French

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French

Post by grizzgolf »

One is an easy basic French strategy I can learn as a beginner for trying the French?
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Re: French

Post by HeadKilla »

grizzgolf wrote:One is an easy basic French strategy I can learn as a beginner for trying the French?


https://eso-community.net/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=9996
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Re: French

Post by Astaroth »

I think all of these guides are great, but too long and complicated for the beginner who just wants a basic, easy to execute strategy without too many variations.

You can e.g. try the following 10 musk semi FF:

Gather starting crates aside from gold. If you start with 200w, use your explorer to build a TP with it. Meanwhile (only if you started with 200w! Otherwise only gather food) gather another 100w with 3 vills, the other vills gather food. Afterwards transition all your vills to food. If you have any other start, just only gather food. First shipment is 3 vills. Age up with 14 population/vills with the quartermaster (400w).

During age up, send like 2 vills to gold, collect any gold crate you might have from the start now, another 2 vills to food and all other 10 vills on wood.

Keep gathering wood and build a market as soon as possible. Keep gathering wood to get a TP, If you don't have one already. Afterwards/otherwise gather wood for hunting dogs and the first gold upgrade, research these. Once you have a TP, a market and the mentioned upgrades, gather another 125w,dont spend it yet.

Then send all your vills to food/gold (around 4 on gold, all new vills keep going to food).

When you reach age 2, research steel traps at the market, gather the 400w with 2 vills, use it for a rax in your base and 2 houses right away. Send 4 cdb as first shipment. Once the rax is up, train 2 batches of 5 musks each.

Meanwhile, scout your enemy. Adapt based on what he is doing. If he raids you/semi FFs with units attacking you, guard your vills with your musks. If he does a naked FF, go raid him a bit and/or destroy his TP. If he rushes you, make more units if necessary and send 700w for more houses, a stable and/or a second rax depending on units.

Second age2 shipment is either 700w if you want to/have to stay in age2 longer or 700g for faster age up (preferable, unless he is rushing usually).

If he doesn't pressure you in age2, send 700g to age up with the fast age up, then 700w. Use the wood for houses and a stable. On the way to Age3, put more vills on gold so you roughly have the same on food and gold.

During age up, you can keep on training more musks, if you plan to push fast with 2 falc shipment (eg vs India sometimes), then leave more vills on food.
Once you are in Age3, usually make skirms and goons, ship 8 skirm /5 goon / 2 falc, order depending on his army and when you want to push. Usually, you will only want to send 2 falcs if you have like 15 musks and/or 10 goons trained or shipped beforehand to guard them.
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Re: French

Post by HeadKilla »

Thanks for this post. I have finally lowered my Age II time from ~5:00-5:30 to 4:28 at my best.

Lesson I learned is that BO's get outdated, some faster than others. I thought if 100w start with 100g you wanted to make market, mine 25 gold and buy wood for house. NOPE DO NOT DO THIS. possibly why I felt so many people were hacking, I was just playing too much sim city in age I.

Now I am starting to see the power to treasure's early in the game. I have been taking the closest ones unless I see a wood one I can get that is pretty close. I have a few questions about treasure.

I have run this BO about 12 times against bot opponent to get it down better. Most of the time, I am hitting the age II up button when there is like 5 or less seconds remaining on the 14th villager's spawn. If I get a significant food treasure early, I have had to wait maybe 15-20 seconds for that villager to finish before the age starts. Is this OK? Should I age with 13 ever and take a little idle but hit age II at possibly 4:10?

On 100w/100g starts, what is the threshold for collecting wood treasures before you change from just making a house in age I and leaving gold on the ground, to picking up that gold, chopping for the wood needed to get that TP up and a house? I tried top make that decision when I saw 50w treasure next to my TC and a free gold treasure not too far away. My thinking was I could, chop another 150 wood and sell the 125/130 coin to force the 200w start and have all 3 a house, tp and market in age I. It did not work out well for me, but I may have just been bad at micro my villagers after changing the plan, ie walking back and forth lots while I figured out what I needed them to do. Would it instead be better to stick with the OG plan and maybe add the market with the wood I get from treasure? or is it best to just sit on that wood until transition when I will be making the TP and market so that I can do so sooner?
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Re: French

Post by Astaroth »

I honestly wouldn't focus so much on the details. Especially at a lower level (< pr 20), just focus on doing the normal stuff right without getting housed, too much idle time or being too slow.

