HRE appreciation post

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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While I agree with one of the most upvoted posts on this forum about a lot of unused potential for the HRE whole heartedly and hope that HRE will see some buffs in the future I want to take the oportunity and list the things I think have been done right when it comes to that civ.

  • The prelate mechanic is very nice and adds a lot of depth to HRE gameplay in terms of how you manage your eco. If you need to invest in some siege in the future move your prelates to the nearest woodline, if you want a castle ASAP move them to stone. It is a versatile and cool feature and underlines the religious aspect of the real historical civilisation.

  • Relic managed to give infantry more of a purpose which is awesome. Compare that to infantry in AoE2 lets say where they are extremely situational and seldom worth investing in. It is awesome that HRE also gets to have a damage boost against heavily armored units which gives them more of a fighting chance against a knight archer ball. I love infantry and its purpose in this game.

  • The soundtrack and voice acting of the HRE is on point. The opening soundtrack of the HRE when starting a game is very relaxing.

  • The Regnatz cathedral is a very interesting landmark that will probably ensure that competetive games in the future will be interesting to watch at the beginning of the castle age as the opposing civ needs to deny the relics as good as possible. Love that landmark.

  • While I agree that the Landsknecht feel a bit underwhelming as a unique unit I like its concept and if you ever had one of thos cleave attacks connect with a ball of enemy infantry, archers or even villagers you know how rewarding it can feel.

  • The units and especially the knights of the HRE look badass as hell.

What I wish to see improved in the future:

  • Landsknechte

  • Tool tips regarding the unique techs as well as the techs themselves. Currently if you go for the heavy two handed weapons and heavy maces upgrades for your M@A they cancel each other out to an extend. Would be cool to be able to switch between the two or if they wouldn’t cancel each other out or to at least mention it in the tooltips. For example if you research the two heanded weapons upgrade currently you also get a 15 HP buff on your M@As which is not mentioned anywhere.

  • A little more flexibility would be nice as no other unit of the HRE get any bonuses. The Rus for example not only get to have an early knight but also the Streltsy which diversifies their unit rooster. Same with the French and their Royal knights and their Arbaletriers.

  • Their defensive bonuses are cool in concept but feel underwhelming

  • Their religious bonuses when it comes to military are not worth investing and very janky to use. I hope that there will come some improvements in the future.

All in all Relic did an awesome job and i love the civ.

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Praise thine post brother! Seriously though lets go TeamHRE! They are awesome despite their flaws.

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Me and my 2v2 partner found out what landskenets are good for the hard way. We were using an enemy wall to keep our archers safe from cav and got them cleaned up in like 5 seconds by landskenets while we were microing another part of our army. That’s pretty niche though

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This is like one of my favourite things about aoe4. I was so happy to see how useful heavy infantry can be. And that there’s a civ that actually can revolve around them.

I also like how the other civs have unique advantages to their heavy infantry. High armour English, high damage output Delhi (attack speed + UT).

When landsknecht are eventually fixed it will give them an additional level of useful unit, as he’s almost an aoe cavalry that isn’t susceptible to pikes . Similar to eagles except with a massive aoe attack. That’s pretty unique as far as aoe4 goes.

All HRE infantry are faster. This includes their ranged units. Meaning their archers, xbows, handcannons can all out flank/out pace better. We know from aoe2 how useful faster units actually are.

All? Of their units can get prelate buffs. That means everything can get the damage boost (ranged units specifically) so when prelates are fixed, it adds a level of flexibility.

I haven’t used them myself too much v humans (mainly v AI, and used other civs v humans) but i thought their defensive bonuses were pretty good. The relic in a castle or tower seemed really nice. You get the gold income and the weapons boost.

On top of the rapid repair and torch defense on most buildings.

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The landsknecht is such a weird unit. It does so much insane damage but is made out of wet paper.

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Bumping the thread for the upcomming balance patches

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I suggested letting them pick up relics in Feudal and to have cheaper outposts, I think with some sort of early buff like that they could be even with the other civs.

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That sounds reasonable. One thing I repeadedly wonder about is why the Rus have outposts with 8 capacity but the HRE have Standard ones although they are supposed to be a defensive civ with less cost on their weapon emplacements. Giving HRE 10 capacity for their towers would help them a lot already for dealing with feudal knights.

Relics in feudal might be a bit too strong though I am not sure. Of course it is high risk high reward.

What I would like to see are some better unique techs for them. Either for the monastery or gunpowder units/knights.