French are too strong

I’m just stating my experience here. The movement speed of knights and health in feudal is OP. Its by far the strongest strat on large maps. The ability to expand around the map and go for resources anywhere is what makes a civ good. Which is also why French and Mongols are good on water maps because of their ships. Allowing for the same thing on water.

When the best counter to a knight is stone wall there is a problem with the unit balance.

To the point where its like I should focus on food and stone in Darkage to just throw up stonewalls to prevent all harass or wood and back the walls with archers.

The same problem happens with mongols as they can just run around your base and shoot vills.

Movement speed is the biggest advantage in this game. Not to mention due to mango’s again knights are the best unit as they can actually takes hits without getting wiped out by literally 1 mango and then actually kill the siege also.

I agree with the mango knight comment. Seems every game I play thats all people do. Mass knights and mangos then when you try and counter with your own siege and units your siege can’t outrun the knights and your units can’t outrun the mango.

First you have to get to castle before you can start using monks.

I’m talking 7mins into the game where you have no option other than walling off in darkage to avoid easy vill kills.

Like its the only unit that can run under the town center and get villager kills EVEN with villagers atking the knights. They have too much hit points and the charge does too much dmg for a single unit allowing a two shot with ONE unit. Which is the same problem with the mango allowing a 2 shot with ONE unit on an entire army you spent the past 5mins building up.

So they spend 5mins getting knights and you can’t 2 shot them with anything because they run and have HP to big to 2 shot.

Either the timer needs to be increased on production or the unit itself needs to be nerfed.

I say this watching aussie droggo and a player as english not even using longbows and going regular horsemen because of the movement speed.

I watch aussie draggo. The tournament had a player go double stable barracks vs french for horsemen and pikes with farms. Again because movement speed is op.

Its to the point where the game does seem like you’re best just playing the strongest civ for a map. Which at this point I think french is just the strongest civ. The fact Marinelord mains French and doesn’t micro longbows like marines is indication there is an imbalance.

I’d wager if I use my English knowledge on playing French I’ll start having more wins.

To be perfectly honest I’m not sure why French doesn’t go Knight, Men at Arms combination and save on atk and def army upgrades to counter everything in Feudal and then go for a ram kill that doesn’t even have to be a rush because they simply harass until they ball up enough to just invade the base like it happened to me in the one game.

Literally I was building pikemen and longbows all game was able to SEE him build rams and do literally nothing to stop it right outside my base. With full atk and def upgrades for my units and eco to be constantly pumping out army until he killed me.

Actually I have the game on my history. I’ll cast the game and post the youtube vid once I get time for it. Will try to have it up today.

Sorry, I get the spearman names mixed up. I had elite spearman.

Rewatching the encounter, I’m kind of blown away with the result. Considering the amount of gold and food spent for the tower elephants, in addition to the 7 hand cannoneers. The outcome doesn’t seem correct considering the amount of food/money spent, and the France opponent having their knights healing during battle.

Keep in mind the units that I was using are considered “the playbook counter to knights”. Crossbows, hand cannoneers, and spears.

I understand that 50 knights is quite a lot, but considering the battle, I wasn’t expecting for them to take very little loss considering the amount of food/gold I spent.

side-a
23 elite spears, 4 tower elephants with crossbow upgrades, 7 hand cannoneers, and 1 bombard cannon.


50 royal knights, they are even healing in battle!

elite-spearmen
Elite spearman stats


By the looks of it, 6 knights killed, and they had a few reinforcements arrive. 47 remaining.

Well, lets see.

23 spearmen = 23 x 80 = 1840 resources
7 handcannons = 7 x 240 = 1680 resources
4 Tower elephants = 4 x 1000 = 4000 resources

Total: 7520

50 Royal Knights = 50*240 = 12000 resources

So as you can see, his army is worth a lot more resources than yours. Even if you built the right counter units
( important to note tower elephants do not counter knights, war elephants do), this does feel like its too much of a disparity to overcome.

