HRE are actually so strong, even stronger than china in most cases, the relic buff from the cathedral, the 3.1 TC landmarks, the Anti heavy Maa, not to mention they get culverins, and have enough gold spare to just spam the best units in game, they really need some tweaks, like they actually are to strong, sure they are maybe weak in the early game, but that is because players wanna fast castle into fast imperial, so of course they wont have units, but if they play like a normal civ and slowly make their way there, they are actually too strong, i mean they get a 40% increase to carry capacity of vills at game start, the strongest Maa in game, not to mention some real nice tech that makes it impossible to kite them, i beg you relic as much as people say they are weak, they are actually really strong.
ohhh i also forgot they get a discounted imperial age.
ohh i also forgot they get prelate buffing Eco and also prelate can buff infantry for combat.
Please don’t say nerfs HRE needs no nerfs but small buffs.stop trying to make them even weaker.
go on, why are they weak?.
Rush them and deny them relics / map control. Same old same old.
i tried that, but baring in mind they get some nice eco buffs and if they delay their own castle age they can get a nice number of units to defend the relic denials, i try to deny them relics, but every time it does not work, plus denying them relics does not really do much, you cannot deny them all relics, if they get 2 that is equal to 6 relics, so even if you get 3 relics they are still ahead, sure then they will have to put a little more on gold but so does every other civ, its actually crazy how strong they are castle age and onwards, like almost untouchable, not to mention the pro’s say they also have the best landmarks in the game one of which has a discount, so personally they do need nerfs.
They need buffs and nerfs imo. The blacksmith landmark needs a buff, maybe something like 35% cheaper techs. The Barracks landmark needs a buff, maybe 25% cheaper infantry that produce 5 at a time (only from this landmark) and Regnitz Cathedral gold rate should be nerfed to maybe 250 gold a minute. Swabia production rate could be nerfed from 300% faster to 200% and 50% cheaper instead of 75% and the other castle landmark could use a buff but I’m not sure how. They are very polarised atm as if they get 3 relics in regnitz they are pretty hard to stop but if they don’t then HRE is probably one of the worst civs. They are very one dimensional due to the fact of having to get 3 relics in regnitz or just losing the game if they don’t. This is why I think they should receive the mentioned nerfs and buffs.
this i agree with, the 2 fore mention landmarks, the cathedral and the palace need nerfs, the rest could do with some small tweaks to make them useful, i mean they do have other things going for them, the increased movement speed of infantry and the 2 handed weapons and mace upgrade make them very good, they also get culverins which is a very useful anti siege unit, i think another issue might be that people got so used to them being played a certain way that not many dare to try any other strategies due to the fact fast castle getting relics, then into fast imperial is actually very strong and they dont wanna pass that up, HRE needs to be designed differently, not being able to deny them relics should not result in an auto win for HRE, the same goes it should not be an auto lose if HRE dont get the relics, just another design flaw relic must fix.
i think 50% cheaper vills and 35% spawn time from the palace of swabia would be good enough if im honest. maybe at the same time increase the garrison amount to 20.
What are they with the Relics denied?
Holy Rubbish Empire?
HRE is the civ with the second-lowest win rate in the game at any ELO so no, they don’t need a nerf, they actually need a buff
HRE overall is not too strong. They have facetts that are really strong and they have facetts that are really weak. Aachen is great, but Burgrave is arguably the worst landmark of its kind in the entire game (it functions as 5 barracks for the cost of 12 barracks where you can only buy in bulk without any economy to sustain any of that. It is kinda hilarious how bad it is).
Prelates are really strong early game, and so is aachen, but late game they are slow and tough to micro manage. In contrast to for example warrior monks or scholars. Swabia is insanely good. Regnitz flips between being one of the best landmarks to being literally tile fillers if you can’t get a hold of relics. Their infantry goes from being sh!tty to slow early game to being hulk mode when they can swarm the map and you can’t avoid them.
HRE is almost archetypal for having some of the best AND having some of the worst in their portfolio. It is tough to nerf their best and not see them dive so deep they are basically non existent anymore. In reverse: buffing their bad may well give them such flexibility they can always dodge bad case scenarios.
