What's wrong with HRE and OotD and how to potentially fix them! (2 parts)

Jaysus04 · September 8, 2024, 11:48pm

Hello there,

this is going to be a longer post and will have the following chapters:

(Part 1)

What’s the problem?
How to change and improve the HRE.

Everything is about Aachen. Aachen puts the civ on the map and Aachen ruins it at the same time.
Ideas for changes.
Why the Arbaletrier is a problematic unit and how to change him.

The OotD concept is flawed.

The value of units results in a pop/cost inefficiency for OotD.
How to fix order of the Dragon: 2 options.

The dream.

1. What’s the problem?

Age of Empires 4’s core gameplay elements are its counter system as well its choice of landmarks in order to give the base civ different directions. The landmarks either give you a bonus to production, to economy, to military, to technologies or to static defenses. It works well, if the civilizations are designed in such a way that none of the landmarks are essential to their playablity, thus forming a choice. These choices may vary and change over time depending on balance and meta changes.

But what if there is a civ that is fully designed around an age II landmark, because its core design is faulty? Welcome to the frustrating world of HRE. A civ that can only stagnate and be “buffed” within its own limits leading to uninspired and boring patch notes, while other civs get literally new things added to their landmarks, techs and units or they get completely new techs and units. There has not been an exciting change for HRE in years and the main issue here is the landmark focussed design of a civ that is nothing without its landmarks and that do not offer real choices due to the imbalance in their usefulness. Riveted chainmail was moved from the base civ to Meinwerk, which was eventually a nerf. Regnitz was changed/nerfed a lot of times. Some techs have been merged. Marching drills became a civ baseline. Landsknechte got 5 extra hp. But there never is anything new or even really excitingly cool.

And what if there is another civ that is based on the HRE’s poor base civ design, while its whole concept evolves around units costing double in res and pop and not really being twice as strong? Plus a handful of new techs and loss of access to core HRE techs. There is nothing else to this civ. There are no synergies, nothing. And that leads to a concept that offers more disadvantages than advantages. OotD has a bad cost efficiency and a bad pop efficiency, but is labelled as an elite army civ. In equal pop battles, the OotD army will always be worse than the opponent’s army. Why that is I’ll explain in “The value of units resulting in pop/cost inefficiency for OotD”.

2. How to change and improve the HRE.

The HRE depends on and suffers from its focus on the Aachen landmark. The reason is simple: Without Aachen, the HRE is not really a competitive civ, because its eco relies on the static inspiration giver that is Aachen. On top of that the army of HRE is very basic. There is nothing special about it aside from their MAA, who got 2 bonus techs which is nothing out of the ordiniary in this game, and Landsknechte, who are a cost ineffcient, weak (as in they die to everything) units that may work, but usually cost you more than you gain from them. The Landsknecht is better for Byzantines than for HRE and Byzantines never even fielded the Landsknecht. It’s really depressing. And everything else about this civ is basic. There are no other unit bonuses or unique units, except for those in Meinwerk and they kind of suck. The knight one is okay, but since Meinwerk is such a bad gameplay, you never really benefit from it.

So in order to make this civ a better civ, inspiration needs to be nerfed, the economy without Aachen needs to be adressed and the army needs more flavour and identity, because frankly the HRE army is the most boring army in the whole game by far. There are no synergies, there are subpar comps at best, the unit buff mechanic is too weak for the way it works and that makes this civ just spam MAA and basic boring units as soon as the Aachen eco is set up. It is awful. It’s really the worst part of the whole game, because there are simply no changes to this civ in all the years. It is always the same. With the free marching drills, the Feudal Age was (re-)discovered for the HRE, but that’s it. It’s Aachen into Regnitz into Swabia and you always build the very same units and use the same comps due to the lacking and boring unit roster. And you barely even bother to use Prelates in the army for inspired warriors. What a waste of a civ’s potential for identity. The civ is tagged with “Religion” and many civs without this tag have far more elaborated religious bonuses than HRE.

- Everything is about Aachen. Aachen puts the civ on the map and Aachen ruins it at the same time.

HRE is doing well on the ladder thanks to one and only one reason. Take that reason away and the civ is actual trash. The reason for all that is Aachen. Aachen is too good, is too defining for the civ, because without it, the HRE eco is slow, annoying, tedious and just not good enough.

There was a change in the last patch increasing the number of inpsired vils per Prelate from 8 to 9. That’s useless. This will not even remotely make Meinwerk more attractive, because the whole concept of using Prelates to inspire your eco is so clunky, susceptible, annoying and lacking in flow.

Thus one thing is clear and necessary: In order to make the HRE a better designed civ, Aachen needs to be nerfed. But Aachen cannot be nerfed without nerfing inspiration. Sure, you could reduce the range of Aachen or take away its “drop off building”-tag. But that would just suck for the gameplay and the civ would not feel better.
No, mechanically Aachen is fine. The value of inspiration is just too high. To improve this civ we first must nerf it in its very core.

- Ideas for changes.

There are going to be a lot of suggestions. Some of them are either/or and some of them are meant to be combined to form a complete picture. Remember that these are just suggestions. Nobody needs to freak out. My goal is to improve this civ’s design and gameplay and to get rid of its age II landmark focus.

