HRE is not offering a lot nowadays. It’s especially dull in mid castle and imp. In imp there is only one unique tech and it’s for buildings. The civ has no power comp and the identity has suffered a lot. It’s an outdated civ that requires more attention, which is true for many older civs. But HRE imo has the poorest roster of them all. I have already thought of more complex ways to improve HRE, but this here is a rather careful attempt at not changing too much (with that I mean fundamentals), but still a lot for the civ after Feudal, as they lack any actual unique strengths and are just so generic.
Some ideas to improve HRE and give it more identity:
- Add an imp tech called “Marienburg missive” to Keeps and Elzbach. This tech allows building the Teutonic Knight in barracks and reduces costs for prelates by 25% as well as increase inspired warriors duration by 50% (so 90 seconds altogether). Inspired warriors should also affect bonus damage, not just raw damage. As a nice cosmetic addition, prelates could get a Teutonic cross on their Robe after researching this tech.
Reason for this: The TK should be a HRE unit anyway and it would also synergize well with it and its original idea. It simply makes a lot of sense. And why not have shared unique units, if it makes sense? Besides: Every AoE 4 civ that also exists in AoE 2 has got their unique AoE 2 unit, except HRE (and French, but they got a Unique knight and a unique CB instead and actually were rewarded with better unique units than it is the case in AoE2).
- Add a tech to the monastery available in Castle age called “Sacred Bones”: Pay 1000 gold to produce 1 relic. You can get up to three relics this way, if they are stolen they are stolen and you can’t produce new ones. Each new relic costs 50% more. So the second one would be 1500 gold. And the third one 2250. The idea is to not be completely deprived of a fundamental civ bonus, should you not get any relics from the map. The numbers might need tweaking, this is just an idea. This would also put further emphasis on the HRE Religion tag.
- Add another monastery tech in imp called “Fervor”. The more hurt a unit is, the faster it attacks. Below: 75% hp = +10% attack speed, below 50% hp = +20% attack speed, and below 25% = +30% attack speed. Numbers are just examples. Could also be 10/15/20.
- Get rid of the current keep requirement for the Black Rider. Instead: As long as you have at least one keep, you can build the Black Rider.
- Buff the Landsknecht in a meaningful manner, so he doesn’t die as quickly and is actually worth 100 gold. More hp (+30 = 135 altogether, which is still low), a bit more armor (start with 1/1) and a passive that allows him to take reduced bonus damage (-50%). He should also be ONLY available in imp as he is a pure Renaissance soldier and should not be available in castle age.
The Landsknecht would then synergize well with the TK debuff aura and his tankiness, while MAA and Spearmen would also be passively buffed by a diverse comp. This should help the HRE to get a powerful comp that also gives them an identity with punch as an infantry focused civ. Especially since TKs would benefit from marching drills, making them only slightly slower than a normal MAA with 1.12 speed (namely 1.078). Affording many TKs and LKs will be very gold intensive, so if HRE is far ahead in resources, they would now have a powerful comp to go for.
- Add a new (old) baseline Castle age tech called “Riveted Chainmail” to the blacksmith and have it increase hp by 10 and armor by 1/1 for every human military unit. This is available to Meinwerk and Aachen play. Make it expensive enough so it’s difficult to get it early while doing a Burger all-in with Aachen.
- Add an imp tech to the siege workshop or University called “Feldschlange” that allows Culverins to deal pass through damage during the last two tiles before hitting the mark. It won’t be game breaking, but a nice little extra. And if you want to focus units, it’s worth to target the back row rather than the front row with this tech.
- Take away 50% from the Burgrave’s production speed, but have it reduce costs of infantry by 1% for every minute up to 10 minutes after building it. So after 10 minutes after aging up to castle age, Burgrave reduces costs for infantry by 10% globally. That way a Burger rush would not become fundamentally stronger, but Burger would become a more useful landmark for the rest of the game.
- Change Fire Stations to something useful like ships take 25% less damage at or below 25% hp. Move it to castle age. This would also be in line with what the tech suggests to be: To reduce further damage, after being damaged.
All of this more or less resembles qualities of the HRE, thus can be historically justified, and gives the civ a stronger identity especially in imp, because their imp is just so devoid of identity and uniqueness. In Castle age they lose access to the LK, but gain Riveted Chainmail. The LK becomes a foe to be afraid off, fully upgraded with Riveted Chainmail he’d have 167 hp, 5/5 armor (1/1 baseline, 1/1 from RC and 3/3 from bs), while taking less bonus dmg and I think that this would be a good spot for an imp only 100 gold unit that is supposed to deal damage. He’d be more durable than a spearman, which should definitely be the case for a 100 gold melee unit. The LK needs buffs and +5 hp simply don’t cut it. And should this prove to be too strong, rather reduce his dmg by 1 than his survivability. Because what good is all the damage, when it’s never dealt?
These changes are directly aimed at giving HRE more identity without trying to reinvent the wheel as well as improve their civ qualities. Numbers are examples to paint a clearer picture of what I mean.
TL;DR: New castle age tech for HRE making their units a bit more durable. An new imperial keep/Elzbach tech which enables the Teutonic knight in barracks, reduces prelate costs and improves inspired warriors. Two new monastery techs: One is imperial and increases attack speed of units the closer they are to dying. The other one allows you to produce up to 3 relics for a hefty price that gets successively higher and is available in castle age. The Black Rider becomes more accessible, Burgrave becomes a tiny bit more useful for later stages of the game, the Culverin gets a fitting unique tech and Fire Stations stops being the worst tech in the whole game.
Use (some of) this to make OotD more interesting as well 