Now, Japan, of course, they have to reach the castle age first for that, but once they do, those mounted samurai with their deflective armor, they always have like that one leg up up against any other knight civilization because when the charge comes in from the opponent knights, that just gets completely nullled out by the deflective armor.

I think French typically in this matchup like there is a little bit of a bait sometimes where players go into pro scouts but instead I think it's much better to just go out on the map because realistically Japan isn't really going to harass you at all in the first place and you're much better off just investing into immediate aggression up against them because you will want to punish them for that fast castle age play style.

You want to play this matchup super aggressively as the French because the Japanese player will want to invest into a Castle Age up and that is very expensive; that's the prime time to go aggressive.

Diving TCs is tough without blacksmith upgrades, especially against the Japanese TC because it does additional damage with the Daimyo.

With Guild Hall, against Japanese you don't mind playing late because your Arbalétrier are better than Japanese crossbows.