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

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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I agree with you completely. The HRE altogether makes barely any sense. There is no deeper thought behind it, it’s boring, lackluster and inferior aside from one viable way of playing which has been nerfed heavily by latest patch.

I do not understand the devs at all in this regard. Not one single bit. And I am getting more and more annoyed by that as well. The HRE is a terrible civ that is in a terrible spot right now.

And then people like Demuslim also say in public that the prelate buff is nuts… Where is that nuts? Demuslim completely ignores the fact that the prelate is supposed to be part of the HRE army and obviously thinks that Regnitz is totally strong. I was surprised from Demu yesterday, when he said that in his stream, because I thought he had a better overview and wouldn’t cast such short sighted judgements. With the Regnitz fc play you are always behind in vills. It’s the only way HRE can be competitive. That’s why you can never go for Burgrave, because you need Regnitz. It’s paramount to do anything as HRE. Without it you are just behind in everything. And with it you are not even really ahead depending on the course of the match. Regnitz was nerfed, the prelate was useless in the army, now he can at least run with them and you need marching drills to really give them an edge. But Demuslim thinks it is too strong? Nobody complains about 50% movement speed scholars for Delhi, tho… What the hell? That’s twice the speed of the prelate buff. And the Rus are still on horses. The HRE has so little boni that barely make any sense and somewhat counter each other, but still people just see "300% from relics!!!“121212 Thatsrfwads crazydsafdsaf asf! grasping for air”.

And then you go on reddit, try to have a balance discussion and you get all the toxic reactions from people who have never really thought about this game in depth and just reproduce what they heard somewhere else. It’s crazy actually.

The HRE was a work in progress when the game released. And it has not gotten far since. A lot of stuff has been improved, but even more was not working well or is plain bad and it’s just not enough. There is so much more to do.

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Actually, now that I think about it, the damage reduction from Elzbach doesn’t really make sense for HRE, as it would make more sense for the Chinese, who already have the Great Wall landmark.

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I wouldn’t change the HRE too radically.

On my opinion, a new UU or bonus is fine, but I wouldn’t radically change their landmarks.

In my opinion, the landmark that still needs some changes are:

  • the Burgrave Palace: having it working 400% faster it’s good, but it’s still not that viable. Even with the achean chapel and prelates, the HRE struggles in eco to get such strategy really viable. So maybe the units trained there should cost 10/15% less food.

  • Elzbach Palace: there isn’t really any reason to use such landmarks over the palace of swabia. The only case could be after a prolonged castle age fight, when you already have multiple TCs, and you need an emergency castle to defend or to drop into in front of your enemy. The problem is, that even then it’s not worth it, since you need to pay for its full cost. So just make it cost less like the palace of swabia.

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The core problem of the Elzbach is that you cannot go for a multiple tc gameplay that can justify not going for Swabia. And even if there was a change to the HRE allowing them to multi tc in feudal and castle without crippling themselves too much, the Elzbach would still be not a great choice, because it’s just not good enough.

Elzbach and Burgrave are just not good enough. And with Regnitz being the one eco boost possibility that is required to do anything as HRE, there is just no way to ever not go Regnitz. Why would you? That’s why Regnitz should just be baseline. It makes the age III choice pointless. The HRE has a good eco on paper, because the prelate is good on paper, but the reality looks differently. That’s the thing with HRE. They sound better than they are.

The predicament at age III was also the reason for me to introduce the “Sale of Indulgences” idea, which would fit so perfectly to the HRE as it was really a thing back then. Only Martin Luther’s proclamation from 1517 changed that… And look at that… Relic let’s the HRE end at 1517… (although it existed until Napoleon, but yeah…).

The Sale of Indulgences would be a way of generating gold based on the villager population. I did some math example somewhere earlier in this thread. That way the HRE would have an incentive to go for more vils in castle age. It would help them negate the lack of boni for building a second or third tc, as your higher vill count would improve your eco altogether, levelling out the investment much sooner that it would normally be the case. And then you would have room for a new age III landmark focussing on relics that improve the HRE in some ways (e.g. put relics into tc’s and production buildings, to improve production and research speed, have relics boost the army when carried with the army, let relics do more stuff, but free them of the gold generation bonus, maybe let them still generate gold when being put in production buildings, but only 100 gpm ofc)… The possibilities are numerous.

