[HRE] Suggestion for the devs: How to improve/change the HRE!

[Jaysus04]

You can usually get 3 relics with a Regnitz play (unless facing Rus, that can be more difficult then). That’d be 700 gold. If you manage to trick your opponent into not caring for relics because you went Burgrave, you then would have to snatch all 5 relics rather quickly (which is a hassle) and you’d still have a worse gold income than with Regnitz. And most opponents will realize after the 3rd relic that you aim for the relics and thus you prolly still won’t get more than 3. Maybe 4. And it doesn’t take long until the Burgrave bonus becomes rather irrelevant.

I really doubt that Burgrave is worth the hassle, because it does what it does and only that. I am 100% positive that the vast majority will just stick to Regnitz, while Burgrave will be only niche play.

You have a point, however, when opening with horsemen and archers to then quick switch to infantry in age III. But I still consider this to be far inferior to Regnitz. Burgrave only helps you for a short time. You’d have to be very sure to win the game in order to go for Burgrave, because if you can’t, your landmark will get worse and worse until it’s completely useless. Regnitz will always be good.

[Turmoil925]

First two relics garrisoned in a [Monastery] generate 200% more gold every minute.

This is the solution to replace the landmark dichotomy by basically making it civ ability?
I mean, I’m fine with it, considering that Delhi can cap sacred sites in Age 2, while Abbasid can ridiculously boost market trading. And in this case, the trade-off would be that HRE needs to build a monastery to garrison the relics, something they normally don’t have to do since TCs can make Prelates anyway.

That still leaves the question what to do with Regnitz after that?

[Jaysus04]

Well 200% would make the HRE eco even worse than coming patch will. So it should stay at 300%. And yes, that’s the idea. Make the relic gold bonus civ baseline working with monasteries or a new dedicated building, while Regnitz could revolve around improving Prelates. Maybe you can produce them there cheaper and have some unique techs there improving them in battle (give armor or health to Prelates, make them better at healing, offer an improved version of inspired warriors or something of that sort). So one landmark would be for military while the other is for religious warfare.

Regnitz as it is is too important for the HRE. Without it you can’t even think about producing Landsknechts, since they cost way to much for how quickly they die. They become even less viable without Regnitz (the Regnitz mechanic). That’s also why I want them to be sturdier. If you pay 100 gold for a unit, you should be able to rely more on it than you can rn, while not having to babysit them during every engagement. Even if you win a battle, most of those jokers are dead. They are so not cost efficient.

And last but not least and what is needed for all civs: Give religious units a proper a-click. So they start healing/casting as soon as the enemy contact is there. It’s unbearable to have them walk into the enemy army because you a-clicked and didn’t order your priests to stop command, when they are supposed to stop. This makes religious units so difficult to use. We would see them more often altogether, if they had a proper a-click.

Coming patch will make the HRE slightly worse I think. And the golden league showed that the HRE just doesn’t have what is needed to win higher brackets. Their lategame also is just bad, because they have nothing that stands out.

Ps.: Chinese clockwork hp bonus needs to be 25%. 50% is madness.

[DoctBaghi]

@Jaysus04

Regnitz as it is is too important for the HRE. Without it you can’t even think about producing Landsknechts, since they cost way to much for how quickly they die.

Then maybe just change the landskenechts. Either reduce the gold cost and training time or increase the armor.

Anyway landskenechts works decently with pikes or horsemen that shield them, then they come in and wreck everything. It’s hard to micro, but it can work.

[Turmoil925]

Maybe Burgrave could have additional upgrades for Landsknechts.

[Turmoil925]

Okay, since we’ve discussed making Regnitz Cathedral’s effect become a civilization baseline stat to avoid the one-trick pony effect, the question remains what to do with the landmark now that its effect has been removed?

Let’s go with the Ritterbruder idea suggested in the original post and make it a unit production building for them, shall we?

However, instead of making them slightly stronger than a knight, let us instead make it so that, when the Ritterbruder dies, ONLY HIS HORSE will die, while he continues to fight on foot.

Or in other words, upon death, the unit will transform from a cavalry unit into an infantry unit.

Of course, that also leaves the suggested aura in question:

I figured we already have damage increase buff (although the way to apply it still needs to be fixed), so let’s add the attack speed for a change. It will buff other units, except for himself and other Ritterbruders.

In the end it should look something like

With that, we’ve solved the problem of HRE having too much gold, as the unit will cost a lot more than any other unit this civ has.

