Talk:Franks/@comment-190.237.143.156-20160428191825/@comment-27202541-20171013131903

You're completely wrong about the Franks. Yes their fast castle into Knights is strong, but their castle age is not as strong as you make it out to be. Firstly, the +20% HP is obviously good and is like free Bloodlines, but your opponent will get the Bloodlines upgrade eventually, so the advantage of the Franks drops off here. The 25% faster foraging bonus also drops off here because berries are all used up and become redundant. The 75 food and 75 wood for free Horse Collar also only helps at the beginning. See, the Franks have no long-lasting eco bonus, and no long-lasting military bonus either, until imp where they get undisputably the best Paladins in the game. Their mid-late castle age isn't as strong as, let's say, the Berbers (if they're going for their own super cheap Knights, or if they're going Camel Archers which are amazing).

Oh BTW, free Heavy Plow doesn't act like a 125 food and 125 wood savings in castle age like you think it does, because no one actually researches the tech anyway until they've already clicked up to imperial. It's just too many resources in castle age for too little effect. So the Franks essentially just save wood with this bonus (since all of their farms they make in castle age will have 375 food), which is a good bonus but is not amazing.

You also clearly have shit metagame knowledge, because you say a scout rush is impotent due to the lack of Bloodlines, even though the Franks actually have one of the best scout rushes in the game because having 54 HP instead of 45 HP IMMEDIATELY is much more relevant early than getting access to Bloodlines. Nobody is going to pay 150 food and 100 gold to research Bloodlines in early feudal, they'll get it later, towards late feudal. This means that the Franks have statistically the best scouts for the initial scout rush.