I think the Sale of Indulgences would be a unique, fitting and great way to make the HRE an interesting civ with several ways to be played.

I am simply not happy with the HRE being reliant on relics and a landmark to have a somewhat comepetitive eco. It’s bad design as it actually ruins the age III and age IV landmark choices and forces you into relic snacking which is naturally anticipated by the opponent. It reduces all the possibilities this game actually has to offer.

Please devs… Have a heart and just do some bigger changes for the HRE. They are needed. The civ could be so cool, but it is actually terrible. And this thread alone is full of ideas. Just take them and realize them. Numbers can always be tweaked, but the gameplay mechanics need to be there. And they are there for most civs. Just not for the HRE.

Edit: This is my original sale of indulgences idea. But with the newest thought process, it would be a baseline mechanic for the HRE. It’d obviously not be bound to prelates anymore, but it could be in some ways. It would work with or without prelate garrisoning. Whatever seems balanced. Prelates being responsible to gather the money from within a church would make mad sense, tho.

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These were the responses that I’ve gotten when posting the list.

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Oh, also I started a steam thread not long ago.

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Yeah, exactly. This is what you have to deal with. Which is why I really hope Relic sees all this here. There are people commenting on reddit and anywhere in the internet really that have not played the HRE or simply do not care for them, but judge them nonetheless. The 40% argument alone shows all that. People act like prelates are everywhere and every villager is buffed. Without Aachen (and even with), the prelate buff play is terribly annoying and at times even confusing. Not only because the all-army button still selects all prelates. It’s so stupid.

And looking at the steam thread and seeing the first comment I am instantly in the face palm mode again. It’s like they didn’t even read what you wrote. Nobody denies that 600 gpm is good. But you have to see it as a whole and in comparison to the other civs’s mechanics and how the HRE is played (double tc is terrible, so there is only one way which was nerfed heavily). That doesn’t mean HRE cannot play double tc. They can. It’s just worse than for any other civ. And that’s the point. Most people are plain useless in these discussions. But they are everywhere it makes it so hard to actually want to put effort into finding new ideas for this game. It costs so much time and energy and feels so unrewarding eventually. But one keeps going, because one believes it might still be read and heard and realized.

The newest server side patch was another nerf for the HRE btw. Rus Warrior Monks being slowed down by relics is absolutely necessary. But now Monks are slowed down as well. So the Rus Monks need to get a bigger malus on their movement speed again. HRE now even needs marching drills for Regnitz play, because relic collecting (which is for no civ as important as for the HRE) has become so much slower and susceptible.

What is up with the devs ruining the HRE more and more, but eventually sell it as the HRE being buffed? There are no buffs, if useless stuff is improved. There are nerfs, however, if the ONE VIABLE way is constantly being nerfed without any compensation.

Just get rid of the HRE relic requirement for a functioning eco. It ruins this whole civ. Give them relic boni that are not essential for their eco and make their eco much more self reliant. I think the “Sale of Indulgences” idea is close to perfect. But that’s me. It’s my idea. Ofc I like it. And I do not see a downside to it. It would open up the HRE to so many more possibilities, it’s mad to not do it. And it’s unacceptable to leave the HRE in the sorry state they are in rn. They need major changes. And you can’t get this kind of approval on the internet. The devs need to see it and need to be convinced by it. The gross number of opinions on the internet is actually unbearable when trying to talk balance in this game that goes beyond slight number tweaks. That aims towards changing the ways a civ works.

I can only repeat myself: From my own experience and from what I’ve seen on several streamer channels, I have to say that the HRE is absolute bottom tier now. They are not competitive. There is almost no benefit in getting to fc and getting 2 relics for 600 gpm while being 30 vils behind. It’s so weak, pathetic almost. The last two patches are responsible for this. And as always I was accompanied by the feeling that there simply has not been the necessary depth of thought in regards of the HRE. I don’t understand how you can make these changes and not see, what they all break in the process.

