I am loving the latest ideas so far! They are great and adress the right stuff. I’ve also been working on how to overhaul the HRE and I will post it shortly. I’ll open a new thread, but will also post it here. I will edit this post then.
Edit:
Here is my new thread: [HRE] Suggestion for the devs: How to improve/change the HRE!
The HRE is a civ that has certain powerspikes, but all in all feels rather unfinished and like a one trick pony. If they don’t get relics, they are not competitive. They rely too much on one way to play and I intend to change that with my ideas. I try not to go too far overboard, but still feel the urge to change quite a bit, because the current state does not really convince me. I feel like there are only certain maps that are good for the HRE and one or two ways to play them. The first idea might be something for an expansion of the game as I doubt we will see completely new units via a patch. All the other ideas are working with what’s already in the game and aim to improve the gameplay for the HRE. Here we go:
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[New Unit] The Ritterbruder: This is a unit that can only be trained in the monastery starting in age III. It has knight stats, but with +2/2 armor and +20 hp. It will have a seperate elite upgrade that’s not shared with knigths. On top of that the Ritterbruder has an aura that inspires nearby units. The aura radius could be 1 or 2 tiles (whatever feels okay) with an upgrade to increase radius by 1 more tile. The Ritterbruder is a bit sturdier than normal knights, but can improve other units. They cannot inspire themselves. Their costs should be somewhere around 175f and 175g. They need to be expensive. Their place on the battlefield is to improve the fighting abilities of mainly melee units.
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[New Civ Bonus] Regnitz Cathedral does not give 300% gold for relics anymore, but instead the HRE in general gains 200% more gold from relics. This is a baseline civ bonus that comes without any landmarks and applies to monasteries, docks, towers and keeps. 5 relics would thus give you 1000 gold per minute, while 3 only give 600.
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[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.
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[New Burgrave Palace] The Burgrave Palace gets changed to: Build two non-siege military units for the price of one. This also applies to prelates. Ritterbrüder, however, would be excluded from this as they are a monastery only unit. With this landmark the HRE is able to apply castle age pressure and gains an advantage in collecting relics thanks to the cheaper prelates. The Brugrave Palace becomes weaker the longer the game lasts, but gives you an edge in castle age. While the Regnitz is for booming, the Brugrave is for a strong early castle age.
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[New Meinwerk Palace] In addition to its current bonus, research time should also be decreased by 25%. On top of that allow 10 units to be garrisoned. Maybe also give it defensive capabilities of a non upgraded tower: It only shoots when units are garrisoned.
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[New Swabia Palace] This is actually just a nerf in numbers. Make Swabia a little bit weaker. Increase villager cost and build time in that manner that Swabia counts as 2.5 TCs. I dunno how to nerf it exactly, just make it a little bit weaker.
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[New Elzbach Palace] In addition to its current bonus the Elzbach Palace now also decreases the cost and build time for Keeps altogether by 25%.
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[New Inspired Warriors] Prelates can still inspire (the Ritterbruder is an addition, not a replacement) military units after research, but the duration is increased by 100% to effectively 60 seconds. Inspired Warriors also improve attack speed by 15%. So: 15% more dmg, 15% more attack speed, 1/1 armor. Maybe make the 15% attack speed bonus an imperial age tech.
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[Prelate] Increase inspiration range (both eco and military) by 1 tile in the imperial age. Make inspiration an auto cast option. Thus the prelate either heals or inspires and is not caught in the middle not knowing what his role is. Prelates and all other religious units except Warrior Monks should be excluded from the all-army command. It’s so annoying. If you want monks with your army, give them a group and do it that way. Or use the idle religious units key. In this manner it is easier to manage your army and you don’t pull units that are not supposed to be pulled. This change is very necessary for HRE and Delhi and the other civs would not be too sad about it either, I assume.
