You need like 20 archers to one shot limitani with the shield wall up.

Javelins against archers is never what you want to take as the French.

The knights with Royal Bloodlines will tank so well against these Limitanei, especially if they have shield wall up, which reduces their attack speed.

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.

Byzantines can actually afford to be later on techs than other civs because of how quick they get them with the Dialecticus. Instead of waiting a whole minute, it gets hit in 25 seconds.