Perfect 1v1 To Show Franks Are NOT Overpowered

My Twitch: / hera
My Discord: / discord
My Twitter: / hera_aoe
Edits by K1
/ @k1aoe

[@yohomes5]

"Me as one of the best players in the game won against Franks, this proves they're not OP"

[@sgtpepper8581]

"I won vs franks, pls devs, buff franks"

[@moormanjean5636]

He actually explained it really well but go ahead and troll lol

[@RedVSBlueIsCewl]

@@moormanjean5636 i just watched his explanatory video on why Franks are not OP and i understand their weaknesses better now. I haven‘t played AOE2 in a while now, but when i was spamming Britons I dreaded the Franks Steamroll. Sure I played like shit (1350) but without perfect defence micro like Hera you lose a couple vills here and there to just 2 knights OR lose your archer mass once and then get overpowered by the inevitable Paladin push. I switched to Bulgarians, abused the boom/knight line myself and peaked at 1700.

[@terraminator4379]

@@RedVSBlueIsCewl bro 1350 is not shit

[@ericren4608]

“Franks aren’t OP; you suck.” There’s an SCII KZbinr with a pretty successful series called “is it IMBA or do I suck?” Where he reviews games of viewers who claim imbalance and breaks down why they lost

[@HeraAgeofEmpires2]

actually sounds fun

[@moormanjean5636]

Harstem

[@dj_koen1265]

The verdict is always “you suck”

[@tiffany8357]

Modern counterplay is to complain on Reddit about how something you don't like is overpowered and hope the devs see it and nerf it.

[@bradleywong8808]

Underrated comment

[@Achilles75]

So true.I admit they r some units and civs that r little but OP.But anything and everything u lose to or is really strong doesnt make it OP.

[@Asterix958]

Some civs are OP really, for instance Britons and Mayans. They have insane archers but they didn't lack anything in compensation. No eco weakness, no bad siege, both has fully upgraded Halberdier. Only weakness comes to mind is Britons Stable is weak (still there are civs has weaker stable despite not having great options in exchange for).

[@derek79919]

@@Asterix958 they are weak in late game cause they don’t have fully upgraded Hussar which is the core harassing unit in the late game

[@Achilles75]

@@Asterix958 again just as i said with franks,britons mayans r not OP.Very strong?Yes.Not OP.i often face against these civs(i usually go for Bulgarians malay mongols ) and most of the time these civs beat me and thats ok.They r really strong civs especially compared to civs i play(strong eco bonus and military bonus)but they r by no means OP.Mayans have no stable so really lacking there.No bombard cannons or seige onagers but they have seige rams for buildings so thats fine.Britons have light cav no bloodlines and their seige is also meh but warwolf trebs r grt.Now another civ that ppl say is OP is chinese.In their case ur argument abt not lacking anything but having strong eco bonus is true.But even chinese i dont think r OP.On some PARTICULAR maps they were OP but now thats also tuned.Besides mayans were nerfed in DE(20% longer lasting res to 15%)Yes all these civs r super strong but not OP imo.

[@Asterix958]

I totally convinced me that Franks is balanced. Now let's look at your winrate with Franks.

[@HeraAgeofEmpires2]

LOL

[@zeekbt_dores]

This is now a Franks channel.

[@majungasaurusaaaa]

The reason franks have a rather high win rate is how streamlined their bonuses make them to play knight line. Unlike a civ like Celts, there is little transitioning required. Transitioning that requires quite a bit of macro skill.

[@TombstoneThe]

i'm glad Hera is making this video... its worth noting that for many, many years the Franks were considered mediocre until they got their berry bonus/Chivalry

[@08vinster]

They still got their berry bonus and chivalry.. doesn't matter if they were the worst civ and then given the best bonus. All that matters is what state they're in now

[@harooooo1]

scout bonus pushed them over the top.

[@doguhanaktas1262]

I guess "Treadmill Crane removed", they are not the best civ. now 11

[@shu-huanlin7560]

Franks are not overpowered, Hera is.

[@TheOrder96]

One of the best educational gameplay vids yet. Love this type of gameplay commentary!

