The LOS on the Frank knight line is actually huge if you're building up a mass of paladins and throwing them into the enemy's eco without micro. After killing a unit, the AI for a non-siege unit will auto-select the closest enemy unit it sees and if it doesn't see one, it'll target a building. Well if you're raiding, you would prefer your cavalry attacks the enemy villagers rather than random buildings. The Frank LOS for the cavalry means they're going to spot enemy vills much easier and will continue to go after vills even if you aren't paying attention to them.
It also gives a bit more time to react when you encounter the enemy on the map regardless of what units they are. And the base LOS on paladins isn’t very good so It’s a very helpful buff
Huh. And here i thought melee units would only look like 2 tiles away and if there's nothing nearby they would start slapping a building. I thought being able to prioritize units from far away was just for ranged troops.
I legit thought SotL was setting up all these side businesses but that “Spirit of the Lambs” one finally made me realize “okay, he’s just been joking.”
@@zurabigvishiani1144 Yes, their culture is very interesting, and I hope it lasts for a long time. (I am neither Georgian nor Svan. I just like the country.)
The advantage with Throwing Axemen imo is them needing standard melee upgrades. It’s easy to pivot to halbs and back to axemen depending on what your oppt is doing, while something like Hand Cannons or Skirms is a completely different set of upgrades.
The attack upgrades weren't included in the calculation at 7:25 for the reason both of you mentioned. Even if you remove them entirely a throwing axeman is 3x more than a Frank hand cannoneer to fully upgrade, so the point would still stand.
@@SpiritOfTheLaw I was thinking more of the previous segment (around 6:50), which I *thought* was listing “upfront costs” as a negative… for some reason. Watching it again, you’re very clearly just stating the upgrade costs as fact there, so I’m not sure why I took issue on the first watching. Probably combined it with the later segment in my head… my bad!
I like that overview even more thinking about the first one you made. Franks were you're "least favorite" and "throwing axe man a unique unit that looks good when its massed, but I can`t think about one that does not." Shows how far the channel and your expertise grew over time! Respect!
Yeah AoC Franks were probably the most boring, one dimensional civ in the game back then. No berry bonus, cav HP bonus applied only to knights, no chivalry, etc
While IRL France military doctrine evolved in dramatic ways, from heavy infantry (Poitiers 732), to cavalry (the famous frennch knights), to having the best artillery in all Europe at the end of the Hundred Year war. This does not reflect into the game by any mean. And now their cav has 3 billions ways to get countered.They need a big overhaul.
@@captainobvious8530actually not. They are a below 1100 elo civ. Players in that elo cant deal with knights. While you fight a few raid. Defending is much harder for lower elos than Aggression. People cant deal with a knight spam
I remember when you considered your least favorite civ, and it was my least favorite too at that time. But I already like it more, specially because I learned the knight rush thanks to the franks and sometimes castle drop to haha
Hey spirit of the law, I would like to see more of your rookie tutorials: how to play arabia, arena, nomad, black forest; just the general pace of the game, when to wall, when to go feudal, what to attack and where, stuff like that. Or perhaps the funamentals in dark age, feudal age, castle age and imperial age. What you should do/focus on in each age.
I always liked franks for the cheaper castles. In the past this felt clutch to me as I learned the game because castle on other civs always came slow back then. I also loved the fact it was one of the few civs whose special unit complimented a powered up standard unit. I enjoyed the synergy because for a lot of civs, the unique unit was either a better version of a standard unit(longbow), variation of a powered unit where you would go either or(Boyars), or my favs, a unique unit that the civ was built around(Mangudai, Conquistadors). I felt like in the past, only the franks and arguably the Goths had civs like this with the goths unique unit also feeling like the civ was built around it at times. The Saracens also have a unit that could compliment their heavy camels, but in honesty, the mamaluke unit just felt like a better camel overall. Thus, the franks felt like it had a unique spot even when everyone was saying it was the worst civ. It was a personal fav. Man, was I excited when the polls came out and proved to everyone how on top franks really were. Even with the new civs, they haven't felt nerfed. Its just that other civs were boosted to better compete, which always feels like the better choice in a competition.
Yeah the only way I ever play Franks is infantry. Throwing axeman and mameluke armies are very satisfying once you get them going and if you can pull it off. They're one unit armies with good siege for most situations. Mamelukes kinda need micro, throwing axeman are a mob.
13:15 "I'd also throw in the axeman" (as a defensive asset), I tried this, but I unfortunately found that castles don't throw axemen, it is disappointing to be frank
Thanks for covering them again! I definitely checked out the first video, but having an update is always helpful. Running through the Joan of arc campaign, helps to understand the civ.
They're not even that good though, a few civs have better paladins and most are more versatile because Frank light cav suck, they're just really straightforward to play. Also Franks are an original civ and historically the game was much more heavily balanced around calvary, so Franks were relatively more powerful in the meta game and we still see that today.
@@misteral9045 The thing they're really good at is more scout rush into knights, with optional castle pressure/defense. Their late game can be a bit messy in a lot of matchups if they don't do enough damage early, but that's the point, they're very good at having a streamlined economy throughout dark/feudal/castle age and having the tools to do early damage.