Oh, and HRE late game is by no extend “even stronger than china”. HRE will get wiped by clockwork and the taxed society that produces them. Everyone can get demolished by late game HRE and China. Except China. China will demolish HRE and barely notice any difference when a-click clockworks cross map.
HRE are map based OP. Maps where they can turtle AND get relics = they will likely NOT BE STOPPED; especially if they hit swabia TOO.
This is my proposed OVERALL changes to HRE start and the two powerful landmarks.
FIRST OFF…
Make HRE START with a prelate ALREADY on the field and take away their starting gold or reduce it by 50 gold. That will be a HUGE bonus early age. If you look at the statistics on HRE win rate at the mid to high levels you’ll notice early game is when HRE is extremely extremely likely to lose. Strengthening that start will absolutely make them “safer”.
NEXT…
Change the Regnitz to ONLY allow a single relic in order to generate free gold AND change the free gold production to something worthy of a landmark but REASONABLE. IMO 1 relic generates 450-700 gold/min. This would allow the landmark to be functional with RELATIVE EASE (you just need one buddy). HOWEVER this would allow for the other functions of relics in side keeps, towers, docks, etc TO SHINE; b/c now you have potentially 4 more relics you wanna get to make you stronger! Right now 900 gold/min is just WAY TOO STRONG; 900 is equivalent to 22.5 base rate gathering villagers on gold… or 17.3 castle upgraded villagers on gold; either way one landmark accounting for 17.3 (buff) villagers to 22.5 (base) villager is wayy too strong.
More on the relic topic; some podcasts back Relic (the company) said they purposefully changed the Delhi sacred site capturing in the Dark Age b/c it made the game ONE SIDED?? “We feel like you had to play the game one way…” Ummmm… vs HRE we HAVE to play the game ONE WAY; stop them from getting relic and push them early less they boom freely into swabia into GG…
THIRDLY…
The Palace of Swabia. Many many many many post have been dedicated to the sheer power of this landmark: cheaper age up, effectively 4 TCs, cheaper than even Abbasid fresh food villagers. This landmark is ACTUALLY (in a vacuum) NOT an UNBALANCED landmark imo… It’s just that when you have 900 free gold per minute AND 4 TCs with cheapest villagers… you kinda get that French effect on fast forward we had a few patches back. So basically I’m saying IFFF you were NOT able to power age up within minutes of hitting Castle Age straight to Imperial 4 TC with cheap villagers, I think this landmark would be FAIR for a likely much much much later Imperial timing and give HRE the ability to catchup in villager count.
FINAL THOUGHTS…
I find, and have heard similar findings: ALL these civs are WAAAAAAAAAAYYYY tooo map dependent; just look at the stats (Rus has 73% freaking win rate on boulder bay at 1600+ elo last patch…com’on). I know we DESIRE for EACH civ to play asymmetrically AND for each civ to offer multiple playstyles… but we also need balance AND I argue a certain level of balanced symmetry will be the solution to having multiple playstyles emerge. I get it! I’m just a lowly player, not a designer, it is NOT as easy as I may think! Well we the consumer want to believe you, Relic, WILL deliver on this HARD assignment! 
I disagree, the HRE aren’t a top civ so weakening their landmarks would be awful. They don’t need nerfs but they need BUFFS to the other landmarks to be more competitive and varied in their playstyle. Here is my suggestion for landmark changes
-
Meinwerk Palace: Instead of current bonus, acts as blacksmith and upgrades all armor techs immediately for free as soon as you advance an age.
-Currently its just a different flavor of eco bonus to the superior Achen chapel, this way its an early age-up power spike in addition to eco bonus -
Regnitz Cathedral: Relics generate 200 gold per minute(instead of 300), the cathedral can hold up to 5 relics (instead of 3, for a max of 1000 rather than 900).
-This will make contesting relics more interesting, as getting 3 relics is just too easy since you have prelates up already. Makes the landmark high risk-reward. -
Elzbach Palace: Should have 300% the HP of a keep. Buildings and units in influence take 33% less damage.