Of course that still leaves the question of Burgrave Palace, which still leaves lots to be desired.
More on that later.

[Zirael3395]

I approve because I just want knights with horns now hahaha.

[KillerB3541]

Great idea. I actually thought about Ritterbruder when I said that HRE should have another unique unit.

Are the horns from PUP with a special mod? I think units (even units which all civilizations have) should look differently for each civ.

[Turmoil925]

It was all handmade on a still image.

[Jaysus04]

I absolutely love the design and appreciate the work you have put into that. I totally approve of what you posted and it would be terrific if it was implemented into the game.

I am very much looking forward to your Burgrave ideas. And I really like that you’ve built upon the several ideas that have been posted here. I hope Relic sees this.

• Regnitz Bonus baseline
• Ritterbruder via Landmark with attackspeed aura (expensive unit with buff aura that needs to “die twice”. On foot speed and stats should be on MAA levels)
• Burgrave: Improving infantry production and upgrade speed OR something completely different
• Inspired Warriors mechanic more intuitive/controllable/reliable and more polished (plus a-click needs to properly work here)
• improve Landsknechte, give them a better cost effectiveness, improve their survivability and speed

And then I think the HRE would be much more versatile, fun to play and stops being a one trick pony.

Great work!

[KillerB3541]

Fantastic work. Hopefully relic will consider your proposals.

[Turmoil925]

Okay, so we’ve dealt with the issue of Regnitz gold income and Ritterbruder replacement for Regnitz Cathedral.

That still leaves the thorn in the side that is Burgrave Palace.

The current one trains 5 units at a time for a shorter period of time, which becomes useless when you don’t have the resources to press the button, in which case it’s best to just have multiple barracks instead.

Now, the devs did change it for the next patch to instead just train units at 400% speed which is an improvement and I think it’s the best for it to stay that way. There was a suggestion to make the landmark train 2 units at the cost of one, but that’s already the ability of the Mongols, where they need Ovoo and stone.
Still, the landmark is left barebone for the most part, so what more can be done?

Let’s address the Landsknechts at the same time.
In my original post, I made a few suggestions about making the baseline Landsknechts stronger, but with the Ritterbruder being inserted into the equation the approach needs to be changed.

This used to be my original idea, where I suggested that the Landsknechts should have the ability to switch between weapons on demand.

Why the change? One of the replies to my suggestion said that the ability to switch between weapons on demand was too much like Rus, where it is the staple for its units (its ships anyway). So I decided to compromise and make it situational.

So let’s start with the upgrades.

Poleaxe upgrade would basically trigger in presence of enemy cavalry, turning Landsknecht into a situational Spearman when standing still.

That still leaves the arquebus ability in question, which would still require the Chemistry upgrade in Age 4, but this time, it would be an ability with a duration.

So why did I decide to make Landsknechts resilience an upgrade, instead of making it baseline?

It all comes down to the choices between the two landmarks:
Either you build Regnitz Cathedral and produce the Ritterbruder, in which case you’ll be focusing on buffing your armies with a unit that can soak up a lot of damage, OR you build the Burgrave Palace to make the Landsknechts stronger and become more of a staple in the army than they usually are.

And since both units are a big gold sink, they balance each other out.

[Turmoil925]

Do the devs browse the forums often?

[Turmoil925]

Actually, now that I think about it, with adding Ritterbruder, it would make sense to completely replace the Regnitz Cathedral with Malbork Castle, which was the seat of the Teutonic Order.

[Jaysus04]

@Turmoil925

Do the devs browse the forums often?

I hope so. It is said they look more frequent into the official forums than any other forums. You can repost this on reddit and/or link this thread there to increase chances of it being seen. I feel like that some changes were made possible because of this thread here. The increase of inspired warriors to 1 minute was a suggestion out of this thread and I haven’t heard it anywhere else. I think the safest bet is to regullarly post in this forum.

I also really like your Burgrave idea. I think it’d be a great choice if Burgrave and the Regnitz substitute for Ritterbrüder (plural) we discussed here became reality, while the relic bonus turns into a baseline civ bonus as it is too important for smooth and viable HRE play.

