[HRE] Devs, why do you obviously not care for this civ? This patch was god awful

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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I am really frustrated and massively disappointed. What the hell is this patch?

First off: HRE is the worst civ with the worst army, the worst roster, the worst unique units, the worst buff mechanic, the worst military techs… They are simply not good. And now look at this patch:

Inspired Warriors inspires adjacent units in 0.5 tile radius as well. Wow… Every other civ gets an instant aoe buff that applies to all units, but HRE gets this pathetic qol change? Well, I’d actually be happy about it, because it is an improvement from absolutely terrible to a bit less terrible, but I can’t be happy because the devs also thought that it is necessary to reduce the effect by 5% for a civ that has NO good units, NO comp, NO power… Yeah, sure… This basic generic afterthought of a civ cannot have 15% dmg that doesn’t even apply to bonus damage, it needs to be nerfed to 10%, because otherwise it would be clearly op. Same with Landsknecht… Had they given him 6 hp, he’d be totally broken now. /s

I have the feeling, no the conviction that the devs think HRE is a good civ, when it actually is the worst. The only reason HRE doesn’t have a worse win rate is the stupid Burger rush nonsense. How is HRE supposed to compete with civs like Ottos, Macedonians, Sengoku, GH, French, China etc, when these civs have so many great things and HRE doesn’t even have one? How? How are you supposed to beat another civ in imp, if you always have the worse army that has no power whatsoever and can only do something by massing trashy units in order to hope to overwhelm, which rarely really works out, because other civs simply have so much better stuff at their disposal. So you try to win by out ecoing, which feels so very terrible. What is HRE about massing tons of generic units? How is this good civ design?

The LK is a TERRIBLE unit. The BR is a TERRIBLE unit that is also gated and expensive af. These units cannot win games, they rather lose them for you due to their pathetic cost efficiency. But hey, HRE got more changes this patch. Let’s have a look. They will probably have added some nice stuff to HRE.

Oh wait, they haven’t…

  • University discount and +30 pop? What is this crap? Are you supposed to go fast imp with Swabia, build a university that now offers 30 pop and reduces university costs by 10%, so you might get generic basic imp upgrades before the opponent, while your army is actually awful and struggles to even beat castle age armies of some DLC civs, when they already got imp upgrades themselves? If so, then this is just bad design. It’s terrible. This HRE army is so so so bad and then the devs continue to incentivise to go for fast imp… For what? There is nothing this civ offers, there is nothing you can look forward to when playing this civ… Nobody needs a civ which has one sole quality and that is getting faster and cheaper to imp while potentially also being able to get university upgrades cheaper. That’s the whole civ. You rush to imp and that’s where your qualities and advantages end. There is nothing else. Only terrible basic units that are now even weaker due to inspired warriors being nerfed for no reason at all by 5%, while GH and Macedonians run around with insane amounts of armor, damage and hp, while Sengoku rocks a mobile NoC on top of all the Daimyo bonuses, while Otto can just brainlessly a-click… What does HRE have? An army that doesn’t beat anyone, but they get quicker and cheaper to imp. If HRE was released now as a DLC civ, you couldn’t sell it. Nobody would buy this sorry design of a god awful and heavily outdated civ.
  • And then there is the new tech. Oh man, I was hoping for new techs so hard and was really excited, but then I saw what the new tech does. Concave Lens increases line of sight by two tiles in imp for units. What the actual flying f? If I wanted to find a terrible idea for HRE to be added to the game, I would not in my wildest dreams have come up with a tech that is that terrible and insulting as well, if you consider the actual deficits of this civ. Vision is not a problem for HRE. Why was this tech added? It feels like a middlefinger to HRE enthusiasts. You want a new tech? Here, take this you loser, haha. This new tech is on Fire Stations level. Abba gets cool new stuff, HRE gets a slap in the face. Why can’t HRE have nice things?

Seriously devs, what are you doing with HRE? What is your problem? I am playing this game since release, I have studied history with a focus on the European medieval age, I have suggested so many ideas for HRE over the years and I feel like it’s all in vain. I am deeply frustrated and disappointed. I am actually angry.

Give some love to HRE (and to OotD as well, why was this civ nerfed, how do you balance the game? I don’t get it)… Please. You add in so many broken units, techs, synergies, but when it comes to HRE you change from being promiscuous af to being a celibate nun. Why? You gave LKs 5 more hp the previous patch. Do you actually think this joke of a unit, this travesty of its historical reality is good or powerful? They cost 60 food and 100 gold and have way less hp than freaking spearmen, the trashiest of the trash units. Onna Bugeishas are so much better and they cost 80 gold less. What are you doing devs? The Black Rider is also not a good unit. Terrible wind up time, stats that look good but disappoint on the field, it’s gated for no reason and it costs way too much. It’s also very easy to counter and easy to snipe. It’s just not a good unit.

