FrenchOnly 11 Limitanei so he's only mirroring the knight count. That's not where you want to be in this match up. You want to go for a two to one ratio there.
This matchup, Byzantines once they get to like 40-50 villagers, that's where the percentile scaling really starts to catch up to French. But early on, French have momentum because they're ahead in workers raw, and they have cheaper discount upgrades, and they play out for very valuable resources early on like the deer.
When you play against French, you'll instead just make a U shape around your TC because the cisterns can't be harassed down by the knights.
Against French pro scouts opening, after the initial knight there is a slowdown of about a minute with only scouts and eco upgrades. This gives the Byzantine player time to get cisterns up, towers on external berries and gold.
Later on in castle age, the real reason you go for that contract (Javelins) is those Camel Riders to keep the knights in check.
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