Lol, you could have answered me without writing a poem, it took me literally days to find the time to read it all and answer…
Training prelates isn’t that much of a difference from training vills. Yeah they cost more but gold is still quite accessible at that time so it shouldn’t be a problem, and you need just 2/3 of them to get for sure about 3/4 relics.
There are a lot of way to deals with early aggression and still get consistently relics, like adding your own feudal units, building outposts to garrison relics in forward positions, walling choke-points. It would really be quite simple. And once those relics are inside your base, it’s quite harder for the enemy to deny them, since they need to siege down buildings, while decapture a sacred site is a lot more easy in feudal age.
Debatable. For the long game yes, you need relics, but onestly all civs should get them for long games, and unless your enemy got them sooner, then it shouldn’t be a problem.
For the short term, while it would be better if the HRE grab them, they aren’t paramount. Lately I played around with the Burgrave Palace, and a fast castle, or even a 2 TC play into the Burgrave Palace can actually work and close the game before you need relics. Yeah getting a couple of them wouldn’t hurt, but onestly for massing MaA it’s just about 5 vills worth and a market, since you don’t need much gold.
It is, HRE is designed around being a defensive booming civ, and besides relics it have vills with higher carry capacity, buffed vills with prelates, a cheaper imp that comes with a villager printer. It doesn’t have immediate eco bonuses like the rus or the abassid, it still have other eco bonuses.
Besides, relics actually can’t be really considered an eco bonus for the HRE, since they are seen mostly as a defensive buff. It’s more about the advantage of not needing to wait for a monastery, but only the regnitz gives you extra resources.
That’s exactly why I suggested a defensive buff.
Because you can’t just make MaA and expect that the enemy doesn’t go for its counter. HRE MaA already counter one of its counter-units, the knight, so it really leaves the xbows as counter. You can mass horsemen, archers or mangos for them, really composition-wise on paper the HRE struggles only again French.
A bit more health wouldn’t hurt but the landskenechts are fine, they are meat more as a unit to integrate armies or MaA, spears or knights.
Yeah inspired warriors it’s quite bad, on that I agree, but it’s not useless. I often add some prelates to heals my army, especially when I go for knights, and being also able to inspire some of them before a fight while I’m stalking outside the enemy base is quite good. The problem is the cost, I only research it when I have extra resources.
But yeah, not against a better inspiration, maybe if the monk is carrying a relic it can inspire in a wide area, but I suspect that like the conversion mechanism it wouldn’t be worth.
Lol… flawless logic…
If you make relics more accessible, you make a must of having them… this is literally how any aoe works…
It’s my favorite civ and it’s a lot if fun. Getting to imp faster, printing units, seeing others tilt because they are sieging with rams in feudal while I click autorepair.
Not true, I had success with both strategies. Really the only civ that I always struggle against are the French, since their early royal knights and arbaletrie are a composition that it’s hard to deal with the HRE, both because of the military units and for the speed which hits you.
I’m not against it, but it wouldn’t do much for them onestly. Maybe some starting stone would be more useful.
HRE isn’t a pure castle age civ. Against booming civs like abbasid or chinese the HRE can do a good archer rush supported by early MaA with the mainwork palace and marching drills. The prelates are a flexible units that you can keep at base both for inspiring and bring on the front line to heal.
Don’t get me wrong, the HRE needs some changes, but it’s that grim and dark as you are depicting them.
In my opinion, the changes needed for now are:
Doubling the garrison capacity of outposts
Making the cheaper imp a civ bonus so that it’s affect the Elzbach Palace too
reworking somehow the inspire warriors thing
some kind of bonus or tech for their knights, but really something really small
Then maybe getting more starting resources could help, but it’s not a priority.
This is not in line with the design of HRE. They are supposed to be an infantry civ
But I quite like getting a big building to put relic in, and getting extra rewarded for it. It feels more special.
Do they really need more gold bonus?
To balance this I think the production time would have to be longer.
what
It’s an imperial building. Why did you let HRE get here? It’s cheaper and safer to just build more TC, and it allows you to defend your resources. Swabia is meme
Yeah, well. When passion meets frustration it can be… productive at times. -_-
While what you say here is not wrong, the issue is that the HRE is the slowest at building up a feudal army. They need to invest 200 to 300 gold for prelates {while the Rus (I like to compare to Rus, because it shows what little the HRE actually offers in comparison) do not even need to gather stone or gold to build a second tc and have a bonus on wood gathering as well (of which they need more to supposedly balance out the eco differences), they just don’t need prelates. But they are still better at getting relics} and reach caste age before the opponent.
There is no bonus in vil production, building or production speed. Only prelates are there to offset being behind in production as well as the need to gather way more gold than other civs to reach feudal. There is no landmark that builds units for age 2, so the HRE needs to invest wood to build military buildings. The moment they hit age 2, they are already behind French, English, Rus, Mongols… You name it. And you can’t go maa in age 2, if you also want to be the first to get relics. And especially vs Rus, the whole relic tactic doesn’t work anymore or is at least at a huge disadvantage. The map and opposing civ is way too important for the HRE to have a potentially good or bad match up. They depend way too hard on it.
And when not going for maa, you are always behind in unit production as there is no bonus to building spears, archers or horsemen. It all takes the full res and time. And if you lose a prelate early, you are even more behind than you’d usually be.
The power of prelates also ceases the longer the game goes, because it is so annoying to always check if they are positioned correctly. And then the all army command… Without Aachen there is almost zero inspiration anywhere anymore starting in mid game. It’s a terribly annoying and wonky eco bonus the HRE has. It feels less like a bonus and more like a chore, which you rather ignore the bigger the eco gets.
Prelates are way too suscetible. If I didn’t want to play the HRE for it being the HRE, I would never play that civ. It just doesn’t feel good.
Well. I am not convinced. Going for Burgrave with one tc is still terrible. If you do not get something done with the first wave of units, you heavily struggle to support the Burgrave. And two tc is just bad for HRE. It’s just terribly bad. You will not win against an equally skilled opponent beyond bronze league with that. It has too many downsides, the HRE eco is simply too weak for that. And if it doesn’t work, you gimped yourself heavily for the rest of the game. Especially considering what I said about mid and late game prelates. HRE + Burgrave is not good. It just is not, because even if you manage to win like this, it can easily be reacted to by the opponent by booming and raiding the HRE. Or to refer to the Rus again: Horse archers. Meinwerk suffers a similar fate. While it is nice, the resources needed for powerful timing pushes are just not there. Meinwerk doesn’t help at being aggressive, due to the ramp up time. It only helps at defending. Aachen still seems the smarter choice (unless the map spawn is really bad for Aachen).
They have mediocre defenses and are the worst civ for booming until Swabia. What are you actually talking about? The supposed reality does not align with the factual reality of the game.
These are the HRE boni:
Garrison Relics inside of Outposts, Keeps, and Towers to improve their sight range, weapon range, armor, and damage.
