How to beat
Chineseas French
Matchup tips
Good play from French to go for an outpost on the second deer. That way they will not be stolen away by Chinese pro scouts.
At four cannons, the French player is able to start one-shotting even these clock tower Nest of Bees.
This matchup historically has been slightly favored for French. When China runs out of food and has to make the farm transition with granaries, that's where they typically die. Pro Scout historically has been the technology that keeps China in the game longer for a potential turnaround.
Chinese struggle with the food transition after sheep and berries. Without pro scouts securing food, if they go fast Castle or try to expand on the map, the French typically have a timing to punish them.
By the time your first knight is out, Chinese has the gold they need, researches the first gold upgrade, makes a few spearmen, and they can't go out anyway. So there's no big point in aging up faster as French.
When you lose your first four to five archers, the game is kind of over because China can just castle. You've got to be really careful, especially in the first 10 minutes as French.
French often go second stable first to leverage knight mobility and strength, because if Chinese fully invests in units, you probably can't get enough archer mass up in time.
And that's one of the advantages that you get as the French. You get to build up your knight numbers as you're in feudal age. So when you arrive to castle, you just upgrade them and you have a huge force. whereas Lucifer needs to build it up from scratch after reaching castle age.
The Great Wall Gate House, it's no longer that strong against bombards. Like it used to be that it almost one-shot bombards. Now with the nerf, it doesn't one-shot them anymore.
I would still say give like a slight edge to French there when it comes to just mobility and raiding potential, especially on an open map like Koger where you're not like all the way in the back position. Like you can't just like wall to the backline and be safe because like your TC doesn't reach the backline like your opponent can literally ring around your base there.
It's also the issue of China just their farming economy being incredibly centralized. So there's always the clear goal to attack. It's a pretty clear path to a farm transition for China where that's where they're at their weakest and it's just the most obvious target to attack.
French just masses up knights the entire time to keep China in feudal age; they don't overextend into castle age too soon, or China might go castle and win.
China has a much easier time getting food in thanks to Pro Scout and having a castle age followup. Hand cannon placements are by default the anti knight archer kind, so much penetration going through there, works really well.
If the Chinese Great Wall Gatehouse is placed at the front, French should raid the undefended farms at the back. You want to strike China where it hurts, on the food, on the farms.
Chinese Unique Units
Chinese Landmarks
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