Nerf inspiration in general to 35/45 down from 40/50 (or 30/45 or 35/50. As long as the basic inspiration is at least nerfed by 5%, we should see quite a change). These numbers can be played around with, should it prove to be too great a nerf or too little. The nerf of inspiration is to nerf Aachen more than anything else. This allows for room to improve upon the civ’s core eco.
Allow the production of Prelates simultaneously with the production of villagers. Just like how it is in AOM with Greek vils and heroes. You can produce both unit types at the same time. This means that Prelate production does not impede villager production anymore, which is the biggest downside of not going Aachen next to the higher res investment for more Prelates in age II.
Increase the duration of eco inspiration to 45 seconds allowing to inspire roughly 12 villagers with 1 Prelate, up from 9, which means you don’t need to build too many Prelates in age II in order to get a good rate of inspiration among your villagers.
Finally add a reliable patrol mechanic for Prelates that allows them to inspire while patrolling. This will allow for a more fluid and easier to execute Prelate distribuion. With these 3 changes, Aachen is still a great landmark, but you do not rely on going for Aachen anymore, since the non Aachen gameplay is way more palpable. The result is: The overall eco buff of inspiration is reduced by at least 5%, but inspiring villagers without Aachen becomes easier.
This now allows to go for Meinwerk without gimping your whole HRE gameplay. It’s more challenging than with Aachen, but not outright awful anymore. The downside is that you can be harassed more easily early on, but gain a benefit to your army.
Talking about the benefit: The Meinwerk techs are okayish at best and useless at worst. Riveted Chainmal should be changed to also give pierce armor to spears and horsemen and on top of that should be extended to Landsknechte as well. 2/2 armor for spearmen is really nice, it makes them distinct but since they are lightly armored units they won’t be overpowered. They’re just better than average.
The horseman, however, will be way better in his role, requiring the opponent to really add in spears to protect their range to which the horseman is also slightly more resilient thanks to the 2 melee armor. HRE horsemen will be sturdier, but still just be horsemen with all their flaws. But it would make the horseman a really good unit for HRE, it would give it identity. Everybody would know what Meinwerk horsemen are about. The basic horseman is rather underwhelming and doesn’t fill out his role very well. HRE’s only strength are MAA and their main weakness are ranged units. With extra 2 range armor, HRE horseman would have an advantage fighting off crossbows and such, which makes a lot of sense for HRE because it helps defend their main or rather only army strength. The horsemen would be the affordable HRE vanguard that helps every other unit to fill out their role more effectively.
The Landsknecht would really welcome 2/2 armor as well, because he is so weak on the chest that any unit can kill him quickly. Some are just rapid at killing him. And the Landsknecht needs good connections to be worth the investment. A little bit of armor would help his survivability, but eventually he’d end up with 120 hp and 5/5 armor, which is better than right now but still quite pathetic. The Landsknecht would just get a tiny bit more survivability. Considering its abyssmal costs (hp to cost ratio is by far the worst of any melee unit), this would be a great addition.
Steel Barding seems fine. But if it did something else on top of the 2/2 armor, I would not be against it. It could add 2 dmg as well, or 20 hp or something else that makes the knight stand out more. I envision the HRE as a civ with a focus on melee units, Religion and armor techs, since Germany had some of the best steel works in the whole world. And they still do today.
Change Burgrave to a landmark with a long term effect. A landmark that is just a bunch of barracks and nothing else is lame. Everything about Burgrave is lame. It invites you to all-in your opponent and then you either win, which feels lame, or you don’t win and then have a more or less u###### landmark for the rest of the game, which, guess what, feels lame. I’d much rather prefer if Burgrave functioned as a normal barracks with a small bonus to production speed to itself, but an innate global discount to melee infantry units of 20%. That way you have a long term benefit from Burgrave by reducing the cost of all melee infantry by 20%, you have a landmark that produces melee infantry slightly faster (and not 5 times or whatever faster) and you don’t feel gimped when you realize that getting many relics seems unlikely, because you still have an economic bonus from the landmark. MAA would cost 16 gold, Landsknechte 80. That way Regnitz would not be as essential for a good eco anymore and you’d have a landmark choice that still feels good if you happen to lack map control when aging up.
Give Elzbach a passive gobal ability that increases speed and hp of all units by 5%. It’s not a huge bonus, but a nice one and now you’ll think twice if you wanna rush Swabia for a faster eco growth or stay longer in age III for a better army potential eventually. Elzbach would probably be the choice when doing a 2 tc play.
Improve Inspired Warriors either mechanically or in its value. The goal should be that you want to have Prelates with your army either because it’s a powerful buff with a subpar mechanic or because the mechanic is practical and the buff good enough to want it. I find it difficult to accept that the HRE buff mechanic is so much worse than the one from other civs. The other civs make use of their bonuses where they can, but inspired warriors falls very short in comparison. Mehter is always with Ottomans, ToV is of immense value for Delhi, freaking Network of Castles/Citadels elevates the whole English army to sky high levels with the help of only one measly little tower already, Japanese bannermen are always included, Chinese units just need to die to buff all the units around them and even Rus Warrior Priests can be added to the army and just a clicking with them will buff every unit in the vicinity. The value of WPs increases the more you micro them. It’s just the Prelate with inpired warriors that is really difficult to integrate effectively.
So either make the buff better to still want it, even if you need to babysit your Prelates and micro them hard (a clicking with them in the army is a terrible idea. You don’t want them in the front line).
The buff could be changed to 15% attack, 15% attackspeed, 1/1 armor or 25% attack and 1/1 armor or 20% attack and 2/2 armor. But if it were to stay 15% dmg and 1/1 like it is right now, the mechanic needs to be improved. For example inspiration could be an aoe effect that grows and shrinks with the number of Prelates. Let’s say 1 prelate inspires units with a radius of 1 tile and each additional Prelate that is in the vicinity (radius of 5 tiles) of other Prelates increases the warrior inspiration radius by an additional 1. That means 10 Prelates inspire all units in a radius of 10. The cap should be 15 tiles. And every unit that leaves the inspiration aoe stays inspired for 1 minute. This makes small bands of Prelates as well as big bands of Prelates reliable army buffers.
Fire Stations: When below 35% hp, hp regens by 5 per second while out of combat but stops at 35%. After the 35% threshold the old fire station effect takes over again (regen 30 hp over one minute). Additionally docks heal one hp more. This should ensure that HRE is still viable on water after the inspiration nerf to the eco.

- Why the Arbaletrier is a problematic unit and how to change him.

The Arbaletrier is an amazing unit. But it actually sharts on the counter system of the game. French has not been having the best times of late, but the civ can still harbor overpowered units. The Arbaletrier is such a unit and every civ has a hard time against him. But melee civs such as Japanese or HRE suffer the most from this unit. There is not a single unit for HRE that is cost efficient against Arbaletriers. Not one. They can only be beaten by outmassing them and that’s bad gameplay, because you always need much more res to answer Arbs than the French needs to field Arbs. Every unit needs to have an effective counter that goes beyond the hit and miss potential of a mangonel, which is slow, clunky and not reliable. The mango is a potential counter to every ranged unit, but it can never be the only counter. Should that be the case, changes are in order.

Why is the Arbaletrier too good?

They have a great value. They shoot faster and can be made cheaper.
Their main weakness, namely being susceptible to melee attacks, especially horsemen, is somewhat completely offset by the high melee armor of 10 when fully upgraded.
The pavise ability allows them to even withstand ranged attacks and gives them one additional range as well, while rendering them immobile.

There is no downside to this unit. Everything about this unit is just great. It’s better than the basic CB in every regard and it doesn’t even come at a greater cost. In fact they can be made cheaper. There are some units that are similar to this and should be investigated. The Streltsy comes to mind and I don’t see a single reason why he should be 25% cheaper. Better and cheaper is never a good idea in a RTS.
But back to the Arbaletrier. My idea here is not to make the Arbaletrier weaker, but to give him a more distinct identity and a means to counter him in a another way than the usual, which is simply not effective.

