To all players who love HRE, join us in requesting a decent late-game unit for HRE:
Remove the limit of 5 Black Riders per castle!
If it’s necessary to adjust the cost, that’s fine, we don’t want an OP unit, but rather one that’s as free as those of all other civilizations.
This change would practically not affect anything at the high level of 1v1, since even when professionals build some castles they don’t produce Black Riders available at the unlocked limit.
The issue with that is that the Black Rider is neither a good nor powerful unit. It sounds good on paper, but it’s simply not a good unit. It has a slow wind up time, due to its collision it is never as efficient as HCs are, it has tons of counters as they are both cav and heavy, against which armor only helps a little bit. They can’t shoot backwards with Caracole, so they are good at chasing, but weird and awkward when kiting (which should be something they are good at after all). A bunch of crossbows easily delete them from any battlefield. The unit has no role and even if it was without build limit, it’d still be cost inefficient and pretty much as useless as the Landsknecht. Both unique units are best used for raiding, even if that should never be their focus. This is one of the sad things about this sad HRE civ.
It’s also interesting how minor things and epsecially nerfs are shared among HRE and OotD, but stuff like the Black Rider isn’t. So far I have only noticed how this shared civ concept is disadvantageous to both civs. These civs simply cannot win (when it comes to civ design). I know that OotD has a rather okayish win rate, but more than often disappoints in tournaments. That’s not really the point. The point is that this civ is a dumbed down version of HRE, whose only “thing” is the times 2 concept and that’s it. The roster and techs are very generic or boring/useless like the spearmen torch tech or the Warhorse tech. There is nothing OotD about OotD, nothing about Sigismund of Luxemburg, nothing about really unique units, nothing about Hungary (which is where the Order operated the most). There is nothing to this civ.
Landsknechte need to be imp only and core of the army material, not this joke of a unit that it is now. Nobody with a brain goes for this unit. The +5 hp from an earlier patch was absolutely useless, because these tiny buffs do nothing to a fundamentally flawed unit that can only destroy your own investments.
And the Black Rider should become a powerful unit that is accessible and has distinct bonuses. It could be an anti cav unit similar to the Dragoon in AoE3. It could take 50% dmg less from gunpowder and deal bonus damage to gunpowder and cav, while it is countered by Crossbows and spearmen alone, not by Camels and not by gunpowder (HCs, Janissaries). The HRE eventually repelled the Ottomans twice. But neither HRE nor OotD (an order that was explicitly founded to fight Ottomans) has anything that makes them anywhere near to being a repellant to the Ottoman onslaught.
The Black Rider could also get a melee attack modus with a high attack and a lower attack speed, which can be activated at will. So with that they’d be low hp hard hitting anti cav and anti gunpoweder knights of sorts that want to fight from range, but can also switch depending on the situation just like the Desert Raider. The raw and pure usage in melee would be discouraged by their rather high cost.
Long story short: Even if the Black Rider didn’t have a build limit, it would still not be a good unit, as countering it is more cost efficient than building it. It’s a flawed unit that was supposed to help HRE lategame, but it doesn’t. And the removal of the build limit will not fundamentally change that.
The problem with the limit is that the Black Rider is actually a pretty OP (Overpowered) unit if you manage to build them en masse. They’re like Super-Mangudais, but twice as expensive. Well, in theory they’re not invincible either; they’re easily defeated by massed Horsemen and Crossbowmen.
“To be fair,” many civilizations currently also have OP units if they manage to gather enough gold or meet sufficient conditions without imposing so many limits:
Delhi: War Elephants (5 stars) 1200 HP, OP anti-cavalry, Tower Elephants (5 stars), OP anti-ranged, Sultan Tower Elephants (6 stars), OP anti-everything.
Abbasid: Post-Imperial Camel Rider (5 stars), 400 HP, 23.4+19.7 Atk vs Cavalry every 1.125 seconds.
Templars: Slachzta Cavalry (6 stars), OP cavalry, good against everything, even its counters.
