Optimizing the HRE civ's strengths

[sylvanllewelyn]

I think I have mentioned this before, but I guess I lost the thread and I really wish to ask for some help again.

Basically, I don't understand what strategies or synergies are possible with the HRE. Protective and imperialistic are widely considered to be the two weakest traits, with imperialistic being nearly worthless. Well not totally, but they don't have an archery UU for protective, and the UU that they do have are not particularly good at waging wars and getting GG's either.

What's more is that engineering is not a tech that you get early, and when you do get it, it's usually when pikemen become obselete anyway. So they may seem like an economic, small-empire type, but then they don't have any economic adventages and their UB only works when you have a very large empire. How they would get a large empire without a good offensive UU or financial adventages is beyond me.

It's the one civ that I fail to understand.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

The only reason to ever play as the HRE is with unrestricted leaders. Any organized leader for the cheap rathaus or any aggressive leader for the free combat promotion on the UU.

 

[mourndraken]

suit yourselves. I always play protective civs.

The Rathaus is 50% better than courthouse and is a great UB. Rathaus in every city is a significant advantage. It's a must to have your cheap settlers claim great territory. Don't expand into marginal areas until later in the game.

I don't usually war with that type of unit. Nothing against the UU. My wars happen later when my boys have guns.

 

[Iranon]

Imperialistic is vastly underrated, it's an excellent trait for rapid peaceful expansion. Rathäuser help your economic recovery quite a lot, meaning you can REX very hard indeed. The AI spams cities with the HRE and so should you.
The starting techs are limited... with 4 hammers right from the start, settler first while teching polytheism is a strong option; usually they suck though.

Cheaper castles can actually be useful since maximising your initial advantages will result in your being large and backwards. Trade income is always nice, and the espionage bonus can help you catch up.

 

[qwertz]

pro/imp aren't the best traits in the world, but imp can help you to rex quite good. combine it with one of the best UB in the game and you can spam cities like crazy. The rathaus has also a very good synergie with the corporations as it also cuts the corp. maintance. The UU is also quite strong, combined with trebs, which come with the same tech, you get a very strong medieval army.

 

[Blackluck]

Depending on the map, as others have suggested rex like crazy, oracle CoL and claim lots of land.
If you start with stone, a possible strategy might be to build Stonehendge, Greatwall and chop out the Oracle.
Research religious techs, then with the GP bulb theocracy.
Build up a defensive force and declare war on nearest neighbor -- but don't invade. Have them attack you to spawn a GG or two (imperialistic+GW =very quick great generals.) You can then build up a nicely promoted medieval army.

 

[Roxlimn]

Focus on hammer production in the capital to leverage Imperialistic's hammer advantages when producing Settlers. Same for any subsequent Settler pump. Don't be afraid to settle close to AI Civs because of military reasons. Protective with Archery on hill citadels (Walled Cities) makes your early cities fairly impregnable until the advent of Construction.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Surely, the UB is strong. In fact, it's a stronger version of a building that I am a big fan of, that's why I am so annoyed at not being able to leverage it. It's even better late game, when you can have a vast empire, on multiple continents, and run corporations on your own cities.

But how you get there is the problem.

REX, but you have no economic advantages, and your economy collaspes. In fact, your starting techs are the two most useless ones in the game. Even fishing is better than hunting, as your UU aren't archers either. And if you do found Buddhism or Hinduism, you still have no worker techs for a long time.

Ok fine, with cheaper castles, you might as well get engineering for the trade routes, but then that means no liberalism for you. Are trebs, pikes and maces powerful enough to fight muskets and longbows? Hmm... definitely a medieval challange.

 

[Roxlimn]

You need to stop relying on economic trait advantages to fund your REXing activities because - let's face it - not all Civs have useful economic traits for that purpose. I think it's a useful exercise to try REXing hard with Imperialistic Civs until you can take great advantage of the early extra hammers provided by the trait.

 

[Diamondeye]

I personally love the HRE so I'll have to rack down your arguments.

Basically, I don't understand what strategies or synergies are possible with the HRE. Protective and imperialistic (...)

There are lots of synergy earlygame wise between protective, aswell as lategame. Earlygame; Pump settlers while using Pro archers to keep them save. Protective allows for much better, well, protection. If you get the GW, you get 4 times the GG exp inside borders - lots of synergy with Pro.
So peaceful REX early game until early middleages.

they don't have an archery UU for protective, and the UU that they do have are not particularly good at waging wars and getting GG's either.