There’s a flaw in the logic, when there is a high armor unit and everything about it shouts “heavy tag” but it doesn’t have the heavy tag. So let’s start to tag the Arbaletrier as heavy. What does that mean? It means that Crossbows, Ghazi riders, Musofadi warriors and HRE MAA deal bonus damage to the arbaletrier. That way every civ gets a way to somewhat react to the high melee armor of the Arbaletrier, while the high armor still applies to every other melee unit in the game. The main counter will definitely be other crossbows. But since the Arbaletrier only has exceptional melee armor and relies on a static pavise to fight against ranged units, the crossbow counter could prove too potent against the Arbaletrier. I don’t want the Arb to become a terrible unit, I only want him to be counterable in a reasonable fashion while keeping him distinct and special in his role.
That is why additionally to the heavy tag, the pavise ability of the Arbs gets improved as well: It now improves the ranged armor pavise provides to 8, so it’s 11 fully upgraded. This would offset the full bonus dmg of crossbows and effectively increase the crossbow dmg to Arbs by 3 (because the blacksmith armor is ignored) down from 11. Crossbows would still be a soft counter to Arbs, but every other ranged unit only tickles him.
Furthermore, decrease the cooldown of pavise by 5 seconds if necessary and allow the Arb to be moved with 50% reduced speed when pavise is deployed. Since pavise also gives one more range, the Arbaletrier will be better against any army that does not have crossbows. At best they have a soft counter in crossbows and at worst they get hardcountered by them. HRE MAA will be able to offset their high armor, but a melee inf unit never is the best way to deal with archer blobs, so I don’t think that this will be an issue. And Ghazi riders will be more dangerous to them, but still less effective than against any other crossbow men. Horsemen will stay as bad against them as they are now. Malians, who do not have crossbows, will still be fine against them with poison arrows, javs and Musofadis. Malians, in fact, would probably be the strongest civ to counter Arbs. And Arbs would finally be a unit that also has a downside next to a lot of upsides.

Summary of the Arb changes:

they get the heavy tag
the ranged armor granted by pavise is increased to 8
pavise still increases range by 1
pavise cooldown is reduced by 5 seconds should this prove to be necessary
the Arbaletrier is allowed to move with pavise deployed at 50% speed
Crossbows, HRE MAA, Ghazi riders and Musofadi warriors will be cost efficient counters to them, poison arrows and javs will be slightly worse but still good and every other ranged unit will suffer them even more. HRE MAA will be able to deal with them when outmassing them. Other than that they will be obliterated by them as they always have.

Jaysus04 · September 8, 2024, 11:50pm

(Part 2)

3. The OotD concept is flawed.

The Order of the Dragon unfortunately was the chosen variant for the HRE and not the Teutonic Order. I very much hope that we either see a stand alone Teutonic Order civ at one point or that HRE and OotD get some Teutonic Order references in terms of techs and units sometime in the future.

But since the HRE variant ended up being OotD, I will look at this civ’s problems and try to suggest some changes that allows the civ to keep its concept, while not being a sluggish, cost ineffcient and plain civ that has more disadvantages than advantages.

The main issue of OotD is not the eco. It’s the concept of double cost for supposedly the double value.

AoE4 supports going for various different units and a diverse army. That’s even being rewarded more against OotD than any other civ. And that’s why the 1:1 unit translation for OotD regarding the unit roles is so very bad. The units should have more roles than the one pop ones, because they have to fill out more role space, if that makes sense. The OotD units should work almost completely differently than the ones of other civs, because of the limited pop space and the necessity to fill out more than just one role. That’s why gilded crossbows are probably the best OotD unit, because they counter heavy and light and fill out more than just one role. If you can go for gilded crossbows instead of archers, you should always do that instead of wasting pop space with archers (unless the opponent fields mass spears or smth braindead like that).
Maa would be good if they had the HRE role as well, meaning they can also counter heavy quite well and are not as easily kited. But they don’t. So they are only slow tanks that are easy to counter and not good enough to fill out the tank role to that point that you can rely on them. 10 gilded maa get shit on by 20 normal cbs. It’s not even funny. You can beat them without losing crossbows. 20 normal cbs vs 20 normal maa is a different story. The maa still lose, but you have to micro the cbs more, it takes longer to kill them and you might lose a few cbs. That’s just another example of why OotD units are bad. Kiting is very effective and so is overkilling, because they have half the army and more hitpoints to lose. And the game does not address that at all, OotD has no way of preparing for that.

The whole concept of OotD was not thought through. Imo it simply doesn’t work and thus OotD is not a serious civ. It’s a gimmick, a joke. That sometimes is funny and sometimes is not.

But why does it not work?

- The value of units results in a pop/cost inefficiency for OotD.

Let’s say a basic unit has a value of 1 and go from there. A spearman without any civ specific bonus or tech has a value of 1 and so does the knight, the crossbow and so on. OotD units cost exactly double the amount of basic units but I think that everyone agrees that not a single OotD unit has a value of 2 and most certainly not of above 2.

Here’s a list of how I personally value the OotD units compared to a basic value 1 unit:

Gilded Spearman: 1.7
Gilded MAA: 1.5
Gilded Landsknecht: 1.5
Gilded Archer: 1.75
Gilded Crossbow: 1.8
Dragon Handcannoneer: 1.9
Gilded Knight: 1.6

The value does not only refer to the unit’s stats, but more to the performance on the battle field. These values are all below 2, because I really do not see a single unit that is actually worth twice the basic unit. This is already bad enough and in order to adress that, the OotD would need some ways to further improve the efficiency of their units over the course of the game.
Because here comes the huge issue: Pretty much every other civ has strengths in certain regards. So they do not field 1 value units, but some units with higher values. Let me list up some examples.

Arbaletrier: 1.4
Sipahi: 1.3
Streltsy: 1.2
Royal Knight: 1.2
Ghulam: 1.25
Abbasid Archer 1.15
Delhi Archer 1.10
and so on.

This means that 2 of these units exceed the value of 2, while 2 pop for OotD do not even reach 2.

If we take my numbers, 2 pop Arbaletrier would end up with a value of 2.8 whereas the Gilded Crossbow has 1.8. Give or take, these numbers are probably somewhat capable of displaying the unit values (as long as we agree on the basic assumption that for example the Arbaletrier has a value of above 1 and the Gilded Crossbow has a value of slightly below 2) and what we can see is that the OotD army can never be on par value wise with other civs. And OotD is supposed to be an elite army civ. The whole concept is just so off and I find that there are 2 options how to deal with that without reworking the whole civ.

- How to fix order of the Dragon: 2 options.

Option 1: Just improve the OotD units. Make them scale better from age to age so that they end up being able to win equal pop battles and do not suffer hard counters as much. This would mean that not only the stats need to be looked at but also the range of the roles of the units.

