Age of Empire 4 lets you play around with real-time strategies, and you need to understand that to defeat an enemy, you must first focus on destroying their landmarks and Town Center. However, before this, you need to have a perfect build and playing with the French can be a little tricky compared to other civilizations.
The best unit to have in the French civilization is the French Knight. What makes this unit unique and strong is its heavy melee cavalry, regeneration, and armor. This is one of the best units to have in the Feudal Age. Therefore, you must understand the correct build order to maximize the strength of knights and prepare them for an effective rush.
To help you create the best French Knight rush setup in AOE 4, below, we’ve listed down the build order you need to follow to be able to rush your opponent and increase your chances of a successful rush.
Build Order
Follow the steps listed below for the best build order in order to employ a French Knight rush in Age of Empire 4.
- Sheep – Send 6 villagers to gather sheep and turn to Town Center
- Food – Send 1 villager for food, then use him to build a house, and then head to sheep
- Gold – Use 3 villagers to gather gold and 1 to build a mine
- Food – Use 2 villagers to get good
- Construct Landmark – 3 food villagers to age up with School of Cavalry
- Wood – 1 villager to gather wood and build Lumber Camp
- Mill – Use 1 villager to build a mill near the deer hunt
- Gold, Sheep, and Wood – 1 villager to gold, 1 to sheep under Town Center and 3 to wood
- Research Wheelbarrow – Once you have the resources, research wheelbarrow
- Build House – Use wood villager to build a house
- Build First Knight – When the School of Cavalry finishes, send villages back to sheep and build a Knight
- Wood – 2 villages to wood
- Build Second Knight – Build another knight from the School of Cavalry and start harassing exposed resources with both knights.
- Sheep and Deer – Use 2 villages for sheep and then move them to deer hunt and collect from there
- Archery Range – If your enemy builds spearmen with gold villages, you need to build an archery range
Once you have built an archery range, send 1 villager to gather gold and use other villagers to gather wood and build another Archery Range. You need to continue producing knights and archers and harass your enemy’s base with them. Archers are highly effective if your opponent has spearmen.
You need to focus on researching Chivalry from the School of Cavalry, using some villagers to gather food, and building a blacksmith in the end so you can research ranged upgrades.
Unit Management
In the early game of this build, you need to focus on food, wood, gold, and construction. You need to wait for villagers to queue and send them to gather sheep and food, and then send them to build a house. After that, you need to have School of Cavalry, a military landmark, to train your units and build knights.
The harassment in this build comes in late-game once you have at least two knights, or the rush will fail. For the first knight, wait till you have food (11), wood (4), gold (4), a researched wheelbarrow, and at least two houses.
Knights are a heavy melee cavalry unit that will help you harass the enemy’s exposed resources: gold and wood. Therefore, you must have two in your build. You need to have archery ranges and train knights and archers just in case your enemies have spearman build. Archers are effective if you choose to focus on spearmen. Besides this, you must research ranged upgrades and siege engineering if you think you can win in Feudal.
This French rush build focuses on two units alone: archers and knights. Once their training ends, continue to rally them to your enemy’s base. If you focus on making your build like this, you will get a faster vill production, and you can even pick off some of your enemy’s villagers, but you need to prevent them from getting to the castle or Town Center. Other than this, you need to focus on keeping your knights alive as they are an expensive unit to train.
Strategy for French Knight Rush
The great thing about the French in AOE 4 is that they get Royal Knight and Bloomery during the Feudal Age.
Royal Knight gives them heavy armor and a damage bonus for 3 seconds after they charge the enemy, and Bloomery increases the melee damage of all non-siege units by +1.
So, your Knights are upgraded as soon as you hit the Feudal Age. To capitalize on this, the build order combines these upgrades with the Iron Undermesh upgrade from the Blacksmith, which increases the ranged armor of all non-siege units by +1.
This will allow you to snipe villagers underneath the TC without losing too much HP.
Another strength of the French units is that they have a unique technology called Chivalry, which allows them to regenerate +1 health every 1 second when they’re out of combat.
The french build order above leads you to these two upgrades in Age of Empires 4. Once you unlock them, you’ll be able to rush your opponent and destroy their landmarks and Town Center easily.
Easy French Knight Builds in AoE4
Fast French Feudal Rush Build Order
Early Game
- Start with 6 villagers on food, 2 on gold
- Build a house with the first villager, then send the second villager to gold
- Continue to add villagers to food until you have 8
- Use 5 villagers to build the School of Cavalry
- Shift-click the villagers building the School of Cavalry to send 2 to food and 3 to gold
- Add 3 villagers to wood and build a lumber camp
- Scout your opponent’s base to find their gold and exposed resources
Mid Game
- Continue to add villagers to food, aiming for 12 in total
- Send 4 villagers to wood, making 7 in total
- Build an archery range and start producing archers
- Use your French Royal Knights to harass your opponent’s gold and economy
- Keep producing knights and archers to maintain pressure
Late Game
- Add 4 villagers to food, making 16 in total
- Consider adding a second stable, archery range, or Town Center
- Adapt to your opponent’s strategy and adjust your build order accordingly
- Focus on upgrading your economy and army with technologies like chivalry, wheelbarrow, and blacksmith upgrades
French Royal Knight Rush Build Order in Age of Empires 4
Early Game
- Start with 6 sheep, then add 1 more to make 7
- Send 1 villager to wood to make a house and lumber camp
- Send 3 villagers to gold
- Add 2 more villagers to sheep, making a total of 9
- Send 2 villagers to gold
- Build the School of Cavalry landmark, which requires 3 gold
Mid Game
- Send 2 villagers to deer to hunt and research Survival Techniques
- Send 2 villagers from sheep to wood to boost wood economy
- Build a mill and research Survival Techniques to get a gathering bonus for hunting deer
- Continue making knights from the School of Cavalry
Late Game
- Aim to reach the Feudal Age before 5 minutes
- Make 2-3 knights and attack the enemy with them
- Continue making villagers and sending them to deer, wood, or berries
- Maintain knight production from the School of Cavalry
