Honestly French are perfect for their bonus among the civilisation the only two things who need to change are Gendarme and Towers (just a small thing).
Gendarme will deal more damage than the cavalry they have more armor and HP, but they are the slowest cavalry in the game in attack speed and speed. Like this picture they have spear. Their cost will be more higher than knight.
Weakness : They will be weak against fast units and pikemans like usual.
Advantages : They are like a shield units, they can tank more than the others cavalry with great damage.
Why this unit, what the point ?
For example Huns was know by their siege cavalry, the devs make this units in castle.
British was know by their strong bow man, so they make them in castle.
Chu Ko Nu were used a lot for protect castle, same for the castle.
Spanish was know by the conquistadors so they can be train in castle.
French was know by their heavy cavalry, and this is why logically they need to add
Gendarme in castle.
And Throwing Axe Man now ?
Don’t worry, they can be train in casern with the Wikings, Germanic,Byzantine etc…, why them now too ? Because they are the only civilisations who use axe with the Franks in wars.
Their cost will be higher than the others infantry of course for a good balance.
French in medieval have the biggest dungeon and the biggest in the world, so my idea is nothing really change except the capacity, like +5 in capacity and +10 in castle.
Hi yeah like i said Frank need no buff, like bonus just replace the throwing axe unit with Gendarmes and increase the towers and castle capacity. Nothing changer after.
What does this unit add that the Frank paladin doesn’t already bring? If you don’t mind me asking? The Franks are still the knights and castles civ in the game, with romanticized medieval Europe dripping off them on all sides and one of the highest winrates on many competitive maps. Their design is oldschool, that’s true, it’s not as flashy as these new civs with multiple unique units and really crazy bonuses or technologies. But it’s a design that works and that still holds a unique place in the game because all of the new civs carefully try not to be too much like the Franks. But at this point I feel like everything you’re trying to accomplish here is accomplished better by not changing the civ at all. They have the best tanky heavy cavalry in the game and the throwing axemen, while a little gimmicky, provide a good option in both the infantry and the ranged department to really round out the civ.
For a new school take on a similar concept try the Burgundians. Their heavy cav is tankiest in the midgame and they have the lance carrying shock cavalry in the coustillier.
First of all, i said nothing change in the meta, the bonus are the same.
Second, the Frank unit is not representative of the Frank civilisation, the idea is to replace them with Gendarmes, (all is said in my thread) who is an Heavy Cavalry unit, Paladin are knights not an heavy cavalry. Gendarmes in Imperial Age will deal more damage than Paladin, better protection and HP, they will be more useful and it will be more logic to add them for this civilisation like they did with the Bow Man for the british, and the Bourguinon who respect this.
This is why Axe Unit will be better in caserns with some units like i said in my thread, it will allow more diversity instead of some random axe dude who don’t represent the civilisation and will be better with a lot of civilisations like the Byzantins, German, and Wikings.
Third for the dungeon it’s an optionnal idea, it’s not a big change since French have the biggest dungeon, so it will be logic to add more space for towers and castles. +5 towers and 10 in castle.
All the civilisations try to not be the Frank, but if you don’t allow a civilisation to be better, you will just condemn it, here and i said it again, it’s just the unit who need to change in the castle, and allow the axe units to be train in casern.
It will allow more strategy for more civilisations knowing axe man will be in 3 more civilisations, and Frank will be more Frank. Bourguinon cavalry is not like the french cavalry, the french cavalry was the heaviest, and the slowest in war, this is why their advantages and weakness in history against british. Very Strong in melee but very weak in range.
Demonstrably untrue. You’re changing a bunch of things about the civ, that will change the meta way they’re being played. For one, you think they should be making your new unique unit rather than the famous Frank paladin.
So it’s better, better and also better in every way than the Frank paladin, the unit that has served as the gold standard for a great unit nonstop ever since the game’s release. This is a game build around balance. There’s not supposed to be one best unit.
I know the execution feels a bit random, but the throwing axeman is based on how the earlyish Franks often had axes they would throw right before clashing into the enemy, a bit like how the Romans had their darts/plumbata. It’s a distinguishing characteristic of the civ, even if worked into a unit in a bit of a weird way.
The Franks and the later French had a lot of castles, towers, donjons and dungeons, large and small. This is represented by the cheaper castles with masonry, hoardings, architecture, murder holes and arrow slits. For game related reasons the choice was made to not reperesent this with good towers. The Franks do not get either bombard tower or keep. So why give them a bonus to their towers? Wouldn’t that feel a bit wasted on a civ that’s not going to make a lot of towers because their great castles are often a much better option?
Did you ever hear about the battle of the golden spurs? That’s what the Flemish Militia/Revolution is based upon. The French knights got creamed by melee infantry in that one. It’s one of the earliest signs of how the relationship between infantry and cavalry would develop towards and around the early military revolution. Agincourt does not prove that French knights were very strong in melee but very weak in range. They were perfectly fine against ranged units under most circumstances. If anything in the end melee proved to be any knight’s weakness. The British successes with archers are mostly a testament to the quality of their archer’s, not to a lack of certain qualities in the opposing knights.
(Also: didn’t you say the gendarmes would have better protection than the knight line?)
I honestly don’t really see where you’re going with this. You feel the axe throwing thing is too much of a random detail worked into a weird unit, but introduce a random detail worked into a weird tower bonus. You think the Franks should have a unit best described as mostly just “better” which doesn’t really work with the game, and the historic trivia you use for this seems pretty random. Yes, it’s weird that the knight line uses swords as their primary weapon instead of lances, but that’s weird for all civs. We just have to kind of imagine the lances to be there.
I just don’t really see how this makes the Franks more like Franks. I think the Franks are pretty Frankish, to be frank.