:O Excuse me? A pikeman with +100% against melee not good for wars? They have two "weaknesses"; Crossbows and archers. Get some Cover Longbows (protective!) or just horsearchers to cover their backs and they'll rape any other medieval army easily.
Macemen (defending): 8 vs 6 * (1 + 1 - .5) = 9
Macemen (attacking): 6 vs 8 / (1 + 1 - .5) = 5,3
Landsknechts are perhaps the best medieval UU there is!

What's more is that engineering is not a tech that you get early

If you don't play your civilizations' strengths, I understand you have problems.
Engineering unlocks castles (half with Pro), Trebs and Landsknechts. You can invade medieval empires with this tech and HBR, skipping out on both Mach and CS.

they don't have any economic adventages

Except for the best UU besides Dike and, maybe, Ziggurat, no. And the Imperialistic trait.

and their UB only works when you have a very large empire. How they would get a large empire without a good offensive UU or financial adventages is beyond me.

1) Their UU is offensive.
2) They do have financial advantages

It's the one civ that I fail to understand.

Sad. You're missing out on one of the best civs in the game. But whatever, I think my point is proved.

 

[joncnunn]

I haven't actually played the HRE yet, but have played both Protective & Imperalistic civs and in the upcoming Apollyon BTS multi-team democracy game it's one of the contenders my team is considering so I do have some comments:

Protective:
Don't let the name "Protective" fool you into thinking it's only worthwhile for defense. This traight not only gives you the City Defender 1 to archer / gunpowder units, double speed walls / castles but also gives you a free Drill I to them as well.

That might not sound like much, but add a baracks and said unit is now Drill II as well (or alterntively could be anti-melee or anti-archer or anti-gun). Can you say archer rush?

Oh and when you have the ability to build Cross Bows, you can pretty much defeat in the field Maces quite easily with the Drill & anti-melee.

You'll also have an incentive to build Muskets early since Melee units that upgade to Rifles won't have the free Drill I.

Imperalistic

While Imperalistic is in the war mongling categoy, it also helps peaceful expanionists. Your settlers are built 50% faster than non-Imperalistic. This is a major time savor getting your second and third cities built. Until you start becoming in danger of overexpanding for your given techs (or alternatively you need more techs to make certain areas actually worth settling) this will directly speed up your expansion. After that point your now busy building buildings (or perhaps offensive units) while your opponents are still just trying to expand.

And when war comes, you'll get 2X generation of Great Generals.

UB

Basically their UB is a greatly improved Courthouse. I may be wrong in calculations, but I'm calculating that in a city you have the Courthouse, your maintenance cost is the same as an organized civ with the courthouse. This would amounts to having Organized as a partual third traight.
In addition, you can build the FP with one fewer of your version of the Courthouse while organized civs still have to build the normal number so this would result in a similar time for starting the FP.

UU[/UU]

The HRE's UU basically turns the normally purely anti-Horsemen Pike substanily more versality on which units in the field they can kill.

Synergy
Improved Court Houses go very well with additional cities both built and conquered.

I think I have mentioned this before, but I guess I lost the thread and I really wish to ask for some help again.

Basically, I don't understand what strategies or synergies are possible with the HRE. Protective and imperialistic are widely considered to be the two weakest traits, with imperialistic being nearly worthless. Well not totally, but they don't have an archery UU for protective, and the UU that they do have are not particularly good at waging wars and getting GG's either.

What's more is that engineering is not a tech that you get early, and when you do get it, it's usually when pikemen become obselete anyway. So they may seem like an economic, small-empire type, but then they don't have any economic adventages and their UB only works when you have a very large empire. How they would get a large empire without a good offensive UU or financial adventages is beyond me.

It's the one civ that I fail to understand.

 

[DMOC]

the UU that they do have are not particularly good at waging wars and getting GG's either.

What's more is that engineering is not a tech that you get early, and when you do get it, it's usually when pikemen become obselete anyway. So they may seem like an economic, small-empire type, but then they don't have any economic adventages and their UB only works when you have a very large empire. How they would get a large empire without a good offensive UU or financial adventages is beyond me.

Their UU obsoletes when you research Engineering? Wow, that's never happened to me since 1) I always beeline to Engineering when playing as the HRE and 2) when does the Landschkent obsolete anyway? When cavalry come into the fray which isn't until several techs later?.

 

[cronullasharks]

Im no expert on the HRE or on how to use protective but I would imagine he could be the REX king with the underated imp. trait and that powerful UB.