I really want to understand you devs, because it all makes absolutely zero sense to me. WHY did you give HRE such a patch? I have to think that you really don’t care for this civ and actually kinda hate it… Should that be the case, please stop with all the antics and just remove this civ. It’s insulting to me as a historian to see how you mess this civ up completely. What does a basic roster, some random landmarks (Charlemagne’s throne in Aachen is nothing but a mill with a mechanic that is so old and boring, while it also robs the civ of the little military stuff they have (Meinwerk)), Men with maces, a completely ruined Landsknecht, the worst design this Renaissance chad could have gotten, to do with the HRE?

Where is the prince elector system? Where are the Archbishops (mounted heavy buff units)? Where is the sales of indulgences mechanic? Where are the steel works, armor techs, proper religious bonuses and Teutonic units? Why is the Landsknecht the worst unique unit in the game and also available in castle age, when it is one of the most Renaissance units that exist in the game? Nothing about HRE really makes sense. It deserves a full on rework. OotD as well, since there is also NOTHING OotD about OotD. It’s just a 2 pop for 1 unit civ on a basic and dumbed down HRE roster… The historical resemblance for both civs is absolutely abyssmal.

But I would get that a full rework lacks the necessary resources, so here are some suggestions again that do not require a full on rework and would make HRE an actual cool and fun civ that can do something. First and foremost, HRE has to get its unique unit from AoE2. It’s criminal that they didn’t get it. It needs to be shared between KT and HRE. It would make a lot of sense and would simply be right:

  • Add an imp tech called “Marienburg missive” to Keeps and Elzbach. This tech allows building the Teutonic Knight in barracks and reduces costs for prelates by 25% as well as increases inspired warriors duration by 50% (so 90 seconds altogether). Inspired warriors should also affect bonus damage, not just raw damage. And bring it back to 15% ffs… As a nice cosmetic addition, prelates could get a Teutonic cross on their Robe after researching this tech.
    Reason for this: The TK should be a HRE unit anyway and it would also synergize well with it and its original idea. It simply makes a lot of sense. And why not have shared unique units, if it makes sense? I mean, you give tons of units to Byzantines, which they have absolutely no right to have (80% of the mercs make zero sense). Besides: Every AoE 4 civ that also exists in AoE 2 has gotten their unique AoE 2 unit, except HRE (and French, but they got a unique knight and a unique CB instead and actually were rewarded with better unique units than it is the case in AoE2). You have never really tried with HRE, I feel like. The release state of it was awful and then the civ has never really gotten the next step and kept being one dimensional and boring. It has always been the least unique and least well designed civ in the game (it’s built around landmarks and inspiration and pretty much nothing else). For 5 god damn years now.
  • Add a tech to the monastery available in Castle age called “Sacred Bones”: Pay 1000 gold to produce 1 relic. You can get up to three relics this way, if they are stolen they are stolen and you can’t produce new ones. Each new relic costs 50% more. So the second one would be 1500 gold. And the third one 2250. The idea is to not be completely deprived of a fundamental civ bonus, should you not get any relics from the map. The numbers might need tweaking, this is just an idea. This would also put further emphasis on the HRE Religion tag.
  • Add another monastery tech in imp called “Fervor”. The more hurt a unit is, the faster it attacks. Below: 75% hp = +10% attack speed, below 50% hp = +20% attack speed, and below 25% = +30% attack speed. Numbers are just examples. Could also be 10/15/20.
  • Get rid of the current keep requirement for the Black Rider. Instead: As long as you have at least one keep, you can build the Black Rider.
  • Add a new (old) baseline Castle age tech called “Riveted Chainmail” to the blacksmith and have it increase hp by 10 and armor by 1/1 for every human military unit. This is available to Meinwerk and Aachen play.
  • Buff the Landsknecht in a meaningful manner, so he doesn’t die as quickly and is actually worth 100 gold. More hp (+30 = 135 altogether, which is still low), a bit more armor (start with 1/1) and a passive that allows him to take reduced bonus damage (-50%). He should also be ONLY available in imp as he is a pure Renaissance soldier and should not be available in castle age.
    The Landsknecht would then synergize well with the TK debuff aura and his tankiness, while MAA and Spearmen would also be passively buffed by a diverse comp. This should help the HRE to get a powerful comp that also gives them an identity with punch as an infantry focused civ. Especially since TKs would benefit from marching drills, making them only slightly slower than a normal MAA with 1.12 speed (namely 1.078). Affording many TKs and LKs will be very gold intensive, so if HRE is far ahead in resources, they would now have a powerful comp to go for.
  • Add an imp tech to the siege workshop or University called “Feldschlange” that allows Culverins to deal pass through damage during the last two tiles before hitting the mark. It won’t be game breaking, but a nice little extra. And if you want to focus units, it’s worth to target the back row rather than the front row with this tech.
  • Take away 50% from the Burgrave’s production speed, but have it reduce costs of infantry by 1% for every minute up to 10 minutes after building it. So after 10 minutes after aging up to castle age, Burgrave reduces costs for infantry by 10% globally. That way a Burger rush would not become fundamentally stronger, but Burger would become a more useful landmark for the rest of the game.
  • Change Fire Stations to something useful like ships take 25% less damage at or below 25% hp. Move it to castle age. This would also be in line with what the tech suggests to be: To reduce further damage, after being damaged.
  • Remove Concave Lens again. This tech needs to go, it’s so random and useless. I still can’t fathom why this was introduced instead of something else. What’s the point of it? So HRE units can see their impending doom earlier? Come on…
  • Also remove the university discount. Do not incentivise rushing to imp, which is one of the main reasons why this civ has a better reputation and is still considered powerful by many, when it really is not at all. Remove the 30 pop as well. Nobody needs this nonsense. HRE needs other stuff.