ZhuXi: Imperial Guard (5 stars), OP cavalry, 425 HP, 13/6 Armor, 37.2 Atk (+Divine Charge)
Civs with Ribauldequins: OP siege unit (5 stars), destroys everything in one shot.
With these examples, I don’t see why HRE can’t have its OP units for the Imperial Age. If it’s so powerful, the devs can balance it latter, one way or another, but not limit it.
I suppose they set the limit of 5 x Castle is because they realized how strong it is in mass. However, if even the pros don’t use black riders even in Free-for-All Post-Imperial, because they know they’re forced to produce many Keeps (900 stone) just to produce them; which it’s not worth it even as a support unit.
Perhaps the “limit” they imposed on it was a bit excessive and they should remove it. It is a nice-looking unit, though.
Now that two melee infantry civilizations are coming (YAY!!!, more balance between civilizations), perhaps they’ll finally consider giving the Landsknecht Pikeman to the HRE in Imperial.
In fact, even when professionals build some castles, they simply don’t produce Black Riders. I watch many streams and they never build Black Riders.
The units you listed above are extremely strong in the late game and have no limits.
The Camel Rider, Abbasid, and Delhi Crossbow Elephant are simply the best units in the late game.
I have had plenty of FFAs, in which I had 40+ Black Riders. You can roam around with them and deal dmg and they pack a punch in these situations, but in battles they were still very underwhelming. They die so quickly vs crossbows or ranged units in general (longbows also delete them rather quickly) and their attack and wind up is so slow that they often simply overkill targets. Their kill speed in high numbers is very disappointing because of that. The unit simply is underwhelming. It’s a raiding unit that doesn’t fight well in masses, when it’s supposed to be a strong imp unit. And I had games with mass Sengoku Mounted Samurai, Riddari, Szlachtas, Catats and even Imperial Guards and they all are better as in more impactful than this Black Rider, which is in more or less the same cost category. The fact that they are cav and heavy allows many units to counter them and the 281 hp with 9/9 armor (Meinwerk) simply always is disappointing.
So even if I have the more or less impossible situation of getting 40+ Black Riders, they still managed to disappoint.
You pay so much gold for HRE unique units and they both simply suck and cannot be massed for several reasons and even then they disappoint. That’s the reality of HRE unique units.
The post imperial stats of Camel Riders are clearly overpowered. They are actually even better than what you listed. They have no hard counter:
Also Zhu Xi Imperial guards go up to 28 + 15 damage. They can get 43 damage as a one pop heavy cav unit with Ming and the right Landmark. Gilded Knights hit for 45 damage, so IGs are by far the hardest hitting heavy cav. Only Slzachtas with Antioch deal higher damage against light units, because they have a bonus of 8 for some insane reason against their main counter unit (Spearman). I blieve Szlachtas then deal 38 + 8 vs light units. And they reduce attack speed.
The Black Rider is nowhere near these units and so gated that you can never play him like these units anyway. But even if you could, the BR would still be the notably worse and weaker unit.
The Black Rider is simply not well designed, as is tradition with HRE unfortunately. For other civs a lot of things can come together and synergize. HRE doesn’t really have anything in that regard that deserves to be called a powerful imp comp with good synergies.
That is definitely also my conclusion. But even if the Black Rider was a good unit which is massable, the identity problem of HRE would continue to exist. There is a lot more to the HRE than the Black Rider and a better Black Rider would still leave a highly generic HRE. The core identity of HRE should be good heavy cav, but the pride and joy should be their infantry. Men with maces and an useless Landsknecht doesn’t cut it.
I am kinda afraid that a lot of great infantry mechanic will be introduced with Vikings and Scots, so the HRE infantry becomes even less interesting, which would be wild.