Also, your spearmen don’t seem to have the university tech for infantry. His knights probably have the cavalry university tech (and the French get a stronger version of it too) To be fair; this is quite normal, Delhi Imperial techs take forever to research, but it also explains why you lost the fight and he didn;'t take many losses

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Then why do the crossbow upgrade for the tower elephants? I thought crossbow is a counter to knights?

Total: 7520
50 Royal Knights = 50*240 = 12000 resources

4,500 resource difference isn’t much considering how little the opponent lost and the unit composition. A player should be rewarded with using the correct counter (and I used 3 of them), and a composition of different units. There is just a lack of creativity, strategy, and sportsmanship when opponents go all in on a single unit and win. That’s not how the game should work. They should be punished for this.

Crossbowmen do counter knights, and the crossbow upgrade certinaly helps. But I think the upgrade itself is supposed to mainly help vs MAA swarms, which elephants are also weak too. Honestly, I would focus on more spears, crossbowmen, and handcannons instead of elephants to counter knights.

Er… 4,500 resource difference is more than 50% of your army value. That’s super significant. Not to mention that his army is in fact more gold heavy than yours. Like, composition is important, but macro should just be as important, and it looks like to me you just got outmacroed. Like, a pro player could probably beat a 1200 elo player with just mass scout because of their superior macro. Does this make scouts op? No, it’s just how RTS works. Macro is important.

Like you have so many resources in the bank and only 139 supply. If you had spent those resources and maxed out, you could have wiped the french army no problem. Like just based off a back of the hand calculation, you have the food/gold for 20 more handcannoners, which def would have won you the fight. Or like 85 more spears, which also would have won you the fight. Or 80 more crossbowmen, which again, would also have won you the fight.

Also you didn’t respond to my note that you didn’t have the infantry university tech and the french had theirs

4 Likes

It might have not completed in time where I thought it did. I still think knights are way OP with France. Especially in masses. It’s also too easy to come by once you have the food and gold. Just make a bunch of the same building over and over.

The way you added the total resource count over individual resource costs. I don’t think looking at the totals is the best way way to gauge balance and outcome.

23 spearman, 60 food, 20 wood = 1380 food, 460 wood
7 handcannon, 120 food, 120 gold = 840 food, 840 gold
4 tower elephant, 400 food, 600 gold = 1600 food, 2400 gold

My army
3820 food
3240 gold
460 wood

Opponent army
5000 gold
7000 food

Gold I don’t think is plentiful resource. And it’s the least easiest one to come by late game. 1,760 gold difference costs me my entire army and the opponent still has a complete army? This is after spending 3,240 gold. That still doesn’t add up for me, and food is the least challenging risk free resource to get a surplus of.

I’ll reiterate again. These were counter units that should have done a blow to knights, but somehow they still managed to get away without a scratch. If that university upgrade is to make or break it, that just strikes me as ridiculous. 23 spears, 7 hand cannons, and very few knights lost.

As far as macro, there isn’t much you can do when you have 50 knights surrounding you. There wasn’t any macro. Even so, with a surround, it’s shocking to me of how unbalanced it is with the little loss.

I’m not expecting to wipe all the knights with my army. Obviously my army wasn’t as large, but the fact that I’m not even killing at least 33% with a 42% difference in gold, and I’m even using counter units. The math is off, they need to adjust this.

Dude, you should be quite new to AOE4, I know that feel that I thought French was OP in that stage but after having more experience I don’t think so.

If you switch to French, you will find it is NOT that easy. French Knights are very expensive, if they cannot kill Vills and losing some Knights, it is very unforgivable.

Anyway back to English, you are strategically wrong neglecting the tower. That thing is very important because playing against French, his main goal is killing your Vills, your main goal is keeping them alive. You MUST need Towers.

  • To spot incoming Knights giving your earlier warning to react
  • Buff your Longbows, Spears, Horsemen attack speed
  • Give 5 seats of shelter for your Vills

Stone walls, NO. English is an extreme resource straving Civ, you need to almost all-in into wood and food, and change some of the woods into the best farm in the game. Basically no rooms for stones unless you want 2nd TC playing defensively, but it is a very failing strategy because French having Vills production boost, he can also getting 2 TC then you cannot catch up the economy.

