Holy Roman Empire Rework ideas

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

Right since watching Genesis tournament and playing alot myself i find HRE to be really low tier civ. They havn’t actually got anything going for them (except when getting relics ofc)
See tier list of the pro’s on YouTube.

Maybe with slight adjustments the civ could be really cool and fun to play and bring something “unique”.
I think making their Infantery more special will bring them more power to the battlefield and give them more strategic options.

My thoughts:
“they are basically an infantry civ but the infantry seem very underwhelming.”
English MMA seem to do the same thing and landsknechte die too fast worth the cost.

My idea’s:
MMA:
attack stance / defence stance / neutral stance (i don’t know numbers or statistics, this is just an example)

Attack stance : Remove (2-3) melee&ranged armor and increase movement speed by 20% (upgrade castle age +30% movement speed and remove armor 1-2)
Defence stance: RAISE SHIELD: Gain +1 melee&ranged armor, raise your shield but move 70% slower (upgrade imperial age +2 armor 60% slower)
Neutral stance : Keep basic statistics.

Remove the 2 handed weapon idea, give them the mace upgrade that deals bonus damage to “heavy units” in 1 upgrade, so they can use the defence stance with shield.

Upgrades:
Heavy maces: Increase bonus damage against heavy targets by +8 (200 food - 400 gold)
Heavy shield: Increase health by +15% ( 200 food - 400 gold)

Spearmen:
Gain the imperial upgrade Riveted Chain Mail; keep this.
Feudal age upgrade: Give spearmen 1 handed mini shield ( like the abassid camel rider)
Gain +2 ranged armor.

Landsknechte:
(again, i don’t know numbers and balance these are all examples)
All of the unique units in AoE4 have some form of special abilty, unlike the landsknechte.
My idea:
Adrenaline charge : (something like the french knight charge)
Once close to enemy the landsknechte will get adrenaline charge gaining +80% movespeed and his first 2 attacks +50% damage.

Blacksmith:
Castle age - Hardened steel - Give all your melee infantery +2 melee damage

Prelate:
Make their upgrade inspired warriors different:
Infantery close to the prelate (± 5 tiles) will receive an buff aura:
+1 armor + 5% movement speed + 15% damage

instead of the inspire one by one (warrior monks from rus attacks once and all his surrounding allies are buffed. Make the prelate kind of everyone around the prelate receives the buff.

Landmark idea
Instead of burgrave palace right now i had this idea.

HRE is an holy civ that get unique bonusses with relics.
Maybe change the Burgrave palace to something like this:
Every 3 minutes you can buy a relic for 800 gold. ( i don’t know numbers or balance)

  • Say you have map control you can go for the Regnitz Cathedral for the extra gold income per minute.
    If you want more relics or you don’t have map control you can buy them in your new landmark.
    You can eventually buy relics to boost your castles or other defensive structures.
    In the longer games you could choose to build more Monestarys and put your new bought relics in there.

Right these were my ideas. I don’t know what you guys think about HRE but they surely need some work.
Right now they are in a bad spot and maybe these changes (or something else) will make them more fun and more viable to play.

4 Likes
2

Nah no rework just fix springalds and we are ok

3

well say springalds wern’t even in the game, they still feel like a weak civ compared to some others.
Even if springalds got fixed the problem imo remains.
Just my opinion and wondering if others feel the same way?

2 Likes
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I like the majority of your ideas, but most importantly I very much agree with you. I have opened a thread a while ago focussing solely on the state the HRE is in right now, because I noticed in the beta already that this civ was just unfinished and lacks so much uniqueness, identity and working mechanics. As you’ve put it they simply do not have anything going for them except MAA. They have no lategame, the civ actually ends in castle age. They also have the worst cav in the game and so much about them just doesn’t make any sense. Esp. the Landsknecht was desgined in a completely wrong way which does not at all display the role he had in the battle field. They made him into an auxiliary wimp, when he was the elite core of actually any renaissance army, but esp for the Habsburgians. That is also why he should be an age IV unit, leaving space for a new unique unit in castle age. And that should be the Ritterbruder, a heavy cavalry unit of Teutonic Order descent that excels in survivability and melee. It should either be an upgrade for the knight or a completely new unique unit which would have to differ from the knight in a way or two.
The focus of the HRE should be plate and Religion in castle age, garnished with the anti armor and anti cavalry abilities of the Landsknecht in imperial and rounded up with some lategame techs including gun powder stuf and maybe further focus on religious military support.

In the future there would be room for another unique unit: The Black Rider. He could be a reasonably armored cavalryman with a gunpowder charge from range that has a cooldown (10 or 15 seconds, like knight charge) and some melee capabilities during that cooldown. There could be a tech called “Caracolla” which would reduce the cooldown of the charge for example. And if that is all too complicated, he could simply be a ranged rider with a pistol. It doesn’t make any sense that in AoE 4 the HRE only ranges until 1517. Because of Luther or what? The Reformation was not its end, but merely a hickup. The HRE existed for around 1000 years if you call Charlemagne its founder and it ended around 1806 with Napoleon.

