Searching for a winning strategy as France

[twmplayer]

Hi, I want to win as France, playing on medium / very hard, long campaign. I have already lost one whole campaign, ending out with most of my starting provinces, thus basically a status quo. Problem is that its pretty hard to capture those demanded 70 regions. Has anyone actually won the long campaign? If yes, how?

[twmplayer]

Really difficult to play as France when you get into war with everybody. Right now I'm trying the long campaign again, have reached year 1405, so Jean should arrive soon - with much needed reinforcements hopefully.

Anyhow the front-situation is as follows:

Flanders and Navarra are destroyed.

England. I recaptured Calais. The English lost around 5 full stacks in those 10 years of fighting. They haven't shown them selfs here since. Calais has a 13-unit strong garrison, but that is also necessary, otherwise the English might try to attack here again. Canterbury has a 6-unit garrison, however, the English has a strong fleet presence in the channel, and I have no fleet left and no money to build a fleet.

Brittany. This faction is finally cracking up. It has its Castle and Capital left, both with full stacks, plus the loose out there on the fogged area. I have some 4 full stacks in the entire region, however that includes all the city-garrisons (6-9 of those). Caen and Cherbourg need strong garrisons - in order not to loose them to the English. My remaining forces on this front consist of 50/50 French and mercenaries, whereof most of the French units are depleted. It is not possible to retrain all the mercenaries or buy that many new ones.

Aragon. This faction is beginning to steam-roll from the south. I have now lost Toulouse and Pau will be lost soon, since I have defended, lost and recaptured it, however all my forces are depleted and I cant buy or retrain enough troops to keep up with the loss-rate. Bordeaux has rebelled. Auch only has a 4-unit garrison and full Aragon stacks are moving in from the south. Fortuantly I have two castles in the northern part of this front, but it seems I will loose all provinces up to Perieux / Saintes, before I can begin to try and turn the tide.

Burgundy. This faction has finally captured Feurs (after 5 sieges) and Viviers too. I have no real forces left in the entire south-east region and Savoy (allied) has so far not helped me. Think I will loose some 5-6 cities here.

HRE. This faction has besieged and assaulted Paris a couple of times. I have lost Rheims and Troyes (the city north of Burgundy-area) and Bergen. The faction is really strong and field some 3-4 full-stacks + the loose.

My income is now between 7-10.000 per turn.

I will not be able to win the campaign I think. Only have 45 provinces, and many will be lost now, to Burgundy and Aragon.

[twmplayer]

Okay, I am going to try from turn 1 to convert Tolouse into a castle, so reinforcements can get out there faster, all over the region.

Perhaps this will also make it easier to recapture Narbonne, Foix and Auch, should I loose these rebellious towns. Only minus is of course that Tolouse as a castle has less trade, so perhaps this will have a negative income-effect on the entire region?

[twmplayer]

Okay, I am going to try from turn 1 to convert Tolouse into a castle, so reinforcements can get out there faster, all over the region.

Perhaps this will also make it easier to recapture Narbonne, Foix and Auch, should I loose these rebellious towns. Only minus is of course that Tolouse as a castle has less trade, so perhaps this will have a negative income-effect on the entire region?

Edit report:

Ok, have played some hours with this strategy now, and it certainly works out just fine. Much easier to reinforce any town in the region and furthermore, although I cant be sure, I think my Tolouse castle made Aragon attack me as early as it did, in turn 20 I think, so really early in the game. This actually worked out fine, cause Aragon wasn't prepared for an attack, and only send in half-stacks, being too easy to defeat. So Castille decleared war on Aragon and quite soon Aragon lost everything except its Capital and that town northeast of Narbonne. After that, turn 30 or so, I was able to make peace with Aragon.

So before turn 25 I had all the towns from Saintes to Pau, to Narbonne to Cahors (except Bordeaux) on French hands, meaning all of south France has been pretty well secured. Auch is rebelling though, but that is domestic and can be dealt with. I also converted Angers and the town south of Rheims into castles as well. I raided and sacked London and the two coast-cities north of it, left them without garrisons, moving south and capturing Canterbury, where I created a strong garrison. All this gave the English a lot of rebellion problems and made it possible for me to capture Saintes in turn...22 I think?

As soon as I had captured Cantebury, Brittany attacked me and actually got Caen, but it lost it to Navarra thereafter, and I could build up my Angers castle too. So before turn 30 I was in war with Aragon, England and Britanny. I made peace with Castille from start (turn 4-5).