As someone before me said , its important to learn how to manage a REX`d out economy without org. or fin......no easy solutions but a few specialists and only building what you really really need and squeezing every last cent of commerce from your tiles is vital...even then you will be behind

If i pull a protective Civ in a random start I just use it to build less defenders and more attackers and sort of try to turn it upside down.....walled , hilled protective archers mean far less troops also helping the REX`ed out economy.

Even moreso with an early GG which you should be able to get

But boy those starting techs suck

 

[mourndraken]

But boy those starting techs suck

HRE has a better than average chance of discovering a religion. Having your own religion is always a good thing. Go for Polytheism. If that fails, move onto Monotheism. My HRE often has Stonehenge and has discovered Judaism. Stonehenge helps to REX by giving new cities an area of infulence without a culture building.

 

[cronullasharks]

I wish I knew how to do the religion founding thing like some of you......I picture myself chasing monoethism on a crowded map on immortal........40 plus turns into the game without archery , bronze working or worker techs sounds like a world of hurt......I`m far from saying it is wrong I`m saying I dont know how you deal with it

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Thanks for the advice.

1) I tried it on monarch, went Oracle --> metal casting and made a point of lightbulbing engineering. The trebs were better than I thought against CG longbows on walls, but I still wasn't impressed with their UU. Pikemen don't get used much, but when the enemy does show up with a stack of knights, you really want them to be in full health. I really could've just built a regular pikeman actually. Usually I don't even bother with pikeman to be honest.

2) I then tried it on immortal, and my economy broke down from REXing, but I did whip out the Oracle --> CoL in time. But my economy was so broken that after I was about to be done with civil service, I already had my 4 GS's for philosophy, paper and education. No sense going for engineering. Eventually eeked out my 8th city so I could build my national wonders and launch that spaceship.

3) I tried them again on deity and aggressive AI (to slow down the tech rate), and I found out the key was researching archery first thing, because I found gold being drained by too many warriors. Protective archers are amazing against hordes of barbarians. I also picked forested areas for my cities so I can quickly chop out the Rathaus with a stack of workers. My only real condition was that my cities were coastal. This time I could either REX or Oracle (reloaded to try both ways) - not both. Oracle, and I would've been trapped in a small 4 city empire, and eventually be overwhelmed by attackers. REX and I would fall hopelessly behind in tech, and lose to an inevitable cultural victory.

 

[killmeplease]

always playing random leaders, never tried HRE before. but i think if they get early religion, all will be ok. i playing on prince level so it is not impossible to found one of them. due to this, on prince level commercial and organized traits do suck - money is not a problem at all. commercial gives some boost only in early game, at those cottages across rivers and sea tiles. later this bonus becomes insufficient - what is the dramatic difference between cottage giving 8 or 7?

 

[Quotey]

dramatic difference between cottage giving 8 or 7?

AHHHHHHHHHH

Do you only have one cottage in your empire at games end?

On the HRE- Landies are good for cleanup, and Rathauses don't help as much as you think they should.

 

[qwertz]

I allways find if fun to play as darius of HRE, you get two best economical traits and cheap Rathäuser, giving you a really insane eco.

 

[Hammurbabble]

I wish I knew how to do the religion founding thing like some of you

Here's how you do that, playing the HRE which starts with Mysticism. (If you don't start with Mysticism the same strategy works but you skip the first part.)

1. Take Polytheism as your first research goal. Eighty percent of the time on all difficulty levels Prince and up on a normal sized map with seven opponents, this will give you Hinduism. If you play on lower difficulties your chances are better; if you play on bigger maps with more opponents they're worse. But you always have a good chance, though no guarantee.

2. After getting Polytheism, Bronze Working, and Archery, research Priesthood and build the Oracle. Chop as necessary. While building the Oracle, research Writing. Make sure you get Writing before you finish the Oracle; finish the Oracle as soon after that as possible. Get OB treaties with all civs you've encountered as soon as you get Writing! Take CoL as your free tech, this will give you Confucianism. I have never had this fail.

Even if you get Hinduism in step 1, playing as the HRE you still want to do step 2, because it opens your UB. Also, two religion shrines are better than one. Choose which of the religions to adopt as SR (or a third one founded by someone else) for diplomatic advantage, naturally.

Some might argue that this leaves some basic worker techs until later in the game than they like. I don't find that a problem playing BtS, though, because of the barbarian rush phenomenon. There's a period right about when I'm researching my worker techs that sees a veritable hailstorm of barbarians, and while it's not a big challenge to protect my cities, especially as a Protective, there's no way I can reliably protect tile improvements until the storm is over. So there's no great gain to having those worker techs early.