Option 2: I prefer this option, because I think it’s easier to realise. The OotD units are adjusted in regards of cost and pop and only slightly in regards of stats. Here is what I suggest:

First off: Reduce the unit costs by 10%. Just flat out. There are many ways to do it. 5% in age II and 10% in age III. Or reduce wood and gold costs of units by 10% and add an age III tech that decreases food cost by 10% as well. Just make them cheaper, because the units are far from being worth double the costs. Or make some units 10% cheaper and others 5%. Whatever feels right and balanced.
Give OotD a debuff protection. This means that OotD suffers only 50% of a debuff. Right now, debuffs have a very high effect on OotD units due to the higher dmg and lower unit numbers. The Camel debuff hurts them more than any other civ and the Japanese Buddhist monks seem to only exist to royally ruin everything about OotD. 50% less dmg for 1 minute without a counter on a higher dmg army with half the pop is way too strong. It’s so strong that one really must think that OotD was forgotten when the Buddhist monk was introduced. Due to the double cost/pop concept of OotD, debuffs need to be reduced in their power against OotD, if OotD is ever supposed to feel like an elite army. This is a must to preserve the OotD concept, even if it’s only relevant against a handful of civs. It’s necessary to free OotD of it’s gimmick state.
Add an additional effect to Heavy Torches and probably rename the tech to something like “Dragon Onslaught”. So in addition to the aoe burning, Gilded Spearmen now also dmg a second rider after they have successfully braced. The main target gets the full dmg and the stun and the second and closest target also gets the full dmg, but not the stun. Every charging cavalry can only get the extra brace dmg once. So 2 spearmen would not deal two times the brace dmg to a third charging cavalry. The third cavalry unit would only get the brace dmg once. It would be op otherwise.
Add a new tech to the blacksmith (not Meinwerk, but every blacksmith): Dragon March: 5% movement speed for all military units and health regen of 1 every 2 seconds out of combat. Available starting in Feudal age.
Add an innate bonus to heavy armor units for MAA per upgrade: feudal: +1, castle: +2, imp: +3.
Allow the final blacksmith upgrade to have double the effect. So units would end up having +4 in dmg and armor rather than +3 in age IV. Due to the fact that OotD units cost more pop, blacksmith upgrades have a reduced value for them. They effectively give +1 to one unit rather than +1 to two units. Especially in regards of dmg, this is a very bad trade for OotD.
Leave Golden Cuirass and Zornhau as they are, but add an additional effect to Bodkin arrow. This tech is supposed to counter springalds and ribauldequins, which is cool but a bit lackluster for age IV. And since Bodkin bolts were invented to ruin a human soldier’s life, the tech should display that. That’s why I suggest that the Bodkin tech also applies a bleed effect to units very similar to the Zornhau effect (2 dmg/second over 10 seconds), but stackable with it. That way there’d by a synergy in using Landsknechte together with Crossbows
Knight: increase base hp by 20 or armor or everything a bit. Another issue is that pikemen brace stops a gilded knight like a normal knight, so one pikeman kinda stops two “normal” knights. There are not many advantages for the OotD knight. It also doesn’t really live longer, due to counters being so effective against it. And that’s why it’s a pretty bad unit for OotD outside of early castle. Maybe add an additional effect to Warhorse reducing the brace stun and dmg by 50% or allow the dmg reduction of Warhorse to linger longer after a charge.
OotD knights are really disappointing in later stages of the game. They are far from double health, they are far from double dps, they have one lousy melee armor more, Warhorse is kinda underwhelming, they have normal speed, one pikeman stops effectively twice the res cost of one normal knight… Where is the advantage of this unit? Statswise it is the worst unit for OotD. Elite upgrade gives 60 hp, so only 1.5 times of the normal knight upgrade. Double would be 80. Double hp in castle would be [460] instead of [400] So double hp for knights is actually [648] and they end up having [552]. That’s a big difference in effective hp. 2 normal knights are always better. And don’t let me start thinking about Imperial Guards or Cataphracts. Gilded Knights are really not good. But they would be with all the changes in here combined.
This is probably going to be the most controversial suggestion: OotD units would need many more buffs to actually make them feel like an elite army in a full pop battle against other civs that field better than basic units (remember the different unit values and how OotD units barely scratch on value 2?).
Add a tech in age IV that EITHER increases the max pop for OotD by 20, 30 or 50 (whatever feels necessary, right and balanced) OR that reduces the pop cost of OotD units from 2 down to 1.5 OR that reduces the pop cost for some units (like trash units) to 1 while the rest keep 2. OotD needs a better pop effciency. With all the buffs I suggested it’s going to be better for OotD, but it still won’t be good enough to make them feel like an elite army civ. If you have 80 pop space for units and let’s say 15 pop are taken by siege, “normal” civs would be able to field 65 units while OotD could only field 32. This is way too little space for the necessary army diversity. The units are far from being strong enough to put up an equal fight. You are always losing the battles with OotD with equal pop on military. And OotD does not really save a lot of pop thanks to their better villagers. As soon as you need trade, your military pop space is really down the drain. That’s why there needs to be a way for more units, while still keeping the higher cost narrative. Otherwise the units would all need a deeper overhaul and that would lead to a whole new level of balance issues. But the way the concept works now, 2 pop for every unit, is too flawed to ever work in a good way. If this civ is ever supposed to feel like a good and fun civ to play, then the pop concept needs more love. The tech could be called Palatine Settlements or Dragon rations or whatever. The name should not be a problem. The goal should be that OotD finally feels like a civ with an elite army instead of a civ with expensive two pop units that offers nothing else and is just inferior in every regard. A better pop efficiency aka more pop for military units would be the biggest buff for OotD of them all by far. So this would need close testing, but only after all the other issues have been adressed.
The HRE buffs to Elzbach (5% more hp and movement speed), Inspired Warriors and Fire Stations also apply to OotD.
If necessary, because OotD suddenly proves to be too potent, reduce the Aachen bonus from 15% down to 12%. That way it would also lead to a nice 40% bonus for Dragon Villagers. 28% + 12%.

4. The dream.

For HRE and OotD: A new unique unit, preferably with Teutonic Order reference. Like a Teutonic Knight (mounted or not or both. If mounted maybe with the ability to keep on fighting as an infantry unit similar to the Konnik in AoE 2 or smth else that stands out). This unit would need a Dragon version ofc. Or if the unit does not have a Teutonic Order reference, choose another unit out of the rich source that the Holy Roman Empire is and release a Teutonic Order civ at some point. I still cannot believe that AoE 4 is out for so long and there is not a Teutonic Knight or Teutonic Order civ anywhere. I honestly cannot believe it. Why? So much was taken from AoE 2, but the most goated and chadded and loved unit (despite far from being the best) is still lacking. How? Why? HOW? -_-

If HRE and OotD are not going to be blessed by a Teutonic Order reference/unit, because there will be a Teutonic Order civ at some point, fine. I happily look forward to that day.

There are a lot of different ways to add another unique unit to HRE/OotD.

