Its a stupid joke to play them versus current meta civs. Slavic hobos never seen plate armor literally have more power and armor than the best cavalry civ in human history. I dont understand why Franks best unit is some guys throwing axes, not legendary Gendarmes of king Francis I? No normal siege, no infantry advantage, no cavalry they historically had. What a nonsense!
PS Franks are Renaissance civ like Italians and Teutons, but for some reason they are nerfed to 13-14th centuries.
Franks cover the full period, starting from the barbarian invasions, that’s why they have throwing axemen. Which they did use, though they threw light franciscas (that were appreciated by Native Americans 1000 years lated as an upgrade to their stone tomahawks) and not dwarven double battleaxes.
Now yes their cavalry has been powercrept while it reigned supreme in CD AOK.
I think frank knights should be even stronger than they are. It should be a unit to rely on.
Hi ban evading person.
Pavia (1525) is borderline out of bounds for the game, it ends earlier in Europe, notably as the 16th century saw a military revolution. Meanwhile Clovis and Charlemagne absolutely are within it.
So yes the Franks cover the full period, which is tougher to make than the Bohemians who really only portray a few decades by fully focusing on the Hussites
Tbh it does seem kinda weird that it’s a unit only available since the Castle Age, which is supposed to represent later period. Adding it to Dark Ages Archery and giving Franks another UU ih the Castle would probably be controversial due to nostalgia factor however.
Ages aren’t very coherent with the timeline. Just look at the Huns Goths etc who peaked around 400-500.
This persos account is nearly 2 years old so im unsure if this account is
I guess you didn’t play the original AoK? The original approach to civ design was that every civ had a shared tech tree (with some elements missing) plus a unique unit available at the castle. Franks’ unique unit is the throwing axeman, so it’s trained from the castle, which obviously isn’t available until Castle Age.
Basically for the devs of the original game, having a clear and consistent game design was more important than historical accuracy. Something I am personally glad about but that doesn’t seem very popular on this forum.
No archery range in Dark Age. Also it’s not an archer so why would it be trained at the archery range?
Played Gold Edition as a kiddo. I’m not proposing it to be changed (even noted it’d be controversial), just saying it feels a bit quirky.
Had a brainfart, meant Feudal obv. As for the latter half – skirms are trained there as well, so axe-throwers wouldn’t be too off?
Franks are an easy to play civilization. Which means that they are good at low level. It is natural for them to be weaker at higher level, for balance reason. Otherwise, they would be an auto win at lower elo.
How strong a civ is in the gane has nothing to do with how strong the country was IRL. We had Mayans at the top for years and nobody complained about it.
The tech tree does not have to perfectly fit the civ IRL, it mainly has to fit the civ design in a way to give the civ clear strengths and weaknesses. That is why Franks lack arbalesters, Spinards lack crossbowmem, and why Britons have underwhelming cavalry.
It is not their best unit, it is their special unit. There best unit is the paladin. Always has been. They do not need a second heavy cavalry unit, they need a complementary unit.
AoE2 games are not supposed to be won by spamming your unique unit.
Not necessarily, when done well a civ can be good at all levels. Fanks also has already some potential for high elo play, as it still has possibly the best Knight rush and these timing bonusses can be very, very strong when utilized optimally.
Also with the TA we have a unit that is very special and if brought to the right spot would be a unique tool that high levels would be able to use optimally. Unfortunately currently it’s not really that useful and too easy to counter by various ranged units.
I think with the right tweeks Franks could be brought back to their former identity AND solid at all levels. I already have worked out several conceptional ideas for that.
But part of all of them is actually to make Franks get the best Paladins in the game agin. IDK why devs wanted to change that, give that to Lithuanians and Persians. The unit is literally named after Franks, so they should have the best, period. And it also plays in nicely with the rework of the civ, because Franks kinda fall off currently in the super lategame. When their Palas would be just stronger and less spammy, they could get to a way healthier state WHILST actually bringing them back to their former identity.
I’ll be Frank with you.
No.
What I meant (partly, at least) was that the game doesn’t classify throwing axemen as archers – they deal melee damage and benefit from infantry upgrades. I see what you mean though.
True, if you want something more coherent with that, play a grand strategy game.
For example France is a monster in EU5, especially if you spawnkill Burgundy.
I suppose when they designed them, they had in mind the Franks who invaded The Rome Empire (300-451 A.D) and the Franks of Charlemagne’s Kingdom (800–887 A.D). So it would make sense that they have good infantry and axemen throwers. The cavalry bonuses are for the French medieval period of the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453 A.D).
I suppose in the vanilla version of Age of Empires, the French Knights were overpowered, but now with 40 civs, well, it’s difficult to balance things.
On the other hand, according to the wiki, the French were originally going to have the Frankish Paladin as a unique unit, but they changed that at the last minute.
And yes, there are many other aspects that aren’t historically accurate, like the fact that they don’t have an Arbalist (Which is even a French word) or any bonuses for Cannons.
I see this last point as more of a consequence of the game’s design of 1999:
Instead of differentiating between archer and crossbowmen, they made crossbowmen the evolution of archers, which is problematic considering that several civilizations continued using the bow even into the early modern period (AoE3 has many examples of this). Instead, many civilizations that had good archers have Arabalists, and many that didn’t only have crossbowmen, or only archers.
In short, the game was invented in 1999, so when some civilizations were implemented, it wasn’t expected that the game would eventually have more than 40 civilizations, that the difference between civilizations with professional archers and crossbowmen would be so pronounced, or that they would have to balance several types of unique cavalry units, to the point that French knights are outmatched by other types of cavalry.
Aside from that, at least in Age of Empires 4, there is a better representation of the French with the best cavalry in the game, and the arbalester is their unique unit.
Once again, an RTS game, not a history teaching tool.
It is a unit that can be relied on and its made A LOT of times. Gets free hp in castle age, extra hp in imperial age, higher LOS which is very underrated during raids. Non-castle units shouldn’t have too many powerful bonuses stacked.
They have Gendarmes. They are called Paladins.
With current meta, I don’t think it would hurt to finally give them their original UU which is the Frankish Paladin as a upgrade for cavalier, of course with a little bit of stats changes to balance. I know the frankish paladin at the moment has a bunch of stats in it, But I say they should remain the same as regular paladin but with +1 atk and 30hp regen per minutes.
In late game, Frank’s trash Units are very bad with weak skirm, below average light cav and generic halb. So, the extra hp regen will keep Frankish Paladin alive longer so they can be used more in the late game.