Small ideas on how to buff the HRE

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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So, it’s widely accepted that right now the HRE is weakest of the civs in the game.

Personally, I don’t think that the civ is that bad. I simply think that it’s simply a difficult micro-intensive civ that needs more time to be figured out, and then yes, it have some weak spots that are easy to exploit in the current meta.

Personally, I’m maining the civ a lot lately, and I noticed one thing: it doesn’t matter if you are rushing with MaA, going for a fast castle or for a fast imp, you almost always age up with the same landmarks, and that’s a thing that I saw frequently online.

I mean, the chapel+cathedral+swabia palace is among the most powerful eco strategies, and it’s my preferred fast imp strategy.

The more military landmarks are too situational for the HRE and its strategy. The meinwerk palace maybe it’s the only one that has its uses time to time, but I don’t see any point on using neither the elzbech palace and especially the burgrave palace.

So, the most immediate way to have people to choose the eco landmarks more often is to nerf the eco landmarks, but considering that as already stated, the HRE isn’t considered really that good right now, maybe we can try to buff the other landmarks instead, and then maybe nerfing a bit that cathedral that it’s simply too good to not use it…

So my ideas are:

Meinwerk Palace

  • Have it being able to research the HRE infantry unique techs too at a 25% discount *(in their respective ages of course).

This is may the only military landmarks that actually have an use. It doesn’t just save you the trouble to build a blacksmith and saved you 150 wood, but it also saves you a lot of resources in all ages. The main problem is, that although the HRE have strong infantry through their UTs, those techs are expensive and goes to upgrade expensive units. That way, at least you could better use your MaA.

Elzbech Palace

  • Have that age up discounted by 20% like the its counterpart, the swabia palace.

There isn’t much to explain here onestly… swabia is already better than its counterpart alone, even without the discount, since booming is so much good. On the other end, keeps, especially in imp are so much fragile, even by using all the HRE bonus, the elzbech will eventually fall. That way at least it can be used as a quick emergency defense, or to drop into the enemy front door. The cheaper imp should simply be an HRE bonus.

Burgrave Palace

This is a tricky one, onestly I don’t know what could be better for it, so I have several ideas:

  • All the units trained there cost -15% food. Pretty straightforward, and in opposition to the cathedral that gives you a ton of gold, thay way you save food.

  • The HRE unique techs cost 25% less and are researched 50% faster (in case the meinwerk isn’t changed). That way at least those strong UTs are available sooner, and your MaA can really pack a punch.

  • The building can train all units available to the HRE (except vills, monks and siege) in batches of 5, but it loses the ability to research any upgrade. *That way, it’s like having a building that it’s worth either 5 barracks, 5 ranges or 5 stables, but at the same time you’ll need a barrack, a range and a stable to upgrade those units. Alternatively, it can act just like a barrack+range or a barrack+stable, if all 3 together is too strong.

  • The building can become either a barrack, a range or a stable, by choosing after building it, and train units in batch of 5. It can also be switched between these 3 buildings by idling it for like a minute maybe?

What do you guys think? I’ll think that I’ll also make a post for how the other 3 landmarks should be eventually nerfed.

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Burgrave Palace

  • instead of giving 5 unit’s cost and making 5 units at once, making it having 500% research and production time.
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I do not know where you got that HRE is the weakest civ, seeing how Delhi and the Abbasids are (in the Steel Series tournament I have not seen Delhi and very few times Abbasids). HRE is being used in the tournament on semi-closed / closed maps and in water.

The problem with HRE is that even the Prelate’s Bug is still not well fixed. When that is fixed, you could see how it works.

The only Landmark I would fix would be the Elzbech Palace giving it maybe more attack plus HP. What’s more, I see that the Swabia Palace and the Cathedral of the relics are stronger than normal.