Just take the Landsknecht. It would be great if he worked like the real Landsknecht instead of being this glasscannon nonsense. How about there are two versions of Landsknechte. A light one with a halberd/lance and a heavy one with a greatsword called Doppelsöldner that only shine in conjunction. The idea is that the Landsknecht fights with a higher range, but has single target dmg and a bonus to cav and light infantry and the Doppelsöldner has a normal range, but with AoE dmg and a bonus to heavy. Both units have high stats, they are sturdy, tough, one is faster and lighter armored, the other is tougher and heavier armor and they require light and heavy counters respecitvely. They are expensive, but only really have their full stats when together with other Landsknechte and Doppelsöldnern. Let’s say a Landsknecht or Doppelsöldner on his own has 50% weaker stats than in a full Landsknecht/DS formation. With every 5 units (LS and/or DS) they gain 10% stats. so 25 LS/DS have the full stats and no malus to their ability. The registration range for the bonus is around 10 tiles or as big as the bannermen bonus for Japanese.

The result would be that a few LS/DS are okay units, but not really worth their cost. You need a full squad of at least 25 to make them really shine and at the number of 15 they start becoming cost efficient. The requirement would have to be lower for OotD due to the smaller pop. Landsknechte fought in formations and they were almost unbeatable at their peak. The game should display that. The comp would be good against anything in melee, so the most effective tactic against them would be to try to spread them out, to disband their formation. Maybe the registration radius needs to be smaller for this counter to works well. The balance would have to be tested, but I’d simply love a Landsknecht/Doppelsöldner comp that is viable and close to their history as well. I am really not a fan of the Landsknecht’s design in the game.

That’s it for now. Remember that these are just suggestions with the goal to make both civs more fun to play, more versatile and simple more interesting. The goal is not to make the overpowered. I am adamant about my view that both civs are not well designed and need changes. And a HRE variants should probably have been released at a later stage, when the core civ gas gotten rid of their age II landmark focus to be viable. But that’s where we are now and all I want is that these two civs feel interesting, potent and fresh for once.

What do you guys think? Please try to see everything as a whole, because all the suggestions are supposed to work in conjunction. For HRE I want to nerf Aachen to buff the civ as a whole and for OotD I want to get the elite army feeling that this civ is so heavily lacking. If the eco needs to take a hit for that, I am all for it.

Thanks for reading. I know it’s a lot.

VoidMaker5560 · September 10, 2024, 4:33pm

You know prelate can directly influence villagers without the archen right?

Also making crossbow heavy makes 0 sense. Hre Maa shouldn’t be strong against crossbow otherwise they have no counters.

This post look like you’re only playing hre and get annoyed when your maa only mass get countered by crossbows… That’s what i get from this thread.

The only thing i agree with in your post is making cool interesting updates like new units for old civs.

I think most the changes you suggested are bad.

OriginalKnot717 · September 10, 2024, 5:22pm

I like the idea of extending inspiration and nerfing aachen buff so if you want the best eco improvement you need prelates. Allowing them to be trained at the meinwork palace is perhaps also a solution. I’d also decrease the delay between each individual inspiration.
I also agree with buffing or perhaps adding a tech to meinwork.

I think burgrave is fine as it is, there’s nothing wrong with tempo landmarks, not all of them need to be long term eco options.

Palace of swabia should be a full cost age up and elzbach the discounted option.

For abeletrier I don’t see an issue tbh, they are certiainly no different than HRE man at arms being able to beat knights due to unique techs. They still lose to archer mass and mangonels.

In my opinion aside from aachen the biggest issue is regnitz, you feel forced into this every game as HRE and it is very irritating. I’d rather regnitz give no bonus gold for relics but instead you start with 2 relics garrisoned that you can use to boost tower/keep defense and this guarantees a certain amount of gold income yet nerfs the total amount of gold income you could currently get from regnitz with 4 or 5 relics.

As for OOTD I think they are just misunderstood. There are additional benefits to them such as the units despite being like 2 of a regular unit they have far faster production time so less production is needed. Vills despite gathering faster still only occupy 1 pop and build faster per population. Also where as 2 individual archers in a fight 1 would die and your dps is halved but with 1 stronger archer you remain at full dps for longer. The archer is also amazing for OOTD far better than the crossbow. Early on gilded horseman basically function as an early knight as well and when used with meinwork are incredibly tanky for a feudal unit.
The lack of marching drills is a big negative and I’d like them to have access to it as a tech at least, your suggested change of dragon march could also be good. I agree that the japanese monk debuff should only be half as effective vs OOTD units to balance it compared to a vs a normal civ. Also agree with heavy torches changes, it is currently very underwhelming. Also I agree with the changes for knights.

1 big issue that effected OOTD was the vills gathering 28% faster but training 20% slower, this equated to an effective eco bonus per villager of just over 6% until you reached max villagers as the training time offset the bonus. The 1 second reduction in training time in the most recent patch has buffed this considerably so now in real terms each villager is over 11% better than generic villagers, reaching 28% better at max vills. Aachen buffs this to an effective bonus of 47% within its range, slightly worse than HRE aachen once you’ve got the tech to buff inspiration to 50% though more vills worth of eco can actually be within the aachen aura as each vill gathers faster. In feudal and throughout most of the game vills buffed by aachen are around 28% more effective, still much less than the 40% of HRE and outside of aachen there’s no buff other than the standard 11% until you reach max villagers.
The best part of OOTD is that due to the way your villagers are each 11% better than generic and once training time is out of the equation it does make 2tc much more viable and the meinwork is in most cases well worth it over aachen. Delaying castle is also much more reasonable as you do not need to go regnitz as burgrave provides so much value, being worth around 3 relics by itself not counting production time. This again leads into elzbach being much more viable when you’ve gone 2tc to start with.

Anyway I think OOTD are actually in a good spot compared to most civs, last patch significantly boosted their eco for the majority of the game and burgrave became a truly viable alternative to regnitz. I consider OOTD to be a much more versatile version of HRE being a pseudo early knight civ due to gilded horsemans strength and having the potential to 2 tc as well ## ### The OOTD only seems bad when you compare it to HRE’s eco which I think most people see as considerably overtuned.

Jaysus04 · September 10, 2024, 5:32pm

I am not talking about crossbows. I am talking about the Arbaletrier. A unit that is not countered in a good manner and breaks the counter system. Crossbows are fine. The Arbaletrier is not. Horsemen tickle them. What are you supposed to do? And as HRE the focus lies on MAA. There are no other bonuses whatsoever. How are you supposed to deal with Arbaletriers, when all you got is basic horsemen, archer and crossbows, none of which are cost efficient counters. That leads to the same old pi$$ boring narrative that HRE is an eco powerhouse and “is supposed to outmass the opponent”, which is simply nonsense. And that then leads to the everlasting imbalance of Aachen over Meinwerk, because Aachen is so essential for HRE to become an eco powerhouse to offset all their shortcomings.