It’s too simplistic to few the argumentation for a landmark nerf/buff being: “the civ has top win rates or not”;
We don’t readily have the public stats to show and suggest this to be the case, but like someone already posted; If HRE is permitted to get 3 relics and swabia its gg… at the same time if you limit them to 1 relic (requires a lot of outplaying) regnitz becomes below medicore and (like i said in my post) swabia isn’t game breaking if you don’t have a 900 gold/min income to coincide.
But I do agree the other landmarks needs a lil more flair. Yes! in an ideal work each civs landmark should offer fairly viable gameplay options.
Lastly I strongly strongly disagree that a landmark that cost a billion resources and time to build should ever be in a high risk high reward scenario because you don’t get a due over and high reward will be too one side…the way it is now is “high risk high reward”. Unlike high risk high reward UNITS; you can just make them again and try again. IMO landmarks should all have reliable functionality.
You have to consider what is good for gameplay as well. Limiting the Regnitz to 1-2 relics is the worst of all options in my opinion, since it is not hard or interesting getting only 1 relic.
Going for high risk-reward is ok in my opinion, it happens all the time when you go for an “all in” strategy, no reason why it shouldn’t happen with landmarks. Remember that if you don’t want to go for the “risk” landmark then you can go for the other landmark.
I think going 200 gold per minute with up to 5 relics inside Regnitz is LESS high risk reward than what it is now, you are likely to end up with 3-4 relics as HRE against most civs either way. And since relic will be 200 gold its less of a “game losing position” if you fail to get one.
Relic have more functions than just generating gold for the HRE.
I am very aware, but thats beside the point
how would the other functions of the relic for HRE be "besides the point, " if your changes were implemented when would you ever decided to forgo having 5 relics in your regnitz? Currently if you get just 3 those 3 are absolutely being used for gold generation; which actually diminished the additional functionality for the HRE and relics b/c you’d be crazy to lose out on 300 gold/min outside a niche and brief situation.
Current Regnitz accepting 3 relics is no more interesting than my idea requiring 1; instead it opens up the full functionality of the relic and still incentives the HRE player to get them all AND for your opponent to still want to prevent you access to relics.
Many say that HRE is weak in Early and that is why it should only improve its Landmarks. My question is, what weakness does he have in Feudal after the bug fix? Maybe it is not that players (including pros who play meta without trying anything else) like to play greedy to get to Castles as soon as possible and lose a lot in Early?
It’s not just a saying? Look up the statistics of HRE win rates last patch over all elo rating!!!
HRE plays optimally 1 way!!! So the counter is obvious. I’m arguing that they strengthen HRE and nerf the two landmarks that dictate the singular playstyle. Currently nothing you can do reasonably to the other castle up age landmark to offset 900 gold per min of the regnitz!!! But if the regnitz only offered 450-600 gold per min and let’s say the other landmark that batches 5 units at one time could ALSO have a relic placed inside it which the bonus effect being it removes all the wood cost and gold cost up to 25 gold per unit being batched?! Lastly take that age 4 Spearman upgrade for plus +3 melee and allow it to be tech in age 3 Ifff you went up with this batch landmark?
Then you’d have 2 potential playstyles with comparable power:
Regnitz for 450-600 gold
The other landmark for batching units, earlier Imperial tech(s), and a discount on unit production inside said landmark.
So if you kept a batch of 5 landsknecht always being produced every 22 seconds while having a relic inside the landmark the suggestioned 25 gold discount saved per unit over the avg 60 sec would equal generating 340 gold/min!! And getting the blacksmith 25% faster military production would increase that savings on landskhechts to 426 gold/min saved!!! This landmark would be a great castle ultra aggressive infantry playstyle.
Final thoughts on this landmark change. Their needs to both be the ability to single button batch and the option to que smaller patches (say you only have enough resources for 3 units or just 2). Basically you should be able to make a batch of 1-5 units per batch and for qol still have the standard 5 batch unit button. (Aka functions like an aoe3 barracks but shift +hotkey for multiples of 5 is now replaced with a batch 5 button).