I am done. I am actually so done. Devs, please… Do something with HRE, but not what you did with the last patch. I was so hopeful with the new patch and I got completely destroyed and heavily disappointed. It’s not okay what you do with this civ. Either take it seriously or remove it. But don’t do really terrible changes like this. Please… It is the BY FAR worst civ in the game and has an absolute joke of a military. It needs your love. Or let me do it. I’d do it even for free.

But as long as this current patch is live, I will pretend the game doesn’t exist anymore. I am just so fed up. HRE is my favorite civ and I am done with it being treated like a stepchild just because this civ was built around overpowered inspiration and landmarks, which was nerfed heavily over the years. So now they are left with nothing… And you seriously give them 5 hp for LKs, a tech that increases freaking vision in imp and you seem to not be able to allow to improve inspired warriors without nerfing it as well for no reason at all, while so many other civs run around with the most broken stuff imaginable that you are very hesitant to properly nerf.

Please.. Make it make sense. And stop disrespecting the HRE, a civ that covers so many nations in Europe. It’s simply disgraceful and I am actually annoyed by all of this. I will not touch this game anymore until the next patch. And if that is also a disappointment, then I will cut my losses and accept that I am only wasting my time here. I am really deeply annoyed rn and have somewhat lost hope that HRE will ever be a properly designed civ that is more than just this generic afterthought.

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Freedom for the Black Riders!
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Ps.: I just tested it. If you heal a unit and it gets inspired with inspired warriors, it does not apply to adjacent units. So this “buff” is even more of a nerf than I thought, because I actually expected healing to apply the buff as well. But it simply doesn’t, so in combat you still can only inspire by healing and it also only inspires one by one. Plus the dmg nerf… Yeah, this is not a buff, this is terrible. The units, which are already the worst in the game, are now dealing 1-2 less dmg. It is very notable and the worst army has actually gotten even worse. Inspired archers “still” deal 15 dmg, but they cannot two shot a 30 hp wolf anymore, which they could before. So even the numbers we see with HRE are potentially even lower now, while Rus get a +3 dmg buff with Warrior monks for everything applied instantly and in AoE… It is insane to me that buffs to HRE are often just nerfs or simply useless and terrible. Why can Rus have a better buff that is applied easier, while they also have the better army? Why was the dmg from inspired warriors nerfed? It makes so absolutely no sense at all. Who does the HRE balancing? What is this person’s problem?

Inspired warriors is still the worst buff mechanic in the game, it can’t really be applied in combat and it is also now one of the worst buffs in the game as well that doesn’t compare at all to all the bonuses other civs get. Abba get 15% more dmg with the right wing and 70 buildings. Flat, permanent and for all infantry melee units. Camel riders got giga buffed. And HRE can freaking see a bit further, which nobody gives a s*** about. This is so so so terrible. Awful patch, just utterly awful.

You prove with Abba that you can do it and you prove with HRE that you don’t care. I am really p***** off about all this. I absolutely despise what you do with HRE.

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I completely agree with this frustration. The Devs are clearly overlooking a key issue: while solo games might be balanced overall, team games are a different story.

Because the maps are larger, reinforcements take longer to arrive. And engagements happen later, this gives everyone more time to reach higher eco levels. Under these conditions, strong units are often much more valuable than a strong economy. In the late game of 4v4, when Mounted Samurai are running rampant, it’s basically impossible for many old civs to counter such fast, high-quality cavalry using only spearmen.

I must emphasize that this is a widespread issue among the old civs: they lack a specific unit that can raise their combat ceiling in the late game of team matches. Let’s break this down below.

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English:
I’m not entirely sure about this one. It seems to be designed more as a beginner training camp anyway, so perhaps we should focus our attention on Lancaster instead.

French:
The French barely suffer from this issue at all. Their powerful cavalry keeps them highly relevant in team games. The reduced cost range of the Keep and the fire support from the Artillery significantly raise their power ceiling.

HRE:
They severely lack high-quality late-game units. I don’t think I can come up with better suggestions than yours, but just to add another option: maybe we could consider making the Black Rider a Castle Age unit, while turning the Landsknecht into some sort of overpowered Imperial Age unit.

Rus:
Only the Streltsy are somewhat viable in the late game. Personally, I’d suggest giving the Rus a more expensive but much stronger Knight to make up for this weakness.

Abbasid:
Since they were just tweaked in the new patch, I’ll hold off on commenting for now.

Delhi:
Delhi’s situation is quite unique. They probably need more mid-game units. Elephants are strong enough in the late game; in fact, I’d even suggest giving Delhi a special biology specifically to lower their power cap.