I am honestly sick of this. It’s a terrible design that can only lead to stagnation and a boring civ outlook. And that hurts the game altogether. If you’re a HRE player yourself or not.

And yes, you can inspire villagers with Prelates. I never said you can’t. But I did say that it is mechanically poor and there will never be age II landmark equality for HRE, if this mechanic stays in its user unfriendly way. Aachen will always be superior. But I want Aachen to be a choice, not a must take for the civ’s competitiveness.

Sure, you can play Meinwerk and you can win games with it. But not competitively and Meinwerk is always considered the inferior choice. Relic is trying hard to make underused landmarks relevant for the upcoming metas, to turn them into a viable choice. But they always failed achieving exactly that when it comes to HRE. And on this foundation OotD was built.

I’ve put more thought into all this than you suspect, since you think I am nothing but a HRE player who can’t beat crossbows. You completely missed my point, I fear. That is not what this is about. It’s about civ designs that are more of a curse than anything else.

And with the potential of new civs being released, HRE will be so absurdly plain and boring that it’s going to be really tough to make them feel interesting again. HRE was always performing more or less okay. Sometimes it’s doing really well, sometimes it’s mediocre. But it never was a well designed civ. That’s the big issue. It’s balanced around one of two age II landmarks. And that is not good.

Jaysus04 · September 10, 2024, 7:28pm

Thank you for your detailed response.

I just really dislike this landmark. I find nothing about it appealing. If you win with it, it feels lame. And if you lose with it, it feels like you deserved it. 400% more production from one landmark is completely overtuned and is only possible, because HRE lacks in so many other regards. Most other civs would be completely broken if they had a landmark like that, which is also why no other civ has these absurdly high numbers on their landmarks in regards of production. We could witness how crazy English were with 100% production speed on their age III castle landmark. Burgrave is a landmark that offers very little gameplay wise that is not frustrating for one side or the other and it also leads to people complaining about this civ, because once again op MAA flooded their base. I don’t see anything positive for this landmark and I will never choose it. It doesn’t exist for me. I really hate its premise and its promise. And it would become worse, if inspiration were to be nerfed. It would have to change in conjunction with an inspiration nerf.

That’s a possibility, but it would also suck. It’s one of the core strengths for HRE to be able to do that and when it comes to other civs, their underused landmarks receive buffs rather than nerfs to the overused ones. That’s why I find it way more interesting if the choice for Swabia actually hurts, because you miss out on cool stuff from Elzbach. The current Elzbach is not a bad landmark, but it’s hella unappealing as it helps you turtle and defend. Even if you are under pressure, you still want Swabia for the cheaper villagers. Even if you’re on three TCs. Current Elzbach is just too boring to compete with Swabia. You see it in stupid FFA battles, when it’s supposed to secure a Sacred Site victory. It’s only good for abusive strats. And Swabia will become less of an issue, if inspiration is nerfed in its power. Putting the discount from Swabia on Elzbach seems like a really bad deal that no HRE player will really appreciate or be happy about. Even if you think, HRE is too strong, there is nothing enjoyable about a change like that. Swabia is a “get ahead” or “come equal” choice, because HRE has no real multiple TC bonuses. Other civ outscale them until HRE reaches Swabia. That’s why Swabia is the way it is. It’s once again a landmark that exists to offset the civ’s shortcomings. Same with Aachen, same with Burgrave/Regnitz, same with Swabia. All these landmarks exist to make HRE viable, because without them the civ offers barely anything. So a change like that to Swabia/Elzbach requires many other changes in different areas.

Knights are not the problem here, I’d say. They unfortunately are more of a raid unit than a fighting unit for most civs. The Arbaletrier is good against everything with no downside. It’s a CB+ with the greatest CB weakness taken away.
In theory archers counter Arbaletriers. But not in reality. They do okay against normal crossbows, but are not a hard counter to them. And they do notably worse against Arbs.
Firstly you need to build archers, which you probably don’t want, because there are not many civs with exceptional bonuses to them and because they suck against a lot of other units. Also French doesn’t field a lot of units archers are really good against. Arbs with pavise outrange them and take barely any dmg. The mangonel is the best option and that is countered easily with springalds and cav. It’s not reliable or cost efficient, but a lucky shot can definitely turn the tide. So the best and most reliable counter to crossbows is getting in their faces to scatter them. But that just doesn’t work against Arbs. They have so many advantages over normal crossbows and even cost the same, that there is no good way to react to them.

The comparison to HRE MAA is also not quite convincing, because HRE MAA have quite some unit hard counters. Arbaletriers do not have hard counters. It would be comparable, if HRE MAA had around 15 ranged armor. But they don’t. They take full dmg from cbs plus 3 bonus dmg (11-8) fully upgraded. And that’s true for all the MAA there are (except English, Mehter MAA and stuff like that, they need more shots, but that’s less of a problem for a ranged unit than for a melee unit in this game). FU horsemen deal 29 dmg to ranged units. That’s 26 to every other crossbow and 19 to Arbaletriers, who also fire quicker. A normal crossbow dies in 4 (3.65) hits from a horseman and an Arbaletrier in 5. And this has notable repercussions, because horsemen become worse the longer the game goes due to the way how they counter and how they are countered. They have a pathetic ranged armor for an anti ranged unit and simply take too much dmg in order to be effective. But quite some civs have to rely on them. Especially if their main and only strength (like HRE and MAA) gets hard countered by crossbows and more so by Arbaletriers. Thus one hit more from horsemen is a really big deal. When a MAA reaches a crossbow, they deal 17 dmg (fu, no bonuses). But vs an Arbaletrier the dmg is down to 10 (that’s 6 hits vs 10). That’s the core idea of the Arbaletrier to be more resilient to the units they counter. But the issue is that they are also more resilient to the units that are supposed to counter them. And again, I don’t want to ruin the Arbaletrier. I want to make him more distinct. Being able to move wilth pavise is a big buff. Being more resilient to arrows with pavise is a big buff. But being heavy would allow them to have distinct and clear counters. And look at them. These guys are fully armored and yet regarded as “light”. They are not even slower than normal cbs. There is just no downside to them. Zero.

I wish there was a potent editor for the game that would allow to make these changes, so one could get an idea of how it’d play out. Maybe my idea sucks, maybe it makes the game and counter system more interesting and fun. I would really like to know. But tbh, the Arbaletrier is my smallest concern when it comes to HRE and OotD. The Arb might even be fine with his current design eventually, I just think his design does not represent the core idea of the game very well and goes agains# ### own rules. (lol at the ###)

Fair suggestion, but that would be a huge nerf to the civ that would need to be offset in other ways. Regnitz is not among the mechanics that give you the highest gpm. It’s really good, but not the best. There are civs that are better in regards of free res and also safer, because they don’t need anything from the map. If you nerf this for HRE, you need to buff every other aspect of the civ. You must not forget that this civ has the poorest army roster in the game. There are just no bonuses to anything other than 10% infantry speed and 2 MAA techs. Every other civ has more bonuses spread out to their army. That’s also why HRE is so one dimensional to play. There is just no depth to the civ. Everything is on the surface. And your suggested change would make nerfing inspiration so much harder. I do like the core idea of your suggestion, but the civ it’s for is not ready for it. If you go against the main strengths of the civ (Aachen → Regnitz → Swabia) you need to buff the shit out of it first or it will never be touched again.

