In the previous patch, the Celts had gained Level 3 Marksman defense, and now Frank is the only civilization that doesn’t have both Level 3 Marksman technology, which makes him very bad at matching cavalry lines with spearmen. If there are a lot of spearmen on the other side, and the gold is spent on the cavalry, there is no gold for muskets or axes. And in the disadvantage of the attack of the pressure bow is basically ended the game
I think it is fine for Franks to stay as they are for may reasons:
- Franks is consistently a top 5 picked civ at all elo ranges and has good win rates, contrary to celts
- Franks have hand cannoners/axemen to deal with halberdiers. If the opponent mass halberdiers, the Frank player should start acting smart and train something else than knights all day long.
- Franks can mix in their FU halberdiers with cavaliers, which is a common combination. Or they can go halberdiers + hand cannoners + light cav, another good and well rounded composition.
- Celts are missing the last cavalry armor upgrade, Franks are only missing the 2 archers upgrades
- Burmese and Turks also have poor skirms, and it is worse for them because it starts castle age already.
- Franks are a powerhouse alk game long, it is fine for them to be weaker late game
5 Likes
Hell naw! To the naw, naw, naw!
2 Likes
But they’re pretty bad in a world class matchup, and that’s probably because the cavalry line is hard to start and Frank has a hard time using the spearman to fight the pressure, and the point is, Frank can’t handle the cavalry archer at all except the knight line.
Teutons 
Slavs
3 Likes
Do you mean in pro tournaments ? In what recent tournament of the past 12 months did you see them bottom 10 in term of pick rate or win rate ?
3 Likes
their machine and 3 level archer armor are better than frank
Franks can get to paladin easier than teutons. Slavs dont even have paladin while teuton paladin is slow. Besides, hussar often pair with cavalry archers. Siege may not be that effective in open maps.
I dont think franks need broader tech tree at all. They have good infantry, good siege, excellent cavalry, decent eco. It is absolutely fine to leave a hole in archery techs.
4 Likes
Celts need the armor to field skirms, because their only response to mass archers are mango-line, which comes in late and expensive. Franks can field cavalry against archers.
I would argue that against spears the last armor on skirms isn’t that important, whereas against Xbow/Arbs it makes quite a big difference.
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Celts have no extra hp on cavalry, no plate barding armor (level 3 cavalry armor), no gunpowder units, no discount on castles. Them getting ring archer doesn’t imply Franks should get it. If you’ve run out of gold and despite having all these bonuses you couldn’t win, it means your opponent played better than you and deserves the win.
Thats fine. That CA gameplay will be weak against some other set of civs. Its fine to have a weakness. Not every civ gets good CA gameplay.
2 Likes
If there are enough Woad Raiders, mass archers still take times to kill Woad Raiders while Woad Raiders can reach archers very fast. Now, we have warrior priest, infantry UU produced in monastery. I think some infantry UU, like Samurai, Jaguar Warrior or even Woad Raiders, to be fine to produce in monastery or other buildings.
If and what units could/should be produced in monastries is a whole other conversation. Personally I don’t see the need to train Woad Raiders in monastries, nor do I think its thematicly fitting.
I would say Woad Raiders aren’t a good counter to archers, let alone cost effective.
Also take into consideration, how much faster a player can produce a ball of archers, compared to Woads. For woads you may have one or two castles, while the opponent can produce archers from lots of ranges.
1 Like