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Build Number: Since release.
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Platform: Steam / Microsoft Store / Xbox / PlayStation: All platforms.
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Operating System: Windows 11 / Windows 10 / Windows 8 / Windows 7 / Mac / Linux: All OS.
Issue: Every percentage based buff/debuff I tested affects bonus damage of units as well. The (way too strong, because it makes units literally useless for a long time) Buddhist monk debuff or the Kurultai. But the inspired warriors buff does only affect normal damage. That doesn’t make any sense, there need to be clear rules that are being followed, especially since HRE has by far the weakest and least unique army in the game that barely represents this civ aside from some European medieval commonplaces + whatever the Landsknecht is supposed to be. What I take out of this is that this has to be a bug. Why should some percentage based damage buffs affect bonus damage and others not? Inspired warriors isn’t particularly strong, has a mediocre mechanic to be applied (no other mechanic is built around being single target like this, most of them are just easy to apply aoe effects), it is pretty much inferior to all the other temporary or situational buffs in the game and then suffers from shortcomings like not affecting bonus damage on top of it. There is absolutely no reason for different rules for identical effects. Hence my conclusion that this has to be a bug. Maybe these buffs were originally not intended to affect bonus damage and then inspired warriors was simply forgotten to be adjusted accordingly. I don’t know. That’s why I wanted to report it.
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Addendum regarding the state of the game:I generally feel like that HRE is the one civ the devs tried the least to get right. I studied European history and when I play HRE, I do not get HRE. Not at all. There is this theme of pious and industrious people that almost peaks as early as feudal already (which is a problematic design, hence all the nerfs over the years), but that’s it. Aachen, the seat of Charlemagne, is basically just a mill on steroids. No prince elector system, no sales of indulgences eco mechanic, no Archbishops, no Emperor, no ties to the Teutonic Order (HRE is the civ that makes the most sense, way more than KT when talking about the peak of the Teutonic Order and their endeavors in the area that was later called Prussia, which was after the KT were already disbanded), no Marienburg, the Landsknecht is not a Renaissance (imp) only unit with a heavy Doppelsöldner variation and synergy effects to build your HRE army around, but a suicidal, very cost inefficient waste of a unit that has no proper role and definitely should not be available in the castle age, there are barely any good techs at all for this civ that focus on military, most units are basic and generic, no Solingen steelworks, the city of blades… And the most useless tech in the game: Fire Stations. This tech is so bad, it should be removed tbh. I don’t even want it for free.
I am disappointed, but I don’t mean this in an offensive way: I honestly have no idea why this civ is called HRE. It doesn’t deserve the name, the clunkily gated Black Rider doesn’t make it right either. It’s a plain, synergies and cool mechanics lacking civ built around landmarks and inspiration and was nerfed a lot over the past months and years, so it’s more or less left with nothing. OotD suffers from this as well, there is nothing OotD about OotD, just a clunky times two concept on a dumbed down HRE. There is no Elite army, no unique mecanics, no synergies, just basic units x2. OotD even has the HRE coat of arms, not the OotD one, while the HRE doesn’t have a coat of arms at all. There is almost nothing right about these civs and it annoys me personally a lot. There are vanilla civs, there are newer civs and then there is the HRE/OotD in its own category because there is not a single civ that is as far away from what it wants to be as these civs. Please try to be as historically accurate as you can. There are many many many cases of severe errors or inconsistencies in this game (e.g. KT not having gunpowder (which is great), but Macedonians do. How? Or the fact that the peak of heavy cavalry, the Renaissance knight, is among the weakest heavy cav units in the game now, because inferior units like Riddari, Cataphracts, Imperial guards, mounted Samurais… have gotten such exaggerated stats. Or the Byzantine merc system, which is based around 80% of the units not having ANYTHING to do with the Byzantine empire). For people like me that really care about the historical resemblances of the civs, this is really tough.
I know new civs are selling points, but adding in more and more civs, while forgetting to stay true to the core of the game, is in my opionion not the way to give this game the longevity it could have. I very much hope that you continue to work on the older civs in depth, so the difference in quality and power doesn’t become too great (which it already is, the lategame balance is simply not there anymore, the gaps are too wide now. Any civ that can dominate lategame by massing only ONE unit (that then also fares well enough against its hard counters) or with a certain comp (like Ottoman) should be looked at in depth).
And for that the game’s ruleset and counter system needs to be properly respected, historical accuracy needs to be coherent and applied wherever possible, when gameplay allows it. This is a great game and DLCs should make it greater. But considering the last two DLCs I have a very strong feeling that the direction of the game has become quite erratic. Units like Szlachtas and Sengoku mounted Samurais counter their counter and I don’t get why, since they are already absurdly better than basic knights when there is no reason at all that they should be better (same with Cataphracts, but they at least have steeper costs). There are units and comps that when massed demolish everything and are just way more cost and pop effcient than the armies of other civs. Macedonians and their blacksmiths upgrades are just a lategame bane, better base stats for pretty much all the units (Riddari cost the same as knights, but are so much better and beat knights in 1v1 blind folded and one handed… why?) and a much higher potential than university civs (the def upgrades giving 30% hp and +6/6 armor are way too much), so absolutely overtuned because an overpowered potential cannot be balanced by high costs, when this only applies to a handful civs and not all of them. This also makes it almost impossible to buff Macedonian eco, because you need to pretty much nerf everything about their army then.
I am really passionate about this game, but I am not convinced anymore that I like the direction the game seems to be taking. And therefore I hope very much that 2026 will be a good year for AoE4. More coherence, more respect to vanilla civs, more respect for history in general and simply more respect to the game’s own rules with less exaggerated stats (which would require some units and aspects to be rebalanced). Every civ should have a miliatry identity consisting of unique units, mechanics and synergies. But as it stands, there is quite the difference in that regard. Especially with short lived variants being so much more versatile and unique than the actual civs. Except China. China was the only vanilla civ that has gotten a proper treatment as they are still, after all the DLCs, one of the civs that are strong in every aspect of the game. Army, eco, unique units, synergies, techs, versatility, scaleability, power… But the rest of the vanilla civs are not on that level. And HRE and OotD lead the charts of the civs that have gotten the real short end with JD being too close to French, while suffering the fundamental fault of being a civ based on a person. That’s just so alien to the Age of franchise and should be disregared as an idea in general. That’s why I also hope that the likely JD rework removes JD altogether and turns it into a proper variant. Burgundy comes to mind.
I think I’ll stop here. Thanks for reading and happy Christmas holidays.
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Trigger Event: It’s an inherent inconsistency in the game’s ruleset.
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Repro Steps: By playing the game. Every percentage based mechanic or tech needs to be looked into as there may be more inconsistencies. I don’t remember if Geometry was fixed, but for the longest time this tech did not affect bonus damage, which made/makes it quite the useless tech, since trebs are all about bonus damage.
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