Pallisade walls, YES. But only making small choke points, minimal, only protect the most vulnerable part, for routing the potential Knight raid into your machine gun Anglo-Saxon TC, if the map is too open forget about it. (Dry arabia/King of Hills), getting some around the woodline is okay but don’t over done it.

You need early spears on your woodline, early means really early (around 5 mins mark), a normal French player can raid at 5 mins mark.

Before the meta was always like grouping some spears and longbows, having like 8 of both, you can push out to the French forcing him to defend. But seems the new meta being forgetting the Longbows, getting early wheelbarrow before Feudal, getting extra early farms, then produce a lot of Horsemen and Spears countering the French Knights + Archers meta.

So, to conclude

  • Get Towers at gold, woodlines, Farm only near your TC but you must need the mill buffing the farm
  • Get Spears early
  • Wall a little bit depends on the map
  • Most Vills on wood, then Farm, A LOT

Once you can push out and giving French pressure, get more Vills on gold then get King Palace as 2nd TC, a smart French player would switch into MAA if you are late getting the 3rd age, you basically have no counter to it and having a really really bad situation.

English should having a much better late game than French because of their crazy farm gold rush Enclosure and 30% food production boost.

English is currently quite being an underdog Civ now, but it is still fun.
Good luck with the Anglo-Saxon Strǣlbora.

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Sorry, they do ARE counter units that should have done a blow to knights, you just don’t have enough.
Get 25+ Spears and 25+ Handcannoneers, maybe 2 melee Elephants, the Knights die like files. Pure Knights without support is basically like throwing the game away. You should have an easy win.

And Knights don’t heal in battle unless they bring a Wololo old dude.

I feel this means English is OP.

Other civs should also be able to counter English early aggression. Specially when English are supposed to be a defensive civ not an offensive one.

As it’s going to be a relatively long post, i’m going to write it in my native language, because i feel more save to express myself. You can click on the globe button below the post for the translation. I hope you dont mind it.

First you have to get to castle before you can start using monks.
I’m talking 7mins into the game where you have no option other than walling off in darkage to avoid easy vill kills.

Deswegen habe ich auch auf den Post von Drumsin geantwortet, da er meiner Meinung nach sehr an deinem Thema vorbeigeredet hat. Sein Post bezieht sich auf etwas grundlegend anderes und auch sein Problem ist ein grundlegend anderes. Es war nur eine hypothetische Antwort. Der Fehler lag in diesem Fall ganz klar bei ihm, da er Ressourcen angehäuft hat, ohne diese zu verwenden.
Auch möchte ich nochmal auf deine Build Order zu sprechen kommen, da dir diese, meiner Meinung nach, gegen eine aggressive Zivilisation nur Nachteile bringt.
Ecoupgrades bringen dir nur etwas, wenn das Spiel länger geht, diese bitte nur verwenden, wenn du dir sicher sein kannst, dass du dadurch keine Einbußen in der Militärproduktion hast. Auch bremst es dich um weitere 20 Sekunden aus, wenn du einen Villager zu Holz schickst bevor du 8 auf Food und 3 auf Gold hast. Hinzu kommt noch der 2. Scout, welchen du baust. Das sind nochmal 20 Sekunden. Das ist einfache Mathematik. Wenn der Franzose weder einen 2. Scout, noch den Villager auf Holz hat, ist er 40 Sekunden vor dir im Feudal. Das bedeutet, er hat 40 Sekunden eher Zeit einen Knight zu bauen. Aufgrund des hohen Invest des Franzosen tut es ihm extrem weh, wenn er einen Knight verliert. Wenn du dich darauf konzentrierst und wirklich dem Schere Stein Papier Prinzip folgst, wirst du auch sehr schnell eine Verbesserung feststellen können.

Wie mein Vorredner @P0ryg0n2046 schon gut geschrieben hat, fokussiert sich die Englische Eco nach dem AgeUp fast ausschließlich auf Food/Wood um die Produktion aufrecht zu erhalten und Zeitgleich dann aus dem Landmark und aus 1-3 Kasernen bauen zu können.