This castle-strategy seems to work. Also for the first time I now have more military than England, and constantly have the largest population too. In turn 30 Scotland is still in the game.

Only potential problem with this south-castle strategy, seems to be that Castille now gets bigger. And Castille is allied with England.

Oh, almost forgot. I lost Foix even though I send down reinforcements from Tolouse. But now - after Auch is secured again, Foix is the next target. Saint Bernard was captured with troops trained in Tolouse.


edit - report continued:

Up to turn 42 nothing changes and I get some rest to retrain units and build structures. I still control Canterbury with a strong 13-unit garrison and is still the leading faction in military and population-power. Scotland is still in the game.
Turn 42: Castille attacks me at Narbonne and Tolouse! It deploy a full stack besieging Narbonne (1400 men) and has fleet units deployed in the Mediterranean too, and also send a tiny element (200 men) close to Tolouse.


Turn 43: I loose Narbonne in turn 43 and its 7-unit garrison (600 men) but I win a battle at Tolouse, and begin to train and buy as many units as my income allow (2400 florins per turn at that point). From north I can only afford to dispatch 1 gendarme from Perigeux and a family-member from Saintes as reinforcements to Tolouse. My garrisons in Pau, Auch, Saint Benard and Anger, are all fairly strong but I cant dispatch any units since that will cause unhappiness and potential disorder/rebellion.

Even though I have lost Narbonne and Castille seems quite strong, Aragon wont ally. Same for Burgundy - no alliance possible. Navarra response by allying with Flanders, who just as Castille is allied with England? I dispatch a diplomat to Savoy, perhaps they will ally, now Castille is the big guy in the south.


Turn 44: Navarra breaks the alliance with Flanders and declare war on England? (nice decision for me of course). The 8-stack I previously had assembled in Abbeville to retake Caen, before Navarra took it from Brittany, I had meanwhile sea-transported to Brest and land it now, in turn 44 close to Brest. However, Brest is defended with a full stack strong force and also has smaller 3-stacks in the proximity. I decide not to siege and deploy my small 8-stack on the bridge south-east of Brest, while my 9-stack fleet siege the harbour.

Down at Narbonne, my spy reveals two full stacks of Castille forces coming up from Perpignan, and at Tolouse Castille now move in a small 5-stack. Public order in Narbonne is 5% :-) seems Castille will face a rebellion.


Turn 45: Castille lay siege on Pau with a tiny force and Tolouse with that 5-stacker. Brittany siege Thours with a decent 5-stack force. Thours is defended by a Pike-millitia and two familymembers. I can only afford to dispatch two crossbow units from the Angers-Castle, but it will take them 2 turns to reach Thours!


Turn 46: I win at Pau, Tolouse and Thours. Last win was a very close win, I had only 8 guys left before I made Brittany route. The 2 crossbow-units and 1 depleted family bodyguard are now the garrison. I cant afford to buy or send more forces from Angers.


Turn 47: Flanders declare war! - Auch has riotings! - I'm moving a half-stack out of Tolouse, in order to try and recapture Narbonne. Im not sure where those two full-stacks at Narbonne has gone, but suspect I will face them between Tolouse and Narbonne. Stupid decision maybe- to move out a half-stack of Tolouse, but I felt I had to do something, now Flanders declare war. Tolouse has 5 units left. Savoy, Aragon Burgundy too, wont ally!? I try to ally with HRE who actually would like to ally, but I make a stupid claim (military access) and that's it, HRE wont ally. I also try in the same turn to make peace with England, but again I ask of too much florins. England actually wanted peace, but I asked of too much, cause I desperately need florins now (my income is around 1000 florins per turn). No battles in turn 47. Flanders and Brittany siege some of my harbours.


Turn 48: HRE ally with England!! My converted castle in Chalons still haven't got any barracks to train units from. Not good. My 8-stack at Brest attract a lot of attention now. Brittany has moved in forces from east and north. In the area I am facing some 30 enemy units, so I decide to fleet away my 8-stack, and send it south, towards the coast of Castille.

[twmplayer]

[twmplayer]

Hm, have now played to turn 62, and my strategic situation is only getting worse. Has anyone from the mod-team or anyone else, actually tried to win as France, playing on medium level? Eventually M/VH, or M/M. I have tried to play a bit on easy level, and that was too easy, but medium is really difficult.

[twmplayer]

Ok, phew, have now tried a few more campaigns. Played the first until 1409 or so, but I was already loosing. Brittany, Castille, Aragon, Burgundy, HRE and England had all attacked me for 20 turns or so, thus even with the arrival of Jean (Joan), my situation was too bad.