[@gustavosimoesbraga]

Hey Hera, thanks for this series on the Franks. It makes me frustrated when I play against someone knowing that they will do knights/siege and even so not being able to win. Early pikes seemed like a good counter, but good point and I'm doing a good job with the archers now. This makes the game strategy much more interesting.

[@Jompa10]

Great video! I love when you make your streams educational, you explain so much there. I always wondered why it was bad to do pikes and just now I got when to do them. Also I am terrible at late game, I always try to end the games in early imp 🙈

[@jonathanramos6148]

Felt the same in way, I never went pikes, but found a a lot of info on how to play this.

[@doguhanaktas1262]

Best educational game ever 👍 I guess you should do such series. Like how to play against Castle drop, Hoang rush, Turks fast imp etc.

[@enriquemendez1507]

Loved watching this. I need to learn to stayntone cold confident like you stay throughout every game. Don't rush to pikes, instead sprinkle it in after already having a solid core army. Got it. ;)

[@itzfitz84]

I do believe the advice in this video is accurate, but I wish it was displayed vs another top 10 player. The problem with this very defensive play style for lower elo players is that it's extremely focus and micro intensive. At lower elos, scouting while maintaining 3 tc vil and military production is next to impossible - there's always an area that gets forgotten about and done very sloppily. Speaking personally, the scouting is usually the area that gets forgotten about and I'm blind to whether or not my opponent is going double, even triple stable full knight spam or not. Then you add in playing with monks and maybe even picking up relics, all the while fending off knight raids here, there and everywhere, making sure your eco is running semi-smoothly...it's next to impossible (for me). Plus half the time I can't even find my tiny monks on the screen before they get sniped. Nothing like 300 or 500 gold down the drain with fires spreading throughout my eco and my defensive units moving at a snail's pace unable to keep up with his knights. In the meantime, my opponent is chilling back home having a merry time adding eco smoothly. He clicks back to his knight control groups semi-frequently, but mostly just to enjoy the spectacle of my totally messed up eco and units always chasing, never catching. He even forgot his farm upgrades but that didn't matter because they were free anyway. If I did survive until late castle age, the moment I feel like I finally quelled the fires in my eco and I can get my game back on track, he hits imp, I gg, and ask myself why I'm a glutton for pain. I should have been born a Franks picker.

[@majungasaurusaaaa]

Control group your monks, wall your base, counter raid his eco. And now with auto scouting you don't even have the excuse of not knowing what's going on.

[@itzfitz84]

@@majungasaurusaaaa Control group your monks and then they're all in one area. Cav runs around. Monks have cement shoes. This type of advice is reasonable and at the same time often unworkable at more potato elos. Look at how in the instructional video Hera makes he almost loses control in his base at one point, and to a significantly weaker opponent. And that's with the awareness, micro ability, multitasking and overall composure that a true pro brings to the table. At lower elos, against a Franks player who has his build down defending like that can be next to impossible depending on the map gen.

[@sourathghosh5170]

@hera Thanks a lot for the video, I am guessing something similar can be done with civs that have good cav archers. Can you also show a video on how to deal with franks in feudal/castle age if your civ doesn't have good archers or camels, like say Burmese, Slavs, Spanish(in case you arent able to get to conquistadors),Bulgarians ?

[@vincentnelissen3407]

Hera one question isn't it possible for franks late castle age to go fast imp and spawn castles? then trebuchet push

[@SoulFrenk]

wich is the mod that show the number of soldier with hot key ( in the botton of the big map) ?

[@John11747]

Thanks Hera...This is exactly what I have to fix in my gemeplay.... I always try to close in castle age... Perhaps boring hour long trash wars is something which holds me back psychologicaly to go imp.. 👍👍❤❤

[@joshualeonard3831]

Do you rate Arb civs that dont really have an arb bonus or a strong eco bonus? (Japanese, Magyars, Sicilians come to mind for me)

[@jonathanramos6148]

Thanks for the vid, I thought it was very interesting.