Ofc you can go for a market in age1, but it means a lot more macro and potential for idle time. I feel until you get better there is just no real big benefit to it.

As far as adapting based on treasures: the same applies here, imo don't experiment too much until you have a lot of experience. I feel that 50w isn't enough to force a TP, because then you have to chop another 150w, which might slow down your ageup time.

As far as 13 vills are concerned: you can do it if you don't have much idle time and pros often recommend it. Idk, I would personally only do it if you can do it without any idle time and if you're expecting a or planning to rush. For me, 13 vills always feels a bit awkward, on no TP, you might not have a shipment, your eco feels weaker initially (I know that you can get steel traps and you can 4v faster, but when aging up you seem to lack more res) and once you're up and you're neither rushing nor being rushed, what's the benefit, really?

It might be much better with a cav start/cav semi, because then you'll be in his base faster.
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Re: French

Post by HeadKilla »

I had been leaning on the 5 huss open strat, but it was failing me because my huss were not spawing until ~6:30 with my previous BO. I have not adapted this BO to an opening stable instead of Rax. I should try that because I am much better at causing early pressure with cav then I am with musk, just my "early" pressure was not actually early so it failed often.
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Re: French

Post by Kawapasaka »

HeadKilla wrote:Thanks for this post. I have finally lowered my Age II time from ~5:00-5:30 to 4:28 at my best.

Lesson I learned is that BO's get outdated, some faster than others. I thought if 100w start with 100g you wanted to make market, mine 25 gold and buy wood for house. NOPE DO NOT DO THIS. possibly why I felt so many people were hacking, I was just playing too much sim city in age I.


You should always be able to get market + hunting dogs with 14v age up on a coin start, 90% of the time sped up by a treasure or two, usually coin. If your first treasure is coin, mine first with a couple of vills to get to 175coin (unless it was a great treasure and you're already there), sell for wood, get hunting dogs, then chop 50 for a house (or maybe you got lucky and get a wood treasure as well before that). If your first treasure is wood chop first to reach 150w (if you're not already there), slam down the market and get hunting dogs straight away. Then mine until 125g, sell for wood and get your house. The point here obviously being that you always should (and easily can) prioritise hunting dogs before your first house on a coin start.
Likewise if it's a wood start (200w) on a no-TP map, just chop/mine depending on your first treasures and get a house + market + hunting dogs, no market selling required.
The great thing about France at this stage is that you can queue vills to 9/10 pop, send 3cdb as soon as you get your first shipment and overpop to 12/10 for a bit, then still have plenty of time to finish chopping for your house before queuing your last 2 vills.

As for the 13v age up, sometimes you can even get it without idle time but I hope a better player than me can answer that question because I'm really not sure what its use cases are myself. I've done it a few times and it only feels useful if you have a specific strat tailored to it.
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Re: French

Post by HeadKilla »

Kawapasaka wrote:
HeadKilla wrote:Thanks for this post. I have finally lowered my Age II time from ~5:00-5:30 to 4:28 at my best.

Lesson I learned is that BO's get outdated, some faster than others. I thought if 100w start with 100g you wanted to make market, mine 25 gold and buy wood for house. NOPE DO NOT DO THIS. possibly why I felt so many people were hacking, I was just playing too much sim city in age I.


You should always be able to get market + hunting dogs with 14v age up on a coin start, 90% of the time sped up by a treasure or two, usually coin. If your first treasure is coin, mine first with a couple of vills to get to 175coin (unless it was a great treasure and you're already there), sell for wood, get hunting dogs, then chop 50 for a house (or maybe you got lucky and get a wood treasure as well before that). If your first treasure is wood chop first to reach 150w (if you're not already there), slam down the market and get hunting dogs straight away. Then mine until 125g, sell for wood and get your house. The point here obviously being that you always should (and easily can) prioritise hunting dogs before your first house on a coin start.
Likewise if it's a wood start (200w) on a no-TP map, just chop/mine depending on your first treasures and get a house + market + hunting dogs, no market selling required.
The great thing about France at this stage is that you can queue vills to 9/10 pop, send 3cdb as soon as you get your first shipment and overpop to 12/10 for a bit, then still have plenty of time to finish chopping for your house before queuing your last 2 vills.


