What about an Archbishop hero unit for HRE and a more interesting Elzbach?

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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Since with the English king, hero units are now a thing, I expect more civs to get one in the future.

I have not thought about other civs, but I have always wished for an Archbishop unit for a civ like HRE. It would resemble their focus on religious warfare even more and it could be a very nice addendum to a civ that does not really have a lot of unique units. At the end of this post I will also suggest an idea to make Elzbach palace more interesting, because it quite frankly is rather lackluster and underused. It might have its place in team games, but all in all offers very little aside from being a better hp castle that reduces dmg to itself and other buildings in its influence, which is rather meh.

Here are some ideas for the Archbishop and how to implement him for the HRE:

I would not know a better landmark from which an Archbishop could be trained than the Regnitz cathedral.
Upon reaching age III with Regnitz, allow the production of an Archbishop (one at a time, like the English king) that should probably be some kind of holy knight with slightly better stats (more armor or more hp or smth like that (again somewhat similar to the king)). Said Archbishop cannot heal, but is able to carry relics. His cost could be around 100f and 200g and his speciality could be either:

  • an aura that inspires units in range or
  • an ability with 2 min cooldown that inspires units in a larger area (7.5 tiles e.g.) for 1 minute

There could also be an imperial upgrade that improves the inspiration ability of the Archbishop to for example 20% dmg, 1/1 armor, 15% attack speed and/or movement speed. Prelate inspiration remains untouched. Again: these are just ideas and the numbers are examples.

Another possibility aside from an age IV tech for improving his inspiration ability could be carrying a relic. Without relic he offers the baseline inspiration stats, with a relic, however, he offers an improved version. That would give this unit and HRE’s focus on relic play a neat high risk/high reward touch. Lose the Archbishop and likely lose a relic, too.

Military inspiration (inspired warriors) is barely useful in the very lategame, because you have to setup some kind of prelate inspiration camp that is kept rather save. While other civs have their boni apply in an aoe effect, HRE prelates need to one by one inspire making this whole mechanic fall short the bigger the scale of the match becomes. The Archbishop could change that.

In regards of the Elzbach palace and how to make it more interesting and a real alternative to Swabia, I suggest that in addition to its usual effect it also opens up the possibility to build the second age II landmark which was not chosen in order to reach age II. If you for example aged up with Aachen, Elzbach then would allow to build the Meinwerk palace as well and vice versa. The cost for building the second age II landmark should either be completely reworked or simply be the same (400f/200g).

That’s about it. Thanks for reading.

Ps.: There could also be an upgrade in age III or IV that allows prelate aoe inspiration from within towers, because it is really really really annoying to sprinkle prelates all over your eco, which also makes it quite easy to snipe them. And without inspiration, the HRE eco is THE worst in the game. Especially considering the constant buffs to other civs allowing them to be played more fluently and in more ways. I don’t see how HRE is supposed to beat English or Abba now, since both civs have been buffed against the core strength of HRE and ofc in general. Also, if you now go Aachen you effectively lose access to an up to this point imperial tech: Riveted chainmail.

I feel like HRE is not going to be in a good spot with the new patch. They are not in the best spot right now anyway and win most of the games with Burgrave laming, which I dislike from heart. I really do not like this landmark and how it turns HRE into an all-in civ. Burgrave makes HRE lategame trashier than it already is, unless you went Regnitz and didn’t get a single relic.

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I’d also say “fire stations” needs a rework. The best thing about this tech is that you can save the res for it.

It heals 30 hp in 1 minute for ships that are out of combat. And ships have more health than the vast majority of land units. This tech does nothing, it’s a pathetic version of chivalry and is also quite lackluster since bodies of water are fairly small. Even if it healed more, it would still be kinda useless. I’d say give HRE a completely new naval special tech or revert fire stations to its former state.

The current version is not only useless, but a waste of resources.

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Totally agreed. Not sure why the dev designed this tech change in the first place. Seems to me the most useless tech in the game. The original version of ‘Fire Station’ is somewhat useful when you are fighting near a dock against invading enemy ships. The new version barely does anything!

But having a ship version of ‘chivalry’ with a better regeneration rate (which actually does something) would be too strong and OP, I feel. I think it could go back to the original version or maybe enhance the HP of ships by 10%, which will not be OP but useful nonetheless.

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Yeah, exactly my thinking. And I really like the idea of fire stations giving bonus hp to ships. That’s far more useful, which isn’t hard considering that it’s utter trash rn, and would be way more in line with English bonus range or Abbasid faster movement speed, which are actually really good techs.

Fire stations is a tech that in one way or the other is supposed to help the hitpoints of HRE ships. Why not make it useful then by letting it grant bonus hp instead of being a terrible healing tech that’s not even worth researching if it were free.

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an Archbishop on the model of the English King would be too OP. Imagine you just need to stand close to your u units before a decisive battle and they all become super-units for 60 secs which is well enough to finish a decisive engagement.

I do like the idea of a super-religious unit for the HRE though. To be able to area inspire villagers is a good idea and not OP. (like a mobile Aachen Chapel). Could also have the ability to convert enemy units from a distance (like the monks in Aoe2), but only one at a time.

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Funny that the Holy Roman Empire wasn’t that Holy at all.