@@Nysyarc You're speaking from a less experienced perspective that is ignorant of the history that I pointed out. You're also just wrong. Franks have a boringly balanced late game, with FU halbs, axemen, BBC, HC, and paladins, and shitty but serviceable light cav and skirmishers. The foraging bonus is relatively new, and is still better suited for FC into knights because of the timing on finishing berries, building upgraded farms, and needing initial resources for stables and knights rather than slowing down to make a few scouts. Horse collar kinda sucks vs heavy plow (the +1 carry capacity is about 5% increased gather rate) and berries are still pretty slow even with the bonus, because berries are the slowest food resource collected. The meta happens to have shifted for awhile into scout rushes, which Franks are also suited for, but the meta has also shifted away from scout rushes again. I've been playing long enough to see the meta cycle around again to spear/skirm.
Big thing to keep in mind about Franks' success is not that they are the best cavarly civ (Probably not even top 5 as far as I'm aware, missing Hussars and Camels is really limiting), is just that they are easy to pick up and very flexible early on. If you ever face Franks in the ladder and your plan is to go cavalry vs cavarly; I recommend playing more defensive in Feudal (Of course do some damage if you can but they are stronger there so not getting behind is your priority), and either try to get a big advantage in Castle Age, or to go to a trash fight. Their savings top in early Castle, but none of their units are above average at that stage so there's when you should try to beat them :)
An idea for a future video: how does AI behave on standard / moderate / hard ... extreme difficulties? I think it has changed a lot in the recent years.
Awesome vid 😎. One request- could you do a vid on the impact Devotion has on the Aztecs monk line. That extra tech should now get their total HP to 100 in the Imperial Age. Plus with monk improvement conversions optimized, I feel they should get a solid upgrade.
Have you ever thought of doing stats on pro lever players not just everyone above 2000 elo. Or even T90’s titan league stats👀. I would love to see it especially for these overview stats. But keep it up you’ve been popping out vids left and right💪
Ah, Franks, the Liu Kang of Age of Empires II. There's also one more argument in favour of Chivalry, and faster-working military buildings in general: In order to make a unit, you need to pay the cost upfront (including pop space - this will become relevant). For each military building, that means paying first and then waiting for the unit training time to complete. With a knight, that's 30 seconds, and for the duration of those 30 seconds, you are down 60 food, 75 gold with nothing in return. Let's take the 16 stables. To keep them all running, you need to sink 960 food, 1200 gold into them at all times. While you do get your resources back eventually, in the shape of knights, those are resources you cannot allocate elsewhere. To keep the same amount of knight production with chivalry, though, you need roughly 40% less resources: 384 food and 480 gold are now free, which is enough to pay for Cavalier or one of the Imperial-age blacksmith upgrades. There's also the population factor. 16 stables producing units not yet out is a considerable dent on your total available population - 16 out of 200 doesn't sounds like much, but most people keep 120-140 villagers so that's more like 16 out of 80, a fifth of your army that's not ready and fighting. Chivalry helps putting troops on the line faster, which can be the tipping point in late-game battles (especially with such strong units coming out).
Most of the modern AOE II players directly played AOE conquest. in the original AOE II without the conquest DLC, Fanks were menace. Their knight overwhelmed every other Civs without the Bloodline.
I think what gives Franks their infamy and makes them the most played civ is: -Ease of use -So good with cavalry that they sometimes DON'T get punished for spamming it, even when they should -A knight meta favors Franks, because it means if both players play standard and make Knights in castle, Franks have the advantage; their bonus is to THE meta unit -Has a terrific counter for most anti-cavalry units in the form of the Axeman -Even if you get the better of Franks, you better believe that Franks player is just sending his vils to stone and ABSOLUTELY SPAMMING down Castles as a response. Result is that even on the backfoot, Franks can go "no fair, no raiding my base!! I call do-overs!!" and they're exceedingly hard to raid and punish. Either you kill them early before Castles are viable (Feudal, Early Castle) or you outperform them so well that they can't keep up in Imperial. Given that they have a powerhouse Paladin unit they'll eventually reach (usually), it can be difficult to make this work It all leads to this civ - more than any other - feeling like a crutch that has all kinds of tools to forgive bad plays. Are you bad at recognizing counters? No problem, just spam Frankish cav and get good trades anyways! Are you bad at dealing with siege pressure? No sweat! Spam down castles! Are you in a bad position that's difficult to recover from? Spam castles! Those will keep you in the game until you reach Paladin! It's weird because it simultaneously feels like a fairly vanilla civ that would be good for beginners for learning the game, but it's bonuses synergize so ridiculously well that yes, the ladder *does* have an excess of Frank pickers who will do absolutely nothing else but play Franks and seem completely reliant on them and their bonuses.
Yup. They used to have Fishing Ships with more LOS. Now they're cheaper, which makes all of the Italians' bonuses, aside from the team bonus, discounts.
@@SvanTowerMan I always play with them but sometimes it feels like im just using the "discount civ" wich is a shame. The condottieri and genoese crossbows are really good but i always feel like my army is lacking the punch. At least give them siege engineers!
