Hi all,
As per latest patch the Devs have clearly indicated that they would like to see religious units join their military friends on the battlefield. I’ve actually considered to report this as a bug. Perhaps @SavageEmpire566 can clarify if this even is intentional.
https://www.ageofempires.com/news/age-of-empires-iv-server-side-patch-12973/
However, I feel, and I know from the AoE IV Discord that many are with me on this, a mechanical issue remains present that causes people to refrain from adding religious units to their front lines:
When you (attack) move religious units they will not inspire and not heal any brethren they encounter. Instead: they will walk up to the point you a clicked, passing through the front lines, get behind the enemy lines and die as martyr for their cause.
Since this precious units are too expensive, so slow, to fragile to be wasted like this, people rather keep them at home. Do we want more religious units on the battle field? Cause them to aid their allies when (attack) moved.
Discuss.
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suicidal monk for christianity!
Now THIS IS the realism i wanted from aoe4 
Not joking now , it should be fixed asap
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So does this mean there’s no hope for them removing religious units when selecting all military? Still something that messes me up after 200 games played. I know I need to get out of the habit of using select all military to begin with but sometimes when I’m in certain situations I need to use it quickly and forget I have a monk capturing a sacred site or bringing a relic back home and next thing you know I have all my religious units on the front lines with me when I wanted them doing other things.
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It’s indeed a very annoying aspect in the game right now. Even with the Rus, the Warrior monk is very hard to micro if you would like to use it properly - and that unit even start to auto attack enemy if you notice it too late…
The only thing more annoying is probably the Imperial Official Chinese unit, who willingly walks into its death - everything to collect the tax, there is nothing more important 
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I always have my monks (well scholars in my case) on a separate grouping and always give them new orders right after ordering my military around.
What I don’t like is how they’ll stop healing units who go too far away from the spot at which they were ordered to heal. So for example, I have a wounded elephant and tell my scholars to heal it and then I tell my elephant to move. They’ll follow it and try to heal it for a few tiles and then just give up and move back to their original location. I just don’t understand why that would be the case, even if the target is not at full health…
@KiezelSteentjeh you’re not wrong here, and this (heal move) is in discussion.
I believe there was at least one or two outstanding units (Warrior Monk, maybe?) that had this problem, but the aim is that “Select all Military” should not select religious units. Hopefully any remaining stragglers here will be fixed in the next update.
This is also something the team is looking into.
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Thanks, the response is much appreciated. Already looking forward to this update 
To expand upon the “Select all army” which includes religious unit you said, quote: “there was at least one or two outstanding units that had this [religious units being selected when selecting all army] problem”. Did I get that right?
Every faction always selects all religious units when selecting all army. I just tested this vs AI: HRE, French, Mongol and RUS all included the spears + religious unit when pressing the hotkeys to select all army.
Hence, quote: “Any remaining stagglers here will be fixed” feels odd to me: there are no stagglers. It is consistent in game play at the moment. The system sees religious units as army. No exceptions.
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Could be the other way around, where Warrior Monk was the one exception. Either way, the team is on it .
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@SavageEmpire566 I think besides monks scouts should also NOT be included in the select all military units shortcut.
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scouts make sense for me to be included. Only early game they tend to deviate a lot from the main fighting force. But there it is manageable with micro. I’m more worried about (1) ships being included in select all army and (2) units always walking information when near others, causing select all army and a move command to slow down all rallied cavalry and infantry because there is 1 springald nearby.
I know Warcraft had an in game toggle to turn formations on or off, but frankly nobody ever has it on. I believe they didn’t even bother to have this toggle in SC2 because, well, nobody every uses unit formations. Which strangely is the default for AoE games and no option to turn it off.
Yeah this is spot on. Honestly there’s just a general issue with the unit behaviour and AI in this game that makes certain tactics incredibly micro heavy. Using religious units effectively is one of them – it is way beyond me to handle while everything else is going on. Relic really need to try and make units a bit smarter in general, and this is one of the best examples.
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I think with the new patrol function it is also not good to include scouts later in thr game with the select all military units shortcut because when you then move the selected army the scout no longer patrols.
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Thank you all for the continued feedback—we’re definitely watching this discussion.
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