Hey guys I decided to use my extensive knowledge about the French Civilisation and write a guide on how to play vs Germany, because I felt lots of people have limited or wrong knowleadge about this matchup and just don´t play it correctly. I feel like this matchup is one of the funiest to play and to watch and also a pretty fair one. I put the guide in spoilers because it is quite the long text.
I also uploaded a word document and an Open document for those of you who would like to have it better formatted. Have fun with it
[spoiler=spoiler]Introduction:Germany and France are both among the strongest civilisations in the game.
Both civs can semi-ff better than many others - they arguably have the strongest semis (no pun intended) in the game.
Germany comes out slightly ahead on this front, but France isn't far behind. In this guide I´m going to talk about the various strategies France can execute to take the win vs Germany.
The matchup in itself is fairly balanced although Germany definitely has a slight edge vs French because of their efficient, hard to punish semi and strong early to mid-fortress play.
The different strategies:
The most common strategy when facing an opponent who plays with Germany is the musk or hussar semi ff or staying age 2 playing with musk / hussar.
Although I am going to mention both musk / hussar timings and hussar semi ff I genuinely believe the musk semi ff is the only viable option at the highest level to play for reasons I will explain later.
Lets start off with the basics in age 1.
Age 1: The Discovery age
The versatile French early eco allows you to always go for a market or a TP at the beginning.
If you have a 100 wood and 100 gold start I recommend to opt for a market; with a 200 wood start go for a TP start and add a market during transition to age 2.
One important thing to note at this point is that if you do start with 200 wood and make a TP from it, don´t even think about trying to do a musk / hussar timing colonial build as it is doomed to failure from the start. For 2 reasons :
1. A 200 wood start also means that Germany is able to build an early TP which significantly improves their semi ff, making it harder to punish.
2. Going for a TP first as France effectively rules out playing the Samwise12 build ( 700 wood first drop down barrack and stable asap in age 2 ) because you will not be able to get out enough units to rival early age 2 play from Germany.
Now back to the discovery age. In age 1 you have one insanely big advantage over your opponent: the native scout.
This unit is a true badass and can, if used intelligently, lead to a real advantage even into early age 2. You have 2 goals in age 1:
- Grab more treasures than your opponent which is easily possible due to the extended scouting potential provided by the scout, and
- try to hinder the German explorer as much as possible by by abusing the native snare ability to the max.
This means that if you see the German explorer you always attack him even if your explorer isn´t nearby. Usually people will just run from the native scout because they can sense the imminent danger of the French explorer being right around the corner, and coming to finish the job the native started.
If you do it right the German player should not be able to grab more than 1 treasure and won´t even be able to scout the whole map.
Furthermore if he messes it up he might even lose his explorer, leaving him at a significant disadvantage if he had not already built a TP from a 200 wood start.
However, as much as you want to kill your opponent´s explorer, try to prevent your scout from dying at all cost.
The scout´s stealth ability is like a legal maphack and especially valuable vs a strong raiding civ like Germany.
The only time where it might be okay to trade off your scout vs his explorer is if he hasn`t already built a TP which means he is either going to skip it entirely (highly unlikely given how important a TP is for Germany's agenda) or has to use villagers to build it which results in quite a bit of lost mining time.
Not to mention the psychological advantage you gain by killing off your opponents explorer. Some players will tilt pretty hard when faced with such a situation.
If you really want to catch your opponent's explorer and prevent him from taking any treasure you might want to delay your own TP (or skip it entirely and go for a market instead) and go with both your scout and your explorer straight for your opponents TP foundation and try to kill him while building the TP.
Note that you will not actually prevent him from getting up a TP.
Furthermore this is only valid on maps where the TPs are pretty far away from the TC and you kind of have to take a gamble because you often cannot be certain which TP spot he chooses to go for.
One note regarding hunting during the transition phase, make sure you shoot at least 1 hunt back to your TC: most maps have 2 easily accessible hunts and if this is the case get both herds to your TC. Once he has hit age 2 you have about 45 seconds until his first 2 uhlans arrive.
So move back all your hunting villagers and be prepared for them. If you do so you won´t ever lose villagers to those 2 cav.
Main goals in age 1: (a) Gather more treasures and (b) try to kill off your opponent's explorer by using the native scout's ability to snare enemy units.
Age 2: The Colonial age
If you haven´t decided yet which strategy you are going to use, now is the time to choose. The good news is that all builds require the same macro during the age 1-2 transition phase, meaning either way you chop wood for a trade post (if you did not get one at the start of the game) and get a market up and research both hunting dogs and placer mines. The take-away point is that you can respond very quickly to incoming scouting information and change your build on-the-fly, for example if he gathers an unusual amount of wood (which suggests bow/pike) or you see any villagers out on the map you might want to start stable / barracks instead of going for a hussar or musk semi ff).
For now though we are going to assume that our imaginary opponent chooses to go for a classic Uhlan semi ff.
We react with the musk semi ff:
The standard card order when performing this strategy is (in age 2 onward) 4 coureurs, followed by 700 wood and 700 gold. After aging up you get your barracks 2 houses and steel traps asap. Queue up some musks while having your villagers being roughly distributed with the ratio 75% on food and 25% on gold (actually reflecting the musketeers food/gold ratio). Keep on making musks until you have about 15 to 20 of them.
Once 700 wood has arrived you have 2 choices.
Either you go for the more traditional style and get amalgamation and a stable up with it (second TP is optional; build it as and when you feel it should be built),
or you go for the greedier approach and go for a TP boom while doing the semi.
The TP boom is obviously map dependant and is in general the harder but more rewarding strategy to pull off.