The HRE has to no time an advantage anymore except for bs upgrade timings in feudal and early castle. But that doesn’t do much if your eco just is worse. Lose one prelate early to LBs or Zughe Nus and you are royally effed. What civ is as weak and as susceptible with that little ways of viable play? Viable play which has become less and less viable. Why is it okay for Chinese to shit on everybody in lategame, but the HRE can’t have anything strong (it all gets nerfed)? Why is it okay for Rus to almost always have 5 relics, but ppl go mental if HRE gets 2? Why can Rus buy stone for gold which they do not have to actively gather to build a second tc, while the HRE has to stop vil prodcution to get a freaking 100 gold prelate? Why is it okay for English to boom self-reliantly into imperial and have gold forever by farming, but the HRE “free gold” that needs to be collected somewhere on the map with a certain risk is too overpowered? Why is it okay for Mongols to get 50% more out of gold mines in the same amount of mining time, but the HRE is ridiculous for barely having any vils and still being able to produce knights? Hello, AoE 4 community! The HRE always have less vils, because they have no bonus to anything and actually need relics to substitute for the lack of vils… But that’s too high for you, right?

I think I made rather clear what I mean and where my issues lie. Where is the promised HRE patch? Relic delivered for the Abbasids and gave them some needed and redefining changes, but not for the HRE. What was done for the HRE was majorly nerfs with slights buffs that barely do anything or are simply not useable for this civ because its eco is so very crippled. Everything about the HRE eco was nerfed. And I don’t get it.

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The elzbach palace should get emergency repairs

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I am not sure, if it was patched, but last time I checked (a while ago, cuz if you mean business you don’t go Elzbach) Elzbach was not even eligible for emergency repair. It didn’t work on it… It might have been patched, though. I never bothered to test it again.
And granting it the ability to emergency repair would be a nice notion, but it would not change the fact that the landmark is still terrible and will never be chosen. It needs someting else, something more defining. I know for a fact (I got eyes) that the HRE STILL does not have a coat of arms, showing me how little Relic actually cares about them. Relic… PLEASE. Please start caring for this civ in depth, instead of releasing these weird bandaid changes that cripple this civ even more and make it more and more difficult to play them. They do not have an advantage over anybody anymore on any map. The age of range completely nullifies their strengths. Mangos were actually good for the HRE, even when they also were their biggest threat. Now the HRE army is plain useless. And just give them a coat of arms… I might be a little ocd about it, but it annoys the ship out of me. Just add it already. It’s not hard. The hard part is making this civ actually feel good and viable.

The HRE was buffed in areas that are useless due to the way their eco works. And they were nerfed in every way they have been played before the patch. Regnitz is worse, Monks are slower carrying relics, Swabia is worse. Stuff they can’t reach or is nothing but a suicide choice was buffed to factually zero effect for this civ.

I somehow have my doubts that Relic will offer any new units as a patch update. It would have to be a dlc or addon of some sort. That is why I try to keep my redefining ideas within the boundaries that are there already. I want the changes to be implemented without changing too much, because I just don’t expect too much of a change with a patch. That’s why I would like the HRE to be set up as follows:

  • Make relics grant 150% gold in any capable building and make it a civ baseline.
  • Aachen Chapel gets additional effect: Towncenters build costs are reduced by 20%.
  • Introduce sale of indulgences as new Regnitz choice rewarding multi tc play and lategame.

Sale of Indulgences would be a historically accurate mechanic to generate gold for the HRE. This was actually a thing back then and Relic lets the HRE - despite the fact that it lasted until Napoleon - end at 1517. That’s the year of Martin Luther’s proclamation and critique against the Catholic church that he expressed with his 95 theses. In the eyes of Luther the Sale of Indulgences was a fraud. The Sale of Indulgences ceased to exist in the process. Luther made it end.
Thus it would actually fit perfectly into the AoE4 HRE design and mechanic. It just needs to be realized.

[New Regnitz Cathedral] The Regnitz cathedral can now garrison up to 9 prelates. Each prelate will gather 0.75 gold per viallager per minute. It’s called “sale of indulgences”. With 9 prelates garrisoned and 100 villagers, the Regnitz would give 675 gold per minute. It would give a slight gold tickle for castle age, but really starts to pay off in imperial age or late castle depending on your playstyle as it is a landmark for booming. The Regnitz will no longer be able to hold relics, but can produce prelates and offers the monastery upgrades. It acts like a monastery+, but can’t hold relics. Granted this would be a big change that needs some coding. But the HRE cannot be saved without some new coding. So…

  • Make Burgrave units 25% cheaper as well. Extend it to all infantry units. That means ranged units should be included.