When I talk about OotD I mostly have the mid and late game in mind. Early seems okay. Not great, but okay. I generally mean the problems with pop, the inability to win equal pop/res battles convincingly, the difficulty with closing games, the lack of army diversity and versatility just because you can’t build enough units, the weakness to kiting, the weakness to hard counters and the same roles for their 2 pop units, which also do not reach the value of 2 one pop units with bonuses. They don’t even reach the value of 2 basic one pop units, which is actually the whole idea of the civ. That’s the con side.

The pro side you described: Their units live longer and can deal dmg for longer. But that’s more theoretical. Because hard counters in a certain number can one tap OotD units and that is such a big disadvantage over the other civs, since you need two volleys to kill their 2 pop. And that’s even worse when you field half the units of your opponent anyway. The concept as it is has more flaws than advantages. It’s not a civ strength, it’s a burden. While it somewhat works in early game, it grows weaker the longer the game continues. If my suggestions should prove too strong, I’d gladly take an eco hit again, since OotD is supposed to be more army focussed than HRE anyway. But I never have the feeling of fielding an elite army. It always feels like “okay, how can I fill my pop to be as versatile as the opponent” and that doesn’t work. The best way is spamming 2 types of units and no more. And that’s just so freaking easy to counter.
There is just way too many cons to the concept than pros. The way the civ is right now, it will never be a civ that makes sense from start to end. It’s impossible. The whole cognitive overload argument was already so plain and nonsensical that I am not suprised that the whole concept turned out equally undercomplex. I watch a lot of twitch. Many different players. And I have never seen a convincing OotD victory that was the result of their “elite army”. Instead it’s always the same: Try to get ahead in eco and then win in a scrappy building/siege war by avoiding full scale battles. It’s the worst elite army I have ever seen.

When I talk about civs, I do not care too much about their respective tiers. How well they fare, how their winrate looks etc. I care about their design and why a civ is strong. For HRE it’s all about landmarks. And then the choices between them are not even choices. And for OotD I explained my issues with the concept. So for me both civs are really badly designed and that has nothing to do with their winrates or anything. I don’t want buffs for them to fare better on the ladder. That’s what balance fine tuning is for. I want buffs/changes for them to have them make more sense. To represent the civ they display better without having to invent the wheel anew; to have them have a real identity due to a well thought out concept.
The focus on 50% of their landmarks (I mean HRE here) and a plain 2 pop double cost and not really double the value unit roster without any synergies to make this concept actually fun does not cut it for me. I like both civs for what they are supposed to represent. And that’s where it ends. I want to play and enjoy them, but I can’t enjoy either of them. Especially when seeing the other civs and how well they are designed. Some of them have stuff that makes no sense to me, but it’s strong and makes them versatile so gameplay wise it’s a plus. You have options and don’t have to do the same stuff every time again. And others just are so much better designed as a whole than HRE or OotD, it’s not even funny anymore. And it makes me want to quit the game. I am so sick of being so one-dimensionally landmark focussed as HRE and I am so sick of never feeling the elite army for OotD that it really is killing the game for me. Germany has such a rich medieval age, you see castles and old churches everywhere. There is so much to take from. And both civs are so plain and boring that it hurts. The only thing that really represents HRE is the Landsknecht. And he is an absolute wimp that cannot even be the backbone of your army, but a niche additon at best (I went into detail in my opening post). Men with maces is nothing HRE specific. It’s just an expression of how blunt weapons were developed to dent in heavy armor. And OotD is literally the same with the factor of ~2 for quality and a divisor of 2 for quantity. Where are the ######### (i. d. e. n. t. i. t. i. e. s.) of these civs? Where are their actual historical identities displayed? The OotD was founded to fight the Ottomans. Where is a unique way of fighting the Ottomans or the strengths they pose with this civ? There is just nothing. There is not even a Teutonic Knight, when every other civ gets their unique units from AoE 2 in one way or the other. It’s just so disappointing.

OriginalKnot717 · September 10, 2024, 9:58pm

I get your dislike for it, it is after all a 1 trick pony, it serves just to flood maa and win after doing a FC. I guess it could be changed to more similar to the OOTD version which provides both increased production and a discount. That way it maintains its value even in late game, especially for expensive units like the landsknecht. However even if you gave it double production to 70% and the same 35% discount so it was basically the same as OOTD version taking into account population the issue is you don’t have such strong infantry overall so this would only really serve as a man at arm factory. As it is currently it can also save you from a feudal push if you hit castle and can immediately spit out maa like 5 barracks and the burgrave rush itself is strong so I’m unsure if HRE players would even want it changed in this way.

I think that the reason HRE gets so much hate is the normal rock/paper/scissors doesn’t apply due to this landmark. A 2 TC play should out eco any FC build yet HRE can cheaply go to imperial after and actually quickly get more villagers at reduced cost than someone that has been 2tc the last 10 minutes, just doesn’t seem balanced well. They do after all have 40% faster gathering anyway, do they really need the villager printer at cheaper cost? Elzbach is a fun landmark that fits into the defensive design of the civ and if it was cheaper it would be seen much more where as now 90% of the time it is swabia.

I see them as quite similar units, the arbaletrier has faster fire rate and more melee damage which as you say helps it beat its traditional counter in the horseman though it still remains heavily countered by mangonels.
The HRE maa has +2 damage in general and +6 vs heavy units. Both help them deal with knights cost effectively when they should lose. The additional damage combined with built in +10% speed buff also allows them to reach crossbows and beat them in melee, the exception being the arbaletrier in this case as its additional armor negates the additional damage of the HRE maa and then some.
Both units can beat 1 of their counters but still remain countered by others. If anything I’d say the HRE maa is more of an issue vs any other crossbow because if it gets into melee it actually will beat crossbows and knights so both of its counters while the french crossbow still performs inefficiently vs archers and loses hard to mangonels.

The ability of the HRE maa to beat both of its counters in many circumstances can be allowed due to the otherwise very vanilla military of HRE. Also the arbaletrier is 1 of those great units on paper but most of the time you never make them as france always spams royal knights which beat most other knights and nobody will make maa vs royal knights so france due to them making so many knights rarely have the need to make their unique crossbow as nobody makes maa/knights vs france so the crossbow rarely counter anything on the field.