Docks can garrison Relics, increasing attack speed of all ships by 5% per Relic (max 25%).
Cost of emplacements on Outposts, Wall Towers, and Keeps reduced by 25%.
Villagers can carry 40% more res (only to be in line with the prelate inspiration, this is actually not a bonus but a necessity for the prelate offset play)
Theses boni are bad. And they all revolve around relics. There is not a single eco bonus, not a single generate more gold mechanic, only the inpsiration buff for villagers that compensates for their otherwise “not at all-viable” eco. And then they have a special unit that costs 100 gold and dies to everything and actually also never survives any battle. In order to use the Landsknecht, you need to be able to produce tons of them which you simply are not. And especially not with Burgrave play. But guess what, the Landsknecht is a terrible special unit anyway, so let’s just keep massing maa. That’s all the HRE can do. Even inspired warriors lacks so many synergies that it is annoying to set up. And then it’s not even good. And you can only apply it before a battle. This is just sad and nothing but sad.
And then you say that the Regnitz relic bonus cannot be considered an eco bonus for the HRE? Well, there is nothing else that could. Which is one of my core complaints. Ofc it is an eco bonus and it is intended like this. The HRE needs gold for everything. That is why the Regnitz bonus exists at all. That is why Regnitz is still the better play compared to Burgrave. Because without it the HRE is just not viable.
And how is the HRE supposed to boom if not with Swabia? Everything else just is worse than for other civs. There is no denying that. Simply because the HRE has zero boni.
I understand why you suggested it. I just feel like it doesn’t help the HRE as it keeps everything as it is. It doesn’t make them more interesting or fun to play, it just makes it more useful to build more towers. You won’t be any faster with that, you might even be slower, but you’d be safer. I honestly don’t know how this makes playing the HRE any more fun. It would probably rather lead to the HRE always tower rushing the opponent. It would become a HRE tr meta, I am afraid.
They are suicidal wimps that do quite a lot of damage if they connect. But just run a little bit too far into enemy defenses and you can see how each volley of arrows kills a Landsknecht that costs 100 gold. They die way too quick against anything. If they can connect, they can deal a lot of damage. If they cannot connect, which is very often the case, they just die doing nothing. Even when retreating you lose tons of them. They also always hit the enemy first before the maa do, since they are faster (but not fast enough). They just die. I hate this unit’s design with everything that is reasonable for a game. It also turns their historical role upside down. Their design makes zero sense. An elite mercenary that dies when looked at.
One volley of bees (and to a lesser extent mangos since nerf) can kill 8 Landsknechts. It is so stupid. And then it’s the only special unit. That is so disappointing and just not fun. You can only build Landsknechts if you are ahead. If you are not ahead, they will not help you getting ahead. And that is pathetic for a special unit that is supposed to be viable damage dealer. It’s a not at all cost efficient gold dump and nothing else.
It’s not useless. But again… Compare it to the Rus Warrior Monk (and Rus are not described as a religious civ, but a civ of traders and hunters) and you see that it is just not in line. It’s so much worse and so much less useful. And the HRE is supposed to be the religious civ that takes prelates into battle. That’s the intended way of playing, but in the game it is very counter intuitive.
My premise is that the HRE depends on the relic gold generation. Aachen into Regnitz into Swabia was the one successful way of playing the HRE which has been nerfed. In my opinion neither one tc Burgrave nor two tc Burgrave is a good tactic. And the way Relic designed the HRE Relic boni, it becomes very obvious that Relic expects the HRE to have relics. And for that they are just not set up. Especially when there are civs like Rus, which completely counterplay anything the HRE can do. FC? Rus are faster and better at gathering relics. Feudal boom? Rus are faster, better and stronger and actually only need to tech into Horse Archers to win the game, if they cannot before. Multi tc play? Rus are faster, better and stronger. There is no scenario in which the HRE is in a better situation than Rus. The HRE simply is the worse designed civ. By far.
Well, I don’t know what opponents you play. But in my experience, auto repair is okay to have, but by no means a game changer. It can help against half hearted ram rushes, but with its nerfed cooldown it’s not really good anymore. And from my own experience as well as what I see from streamers, who are all much, much better than me, I never witness any convincing HRE matches, but feel confirmed in my notions. The ones that are won by the HRE are fc Regnitz with knight harrass against weaker players than Beasty, Demu or Marinelord. All the other games end in feudal or are lost in imp. And well, I’ve seen Szalami lose to Erik’s Burgrave play twice in a row, but when Szalami tried the same strat as Erik, he lost 3 or 4 games in a row and then gave up.
It is common sense right now that the HRE is bottom tier. And that doesn’t have one, but several reasons.
Yes true for most players. Winrates also show that. HRE reigns supreme in Bronze and is bottom in any higher league. And ofc the HRE struggles against Arbaletriers, as Arbaletriers (esp since the mango nerf) counter everything the HRE does, while they themselves lack any real counter. The Arbaletrier is an ill-designed unit that doesn’t make any sense in the context of the game’s intended rock, paper, scissor system. They are a light unit with higher melee armor than maa. It’s complete nonsense. They should be heavy (with a ranged armor just as high as the melee armor), so other cbs can counter them, which would be a unique addendum to the game and the French in general. Or they should just have max 6 melee armor to still be considered a light unit. Anything else is not in line with the game’s intended design and thus at fault.
Units that are cost efficient vs crossbows are spears (good), archers (better) and horsemen (best). These units do barely anything to Arbaletriers. Fully upgraded Spears do 5 dmg instead of 12, archers do nothing if pavise is up (archers are good when the Arbaletriers are moving, but bad when it’s a static fight) and horsemen are also way less effective as they only deal 19 dmg as opposed to 26. Horsemen are still okay vs Arbs, but if there is a meat shield and spears, horsemen do actually way too litle to Arbs.
The Arbaletrier doesn’t make any sense. It makes as little sense as the fact that Streltsies are much better than HCs, yet they are 25% cheaper.
Better starting res would probably help the HRE, but it’s not the help they need. I’m with you that slight tweaks could prove potent, but all in all this is not how the HRE should be made more viable.
I think it is rather grim. I played every beta and the stress test. I am in touch with this game since the second it was possible. I inhaled it. The HRE was an unfinished civ back then and they are an unfinished civ now. It is clear to me that Relic had to release, although they were not finished with the game. It’s also very clear to me that the HRE is one if not the last developed civ. It took months for Relic to add a prelate counter, something Delhi or China had way before them. The HRE STILL DOES NOT have a coat of arms. Their freaking shields are blank aside from two slim lines that are not a coat of arms. And Relic also has still not found a way for HRE players to use the all army button without ruining the prelate placement. You actually have to hit the all army button, then deselect all prelates and then you can move your army. But you better don’t make prelates a core unit for your army, because then this all army button becomes completely useless. Sure you can set a gather point for some prelates and then group them and move them with your army. You can do that after you deselected all the prelates from the all army command. It’s just terrible and leads to playing without the all army command. In my case I often have units scattered around the map which I then have to meticulously collect and add to my army, while I can just use the all army button for other civs.