Mongols:
The Mongols almost completely lack strong late-game units. Aside from the Fast Imperial strategy, their late game is practically useless—even worse than the HRE. If the Devs really have no inspiration, simply giving the Mongols an increased pop cap in the Imperial Age would work.

Chinese:
Although they have some unique units, Fire Lancers and Grenadiers are basically unplayable. I recommend reworking the Fire Lancer. As for the Grenadier,simply give it the potential to actually raise the overall combat ceiling, such as adding the Hard Cased Bombs tech, or you could just replace it with another new expensive unit.

By the way, please fix the bug where the Spirit Way’s attack speed buff doesn’t apply to Lancers & Fire Lancers.

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Actually, I believe the most successful designs for civs that rely on massing units to overwhelm opponents in the early and mid-game are Byzantium and ZXL. They represent two completely different approaches.

The first approach is providing a high-value unit similar to the Cataphract. It might be too expensive to mass-produce in the mid-game, but in the late game, it gives you the confidence to sustain prolonged engagements.

The second approach is creating a very long progression curve. The Imperial Guard is one of the best melee cavalry in the game, but unlocking its full potential requires building two Imperial Age landmarks. So you don’t have to worry about it appearing too early. On top of that, their low ranged armor makes them highly susceptible to being chipped away, which effectively prevents them from becoming overused.

In short, old civs like HRE, Rus, Chinese and so on need high-value but cost-inefficient late-game units. This would allow them to remain relevant in the late game of team matches, rather than being stuck relying on cheap Standard units.

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One of the things they could do to balance team games is by reducing passive income
Another is to add negative bonus vs buildings to cavalry. Just a little, for Infantry based civs to stand-up more against

They have added unique techs this patch, so is a kind of beginning

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Forget it, mate.I’ve tried posting balance suggestions here before, but nothing ever comes of it.The devs themselves don’t play this game and are not aware of the numerous stupid mistakes in it.Just like the problematic HRE mechanics we’ve gone over, numerous other civilizations suffer from stupid techs, underperforming units and functionally useless landmarks across the roster.

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Yeah, very good points. Thank you for your comment.

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HRE units bad
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image
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OOtD horrible
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Cocave
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Great sugestion!

I would like to remind everyone that Black Rider has CAVALRY and HEAVY TAGs. Several enemy units have bonuses against units with these TAGs, but the hand cannon does not. So, although the Black Rider’s stats seem good, in practice things change because of the TAGs

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Thank you for this collage. This is great. :slight_smile:

And you are very right about the BR. I mean.. we have units in the game that have tags that do not count like the Condotierro. He’s heavy, but anti heavy counters do not work against him and apparently this is intended. Maybe crossbows shouldn’t hard counter BRs either? I don’t know, it’s a weird unit. You expect a lot from it, but it just doesn’t deliver. And the build limits are so annoying and make this unit much much more expensive, since you have to add the keeps to their costs, if you want to opt for them and not just build them as a byproduct of having built keeps at some point.

But even a better accessability would not make them good fighting units, simply because the opponent only needs to add CBs to his comp and he’ll trade very well. They delete BRs far too easily for how much BRs cost.

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That would certainly help, but I’d still love to see old civs get dedicated late-game units. They can be expensive and have a long progression curve, but they absolutely must have hard counters. They don’t necessarily have to be cavalry; even slow units like TK could work.

The key is that you need to give players a high-tier resource sink for the late game—a way to invest their resources into a concentrated fighting force, rather than constantly bleeding out low-quality units.

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Exactly. And a civ like HRE can only bleed low-quality units. If HRE wins a match in lategame, it’s pretty much always a Pyrrhic victory. And that’s not really a victory according to Pyrrhus himself. And it is awful awful awful gameplay. The civ is just not well designed and therefore needs new and better stuff, but certainly not techs like this Concave Lens nonsense.

I would pay in a heartbeat for a DLC that focuses on reworking and improving outdated and not so well designed civs. The DLC wouldn’t even have to have anything else, no campaign, certainly not a new civ, just love for older and underwhelming civs.

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Actually, there’s a core issue here: HRE’s current two underperforming units happen to touch on the two most sensitive areas for the designers—AoE units and units with attack-move capabilities. To prevent them from being overused, the Devs are always extremely cautious when tuning their stats. HRE is just one of the victims. Just look at the Jin Dynasty in the new DLC. The Iron Pagoda can’t even beat a standard Knight, let alone a Keshik. Meanwhile, the Mohe can’t even win a ranged duel against English villagers.

Of course, since the Landsknecht and Black Rider aren’t Feudal Age units, there is still some room for adjustment.

We could try integrating them into a self-consistent system. Instead of expecting them to completely replace standard units, we should allow them to participate in the game in a specific way.

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We can use the Chinese Dynasty Units as a reference.

You could nerf the Fire Lancer’s torch damage, but add a tech in the Spirit Way: whenever a Fire Lance explodes during a charge, it automatically triggers a Spirit Way buff. If that were the case, I highly doubt players wouldn’t train them, even if just a few at a time.

