HRE - Uniqueness, mechanic and army rant. There is a lot of potential lying fallow

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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Can you @Dodzylla tell me what you like about inspiration for military? Ignoring the bugs that Prelates can’t inspire mangonels and tend to bug around when around allied units or towers or simply altogether when they stop inspiring for good (happens rather rarely, but happens).

How is a 3 sec single target cast with 30 sec duration that cannot be applied while infight of any use or in a good spot? Especially when healing is also something they are supposed to do with a single target cast? How does it help in big battles? It could be of a slight use for smaller hit squads, but you do not have prelates with hitsquads due to their slow speed. And inspiration only for siege and a few ranged units feels very meh. When a prelate has inspired the tenth unit, the first unit loses their inspiration already. And then every 3 secs the buff runs out on another unit. How is that a useful mechanic? I am asking because I can’t fathom it. How is this ever useful in a match? How does it help lategame as it barely is of any use before thanks to the effort you need to put into it goldwise? You need to carefully prepare your units with a lot of prelates before you charge, but it better be a close distance to cover. The effort you need to put into it is never worth it. Never ever. Vs ai maybe, but in a 1v1? It’s a drop of water on a hot stone. A little whizz and it’s gone. The Warrior Monk hits once and all Rus units in a rather big radius around him are inspired (+3 attack, +1/1 armor) if the trinity landmark was chosen, which is a very good choice. Even if you miss out on the improved hunting cabin. How is it fair that the Rus have to hit once, inspire all for 20 seconds and can do it infight, while the Prelates have trouble to keep at least 5 units inspired or simply do not inspire at all while in a battle? How is it fair that one camel is enough to give all Abbasid AND allied infantry +1/1 armor? Where do you rank inspiration when compared to the other rather polished mechanics? It’s so very inferior. The Religion part of the HRE for military is in the most useless spot you can imagine.

But I second you on everything else. Their lategame is poor due to the lack of good techs and units as well as mechanics and synergies.

I also hope Relic recognizes all this and puts some work into the HRE. They are barely played not because they are terribly bad (they are mid tier at best as they have a good early to mid game and are a one trick pony, late game is terrible and offers nothing), but buggy, boring and one dimensional. It’s such a shame that Relic screwed their civ identity and don’t seem to have really tried it. It’s time to remedy that. At least to show them some love. And a freaking coat of arms. It’s unbearable that it’s missing.

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The HRE was such an interesting nation in history. It rules for centuries and was (at the time) the pinnacle of European powers. They were incredibly culturally diverse and had swathes of land. Yet, all they really have going for them is the mediocre Landsknechts and (rather interesting) prelates. Their gameplay barely differs and they’re way to basic.

There’s a lot of missed opportunities, and I think the civ deserves a rework. I doubt it’ll happen though.

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109

Just sad that HRE doesnt really have any bonus for their knigths, with the french they were the big knight nations in europe. The current theme with the landsknecht goes only towards 16th century, kinda leaving out most of the middle ages. At least they have well armored infantry and special castles, but nothing for knights is a bit disappointing.

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110

Well, you are right, mb inspire should be an aoe spell :smiley: I know other civs are better, but i still like it.

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111

Here it is! I am quite proud of it, even if it might be a balance nightmare lmao: Faction Idea: Teutonic State

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112

How was the game releases with prelates in broken state ? How can they hist tournaments with broken stuff lol…

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Maybe I am wrong, but as I know that’s not a relic or Microsoft-hosted the tournament, they don’t give a ■■■■ about it. Every game has a lot of bugs on start these days. They are working on it, but I think it’s not just a 10 min/bug work. People cry all the time, they want faster release, bug fixes, and why did they not release a perfect game. Well, it’s easy, because of money. And also as the “game as a service” became more and more popular, its not worth to spend a lot of time on a perfect state, when they have to support it for long time (if it’s make profit not like dawn of war3).

Everyone makes and gives suggestions to the dev team, but in the end, most of them are not worth the dev time. In sc2 a “huge” patch was a few number changes on units. Here, people want complete civ rework, new civs, map editor, new units for existing civs, techs, and etc etc etc.

I admit that HRE is in need of a huge rework and there are ongoing balance issues, and a lot of issue wasn’t fixed from Beta but i think they will. Just have some patiance.

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I personally think people press devs too hard. It wasn’t long ago that whistleblowers revealed how horrible dev work conditions are. Meeting a deadline where people had to sleep over night in their offices. Im quite fine with the game so far despite its bugs. Besides it gives me a fresh resource driven rts that isn’t ancient or a mobile cash grab. This is part of the reason why games release so early and become unfinished as a result.

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When people speak of “the devs” they’re referring to Relic as a company ( / people in a management position making the decisions) not the actual devs doing the coding / art.