  • Make Elzbach additionally reduce the cost of keeps, stone walls and stone towers by 20%.

  • Improve LK altogether. They need more hitpoints and movement speed. They should be slightly above spearmen in both regards (or more hp and increase marching drills to 15%). They are an elite mercenary for crying out loud. The way they are designed right now does not make them cost efficient at all. They are too expensive in most situations for how weak they are and only actually help in mirror matches. No other civ needs to be afraid of LKs. They are just expensive fodder with situational use that is just not good enough. Relic once said they wanted special units to be units you want to go for. That’s a long way to go in regards of the Landsknecht, who is underwhelming and underperforming since release. It is one of the worst special units in the game and their niche is even smaller than the camel rider’s one.

These changes would allow the HRE to be played differently and with more options. You could go for an Aachen into Regnitz play with a slow boomy feudal that allows you to pay for the prelates needed to be put into Regnitz in castle age and thus be much more self reliant, but slower as well. It would be the religious castle age play that also makes inspired warriors easier to access. Maybe you can snack a relic or two, or maybe you can’t. Both would be possible, but failing to get relics would not mean to be massively behind anymore. You would just put your faith into selling your indulgences -_-. With a solid castle age eco you could then go for the Elzbach, to be able to build cheaper fortifications for the rest of the game. With these changes I can easily envision people to go for Elzbach when the castle age eco is solid.

You could also mix it up and go Meinwerk into Regnitz fc, but that wouldn’t be as smooth. It’d be the greedy version of HRE play that can easily be punished.

Aachen into Burgrave would also be a possibility that would allow for a long and strong feudal, but will reduce the chances of getting “free gold” via relics or the new Regnitz. Worst case would be you have a solid eco with cheaper and faster production (Burgrave), but no “free gold” at all.

The more aggressive way of playing the HRE, however, would look as follows: You go meinwerk and build up a small feudal army to be competitive that is boosted by the Meinwerk upgrades (so you don’t die to feudal aggression, maybe you can even fc into Burgrave). You then go for a one base Burgrave play that allows for cheaper and faster unit production. Your eco, however, would be in a bad spot. So you need to use your early castle power to secure a few 150% relics, so you are able to still have a capable eco for the course of the game. You could then go for Swabia to round up your lategame while benefitting from cheaper and faster upgrades for your core army. The eco would be worse than with current Regnitz play, but still able to be viable even for lategame. The current Burgrave play leaves your eco in shambles and is not viable.

Those are changes that one can expect from a patch. That is the level that is needed if a game was released too early (which unfortunately is the case for AoE 4). It would make the HRE suddenly an interesting civ that can be played in multiple ways. You could see their strenghts and actually use them as well. You would have just as many reasons to go for an religious inspired warriors approach that is slow but solid as it would be viable to go for an aggreassive approach with one tc castle age aggression showcasing the core strengths of the HRE army rather than its religious side.

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Here’s extra suggestions (but more of a combined compilation of all the suggestions I made so far):

  • Allow the ability to garrison relics in any building, accelerating their production/research.

  • Remove monastery altogether for HRE and just replace it with Regnitz Cathedral, making it a civ only building in the same vein as Delhi’s Mosque, but you can only build one. Still allow the garrisoning of relics, but they no longer generate more gold than originally but keep the “Sale of Indulgences” mechanic, with a slight difference that the Prelates are stationed outside the Cathedral, the same way that Imperial Officials are, and make it an upgrade.
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  • Give prelates the ability to mass bless your units if they’re currently holding a relic, which will fix the problem of Inspired Warriors being useless if you cannot bless multiple units at the same time.
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  • With a landmark spot vacant, they can introduce the Marienburg (aka Malbork) Castle landmark, giving people access to the Teutonic Order, because you cannot have a HOLY Roman Empire, without HOLY ORDERS.
    We’ve already gone through the idea of Ritterbruder, which are cavalry units that turn into heavy infantry upon death (having Knight and Man-at-Arm stats) and give an attack speed aura to other infantry units.