I would really like to hear from some of the modders, if they actually have tested the long French campaign and won?

personally I have started 10-14 long campaigns now, as France, and I honestly think it is too difficult. Cause even when you in turn 100 have won 140 battles and lost only 20, you still loose strategical due to the huge area France covers, the short distances armies can travel per turn, the low loyalty among the troops and characters, the lack of money from start, even though you are in war with three factions (England, Castille and Rebels), and finally the low recruitment and retraining-factor.

Also, England is way too easy to play. The faction has too much money and too high a population-rate.

[twmplayer]

All-right, so the previous campaign also turned into a disaster, cause around 1387 I was in war with almost everybody, and lost the whole of north-East and most of Northwest France to HRE, that literally invaded me with 4 full stacks in first invasion-turn, followed up by several half-stacks, 5-stacks and full-stacks too, taking 4 of my provinces in second invasion-turn. I only had 4-units garrisons and didn't get the generals (several of the stacks had more than one bodyguard unit). At the point of invasion, HRE and England had a larger military than me, followed closely by Castille having almost as much military as I.

Calais and Clairmont felt after a few sieges, Paris was besieged, lost and recaptured although at heavy costs, and north of Seine I only had Rouen left on French hands, with a tiny garrison. I lost all of this in less than 15 turns.

Up to the invasion my strategy in this campaign had been to sack as many provinces from start in England as possible, something that was successful. I sacked more than 10 English cities enabling contact with Scotland up north. Result was that England posed no threat to me in some 40-50 turns. I started sacking English cities in turn 4 or so. But Castille got big after having defeated Aragon. Castille invaded me with a huge force and I lost most of south-France to it. So I began to recapturing it back in a slow and costly campaign, but was halted when Brittany attacked me, followed by Burgundy attacking me on the eastern border.

Then I had to focus on Brittany and Burgundy, while defending-only against Castille, actually managing to get an army into Castille lands, threatening its capital, sacking a few coast-cities and then capturing and defending the Castle down in the south west corner of the map. Very easy castle to defend btw. Check it out.

Then HRE attacked. I lost what already described and then decided to stop once again and try another approach in a new campaign.

And now I think I might have found a way to win as France on medium/very hard, long campaign;


English front

1. Before turn 10 you must capture Canterbury and London. Only sack London, but don't sell the buildings. Deploy a strong garrison and defeat any English army closing in to London. Use spies and Towers to get the Intel. London needs 4 spies or towers in its proximity. Spies are best cause they can reveal army compositions. The AI will probably send one full stack, but no more, well perhaps a few 3-stacks and other light forces. Beat them and execute prisoners so the AI build up forces as slow as possible.

Use forces from Calais, Clairemont, Caen and Rouen, to build this invasion-army. It should reach around 15 units and a general. Gather them all at Calais before invading.


2. Before turn 30, preferably turn 20, you must capture Saintes and defeat all English forces in the region down there. This one can be tricky in some games. It should require a full stack, or two half-stacks, one consisting of Gendarmes and one of infantry and crossbowmen. Use hammer an anvil, give the AI the gendarmes-stack and enjoy a hammer and anvil battle.

Use forces from Perieux, the Castle east of Perieux and then all the cities between Perigeux and Paris. 3-4 of them have Gendarmes. Send them all. Also send forces from Bourges. All these small contingents should provide you with a full stack within turn 7 or so.


3. Keep London as long as possible, but retreat to Canterbury when the English stacks (full army) begin to arrive. Also make sure it is difficult for the English AI to bribe your forces. When you retreat decide to sell all structures or not. If you think you can beat the arriving English forces at Canterbury, then just leave London as open city, but if you think you will also loose Canterbury, sell everything.

4. Send a diplomat from London to Scotland and give them map-information and florins.

5. If you mannage to hold Canterbury have a spy inside London, follow the population growth and re-sack it when it has reached 10.000. Keep doing all this until you finally loose Canterbury. In some games you should be able to do this 3-4 times within the first 60 turns or so. When England is weak send out half stacks from Canterbury and sack the coast-cities to the south and north.


Castille front

1. Convert Pau and Narbonne into Castles from start; turn 1. That will cost 3200 florins out of your 8000, so still enough to build up Calais to retrain units having fought in England. focus on upgrading both castles, establish a fort south of the bridge west of Narbonne. Place 1 unit in the fort. Make sure both castles have a half-stack garrison.

