Age of Empires Forums

Since coming back to vanilla AoE3 a couple months ago, I've been consistently beaten by the strong French economy. At anytime between the 6 and the 15 minute mark, when I look at Economic Score in the post-game, these experienced French players start pulling away from my German or Dutch side. Today I checked out the deck of one of these guys and sure enough, he had six cards that improved the work rate of his Coureurs de Bois, and another for a second Town Center. So I altered my anti-France and Team Cards decks to put some of my own settler efficiency improvements.

 

Will this be enough? How do you guys counter the strong French economy, especially as Germany?   They have so many resources they just keep pumping out a scary number of Imperial Gendarmes, that eventually take down your factories. War Wagons do great against them but I'm soon running out of coin to keep them in production.

The Germans are by far the best civ to use against the French. Make sure you have Germantown Farmers and Guild Artisans in addition to the other economy cards- they are necessary to compete with the French economy. If you're short on coin make sure you have Royal Mint and Textile Mill.

Some important military cards would be Treaty of Westphalia and Spanish Riding School. The former allows you to upgrade infantry speed, which when combined with Military Drummers (from Advanced Arsenal) and Inca Road Building, will make your doppelsolders as fast as hussars. The latter will make your war wagons fast enough to hit and run gendarmes, but not hussars (although war wagons will defeat them easily anyway).

Use your free uhlans for raiding, and falconets/heavy cannons for taking out skirmishers. Hussar-speed doppelsolders, if you have an Inca trading post, will wipe out everything in their path- counter or no counter.

Maropolo:

The Germans are by far the best civ to use against the French. Make sure you have Germantown Farmers and Guild Artisans in addition to the other economy cards- they are necessary to compete with the French economy. If you're short on coin make sure you have Royal Mint and Textile Mill.

Some important military cards would be Treaty of Westphalia and Spanish Riding School. The former allows you to upgrade infantry speed, which when combined with Military Drummers (from Advanced Arsenal) and Inca Road Building, will make your doppelsolders as fast as hussars. The latter will make your war wagons fast enough to hit and run gendarmes, but not hussars (although war wagons will defeat them easily anyway).

Use your free uhlans for raiding, and falconets/heavy cannons for taking out skirmishers. Hussar-speed doppelsolders, if you have an Inca trading post, will wipe out everything in their path- counter or no counter.

thats right if it gets to the point where he is making imperial genderme you should have a much better eco as germany once you get to age three have 3 tc and 3 mills all making settler completely detroy his economy and use ww and dopple if hes genderme spamming and turn on andvanced formation and use the thing that gives the soldiers seperation and then the gendemre splash attack is nullififed

German eco> French eco, and Dutch should have a better eco in 6-(10?) mins...

Read gs's guide, it's around here somewhere. 

Maybe you need better vill/eco management, or, you are losing units to their early pushes. If they push early, try and camp them out with skirms as best you can. Save your units. If you are being pushed with 15 musk vs your 5 skirm, run back. Even though skirm beat musk, numbers win. 

Yeah the key difficulty I'm finding with the French is when their economy ramps up and eclipses mine by two-fold. Just can't compete with that. I think it's Settler work-rate cards that is making such a big difference. I don't normally like to carry such cards but I'm thinking it might be the only way to beat them. And a second TC of course.

Vranak:

Yeah the key difficulty I'm finding with the French is when their economy ramps up and eclipses mine by two-fold. Just can't compete with that. I think it's Settler work-rate cards that is making such a big difference. I don't normally like to carry such cards but I'm thinking it might be the only way to beat them. And a second TC of course.

at least at your level, dutch should have the best economy for the first half an hour or 20 minutes of a rush game because of banks......the key is to get up for banks almost immdediatly by sending 700 and 600 wood cards and after that sending the banks of rotterdamn and amnsterdamn with the church card.....take for examples this game

http://www.agecommunity.com/stats/GameStats.aspx?loc=en-US&GameID=59bbfabd-ba43-488b-922a-c27b3c6eecf0&sFlag=2&md=ZS_Supremacy

 I(lionsden) am just about the lowest ranked player in this game and i am dutch, and yet i have the vest economy score over two french, a german, and a brit who are higher level then me....if you play dutch right you should almopst always have the best economy

Lol 3 vs 3 statistics from low ranks. Those are so hilarious to look at. You can see their first battle where everyone just lost all their units. Then they just boomed for awhile. Also the vill time line that slopes at such a painful degree that makes you cringe.