As for the Grenadier, it’s not completely useless, but having it in the Ming Dynasty is just incredibly awkward. By the time players have built two Imperial Age landmarks, why would they still need a clunky unit just to clear out infantry? Are Handcannoneers and NoBs no longer effective? What the Chinese really need is a unit that raises the overall combat ceiling of their army. The simplest solution would be to give the Grenadier a Hard Cased Bombs tech, turning it into a buff provider as well. This way, both units could seamlessly integrate into the late-game combat system.

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The same logic applies to the Landsknecht and Black Rider.

Personally, I’d suggest making the Landsknecht a specialized anti-light unit. After all, zweihänders weren’t exactly known for armor-piercing.

It could deal lower, multi-hit bleed damage, with each hit checking against Melee Armor. At the same time, it wouldn’t need to be so fragile that it becomes a dedicated assassination target. Instead, it would encourage opponents to mass heavy armor to counter it—which in turn allows HRE’s MAAs to use hammers to counter them.

As for the Black Rider, I previously suggested moving it to the Castle Age. Obviously, that would have to be paired with a rework. Without changing its original design, placing it in the Castle Age would basically force every opponent to spam crossbowmen, and the Malians don’t even have a unit to deal with it. Honestly, the era it belongs to doesn’t matter as much; what matters is redefining its role.

For example, it could be designed as an anti-ranged-infantry unit. It could have higher ranged armor or damage reduction against ranged attacks, specifically to counter enemy crossbowmen and handcanneers, thereby creating opportunities for HRE’s melee units. Meanwhile, its speed could be reduced, and its melee capabilities toned down so it can be countered by units like Knights. With these changes, both units could truly fit into the broader combat system.

So often, what we need isn’t just simple stat tweaks, but rather thinking about unit design from the perspective of the entire combat ecosystem. This way, even without adding any new units to the current roster, simply allowing these existing underperforming units to participate in the combat ecosystem in a meaningful way can completely revitalize a civ.

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I also think the Black Rider should get a specific role and be good at it. The way he was implemented, gated, designed makes you wonder, what the developer’s thought process was? I feel like there wasn’t any. It was an attempt of appeasement for love starved HRE enthusiasts, because I have become so convinced over the years that the devs simply do not have any idea or even interest in HRE. A unit that is gated behind several keeps and is hella expensive to mass, nearly impossible tbh, should be very impactful and powerful. But it is nowhere near the power level of units like Szlachtas, Catas, Sipahis, Imperial Guards (which are crazy with all upgrades, 42 damage for a 1 pop knight unit with 400+ health and 13 melee armor is pretty ridiculous) etc, which are all units that are not gated in such a fashion (the Imperial Guard maybe, but then he has no build limit). BRs do not even synergize with anything HRE has, which is really not that difficult to understand once you realize that HRE pretty much doesn’t have anything.

I like your proposition for the Fire Lancer and I have not much to add to it. It’d be a buffing horseman of swords, that is worth to be sprinkled in, not massed. Grenadiers and the whole second age up thing has always been weird to me. Why allow some civs to scale beyond imp and others not? Isn’t it kinda logical that it doesn’t really work out? And isn’t it also somewhat unfair from a design pov? It’s much worse with a civ like Macedonians ofc, because they have powerful units, are all about scaling above the opponent and simply don’t stop. Double bs upgrades is not a good design choice. It’s almost impossible to balance well. It will always pose issues, if other civs cannot continue to scale like Macedonians. Fighting a late imp Macedonian army with HRE is like sending your units to a slaughter. Macedonian units are so much more worth per pop, they just farm the trash HRE can muster. The balance in this game is absolutely awful, because it is terribly distributed. And then patches like this one here happen, where the least interesting, least unique and simply worst civ in the game gets these freaking university nonsense changes and this awful tech, while also their one bonus gets nerfed. I so want the old inspiration back. This new stuff is literal garbage. The nerf to it completely ruined the still very pathetic qol change.

In terms of the Landsknecht, I have had thought of a fundamental rework, which I would like to share with you again. I want the Landsknecht to be core of the army material in imp as he should be. That’s what I actually want for him, so HRE can build their army around the core of Landsknechte. But since a rework like this is unlikely (other civs get nice stuff, but not HRE, no. My faith has been really shattered, it seems), I suggested the stats boost like I did in the opening post.

Anyway, here is the rework idea for the Landsknecht I designed around a year or so ago. I have adjusted it a little bit to fit the current state of the game. The numbers are just palceholders and examples, the mechanic and interaction is what it’s about:

THIS IS A SUGGESTION TO REWORK THE LK TO BE A MORE FUN UNIT THAT AT THE SAME TIME IS HISTORICALLY ACCURATE AND INTERESTING TO PLAY WITH

The following numbers are mainly examples for a better visualization of the rework I have in mind for them. I still tried to make them somewhat reasonable, but the balancing would probably need to be figured out. So my suggestion is less about the numbers and much more about the mechanics.