[@Dr.Macrophage]

Being a top 3 player and playing with Mayans which is another borderline OP civ might have had something to do with this win

[@mailboro]

Then... Nerf britons please!

[@seanjoseph6023]

britons have a much lower winrate than Franks

[@mattkannon2380]

Great video Hera. One question, I didn't see whether you got Ballistics or not, if not, why didn't you?

[@ar1sm70]

17:10 "You don't need to do this obviously" (you can just lose your Crossbows 1111)

[@Pentas666]

This is going straight to my bible of AoE2.

[@ramonantoniolli7379]

The problem with this defensive approach in Feudal Age is Franks stone walling themselves, and then buying their way to the Castle Age. Spearmen and archers are slow, it's not hard to fully stone wall against these units. Then they can go all in, or boom, and if pressured, building 1 or 2 defensive castles since they are cheap will solve many issues. After stone walling, fighting for relics would also be a good option.

[@Kawabongahlive]

OMG this is excellent, thank you so much -leicafleury PS: sorry for the oopsy whoopsy. PS2: actually I'm not sorry.

[@xxXKillTheRedsXxx]

I wish you had an input display so we could understand your micro better

[@SchneiderRob]

Great video. I'm about to smash some frank players now!

[@loveliban1]

What about a frank vs slav match-up? What else but pikes can you do to answer the knights early on

[@cl8804]

How come you opted for Arbs over Plumes?

[@alexeschen1849]

Win condition!!! Let’s see a video on that brother.

[@SaSeshen]

It sounds like like there are maracas in the background of this entire video, but its just him clicking keys and his mouse buttons O_O

[@andomlyranonymous6488]

Nice

[@killeasykill]

the only question i have is this , how do you know if a civ is op or the player is op

[@yamcha111]

any chance guess the elo coming back?

[@synt4x1e]

Franks aren't OP, but it's said over and over again, by you too, that Franks are so smooth, and their gameplan is straightforward. After getting Franks after like 3 months or so (I play random), I noticed the difference. In the hands of a competent player, they are deadly. Also, you are playing Mayans :P

[@mayankparkhi6815]

What about 2 other meso civs - Aztecs and Incas?

[@lutherblissettaoe]

video idea: how to play against a civ that has mobility advantage, as a more slow civ

[@Achilles75]

@hera i totally agree with ur current video and past video abt Franks not being OP.Yes they r really strong but not OP IMO atleast.But something u said started to give me second thoughts.How can this civ have a 55% or 54% win rate at 2000 elo and above?At that rate Everyone should clearly know the weaknesses of franks and how to counter them as u stated.So whats happening there?

[@jon3s3n94]

they are OP, thats what happens there. Hera beats franks because he is a top 3 player and just better than almost all the ppl he faces in ranked ladder. edit: and mayans are also very high winrate in high elo

[@Achilles75]

@@jon3s3n94 ur right ant the jera thing.He is playing against players who r not as good as him(no offense to his opponent).So its not really a fair argument for showing thag franks arent OP.He's just the better player even if he had a shittier civ he prob would have won.But in any case i dont think franks r OP

[@itzfitz84]

It's not that Franks aren't OP, it's that they aren't OP IN THEORY. It's a huge difference.

[@Achilles75]

@@itzfitz84 well i guess i have to agree partially with u.In theory they dont sound OP at all.But in practice also i dont belive they r OP.Really fucking strong?YES OP?no Its so goddamn strong that in hera s top 5 civs to counter franks i think those who can actually do it is hindustanis,gurjaras, britons.Mongols not really,if they get to mangudai and early imp yeah But by then almost all civs have a good chance to beat franks.

[@silviodomenico]

ez ez ez *CLAP* be the best player! Haha saw a few of those early surrounds by knights but I wouldn't have been able to clear or force it back with my 30eapm lol!

[@gygciutakinggaming-tothene1398]

hera cant retire until franks winrate is below 50%

[@thalasereg]

a collab with another pro player in a show case/ showmatch where your opponent only plays. For me it would be very interesting where you defend the Franks-counter strategy and your opponent shows the Franks strength / ease-of-play. what do you guys think?

