I’m platinum 2 and play French as main civ, but I have no idea why but whenever I try any other civ than French I keep losing and drop so much in ranking. Tried HRE and Ottoman for a bit and dropped to Gold 2. Then When I switched back to French I won 11 match in a row and raised up to Platinum 3.
I’d like to try another civ but i struggle with the other civs. Any advice would be appreciated.
The way I play French is usually I go school of cavalry, make 2 knight and then rush for second TC. With my knight I usually try to deny one resource (gold or food). Then after that I make a huge army of archer and knight (and sometimes spear if the opponent goes for cavalry), and usually manage to take control of the map during age 2 while making a lot of villager, and putting pressure on the opponent. I usually don’t go age 3 until the opponent does because having control of the map is so much more important I think. When I feel i have good control of map I start trading. And I usually end the game in age 4 when the opponent start running out of resources and I have really good siege units that other civ dont (cannon, ribauldequin and culverin).
I want to try other civs but I keep losing, with HRE infantry i find it really hard to take control of the map with infantry, and usually feel forced to rush age 3 since most of their advantage are age 3 and doing so what happen is I get surrounded and always run out of food so fast (MAA and Horseman cost so much food).
With ottoman I really struggle fighting against MAA in age 2 and will usually also need to rush age 3 which is something i usually dont need to do with french. So I end up playing on the defensive unless im agaisnt a civ that doesn’t have knight or MAA (so half the civ).
I could try mongol or rus because they also have knight, but i really hate the hunting mini-game I think it’s one of the worse mechanic in the game (anti-thematic and full of dead animals everywhere, and a mini-game at the start impacting the income for the whole game is a bit lame). Mongol are interesting but keeps saved me from losing so many times with french because i use them a lot for map control. Also the lack of good age 4 siege unit seems like a huge disadvantage (french have all the best age 4 siege).
Anyway, would be curious to hear what is the weakness of French, since it doesn’t have high winrate at higher ranking, and how differently i need to play the other civ to be as efficient.