I love axemen. For me they are the main unit of the Franks. Knights are good for early raids but once your enemy goes into pikes you need a new army composition. You have hand cannons, cannons (12+1) and axe throwers. As well as decent champions. That gives a very strong composition that can deal with a lot of enemy types. Axe throwers are amazing for sieges, they can shoot through walls and melee damage is much harder to avoid. On open field you can always use your strong cavalry. Use it as support in the lategame, thanks to the second unique tech you can heavily spam light cavalry if needed.
I currently enjoy the ''Franks'' , they are my second favourite civ, yet I would love to have them split into separate eras. I find it highly jarring to fight in a renaissance battle such as the Battle of the Spurs 1513 AD and yet seeing Throwing axemen from the Migration era of King Merovech I 411 AD runnig all over the place. Or fighting as Clovis I 481 AD and having hand gunners shoot the Romans to bits. I would love a split of the ''Franks'' into era appropriate civs. With the ''Norman Franks'' retaining most of the current civs bonuses thus not altering the current civ to much as to cause people to complain to much. 1.Germanic Franks & Burgundians/Merovingians 300 AD - 600 AD Migration era infantry & Cavalry pagan civ with throwing axemen. 2.Norman Franks Carolingian/Norman Empires. Early to high Medieval civ Pre Black death to Black death Europe. Crusader (Kite shield+Nasal helm + chainmail) sword and spear infantry,Knights,crossbows, monk, Trebuchet civ 3.Late Kingdom of France/French High to late Medieval civ Post Black death Europe ,onward Marauding Migrations DLC docs.google.com/document/d/1GWg8u2qPA3iYBGh1CzBRd4__31SlTp3AIm5-AE8KZXI/edit?usp=sharing Knights of Christendom DLC: docs.google.com/document/d/162BQ0Kx00CCovyNGZxyaAfNo-Bm7sO9q6xG9_ue_7KQ/edit?usp=sharing
@@tinkywinky1238 the Franks did use throwing axes but it was during the early Middle Ages, and their axes (franciscas) were much lighter than the double axe they are throwing. They'd also have coustilliers (as medium cav) and even longbowmen with extra mobility, as to fight fire with fire they did field some mounted longbowmen in the later part of the HYW. Quite a lot of techs not given to them for balance would be there : treadmill crane, guilds, possibly everything that is defence-oriented (keep, bombard tower...).
I would've liked a breakdown of how many stables you need to already have for Chivalry to be a more efficient way of increasing your total stable production than just building an equivalent resource cost worth of additional stables. I'm surprised at Spirit of the Math missing that opportunity to pull out the old graphing calculator. :P
Would be nice if Frank scout cavalry implemented something new and never done with other units, and that would be somekind of promotion where a scout unit converts to knight by killing or dealing an X amount of damage. Obviously, this would require something like the Chivalry tech to be researched. This would also count like somekind of economic bonus and help them in very long games.
Franks in a 1v1 is no issue if you have camel or halbs maybe with bonus, but I am usually playing with a friend together and we always get britons + franks, or any archer civ with franks as enemies and the bad archer range for franks is not longer the case because his teammate is making archers, its basically unbeatable in this case.
Could you make a video breaking down your opening sequence and where you get each clip / image from? And what would you consider worthy to add into or replace part of your opening sequence?
A small saving grace for the throwing axeman is that the attack upgrades will be researched already thanks to your cav. Armor is nice, but as a backline unit they care more about damage much in the way archers do.
I never thought of Franks as a try hard civ because I always thought of them as a easy/ simple civ. Like they're good, but a lot of that strength, especially at low to mid elo is how simple it is to play them. If I play Franks I have a game plan every time, while still having obvious transitions when the opponent builds all into counter units. I also think cavalry is much easier to play then archers as you don't need nearly as much micro to find success, and you can leverage mobility to make up for bad engagements or positions. Of course both things can be, and probably are true at the same time.
This is perfect timing, just started ranked like 4 days ago and been going solo franks. Definitely going to help with my 31% winrate lol. Once i figure out how to deal with early archers and militia ill be set
One of the easiest civs to pick up and play, for good reason. But they aren't all cav as I appreciate their Throwing Axemen quite a lot for how well they mesh well with Paladins and in anti-siege duties.
Odd question, Spirit, but how do Throwing Axemen compare to Kamayuks? Let me back up. The idea is that Throwing Axemen, at times, seem to benefit from getting the whole force attacking at once smoothly, even early on when they have a measly 3 range. They also are tanky like regular infantry. I’ve observed this a bit anecdotally playing campaigns, but I’d be interested to know if there’s an argument for the axemen as a mainline infantry unit (and not just a Paladin support) specifically based on this dynamic.
Just started this game with my friends and my friend sent me this video! Looks like the Franks is gonna be my first CIV. Also this game is kind of overwhelming.
Don't try to immediately be performing on the higher tiers. Just learn the game first and then start trying to improve. This game has had 20+ years to develop its multiplayer scene. Or you can do what I do and almost never touch multiplayer vs. It's still a great game for single and coop vs AI.