And with the prelate being a suppsed part of your army, you better do not use a-click with them, but babysit them through every battle, because a-clicking makes them run into enemy lines. This issues exists for all monks (except the warrior monk).
Civs that were finished and have gotten quite some development time are French, Rus and Mongols. Those civs are stream lined and have powerful, synergetic ways of playing. Then come the English and after some patching also the Abbasids. Delhi and China didn’t feel as polished as the previous civs, but also work much better now (not perfect, but better). The unwanted stepchild, however, is still the HRE. Their one way of playing has been nerfed and now it shows that they are just worse than other civs. Depending on opponent and map, they can still win a game, but it’s much tougher for them.
I am not against your suggestions. I would just say that it’s not enough and doesn’t change much about the way to play the HRE. The HRE should not feel like you are missing out on something if you do not go for relics, but instead want to feudal boom. The HRE needs incentives for different ways of playing rather than a bigger garrison space for towers that still makes them slow at booming and also doesn’t make a two tc feudal play more viable. It’d still be a good bonus to have twice the garrison capacity in tower. It would be great, but I am just not convinced that this is what the HRE needs to be more viable in various ways of playing. All their problems would still remain, they would just need to build one tower instead of two, which they rarely do. So it wouldn’t change much except that raiding the HRE wood lines or mines would be less rewarding.
And without incentives for multi tc play, the Elzbach would still not be chosen as a fourth landmark even if it had it costs reduced to Swabia levels. You go for Swabia because it acts as roughly 3 tcs. And you go for that because going for tcs before rarely proves smart or viable.
That’s why my suggestion in that regard was that Aachen Chapel also reduces the costs of tc’s by 20%, while Elzbach reduces the costs for stone fortifications such as walls, stone towers and keeps. Swabia would then still be the catch up mechanic if you didn’t go multi tc Aachen, while Elzbach would help fortifying your base since you already have several tc’s and do not really need the Swabia bonus.
And these changes only make sense with the changes I intended for Regnitz (Sale of Indulgences), a 150% relic gold bonus as a civ baseine and Burgrave (25% cheaper units, extended to all infantry (also ranged), but production speed reduced from 400% to 300%. Whatever seems in line). I described somewhere above how the various HRE play could look like then.
My goal is not to make the HRE totally op. I want them to have various ways of playing. And I want them to have means to ease each one of these different ways.
You have read some older posts. The thread has developed since then. But to be honest: The fact that you consider Swabia to be a meme, makes it hard for me to really take you serious. Multi tc play is not viable for the HRE. It’s just worse than for any other civ. They have zero boni in that regard. Swabia is the only building that poses a good incentive to boom, to aim for.
There is no good reason to build a seond tc in feudal and there is no good reason to build a second tc in castle. A non bronze player will always punish a HRE multi tc play, because there is nothing that actually suggests to build multiple tc’s for the HRE. Hence my suggestions, which I summed up here again:
Summary
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%.
Aachen Chapel also inspires military units after “Inspired Warriors” was researched.
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.
Suggestion No. 1: [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…
Suggestion No. 2: [New Regnitz Cathedral] Just like above, but the Regnitz can still garrison relics just like a monastery, while the (up to 9) prelates need to be stationed outside the Cathedral like the IO. That would make the Sale of Indulgences mechanic more susceptible to raiding and would also allow to inspire military units rather handily when being attacked.
Make Burgrave units 25% cheaper as well. Extend it to all infantry units. That means ranged units should be included. Reduce unit and upgrade build time from 400% to 300% if necessary.
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. You can even up their cost to 120 gold, but make them better! 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 really 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. You need to be ahead to even be able to afford them.
To compliment the HRE heavy cavalry and their supremacy in plate production, add a tech that improves the knight’s armor.
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.
HRE is an infantry focussed civ. That means they focus on infantry. It doesn’t mean that they are utter dogship in every other regard. And historically speaking they are not an infantry civ. At least not more than the French or English. They used heavy cav just as much as the French and they were up to date in regards of artillery and gunpowder. The Landsknecht was a completely different kind of soldier than displayed in the game. The HRE consisted of various counties and duchies and offered a very wide range of soldiers and weaponries. The HRE developed their own ways of military, but also took so much inspiration from all their neighbours that it is just wrong to call them an infantry civ. The labeliing in this game is very off anyway.
Well, try to be a bit more synthetic next time, otherwise you just discourage discussion…
Because with the HRE in feudal its more about quality than quantity. You get faster units, early MaA, prelates to heal you and potentially mainwork palace for earlier and cheaper upgrades.
It’s true, I wouldn’t rush frech with the HRE, but opening with a stable or a range and then transition into MaA is quite good.
That’s not actually as bad as it may seem. Prelates might seem to cost as 2 vills in absolute resources, but they actually idle the TC for just 1, and then give back their values since it’s like getting between 2 and 2.5 vills more.
Also, gold is quite accessible in the early game, fast to gather, and it’s not needed for much, except for aging up or some upgrades.
You can really blame the game for something that you should remember to do but don’t do…
Then play something else, I don’t play rus because it’s too boring and micro-intensive to just kills all hunts in the first minutes of the game. Those are simply called personal tastes.
You don’t know how many english players I caught off guard with such strategy. As soon as I see that they are going for a full feudal pressure, I switch my eco for a fast age up, set my mainwork palace (if I’m still in time) and then age up as fast as I can with the burgrave, for spamming castles MaA with +2. Then as soon as you cleaned your base, you put almost all your vills on wood and start spamming rams.
It’s also useful if you have gone for horsemen or archers in feudal, since it allows you for a quick change into MaA to gain back map control. Yeah the regnitz is in general better, but the Burgrave is now viable.
It’s not, it quite good, especially with the emergency repairs ability.
And to doesn’t have to wait for a monastery for getting gold back.
Which mean that I need less vills on stone, although it would be nice that such bonus affects the fortified outpost tech too.
Even without the prelate this makes your vills better, since more carry capacity means less walking time. They are basically the aztecs of AoE2 but on steroids.
No really, just this statement make me think that you are really trying to “cherry picking” only arguments that sustain your ideas.
Less walking time? Faster gathering rate? Those are by definition eco bonus and doesn’t revolve around relics.
If you want a civ that generates gold from nothing then HRE simply isn’t your civ, like it isn’t the abassid or the french. There is nothing wrong about it.
Why? You can just mix them with MaA or knights and they work well. Hell with some micro I even saw people use spears as meatshield with landskenechts in the back.
I’m not saying that I’m against some kind of buff for the landskenechts, but saying that they are terrible is just an exaggeration.
Which brings me to my argument, you can’t just spam a unit and expect to just send them in attack move, not all units are this way. Just use some micro, or mix them with more tanky units, and see that it’s quite difficult for then enemy to snipe them.