The way Burgrave is right now is still trash as I suspected. Pros use it only “to have fun”, but any serious play is Regnitz. And it has to be. The relic play is just way too paramount for the HRE civ. That’s why it should be baseline, since it otherwise makes the age III choice moot or rather pointless. Burgrave could be nice, if you had the relic gold. But that means we need a replacement for the Regnitz landmark and that could very well be the here discussed Ritterbruder idea + the improved Burgrave that focusses on Landsknechte, who also need to become much better for their terrible cost effectiveness. You can build many camels and use them for everything. You can’t do that with Landsknechte (who only really excell in mirror matches which is stupid as hell). They have a certain setup in which they work and the enemy army needs to be mostly melee as well. In any other scenario they are absolute trash and the opposite of cost effectiveness. They need to become better. The HRE needs better special units, more of them as well (Ritterbruder), a reliable gold source that is not locked into landmarks… The HRE simply needs more personality.

The patch did well in regards of inspired warriors (I think, but I am yet to see pros use it effectively), but it is very difficult to get there because you need to invest quite a bit into it as well. So it’s only something for lategame that can help, but won’t if the eco cannot supply it. Other than that the HRE has been nerfed with this patch. Burgrave is not a buff, it’s for the moments when you play stoned, while being on the phone and not really caring about the result of the match. It’s not for serious play other than a suicide mission that most likely won’t work.

The HRE still needs a lot of work. For me they are the most one-dimensional and boring civ in the game. The English are also quite one-dimensional, but they have a self-reliant way of booming into imp, don’t need much of the map, can make any unit viable with the castle network and just synergizes better. You pretty damn know what the English are and what they want to be: Early aggression into safe booming. That doesn’t mean they don’t need further love and improvements, but I feel like the HRE is in a greater need. Both civs need to become more fun and more viable in excercising different strategies. The Burgrave change didn’t do anything. And I feel like that tiny changes won’t do the trick either. The HRE needs some kind of drastic change. And that would be making Regnitz relic play baseline and then build upon that.

[Turmoil925]

@Jaysus04

You can repost this on reddit and/or link this thread there to increase chances of it being seen. I feel like that some changes were made possible because of this thread here.

Holy crap my comment is getting downvoted for some reason…
Are other civ mains feeling threatened that they wouldn’t be able to pick off the one-trick pony easily anymore or something?
https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe4/comments/u0hfmy/improving_holy_roman_empire_part_1/

[Jaysus04]

Yeah well, that’s reddit for ya. It’s at times a toxic community there and in regards of game changes and improvements for certain or single civs, you generally get downvoted. It sucks and makes it harder for Relic and anybody to actually find constructive balance or game design ideas.

I had to deal with some bored morons as well on reddit. It is what it is. Ignore that and post anyway, I’d say.

[Turmoil925]

I dunno what to do about Elzbach Palace though, honestly.
I’d say it and Rus’ Spasskaya Tower are 2 of the worst landmark choices to pick, but I feel HRE has it worse because the alternative will ALWAYS be picked over it, because, why bother trying to build another Town Center when you can get a building that makes villagers faster and cheaper.

There are only 2 things I can think of: either giving Elzbach Palace Emergency Repairs so it doesn’t need a TC, but even then the production part from the Palace of Swabia is still superior.
Or remake the landmark completely, where it isn’t a keep with an increased HP and reduced damage taken area, but is instead an over-time unit generator.

[Jaysus04]

What about giving Elzbach the benefit of whatever you did not choose in age III? If you chose Burgrave and its Landsknechte, Elzbach would give you the Ritterbruder. If you have gone for the Ritterbruder in age III, Elzbach would give you the Landsknechte.

Swabia then would mean a strong benefit to your eco, while Elzbach gives you the full tech tree in regards of unit compositions in addition to its other effects.

That way you’d actually have an incentive to play a multi tc feudal/castle as HRE instead of trying to get to Swabia asap. Granted you’d also need some tuning to make multi tc play viable for HRE. They have zero benefits to it and need the longest time to recover from a second tc investment.

The premise to all this is ofc that the Regnitz relic bonus becomes civ baseline.