I rather they made MORE religious unit, let’s say, Spanish Inquisitor, Protestian Priest, Catholic Prelate?

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Can we get Papal States civ with holy beam shooting pope as a hero unit?

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You either are trolling or simply do not have a clue what you are talking about and instead continue to perpetuate HRE memes that are not based upon historical facts but rather ignorance.

I studied medieval history, the history of arts and German literature as well as language and I can assure you that Religion, especially in the sense of the history of salvation, was one of the core aspects of medieval German societies and warfare altogether. The HRE saw itself as the continuation of the christianized Roman Empire that goes back to the Edict of Milan in 313 as well as the Edict of Thessalonica in 380. The imperial church was the greatest legacy of the Roman Empire and the HRE considered itself to be the successor. Thus the title of Holy Roman Empire makes sense in every regard.

Unless you understand something completely different when it comes to “holy”, the HRE was very much holy all around.

Ps,: The Spanish inquistion starts off very late and can only barely be called medieval, as it mostly takes place during the early modern era. Should there ever be a Spanish civ, an Inquisitor would have to be age IV. But AoE IV is known to take some freedom, so there could be space in age III like there is for the Landsknecht.

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I was just thinking that if they add in some distant future the Papal States, they would probably have “bishops” or “archbishops” as their unique religious unit, more expensive than the common priest (which they can also create) but with special effects, just like the prelate of the HRE. My idea is that they can bless buildings over time, similar to the bonus effect that “Chinese officers” have, but they don’t have to supervise the building, “just bless it”, of course the cowdown of this ability is long.

I don’t know about the Pope as a unit, in theory it is the “king” of his Civ, which would be available in “Regicide” as the king unit; and it is not that the medieval pope fought on horseback, he generally sent the captain of the town or a condottiero. The Mongols are an exception, because as seen in the campaign, sometimes there were even 2 khans working together, so it is not uncommon for a regicide to have a king khan, and another military one. And in the English, there is the case of Prince Juan and Ricardo Corazon de Leon, while one governed the other was going to fight in the crusades, thus justifying the unit “English king” that they are going to introduce.

And now that the Mongols will have a Lanmark that will give them units from all their domains, the same could be done but in a “catholic civs unique units” version (English Archers, French Knights, Hungarian Hussars, Genoese Crossbowmen, Spanish Riders, etc). It would be great.

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I know: The idea that the HRE was neither holy, nor empire nor Roman, was invented by Voltaire, even though people don’t even know what the HRE was, nor the history of it, or even who Voltaire was. The people who use it, generally do not know that Voltaire had great contempt for the church, and saw the Roman Empire as the lost “Atlantis”, so knowing that another empire used the name of Rome but in Catholic, he was disgusted, so that’s why his contempt and the phrase. Nothing else, neither sources nor logic, only hate, but that friends was Voltaire, another politician but from the XVIII century.

In the long run, discussing “how much Christian” an empire has to be to be called holy, or how much Roman heritage it must have to be called Roman, is like discussing how many “D”, “O” and “G” a dog must have to be considered a dog. It’s absurd and it’s gibberish, but in politics, inventing insults to despise titles or names of countries, anything was worth it.

In general, the HRE was the country that had the best union with the Holy See in the Middle Ages, they had their troubles, alliances, ruptures and truces, especially to know which power represented more the power of God on earth, the Emperor or the Pope.

In theory, the “prelates” represent the “Imperial Prelates”, a single body of abbadies of the Holy Roman Empire, so they are fine as a single unit. On the other hand, that 2 of the landmarks are part of the “Imperial Cathedral” of the HRE, also says a lot that the developers were aware of the importance of the “holy” in the HRE.

I suppose that the reason you can create Prelates in the Urban Center is due to the “Investment Complaint”, the fact that the Holy Roman Emperor considered himself in the power to appoint priests or bishops, just like the Pope, and therefore you can produce them as “officials” in the Town Center, while other civs need “yes or yes” to create them in the temple.

It would be nice in general if all christian civs have some unique technology in common, same for islamic or buddhist civs, it would add more difference to the game.

On the other hand, in my concept of “Spaniards” (Kingdom of Castile and Aragon), I think the “Missionary” unit, like the one they already have in Aoe2 and Aoe3, is more convenient than the Inquisitor. The problem with an inquisitor is that in theory, they weren’t monks going to the battlefield. “Office Monks” were generally assigned more than field Monks, and these only “investigated” possible heretics. Those who carried out capital punishment were “civil courts”, the idea of the fire-throwing inquisitor is pure propaganda. Holy Inquisition instead, could be a unique tecnology, that kill enemy monks lend you 50g or similar (which is true, since the inquisition confiscated the assets of heretics, especially if they were heretic shamans).

On the other hand, a unique ability that the Spanish missionaries could have would be “Requirement”: the monks charge for 4 seconds, as if they were going to convert, but instead they generate a buff that increases the attack of the soldiers by +2 for 15 sec. They could also convert individual units without relic.

I personally wish that the technology “Proselytism” becomes common, at least in the civs whose religious unit practices it (Buddhism, Islam, Christianity). Obviously not in the Aztecs and Incas, but hey would have rituals as Age3, so it compensates the individual conversión.

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