They shouldn’t take manganels or bees shots in the face in fact…
Never said that, only that it’s not one of their base eco bonuses and that it’s not their only eco bonus. It seems quite simple to me.
The relics isn’t an eco bonus, since every civs should get them, that was I was trying to say. The HRE simply can get them easily, which makes an INDIRECT eco bonus, and with the regnitz get more gold, that is an eco bonus, just not the only one.
It doesn’t. You have an exposed treeline? Place an outposts and your first 10 vills won’t need to walk back to the TC when raided, but it would actually allow to better damage enemy units.
You want to go for a boar? You can garrison all 8 of your vills and the prelate into one single outpost, now you need 2, which translate into 100 wood saved. If they also place a discount on their fortified outpost tech or give them 100 starting stone it makes it even better, then you have an outpost and a prelate to get gold from relics sooner.
How more garrison capacity leads to Trush? It would mean that your would need more vills forward to increase the damage output, and those vills are more worth in the base gathering resources.
The MaA actually have a really low gold cost for being an heavy unit. About 4/5 vills on gold are enough to support burgrave production.
To me it’s seems like you lost to rus and are a bit sore…
Onestly, for every aoe game there have always be civs that hard countered other civs. It’s not strange.
HRE is countered by the rus, then adapt your strategy.
It is between the 45-55% win rate, statistically, it’s in the same spot of other civs.
That doesn’t mean that they don’t need some buff and adjustments, but there are a ton of way to buff them without a complete rework, by adjusting what already are their strengths:
buff their outposts and TC garrison capacity
reduce the gold cost of prelates and landskenechts
give them cheaper fortified outposts or starting stone
give them cheaper monastery upgrades, or have tithe bars available in the age 3
reduce the cost of 2 handed weapons
Have their knights train a bit faster
Instead you puch for a complete overhaul, keeping the aspect of the civ that you like and combining with aspects of other civs like the rus, for basically a complete new civ. Just play another civ at that point.
It might be a good unit if it wouldn’t be in the french army composition, because with the royal knights they are just broken in castle age, but here we are getting out of topic…
Then let’s start with those, and eventually add other things up. For balance it’s better to go by baby steps, other you just throw everything out of window and people will just complain the a civ it’s OP.
Elzbach it’s not bad with a 2 TC play. It allows you to quickly secure a forward position. With a couple of workshops behind producing culverins it’s not bad, but it’s not worth because of the price, since swabia allows you get imperial tech sooner.
I see no logic in your argument. Something is annoying and less elaborated as it is for other civs and it is my fault? I shouldn’t talk about it and instead just learn to git the frick gud? Come on, man. Nothing discourages a discussion more than mindless insinuations like that.
Same thing here. I only preordered AoE 4 because it had the HRE in it. I want to play the HRE. And I want to say something if I don’t like it or am adamantly convinced it could and should be better. You don’t have to agree with me, but you also do not tell me what to do or what to think. I am not attacking you for liking the HRE as it is. I don’t understand it, but I accept it.
Yeah. You can catch people off guard with it. And then you might win. Landmarks should be a worthwhile decision, not a gimmicky addendum to maybe surprise the enemy with something that is just not good, which is the only reason why the enemy did not expect it. You can use it like that as of now, but it should not be the final goal for the game to have landmarks that offer the quality of being so underwhelming and rarely chosen that you can surprise the opponent with them. And if you are scouted or simply linger longer in feudal than you’d normally would with a Regnitz play, opposing players will learn quite quickly how to shut the HRE aggression down.
You are the only person I’ve heard saying that this is good. You are also the only person who keeps talking about emergency repairs as if it was something outstanding. Rus can go up to castle at the 10 Min mark with Abbey and two tc’s. They don’t give a ship about the lack of emergency repair, because their stream lined eco is much better than a 1 minute cd button could ever be.
How incredible. Wow. What a civ. But in order to use the underwhelming inspiration, you do need a monastery. But most people never build it, because it is just not worth it. But yeah, the HRE is a totally synergetic and coherent civ.
Massively underwhelming. The upgrades are so cheap, the 25% bonus isn’t worth the ink it’s printed on, if it was printed, which it isn’t. Don’t look at these boni on their own. Compare them to other civs. Hey Guys…! GUYS! Listen… The HRE only needs 3 villagers on stone instead of 4, if they want to gather stone for emplacement upgrades compared to other civs! 3 instead of 4, but they can pay for the emplacements just as fast!!!111
The only good thing about this bonus is, if you are in late imp and want to spam cannon towers. That’s when this civ bonus can be considered good.
Yes, you are right. But I also said that I consider the prelate and carry capacity as a trade off for not having any other ecnomic bonus. The only bonus they have comes with a landmark, which as a consequence is (almost) always chosen, because it helps the HRE exactly where it needs help. Go for a boomy two tc feudal approach and you won’t get any relics. Maybe 1. So you go for Burgrave in that case. Only to realize that you are up against a guildhall French, an enclosures English, a hunting cabin mass relics Rus, a Steppe Redoubt Mongol, a mass scholar Delhi (they have relics that you don’t, they profit off sacred sites and Elephants should hold against any early one tc or a late two tc Burgrave aggression). And if you wanna two tc boom vs Abbasids or China, they will outboom you, but your best bets lie still here if you wanna two tc Burgrave. French genereate res out of thin air (guildhall, better and highly variable trade for any res). English do that with enclosures (which is civ baseline and arguably better (it’s more than 17 gold per farmer per minute, 60 farmers = 1028 gpm!!!) and more synergetic (Engl. farms into enclosures is a no brainer) than the Regnitz bonus. It just is imp locked, but it is insanely strong). Mongols generate 50% more gold from mines in the same mining time. (You gathered 8 k from one mine, Mongols gathered 12k in the same amount of time!!!). Chinese can do that as well. The generate 20% extra res, if an IO supervises. And they don’t deplete faster like HRE vils, they JUST GATHER MORE. And Rus can get their hunting cabin gold easily to 400, but depending on map that can vary very much. But they are almost guranteed to have always 4 or 5 relics vs any civ. So there is that. Abbasids are the only ones that do not have such an insane mechanic. But they end up to be the most powerful late game eco and their trade is just amazing. But they are lacking. HRE and Abbasids are lacking. And look where they are: Lowest pickrate and lowest winrate. Now tell me that this doesn’t mean anything and that especially I just need to git the frick gud.
Why? Because I, too, wanna mass my special unit just like French (who have several), English, Rus (who have several), Mongols at times (and if they do, they mass), Chinese (who have several), Abbasids (camel archers are okay to mass and okay to mix in, both makes sense for them. And they have two versions of camels. There could be Landsknechte with halberds, flambergs, arquebuses… but no, I better shut up because the game and the HRE is just fine as it is, right?). Who did I forget… Does Delhi use Elephants? I am not sure…
The Landsknecht is a terribly designed bullship unit that is just terrible. And the fact that you actually try to make me look bad because I might have lost Landsknechte to a single volley of bees, makes me wonder what kind of a god tier player, who doesn’t macro when fighting, you have to be? I react to idle villagers, I issue commands to my units, I always look at the minimap, but I was one second late and one volley killed 8 of these jokers. That’s just not in line with anything in this game.
