One of the factions i’m the most excited to see on AOE4 is the Holy Roman Empire( HRE for shorta great example of real life bordergore and immense political and cultural complexity. It seems like it will be a defensive civilization like the Teutons in AOE2. The economy will be boosted by priests, they will have access to the infamous Landsknecht, their defenses will be reinforced, but i feel like they could be more!
I don’t have any idea of what the dev team has in mind for this faction, which might be completely different from what i’m going to say, but hear me out:
What if the HRE had a system similar to the Chinese dynasty one, but with their own characteristics? For example, what about an imperial election system where you have to choose from a batch of dynasties, each one of them with unique playstyles, bonuses, units and buildings? The Holy Roman Empire was an elective monarchy afterall.
What do you guys think? I’d love to see your peeps thoughts and ideas on this topic as well.
I think it should have more than two unique units to be worth our consideration. Hopefully there are more they are just not telling us about.
Both of their unique units exist in other forms in the franchise. Their prelate sounds just like a Priestess of Ra from the Egyptians in AoEO (heals and buffs economic production, available in Age 1) and its Landsknecht is just like a Champion from the Celts in AoEO (two-handed sword, area of effect damage).
So that is seriously essentially two AoEO units stapled onto a uniform AoE2 civ? That’s a huge step backwards from the asymmetry this franchise has so lovingly fed us for the last 18 years.
Indeed, they really need more work on that part. Units other than the Landsknecht that come to mind are Imperial Knights and Reiters. I think the later would be very interesting in game as a gunpowder cavalry unit, but historically they only really become a thing after the timespan in which the HRE is represented in game.
Imperial Knights apparently were a thing but i don’t have much information on them.
A third option would be for the HRE to have access to mercenaries, as they historically relied a lot on them to fill their ranks. This is funny because it reminds me that theoretically, the Swiss Pikemen mercenaries should have been included for the HRE (Switzerland was part of the Holy Roman Empire, but their mercs were kind of all over the place in Europe), but they seriously disliked the Landsknecht.
I wish the HRE had a system like Reichstag or something that symbolises the complex political system of the Empire.
I hope the none German parts of the Empire are somehow represented.
Will we have Italian or Czech speaking units?
Or just like the unit with the same name from AoE3.
I too wish the civilisations had a big more unique units.
But I feel like some previous AoE/AoM games did overdo it.
Why do all none Europeans need to have essentially 100% unique units that are often just the same as the Europeans with only minimally different stats. At that point the thing that AoE4 does with a unique skin and maybe 1-2 unique technologies for the unit makes them basically a unique unit in AoE3 standards.
I hope AoE4 will ad a mercenary system later.
Maybe something that works like a mix between AoE3 Natives and Mercenaries.
You have mercenary camps on the map that you can capture that allow you to build a limited amount of mercenary units that cost a lot of gold but 0 population.
Than we could have a Swiss Mercenary camp for example.
Swiss Pikeman: Heavy anti cavalry Infantry
That would be something unique that no civilisation has but it can’t be OP because you can only have like 10 of them.
It’s really just the same exact AoEIII unit with the same AOE damage. Only with a less sharp appearance and most likely a lack of portrait as well. The more I see in this game, the more I realize that AoEIII already does the same and more things in a better way.
It was also in AOE3 (kinda anachronistic like most of the game’s unit pool). Same form: Infantry with area of effect dmg.
As a german I find the voice lines very cringy. Not at all what someone would yell in battle. It also sounds like modern german (Hochdeutsch)…not sure if that fits the time frame they try to represent here
For everybody wondering: “Landsknecht” contains the “ch” pronounced like the scottish “ch” in “Loch”. Slightly press the tongue up til you have friction and try to pronounce an “h”… if that helps you guys x]
A gentle “k” or “g” sounds fine as a replacement, no “sch” sound though. Anglo youtubers twist their tongues in agony (poor SoTL : SoTL - Rus and HRE breakdown) and often come up with something similar to “Landschneckt” which sounds like “Landschnecke” (literally land-snail). The german language is our only functional weaponsystem left these days, please handle with care and under expert supervision.
I prefered the AOE3 depiction. Especially the way they handled the sword. More flamboyant and with weight behind it. Also the thing is not meant for carry on the hip. Thats why the cocky depictions mostly show them shouldering it or having it upright on the ground.
Let alone that even on the hip, they carry it almost horizontally instead at an angle which doesn’t make a lot of sense. That would bang into all kinds of things.
I like how AoEIII has worked on different and distinct stances, silhouettes and grips which helps with readability as well.
In my opinion, the Holy Roman Empire should have similar mechanics to the Dynasty available to civ Chinese. I think the perfect name would be the Elector. A country would be chosen that would be our Elector. For example, for each Age, there would be 3 different countries to choose from, e.g.
Brandenburg, Burgundy, Bohemia, Saxony, Switzerland, Austria, Bavaria, the Hanseatic League, Teutonic Order, Pomerania, Silesia and Westphalia.
Each of these countries would offer Unique Units, unique Mechanics or bonuses - for example:
Bohemia - Hussite Wagon unit, or Bavaria - Oktoberfest: all units regain health at the expense of food, or Silesia - bonus: faster getting resources from the mine
Thus, each Age Up for HRE civ would be completely different. In each of them we would choose what we want: Unique Unit, Unique Mechanics or maybe a Bonus?
Landsknecht, since it was a common unit throughout the HRE, would be their default Unique Unit.
It does though because if difference is big enough it means that certain units can by useful in situations where they wouldn’t be without special upgrades. Also every nation has different look of their base units.
Obviously it’s enough for you. I’m used to Age civs with a lot more going on. The things you have named need to be there but so do a large number of other things.
Maybe not, they did hire some of the swiss to train their landschneckt during the early years so they could be compatible I guess. Though the french hired swiss mercs more than anyone else tbh, but for the purposes of this game I guess it doesn’t really matter. So long as the gameplay is good I will be happy.
I believe as a general strategy, they will be a towerrush-civilization. Grab some land early on, fortify it, make navigating the map very complicated, messy and pricey for everyone, hope to get there with infantry and siege. Also known as: Ranged units? I build castles Let’s see how it turns out
Now we know quite a bit about the HRE from the Beta. And if that is the state for the release version of the civ, enthusiasts (especially me) will be very disappointed. There ist a lot of stuff just wrong about this civ and it is altogether inferior to others in regards of uniqueness, mechanics, synergies, indentity and strengths. It barely offers anything interesting. All the positive sentiment in regards of the HRE during Beta stems from the fact that it has a strong early economy. Over this the issue that this civ is lacking and lackluster in so many aspects has been mostly overlooked it seems. For me the HRE’s Beta state is literally pathetic. And more so when compared to other civs.
I would like to refer to my thread in which I listed up what is wrong with the HRE and presented some ideas what could have been or could be done about it. In my opinion it becomes obvious that this civ is unfinished and broken:
: 
Let’s see how it turns out 