I feel like it’s a bit disingenuous, or at least unfair, to include the melee attack upgrades as a downside of the Throwing Axemen, as you’re already getting those for your Knight line. Also, the alternatives are the spear line (same deal), or ranged units (actually an additional upgrade). The only *real* downside is the cost of the Elite upgrade.
Maybe it’s just me and my love for spreadsheets, but is there a place where each civilization is shown with its tech-tree rankings? I feel like when I watch these videos, no civilization is ever given the title of “best” in any particular category. I’d really like to see a comprehensive list of scores.
@SOTL suggestion for a video: Unit stats and abilities after conversion. Which (hidden) stats/abilities are translated, which are not? Influence of civ bonuses, UT's etc. Which bonuses do they lose, which do they gain?
so any relevant changes compared to the ealry days? feals like they are basicly the same unque techs give some range to axeman and faster stables basicyl tells you how solid they always have been
I haven't actually played AoE2 in a long time, but I always remembered Franks' Castles costing 480 stone instead of 650. Was this true at some point in history, or is my memory further gone than I thought?
I play franks for fun, and I know I cannot spam paladins alone nor in huge quantity. Having light cavalry covering the flanks is a good move, even if they are weaker they still do their job ; plus you can spawn them a lot faster thanks to chivalry.
But still, Huns can pump out the most knights in the shortest time. Huns are the go to civ for massing knights in castle age and for total blitzkrieg knight warfare.
The LOS on the Frank knight line is actually huge if you're building up a mass of paladins and throwing them into the enemy's eco without micro.
After killing a unit, the AI for a non-siege unit will auto-select the closest enemy unit it sees and if it doesn't see one, it'll target a building. Well if you're raiding, you would prefer your cavalry attacks the enemy villagers rather than random buildings. The Frank LOS for the cavalry means they're going to spot enemy vills much easier and will continue to go after vills even if you aren't paying attention to them.
It also gives a bit more time to react when you encounter the enemy on the map regardless of what units they are. And the base LOS on paladins isn’t very good so It’s a very helpful buff
Huh. And here i thought melee units would only look like 2 tiles away and if there's nothing nearby they would start slapping a building. I thought being able to prioritize units from far away was just for ranged troops.
Another huge advantage is is early castle age where to help you spot monks from farther away
They go the extra mile to slaughter more helpless villagers? How chivalrous!
@@morantNO1 absolutely french.
As someone whose name isn't Frank, this really gave me a good insight. I understand Franks so much better now.
Thank you.
Don't think i've even opened AoE2 for like 4-5 years now, but I'm still catching the occasional overview cause they're so well put together!
Why??
@@komicsreviewer8505 Why what?
@@kirktown2046 Why watch it then?
@@kirktown2046 Why watch it then?
I sure do like the idea of being informed if I ever do choose to reinstall
I legit thought SotL was setting up all these side businesses but that “Spirit of the Lambs” one finally made me realize “okay, he’s just been joking.”
It's his delivery. He treats jokes and serious comments with the exact same deadpan delivery. I feel like that increases the humor somehow.
@SvanTowerMan it really increases the humor
To be fair he really does put the work in, the websites you see in the bit are actually made in squarespace and definitely pass as online businesses
@@SvanTowerManსვანებს გაუმარჯოს ძმაო
@@zurabigvishiani1144 Yes, their culture is very interesting, and I hope it lasts for a long time.
(I am neither Georgian nor Svan. I just like the country.)
We all had a franks phase at one point didn't we
To be Frank, I never had that phase. In fact, I despise the civ.
I've never really played them, played against them though.
for me it was the mongol phase
which im still in (after over 1500 hours and 3 years)
I was a britons kid, and then jumped on the Hun-wagon. As Malians, Indians and Vietnameese came, I loved them, but I am for the Tatars!
Most of as had it a couple hundred years ago
The advantage with Throwing Axemen imo is them needing standard melee upgrades. It’s easy to pivot to halbs and back to axemen depending on what your oppt is doing, while something like Hand Cannons or Skirms is a completely different set of upgrades.
Also that the fact that you’re *already getting them* for your Knights.
@@plackt I was thinking more about armor than attack, but yes, the offensive upgrades doing triple duty is also a big deal.
@@evilvitamin yeah, the blacksmith / barracks upgrades aren’t nearly as much of a “downside” as they were portrayed to be.
The attack upgrades weren't included in the calculation at 7:25 for the reason both of you mentioned. Even if you remove them entirely a throwing axeman is 3x more than a Frank hand cannoneer to fully upgrade, so the point would still stand.
@@SpiritOfTheLaw I was thinking more of the previous segment (around 6:50), which I *thought* was listing “upfront costs” as a negative… for some reason. Watching it again, you’re very clearly just stating the upgrade costs as fact there, so I’m not sure why I took issue on the first watching.
Probably combined it with the later segment in my head… my bad!
Man i love to see updates of civs overviews
I like that overview even more thinking about the first one you made. Franks were you're "least favorite" and "throwing axe man a unique unit that looks good when its massed, but I can`t think about one that does not."
Shows how far the channel and your expertise grew over time! Respect!