A short historical overview: Landsknechte became one of the most wanted mercenaries for European kings and especially German kings starting in the 15th century. The time of the heavily armored knight that dominated the battle field was ending. Mobile infantry lines with long weapons (polearms) were the go to. And the most successful ones were the German Landsknechte and the Swiss Reisläufer, who had a real feud between each other about who is the better soldier. So Landsknechte mainly fought with polearms and used their range to control the opponents. But the real success came in conjunction with Flamberg/Bidenhänder/Greatsword using Landsknechte or Doppelsöldner. Doppelsöldner were Landsknechte or Reisläufer, who were seasoned and experienced despite the fact that they dared what nobody else would. They were the first to storm in and cleave into the enemy lines to break their structure and create chaos, which then was exploited by the halberd or polearm wielders. They also were paid double the money, hence the name “Doppelsöldner” which literally means “Mercenary that receives double the pay”. But you could only be a Doppelsöldner if you survived a few battles. So, Doppelsöldner were wealthier than the average Landsknecht and that is why they had better gear and also used heavy armor on the most vital areas like legs, chest and sometimes also arms. But there was no rule to it, Landsknechte and Doppelsöldner were responsible for their own gear, which is why it eventually came down to personal preferences when gearing up for battle. And that is also why they were so flamboyantly fashionable.

So we actually have two basic types of Landsknechte to choose from: The greatsword sweepers and the polearm pokers.

Firstly: The Landsknecht becomes an imperial age only unit. It is a Renaissance soldier that shouldn’t be available in castle age.

Secondly: The Landsknecht gets split in two: Landsknechte and Doppelsöldner

Thirdly: You wan to use both Landsknecht units in conjunction, because that’s where they shine. On their own they are either a more expensive spearman or a low dmg aoe MAA. But together they boost each other via reciprocal synergies and thus can potentially improve the whole army.

The units (Elite stats (since there are no castle stats) without EAT and BS upgrades):

  • Doppelsöldner: Heavily armored, 220 hp, 4/6 armor, 1.19 speed → weaker than a basic MAA when single targetting, but 5% faster // Damage: Around 40%~50% less than the old Landsknecht, but still deals AoE dmg. Maybe they get an alternative mode to switch to a Katzbalger, so they’d become single target with slightly less power than a basic MAA and maybe bonus damage to light units → Don’t know if necessary, but it’d give them a nice extra touch in a historcially accurate fashion. Attackspeed: 1.375 . Costs: 70 food and 80 gold.

Special: The Doppelsöldner aoe applies a stackable debuff to the units it hits that increases dmg taken by 5% for 10 seconds. There can be a max stack of 3 (5%/10%/15%) with a duration of 10/15/20 seconds. So the point of Doppelsöldners is to be sprinkled in next to MAA/spears to debuff the enemy units (they cause chaos), but without being exceptional dmg dealers themselves. So you could mass them blindly, but it wouldn’t be the most effective way to use them and is therefore not recommended.

  • Landsknecht: Lightly armored, 160 hp, 2/2 armor OR the passive ability to have a 15% chance to avoid taking dmg from an attack to compliment their focus on being nimble at the expense of armor, 1.30 speed → same as Elite spearmen // Damage: 11 with a bonus of +11 vs cavalry (Awl pikes would work on them), higher attack range so they can attack from the second row just behind DS, spearmen and MAA. They cannot brace. Attackspeed: 1.375. Costs: 70 food and 40 gold (half gold cost of DS ofc).

Special: The Landsknecht deals +2/+4/+6 dmg per Doppelsöldner debuff and reduces the target’s movement speed by -5%/-10%/-15% for the remainder of the debuff duration.

Effect: Doppelsöldner or Landsknechte on their own are just more expensive and not necessarily better MAA or Spearmen. There is no real point to build one without the other. But when combined, you increase the second row dmg of Landsknechte and reduce the movement speed of the enemy unit depending on the number of DS debuff stacks and their duration. The dream comp would be a few Doppelsöldner, a bunch of MAA and/or Spearmen and a good amount of Landsknechte. The counter would mainly be killing the Doppelsöldner, since without Doppelsöldner the Landsknechte are not cost efficient anymore.

That way you want to build your army around the core of Landsknechte/DS without them being superop on their own. They are strong in fromations as they should be, but weak when scattered.

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i want it in the game now ahah
It reminds me the AoE3 Doppelsoldner which were actually playable because of their movespeed (you needeed home city cards for it) and the armies where mainly packed lighty armored units

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When the game was released, HRE was designed so that relics produced 100 gold per minute, and using Regnitz produced 300. In that context, the large amount of gold for Landsknecht wasn’t a problem, but now the relics yield 80 and with Regnitz 160. The problem comes from the fact that the opponent knows that HRE and OOtD will try to get relics and counterattack this strategy.

Perhaps Burgrave from HRE has some very large discount specifically for Landsknecht, or produces them for free at a slow rate (like the Tower of the Golden Horn produces mercenaries or crossbowmen).

Burgrave producing Landsknecht would give a boost in the late game, being a really viable option for Cathedral of Regnitz.