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  • With that, we’re back to Burgrave Palace, and if both buffing the Landsknechts and reducing unit cost from the landmark is too much, we go back to the original idea, where Burgrave has bonus upgrades for the Landsknechts to make them more a part of the standard army, as well as having the ability to shoot at the range for a short period of time.
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So you have to choose between having stronger Landsknechts or having a stronger unit buffing all other infantry units.

As for Elzbach Palace, since it’s nowhere near as good as Berkshire Palace of English, or Red Palace of the French, (considering that these are known for devastating your opponents’ armies, and the damage reduction is nowhere near as useful), the other alternative I can suggest is passive unit generation as to avoid the repeat of English’s Wynguard Palace.
The final unit would be dependent upon which landmark you didn’t take for Age 3.
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I am confused though about Achen Chapel. Is the suggestion that the TC would be built around it to reduce the cost of units produced in it, or to reduce the cost of TC being built?

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As always I really like your ideas. Sale of Indulgences could have various ways of implementation. I am not against that. Prelates outside the Regnitz would make this also more susceptible, which could be a comprehensible trade off for the eco power it provides for mid and late game. It would also allow Prelates to inpsire soldiers rather quickly when being attacked. You could do that as well with a garrisoning mechanic, but that would leave no room for relics anymore. So I am not against your suggestion. I could live with yours and mine just as nicely. :slight_smile:

I really like your Benediction idea. Benediction as it is is boring and rather useless. Even if you’d up the % to 50% build speed, it would still be boring and not a cool tech. I actually hate that tech and never get it. Even if I forward build a castle, I would never go for that just because how lackluster it is. And prelates have better jobs to do than this. So I am all in for a better Benediction tech. And combining it with the power of relics seems quite fitting to me. You could even leave the tech’s name as it is.

In regards of new units and a completely new landmark, I think it is not realistic to expect anything like that from a patch. This would have to be dlc content. That doesn’t mean we should stop suggesting stuff like that. It just means that there are different stages of game development. I would be really surprised if a patch added a new unit or building for any civ. New techs, yeah. I could see that. But only if they do not come with new artwork. Patches are more of a number tuner.

I would totally love Marienburg as a new landmark with a focus on the Teutonic Order, but this would have to be part of a bigger content update for AoE 4. The same goes for the Burgrave providing new Landsknecht upgrades (I love every single one of them). For now, I think, we will have to deal with what we have and try to make it more interesting within these boundaries.

Your Elzbach idea could totally work within a patch, though. I would like it to be a more res independent landmark that provides an army. The stone cost reduction I have in mind would make it easier to secure geostrategic positions, while your idea would allow for a more aggressive approach altogether. I am on board for both of these changes. Elzbach definitely needs something else to make it more interesting.

If you choose the Aachen landmark, any TC you want to build from that point onwards has its costs reduced by 20%. The range of the Aachen doesn’t matter. It’s a static cost decrease. Otherwise you would have to surround Aachen with TCs, which seems counter intuitive and annoying.

I would also like it if Aachen inspired military units after researching inspired warriors. It would help the HRE to defend, when an army is very close or already inside of the base. Run your army into the Aachen area and gain 1 min of inpsiration from it. It would also be mainly useful for defense since it’s not worthwhile to buff up an army and then raid with it. Even with 1 minute the buff would run out fairly quickly after reaching the opponents base.

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I’ve got this picture from reddit displaying the most current data. It shows that pretty much everything I said and say about the HRE is true, when I describe their position among the civs. It is the worst civ of all of them and has way too little to offer. The HRE needs fundamental changes and I can just hope that Relic sees that and acts accordingly. Here in this thread alone are more than enough ideas to change the HRE into a viable, interesting and fun to play civ.

It’s time that you finish the HRE civ, Relic! It’s a civ that feels clunky and unfinished since release and it’s time to make improving them a priority. When I think about it, I have rather been spot on with my pessimistic predictions for the HRE. Call me Nostradamus or a self-important dickhead, but I was right. And I always got to hear “let the meta settle”. The HRE has all the time been bad or lackluster. They had phases in which their fc Regnitz into Swabia was very powerful, but that time is over. And it has also been the only viable strat for this civ. This is pathetic.