*your
@@thenedley0913 🤓
In his defence, Throwing axeman got a ton of buffs over the years. They were very unimpressive back in the day.
He was largely referring to the Age of Conquerors state of Franks in that overview to be fair.
Yeah AoC Franks were probably the most boring, one dimensional civ in the game back then. No berry bonus, cav HP bonus applied only to knights, no chivalry, etc
Franks may be fairly one-dimensional, but that does make them a great learning civ knowing you have the same gameplan and core unit every time.
While IRL France military doctrine evolved in dramatic ways, from heavy infantry (Poitiers 732), to cavalry (the famous frennch knights), to having the best artillery in all Europe at the end of the Hundred Year war. This does not reflect into the game by any mean. And now their cav has 3 billions ways to get countered.They need a big overhaul.
@@captainobvious8530they do have full tech infantry and full tech bombard cannon, although generic.
@@captainobvious8530actually not. They are a below 1100 elo civ. Players in that elo cant deal with knights. While you fight a few raid. Defending is much harder for lower elos than Aggression. People cant deal with a knight spam
The game defined so perfectly in one civ: "Just spam knights."
I remember when you considered your least favorite civ, and it was my least favorite too at that time.
But I already like it more, specially because I learned the knight rush thanks to the franks and sometimes castle drop to haha
Hey spirit of the law, I would like to see more of your rookie tutorials: how to play arabia, arena, nomad, black forest; just the general pace of the game, when to wall, when to go feudal, what to attack and where, stuff like that. Or perhaps the funamentals in dark age, feudal age, castle age and imperial age. What you should do/focus on in each age.
It is always a good day when a review comes with the SOTL intro theme
I always liked franks for the cheaper castles. In the past this felt clutch to me as I learned the game because castle on other civs always came slow back then. I also loved the fact it was one of the few civs whose special unit complimented a powered up standard unit. I enjoyed the synergy because for a lot of civs, the unique unit was either a better version of a standard unit(longbow), variation of a powered unit where you would go either or(Boyars), or my favs, a unique unit that the civ was built around(Mangudai, Conquistadors). I felt like in the past, only the franks and arguably the Goths had civs like this with the goths unique unit also feeling like the civ was built around it at times. The Saracens also have a unit that could compliment their heavy camels, but in honesty, the mamaluke unit just felt like a better camel overall. Thus, the franks felt like it had a unique spot even when everyone was saying it was the worst civ. It was a personal fav. Man, was I excited when the polls came out and proved to everyone how on top franks really were. Even with the new civs, they haven't felt nerfed. Its just that other civs were boosted to better compete, which always feels like the better choice in a competition.
Yeah the only way I ever play Franks is infantry. Throwing axeman and mameluke armies are very satisfying once you get them going and if you can pull it off. They're one unit armies with good siege for most situations. Mamelukes kinda need micro, throwing axeman are a mob.
franks didn't have halberdiers until forgotten expansion so it that moments throwing axemen was the best option for camels and others halbediers
13:15 "I'd also throw in the axeman" (as a defensive asset), I tried this, but I unfortunately found that castles don't throw axemen, it is disappointing to be frank
I used to use halberdiers for base defense, but found that they are diers more than halberds, so I switched to axemen
@@potatoesandducks958 might I suggest the best of two worlds: Bearded axemen
Just to be 'Frank' with you, I still love playing the Franks now and again.
Playing Franks raises my elo by a good 50-100 points compared to other civs. They feel so smooth to play.
Thanks for covering them again! I definitely checked out the first video, but having an update is always helpful. Running through the Joan of arc campaign, helps to understand the civ.
Franks are THE example of "good at only one thing, but so good at that one thing it doesnt matter."
They're not even that good though, a few civs have better paladins and most are more versatile because Frank light cav suck, they're just really straightforward to play. Also Franks are an original civ and historically the game was much more heavily balanced around calvary, so Franks were relatively more powerful in the meta game and we still see that today.
@@misteral9045 The thing they're really good at is more scout rush into knights, with optional castle pressure/defense. Their late game can be a bit messy in a lot of matchups if they don't do enough damage early, but that's the point, they're very good at having a streamlined economy throughout dark/feudal/castle age and having the tools to do early damage.
@@Nysyarc You're speaking from a less experienced perspective that is ignorant of the history that I pointed out. You're also just wrong. Franks have a boringly balanced late game, with FU halbs, axemen, BBC, HC, and paladins, and shitty but serviceable light cav and skirmishers. The foraging bonus is relatively new, and is still better suited for FC into knights because of the timing on finishing berries, building upgraded farms, and needing initial resources for stables and knights rather than slowing down to make a few scouts. Horse collar kinda sucks vs heavy plow (the +1 carry capacity is about 5% increased gather rate) and berries are still pretty slow even with the bonus, because berries are the slowest food resource collected. The meta happens to have shifted for awhile into scout rushes, which Franks are also suited for, but the meta has also shifted away from scout rushes again. I've been playing long enough to see the meta cycle around again to spear/skirm.
