The HRE lacks diversity and is too reliant on just one comp. And this comp gets literally destroyed by crossbows. The HRE army is absolutely useless, if it cannot handle crossbows as they are too strong vs MAA in my opinion. The bonus dmg might be fine vs knights, but not vs MAA. It’s too effective.
The HRE gets obliterated when wanting to attack into Network of Castles/Citadels English or Arbaletriers. NoC is completely out of control. Up to 50% attack speed for all units in a huge area that only requires one measly outpost and thus is almost always active is way out of line. You don’t even need to have a deep understanding of numbers to see that 50% attack speed for everything is completely unreasonable. CBs and LBs shoot so fast and NoC springalds ruin the “new” Mango so easily that you simply cannot attack into a NoC army as HRE. MAA just melt and when they melt, Landsknechte do to. Although they are light units and should actually do well vs heavy counters like crossbows, they are not great at all because - and that’s the biggest isuee I have with this unit - their health pool is so pathetically small that they are countered by everything that deals dmg.
Arbaletriers are even worse, because they don’t need NoC to completely ruin the HRE. 25% better attack speed in imp and up to 10 melee armor as a light ranged infantry unit is… I don’t know. It makes zero sense. Relic said something about that they wanted to have a clear cut counter system. And they gave us that. But not consequently. You have counters for everything. But then they also added mechanics that ruin the counter system completely, because a lot of stuff is just off. For example: If Mangos are the only counter to some comps, anti siege becomes way too strong for comps that are only really susceptible to mangos: Melee units become worse and worse and can only justify their lategame role with big hp, high armor values or great mobility. That’s where the HRE army is lacking completely and that’s why their late game army is very weak and only packs a punch if you can flood the enemy thanks to your massive % landmarks. But that’s true for every civ: If you have the economy, you can print units until you simply overwhelm the opponent. The thing is that the HRE army is only good against pure melee comps and you need to be able to print to win against anything else. Those pure melee comps are very rare, though, and that’s why the HRE army actually only really excels in mirror matches, because the HRE ranged units offer nothing special, so it’s mostly melee army vs melee army. And I have yet to see something more stupid than Landsknechte fighting Landsknechte. They clash and 2 secs later all are dead.
My point is: Arbaletriers, who should be weak to melee, have crazy melee armor. You NEED mangos. But mangos have fairly low hp and are countered easily by anti siege. Arbaletriers need to be counterable without siege, just like other units as well. Same goes for Grenadiers.
Here is the counter system of AoE 4 and how it is basically offering quite some options, while certain units just are outside of it due to not really having a cost efficient or reliable counter.
Units and their counter(s):
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Knight: Spearman, CB. HC’s do also well. HRE MAA trade nicely when there are no CBs around. 
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MAA: CB, HC’s, Ribauldequins, Bees and somehwat mangos, Horse and camel archer do also well.
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Spearmen: Archers, Ribauldequins, Bees, mangos to some extent (mangos are okay vs any kind of clumped up inf), MAA, Landsknechte.
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Horsemen: Spearmen, Knights, MAA, Landsknechte.
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Archers: Horsemen, Knights, MAA (if they can reach), mangos, Bees.
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Crossbows: Horsemen, spearmen are okayish, not good, but can be cost efficient, Archers (in the sense that they are cost efficient vs CBs, but they are not a strong counter per se). And mangos and Bees ofc…
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Hand Cannons: Mangos, Bees, anything that can kill them while costing much less (Archers esp), but they are among the harder to counter units. Their high price makes that okay, though. In most cases at least (expections are Streltsies and NoC HC’s). (Several ways to counter cost efficiently).
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Mangos: Springalds, Bombards, Culverins, mass melee Cavalry, HC’s can be very effective when close enough. (Several ways to counter)
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Bombards: Springalds, Culverins, mass melee cav, HC’s are again effective, if they can reach.
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Anti Siege: Anti siege or melee cavalry. HC’s are as always effective as well.