[@Lifestreem]

Hey Hera, how do you counter the huskarl and helbs spam? Please reply! I can't micro well onagers and scorps.. Any other solution?

[@Lifestreem]

Is champion a good option? I find no way to take care of the spam!

[@chuggles9167]

​@@Lifestreem If they're just going halb & huskarl then champion is a very good counter, yes. Unfortunately champions are themselves relatively easy to counter for Goths, but that's another problem! Alternatively, like you said, heavy scorpions are good against infantry spams. Hand cannoneers with micro can work, and a lot of infantry unique units will do the job as well. Good luck!

[@lbridet]

@@Lifestreem champions with reasonable upgrades trade extremely well vs huskarls and Halbs. Most champions cannot trade well vs goths champions though. Exceptions include Burmese, Teutons, Japanese, Vikings passively and Aztecs, Slavs, Bulgarians once you research the correct UT. Also, scorpions are good and need little micro.

[@Lifestreem]

@@chuggles9167 ok! I will try champs but the creation time of huskarl and the speed is unmatched with champs.

[@Lifestreem]

@@lbridet how many champs against huskarls and helbs combo? Isn't HC quite weak in terms of hp and also the range ll be an issue too!

[@arjunpai7226]

Hera trying to counter someone saying Gurjaras are overpowered

[@secmari8645]

tbh even in this game with mayans we can see how things can go wrong for a player not as fast as hera is, had knights raiding him the whole game, defended against siege without siege of his own, never attacked his opponent who had a clean game

[@jaroush]

😂 🔥

[@zireael6576]

If you are Hera no one is overpovered (except for viper)

[@iiBingo]

Hera is totally insane!! Franks is OP but vs Hera its just a civ.

[@cmchanakyayadav3359]

They are op on team games can't deny that

[@leostart1988]

it's OP for low Elo ( < 1500 ) because the APM at this level is not good enough to defend with archer and monks. the Frank player has to patrol and control mangonel , very easy compared to micro archer monks and garrison TC + keep eco running as you did. Thanks for the video , Very interssting.

[@joshkarpatkin2642]

At low levels they are overpowered. At high levels they arent overpowered but are still top tier. Also they are pretty oppressive in team games, where they are indisputably the best pocket civ. Civs have been nerfed for less.

[@itzfitz84]

"Civs have been nerfed for less." That's indisputable - I'd even say "for much less".

[@majungasaurusaaaa]

Goths are considered low elo powerhouses. When we move up to intermediates who know how to be active in feudal, they die to mayans and britons.

[@joshkarpatkin2642]

@@majungasaurusaaaa hera admits in the video that franks are still top tier even at the highest levels, even if they aren't broken the way they are for low and mid elo.

[@airindex256]

we all know that Mayans are the real OP civ

[@killeasykill]

castle drop every resource to take gold and stone and you can spam knights and axemen i think but i only play ai

[@08vinster]

I love how you change the definition of OP to suit your argument. OP means overpowered. It doesn't mean uncounterable as you said.

[@coggearalex]

I love to see you fight Franks. But it can be hard for beginners to counter them. I don't think they're overpowered, but my gut instinct is to fall into pikes since it's the counter. Is your recommendation just straight up archers and pikes? What about if you don't have decent archers like the Slavs?I know the skill gap is huge between you and most of us viewers, but I want to learn!

[@hikatoyshi]

Slave have good monks and siege so I think it would work. Beside their only infantry bonus is a unique tech in post imperial age.

[@derek79919]

My thought would be “use your civ’s featured unit”. I am not talking about the castle UU. My meaning of the featured unit just like mayan’s cross bow or Magyar’s knight. But Slavs will be a special case that I might think of mixing UU(Boyar) with knights, or using knights only.

[@coggearalex]

@@hikatoyshi Thanks for your thoughts! How would I protect my siege? With cav? And then go into pikes in imperial with druzhina?

[@hikatoyshi]

@@coggearalex with monks maybe ? And I think Hera would not mind a few pikemen if the plan makes sense. The knights have to engage the siege, and then the pikemen can fight the knights instead of running all day.

