HRE. Nerf its eco focus if you like, balance its landmarks… But please finally make it a civ that is not just a boring spammer of crappy units without cool mechanics and synergies. Inpsired warriors is so bad mechanically, it’s pathetic compared to NoC, Mehter, ToV, Spirit way, Bannermen, Warrior Monks, There are so many options for unique units in the HRE. But then there are not even references to the Teutonic Order. Instead a variant was released called OotD. I mean… Please… Why give all the civs their iconic things in one way or another, but not HRE? I don’t get it why this civ is so stupidly designed and thus shafted in its unqiueness. For me personally it is by far the worst designed civ in the game. It wasn’t as bad when the game was released and after all the bugs were fixed, but in the course of the game’s existence, all civs and I really mean all civs have gotten completely new thing, only HRE didn’t. The only thing they got which was really new was prelates benefitting from Marching drills and the unique Meinwerk techs. That’s it. In all these years.
Yes, exactly. HRE is a topic on its own. I’ve been unhappy with them since release, so this pup isn’t a shocker for me. Well, it actually is, but yeah… I am just wondering what has to happen to finally make this civ not as dull… It’s trapped by its own strengths, which get nerfed and nerfed and still are considered overpowered for some players. Not pros, though. Unless you consider Crackedy a pro, he is annoyed by HRE by default, but plays the overstuffed Chinese. HRE just has the worst strengths that prevent it from being a cool and fun civ that actually resembles the HRE well.
You also said that you consider this patch to be ready to be shipped. I wonder what makes you say that, if there is so much potential of breaking the balance with all the changes. LBs and Rangers will be a nightmare and it shouldn’t go through like this. But also 322 hp French knights in castle will be too much for the balance. Those are almost imp stats in terms of the season 9 version of the game. Imp knights now have 324 hp. French will probably play a long feudal, mass a lot of knights, try to keep them alive, hit castle and then just mow everything down and will win right then and there. Balance overall gets changed so so much with the pup patch and I really don’t know if it’s smart to release all that at once. It will be a completely different game.
Oh, I didn’t catch that. That would be great ofc, because I really think the pup patch is not tournament material at all in it’s current state and needs a lot of tuning. So I hope you are right. I wish you and everybody a good night, I am off for now.
It sounds like that person plays mainly 1v1 open maps. Why would you completely disregard imperial age as if it doesn’t exist? It’s a key aspect of the game. It’s also very obvious that melee infantry will take a big nerf with these changes. Direct nerfs with the addition of a cheap anti-melee infantry siege and buffs to ranged and cavalry.
Exactly. That’s what it’s all about. On top of that it is the civ with the least unique stuff. It’s a basic civ that got inspiration, men with maces and something with relics and then they called it HRE. That’s it. And HRE has so much more potential. The only thing that is HRE is the Landsknecht, the rest has nothing to do with them specifically. There is no other civ that was realized in this poor manner. And now with the pup patch you get an even more basic civ with Aachen (it’s actually a joke how un-unique HRE is) or have to go Meinwerk if you do not want to have an absolutely terrible and pathetic army. That’s just not cool, that’s not a good design. Every other civ has their bonuses spread over everything and also has way more bonuses and better mechanics/synergies anyway.
And OotD is also stagnating. From the start it was the worst civ from the new ones and that has never changed. It’s just not a good civ and I made plenty of suggestions how to change that in another thread (for HRE and OotD, I didn’t suggest the Kurfürsten system of which I speak later on, though). Granted, I got a bit salty in that thread after I read the pup notes and well… I still am salty.
I know, on lower levels OotD is difficult to beat, but only because people don’t know how to exploit their many weaknesses. That’s really it. Pros know how to do that and it shows. There where it matters, OotD is the worst civ or at least in the worst bottom three, but it constantly is down there. It’s also so plain and boring. It’s a basic civ that offers nothing except its concept, which is more disadvantageous than advantageous and if you want a better army (still not good due to the pop inefficiency) then you have to go Meinwerk. And if you don’t want an annoyingly sluggish eco, you have to go Aachen. There is no pro that considers OotD to be an all around good civ. It’s the same lame stuff HRE suffers from for OotD. Both civs share the worst civ designs in the whole game imo. By a lot even. There is just no depth to them.
There are so many things you can do with HRE/OotD. From a gameplay mechanics point of view. You can add a Kurfürsten system (principes electores imperii or Electors) of which there were 7 (later 9) similar to the Vizier points but different to offer more unique ways to play the civs. You can make the Landsknecht actually an historically accurate version of himself by having a light Landsknecht with lance/halberd and a heavy one called Doppelsöldner with a greatsword that benefit from each other when used in formations. You can add several references to the Teutonic Order, TKs, Mönchsritter, Ritterbrüder, Marienburg and what not. You can add Black Riders. You can add Archbishops and make inspired warriors actually a cool mechanic and not that weird thing that it is since release. You can have relics be a moral boost to the army if carried along. You can have an eco that scales with the ages and doesn’t explode via one freaking landmark. There is so much that could be done, but eventually it’s just inspiration, an imbalanced focus on landmarks (imbalanced because there are good/essential and not so good choices) and macemen. And all that got nerfed with no compensation other than having to go Meinwerk now, if you don’t want to play the most basic basic civ in the history of AoE 4.
And now the Culverin, a German invention, becomes an anti building bombard instead of anti artillery (which I understand) or anti personell (which I don’t understand). They promote the third best strength of this long barrel and long range artillery and make it a freaking bombard that’s not even very good. Its cannonballs are too small to really dmg buildings. You can destabilize them and create weak points to be exploited in walls, but a full on anti building bombard? The game is taking more and more freedoms (Byzantine is full on fantasy stuff with a few exceptions) and while I am more of a friend of limited freedoms in a game that depicts historical civilizations, the big issue is that HRE/OotD seem to get the least freedoms. They are both so plain and boring and basic.
I just don’t understand why every civ gets new things eventually, but HRE is stuck with the same stuff for years now and only receives changes from within, which slowly but surely guts the civ more and more and more.
French knights are actually a bit WEAKER now - consider that the hp diff between the standard knight and royal is just gonna be 10% instead of 15%. So there’s that. F*ck cataphracts and romaboos as a whole.
Bombards and jans were and are irrelevant to mass melee inf. The new springald with the imperail armory is the real threat. Also the cavalry archers.
English…have gone ahead to the 19th century it seems.
HRE - one hopespot here actually; landsnakes. They are melee, they have high base damage, they get +4 melee armor…! New, thicker horsemen + armored landsnakes maybe? We can … (c)hope.
French knights still get more HP, then they have their +10 melee damage after a charge, can kite away and regen health with chivalry and you can reduce their cost by 25%. They are a ridiculously good unit, even more so with JD and her buffs/abilities. +5% HP but at cheaper cost for the tech is a better way of not making them so strong in late game especially when they can get the tech in castle with the royal institute.
Yes, the surrounding factors enabling the french knight ARE most of its threat. I’m still more scared of the 1.5 attack rate, 10/4 armor arbalests - especially with the new siege damage tech. Those thing have been flying under the radar forever.
It remains - endgame knight fights are less of a steep battle. At this rate, Delhi lancers might be as pop effective as RK’s (if nowhere close as cost effectice). Overall, the strongest endgame knights at is prolly Rus as #1, Otto as #2, with french and Delhi tied for #3.
HRE just has the worst strengths that prevent it from being a cool and fun civ that actually resembles the HRE well.