Yeah, true. I should just accept that I don’t play any other civ but the HRE and I can’t mass my special unit. Yeah, mea culpa. It’s also my fault that in a large scale battle I won, none of the Landsknechte are ever alive. My maa stand strong. Spears are also still there. But not my special unit. They dead.
When are you winning the next tournament? You gotta be on ML, Beasty, Demu, Viper level. Seriously… One moment you appear like a bronze player, the other moment you spit lines like that. What is it?
Simpsons… I mean Rus did it. Their 8 capacity wooden fortresses says hi to you.
I was referring to your previous suggestions there, which were as follows:
Yeah, but they are food heavy. You need a good eco for them to have them produced by Burgrave in a steady fashion. Other than that the HRE needs tons of gold for everything, but there is only Regnitz. They do not even generate more gold out of mines like Mongols or Chinese. When I listed all the options of the other civs, it should have become rather clear that the HRE has the worst setup. Up until midgame they are rivalled by the Abbasids in that regard, who, however, really start to shine in the late stages. That’s where their eco starts to become really strong. And that’s why I listed the HRE and Abbasids last in the eco department. HRE is just worse than other civs and the Abbasids need time to really benefit from their power. Nothing plays as smoothly as the French, Mongols or English… And if you are a Micro Jackson, the Rus are also hella smooth. HRE is the opposite of smooth.
I already explained why I talk about Rus that much, because they just display how bad the HRE is. It has nothing to do with a personal vendetta. And the lack of strategies for the HRE is part of the reason, why this thread exists at all. And where are all the hard counters of the other civs? To what civ is the HRE the hard counter to? There is nothing, no civ. They hard counter nothing. They did counter slow civs like Abbas and Chinese very well before the last two patches, but they have fallen quite a lot since then. The HRE had one strong strategy, which overshadowed all their shortcomings. And now that these shortcoming become apparent, winrate and pickrate are down the drain, the HRE needs to get the help they need and deserve. And that is being finished as a civ, instead of remaining this half hearted, weird and inconsequent.
The English have a 26% pickrate in gold and platinum and they win 51% of their games. The HRE has a pickrate of around 7% and win 45 to 46% of their matches. And you tell me it’s the same spot? Do you have issues understanding statistics and numbers? It’s okay if you do… But what you say is just wrong. It’s so wrong. HRE and Abbasids are bottom last. And I explained the reasons. But you keep wanting to fix the HRE by bandaiding. You can take tiny balance steps, if balance is in a good spot already. But the HRE is clearly off and needs much more fine tuning. There is no bandaiding the HRE, there is only fixing it.
It’s not a complete overhaul. It’s small changes with big effects. Most of my suggestions is adding lines and numbers, nothing more. You’d have to code a bit for the Sale of Indulgences thingy, yes. But guess what: It’s a tech that fits perfectly to the way this game works, it fits perfectly to the historical back ground of the civ and it also rounds up the time period Relic lets the civ take place in. It is a very reasonable suggestion, but you act like I am reinventing the wheel here. I am not. I just want the HRE to get out of their sorry state, which you obviously do not acknowledge as much as I do. But even you see the need for improvement. Please just don’t exaggerate what I am doing here. I am really trying to keep everything within the bounderies of the game and still try to offer some innovative and fitting changes that give this civ a more prominent identity that is more than a one trick pony.
It’s true. It’s like complaining that the english or chinese to use their farm bonus needs to have perfectly placed farms, or that you need to constantly move Delhi schalars and not forget them in one place.
I mean, for HRE prelates in the late game you literally have to train some more among the vills and they will just follow them.
Literally every strategy game will have easier civs and harder civs. For aoe2 are the Chinese, where they are the best civ in the high ladder, and the worst civ in the bottom of the ladder, while even the newest noob known how to use franks or britons.
Then don’t tell the devs how to design civs.
It’s not, I scouted the English, saw their build order and adapt my strategy, instead of just going for the same strategy over and over again.
Reddit is full of 2TCs build order, and it’s not something to simply go for every game, it’s just good in some situations.
Completely out of context… really mature…
You know that I was talking about the fact that you don’t need to wait to build a monastery to get gold for relics because you can use outposts…
So basically those bonuses are nullified because they don’t have the bonuses that you like…
French literary have cheaper eco upgrades and gathering points with some extra vills… literally the simplest bonuses that you can ask for, no extra resources from strange buildings… yet they dominate the ladder.
Then you should just play a game where every UU is just a reskin of another civ UU, when there is no difference between civs because anyway every units is used the same way, which is the most simple and easy way to do…
I onestly prefer a bit to have units that are used differently, each of them with its unique micro and strategy.
Lol… I don’t know if that denotes more your ingenuity or you are simply running out of valid arguments.
Like I need to be on the level of the viper to know that no infantry mass should take stones up on the nose…
And the HRE would get a 10 garrison capacity. I mean you are really complaining about being to similar to rus when you are suggesting that the regnitz should generate gold from nothing like an hunting cabin.
Decide, either you they have a gold heavy composition or a food heavy composition or you weak spammable units… you can’t have them all.
I realy realy like that. It would open several tactics early game.
U could still aim for a fast castle age with regnitz supportet by towers or u could go for a second TC and going for burggrave.
Idk about the prelates but the LK should be buffed hp wise or reduced by the gold cost because I thing without the power of the old regnitz they are a little bit to expensive.
I would even thing about putting 2 handed into feudal. It is always a little confusing that they have 2 unique (3total) upgrades in one age for one unit.
Im missing a second unique Unit for HRE still release and I would love to see a special take on the horseman aka light cav or a infantery range unit (faster or longer range handcanoneer?) to double down on the infantery part of the HRE.
I am not the only one who thinks it becomes more and more annoying the longer the game goes. It has nothing to do with easier or harder civs. Annoying things are annoying and not fun. And again… The all army command seems to be something you like to ignore. But it’s actually very useful. However, it is very annoying to use for the HRE. That has nothing to do with difficulty.
What are you doing here in a forum that is called discussion, while the devs explicitly said many times in their streams that they want input? What do you want to discuss? Do you decide what is discuss worthy and what is not? I am not telling anybody anything, I am suggesting. And I make no secret out of the fact that I am not happy with the HRE design in general. If you don’t like what I post, you can say so. I just wonder why you keep coming back then… You don’t have to watch this thread. If you don’t like it or what I do, do not attend. It’s not like it changes anything and it also won’t make me stop. So what’s the point of you discussing with me, if all I do is telling the devs what they are supposed to do? Sometimes…
It can work. But 2TC is good for French, Chinese, Abbasids, Rus, Mongols, while the English in general get it with the age up. it’s not “good” for the HRE if you compare it to the other civs. Which is my point. If you don’t compare it, you cannot evaluate it. I agree that it can work for the HRE, but relatively speaking it is not good.