I think most people currently think the HRE eco is too much, too early. Plenty of civs have strong eco later on but none start with a 40% bonus to everything. I think HRE were lucky to avoid a nerf to aachen. I’d rather they take a small nerf to regnitz than a significant nerf to aachen, as you say other than eco they have a very vanilla military after all.

I actually do feel as if the OOTD units are elite. If you go meinwork and gilded horsemen they are actually better than early knights for raiding. Similarly the man at arms with golden cuirass just tanks damage forever, fights are often misleading as you see you have so much fewer units and assume you lose but you often win. Landsknecht with the elite tech are also almost broken especially when mixed in some maa and hard to pick off. Send 1 landsknecht with zornhau off to the enemies woodline and it will kill 20 vills if the opponent is distracted even a short time.

The units themselves actually perform similar to 2 units, in some cases better and with certain unique techs much better. The gilded archer for example has more range so gets the first hit off vs other archers and has an extra armor tech in castle, it is 1 of the highest dps units. The crossbow also has more range so always gets the first shot off. Gilded knight has extra armor and even more extra ranged armor with elite tech. Fire rate is also faster meaning you hit first and kill first reducing damage taken overall. Gilded Landsknecht is more than double the HP of the regular version, with only 25% more attack however that is offset by already high base damage combined with the unique tech that does an extra 20 damage over time. The gilded Handcannoneer is actually significantly better than the normal version with an incredibly high dps. The only underwhelming unit is the gilded horsemen though it is basically a knight in feudal so any buff would have to be to later age stats.

All of the above melee units become far more cost effective with the use of burgrave as well.

The only weak point of OOTD is you are vulnerable to raids due to less units overall however you have extra line of sight at your outposts and walling early will reduce the problem significantly.

Currently I have much more fun playing OOTD than HRE, I don’t think they are necessarily stronger but the civ feels balanced currently and has much more versatility compared to HRE itself. As OOTD I can go dark age gilded spearmen to harass vills, ## ######## FC burgrave, early 2 tc into burgrave later on etc. There just are more options and more variety of quality units compared to HRE.

Jaysus04 · September 17, 2024, 9:01pm

Well… When looking at the PUP…: Melee inf in general was butchered, HRE eco was nerfed heavily, OotD eco as well, Landsknecht is a freaking lategame joke now that’s never going to be worth the investment. Archer blobs will dominate everything, English will reign supreme (9 range LBs, 11 range Rangers… Please kill me now! I will NOT deal with that)… Wow… I am literally shocked. There are some nice ideas, but the overall direction of the coming patch is just outright awful.

HRE and OotD were massively butchered. OotD is a very bad civ rn, design wise and mechanically, there is no changing my mind and it’s going to be even worse with the next patch. Their archers do not have double dmg than others, but siege armor now works percentage wise. That makes every other civ more cost efficient vs siege than OotD, since ranged will be able to kill a lot of siege now. The Aachen nerf in itself is justified, but the way it was done is not cool and also applies to OotD for no reason. HRE is the problem here, not OotD… But OotD suffers. That just shows me that Relic cares about plenty of civs, just not about HRE and OotD, the freaking stepchildren of civ design. The new Meinwerk tech for HRE is pretty much useless. Spearmen already counter cav, so the dmg increase helps against everything else. But melee inf also gets +4 melee armor now in age IV instead of 20% hp and that renders spearmen in melee to melee combat rather useless anyway. And horsemen will be more important now, but +3 dmg is pretty pathetic since their main probelm is their bad survivability against the units they are supposed to counter. It works against siege more or less, but not against ranged units which got buffed. So the +3 dmg will be almost irrelevant. But I guess it’s still better than the travesty riveted chainmail was.

I don’t know. I am pretty annoyed right now. Been testing some things and do not like them at all. I guess I keep on waiting, because this patch is not a patch I wanna play on. I hate ranged units being dominant and meta and this is exactly what is going to happen. Especially in lategame. Lategame will be just awful and HRE will muster the very worst army in the whole game for this kind of meta. And so much new stuff for so many civs, but nothing for OotD and HRE got riveted chainmal in an underused landmark replaced with something equally underwhelming, while Aachen will still be the go to, just in a nerfed fashion.

This is the most anti HRE patch that also makes OotD worse I could have never seen coming. And it butchers melee infantry altogether. And Arbs, the unit I have great issues with, benefits from all this as well. And don’t get me started on Nobs, which still have homing missiles while mangos need manual aiming now and are effectively countered by ranged unit blobs. This is just terrible. And I don’t get it. I don’t understand anything about this patch. The Otto Cav archer is also overtuned. It deals way too much dmg and is faster than a knight. It deals 19 dmg times 2 with eventually 5.5 range. It doesn’t cost gold, but its attack speed is rather low, but can ofc be improved with Mehter. WHY??? This is going to be such an annoying unit, especially since it doesn’t have a long shooting animation. You can kite so well with this unit and it deals 22 dmg to maa and knights fully upgraded. You will have to build archers now with every civ, even with civs you do not want to build archers with. And Malians are also going to be crazy with their poison arrows and 7 range as well as the new Farimba units. Yeah, new stuff got into the game, but again not for HRE… This civ receives only changes from within by nerfing, buffing or merging existing things. There never is anything new and I am so sick of this.

I’ll respond to your points at another time. Right now I am just agitated and need to stop thinking about AoE 4. I am pretty much done with this for now. There are so many outright terrible things and nothing that even remotely adresses the things that I find great issues with… Inspiration mechanic was not touched, non-Aachen play was not improved, the army was even nerfed and heavily at that, Aachen was just nerfed by a lot as was eco in general which also benefits ranged units, since they tend to live longer. OotD is still this perversion of a civ with pop costs and unit strengths that are just not made for lategame. Unless you play regicide and get +100 pop or something. Then it feels kinda cool.

Just one thing now:

In early to mid game you do occasionally get the feeling of fielding an elite army. Especially when it’s not equal pop but more on the OotD side. But that’s the whole issue I have. The concept becomes worse and worse the longer the game goes, because the units simply do not have the value that you pay for and they do not scale well into imp. There is nothing that is better than the 1 pop unit in terms of stat growth. Like I showed with the Gilded knight. Elite uprades for normal knights give 40 hp. OotD gets 60. That’s 50% better, which is far away from 100%, but you pay 100% more for this unit… It does not add up. A 200 pop equal value army of any civ will always beat a 200 pop equal value army of OotD. Same goes for 100 pop and 80 pop. That is not an elite army. It’s just an expensive army of half the size that doesn’t quite match up. The units are not good enough for what they cost. Especially not for the 2 pop tag. They scale terribly into late. There are just so many more disadvantages with OotD than advantages, it’s a concept that simply doesn’t compute.