---

The HRE needs much more improvement. The new patch made them noticeably weaker. All the buffs are more or less pointless (aside from Meinwerk, this is viable) and you still just go for everything that has been nerfed by the patch. Nobody cares for Burgrave as I suspected, because it’s a bad landmark with a bad bonus that in fact has close to zero synergies, while in theory it sounds like a follow up strategy on the Meinwerk choice. But it’s not. And Swabia was also nerfed. The HRE also mostly lacks the ressources to even try to go for an inspired army approach, because you need to heavily invest into that. Building a monastery, getting the upgrades and building a few prelates is a hefty investment that doesn’t even do much. You need to invest much more into that and the rest of your army to actually benefit from that. It’s something for situations in which you are floating ressources. It’s not like the Rus mechanic, where you simply can add warrior monks to your army, who instantly synergize with everything and do not even need upgrades to do so. And they were buffed. They can now attack from the second row, making them much easier to protect… Still a far superior mechanic than the HRE one. And that while the HRE is supposed to be THE religious civ…

The inpsired warrior and prelate buff is nice, but doesn’t do anything (it helps to collect relics faster, but with the Regnitz nerf you are still in a worse position than before the patch). The Burgrave buff is pointless and does close to nothing. You simply still skip this landmark. The Swabia nerf is noticeable, but there is still no reason to ever go Elzbach, which has been ignored by the patch anyway.

This is what I don’t understand at all: Why are English enclosures (which is 100% self-reliant and doesn’t require you to do anything on the map aside from reaching imp), the Mongol Steppe Redoubt, the Rus free gold that doesn’t require them to gather any gold in feudal and allows them to reach crazy heights together with relics (plus their gate allows for a second tc without even touching stone or gold) all fine and the Regnitz Cathedral is not? Regnitz is “only” 600 gpm, effectively 400 gpm more than for other civs. Before the patch it was at 600 gpm over other civs. 400 gpm is weaker than any of the three gold methods I mentioned. I could also add the French Guild Hall which is 350 res per minute when collected after 10 minutes and 433 res per minute when collected after 15 minutes. And all you need to do is not fortget about it.

All the HRE matches I have seen on Golden League since the new patch were scrappy and weird. The HRE always tried to get to fc, is then 30 vils behind the opponent, somehow manages to creep into age 4 (or gets beaten before that), tries to catch up on pop and then loses because there are so many holes in the whole gameplay, which is also very susceptible to raiding until you get to Swabia (which makes raiding much easier to deal with). There is zero bonus for a second feudal tc. The HRE cannot even go for a full on feudal or castle age like the other civs, because they only have the prelate. No faster production, no cheaper vils, no cheaper buildings, no cheat landmarks. There is only the prelate, which hinders vil production and needs to be babysitted everywhere.

I still feel like the devs have never really in depth thought about the HRE. I feel like there is so much amiss and you literally only have one way to play them, which by now gets countered easily. Especially since the new patch even nerfed the HRE when they needed buffs.

And I hear people say that English are the weakest… Viper chose the English twice in a row at Golden League after the patch and didn’t even look at the HRE.

HRE is bottom tier. And with this new patch even more than before.

I must say that I am once again very disappointed and I stand by my view that the HRE is the unwanted stepchild of Age of Empires 4… Why offer the HRE as a civ, if you do them like this I wonder? Why not just leave them out, if you ignore close to everything that this civ actually has to offer…?

Yes, I am annoyed.

[Turmoil925]

Or if we couple it with my earlier suggestion, it generates VASAL ARMIES over time and one of the units that will be spawned is from the landmark that you didn’t choose. It just feels kind of pointless to have both Ritterbrudder and upgraded Landsknechts at the same time, unless there’s a certain drawback to it.

And yeah, my sentiment is pretty much the same.

The major problem that nobody seems to address about HRE is that other civs have different ways of better gold generation/reduction as a baseline:

Rus have Hunting Cabins and Bounty ability, Mongols can produce multiple units for the same price with Ovoo and stone, Chinese have Imperial officials, French can make everything cheaper and on-water trade generates more gold, and Delhi outright has no resources cost for upgrades (sure the research time is longer and you will have to spend some gold on scholars to speed up, and you can build multiple buildings to do more at the same time to avoid the long queues), plus you can early cap sacred sites for more gold generation, and in turn, you have enough gold to afford elephant units, which are 600g.
Abbasid are in a different category because they have different ways of gold generation/consumption reduction, based on the wings you research as you age up, but by the imperial age you can pretty much research ALL of them, and English also have increased gold generation tied to farming, with the only drawback being that it’s accessible in Imperial age.

Now compare all of that to what HRE has. The only thing Prelate gives is an increased gather rate for villagers, but where does the rest of the gold generation come from that isn’t tied directly to mining?

Nowhere.
Which is funny, because the civ has the ability for relics to interact with other buildings, but doesn’t have a better interaction when housed in the place where relics are normally put.