but 15 vills doesn’t matter that much, they need to be working for 5-10 min unharassed for you to translate that into actual army advantage.
Knights civs time ago got a lot of love cuz “in crossbow meta Knights NEEDED love”. Also because Knights delays your Imp timing and you can’t compete as a KTs civ vs Arbalest powerspike, for that reason you can’t compete with Castle Age Knights.
I like Franks as much as the next guy and do NOT think they are OP cuz of TGs (who cares about those when the game is 1v1), but you can’t deny that Franks until minute 18, between berry bonus, farm tech upgrade, free bloodlines maybe save like 600-800 resources, now compare that to your average Archer civ, Britons, from faster Sheep gathering they get an extra like maybe 70f until min 18.
This again cuz “Knights are so weak and Crossbow OP” (a statement which I don’t disagree with, but Crossbow is OP cuz of timings, as a unit stand alone it atually has a lot of drawbacks).