A civ that barely has any chance vs Rus, Mongols, Delhi or lategame Chinese, that is kinda always behind French, Abbasids and lategame English needs help. Their special unit is an expensive niche unit that dies way too quickly and has a terrible design altogether considering its historical role. They have nothing like a Horse archer or something similar, with which you can control the map and set the pace of the game. They have no eco bonuses that allow for anything else but a one tc play. Their strenghts rarely come to fruition, inspired warriors is not even close to the usefulness of the Rus warrior monk. The Rus is actually the better HRE. Make a Warrior Monk into an Archbishop, call Streltsies “Arquebus Landsknechte” and give them walls, you have a civ that is closer to the HRE than the actual ingame HRE itself… The HRE have so little at their disposal and are so susceptible and one-dimensional to play, it would be a travesty for the next patch to not fundamentally improve the HRE. Rn they are only okayish on very few maps vs some civs, while there are other maps and civs on or vs which the HRE just is terrible.

And no, it’s not done with small fixes. This civ needs a complete new alignment. And everything that is required can be found in this thread, in reddit or on steam.

And I do see that HRE is dominating bronze league. It just shows the quality of the bronze league. People can’t deal with MAA and rams there or simply do not go for relics. As soon as the players become more competent, the HRE falls down and short and has reached the bottom now.

HRE is bottom tier. The worst civ of them all. And it has never been good. It just had one way of playing which was very strong. That got nerfed significantly and now it shows that there is NOTHING else the HRE has to offer. Their eco just sucks. Their special unit just sucks (also they have only one that you can call a special unit. The prelate is just a monk). Their special techs and mechanics are close to useless (benediction, inspired warriors). It’s such a clunky civ that gets already ruined if you use the all army button. It’s like there was no love for this civ at all. And it feels like this since release. It’s enough. I want them to finally feel like a competitive civ that has several viable ways of playing.

To round up my kafkaesque emission allow me to unload all my AoE 4 HRE frustration on the Landsknecht:

Landsknechte… What a joke of a unit. Let them run into a lot of spears and call them imba. Don’t look at them for one second and miss a bees volley, say goodbye to 800 gold. This unit just is trash. It’s an expensive trash killer that never survives any battle. I hate its design with a passion. It needs to get rid of its glass cannon image and finally become a unit that is worth the money!

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I don’t think there are too many changes to make and yes, the meta isn’t settled yet because the patch isn’t that long in time.

  • Slightly raise the HP of the Landsknecht.

  • That the barracks have a cheaper cost (maybe 100). Accordingly, give a slight discount to Burgrave’s units.

With that + the change of the cost of Imperial reduced to Elzbach I see it well.

P.S: It is totally logical that the Rus warrior monk is better than the prelate in the military, since the warrior monk is not drawn from first and does not buff the eco.

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It’s not logical, when it is the HRE that is presented as the religious civ of the game together with Delhi. The Rus’ core strengths lie differently, yet they have the best religious military support of the game. The Holy Roman armies always were accompanied by religious chanting and fervor. They carried relics with them to improve their battle strengths. But in the game the Rus do all that much more reliantly and in a much more useful way while the HRE version of it is not really viable. Relic wants the prelate to be part of the HRE army, but needs to do much more to achieve that.

It’s just not true that the Rus are supposed to be the stand out civ at buffing military units religiously. It’s not true in a historical context (when you compare the civs) and it’s not true in regards of what the game actually tells you. The HRE is supposed to be the civ that goes into battle with blessings, but the Rus outperform them in every regard. They are even better at gathering relics. The Rus are the better HRE. Plain and simple. I don’t like it, but that is what it is.

And btw: The Rus do not need their monks to inspire their eco. The Rus eco is strong enough on their own. Which is not true for the HRE eco. That eco is just trash and only the prelate makes it competitive and yet quite clunky, susceptible and annoying (all army button e.g.). The Rus is a civ that does not need to gather gold or stone in age 2 and is still able to build a very sufficient second TC. This is actually ridiculous. The Rus have gotten the golden end of pretty much everything. There are just civs that are even better than Rus rn. But Rus has it all (except stone walls). The HRE has a monk+ and Landsknechte whereas the Rus have better knights, much better monks, better religious blessings that actually can change battle outcomes within one strike (it’s all the Rus monk needs. Hit and run. And they were even buffed in that regard…), they have the very strong horse archer and the overpowered and underpriced Streltsy while they also almost always get 4 to 5 relics. Sometimes even 6. They can also build siege cheaper and have better bombards and slightly better springalds. But they do not have the slow moving culverin. That they don’t have.

