At what point and timeframe in the game should I be working on building an army and what units should I focus on? Mostly play French and Holy Roman.
When to start building an army just depends on what your opponents do really. As the French I would build knights and crossbows. French knights heal and can destroy people’s siege and work well against infantry they also heal when not fighting. HRE seems to be set up as an infantry civ, your probably better off building knights as them too honestly. But as HRE maybe go for crossbows to counter cavalry and men at at arms as cover units for them, mix in some Landschneckt. If your opponent only builds Calvary you could use pikemen as well as they can cover the crossbows and are good against Calvary