This is not what this BO suggest's as I believe it is for us players just now starting to use BO's and is purposely kept simple, thus easier to achieve but not the best possible.
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Re: French

Post by bepsi »

Below is link to a short guide detailing one of the oldest and most effective colonial strats for France, namely crossbow pike. It works on pretty much any map and is easy to execute, leaving the player time to focus on army control and proper allocation of villagers.

I wouldn't recommend semi strats for any beginner. They require exact precision in execution, access to TP and readily available resources close to base (which seldomly is the case on RE). More over good army control and base construction is needed to hold any sort of timing push.

https://www.gamereplays.org/community/i ... pic=245839
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Re: French

Post by Kawapasaka »

HeadKilla wrote:
Kawapasaka wrote:
HeadKilla wrote:Thanks for this post. I have finally lowered my Age II time from ~5:00-5:30 to 4:28 at my best.

Lesson I learned is that BO's get outdated, some faster than others. I thought if 100w start with 100g you wanted to make market, mine 25 gold and buy wood for house. NOPE DO NOT DO THIS. possibly why I felt so many people were hacking, I was just playing too much sim city in age I.


You should always be able to get market + hunting dogs with 14v age up on a coin start, 90% of the time sped up by a treasure or two, usually coin. If your first treasure is coin, mine first with a couple of vills to get to 175coin (unless it was a great treasure and you're already there), sell for wood, get hunting dogs, then chop 50 for a house (or maybe you got lucky and get a wood treasure as well before that). If your first treasure is wood chop first to reach 150w (if you're not already there), slam down the market and get hunting dogs straight away. Then mine until 125g, sell for wood and get your house. The point here obviously being that you always should (and easily can) prioritise hunting dogs before your first house on a coin start.
Likewise if it's a wood start (200w) on a no-TP map, just chop/mine depending on your first treasures and get a house + market + hunting dogs, no market selling required.
The great thing about France at this stage is that you can queue vills to 9/10 pop, send 3cdb as soon as you get your first shipment and overpop to 12/10 for a bit, then still have plenty of time to finish chopping for your house before queuing your last 2 vills.


This is not what this BO suggest's as I believe it is for us players just now starting to use BO's and is purposely kept simple, thus easier to achieve but not the best possible.


Going market on a coin start isn't that much more complicated than going TP on a 200w start. It's barely any more resource intensive, in fact it's not at all given you have a (very common) small coin treasure or two near your starting TC. If you want to learn French I think it's best to try and get used to both the coin and wood start openings as a solid foundation. You could do it more incrementally just getting used to one at a time as well though, guess it doesn't matter too much. Market on coin start/TP on wood start applies to pretty much every single build though.
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Re: French

Post by Luciofrancosi »

As a beginner up to
PR 19 or 20 just dual rax musk rush should do the job to be fair!! Just send crate shipments and u can add a stable later if needed!! Or xbow-pike is also a good build to use!! They are easy builds to use as a beginner!!
Trying to use semi ff at lower levels is too complicated and hardly pays off specially vs rushing civs like India or russia!!
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Re: French

Post by Astaroth »

But a double rush should lose hard to most rush civs, shouldn't it? What does double rax rush do vs aggressive agra or blockhouse if the opponent can just make/send strels and make ghurka?
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Re: French

Post by Papist »

Astaroth wrote:But a double rush should lose hard to most rush civs, shouldn't it? What does double rax rush do vs aggressive agra or blockhouse if the opponent can just make/send strels and make ghurka?


Most players aren't going to open with ranged infantry, and by the time they've started mixing them in, you've ideally used your 700w shipment to drop a stable and start mixing civ.
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Re: French

Post by Luciofrancosi »

Astaroth wrote:But a double rush should lose hard to most rush civs, shouldn't it? What does double rax rush do vs aggressive agra or blockhouse if the opponent can just make/send strels and make ghurka?



U don't have to go and rush them!! But u can use it to deffend against a rush and hold until u have a good mass!! And as @Papist said, after 700w you should have a stable ready and mix some huss if needed
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Re: French

Post by Astaroth »

Have you tried going double rax musk or crossbow against Indian 10/10 or consulate rush?

If he goes 10/10, you won't have units out when your base is hit, then you get idled, can't sustain double rax, especially if you are forced to send 8 crossbows. Then you have a weak eco (no 4 cdb or no double rax start), he has a similar mass, map control, an agra to hold any push, better units.

Same goes for a consulate rush.

