Seriously, it’s insane, it makes it so they can just ignore the middle in gold rush style maps till imp and then mass trebs and cav and put like 5 castles there at once with ease
Even with a great camel civ, stopping the neverending knight stream AND sniping the trebs AND stopping the castles from going up (killing vills) all while your camels are under constant castle fire is impossible, unless you have twice the production buildings that the enemy has (and even then, if the enemy adds some pikemen is even worse, bye camels)
Sure, but that only works for literally 3 civs in the game
What if you are one of the other 38 (I’m removing Franks too obviously)
Like I said, not even Camel civs work (well, maybe Gurjaras could work, that civ is crazy OP too, I literally never play it because it feels like cheating to me tbh, but that’s another topic)
well you can fast imp using more than half the civ. If you can get a castle into middle, do a 60~80pop imptime and frank is likely dead.
arba: Britions, Ethiopians, Vikings, Koreans (go 60pop UU), Italians (go UU+bombard), Mongols (go UU), Tartars (go CA+UU), Byz, Japanese (+halbs), Bohemians (only halbs is ok), Turks…
cavs: Hindu, Malians, Gurjaras, Burgundians (go HC+bombard) … actually I am listing every civ tbh
The trick is of course go imp before frank reachs imp, use trebs to push into his castles directly. It is really difficult for Franks to mass knights before 90pop, and you don’t need to bother with his 5 castles popping out trebs if you are imp but he isn’t.
Frank is pretty good at gold rush imo but not when you just turtle at home until imp.
Actually how do you win if you lose middle ground lol feels like every civ would just go fast imp and destroy everything. It is just too difficult to go-around middle so fast imp is insanely safe.
Honestly, idk. Franks are considered OP for a good reason. Unless you are one of those civs with insanely strong Camels/spear line, it’s just difficult, I think. And ofc, they have the throwing axeman, another annoying unit. You also need something to handle that.
In case you just lost a golden pit game: In most circumstances it actually bad to castle the middle early on. That’s a pretty common mistake here because people confuse that map with gold rush.
If you castle the middle usually you invest army for map control plus the resources for the castle. If you don’t use that castle to actually produce military what happens in most cases is your opponent will put down 2 tcs at home, have an insane eco lead and then treb you down from the high ground.
If I understand your game description more is less correctly this is what happened. In that vase your loss isn’t because of playing vs franks but because of picking that strategy. If you go for the middle in castle age you should push after that in most circumstances as early imp you’ll be at a disadvantage until your opponent runs out of gold.
If you’re actually playing gold rush it’s a different matter because having the high ground in the mid changes a lot.
Their caatles are cheaper but they lack upgrades, like bracer and maybe others, i don’t Remember atm.
They serve Franks a way to have more production for throwing axemen switch if needed, and to protect their farm eco. After all, from Castle and later Franks is all about their cavalry push and if that does not work, their late game is pretty bad
not really. its just not as good as others. FU siege(where it matters), infantry, HC, cheap castles for protection (so what if they miss a ranged upgrade, its the only one they miss) could be worse…
because they lack both Bracer and last Archer armor, their Siege shop is only slightly above average and they don’t get Hussar (one of the staple units for 1v1).
Hell even their Light Cav is below average, might as well be playing Turks given how gold-hungry Franks are.
Oh their UU while not garbage and fairly good, is cheap and fairly pop-inefficient and is not what you look for to complement your weaknesses.
Well yes of course no one is arguing Franks Is strong if not borderline OP. I was merely starting why in my himble opinion they have that bonus
but this game is filled with strange decisions like Franks not having that bad options but still have Amazing bonuses, while other civs have lackluster options and bonuses, and Franks never get nerfed, while average civs get nerfed with no compensation
Cheap castle is indeed advantage of Franks, but your example is not legit, Franks are not overpowered on those maps. I think the civs that don’t need much gold are harder to deal with
The thing is, Franks have many bonuses and advantages. The cheap castles make playing against them harder since it will make it easier for them to control the map and since their UU counter the counter of their knights, so this make it easier for them to afford their UUs to kill pikes from the other side with mixing them with their knights.
Franks need to lose this bonus completely, why they even have it in the first place.
Franks was one of strongest already in voobly, still are top1 arabia civ(highest winrate and highest popularity). 2x food bonus, free “bloodlines” + cheap castles, too much. Maybe flat -100 stone instead of % that puts castles on 488?