I think its frankly fantastic you put the intro theme back in
I've always found it funny the Franks lack arbalests, because it's a French word
Big thing to keep in mind about Franks' success is not that they are the best cavarly civ (Probably not even top 5 as far as I'm aware, missing Hussars and Camels is really limiting), is just that they are easy to pick up and very flexible early on.
If you ever face Franks in the ladder and your plan is to go cavalry vs cavarly; I recommend playing more defensive in Feudal (Of course do some damage if you can but they are stronger there so not getting behind is your priority), and either try to get a big advantage in Castle Age, or to go to a trash fight.
Their savings top in early Castle, but none of their units are above average at that stage so there's when you should try to beat them :)
I cant help but wonder if all the Squarespace websites are delaying the rate at which you make video's hahaha. Thanks again for a great video Sotl!
If you end up in a trash war as the Franks, you've already messed up.
An idea for a future video: how does AI behave on standard / moderate / hard ... extreme difficulties? I think it has changed a lot in the recent years.
Oh my goodness the intro is back! Let's goooooo
SOTL, love your side gig names - might I suggest one: for the deep readers of LSAT paragraphs between the lines, "periods of the laws"
Awesome vid 😎. One request- could you do a vid on the impact Devotion has on the Aztecs monk line. That extra tech should now get their total HP to 100 in the Imperial Age. Plus with monk improvement conversions optimized, I feel they should get a solid upgrade.
Have you ever thought of doing stats on pro lever players not just everyone above 2000 elo. Or even T90’s titan league stats👀. I would love to see it especially for these overview stats. But keep it up you’ve been popping out vids left and right💪
There's no other UA-camr whose vids I follow and watch as religiously as SOTL's. I don't even play AOE2 anymore, just love his content.
The "chivalry" tech should also include the hability of garrisoned cavalry in castles to shoot arrows just like that teuton tech for its infantry.
15:14
Spirit of the Lamb? We all know Sotl's true name is Spirit of the GOAT
Spirit, I’m going to be frank with you…. this was an excellent video.
Ah yes the Franks, representing European civilization along with the Teutons from Age of Kings till The Forgotten Empires.
Not acknowledging the Britons as civilisation. You Sir earned a thumb up !
@@Duke_of_Lorraineor the Spanish from Conquerors. Or the Celts, arguably.
Ah, Franks, the Liu Kang of Age of Empires II.
There's also one more argument in favour of Chivalry, and faster-working military buildings in general:
In order to make a unit, you need to pay the cost upfront (including pop space - this will become relevant). For each military building, that means paying first and then waiting for the unit training time to complete. With a knight, that's 30 seconds, and for the duration of those 30 seconds, you are down 60 food, 75 gold with nothing in return.
Let's take the 16 stables. To keep them all running, you need to sink 960 food, 1200 gold into them at all times. While you do get your resources back eventually, in the shape of knights, those are resources you cannot allocate elsewhere. To keep the same amount of knight production with chivalry, though, you need roughly 40% less resources: 384 food and 480 gold are now free, which is enough to pay for Cavalier or one of the Imperial-age blacksmith upgrades.
There's also the population factor. 16 stables producing units not yet out is a considerable dent on your total available population - 16 out of 200 doesn't sounds like much, but most people keep 120-140 villagers so that's more like 16 out of 80, a fifth of your army that's not ready and fighting. Chivalry helps putting troops on the line faster, which can be the tipping point in late-game battles (especially with such strong units coming out).
To be Frank this was a good video.
Most of the modern AOE II players directly played AOE conquest. in the original AOE II without the conquest DLC, Fanks were menace. Their knight overwhelmed every other Civs without the Bloodline.
I think what gives Franks their infamy and makes them the most played civ is:
-Ease of use
-So good with cavalry that they sometimes DON'T get punished for spamming it, even when they should
-A knight meta favors Franks, because it means if both players play standard and make Knights in castle, Franks have the advantage; their bonus is to THE meta unit
-Has a terrific counter for most anti-cavalry units in the form of the Axeman
-Even if you get the better of Franks, you better believe that Franks player is just sending his vils to stone and ABSOLUTELY SPAMMING down Castles as a response. Result is that even on the backfoot, Franks can go "no fair, no raiding my base!! I call do-overs!!" and they're exceedingly hard to raid and punish. Either you kill them early before Castles are viable (Feudal, Early Castle) or you outperform them so well that they can't keep up in Imperial. Given that they have a powerhouse Paladin unit they'll eventually reach (usually), it can be difficult to make this work
It all leads to this civ - more than any other - feeling like a crutch that has all kinds of tools to forgive bad plays.
Are you bad at recognizing counters? No problem, just spam Frankish cav and get good trades anyways!
Are you bad at dealing with siege pressure? No sweat! Spam down castles!
Are you in a bad position that's difficult to recover from? Spam castles! Those will keep you in the game until you reach Paladin!
It's weird because it simultaneously feels like a fairly vanilla civ that would be good for beginners for learning the game, but it's bonuses synergize so ridiculously well that yes, the ladder *does* have an excess of Frank pickers who will do absolutely nothing else but play Franks and seem completely reliant on them and their bonuses.