Now lets see the special units:
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Landsknechte: Damage. Just any kind of damage, but especially Archers and Camel Archers as well as Bees and to some degree also mangos. Burning oil lol. (Several ways to counter)
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Mangudais: Their low hp and range makes them susceptible to ranged units altogether. They are also weak vs Bees and mangos. If spearmen can connect, they obliterate them. (Several ways to counter)
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Tower Elephant: Spears, Bombards, Culverins to some extent, masses of melee units to surround them, HC’s (Several ways to counter)
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War Elephant: Spears, HRE MAA are effective, CB’s, Bombards, Culverins to some extent (Several ways to counter)
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Zughe Nus: Like Archers (Several ways to counter)
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Fire Lancers: Like Horsemen (Several ways to counter)
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Longbows: Like Archers, although their range and rof makes them much more useful (Several ways to counter)
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Horse Archers: Similar to Mangudais, but to a lesser extent thanks to their range (Several ways to counter)
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Camel Rider: Like Knights (Several ways to counter)
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Camel Archer: Similar to Magudais, but have more hp and very high dmg. Their low range, however, allows them to be countered by a wider array of units as well (Several ways to counter)
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Arbaletriers: Bees and mangos, nothing else really (One real way to counter, which is countered easily by anti siege) 
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Grenadiers: Uncounterable. Esp. with 12 range Bombards behind them rendering mangos useless. Mangos also are not that effective against C-formation Grenadiers. Grenadiers are way too efficient and are way too hard to counter. Yes, it takes forever to get to them, but that does not justify them being a rofl stomp comp. They should be more accessible and much easier to counter.
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Streltsies: Better and cheaper than the HC. Why? The Rus eco does not justify that. This offsets the counter system as well by quite a bit as it makes zero sense.
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Chinese Bombards: What can I say? They counter also their counter. Completely off
And Network of Castles/Citadels messes with the counter system in its very own way. NoC is so strong that anti siege mass range English armies become so much more powerful than for any other civ. NoC makes every unit massively better, but goes through the roof for anythig that is ranged. English HC’s are pure insanity. They are machine gunners.
The game is very reasonable in most regards of its counter system. But there are units and mechanics that are just not in line with it, which leads to things being upside down.
These are army balance issues in the game in general. But looking at HRE specifically it shows that their own strenghts have way too many downsides and offer too little in too many situations. You can very effectively counter a HRE army comp wise. A stronger economy will always be able to just outmass the opponent, but when talking balance, a stronger economy cannot be the precondition as it is never guaranteed. HRE can have a powerful eco in theory, but they need to survive Feudal in a good manner. Also you can’t say that HRE, although being weaker in general, always aims towards outmassing the opponent due to their eco, which would justify their weakness. The HRE is not Zerg, why design them as such? The HRE can only sometimes overwhelm the opponent, when everything before that point went rather well for them, which is rare. Or when their high % landmarks just simply do their magic.
French, however, just take the map and oppress the opponent into being economically way behind. And together with the Arbaletriers this leads to the HRE being unable to beat the French. It is by far their worst match up and for many reasons (bad Feudal, very weak to knights mobility and arbs). The Rus are also very difficult, because they auto counter HRE in so many ways by just being Rus… Warrior Monks, Horse Archers and Streltsies are very hard to deal with as HRE. Some stupid Burgrave overwhelm timing push can work, though. But as I stressed many times, I really do not like the design behind it. You have a window of oppotunity, because you are suddenly presented with 5 barracks in one. That’s overkill and just shows that the HRE is so weak that they can have that without being bonkers op.
The MAA and Landsknechts comp is a fun comp. But it’s only really strong vs pure melee, has many weaknesses and is the only thing that is in any way advantageous for the HRE. That’s why they have their high % landmarks to offset their disadvantages. And that makes this civ so weird and limited. Its only strength is melee inf and melee inf is the weakest possible army comp in the game. It is inferior to cavalry and its mobility, which gets supported by range that on its own is already too effective vs melee inf… The HRE might have the funnest comp to play with, but their core strenghts are the weakest in the game. And as long as that is the case, the HRE will always be in a weird place.
Yes, the start with a prelate helped. But it changed nothing about the quality of the civ. It ignores the design flaws of the civ and the balance issues of the game in general. Once the flaws are gone, you can do minor tweaks to actually improve balance. But you need the basic framework for that and the HRE just doesn’t have it.
. But I also have to keep in perspective that there are a lot of moving parts and, once again, this is a marathon, not a sprint.
, you guys stopped publishing them .