[@08vinster]

Heras guide to beat franks: play another S-tier civ, on an easily walled map, against an easier opponent with the micro to completely negate mangos "Franks have no options in imperial" you mean siege engineers with FU infantry, an amazing UU, and BBC to negate siege? GTFO man

[@noidontwantthat7237]

Someone has been losing to franks brainless knight spam way too many times to the point of making more than 1 comment under the same video and it ain’t me

[@martinmarzano1523]

So in short, people are lose to franks are not exacly very skilled, knights can easily be trivialized, after early castle age franks fall off from grace, that archerline is indeed overpower, and you will always win if you have an archer civ. Sounds 'bout 'rite

[@08vinster]

Exactly. I hate these one sided arguments from streamers to prove how right they are. Like how are these guys so blind to how effective the civ is on the ladder? Franks regularly face s tier civs which is technically bringing their winrate down. Meaning it's even higher than stats imply

[@multitalentedman1284]

franks is not op ofc. But they are simple . And simply they are strong. But not that OP at all. Even full Elite Jannies i tried against them 1v1 about 1.6k elo ranked game it worked. As Elitjans beat paladins hit and run stuff they dont have strong skrims even. I think franks have poor options vs STRONG RANGED units. Like Mangudai , Jannis , Conqs.

[@TimothyRandallOrganic]

Beat strategy against Frank's in my opinion is kill them before they can make knights.

[@CloudElve]

Where's the video? I want to see "Franks aren't OP, you suck'" because I keep losing to Paladins and could use some advice ^^

[@YuhuanXie]

I remember Korean vs Frank is one of the worst match ups in the game and even saw you complain about it several times. They get arbs with free armor upgrades, would really appreciate if you can do a commentary next time you get Korean vs Frank and see if this still works with a much weaker civ!

[@antoninreboulet9285]

Just what I thought when he said every archer civ has a counter to skirm, Koreans is a little tricky.

[@YuhuanXie]

@@antoninreboulet9285 Oh, that makes sense actually! Since but Korean have terrible Hussars and no blast furnace so their trash war is probably not even that good against Franks.

[@leostart1988]

@@YuhuanXie you have your own skrims with the last armor for free. and frank do not have bracer and last armor , even halbs kan win against frank skirms

[@louispearson8306]

if your making pikes vs franks your low elo bro XD ... thats all of us

[@Umdeuter]

I will prove that the Civ with the 2nd highest win-rate is not overpowered Watch me play them with the Civ that has the highest win-rate

[@riccardocorradini6713]

never understand the +20% HP for cav but no bloodlines... seems bad to me. in 1 vs 1 when paladin do not exist it's basically "just" free bloodlines for knights but worse for light cav, and no hussar, no good archers...really trash late game for franks. why not tone down castle discount and berry bonuses or other bonuses but give them hussar or some other options? would it be bad? franks seems so uninteresting to me compared to same-culture Burgundiands for example

[@itzfitz84]

"it's just free bloodlines" That's huge. Bloodlines costs you 150f, 100 gold, and 50s of idle stable time. Now, combine that with free horse collar (75f 75w) and heavy plow (125f 125w). Your scout play in feudal already got more value than it would have with other civs. Then you hit castle age with the ideal eco to start knight spam and you don't even have to idle a stable for 50 seconds, meaning an extra 1.66 knights in your early castle age mass. It's all about numbers - and as Franks you simply don't have as much of a bottleneck on how many knights you're able to get out in early castle, and you're never taking early engagements without what is in essence bloodlines. Imagine another strong knight civ like Magyars. An archer player has a mass of archers near your base, about to be upgraded to xbow with bodkin. You reach castle at the same time they do, but they have that time window where they have a gold-unit mass pressuring your eco, and you're only starting production of your gold unit. To prevent potentially game-deciding eco losses, you have to forego researching bloodlines to build up enough knights to kill that xbow mass. So the xbows get through your palisades and you're left with no options but to jump. You clean them up, but you lost more knights than you should have because you didn't have bloodlines. And yes, if you're not playing Franks you can research bloodlines on the way up to castle. But in practice there are many situations where that's not feasible. And with everything else that may be going on, you might not even remember. A Franks player never faces this situation. Their cavalry is always playing with that extra hp and getting better trades with it.