As you and I and many others have pointed out, there is a lot that could be done with the Landsknecht. Three unit types (Doppelsöldner, Landsknecht, Arquebusier), formation bonuses and synergies, bonus vs cav (Landsknechte and Reisläufer actually made Europe shift their focus from heavy cavalry to nimble infantry, because their formations were so successful). The Landsknecht should be a unit in imp that is respected by the opponents. The opponent player should be like “shit, he has a lot of Landsknechte”. They should be one of the strongest infantry units in the game, capable of fighting close to anything, while being core of the army material. This glasscannon design was never a good design for them and should be thrown over board.
So, they need a buff? Wow.
Sometimes I feel like when I produce them and then they die and I have to get more, I waste a ton of gold, sometimes I think too much.
Maybe it’s because their role isn’t what HRE needs to counter the super-cavalry of other civilizations… because historically it wasn’t either.
They were supposed to be “anti-melee infantry” units, created to kill Pikemans and others Melee infantry and then retreat with the Caracole. I suppose they have to consider that role in mind, because anti-cavalry role would be supposedly covered by another unit. (Pikemans)
The unit they should give them to counter Elephants and Szlachtas should be the Lansknecht “Pikeman”, and it should be a 4th Age unit, like the Zanma Swordsman.
Now, as of now in AoE4, there isn’t a true pikeman in the game, with a very long range, say, 1.25 range or something like that.
In Age of Empires II, the first “True Pikeman” was given to the Incas with this unit, the Kamayuk:
Historically, the only ones who continued using pikes in the early Middle Ages were the people of the Low Countries, the Flemish; however, they didn’t use them to their full potential, lacking bonuses or special formations.
“Overpowered” Pikemen didn’t regain popularity in the Middle Ages until the Swiss used them to defeat Burgundy in 1477. Later, the HRE copied the design with the Landsknecht, and Spain continued developing the Tercio pikemen.
In fact, only 2 years after the fall of Burgundy, the HRE would already be developed, and used in the Battle of Guinegate in 1479, when Maximilian I decided to fight as a Pikeman General alongside several newly trained Burgundian troops at his disposal, won the fight aggainst the French, and giving birth to the first Landsknecht pikemen corp. They even destroy the Swiss.
Zanma Swordman
I assume this unit was created precisely to test how well a unique Age 4 anti-cavalry infantry unit would work.
And I must say, it works WONDERFULLY, and it’s quite popular with Jin players.
Now that Vikings and Celts are being added, I suppose they’ll also have to reconsider the role of infantry civilizations in the game.
I just wonder what good it does for HRE to have an expensive gold unit that kills spearmen, when HRE doesn’t really focus on cav. Spearmen have enough counters as it is, the Black Rider therefore should have a different role than that and I think the AoE3 Dragoon role would be fitting.
The HRE or the civs in general should be built around their historical realities, but a 100% accuracy should never be the goal, since that ship has sailed with the release of the game already. The game already has too many inaccurate aspects and would have to be changed in too many areas. Just look at the Cataphract. It has no business to be a much better knight, but it is. That’s why the role of the Black Rider can be adjusted to the civ’s needs. HRE can’t beat powerful comps, a spearman killer wouldn’t help there in any way. And he also shouldn’t be an anti infantry unit, because the HRE infantry should be able to handle all the other infantries of other civs just fine. The Dragoon treatment would actually be useful for HRE, since their anti cav abilities are just Awl pikemen, MAA with maces, generic crossbows and HCs. It’s not great.
As a Dragoon kind of unit (that was also his role in AoE3), the Black Rider would do well with HRE knights, because other pure heavy cav should lose now against a Knight/Black Rider comp. The fact that they are mounted units should play a role as well, so a synergetic effect with other cavalry would be a good thing.
Yes, the focus on polearms and pikes should be the Landsknecht design. That’s why I thought of the Doppelsöldner/Landsknecht idea, which I posted in another topic.
In summary it would be like this: Doppelsöldner cost twice as much gold than LKs (LK 40, DS 80), are better armored and deal area damage but not with the focus on damaging units, but debuffing and weakening them. The Landsknecht would then exploit that from the second row thanks to their higher range and they’d deal bonus dmg and have other effects when attacking units that were debuffed by Doppelsöldner, while also fielding a disitinct bonus vs cavalry units. Landsknecht formations should be good vs other infantry as well as cav. I think that this would be a design that comes very close to how Landsknechte fought back then and why they were successful.
