The HRE needs far more than only slight fixes. It’s an unfinished civ that was rushed. You can see that when you look at the moment when they were presented as a civ and when the game released. They were probably the last designed civ and then the release came closer and closer, so time ran out. The HRE was ridden with bugs for the first 3 to 4 months. And they still are quite buggy. Emergency repair still doesn’t work properly on every building, inpsiration still bugs out when around towers or mangonels. And the game is half a year old now… That alone proves my points. They felt terrible in the beginning and they feel terrible now. Clunky, counter intuitive and weak. Their bonuses mostly suck, the special unit is expensive trash that dies way too quickly (and they have only one. And that one is only somewhat acceptable when you are ahead. If you are behind, the Landsknecht won’t save you from anything ever), they have no viable play aside from Regnitz fc into Swabia which was nerfed heavily. They are hella susceptible to feudal rushes as prelates are expensive and paramount and losing one early is a really big blow. They lack the mechanics to feel actually good. They are not fun to play, nor are they interesting. But they could be. And it’s fairly easy to achieve that. Relic just needs to do little bit with them.
It’s not done with a few number tweaks. The whole design of the civ is questionable and needs fine tuning in somewhat every regard. The civ’s design can work, but it needs some love. If you play French, Rus, English or Mongols, these civs just work. They have a flow. They feel polished. And if you play HRE afterwards, you have to think you play a different game. The HRE is a civ that gets already ruined if you use the all army hotkey. It’s so obvious that the HRE was developed last and not tested enough. Now they have been tested and they need quite a lot of help to actually feel good. It’s not about band aiding this civ into being somewhat viable and yet clunky and weird, but about finishing them altogether.
I have also made quite a lot of suggestions how to fix the HRE myself. I put them at the end of this post as a summary. Numbers can always be tweaked, but the mechanics need to be there. And that’s what the HRE is lacking.
Summary
- Make relics grant 150% gold in any capable building and make it a civ baseline.
- Aachen Chapel gets additional effect: Towncenters build costs are reduced by 20%.
- Aachen Chapel also inspires military units after “Inspired Warriors” was researched.
- Introduce sale of indulgences as new Regnitz choice rewarding multi tc play and lategame.
Sale of Indulgences would be a historically accurate mechanic to generate gold for the HRE. This was actually a thing back then and Relic lets the HRE - despite the fact that it lasted until Napoleon - end at 1517. That’s the year of Martin Luther’s proclamation and critique against the Catholic church that he expressed with his 95 theses. In the eyes of Luther the Sale of Indulgences was a fraud. The Sale of Indulgences ceased to exist in the process. Luther made it end.
Thus it would actually fit perfectly into the AoE4 HRE design and mechanic. It just needs to be realized.
Suggestion No. 1: [New Regnitz Cathedral] The Regnitz cathedral can now garrison up to 9 prelates. Each prelate will gather 0.75 gold per viallager per minute. It’s called “sale of indulgences”. With 9 prelates garrisoned and 100 villagers, the Regnitz would give 675 gold per minute. It would give a slight gold tickle for castle age, but really starts to pay off in imperial age or late castle depending on your playstyle as it is a landmark for booming. The Regnitz will no longer be able to hold relics, but can produce prelates and offers the monastery upgrades. It acts like a monastery+, but can’t hold relics. Granted this would be a big change that needs some coding. But the HRE cannot be saved without some new coding. So…
Suggestion No. 2: [New Regnitz Cathedral] Just like above, but the Regnitz can still garrison relics just like a monastery, while the (up to 9) prelates need to be stationed outside the Cathedral like the IO. That would make the Sale of Indulgences mechanic more susceptible to raiding and would also allow to inspire military units rather handily when being attacked.
- Make Burgrave units 25% cheaper as well. Extend it to all infantry units. That means ranged units should be included. Reduce unit and upgrade build time from 400% to 300% if necessary.
- Make Elzbach additionally reduce the cost of keeps, stone walls and stone towers by 20%.
- Improve LK altogether. They need more hitpoints and movement speed. They should be slightly above spearmen in both regards (or more hp and increase marching drills to 15%). They are an elite mercenary for crying out loud. You can even up their cost to 120 gold, but make them better! The way they are designed right now does not make them cost efficient at all. They are too expensive in most situations for how weak they are and only actually help in mirror matches. No other civ needs to really be afraid of LKs. They are just expensive fodder with situational use that is just not good enough. Relic once said they wanted special units to be units you want to go for. That’s a long way to go in regards of the Landsknecht, who is underwhelming and underperforming since release. It is one of the worst special units in the game and their niche is even smaller than the camel rider’s one. You need to be ahead to even be able to afford them.
These changes would allow the HRE to be played differently and with more options. You could go for an Aachen into Regnitz play with a slow boomy feudal that allows you to pay for the prelates needed to be put into Regnitz in castle age and thus be much more self reliant, but slower as well. It would be the religious castle age play that also makes inspired warriors easier to access. Maybe you can snack a relic or two, or maybe you can’t. Both would be possible, but failing to get relics would not mean to be massively behind anymore. You would just put your faith into selling your indulgences -_-. With a solid castle age eco you could then go for the Elzbach, to be able to build cheaper fortifications for the rest of the game. With these changes I can easily envision people to go for Elzbach when the castle age eco is solid.
You could also mix it up and go Meinwerk into Regnitz fc, but that wouldn’t be as smooth. It’d be the greedy version of HRE play that can easily be punished.
Aachen into Burgrave would also be a possibility that would allow for a long and strong feudal, but will reduce the chances of getting “free gold” via relics or the new Regnitz. Worst case would be you have a solid eco with cheaper and faster production (Burgrave), but no “free gold” at all.
The more aggressive way of playing the HRE, however, would look as follows: You go meinwerk and build up a small feudal army to be competitive that is boosted by the Meinwerk upgrades (so you don’t die to feudal aggression, maybe you can even fc into Burgrave). You then go for a one base Burgrave play that allows for cheaper and faster unit production. Your eco, however, would be in a bad spot. So you need to use your early castle power to secure a few 150% relics, so you are able to still have a capable eco for the course of the game. You could then go for Swabia to round up your lategame while benefitting from cheaper and faster upgrades for your core army. The eco would be worse than with current Regnitz play, but still able to be viable even for lategame. The current Burgrave play leaves your eco in shambles and is not viable.
@SavageEmpire566 (Just wanna make sure you guys see all this, because it costs a lot of time to think about the game and post ideas. Please also take further notice of my big HRE thread. There has quite some effort been put into it as it aims to improve the HRE in a historically accurate and gameplay wise fun way. It’s also a rant thread, but out of passion and nothing but passion)