Thanks for a new video. When you complete the evaluation of all populations, do you release a comparison table?! It would be a wonderful guide
It’s a little tricky to do that because things keep changing. I think it’s still doable, but it would be far from a perfect comparison guide.
Now we need a remake of the Italians Overview. They changed since HD.
Yup. They used to have Fishing Ships with more LOS. Now they're cheaper, which makes all of the Italians' bonuses, aside from the team bonus, discounts.
@@SvanTowerMan I always play with them but sometimes it feels like im just using the "discount civ" wich is a shame. The condottieri and genoese crossbows are really good but i always feel like my army is lacking the punch. At least give them siege engineers!
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Took 'em long enough, huh
I love these videos and have watched most of the vids that you've made since 5-6 years ago.
And I don't even play this game!
Franks save 650 in techs
The UA-cam captions
"Franks save 650 in tax"
I love axemen. For me they are the main unit of the Franks. Knights are good for early raids but once your enemy goes into pikes you need a new army composition. You have hand cannons, cannons (12+1) and axe throwers. As well as decent champions. That gives a very strong composition that can deal with a lot of enemy types. Axe throwers are amazing for sieges, they can shoot through walls and melee damage is much harder to avoid. On open field you can always use your strong cavalry. Use it as support in the lategame, thanks to the second unique tech you can heavily spam light cavalry if needed.
I currently enjoy the ''Franks'' , they are my second favourite civ, yet I would love to have them split into separate eras.
I find it highly jarring to fight in a renaissance battle such as the Battle of the Spurs 1513 AD and yet seeing Throwing axemen from the Migration era of King Merovech I 411 AD runnig all over the place. Or fighting as Clovis I 481 AD and having hand gunners shoot the Romans to bits.
I would love a split of the ''Franks'' into era appropriate civs.
With the ''Norman Franks'' retaining most of the current civs bonuses thus not altering the current civ to much as to cause people to complain to much.
1.Germanic Franks & Burgundians/Merovingians 300 AD - 600 AD Migration era infantry & Cavalry pagan civ with throwing axemen.
2.Norman Franks Carolingian/Norman Empires. Early to high Medieval civ Pre Black death to Black death Europe.
Crusader (Kite shield+Nasal helm + chainmail) sword and spear infantry,Knights,crossbows, monk, Trebuchet civ
3.Late Kingdom of France/French High to late Medieval civ Post Black death Europe ,onward
Marauding Migrations DLC
docs.google.com/document/d/1GWg8u2qPA3iYBGh1CzBRd4__31SlTp3AIm5-AE8KZXI/edit?usp=sharing
Knights of Christendom DLC:
docs.google.com/document/d/162BQ0Kx00CCovyNGZxyaAfNo-Bm7sO9q6xG9_ue_7KQ/edit?usp=sharing
15:05 I love when you organise the units like that
Will you do an updated overview of the Teutons and Goths?
love your videos Spirit
I still love that intro song. Really gets me in the mood for some SOTL analysis.
Another one so soon? It truly is the season of giving.
6:25 resource for crossbowman is wrong, the wood and gold cost was swapped.
I already know all of this stuff, but I just Like watching videos on Franks 🤷♂️
It would be interesting to have historically accurate Franks to see how much of a beast they would be.
They would just be the same except with arbalesters or Genoese Crossbowmen in place of Throwing Axemen, wouldn't they?
@@tinkywinky1238 the Franks did use throwing axes but it was during the early Middle Ages, and their axes (franciscas) were much lighter than the double axe they are throwing.
They'd also have coustilliers (as medium cav) and even longbowmen with extra mobility, as to fight fire with fire they did field some mounted longbowmen in the later part of the HYW.
Quite a lot of techs not given to them for balance would be there : treadmill crane, guilds, possibly everything that is defence-oriented (keep, bombard tower...).
I would've liked a breakdown of how many stables you need to already have for Chivalry to be a more efficient way of increasing your total stable production than just building an equivalent resource cost worth of additional stables. I'm surprised at Spirit of the Math missing that opportunity to pull out the old graphing calculator. :P
Would be nice if Frank scout cavalry implemented something new and never done with other units, and that would be somekind of promotion where a scout unit converts to knight by killing or dealing an X amount of damage. Obviously, this would require something like the Chivalry tech to be researched. This would also count like somekind of economic bonus and help them in very long games.
Franks in a 1v1 is no issue if you have camel or halbs maybe with bonus, but I am usually playing with a friend together and we always get britons + franks, or any archer civ with franks as enemies and the bad archer range for franks is not longer the case because his teammate is making archers, its basically unbeatable in this case.
Your squarespace ads have been the secret MVP of this channel recently. I look forward to a Cajun style recipe blog called Spirit of the Craw.
Could you make a video breaking down your opening sequence and where you get each clip / image from? And what would you consider worthy to add into or replace part of your opening sequence?
Would the Franks be better on water maps if they learned to harness sea horses...? 🤔
When im not feeling great, this is my go to channel. Yhis game is my childhood....
A small saving grace for the throwing axeman is that the attack upgrades will be researched already thanks to your cav. Armor is nice, but as a backline unit they care more about damage much in the way archers do.
