gamevideo113 wrote:The fact that france has steel traps and amalgamation is already a big deal.
Steel traps is nice. However, merely thinking of getting amalgamation vs iro any early is delusional.
gamevideo113 wrote:On top of that i think france can get away with having 15-20 goons only and focus more on skirm production, because a potential cav switch from iro is not that scary, if you exclude the 5 cuirs card.
Iro has 3 good cav shipments, that's scary enough. Also there are plenty of builds involving dropping a stable in colonial and teching veterancy, so you can definitely have quite a few kanyas in early fort. Not to mention vet kanyas with warchief actually have 585 ranged hp, while a vet huss has only 480 ranged hp.
gamevideo113 wrote:Also, forest prowlers are better, but they have less HP, so both skirms and FP take 11 shots to kill each other before cards.
This can't be true. FPs literally have more hp and more attack than skirms when the warchief is nearby. And the warchief is always nearby.
Anyway you can't just make a list of advantages of both civs and say x civ is better. I could also list so many reasons why iro is so strong (musket riders, crackshot, warhut for mapcontrol, veterancy being 25%, skirm upgrades, etc), and it wouldn't prove shit.
The real thing is that out of experience, iro gets free mapcontrol in this match up, can pressure in colonial, sometimes even stagecoach, and then still have as many (if not more) units than france in fortress, while also having stronger units. And stuff like the 2 falcs or steel traps are really nice but it's simply not enough.