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Obviously I would absolutely love if it was implemented like that. And yes, in AoE3 Doppelsöldner and Landsknechte were actually powerful. Not always viable, because of their costs and the fact that so many civs shit out skirms on a regular basis, but they were still strong units with good stats. But the Landsknecht in this game here? Jesus Christ…

I also just watched the vod of Beasty’s stream from today. There he played HRE vs Japanese and it showed pretty well how pathetic they are. He later also talked about the Prelate and Inspired Warriors situation and doesn’t understand the nerf to it. In fact he says it should be 20%, because you actually have to do something for the buff and don’t just get it like pretty much all the other civs. You also can’t sustain it well in fights, since you have to pre buff it (in fights Prelates do not inspire, which is the cream of the crop of stupidity. The mechanic just sucks) and you still need a good amount of prelates, which eventually are dead weight.

Stream: Twitch

Beasty on Prelates part 1: Twitch

Beasty on Prelates part 2: Twitch

Beasty on how terribly the devs “buff” HRE, while other civs can have crazy things: Twitch

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Yes, the Landsknecht stems from a time, when HRE could get 900 gpm with only 3 relics. He has never been adjusted in costs or stats. These 5 hp buffs were absolutely pathetic and the one dmg buff they got (+1) helps not one bit, since they usually die before they can even begin to become effective in any form or manner. Plus EAT was 20% hp for the longest time, so the 5 hp buff just barely compensated for the EAT hp loss LKs had to suffer. They were always between 114 and 120 hp which is absolutely pathetic, especially for 100 gold, when any spearman has ~40 hp more than them and the devs allowed units like freaking Catas (which are predecessors of knights, they have no business at all to be better than Renaissance knights. AoE2 respected that, AoE4 just twisted it all around) to roam around with 506 to 529 (Macedonians, fully upgraded) freaking hp for one pop. That is more hp in one unit than in 4 Landsknechte together. 4 LKs reach a measley 480 hp on 3/3 armor. And they cost 240 food and 400 gold. How can this unit still exist in this game and in its vanilla state? This is so ridiculous. This unit makes you lose the game, because you invest your gold poorly. They are never ever even close to being cost efficient and don’t even have a proper role. It’s not even a really good trade if you have 5 LKs to mow down 10 spearmen, while you lose 2 or more of your LKs. And an engagement like that is very unlikely, because it relies on the opponent being careless. If you allow Landsknechte to engage with weak clumped up melee units or ignore them altogether, then you are simply not a good player, because that shouldn’t happen at all.

What is the point of this unit? Raiding? The history nerd within me is going completely nuts…I mean, Landsknechte became raiders, if they hadn’t been paid, but first and foremost they were elite soldiers that were expensive for a good reason. And they formed the core of the army, they weren’t just “sprinkled in”.

And what’s the purpose of the Black Rider? Raiding as well? It’s ridiculous. This unit is utterly cost inefficient in any battle, unless you have 5 keeps, a good bunch of them and a fleeing enemy army, which you then can pursue with Caracole. Amazing… And highly unlikely. HRE has the worst and most useless unique units. There are also some other contenders, but if you take the civs as a whole, HRE is absolute bottom tier in not only that regard.

In regards of your suggestion to Burgrave. Yes, that would be an appealing change. But only if the LK was a better unit. And the best (/s) thing about all this dilemma is that freaking Byz, who shouldn’t even have access to the LK (for historical and chronological reasons), can get him for free (not just Oil, but also Golden Horn tower) and thus has a much better use for him, because they don’t lose 100 freaking gold for this miserable unit. It really is ridiculous how pathetic HRE as a civ actually is. They pretty much stagnated for 5 years. Some good changes have been done to them in that time, but if you compare that to the power level of the other civs now, it is simply awful. HRE is F tier in imp and D tier altogether. And as an appealing civ they also fail horribly. The design, depth, versatility and historical accuracy is just terrible.

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Excellent, I’ve always been a big fan of creative ideas. That said, ideas for new units are always welcome and could even serve as the basis for a new variant.

By the way, my suggestions usually aim to minimize development costs. For instance, with the Landsknecht and Black Rider, I didn’t propose creating new units, but rather reworking the old ones. This is just a cost-saving measure.

Regarding the “scaling beyond Imperial Age” issue, it’s actually quite common and can be achieved in various ways. The Abbasids use the Golden Age, the Chinese use their Dynasties, the French scale through additional Keeps, and the Byzantines rely on massing more expensive units.

When giving the Black Rider to the HRE, the Devs should have referenced the French approach—scaling through more Keeps to continuously increase the Black Rider’s numbers. Unfortunately, their current design for the Black Rider isn’t very effective. It was supposed to be a game-changing unit, but it has largely flown under the radar.

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My suggestion for the LK would be a lot of work, very true. That’s why I contained myself and made the easy-to-apply suggestions in the opening post with Riveted Chainmail, LK stats increases, Teutonic Knightss etc. My idea there is to give HRE more power and identity, while still being rather historically accurate. And it should be easy to apply and I’d say that these ideas fulfill that aspect very well compared to my LK rework idea.

