French is a civ that has no advantage

[chris1089]

@duckzilla your comments about artillery, upgrades etc. are accurate, but the problem is that it's almost impossible (in 1v1) to use those advantages. The game is won or lost before then.

I think I agree with the op, France doesn't really have any advantages, except a lack of significant weakness. They require you to play very well, which is good. Perhaps there are some other civs that need slight nerfs, but I'm happy that if Kaiser says they are fine, that means they are fine if you play well enough and have good enough game knowledge.

This discussion has made me want to go and play some French: try to scout and outplay my opponent. Thanks.

[Kaiserklein]

french is indeed easy

Going for a bot cav semi is easy. Playing France at top level definitely isn't easy at all.

[Garja]

I remember someone (@Rikikipu ?) posted some stats from the ESOC Patch a few years ago and was able to sort these stats by rating vs equally skilled players. France had almost the lowest winrate at all levels (around 43-45% I believe?) except at the highest level, where it was ~55%.

The difference in execution (sum of mechanics aspects plus right calls to adapt to different situations) between low level and high level players is definetely a thing.
However the high win rate was mostly due to the fact that French was indeed one of top civs in the EP. At that point no idle 13v+TP was the type of advantage the OP is talking about.

french is indeed easy

Going for a bot cav semi is easy. Playing France at top level definitely isn't easy at all.

It's easy regardless. The civ is easy both mechanically and strategically too.

[Kaiserklein]

It's obviously not, but anyway I don't think I've ever seen you play it, let alone at top level

[Garja]

Eh, really?

[Jets]

ppl really think france is weak, try practicing timing mechanics with spain, then swap back to france and put that into use. Having better vills, better cav, better and more diverse military shipments, and a good early eco over-all, just resumes into one problem, you don't know how to time all that.

[helln00]

French also potentially have the strongest artillery in the game with Gribeauval System boosting dmg by a whopping 25%.

i think otto and china has stronger artillery buffs, though more cards

I don't think so. Firstly, both need to invest more cards. Secondly, the single cards are all significantly weaker than the French one. Thirdly, they only have one card boosting dmg output. This third point is the most important to me. For long ranged units, dmg is the much more important statistic to me. And this is where the French card delivers a whopping 25%. The only negative point about it is its late appearance in age IV.

Agreed on the spending more cards point, though if im not wrong for certain weird interactions that can make china's artillery have ridiculous buffs.

I think for example the German consulate heavy cannons have an additional 35% stats free in age 4 for some reason despite it being an age 4 unit. They also still get an imp shadow tech so they get 85% addition stat while normal imp heavy cannons only get 50%.

its only in the consulate so it won't be as strong overall, but its always a fun thing to cheese sometimes.

[Hazza54321]

i rarely like cuirs > nagis cossacks forbidden army mostly due to their train time and france is very tempo based civ.