What are the benefits of FC?
On one hand, the gold/min tooltip on Regnitz is bugged. You are actually getting 300gold/min per relic iirc. This is why FC is optimal for HRE. I might be wrong but its definitely not 100. This bonus is among the strongest gold gens in the game (rus would need 12 hunting cabins just to get on par with a single relic).
On the other hand, I’d say HRE have a weak feudal because it takes them on average 20-30 seconds more to clickup, due to prelate timings. So other civilization can harrass earlier. On top of that, being infantry centered your pushes are also slower and have to wait for castle for true punch. IMO archers + rams is the strongest feudal push.
Proper fast castle timings are between 8-11 minutes. Your fastest ones will be on hybrid or water maps. Check my build vs french on Boulder Bay.
You should be able to survive horsemen and early feudal spear/ram pushes with a single archery range, while I’d get 2 archery ranges to defend vs heavy feudal aggro. I’ll even add a stable to deal with archers and rams all ins. Get a few scouts to burn down the ram, without exposing vills.
Heavy woodlines from an enemy often means you are going to need to delay your castle and Disclosure Fan already pointed out the very important vills on stone.
How to deal with English or Abbassid all ins
Here I’ll explain why I prefer to get archeries over barracks in feudal for defense. You need to support your infantry vs cav and archers during castle. So this buildings are useful later in the game to get crossbows and archers.
That said, first let’s discuss Abassid. A good Abbasid will migrate early to your side of the map, proxy barracks and steal berries while building towers in dark/feudal. HRE is stuck going FC in the current meta so they will take a lot of economic liberties through map control (fish, berries, totally decentralized base, walls on chokes). Feudal all ins normally involve military wing and a camel might show up to get the spears armor up.
DO NOT fight abassid spears with HRE spears. They have more dps because they have more range and connect more attacks.
Spears suck at harrassing your economy. Take a prelate and 8 villagers to a far away deer or shore fish. Another eco group to a far gold too. Focus on getting to castle. Defeat the enemy with MAA. Just be careful with Abbasid villagers scouting you and building outposts.
VS English, detect the all in asap. No gold, no stone, blacksmith and an aditional mil building are symptoms. Great players will send their villagers too. Longbows + rams with a few spears, maa or horsemen is the magnus opus of ram pushes.
Your job is to delay the push by building outposts and walls at the direction of the opponent, right after chokes or forests. Just fight longbows with your archers if you have an outpost, they will kite your archers and kill them all.
By the time the push reaches your base you should have 3-4 outposts around your tc and woodline. You can migrate other vills to a far away deer or gold. You already have 5-8 scouts built from the stable, and a decent archer force. Garrison military units on outposts and try to keep vills active. Get 3-5 horsemen for a timing push on the longbows were your dps are your archers and the horsemen are distraction/force longbows off camps.
Meinwerk IMO is the only good option for feudal. I’ll rant about this later, but it helps you deal with all ins.
Regarding harrasing, is it a thing for HRE?
You can always punish a two tc player with Archers on feudal, and transition into MAA once you get castle.
Not really with Horsemen. HRE cavalry is not good as an investment and archers are better support for your infantry later in the game. You just delay your castle age.
You can go double stable into horsemen, but without an actual civ bonus on cavalry, this is just a weaker version of a viable build.
Other strategies?
Burgrave is actually viable, but its an all in vs two tc players. The mind trap is only building it. You can build 2-3 extra barracks for a timing push at 9-10 mins with 8 maa waves. You drop wood and only get pierce armor tier one and no wood upgrades. Get siege engineers and melee attack then melee armor both tiers.
Get your first prelate on game start. His blessing is not channeled, so you can micro the prelate early game to get the most out of your economy. Another prelate as soon as you place your landmark. Try and align your sheep with the woodline.
Meinwerk is actually better than chapel because the chapel drops off quickly early castle as the woodline and gold run out. Its also an economic landmark indirectly because of the heavy discounts it gives to tech. It also allows you to go poke the enemy with earlier military upgrades.