Age of Empires 4 French Knight Rush Build Order

To help you out with creating such a build, in this guide, we’ll show you how to perform the Age of Empires 4 build order for the perfect French Knight rush.

To defeat an opponent in Age of Empires 4, you need to destroy their landmarks and Town Center. If you have the perfect build, you can do this very early on in a match by rushing the opponent civilization. To help you out with creating such a build, in this guide, we’ll show you how to perform the Age of Empires 4 build order for the perfect French Knight rush.

Age of Empires 4 French Knight Build Order

The Knights of the French civilization are undoubtedly one of the best units in the game. Their regeneration and armor makes them extremely strong early on in the Feudal Age.

If you know the right build order, you can capitalize on the strength of the Knights to rush the opponent early on and destroy their landmarks and Town Center.

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 early on in the match.

French Knight Rush Build Order

Follow the steps listed below for the best build order in order to employ a French Knight rush in AOE 4

  • Hunt Sheep: The first step of this order is to cue 8 villagers to start hunting sheep. You’ll need to find as many Sheep as you can, so use a scout to find extra sheep around the map.
  • Build a House: Use one of the eight villagers to build a house. As soon as he’s done building the house, have him start hunting Sheep again.
  • Find Gold: Now, send your next 3 villagers to find Gold.
  • Farm Wood: The next 3 villagers will go to Wood.
  • Gather Food: Before building your first landmark, put another villager on Food.
  • Construct Landmark: Use 1 Villager to construct the School of Cavalry.
  • Get Forestry: As soon as you start constructing the School of Cavalry, unlock the Woodcutting Technology named “Forestry” immediately.
  • Build Two More Houses: Use 1 Villager to build two houses and also help construct the landmark. Once this villager is done building the houses, have him continue working on the landmark.
  • Find More Gold: Send your next 4 Villagers to Gold.
  • Gather More Food: After sending the 4 Villagers to Gold, send all your remaining Villagers to Food. Your Knights will need a lot of food, so this is crucial step.
  • Construct Blacksmith and Stable: After the School of Cavalry is constructed, use one Villager to build the Stable and one Villager to build the Blacksmith.
  • Queue Up Knights: Once the Blacksmith and Stable start getting constructed, it’s time to queue up your Knights.
  • Unlock Iron Undermesh: As soon as the Blacksmith is built, unlock the Iron Undermesh upgrade.
  • Unlock Chivalry: After unlocking Iron Undermesh, start researching the Chivalry upgrade.

Once Chivalry is unlocked, you’ll be ready to attack. Keep queuing up Knights and use all extra villagers to farm as much Food as you can and start rushing the opponent.

Upgrades

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 build order above leads you to these two upgrades. Once you unlock them, you’ll be able to rush your opponent and destroy their landmarks and Town Center easily.