This is about endgame stats. When civs are at their best. It’s not really about anything before that, as these are different topics: One is how well does a civ do in early to mid and the other is what can a civ do in imperial, what are their options? I want this to be about the latter part.
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So, Camel Riders now end up with 400 hp, 8/5 armor while being light units, they have 1.87 speed, deal 25 damage against anything and 46 damage against cavalry on a 1.12 attack speed. Before they dealt 19 dmg against anything plus 16 vs cav leading to 35 dmg vs cav. They just got 11 more dmg vs cavalry and 6 more against anything else.
These are INSANE buffs.
This unit is rather cheap, has absolutely no clear weaknesses anymore and is probably overpowered now.
Then after 75 buildings Abba get 15% damage to melee infantry that also affects bonus damage (ofc, why wouldn’t it, right?). Let’s see what this does:
Abba already get 15% hp for all infantry units flat. They have Phalanx and Camel support, which gives plus 2/2 armor to all infantry units (and is pretty much always active in a battle). Their archers shoot on a 1.25 delay, which is unrivaled. And now they also get 15% damage globally and permanently for all melee units AND it affects, just like it is the case with Camel Riders, the bonus damage. Ghulams are now on 298 hp with 20 damage (remember, their attack is special, so this is a huge buff in general, but especially vs light units) on 10/11 armor. Spearmen are 185 hp with Phalanx, 19 damage and a whooping +32 (+37 with EAT) bonus vs cav instead of +28 (+32 with EAT). Plus the other changes they got for eco and production aren’t terrible at all. They are maybe not mind bogglingly amazing, but they do something meaningful. They do their part. It eventually makes sense, the civ makes sense.
The buffs to the army of Abba are pretty damn insane, when they actually didn’t need any of that but help in Feudal.
So what can we say? Devs are spitting out crazy buffs, it’s so fun.
Unless… Yeah, unless you like HRE. When it’s about HRE the fun suddenly becomes something that isn’t allowed anymore as you only get useless stuff, with the uni discount being the only change that is not useless or terrible, but also totally unecessary and doesn’t help one bit.
I listed up what the patch did to Abba. But then look at Inspired Warriors. It just isn’t allowed to be a slightly less terrible mechanic AND have 15%, while it also doesn’t improve bonus damage of units, because that would be op, right devs? When it’s HRE, everything is always so super op, so you need to be very careful with that civ, correct? Giving LKs +5 health was already crazy risky for the health and balance of the game, am I rite? Totally.
HRE only has basic stats, no bonus hp anywhere, no useful unique units, no good synergies. How is that comparable or fair?
Bonuses of HRE in a nutshell:
10% movement speed for infantry that isn’t really meaningful in imp anymore, when many civs can get a 15% speed increase or simply have a different kind of power creep that is way more efficient and relevant.
+2 damage for basic MAA and +6 extra against heavy armor. Yeah, that’s vanilla release stuff and still one of the outdated and untrue arguments that is to shatter any attempt to give HRE something nice. “What are you talking about, HRE MAA are op”… is what is mindlessly iterated in the AoE 4 discourse. Yes man, 208 hp 8/8 armor and 22 damage MAA with 28 vs heavy is just soo good. What great stats. This would be true, if HRE was the only civ in the game and all the other broken stuff from other civs didn’t exist. Alas, that’s not the case.
What else is there? Oh yeah, if you want to focus on military and not on this boring Aachen mechanic, which leaves your army at the two MAA techs and literally nothing else (aside from IW), you go for Meinwerk. Mmmh, Meinwerk and the 2 damage for Spears and Horsemen. So good. In feudal. But after that it doesn’t really make a difference anymore, since other civs simply have better stuff or get effects like Awl pikes randomly through other stuff in their versatile roster. What else? Right, Steel Barding, which gives 2/2 armor to knights (and Black Riders, which would be cool, were this unit not absolutely useless and terribly cost inefficient). So their basic knights have 10/10 armor on 338 hp. Yeah, sounds good on paper, but is terrible in comparison to other stuff, since - as I have already pointed out - HRE is not the only civ in this game. It’s not about 2/2 armor for knights being bad, it is cool, but there also is nothing else. That’s just it. And that’s where the issues lie.
And then there is this inspired warriors travesty, which I already talked about. Still the worst mechanic in the game, slow, still tedious and the effect has been nerfed. It also doesn’t affect bonus damage, which is the case for both of the Abba buffs. Just saying.
To sum it up: Two MAA techs, two Landmark dependent mediocre techs for the army and an even worse IW that still doesn’t work well in combat and has such a weak buff now, that pros like Beasty do not even bother going for it, despite so many people saying that this qol stuff is so good now. Well, it’s not. These people probably do not play HRE often and have no experience how inferior its roster eventually is compared to other civs.
Make it make sense to me. I’d appreciate any attempt of trying to explain to me, why other civs are allowed to have really strong stuff and great synergies, while this terribly designed and Landmark dependent HRE, which is supposed to rush to imp to get universtiy upgrades early (which simply doesn’t work that way) to then see further with their dogshit army, is not? Because I simply do not get it. For me it is clear civ bias and an obvious sign that the devs do not care for HRE and maybe even hate it, which would be very weird as this is their game and their civ and their design. But for some reason, when it comes to HRE, the devs think that the worst is still too good for HRE. And I want to get it. It makes no sense to me.
How can anyone properly explain this patch to me, without telling me that HRE can run 10% faster in feudal, that their MAA can kill everything (yeah, 3 years ago maybe), has Aachen, can get imp for cheaper and have infinite gold with Regnitz (they get 800 gpm at best, that is midfield in terms of passive income in this game). All of this is nothing compared to other civs.
The biggest crippling factor for HRE is that it gets its eco bonus almost fully in feudal already. That’s the huge design flaw that ruins everything else.
The devs have a lot of work to do with HRE, but they simply don’t do it. That’s all I can take away from this.