It’s a lame and very situational bonus that can also cost you the relic. It helps you defend, it is a means to store relics early without having to build a monastery, yes. But it still is counter intuitive and does not at all play into the HRE strength and personality. There is no incentive to build a monastery. It is actually the worst place for the HRE to put relics in. But it’s where the special techs are. That’s what I mean when I call this civ lacking synergies and coherence. What kind of identity is that for arguably the most Religion oriented civ to have barely any incentive to build a freaking monastery? It’s a patch work civ with patch work boni that do not form a complete picture, but a scrappy one. I am not saying “remove this bonus”, but give the HRE something more interesting. More than half of this civ’s boni are worthless if you do not have a relic. In other words: I want the HRE to want to build a monastery and it annoys me that there are more reasons to not build one than to build one.
Excuse my sarcasm, but I actually want this civ to represent the HRE and I feel like I am astonishingly misunderstood here. Who in the history of the world has ever put relics into outposts? Germany is full of churches, monasteries, chapels… It’s ridiculous. But in this game you are better off to not build a monastery as the Holy Roman Empire. You don’t wanna put relics into it and you don’t really need the techs out of it, because they are just not that good. You get them, if you can, but you do not aim for them at all…
And again: If you don’t like me talking about civ design and identiy, why are you attending?
Yeah, you just don’t want the game, civs or specifically the HRE to be discussed. I should just take my critique elsewhere and leave the game as it is, because the game is just perfect and nobody should suggest anything. And if anybody doesn’t like something, they should just gtfo and play a different game. This might be a surprise for you, but the RTS possibilities are very limited. Most good games are old news. Very old news. And again you are telling me what I “should” do. The frick is wrong with you?
That’s funny coming from a guy whose sole argument against my ideas is me wanting to overhaul too much? Thanks a lot. You argue that everything is fine and doesn’t need (much) changing. I think differently. But I haven’t heard a single reason from you, why specifically my ideas are not good. You just don’t like them. And you are probably not interested in history as much as I am. Which is fine. Just don’t worry about my ingenuity, mate.
It’s not about knowing, Sherlock. It’s about preventing it from happening over the course of the whole game. You consider it to be easy, which is why it’s fine in your book that 100 gold Landsknechte can die in a single volley. You gotta be a god tier player, since you somewhat mocked me by saying “They shouldn’t take manganels or bees shots in the face in fact…” Great advice. I have to derive from your advice that you always manage to follow it yourself. Now, however, you are telling me that you are not on the level of The Viper etc, but you still have had the audacity to tell me that these units should not get hit by this kind of siege. How am I supposed to not react sarcastically to that?
You fail to interpret numbers and statistics. Winrate and pickrate show huge differences between the civs. But since math is not your strongsuit, let me help you:
French pickrate: 20%.
English pickrate: 25% (actually 26%, but I want nicer numbers)
Chance for a player to be French/English = 45%
Chance for a player to play any other of the 8 civs: 100% - 45% = 55%
In order to find out if both players are French/English, you multiply 0.45 with 0.45. 0.45 * 0.45 = 0.2025 * 100 = 20.25%. There is a 20.25% chance that both players in a 1v1 are either English or French.
Now what are the chances that one player is French/English and the other player is not? That would be 0.45 * 0.55 = 0.2475 * 2 = 0.495. The chance for that is 49.5%.
Last but not least we need the chance for the possibility that nobody plays French or English. That’s just 0.55 * 0.55 = 0.3025. So the chance for that is 30.25%.
That means that in 69.75% of the gold and platinum games in Age of Empires 4 you can find at least one English or French player.
And now you are telling me that science tells me that everything is fine? Or can you show me the math that explains why a winrate variation of 45% to 55% between all civs is a proof for immaculate balance? Because I am not convinced, but I am curious.
There are many valid points and I like the discussion. But one participants forgets about hunting cabins and the golden gate landmark, which allow to reach castle without gathering gold. And hunting cabins give you between 200 and 400 gold, which would count as 2 to 4 additional relics. Rus can very well get to 700 to 900 gpm by passive means. Other than that I really like the willingness to discuss these various ideas. Eventually it’s about mechanics and synergies. Numbers can always be tweaked and should be, if they pose too potent or too weak.
I also like to play around with relics in the sense that you want them to have in a sacral building, but in the case of being attacked or planning an attack, there should be good reasons to temporarily take them out, bless the army or some buildings. It could act like an emergency mechanic to save the base. It’d be a choice between better gold generation, better units or better building production and defense. In periods of building up your bank, you should want the relics to be in a sacral building. This would also be in line with the HRE in general, which carried relics to the battles to boost morals and then returned them to a church or cathedral.
So I just watched some plays on top rank with HRE winning… ONLY because the opponent misplayed.
The first, the English sent troops around to guard the relics, leaving no army to guard the base, so they rushed in and the game ended after 16min because the opponent couldn’t be arsed to fight back after that.
The second was in a position to lose, but then the Rus player mismanaged the economy and choked at the end when he had a ton of wood and nothing else.
Ok, I was thinking of starting a new thread but since this one is already very developed I thought it would be better to just join the discussion. The suggestions below have the goal of keeping the HRE as an infantry focused civ but we need to diversify their strategy especially not relying too much on explosive eco boom and MAA rushes. Since the HRE historically made extensive use of merceneries I thought it would be cool to focus their eco on gold to keep the production of more expensive units.
[Villagers] Removed 40% capacity buff. HRE now starts the game with wheelbarrow researched. Gold gathering 25% faster compared to other civs.
Note: I think the civ would benefit from a less explosive start that would leave room for more buffs through the other stages of the game.
[New civ bonus] With every age up and every new TC built you get one free Prelate.
Note: the idea is to keep a more linear eco growth with the civ. Balancing out the changes to carry capacity and the Palace of Swabia while also rewarding investment in expansion into Town Centers.
[New civ bonus] Outposts shoot one arrow without any garrisoned units.
Note: a significant defense bonus to allow the civ to survive early raids that are really hard to deal with as HRE at the moment.
[Landsknecht] Moved to the Feudal age. Keeps the AOE attack. HP increased by 20%, Attack decreased by 40%. Gold cost decreased by 10. Bonus +6/+8/+10 against light armour.
Note: that is clearly one of the worst units in the game and needs a rework. My suggestion is to make it an anti-light armour specialist, being available in age II. Now the unit will be a hardcounter to trash units but will still be vulnerable to ranged fire and weak against armored targets. Still a good in mixed armies but without being so fragile.
[Swiss Pikeman] New unit available in Castle Age. Elite, heavy armoured anti-cavalry infantry. Cost: 80 food 90 gold. Armour +5/+6 for both melee and pierce. Immune to charge. Attack +10/+12. Bonus against cavalry: +28/+34. [Riveted Chain Mail] removed from the game.