Ich kann dir hierzu auch gerne das BO Video von Hera empfehlen, wobei es situativ ist, ob du dann mit Wheelbarrow gehst, oder nicht.

Die Französischen Ritter effektiv zu spielen erfordert viel mehr an Aufmerksamkeit, als die Englischen Einheiten. Je niedriger die ELO, desto mehr wird das meiner Meinung nach sichtbar. Du kannst es dir nur schwer erlauben deinen ersten und/oder zweiten Knight zu verlieren, wohingegen 2 toten Spearmen kein GG bedeuten.

Das Spiel zwischen TheMista und 3DBee ist ein guter Indikator, lässt sich aber nicht auf dein und mein Spiellevel projezieren. Sicher kannst du damit Erfolg haben, aber unser Mikro ist ein ganz ein anderes und um Welten schlechter als denen ihres. Wo ich die größten Probleme jetzt bei dir sehe ist das Makro.
Werde schneller im Age Up, bekomm deine Wirtschaft in Griff. Wie schon vorher gesagt, es ist kein Problem die Wirtschaft so zu steuern, dass du während des Ageups eine Kaserne baust und mit dem Ageup gleichzeitig Villager, zwei LBs und zwei Spearmen in der Warteschlange zu haben. Wenn du möchtest, kannst du sogar noch auf den Wheelbarrow gehen. Die Schmiede würde ich persönlich ein wenig verzögert bauen, da dir ein Upgrade keinen Nutzen bringt, wenn du keine Einheiten hast, die davon profitieren.

Worauf ich hinaus möchte, um das ganze Thema zu einem Ende zu bringen.
Engländer sind nicht OP.
Franzosen auch nicht.

Das Problem liegt zu 99,9% bei jedem einzelnen selbst. Entweder man arbeitet an sich und wird besser, oder man lässt es sein. Das ist in allen Bereichen im Leben so. Weinen führt in den wenigsten Fällen zu einer Verbesserung, außer dass dir ein <1k Spieler beipflichtet. Selbstreflektion ist das Zauberwort.

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I understand the fact of being 20sec behind from vill on wood etc etc. However the game in question I age up a few seconds before my opponent and my eco is almost identical to my opponents at the same time after age up. I’m going to cast the game I played and it will show exactly what I mean. I had a few mistakes in game that I could have done better however ideally they shouldn’t be game ending the minor mistakes I had.

Ich kann mir dein Match auch gerne mal anschauen, wenn ich zuhause bin um dir dann zu sagen, was falschgelaufen ist. Können uns auch gerne mal zusammensetzen. Ich bin mir 100% sicher, dass das Problem nicht ist, dass Franzosen OP sind. :slight_smile:
Möchte dir nur helfen! :wink:

You don’t need to upload your game, since your profile is not on private. Everybody can watch your replays.

Fair if thats the case the game in question is Lipany. In that game there was no window for me to atk my opponents gold. While also there is a massively over looked advantage to being able to produce a unit that is Gold food produced that allows for a civ to back into a castle age. As English I have to go pike longbow which forces me to go heavy wood meaning I can’t rush castle at all unless I want to have zero army. While also I think the choice of french to go archer knight is a bad combo vs pike longbow as men at arms would be a better unit comp vs pike longbow and still allow for French to back into castle age due to the unit production requirements.

Also in the Lipany game I age up before my opponent and I’m not behind on eco due to getting wood upgrade in darkage nor am I overly far behind by putting 1 vill on wood in darkage or the fact I have double scout in darkage. The advantage the double scout gives for map awareness and the wood upgrade which pays for itself in the game I play is not a valid arguement.

I also agree that a civ should be able to counter english early aggression. Which in all cases they can a tower pretty much puts a stop to english harass with one army in the tower. Mainly because tower fire actually KILLS longbows where vs french a tower does nothing other than give vills a place to hide. Even if a person was to put a unit in a tower the french can still run into a resource line and get villager kills. Mainly because one tower doesn’t allow for enough villagers to hide with a cap of 5 units. In most cases leaving a large portion of your vills running for cover.