I remember when Conquerors came out with Bloodlines, the previously epic French Knight became nothing special.
I always thought bloodlines messed up so many dynamics of the game. I enjoy playing as Byzantine, and the conquerors expansion really hit hard.
The previously epic French Paladin that made introducing Halberdiers a must.
I never thought of Franks as a try hard civ because I always thought of them as a easy/ simple civ. Like they're good, but a lot of that strength, especially at low to mid elo is how simple it is to play them. If I play Franks I have a game plan every time, while still having obvious transitions when the opponent builds all into counter units. I also think cavalry is much easier to play then archers as you don't need nearly as much micro to find success, and you can leverage mobility to make up for bad engagements or positions.
Of course both things can be, and probably are true at the same time.
Hey Spirit, yet another great vid! I wonder when the next aoe2 vs History will happen
A civilization that is basically fantastic at only the Knight line... so we could say it's a one-trick pony, right?
This is perfect timing, just started ranked like 4 days ago and been going solo franks. Definitely going to help with my 31% winrate lol. Once i figure out how to deal with early archers and militia ill be set
perfect timing i was about to try AoE 2 online for my first time after completing all the campaigns on hard
Will he finally achieve the challenge: not mention Japanese?
One of the easiest civs to pick up and play, for good reason. But they aren't all cav as I appreciate their Throwing Axemen quite a lot for how well they mesh well with Paladins and in anti-siege duties.
Odd question, Spirit, but how do Throwing Axemen compare to Kamayuks?
Let me back up. The idea is that Throwing Axemen, at times, seem to benefit from getting the whole force attacking at once smoothly, even early on when they have a measly 3 range. They also are tanky like regular infantry. I’ve observed this a bit anecdotally playing campaigns, but I’d be interested to know if there’s an argument for the axemen as a mainline infantry unit (and not just a Paladin support) specifically based on this dynamic.
They would benefit a lot from the LancasterSquare Law so if macro'd into choke points where they do best
i hope the SquareSpace folk are paying good, because those segways are bonkers
Just started this game with my friends and my friend sent me this video! Looks like the Franks is gonna be my first CIV. Also this game is kind of overwhelming.
Don't try to immediately be performing on the higher tiers. Just learn the game first and then start trying to improve. This game has had 20+ years to develop its multiplayer scene. Or you can do what I do and almost never touch multiplayer vs. It's still a great game for single and coop vs AI.
I feel like it’s a bit disingenuous, or at least unfair, to include the melee attack upgrades as a downside of the Throwing Axemen, as you’re already getting those for your Knight line.
Also, the alternatives are the spear line (same deal), or ranged units (actually an additional upgrade).
The only *real* downside is the cost of the Elite upgrade.
Maybe it’s just me and my love for spreadsheets, but is there a place where each civilization is shown with its tech-tree rankings? I feel like when I watch these videos, no civilization is ever given the title of “best” in any particular category. I’d really like to see a comprehensive list of scores.
to be honest im kind of impressed the game escaped the "endless franks #1 winrate" era
Seems like SotL has been cranking out these civ overviews of late. Turks revisit next?
Frankly speaking, this was an awesome video.
Great content as always. Huns next
Franks are in my go to top 3. Along with Burgundies and Goths.
SPRIRT oF THE LAMB IS FUN
Didn't the Franks get the final Archer armor upgrade recently?
I love this intro! Really missed it. :)
Throwing Axemen, Franks overview... Is SotL inspired by the Napoleon movie by any chance ?
In previous video he posted throwing axeman I commented that next video will be franks over view
@SOTL suggestion for a video:
Unit stats and abilities after conversion.
Which (hidden) stats/abilities are translated, which are not? Influence of civ bonuses, UT's etc. Which bonuses do they lose, which do they gain?
so any relevant changes compared to the ealry days? feals like they are basicly the same
unque techs give some range to axeman and faster stables
basicyl tells you how solid they always have been
Intro theme; amazing video
Missing out on the potential "Spirit of the LaHire", which would have fit the theme of the video to a t. 😋
I haven't actually played AoE2 in a long time, but I always remembered Franks' Castles costing 480 stone instead of 650. Was this true at some point in history, or is my memory further gone than I thought?
Finnaly... The video with the most FRANKLY opinions on any civ. 😂
You should go on the town center podcast
I swear every time I’m playing infantry it’s feels like hard mode. May just move to cav
I play franks for fun, and I know I cannot spam paladins alone nor in huge quantity.
Having light cavalry covering the flanks is a good move, even if they are weaker they still do their job ; plus you can spawn them a lot faster thanks to chivalry.
I think their unique techs should expand to water. Like castle age should also give +2 range to ships etc. I think too many civs sucks in water
You forgot to mention how everyone under 1100 playing this civ WILL forward castle you. They can’t help themselves they will try it every game.
Imma be honest I don't even know why franks get cavalry archer
I wonder if SotL will ever run out of silly puns to introduce Squarespace with.
But still, Huns can pump out the most knights in the shortest time. Huns are the go to civ for massing knights in castle age and for total blitzkrieg knight warfare.
Growing up and replaying AOE2 tought be why later games like Warcraft 3 had no walls :()