My hope always was to give the devs some ideas, some direction, because designing a game such as this with more and more civs is not easy. But I am really not sure if the devs read anything really. Here or on Reddit. I guess they do at times, but when it comes to HRE, I feel like they too often do the opposite of what I personally consider to be the right way for HRE. And people who do not explicitly dislike HRE pretty much agree that the HRE units and uniqueness just isn’t it. HRE is such a rich civ that eventually covered many European nations of today, from the Netherlands to pretty much Hungary. OotD is the closest thing to a Hungarian civ for example. But if I look at how the benefits and strenghts in this game are distributed, HRE always seems to get the shorter end. And OotD is also not a well designed civ. It has it’s power comps and spikes, but it’s just not a well designed or interesting civ and so devoid of any proper historical resemblance. But I digress.

Adding the TK to HRE would be very easy to do for example. And it would make a ton of sense. So, I am totally with you that we should think of ways how to improve HRE without reinventing the wheel, even if I actually wish for nothing more than a proper HRE and OotD rework. And even if we cannot know if the devs notice anything of this here. But I think there are a million ways to properly improve HRE and make them interesting that are neither a lot of work nor expensive. It’s pretty much only about the question, if HRE is allowed to also have nice things or not. And currently the answer unfortunately is “not”.

The Black Rider definitely needs something, his game changing capabilites are pretty much zero. But also the LK. And the army in general. I mean, HRE suffered especially from all the new power creep stuff in this game, because it was always so limited. It was okay for a few years, but now it’s just not good enough anymore. HRE can get to imp quickly, but then there is no way of scaling anymore. So why not give them something in that regard? As you said, most other civs have these options to scale notably higher than basic units with basic upgrades can. Abba just got their way now, despite already having a fifth age and well scaling unique techs. It was also not what Abba needed, but at least they got something that is actually powerful. The new Golden age improves Camel riders and infantry a lot and it’s global and permanent. While HRE units get glasses and feel less inspired, despite the fact that the rate in which the Holy Word is being spread has increased. It sounds weird and dull, because it is weird and dull. I literally want the pre patch HRE back. I take +5% inspiration damage over all these other “buffs” every day of the week, 24/7.

If getting to imp quickly should be a problem for the balance of HRE, then that should rather be nerfed, while the army gets proper improvements. Instead the devs push fast imp even further on this civ to then spam crappy and cost inefficient units. And the manner in which they do it also seems totally disconnected from the reality of this civ. These are the huge discrepancies I see. The whole idea of designing HRE goes in the opposite direction of where it should go.

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If they could just make the Landsknecht and Black Rider more viable, I wouldn’t mind keeping things as they are. The main issue is that these two units barely have any presence; they are textbook examples of bad units.

There are similar cases in older civs, like the Wynguard Footman & Ranger, Fire Lancer, Grenadier, and Akinci (let’s leave DLC units like the Ozutsu out of this for now). It would be great if the Devs could just give these underperformers a reasonable role.

As for the Teutonic Knight, maybe they could add it to the HRE, or use it to create an HRE variant, similar to the Jin Dynasty, which even has its own unique soundtrack.

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Making LK and BR viable units would be a good first step, but it still wouldn’t suffice, I am sure. Unless there are some amazing reworks to the units, so that all the HRE shortcomings are suddenly appeased. But that would require severe reworks, not just some buffs. The units suck on the field, but also in terms of accessability and/or cost. If they are supposed to carry the civ, they will need a lot of attention.

I have been wishing for a Teutonic Order variant/civ for a long time now as well, but when I saw that KT got them, which makes less sense than for HRE, I thought to myself that the chances of getting a Teutonic Order civ are very very slim. And to hear them speak French is also… It just doesn’t compute with me. It feels wrong. And it’s arguably also the worst age up for KT. With HRE you would see this unit often, with KT it’s just very rare. I feel like there is no argument at all against adding the TK to HRE. I wouldn’t know what.

Especially considering the existence of Byzantines that have access to mercs they shouldn’t have access to. They literally steal units from other civs for no good reason in a historically and chronologically inaccurate fashion. If that kind of stuff is accepted, then a shared unit between civs, where it actually makes proper sense, should be a no-brainer.

And something like riveted chainmail (10 hp, 1/1 armor) is also necessary. Why should HRE be the only civ that cannot increase hp for anything above average? That tech won’t make them op, but definitely better. Every civ has a way of increasing hp for some military unit outside of basic techs. Only HRE doesn’t. Why?

The HRE also took the Culverin, which is a French invention, and improved it compared to the original. Something like that also does not find any resemblance in the game, while so many other civs do get some artillery bonuses often just for the heck of it. Some civs even get to use artillery they are not supposed to have access to. There are so many stretches in this game, but things that make sense are kept from a civ like HRE that is also pretty much devoid of any stretches to their benefits. They are rather very much understretched.

And I don’t really understand what the problem is? The devs are neither lazy nor did they stop having plans for the game, but HRE simply doesn’t get anything. It was already D-tier and I doubt it will be any better now. Every match I have watched on this new patch from pros with HRE, was a display of their weakness and it was the usual zerg with boring and weak units, while most of them didn’t bother to use IW at all. But hey, at least the units have glasses now. :face_with_monocle: :+1: