Marching Drills, Meinwerk, Burgrave

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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Why is it that all other capable civs give a 15% bonus to movement speed and Marching drills is only 10%? I do not get it. Mongol yam applies to all units and is 15%. Yuan dynasty needs to a bit to get there, but eventually it buffs movement speed for all units at all times by 15%. Sofas increase movement speed of infantry by 15%. Mehter increases movement speed of all units by… 15%.
But Marching Drills only applies to infantry and prelates, but is stuck with 10%. Why is that? I feel like it should be upped to 15% as well. It could then either be moved to castle or made a tad bit more expensive to offset the buff. I just don’t see a reason why it shouldn’t be 15%. It would help HRE a lot especially against kiting crossbows and the likes, which is a pain to deal with as HRE for there are little reasons to go ranged yourself since other civs ranged abilites are outright better. And it’s also not like archers protect MAA from crossbows. That is just not how it works.

Meinwerk: While I really like the new techs, it continues to be way inferior than Aachen. The HRE eco is too reliant on Aachen and should be buffed in a way that allows Meinwerk play without trading off so much of the eco power. Maybe allow prelates to be built at the TC without stopping vil production. Or increase their effectiveness, so one prelate can buff more vils than only 8. Meinwerk is more fun to use, but it just doesn’t pay off since the eco is so much weaker compared to an Aachen start. In lategame it is also very annoying to position your prelates in a way to somewhat compensate Aachen. It’s very tedious. I think their could be some improvements to be done. By moving riveted chainmail to Meinwerk, Aachen also lost a military tech for lategame making the HRE army with Aachen very boring and kinda weak leading to spamming a lot of bombard towers. It’s very disheartening that a lot of unique techs for HRE are just never to be used.

And Burgrave is just a lame and boring landmark. It’s a low elo killer and all-in landmark, but nothing else. It should get a complete rework. There is nothing good or satisfying about this landmark, it’s just win or die. And that does not compliment this game. You ruin yourself for the lategame with it and only get a small window in which you might beat some of the civs. Just get rid of its all-in character and make it more interesting, I’d say. So that it is the player’s choice to go Regnitz or Burgrave instead of the map or the opponent being the deciding factor.

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the reason is simple:
Marching drill is a 1 time investment, and you have permanent 10% movement speed for ALL infantry units.

You do not need to invest resources into “supportive unit” or “structure” with a limited area aura that effects it.

Sofa only gives 15% movement speed if units are grouped up (move in formation) with Sofas.
Same thing with the mether. Mether cost a Vizier point ontop of it all.
A mether and a Sofa also cost a fair amount fo resources.

And Yam network is limited by Towers and has a wood cost + Villager idle time to put up.

Marching drill is superior simply for the fact they this permanently, without the need of something buffing them, with a 1 time upgrade cost.

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Then make it more expensive or move it up an age. And the Mehter is not an investment, it comes for free with time. The Vizier point is not a currency for all civs, but an Otto specific, so there is no real trade off, just a choice between boni. And it is by no means the only bonus the Mehter has, as he offers several situational buffs on top of the speed and is quite tanky and fast himself. Yam and Yuan apply to ALL units, not just infantry. The only comparable mechanic is the Sofa, which Malians kinda always go for because it is their frontline. I still think very much that 15% for HRE inf is in line and balanced. Esp. considering how powerful ranged units are against infantry. In order to be a choice, the Meinwerk could be offering an improved version of Marching Drills, while Aachen sticks with the 10% version.

Imo 10% is too little with all the changes in the past months to other civs, so HRE could definitely use some more nice things. The HRE army, when you go meta with Aachen, is already the most lackluster and weakest one. There are barely any boni for the army aside from MD and two MAA upgrades. All the other units are pretty much baseline and Inspried Warriors is meh.

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I think marching drill is alr perfectly fine, along with HRE’s landmarks, which, imo, one of the best set of landmarks comparing to other civs (may be only after Eng after last patch buff). I would take Meinwork and burgrave over at least half of Chinese landmarks any day. You can’t just point to other civs and cry that you wanna have it all. Or else, everyone will just start pointing at HRE having the most OP economy, and cry their civ should have it too. The proposal that Prelate can be trained without intervening the vills time is just ridiculous.

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Personally I would only use Meinwerk Palace for Team or FFA games, since its unique technologies that give bonuses to spearmen and Cavalry have more weight at 3rth and 4th age, and you need an ally or at least be isolated enough to be able to survive the 2nd age without the Aachen Chapel.

While in ranked 1vs1, the Aachen Chapel is my favorite choice, because it gives you more room to maneuver for 2nd and 3rd age fights. The counter is that In the long run, the Aachen Chapel already at 4th age loses its effectiveness, to the point that it can be replaced by 2 monks and only to boost farm crops in a small area. However, the bonus it gives you and the time it saves you in advancing to 3rd age is incomparable, specially in ranked 1vs1.

About Marched Drills, I like the technology, but I always wonder why only 10% speed. I guess if it was 15% the early (2nd age) men-at-arms would be so fast that they would be able to chase down archers without any retaliation, completely eliminating the need and use of horsemen. On the other hand, as other users comment, "it is a permanent bonus", therefore it does not depend on situational or positionally placed units.

In fact, it would be good to take note of that fact, so for “Civ Concepts”, let’s consider that unique or passive technology bonuses should never exceed Aura bonuses, which are situational.

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I liked the old version of Burgrave, Reignitz used it very little, unless I have the relics quite close to my base…

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Mehter is an investment because it can be killed.

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Come on guys, HRE hasn’t gotten anything of late. Meinwerk is nice, but kinda useless, because the eco is so much worse. Rus just got a cost reduction on Boyar’s Fortitude and a 50% effectiveness increase. And the power of Kremlin militia is insane. English got everything you wanna wish for + 2 new unique units in age IV (not counting the King) unless you rather wanna ruin the oppoent’s day with Berkshire. The Mehter is pretty damn overpowered. He is an investment once you have to build him, yes, but who wouldn’t go for this kind of investment? It’s such an insane boost with so much versatility making Inspired Warriors look pathetic in comparison and it also counters marching drills. The Mehter is so hard to kill, esp. for a melee civ. I would trade IW and Marching Drills vs Mehter any day. Delhi has insane power with ToV or a very strong eco buff with their Scholars landmark. On top of that Elephants were overhauled massively. Chinese are drowning in uniqueness. Mongols can be played on every map and are very versatile. Abbasids grow stronger and stronger with time, their eco eventually is better than Aachen HRE and they have the best trash units in the game. And Malians are just reigning supreme with mere archers and scouts. HRE, however, has weak feudal MAA that are way too expensive for what they bring (low elo players struggle, but that’s it) and the English outperform them in that regard anyway. Then they got the Regnitz FC with which you might get a strong eco, but have the weakest army in the game. Or you play Burgrave rush and again beat most low elo players, since this landmark is overtuned to offset all the HRE weaknesses, leading to a potential overwhelming force for most opponents (one of the reasons why I hate this landmark). And Meinwerk is actually unplayable in 1v1 as it offers too many weaknesses and the benefits of it come in way too late. You will always be behind with this LM.

HRE has gotten weird buffs that barely do anything, but received major nerfs to their core strengths (FC into Regnitz) in the past, since other civs have gotten better at securing relics as well as buffs to their eco. Burgrave is in my opinion just an ill designed landmark that can be strong with a certain timing against certain civs, but then falls very short. I just hate it as a landmark. It only exists because HRE has no other production boni. Most pros ignore it even when 3 of 5 relics are already taken. It can help you survive, but I just hate this thing. And the time HRE can go out on the map to secure relics for Regnitz, the opponent has map control and way more units, which allows them to deny the HRE’s landmark power quite effectively.

And then the HRE army with Aachen… There is no civ that has as little unique military upgrades as Aachen HRE. Due to the Meinwerk change Aachen HRE even lost access to riveted chainmail. There is just nothing but MAA that get hard countered by any kind of CB comp. You always have to fight with an inferior army with inferior mechanics (IW) against superior comps. That’s why HRE players often spam bombard towers. Towers are the best “units” for HRE and they are not even units.

The civ’s strengths are being oversold since all the bugs that made this civ terrible at release were fixed. People keep pretending the HRE eco is always inspired. The only thing that makes the HRE eco good, is Aachen. Building up your eco with prelates in Feudal is kinda terrible, slows down vil production massively and is fairly expensive as well. Managing your ecos to have prelates everywhere, so you actually benefit from your civ’s bonus is tedious and very susceptible to raiding. HRE is supposed to be a religious civ, but feels half a$$ed in that regard.

Together with French, HRE is the most lackluster and boring civ in the game. The French at least have some more uniqueness in their army, they simply suffer from the others civs economic powers that they cannot match anymore with spamming knights.

HRE hasn’t gotten any real love for a long period. And now some ppl wanna tell me that a 15% marching drills would be too strong because it is a permanent buff for all inf while the buff to Boyar’s Fortitude is fine? Yeah, wow… Because there is so much other stuff going for this civ, right? Which is… what exactly? It’s a fact that Aachen HRE has by far the worst army in the game. And Meinwerk leads to you being behind against most civs. It prolly works best vs French… The one other civ that is not in a great spot rn.

To top it all off, HRE got THE WORST unique naval tech. It’s a waste of res. Benediction just comes right after it, which might be the second worst/most useless tech in the game.

The only thing that allows HRE to be kinda good is Aachen and towers. Everything else is just worse compared to other civs.

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Yes, in short, HRE is going rush with Burgrave, or else the rest of civs beat you…

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