The Rus are so much superior in every regard of the game, it’s not even fun to compare these civs.

And while I am onboard of the changes you suggest, I am far from being convinced that it is enough. The HRE was rushed, they need much more in depth tuning to feel good. Their eco is not good anymore. Their relic play is lacking and weak. Their strategies are one dimensional or pathetic…

I repeat myself, but just look at the all army button and how terrible that is for the HRE. You can’t use that button. Nobody can tell me that this is okay. It’s not. It is incredibly annoying and makes it a pain to play the civ, if you really want to max out your income. And pros, if they play HRE at all, which hasn’t really been the case lately, never even bother to boost the eco with prelates in mid or lategame, because it is so annoying to manage. You drag-select military units and your freaking eco prelates are selected as well. You wanna double click your military prelates, but you also select all the eco prelates that are in the area. It is so unbelievebaly infuriating and annoying. I only play the HRE and I do not wanna play any other civ. But the HRE makes me sick. The way you can or have to play them is just terrible. And they feel so very weak in somewhat every regard of the game now.

It’s the unwanted stepchild. And it needs a lot of tuning to convince me of the opposite.

I am wondering since release why Relic implemented the HRE as a civ, if they do them like this. The German medieval age is sooooo incredibly rich and then you are presented with a civ as buggy, clunky and inconsequential as this. As a historian I can just shake my head. So many missed opportunities, so many ignored mechanics and units… It really saddens me.

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But one of the basic functions in your complaints about HRE are bugs, which other civs also have, like that monks are considered as military units.

That’s a problem with hotkeys, not bad design.

No hard changes to make because civilization is not winning at 40% or less and you don’t have to be too picky about historical accuracy, which is AoE not a history game.

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Well, for the other civs (aside from Delhi) it makes sense to include the monks in the all army commands. For Delhi and much more the HRE it is just a terrible annoyance.

And no, the core of my complaints is not bugs. It’s mechanics and civ design altogether. The bugs, because they were much more frequent and severe than for toher civs, just show me that the HRE must have been developed last and then time ran short. They were presented last and felt really bad in beta. The beta state was their state for the coming months after release. There were a lot of bugs in the game, but the HRE was actually unplayable… It felt untested and rushed. And the civ is still suffering from this. That is why Relic needs to do more for them than to just tune numbers. They need to give them smoothness, working mechanics and a much better identity. They have many problems and will continue to have many problems, if they do not get some fundamental changes.

Giving them more starting wood or anything of that stuff does not change the fact that they are clunky, annoying and rather weak army wise. So little of their strengths actually synergizes, they are always behind or in the rush of getting relics only to then realize that they are still behind. Giving the cheaper age up of Swabia to Elzbach would hurt them even more and would make them even worse.

The HRE is trapped. They need to reach castle asap to get relics, but then are behind in everything and need to somehow survive into Swabia, which has become hard. Vs Rus it’s actually impossible to win, if the opponent is on an equal level. You get maybe one relic and you are way behind the Rus. The Rus can play mass archer or Horse Archers and the HRE will not survive until Swabia.

And for a Burgrave play the eco is just too bad. And again… Lose a prelate in feudal or early castle and you are royally effed.

I hate to say it, but it’s just not fair. It’s far from it.

And I would not stress the historical accuracy part so much, if it wasn’t for Relic claiming that they want to be as historically accurate as possible. And they did a good job for most of the civs. Not perfect by any means, but in general I’d say well done. But then there is the HRE. And there everything lies in shambles. That is just terrible. If this civ wasn’t called HRE, I would not say that it had anything in common with the actual HRE aside from names and language. The Landsknecht was nothing like he is in the game. Their heavy cavalry was only rivaled by the French, yet the HRE cav is among the worst of the game. The HRE was the greatest plate manufacturer of their time, but do they have anything that compliments armor? The spearmen armor is not plate, it’s chain. The plate proficiency is nowhere shown in the game… And then the civ is focussed around religion and fails terrible at that. The relic play demands you to be quicker in gaterhing them. Fail that and your civ loses half of their boni and strenghts, it’s actually ridiculous. What other civ comes even close to this susceptibility? And why do English get a means to get free gold that has no historical context at all (putting fences around farms didn’t make anybody rich back then…), but the “Sale of Indulgences” mechanic does not find it into the game? It’s a no brainer actually…