The handcannon could simply be turned into an unique Landsknecht Arquebusier. It should probably be better than a HC, but the exact stats would have to be figured out. Streltsies are better HC and cheaper, LK arquebusiers are probably in a good spot if they cost the same, but have some kind of advantage over HCs. But it would not have to be a completely new unit. Replacing the HC should be a good solution for this kind of unit. This way, the HRE Landsknecht corps would be pretty much complete and only the stats would have to be figured out for them.
I also don’t think, due to being founded in the late 15th century, that the Landsknecht can be a castle age unit in any way or form. It has to be an imp only unit.
I always appreciate your addition of historical context. 
Useless ? Lmao, we don’t play the same game. I won so many games with ambushes and second impact with these chads.
Okay, then you are the one person that likes them, the one exception. Everybody else ignores them and agrees that they are useless, because they are cost inefficient and terrible. They are not a good investment. If they work against an opponent, it is the opponent’s fault. Plat players should already be competent at rendering the LK useless. They weren’t even good on release, when HRE got 900 gpm on three Relics already. And because of that they were easier to afford and hence they were better at release. With the progression of the game and every new DLC, the LK became worse and worse and worse and now is completely useless. The best use for him is to sneak him into the enemy eco. Pretty pathetic for a unit that shifted the way wars were fought in the Renaissance, if you ask me.
It is the by far worst unique unit with the worst cost efficiency. Well, the Black Rider might have even less cost effciency due to the tons of stone you need for them despite of their already high costs. And as units they are also not convincing, because countering them is very easy.
In this topic we need to focus only on the Black Riders with a limit of 5 per castle.
To talk about civilization or other units, follow this link.
Regarding the Black Rider, perhaps they could remove the limit, as you say.
Until I know, they weren´t nobility or something, many of them even were peasants or criminals. Their only original limits was the MONEY their master could spend of them, because they were mercenaries. And they cost enough for make a limit.
Some bonuses
I don’t think they should make it anti-cavalry like in Age of Empires 3 because that would take away the role of a future Landsknecht Pikeman, and besides, its role was never to eliminate cavalry, they weren´t dragons.
Its original role (historically), which continued until the appearance of the bayonet or full musketeer armies, was to “eliminate pikemen formation” and melee infantry of all types, disorganizing and wounding them. At the time they were created, anti-cavalry formations and pikeman armies were abundant.
Since those Pikeman full-armies doesn’t exist YET in Age of Empires 4, the unit feels a bit lost.
Szlachta cavalry has one (+8 vs Light Infantry) and everything with Templars is okay.
This video explains why they were so OP in their time.
Very interesting video. Yes, a bonus to infantry (I guess ranged infantry would also make sense, since the efficiency is based on the weaker armor and not on the type of the enemy) would be the accurate bonus for them. But it would have to make sense. The Landsknechte, however, should do well against both infantry and cavalry, which is why a bonus against cav for the BR also would make sense (as the video explained, BRs were at least decent in cav to cav close combat). The Ottomans have Janissaires on top of Spearmen and Crossbows as well, so having a mobile anti cav unit and an infantry anti cav/inf unit would leave room for versatlity. And with “anti infantry” I mainly mean very capable against other infantry, but not necessarily a hard counter. The Landsknecht should be a unit melee cav doesn’t really wanna engage, while also being efficient against other melee infantry. I think a Landsknecht design that is only effcient against cav would eventually also disappoint and feel weird for a supposed infantry focused civ.
The situation of the Black Rider is definitely odd. Something needs to be done to him, because he is not one of the most effcient units in the game and therefore cannot be considered to be one of the “most sought-after mercenaries” in 16th/17th century Europe. The current BR design is rather the opposite of that. He is not quite sought-after.