Note: the idea is to give the HRE an alternative frontliner that can stop cavalry charges and tank ranged fire with the draw back of having increased cost. Vulnerable to crossbows and gunfire like the MAA.
[Regnitz Cathedral] All your relics now grant +200% gold income. Acts as a church for all intents and purposes.
Note: I believe the Regnitz Cathedral is certainly already strong enough and doesn’t need a buff. Now you would get less gold/relic but you have the option of gathering more relics and making more gold.
[Burgrave Palace] It acts as a Barracks that produces infantry 200% faster. Now reduces the gold cost of the units trained by 40%.
Note: the Regnitz Cathedral gives you so much gold that the other option should allow you to save some of the gold you’re not getting. This makes it so you’re not forced to rush the opponent if you choose the Burgrave Palace.
[Meinwerk Palace] Emplacement research time reduced by 50%.
Note: this makes it so it’s more reasonable to build this landmark if you’re being pressured since you can get the defense up quicker.
[Palace of Swabia] Total rework: Reveals all neutral markets on the map. Traders get +15% move speed. Trades resources at a fixed rate 100 gold for 100 wood/food/stone, or 100 wood/food/stone for 75 gold.
Note: I believe the original Palace of Swabia is in a weird place. It has tremendous booming power but it comes too late in imperial age. I believe the civ would benefit more from a landmark that allows them to sustain their economy through the late game specially maintaining gold income that’s so necessary for this civ.
[Two-handed weapons] removed from the game.
[Heavy Maces] cost increased by 50 gold, +8 against heavy units instead of +6.
As you see the changes also aim to keep the civ power growing more linearly across all ages so you have more strategic options as a player. I believe the current HRE is too focused on early boom and is too dependent on the Regnitz to maintain a late game eco.
I don’t know much more about HRE history but I think some sort of buff to siege would also be nice. Like a culverin that attacks faster or something like that.
You know, I like the suggestion of HRE starting with Wheelbarrow outright. The only other civ I remember of having a tech already researched as a game starter is French for melee bonus damage from BS.
Besides, with +5 carry capacity, it would be back to 15 resources anyway.
I’m ok as well with free prelate per new TC, faster Meinwerk, as well as 1 free shot for outposts.
The Landsknechts are still a problem though, mostly because they’re inaccurate to one from real history. The idea was born from the wars between Burgundy and the Swiss Confederation, the latter who primarily used pike formations. That’s how Landsknechts were made on the same principle, and would also later use two-handed swords and firearms. The issue comes from the fact that they’re easily countered, having low hp compared to any other military unit and having no armor, while also being the 1st to charge in front of the army because they’re faster than other infantry units. And reducing the gold by a paltry 10 at the cost of almost half their attack wouldn’t make them more appealing. They require at least something like being able to use temporary firearms at Age 4 (as to not make Arqubesers superfluous, although honestly, I wouldn’t mind Landsknechts completely replacing them).
And speaking of which, I like the idea of Swiss Pikeman, although I’d, in this case, just replace them with regular ones and have them as a unique unit replacement, the same way as English have Longbows for regular ones.
Personally, I think that Regnitz should still be removed altogether because it’s simply too dependent and too good not to pick over Burgrave, which only produced melee infantry. Sale of Indulgences still feels like a better alternative, where you get 1 gold each time a unit is blessed by the prelate.
Palace of Swabia is okay as it is, even if it is a late game landmark; the biggest problem is Elzbach palace, which is an unequal trade-off. Nobody will want to take protection over economy, this isn’t the same as English and French’s Birkshire and Red Palace, which can be used to devastate opponent’s armies. It’s just as useless as Spasskaya Tower from Rus.
No idea why you would remove two-handed weapons when it’s the staple of the strongest MMA in the game. If anything it should be moved to Age 2 because HRE has absolutely nothing to go on compared to other civs in this age and are forced to go Age 3 as fast as possible, which will come back to bit them if the opponent decides do go full Age 2 harassment without any protection.
That’s the HRE issue right now more than ever. They can only win if they hit a certain timing and were rather undisturbed up to that point. Or if the opponent makes more and especially more severe mistakes. Or if the HRE player simply is better than the opponent.
You are very welcome to join the discussion.
I really like your ideas and I think they are a great addition to the thread.
However I think the combination of your ideas and the ones here from the thread (just like Turmoil suggested), are the key to bring the HRE into the right direction.
Here is my take:
I like the Wheelbarrow idea together with the removal of the carry capacity bonus. But maybe there should be a tech later on that adds another +5 capacity, just to reduce the time villagers have to go to the gather place. Otherwise it could look very weird, when all the inspired vils in imp with all the late game upgrades run around like they were bitten by something icky, because they gather so quickly. The only change to balance would be the fact that the HRE gets Wheelbarrow for free, loses its carry cap bonus, but gets a tech to research in castle or imp that boosts carry cap again.
A free prelate per TC could prove as a nice enough incentive to go for multi tc in feudal. A bit less so in castle. It could be 2 prelates, when a tc is built in castle age. I think I’d like that.
I actually like the idea of the Landsknecht getting a bonus vs light inf (melee and ranged). But he should still be worthwile to be used against any other unit. My suggestion in this case would be: Reduce his normal damage by 20%, give him bonus damage vs light melee and ranged inv (+5/+10 as elite), increase his armor from 0/0 to 1/2 and increase his hp to 120 in castle and 150 as elite in imp. Change his cost from 60/100 to 75/150. He is a mercenary. He was powerful. He was very expensive. He should be powerful and expensive. Do not make him a feudal unit, though. The historical time frame would be too off.
I also like the idea that the normal spearman from HRE becomes a Landsknecht pikeman starting in castle age and coming with the normal unit upgrade instead of a special tech. The name gets changed from Spearman to Pikeman with all the prefixes (veteran, elite). It would be actually weird if Swiss Pikemen fought together with Landsknechte, so I think it’s better to just turn them into Pikemen of Landsknecht origin. Upgrading the Hardened Spearman to the Veteran Pikeman would additionally add +1 melee armor as well as +10 hp. The upgrade from the Veteran Pikeman to the Elite Pikemen would in addition to its normal effect also give +2 melee armor and +5 hp. Riveted Chainmail gets removed as it was integrated into the new Pikeman and its castle age and imp upgrades, who also gained additional 15 hp altogether. Increase the upgrade cost from Hardened Spearman to Veteran Pikeman by 20% (120f/300g) and increase the cost for the upgrade to Elite Pikeman by roughly 30% to 400f and 900g. The style of the old spearmen could remain unchanged. It’s fitting enough. But I wouldn’t mind if he was looking a tad bit more landsknechty ofc.
