His unique ability to heal nearby units is inherently a military one, and that’s the problem; the Abbey should give an economic advantage in contrast to his counterpart. I think it is an issue because this means English needs to engage in combat with either landmark to benefit from them, which reduces his options on feudal to either wage war or have what would be effectively two useless landmarks. This design flaw is easier to see when you contrast it with the other civilizations; they all have a choice to go for either a military or an economic-oriented landmark in the feudal age.
Luckily, Abbeys had some economic activities associated with them in medieval times from which someone could devise a fitting bonus, Ideally related to farms, this to further strengthen the English farming economy identity as one of his core advantages. Sadly, thinking of this being addressed is idyllic -especially if it isn’t considered as an issue- as it would involve a complete redesign of it, still, I dream about it
I think switch abbey and the tc one (so abbey is a feudal age landmark and the tc one is a dark age landmark), so that you get your 2nd tc fast, and your abbey can be placed further into the center of the battlefield and actually count as a retreat location. This would give English the opportunity to boom or to all in… it might actually extend their strength into the midgame where it falls off currently?
That would make the King’s Palace insanely overpowered, and in his current state, the abbey insanely weak; if you want to use it forward to strengthen your control over an area it would be better to just go for The White Tower instead.
Go pocket in boom team games, like 3v3 Hill and Dale, and position your abbey on your team’s hill, near the entrance most likely to find agression. Don’t forget to put some walls on your hill, though. And there you go, you have a nice fallback point for your team, which will save thousands of resources for everyone and also allow you guys to mass up your units without losing the ones who leave battle with 1 hp. No need to super micro your dudes, of course. Just bring your wounded batallion and they’ll be fine.
As Council Hall sometimes gets obsolete, depending on team comps, Abbey might get ankward when your team gets the offensive, but never trully obsolete, no matter the teams, no matter the comp.
And then you get higher than 500 ELO and the new buffed horsemen or just fast castle into mangos completely trash those longbows that English spent every dime on getting
Part of what makes the English strong at the moment is their Council Hall. Having to choose between that and another TC which costs just 100 resources less than a regular one is a hard choice. You’d be sacrificing the ability to open with archers, and on top of it, to make use of the TC, you’d need to invest a good bit of resources. You’d be trading your strong early game for a strong midgame.
In the end I think it’d give a good option for them as pocket in team games, and then abbey (preferably a more buff one) could come out in castle age to perpetuate your lackluster english army with the hope of killing the stronger late game civs.
I like it, but it would be weak; It does not provide any immediate bonus besides a free mill… and English doesn’t need cheaper food technologies; it needs anything but more food.