In general it is only really advisable on maps with 3 TPs or more or on maps where you have a TP route consisting of at least 2 TPs for yourself.
Furthermore you have to take into account that your infrastructure might not be fully established yet when you hit age 3.
What should I do with my musketeers during the age 2 phase of the game?
First of all you obviously want to fend off the incoming raids. That is your primarily goal, however, apart from defending villagers you also want to inflict as much damage as possible while retaining your musk count.
You always group up 5 musketeer in 1 group and have them stationed around the outside of your base. If he runs through the scout's vision, use it to your advantage and intercept his units.
Depending on your opponent's skill you will be able to grab 1 kill or damage an uhlan while also forcing him back.
Once you have accumulated 10 musks you should move out in order to bring down his TP or grab some villager kills / idle his TC.
Important: If you move out make sure you have at least another batch of musks in queue or you will just lose the game.
Always go for the safe damage (tp is usually the safest option). If you feel cocky try forcing minutemen, but be aware that losing musketeers without trading at least evenly will set you at a big deficit due to Germany's overwhelming early fortress advantage.
Staying age 2: The musk / huss timing
This strategy mainly revolves around hitting a timing where you can overcome Germany's mass with your own and from this point on it snowballs to victory.
Ideally you want to hit right when he has aged up because he won´t have a shipment yet and also no vet status for his unit.
The big danger when performing such a timing is obviously that you miss your window and just get smashed by the German mass of units.
Furthermore even if you hit your timing it might still not be enough because Germany in age 3 is just insane.
The build order is 700 wood first followed by 4 coureurs and either 8 bows or 600 wood depending on how you want to play it.
If your timing has hit you can follow him into age 3 or just play it out in age 2.
Age 3: The Fortress age
Once you have reached age 3 the real game begins.Everything you have done up to this point was just to make sure that you have the best possible preparation and are in the best position you can be for the upcoming onslaught.
Depending on your build (TP boom or not) you should have 1 barracks, a stable and around 60 or 70 pop space as well as both steel traps and amalgamation (if you need houses buy wood, don’t chop for it).
The cuirassier / musk push
There are different ways to 'open' in age 3.
If you have killed a few uhlans in age 2 and retained around 10 musks or more you might want to go for 3 cuirassiers as your first shipment while making 5 from your stable.
This is a very gimmicky move and might cost you the game if you are unlucky. On the other hand you could completely annihilate his first wave of units and end up in a commanding, if not outright game-winning lead.
The common follow up to this move would be a transition into goons and skirmishers. What´s really neat about this strategy is that you trade off your non-upgraded musketeers for soon-to-be-upgraded uhlans and skirmishers. This eases your future unit control (by losing the musks) while simultaneously keeps the scary uhlan count under some sort of control.
Still, only do it if you have done pretty sick damage to his uhlans in age 2 (doesn’t have to be eco damage, (almost) resetting his uhlan count can be enough) and even under these conditions it is still a risk (a 5 WW pop or 9 blackriders and you are done).
The cannons / goons / musks push
This age 3 approach is a legit one and not a gimmick. Essentially what you do is ship 5 goons in age 3 while making 5 from the stable and adding in skirmishers from your barracks.
If you want to go for such a timing you should have at least ten maybe even more musks from age 2 left. It´s also possible to add 5 more musks during the transition to age 3.
As second age 3 shipment, send 2 cannons and start marching forward. By the time the push hits you should have around 15 goons, 5-10 skirms and 10-15 muskets.
You should be able to trade your units off against his ones in your favour if you do not manage to simply win the game with the push. After that you keep on with making goons and skirms.
Always ensure you have the higher skirm count while not overproducing them.
The classic skirm / goon
If you choose to make skirm / goons and don`t go for an early push you are deciding to stay on the defence for the most part of the game and winning by defence rather than offence.
However it is probably the safest way to play if you think you are better than your opponent and know you can outplay him. Your first age 3 shipment is either 8 skirms or 5 goons followed by the one you didn’t ship as the first card in age 3.
After this, depending on your playstyle, the situation you are in and your opponent`s army composition you can pretty much choose from whatever card is left in your arsenal.
In general vs jägers it might be smart to send cannons and vs blackriders additional skirms would be nice. Just make sure your composition stays ahead of his one.
The Hussar semi FF
This strategy is just the standard 5 or 10 hussar semi ff with either 4 vills, 700 gold, 700 wood or wood first and then gold. You don’t go for a TP boom and you start adding in a barracks and a bunch of houses while aging / slightly before.
IMO this build isn’t really viable but you can use it as a surprise strategy. If your opponent fails to scout and loses his first 2 uhlans to your hussars you may be able to snowball an advantage from that, but if everything goes standard you are just playing into Germany's hands because you are trying to beat the civ with their own weapons.
No civ is stronger in a cav semi than Germany.
The best approach to me seems to be either make 5 hussar and just defend until you are aged then send 5 goons as your first age 3 shipment (with hussar semi it´s probably mandatory to ship 5 goons in every case) or make 10 hussar+ and try to hit a timing where he has just aged up and you can clean up his uhlans cost efficiently while idling all of his vills, killing some too in the best case scenario.
But even then it´s not easy because you sacrificed your early age up to do some damage and he can just counter attack with his first age 3 shipment. There are also no age 3 timings possible because you lack the tanking potential provided by the musks in a musk semi ff.
Replays:
I will be adding replays shortly. Keep a look out!
I will link one youtube video from Samwise12's POV. His French vs Blackstar's German. Although he loses it, it still shows the basics of the musk huss timing nicely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvDMo7EqCX4[/spoiler]
Special thanks goes to Musketjr for taking the time and correcting my countless mistakes