[@eijimuzaffar6452]

with bloodlines this civ would be even more broken than it already is

[@riccardocorradini6713]

@@eijimuzaffar6452 of course is bloodlines with HP bonus nerfed to 10% at best and nerf on other parts like berry bonus or castle cost etc

[@souryapal1016]

Guys guys guys- I think I have cracked Hera's hidden message from the last 30 videos. But it can't be...is he really...saying....Franks are not OP???? But...but....but....nyaah he's obviously lying to us /s

[@user-ky7jf7wi5y]

If he just goes 1 TC all-in knights against your 1 range 3 TC, he simply wins, right???

[@ElGeffen]

Yes but pro players try to scout early to find how the opponent is transitioning to castle age. If he's playing 1,2 or 3 stables. How many tc's. You die to 1 TC all in knights if you didn't see that coming. If you scout that early you can go for double monastery and walls

[@user-ky7jf7wi5y]

@@ElGeffen true

[@rendzio2244]

I mean if someone would start with +5 vills it wouldn't be OP by Your definition since You still will be probably able to beat that in certain scenarios if You play really good and they make mistakes. I don't play AoE2 but in general if something has a good pickrate and winrate then it clearly is OP or IMBA, overpowered - meaning their power budget is inflated comparing to others, You can have things with counter play that are still OP. For ex. Lets say that there is a fighting game and every character got a sword, every sword deals 10 damage but there is one character which sword deals 11 damage is that a thing that will make You win every time if You pick that character? No, but it is stronger than others, meaning it is over-powered. I could agree with You that maybe francs aren't really that good but people are bad, but saying that something is OP only if You can't win no matter what You do is setting the bar so high that You probably won't be able to meet it with anything :|

[@12inchpvpness]

Think of it more like a combo, I am not sure what other games you play, but if you were to compare it to a game like League of Legends, having simple and easy to execute strategies is a strength in itself. Not having to intensely micro and having a decently rigid build order that can survive errors is really nice. The better your opponent, the more they will exploit your inflexibility with their own civ strengths and finesse

[@rendzio2244]

@@12inchpvpness yeaaa but if a champion is easy to play it often has clear counterplay and isn't good at highest levels of play (and if it becomes good it often quickly gets nerfed)

[@FullOilBarrel]

Game shouldnt be only made for a few pros

[@danielperkins9347]

Hera: “Frank’s aren’t OP bro, you suck” Me: “that checks out”.

[@erikquittek2894]

Its not that Franks are OP. Its sadly a must have on arabia 2v2

[@sirsiver]

Just because one of the best player in aoe2 had a good game against francs means nothing. It's just a copium for the low elo francs players

[@Maennlichkeitsbeauftragter]

What do you consider low elo? Franks don’t work that good above 900 elo like you expect.

[@sirsiver]

@@Maennlichkeitsbeauftragter french player detected

[@Maennlichkeitsbeauftragter]

@@sirsiver nope, German ;)

[@Yang.Wenli33]

I disagree. Franks are OP. Need nerf. Let's take that cheap castle bonus away from them. Simple solution.

[@dj_koen1265]

You are not living up to your name i see 11

[@Yang.Wenli33]

@@dj_koen1265 Yang is a miraclemaker, I'm just a noob who thinks Bengalis should get this bonus rather than the Franks.

[@johnatanpole6942]

Only 480p available...

[@paladin2086]

108060p is available

[@johnatanpole6942]

@@paladin2086, lie! 720p!!!

[@paladin2086]

@@johnatanpole6942 oh man. I swaer 108060p is available.

[@johnatanpole6942]

@@paladin2086, woah! Hera started recording in 4K! Awesome picture!!!

[@vibhavvashishtha1484]

I was playing against AI ( i don't play multiplayer) and i went skirms, pikes, monks against franks... 🥲 I am low elo