It just doesn't really feel sensible to go age2 vs India. France can't get enough early mass, later on India has almost the same mass, much better units, a better composition and an agra plus MM to hold the map.
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Re: French

Post by bepsi »

Old meta is to call 8 xbow as first card when faced with India 10/10. 700 Wood, 4 coureurs/3 sw and 8 xbow can be sent in any order depending on the tactical circumstances at hand of course. Compulsively sending 4 coureurs as first card in colo no matter what is only viable on the ESOC patch.
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Re: French

Post by dansil92 »

Isnt 4 cdb with market ups better vs sepoy than 8xbows? Like not being sarcastic here, 40rr long ranged and much higher hp, wouldnt it technically be better to hold?
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Re: French

Post by Kawapasaka »

dansil92 wrote:Isnt 4 cdb with market ups better vs sepoy than 8xbows? Like not being sarcastic here, 40rr long ranged and much higher hp, wouldnt it technically be better to hold?


No, 4cdb are not better vs Sepoy than 8xbows...
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Re: French

Post by Riotcoke »

CDB are actually really effective if you're good at using the time inbetween tc fire, e.g if you have 20 cdb and pop all 20 out and in with the tc fire you can basically get three tc shots for each one.
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Re: French

Post by Kawapasaka »

Riotcoke wrote:CDB are actually really effective if you're good at using the time inbetween tc fire, e.g if you have 20 cdb and pop all 20 out and in with the tc fire you can basically get three tc shots for each one.


It's a nice trick but if you have every single vill in your TC already you're probably pretty desperate. The goal of 8xbows is not having to keep your entire economy belled up so you can actually gather the resources to age.
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Re: French

Post by Riotcoke »

If i actually recall correctly, if you do it well and india is just stuffing sepoys under your tc it's actually really quite efficient
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Re: French

Post by Kawapasaka »

Riotcoke wrote:If i actually recall correctly, if you do it well and india is just stuffing sepoys under your tc it's actually really quite efficient


Hmm I think if you have units to defend you'd rather just have 10 cdb in the tc and the rest tanking/gathering rather than pretty highly apm intensive task of popping them in/out while simultaneously managing your defending army. Of course you want to do it if you're belled with no units, but you really don't want to be belled with no units because even if you've aged up India will kill whatever shipment pops out.
Maybe its best use would be while hiding your army and waiting for your first age 3 shipment to come.
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Re: French

Post by Astaroth »

If all your vills are in your TC, you are mostly in a horrible spot. Your eco is dead, meanwhile India is booming just from free vills, can get 300 export, 3 huss, 4 sowars etc. Often you will also be housed from sepoys killing your houses. What next?

Best case, you'll get out 8 skirm, 2 falc, 5 goon and maybe train 5-10 units (remember, your eco has been idle). Meanwhile, India can either age with better eco (Ururmi, 2 siege ele) or just out mass with agra map control.

But you'll prolly not even get to that point. If you are idle in your TC without units, India will most likely just keep streaming units in and kill you and/or timing push you 4 mins later
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Re: French

Post by Luciofrancosi »

Astaroth wrote:If all your vills are in your TC, you are mostly in a horrible spot. Your eco is dead, meanwhile India is booming just from free vills, can get 300 export, 3 huss, 4 sowars etc. Often you will also be housed from sepoys killing your houses. What next?

Best case, you'll get out 8 skirm, 2 falc, 5 goon and maybe train 5-10 units (remember, your eco has been idle). Meanwhile, India can either age with better eco (Ururmi, 2 siege ele) or just out mass with agra map control.

But you'll prolly not even get to that point. If you are idle in your TC without units, India will most likely just keep streaming units in and kill you and/or timing push you 4 mins later



I gotta agree with you on that one!!
At a higher level this is not a bad match up and it can even be French favoured, but at a lower lvl this match up is exactly as you described!!
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Re: French

Post by bepsi »

Look, 'higher level' players exclusively play on maps with plenty of safe hunts and mines. At least two safe hunts are needed to pull off a semi and probably three in order to hold timings/gather strength to safely push out. The Achilles heel of semi FF play is to run out of safe res to gather upon reaching age 3, slowly dying to a timing while perma-belled. In conclusion, the semi meta evolved not because players in the past where retards but due to the adoption of a new map pool rewarding such play (while also nerfing all civs with early aggression potential).

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