Change HRE hand cannoneers into Arquebus Landsknechte. Those cost 120 food and 140 gold. But they have +0.5 range and shoot 10% faster than normal HC’s. They are mercenaries, thus they are a tad bit stronger and also more expensive.
Change Benediction so it adds +1/1 armor to prelates and adds another 5% movement speed to prelates and all infantry.
Introduce the Sale of Indulgences as a TC tech in feudal age (earlier would be difficult historically). Each prelate blessing a villager generates +1 gold. Add a new special tech to monasteries called “Blessing” or “Promise of Heaven” which increases the gold generated from +1 to +2. Allow inspired warriors to also generate gold from soldiers once it’s researched together with the new Blessing/Promise of Heaven tech.
But what about Aachen Chapel? One way of solving this issues could be as follows: The Aachen Chapel “counts” the villagers it has inspired. Then you have Sale of indulgences that grants gold every 30 seconds (1 gold, 2 gold (with CA tech), 2.5 gold (with tech and Regnitz) or 1.5 gold (only with Regnitz)) for every villager in the range of the Chapel. Let’s say you have the CA tech and Regnitz and 20 villagers in the range of the Aachen, the Aachen would gather 50 gold (2.5 * 20) per 30 seconds (100 gpm). <— This part was edited in.
Make relics grant 150% gold, but make it a civ baseline.
Change Regnitz into a fully functional monastery that can build prelates, research upgrades and hold relics. The bonus for this building would be a cost redcution of 25% for prelates and upgrades as well as a faster production rate of 100%. In addition to that the gold gain from Sale of Indulgences is increased by another 0.5 gold per blessing.
Give prelates a toggle option to only bless villagers instead of everything in range. If this option is turned “on”, these prelates will be excluded from the all army command. Edit: Let the prelate counter that was introduced with one of the last patches only count those prelates, who have the villager only option toggled on. That way you can be sure that you are only looking for eco prelates via the button, while all the other prelates can be selected by the all army or the religious unit key.
Allow all monks to a-click and either heal or fight (Warrior Monk) or bless (prelate). Allow prelates to bless while healing meaning: If a unit is not inspired and gets healed by a prelate, this unit will then be inspired (but Sale of Indulgences does NOT work in this case. It only works when a prelate casts a blessing). Make prelates prioritize healing injured units over casting inspiration.
The goal is that injured units get auto inspired when healed (and inspired warriors is researched), while full health units can only be inspired by blessing in order to actually get the inspired warriors buff. In addtion to that, “healing” should still be able to be turned off, so that prelates “only” inspire during battle, if the player wants it. That would add a little bit of micromanagement to it and it would make the gap between players bigger, but I think that is okay to some degree. The eventual goal must be that inspired warriors is a useful buff that helps the HRE instead of being a meme. If “healing” is toggled on, but all units are full health and not fighting, the prelates simply inspire as they’d always do.
I really like the idea to have 2-handed weapons moved to the feudal age. This could help in feudal quite a bit, I’d imagine.
In order to have towers be more appealing to the HRE, I would suggest that researching “Arrowslits” becomes “free”, if a prelate is garrisoned. The trade off would be that the prelate could not inspire for the 30 seconds the upgrade takes to finish, but it would also mean that the HRE could upgrade towers without having to have gathered stone once. Arrowslits costs 25g and 50st (less for the HRE, I know, but there are many other upgrades for which the civ bonus would still be worthwhile. It’d also make the “free” tech less of a problem, because it’d be cheaper for HRE anyway. The point is not having to gather stone to upgarde Arrowslits in early to early mid game). It would be a very unique bonus and could also be used offensively with the risk of losing the prelate.
Burgrave now allows to build any kind of melee and ranged infantry of the HRE. These units and their upgrades are produced/researched 250% faster instead of 400%, but also have their costs reduced by 25%. This would somewhat make up for the cheaper Regnitz prelates and its increase to Sale of Indulgences. It would be the aggressive HRE choice that is affordable as well as dynamic and also allows for a potent lategame.
Add a new tech to castle age stables called “Return of the Crusaders” increasing armor for knights by 1/1 and hp by 10 to compliment the Empire’s use of heavy cavalry as well as to show some representation of the Teutonic Order.
Finally add a coat of arms to HRE sword/mace and board maa as well as knights. Those units should carry the Empire’s eagle. If “Return of the Crusaders” was researched, change the coat of arms for knights to a Teutonic Order cross. Let their shields be always white with a black cross, no matter the player color.
I really like the idea of changing the Palace of Swabia to a trade house as suggested: “Total rework: Reveals all neutral markets on the map (although these will in most cases be already revealed in age IV). Traders get +15% move speed. Trades resources at a fixed rate 100 gold for 100 wood/food/stone, or 100 wood/food/stone for 75 gold.”
Change Elzbach so that in addtion to its current effect it also grants the “relic effect” to every building in its influence that is capable of getting this effect (towers, keeps), if a relic is garrisoned in the Elzbach palace. Docks that are in the influence of the Elzbach grant additional 5% attack speed. If 5 relics are in a dock, while this or any dock is in the influence of the Elzbach, the attack speed bonus for ships gets increased by an additional 5% to 30% max.
Make both age IV upgrades cost 10% less instead of Swabia costing 20% less.
@SavageEmpire566 I just wanted to update you, since there has been some dynamic here. I appreciate that you are here and help communicate between the devs and the community. I am excited about the newest ideas and just want the devs to know about it. I hope I don’t annoy you with me marking you. I try not to exaggerate it.
Knights turning into maa after death should be a “Ritterbruder” only thing, if the Ritterbruder was ever added to the game, I’d say. “Return of the Crusaders” would just mean that normal knights are more battle hardened and on the one hand would represent the Teutonic Order and on the other hand the Empire’s elaborated aptitude of smithing armor. It’d be a compromise of sorts, but it would represent the Empire’s strengths in a reasonable manner. Other than that you would really have to add a new special unit to the game. And I just think that this is nothing a patch would provide. I also think it’d be too much if “Return of the Crusaders” also provided the originally for the Ritterbruder intended bonus.
All the suggestions that are based on things that are already existing in the game can very well be patched in. Adding new techs that eventually only alter numbers are something different than a completely new unit, which is more than just a reskin.
Edit: I just see some issues for the Aachen Chapel. How would that work with Sale of Indulgences? Would it just not work there, which would be kinda lame?
One way of solving this issues could be as follows: The Aachen Chapel “counts” the villagers it has inspired. Then you have Sale of indulgences that grants gold every 30 seconds (1 gold, 2 gold (with CA tech), 2.5 gold (with tech and Regnitz) or 1.5 gold (only with Regnitz)) for every villager in the range of the Chapel. Let’s say you have the CA tech and Regnitz and 20 villagers in the range of the Aachen, the Aachen would gather 50 gold (2.5 * 20) per 30 seconds (100 gpm).
Yeah, I don’t know that either. If that’s the case, there wouldn’t be a problem at all then, unless it gets reapplied more than once during 30 seconds.