The biggest battle of the medieval age was fought between the Teutonic Order and the Lithuanian-Polish army in 1410 Tannenberg/Grunwald. It was around 26 000 Order knights vs around 40 000 Lithuanian and Polish soldiers. The Order had the most powerful army of the time back then, but still lost the battle due to a number disadvantage and arrogance. After a successful engagement the Order knights celebrated their likely victory, but then were robbed of their relics by sneaky Lithuanian-Polish soldiers who seized the opportunity, which in turn broke the Order’s enthusiasm and belief. Their arrogance and naiveté was responsible for losing the battle eventually, yet they displayed the peak of medieval chivalry and religious fervor. And even after losting the battle, their headquarters in Marienburg could not be conquered. It was impenetrable.

You find NOTHING of that sort in the game. It was the biggest battle of the medieval age and AoE 4 didn’t even bother to give the HRE some kind of Order reference. There won’t be a Teutonic Order civ, so the HRE is the one that needs to showcase them. They were allied and deeply intertwined. You can’t say HRE without also saying Teutonic Order. But Relic didn’t bother.

A game that offers historical campaigns and claims to be historically rather accurate, needs to mention the Teutonic Order if they include today’s Germany in the game. If not as a stand alone civ, then as part of the HRE. You cannot not do it and claim all that which i just listed up. It doesn’t work.

But there is no Teutonic Order. I am still hoping for a dlc that delivers in that regard, but that’s only me hoping. So we are left with the HRE for now. And well… excuse me if I am very adamant about wanting them to be somewhat close to the actual HRE instead of being this travesty of a civ that claims so much, but is so little.

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Whelp, even the best player in the game came out and said that HRE is bad at this point.

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He’s actually saying exactly what I (or you and me both) are saying. I just hope Relic reacts accordingly and looks into this thread for innovation. I think we offer pretty good ideas here that are also quite possible to realize. Thanks for posting the vid.

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So a little add up:

If HRE is to be relic-focused to fit the synergy, then they also need to be able to pick up relics earlier than civs are normally able to.
So for this instance, let’s borrow Dehli’s idea of being able to capture Sacred Sites earlier through an upgrade and put it to relics, and you’ll be able to research it from Town Center.

image

Since you can build a monastery only in Age 3 (or Regnitz Cathedral in the updated case), you won’t be able to have an early gather for gold, but will speed up upgrades and unit production, among other things if you decided to put relics in defensive fortifications, which is rarely (if not never) done in current cases.
And on top of that, your Prelates will be able to mass aoe bless villagers, so in case you chose not to use Aachen Chapel, this is an alternative.

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I like that idea as it is complimenting the civ’s intended design and might lead, together with some other changes, to a nice flow and feeling of the civ. Getting relics this early and taking them away from the opponent way before he can even pick them up himself is something that needs to be considered. Then again any opponent could try to counterplay it in feudal with an army (horsemen, archers etc) and losing a prelate that early is always a big blow. It could actually be fine in the sense of high risk and high reward play. Only 1 or 2 relics would be rather save, meaning the ones closest to the starting base. And in case it turns out to be too strong, I am sure there’d be room for certain age 2 only penalties like moving even slower with relics than in age 3. But a penalty should only come when it is really necessary, because getting the upgrade and using prelates that early to pick up relics, is an up front investment that could also not pay off.

At any rate I like the idea. It could make the HRE feel more unique and a bit more self-reliant, instead of being forced into reaching castle before your opponent at any cost, which can be quite crippling. The ability to pick up relics early could maybe also be linked to the Aachen Chapel instead of being a tech. There are several ways of implementing something like that. Just as for the Sale of Indulgences idea. As long as the goal of a more self-reliant, diverse and unique way of playing the HRE is achieved that is in more than one way viable and competitive, while also being rather independet of the map (open or closed, rivers or land, it shouldn’t be a hinderance for the/any civ), I am probably happy. :smiley:

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