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When I say devs, I mean the whole company. You can actually witness how this game was released with only 50% polish. All the civs that have a campaign, have been playtested way more and feel much more coherent and functional. The French are easy and everything works well and fine. The English are easy and everything works well and fine. They are just a little bit one dimensional, but what they have is in a good spot. Especially since they can actually always have their net of castles buff giving 25%-50% more attack speed. Their eco is just as intuitive as the French one. The Mongols are not easy to play, but they are very elaborated and imo the most unique civ with tons of possibilities. And last but not least we have the Rus, who are arguably the best civ together with the French. All their stuff makes a ton of sense, works well and feels polished.

And then we got the HRE, who are clunky, unfinished and very one dimensional. The prelate for eco is very annoying as he gets selected with the all army command. So you can’t actually use this command. Or you always remove the prelates from the selection, but then you need to know where the prelates are that you want to have with the army. It’s tedious, annoying and just not thought through. There could for example be a tech that allows prelates in towers to give an area inspiration effect or anything else that makes them non-army, while there is also an army version of the prelate. You might even need two kinds of prelates. Mid and late game eco with prelates is so annoying as there is just too little user friendliness. Especially when comparing them to other civs. All the other HRE issues I do not want to list up here again. It should be clear by now.

Same thing with Dehli and their Scholars. You use all army and the freaking mosques with scholars in them are selected as well. How pointless and annoying is that? Dehli is also quite clunky. And so are the Chinese that just feel overloaded. And the idle imperial officers can actually really trigger you, because you alwas think you have idle workers. But it’s just an official who is doing a cigarette break or whatever. The Abbasids might be in the best spot regarding the non-campaign civs, but they are also not perfect in the way they work. They are, however, the most finished civ of the unfinished civs.

I actually find it unacceptable to release something which content is acutally only finished by 50%. But that’s the time we live in, I guess.

This is why I expect a lot of patches and effort from Relic to support this game. And I expect it to be soon.

Otherwise I find 60 dollars (or in my case even Euro) very much for a game that has no ranked, no scenario editor, unfinished civs and plenty of bugs. The campaigns are alright, but do not really convince me. I prefer the way campaigns are done in AoE2 much more. But that might be a question of taste. I am pretty sure the release was pushed from those who do not develop the game but see the money it can generate. This is a development I actually do not want to support. Then again I was longing for a new RTS. And could not not buy it…

So, when a game is released like this, we are very much entitled to criticize and voice our opinion. And we can be annoyed or even angry. Especially if you preordered and trusted in advance. But we should always remain respectful.

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117

Really?! I did not know that. They aren’t even really military units since they are non-combative. I normally just hotkey select my armies with control groups. That sounds frustrating.

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It is. It is similarly frustrating with scholars as they are selected when in a mosque and also leave the mosque if you do not deselect them and click your all army to go somewhere. There needs to be a lot of improvement for these mechanics.

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119

They really need to do a hotfix patch. For these problems and the current exploits.

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120

There is another topic, containing ideas to finish the HRE.

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Thank you for linking the threads together. Yeah, KettleBunny wanted to present his Teutonic State Standalone ideas and while I also doubt that Relic will release a Teutonic State civ, I really like KettleBunny’s ideas. I hope Relic looks into both threads (and all the other threads regarding HRE bugs, mechanics and civ balancing) and finds a good solution for the HRE as a civ in general. I would really love to see some of the suggestions here to make it into the game. The possibilities are there, Relic just needs to embrace them.

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I am cautiously optimistic, because there seems to be a consensus that the HRE is very ‘empty’ in comparison to the other European factions. English and French are both quite distinct. If you meet an English player online, you can expect completely different behavior than from a French player.

HRE seems a bit like an unfinished foundation; as if they didn’t have the time to finish it.

I mentioned HRE to my brother. His immediate reply: “They have nothing”.

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123

Very true. I feel the exact way as you and your brother does. And we are not alone. I mean, everybody with a heart and the will to really play the HRE, will notice all that as well.

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124

I mean they are fun and powerful, I just wish they had more flare. We all can pretty much agree with that.

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Yes, except that they are losing power the longer the game goes as the HRE lategame is barely existent at all. There just is nothing for it. Neither in military nor in economics. Just look at the English enclosure tech. With 60 farms you get over 1k gold/minute. That’s part of their tech tree. They “just” need age IV. The HRE needs to go for a Landmark, gather 3 Relics and can have all that earlier, but it becomes weaker in the longrun and requires more of an early investment in comparistion to the self-preservation skills of French (trade, Guild Hall, cheaper units, cheaper techs, faster vill production) and English (enclosure). In regards of economic power, however, I think it would be better to nerf French and English (have enclosure tick every 5 seconds instead of 3.5 = 60 farms → 720 g/minute), leave the HRE and Rus where they are, and buff the remaining civs in accordance to their other boni.

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Yeah, that is why I said in another thread that the HRE is much better early game vs late Abbasid. Funny enough if you ever played total war one of the weaknesses for the HRE in that game is: “Lacks the late professional armies of England and Spain”

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