4

Overall, that’s the consensus… although it’s a new game, so bias are at the order of the day, and I admit that I may be wrong… :man_shrugging:

Overall, we still don’t have a perfect tier list of the civs. I still haven’t mained abbasid or delhi, so I can’t say for sure.

HRE in my opinion isn’t weak, it’s just have a lot of unused potential. That mainly came from the fact that you go for the same landmarks every time.

Really, only in the second age it make sense to choose, even with a slightly overall preference for the chapel. But both the palaces for the third and fourth ages are borderline useless.

I mean, why pick the elzbach or the burgrave onestly over the swabia or the cathedral? I’m not saying that the buffs on the military landmarks shouldn’t be followed by a nerf on the eco ones, but that at least it would make the HRE more flexible, and less oriented over just one strategy.

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Like, a buff over the military landmarks, should be followed by a nerf on their eco landmarks:

Regniz Cathedral

  • Relics gives back +150% gold instead of +200%.

Not much to say here, the cathedral is ridiculously strong, basically in castle age you don’t even need vills on gold. It could further be lowered to just +100%, but I prefer to go by baby steps.

Place of Swabia

  • It cost 20% less, vills are trained 75% faster, but they are only 20% cheaper.

Again, not much to add here. The palace of swabia is a nice way to do a fast imp or to get back afta one TC push, but the discount is too much. It means to afford vills that you shouldn’t afford. The landmark should be about getting up to speed on booming in the age 4, not booming more than what your enemy was able to do in all 4 ages.

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Another idea on how to buff the HRE could be to give them a Crusade-inspired kind of bonus.

My idea is:

  • Relics can be garrisoned inside Town Centers (max 1 per TC). A TC with a relic inside buff all military buildings inside an area (the same of the emergency repairs) to train military units 10% faster. It of course also generate gold as usual.
    The effect cannot be stacked. With multiple TCs and relics.

This basically would simulate the use of relics and religious zealous to inspire people and nobles to take up arms for an holy war.

In my opinion, the HRE isn’t a bad civ, it’s just slow. But more importantly, there isn’t really much incentive on using the relics special effects, beside the regnitz cathedral. I mean, on paper the keep and towers bonuses seems good, but in reality it expose your relics to lose them, and anyway more gold is better.

This in my opinion would be the only bonus that could be on the same level of the cathedral, that may incentive you to not put all your relics inside it.

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Well, since the time that this topic was made, but I still believe that it may be useful to post potential buff for the civ.

So here is my small idea, recycle the old teutons bonus:

  • Outposts can garrison double the units

Small but useful defensive bonus, thay could help to defend exposed relics, while also influenc more damage on those pesky french knights.

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HRE has been totaly ignored by devs…

It’s the hardest civ to play with because it is micro intensive.

HRE has only received nerfs since the game release which I don’t understand why… There has been also some small buffs but in total they were always nerfed.

Think about this… when HRE was supposed to be the civ with best maa… English can easly beat you in feudal because they have same units with faster production time. Which this brings me to say the same thing all over again on my every post about HRE.

‘When you pick HRE, your opponent already has the upper hand’

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Yeah well, you say that the HRE is completely useless but then you list just one problem…

And onestly, English might be able to outmass MaA, but in castle age their precious armor means little against your maces and landskenechts.

The main problem of the HRE is map control and defending, because their eco is based around more efficiently gathering resources, not gaining free resources, this is difficult when you don’t have good ranged or mobile units.

Outpost with more garrison capacity can help that, by allowing to better protect exposed vills.

Another option, but seconday on doubling down the garrison capacity, could be to buff the emplacements discount, or let it affect fortified outpost tech too.

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In my opinion, improving the HRE outposts could really be the key to buff them effectively, since they are a defensive civilization.

In order of priority, the buff to the outposts should be:

1 - Outposts have double the garrison capacity
2 - The emplacement discount affect the fortified outpost too
3 - Outposts emplacement discount is buffed
4 - Outposts research techs faster

The first option with any number of the other options might work.