Here the link to my thread:

1 Like
5

Gonna throw out my ideas

Powder Keg Research:

  • Expensive upgrade, gives mangonels more AoE, and gives bonus damage vs buildings and siege. Allows mangonel to benefit from the chemistry research. Changes the look and attack of the mangonel.

Early Crossbowmen:

  • Combos with the infantry movement speed research, gives them a diverse early game. Civilization is an “infantry” civ yet gets no special ranged infantry?!

Teutonic Ritterbruder

  • Trained at the Keep or is an upgrade to the knight. Either can be a support unit buffing nearby infantry similar to a Warrior Monk, or could dismount when defeated and turn into a MAA just with the model of a ritterbruder.
1 Like
6

Part of the issue with HRE is being poor vs some of the meta civs, but the civ sadly is plagued by bugs. They have a fix in the works for the prelate not always inspiring, but currently the aachen chapel doesn’t inspire military units with the tech, MAA with both upgrades actually lose damage against heavy units (goes from +6 to +3 vs heavy units). I have also heard that MAA with the 2 handed weapons attack slower than regular MAA. There are still some high level players having success with them like Daut.

Otherwise they do struggle a bit vs both feudal aggression civs and vs the current springald meta which holds them back.

I’m not saying they couldn’t use some buffs too, but they don’t need a rework.

1 Like
7

I find it weird that the HRE have zero cav bonuses given that Germanic knights spread all throughout Europe taking their military practices with them. Besides the Tuetonic Knights the Ministerialis could also provide some inspiration for a potenial unique cav bonus. Aside from the landsknecht being undertuned and a bunch of bugs they feel like a 1 gimmick civ. They have m@a that get really good after Age III upgrades but all their other bonuses feel either scattered or too slow to take effect and they have no archer, cav or siege bonuses to back up their infantry.

A couple of suggestions.

Either combine the Men At Arms maces and two handed weapons upgrade, move one of them to the fuedal age or make one of them a passive civ bonus.

Give cavalry a buff of some kind. Perhaps cheaper horsmen or knights because of the HRE’s practice of elevating serfs to Ministeriales or serf knights, or a Teutonic Knight of some kind.

Let the prelate Inspire Warriors from the start without research. By the time you have a monastery and the research finished you’re likely to have dozens of units, many of which are likely to be wounded so prelates will rarely use the ability. Those bonuses could instead be a game changer when defending or attacking with a couple of units in Age II.

The Landsknecht feel out of place in the army roster. I would rather see Landsknecht themed upgrades or bonuses to other units that they famously deployed like pikemen and handgunners. Perhaps replace “Infantry Tactics” in the university with “Landsknecht Armies” which extends some of the buffs to handgunners and crossbowmen. No idea if it’s at all a good idea for balance but Landksnecht are cool and deserve more recognition as part of the HRE lategame.

1 Like
8

I like your suggestions, but I think inspiration for military needs a rework. It doesn’t really matter when it comes availbale, because the whole mechanic is at fault. It is shared with the healing ability, thus does not work in combat, it takes around 3 seconds to buff a single unit and the duration is way too short. It is never active when it matters. And if it is, it is just about to run out again. 30 secs work for the Kurultei as it buffs everything in the area and is a moible building, but not for a single target cast. The way it is right now it is useless. It’d be fine for age II, if it were available there, but for age III and most importantly age IV it would need a boost.

I suggested that inspiration for military becomes an aura which radius increases with the amount of prelates you have with your army. The prelates would have to be somewhat close together (let’s say every prelate in the range of 5 tiles² counts towards a cumulated aura effect giving inspiration).

Example: One prelate inspires with the radius of 0.5 tile. And every other prelate increases said radius by another 0.5 tiles. 10 prelates would thus inspire in a radius of 5 tiles, 20 prelates in a radius of 10 tiles. That way you would want prelates with your army and you would want to protect them, while the opponent would want to kill them. It’s a high risk/high reward kind of thing.

Or simply make their cast for miliarty units an aoe cast that can be done manually and somewhat from range. That way it could be applied in combat and would not share the autocast with healing.

There is a lot of ways to make inspiration for military viable. The way it is right now needs to change as it is terrible.

1 Like
9

Inspired Warriors definitely needs a more dramatic effect by Age III. I feel similiarly with Benediction, the upgrade that makes your inspired villagers build faster. Partially because if we select a prelate along with villlagers the building hotkeys are disabled and the fact that it comes in at Age III when there is already a lot on the plate for the average player.

Prelates and monks in general would be a lot better if they could heal & inspire on attack move which will be even better once they add patrol.

1 Like