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[Prelate, Monks, Scholars, Shamans…] Allow a-click healing and inspiring. Allow a-click healing for all the other civs as well except for the Warrior Monk. He should probably also get an autocast so he can be used as a pure healer if needed.
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[New Benediction Tech] Increase building speed from 15% to 25%. In addition to that allow Prelates to move 25% faster as well. Prelates need to be able to move with the army and with 1 movement speed they are just a liability for a civ that is supposedly relying on them.
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[Holding Relics] Prelates that carry a relic can now also mass inspire when using the relic conversion (wololo). All units in the area are inspired for 1 minute (30 seconds for villagers). The conversion has a 45 second cooldown. It would be a high risk/high reward mechanic for the HRE to use relic in the field.
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[New Landsknecht] Landsknecht survivability should be in line with their cost and offensive abilities. Right now it is not. Landsknechte are trash. The risk is much higher than the reward. Their survivability should be worse than MAA, but better than Spearmen. Thus give them +40 hp (from 80 to 120. 150 on elite), increase their base armor by 1/1 and reduce their base damage by 1. In addition to that increase their base movement speed by 5%. They should be slightly faster than the spearman. After all they are an elite infantry unit. Their current state is disgraceful to say the least. They need improvements, they need to live longer. That way they are not countered by everything, but by their actual counters.
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[New Culverins] Improve the culverin for all civs that have them. Just make it better. Or make everything else worse. The culverin is a joke unit right now. And also take a very close look at clockwork rapid fire long range chinese bombards. Clockwork is hands down op, you can’t win vs chinese when they have 950 hp bombards that kill everything. The Baochuan also needs to be looked at. There are too many techs that make this ship too strong. Grenadiers also need tuning. It looks terrible when they attack, you cannot comprehend what’s happening. But everything dies around them. Chinese late game is a whole different story, tho. This all is just a side note.
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[Bugfix] I don’t know if it only happens when Inspired Warriors is researched, but prelates try to inspire towers to no avail and get caught in a loop. Same thing with mangonels, which do not get inspired, but the prelate keeps trying to and also gets caught in a loop. Also decide if HRE siege units can be inspired or not. Right now it only works for some units and I can’t say what is intended. It’s very weird in that regard.
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[Bugfix] Add the missing coat of arms to HRE MAA and knights (and Ritterbrüder <3)
With these changes, the HRE would feel much more versatile and it would gain various options. Also mechanics and techs that are not being used due to being bad or useless would suddenly be a viable decision.
Summary
I mainly want to change things that are underused, not in a good spot or simply annoying and wonky.
I want the economy not to be reliant on one landmark, but to offer a choice between booming and being aggressive. That’s what my Regnitz and Burgrave ideas are for. Meinwerk is supposed to play into the Burgrave, but would also be viable for a Regnitz approach. Esp. when there is no great spot for the Aachen. Swabia then would be the choice if you are behind economically or simply want to boom more, whereas Elzbach is the defensive option that really pays off if you want to turtle yourself in. It would work well with Regnitz as your are able to protect your viallgers better.
The prelate and inspiration buffs and changes are aiming towards the idea of using prelates in your army. Inspired warriors is never used, because it is terrible. That’s why I want to improve it by eventually increasing inspiration range in imp, improving prelate movement speed to match maa and increase the duration for military units while offering an autocast. That way it would be very much worthwhile to have prelates with your army as opposed to now where they are just a hinderance and not effective. I also want the HRE to have a military bonus from carrying relics with the army. The HRE needs a stronger personality altogether in playstyle and composition since almost all their units are just standard without a working inspired warriors tech.
The idea of the Landsknecht is fine, although I would have wished for a different design. However, to have him work like intended, he needs to be sturdier. For a trade off in damage, if necessary. He is simply too weak. When I win a battle I want to have Landsknechte still standing. They usually all die. Always. Because there is no counter needed for them as they die to literally everything.
This is the summary of most of my changes. The rest is the Ritterbruder idea, which is a dream of mine, and bug fixes as well as qol improvements.