2. Fight defensive battles, ally with Aragon and try to defeat Castille. Eventually in the games Brittany doesn't attack you, send all remaining forces from the Saintes-campaign to the coast of Castille and sack cities.


Castle strategy

Focus on Calais, Caen, Clairemont and Perigeux, but when possible on all your Castles. Have strong garrisons in all Castles, and repeat sacking cities in England to get the florins for it.

[twmplayer]

A screen from the loosing campaign I played to the end.

The screen shows Jeanne d'arc in Canterbury, with a couple of French support-armies at Calais, while the English army begin to arrive in force. A massive English army. All three French armies was defeated some turns after.

[twmplayer]

I now started yet another long campaign up, cause once again I was in war with almost every other faction around turn 60-70.

The campaign I am playing now has gone really well. I managed to scramble a 18-unit stack together at Calais and capture Canterbury, London and Colchester, in that order, before turn 10. I sacked all of them but decided to try and simply hold them and upgrade them. That meant no more raiding around in England, but instead prepare for defence in the C-L-C triangle.

At the same time I decided not to fight determined for Pau, so I lost that quite fast in the game, to Castille. Also, I only converted 1 town into a castle, Narbonne. I focused on building and upgrading Narbonne, so before turn 30 it could train Gendarmes, Spear and Bows.

Then I essentially focused on building money and happiness-structures in my castles. So every turn I build something in several castles all over France, focusing on Calais and Caen so they could upgrade as fast as possible, and support the C-L-C triangle with knights.

Before turn 20 I had captured Saintes, although it was a close-win against the English AI. It almost won, but I gambled fighting 3 English stacks with 1 French, and won with under 400 men and my general (Kimg Phillip) left. It was a strong stack I had, with 11 Gendarmes and Knights.

Castille slowly began to capture my provinces in the south, but since I hadn't focused on them, both Pau, Auch and Foix didn't give it anything but trouble. It has to be said that the AI was boring stupid in the series of battles I fought in Auch, that didn't even have walls. In every of the 4 battles I fought here I was completely outnumbered. But the AI didnt use Hammer and Anvil, even though it moved cavalry around my flanks and to my rear. The militia cavalry that could have ended the first battle of Auch fast, just stood there looping or something. Bad AI, my luck, cause it meant that Perigeux and Saintes was given time to upgrade without having to face sieges.

This overall strategy; holding the C-L-C triangle combined with a disciplined focus on building farms, markets, roads and government structures in all my towns and cities (except Pau, Auch Foix and Toulouse), meant that my population-rate began to grow, even though most of my provinces had very high taxes.

As you can see my income at turn 50 had raised close to my start-income.




The Canterbury-London-Colchester Triangle, being under constantly attack from turn 35 or so. It was after Scotland was destroyed the English began attacking C-L-C, every single turn. I think the attrition-strategy scripted in the AI works rather well, cause as you can see it simply deploy its armies in queue, so when you as human player have defeated the first siege, the next just follows, with no pause to retrain your units. I defeated a lot of armies in around 15-20 turns of attacks, until I ran out of reinforcements from Calais, mostly consisting of AI controlled Gendarmes-3-stacks, working as hammer in the siege-battles.



Just after Castille captured Tolouse from me, Burgundy attacks. I actually won here, due to the stupid AI, sending in its general in first wave. Otherwise Feurs had been overrun.






Now I am at turn 58, and I have just lost London. Colchester will probably be lost too, perhaps Canterbury also. England has a massive army now and Scotland has been destroyed, so the English AI does as always, it send the whole army against the French, me.

The AI actually did well at London. It almost besieged me out, for some 6 turns or so, before attacking and defeating my now depleted garrison. The constant attacks on both Canterbury and Colchester had the effect that Canterbury could not send relief to London. And Calais could not help too, cause Flanders attacked me after Burgundy. Then after that HRE also attacked me. But this time it seems I have chosen a useful strategy from start, cause now most of my castles have been upgraded to fortresses and the population-rate is fine, so I should reach the 9000 marker in Calais and Caen before turn 70, meaning good units.

Here at turn 58 I have managed to destroy both Flanders and Navarra, which also stupidly attacked me, after Brittany attacked me.

I have not yet tried to defeat both Flanders and Navarra so early in the game, so a good sign for the strategy I think.

[twmplayer]

London and Colchester lost. Only Canterbury stands firm, with a strong garrison. Lots of fightings here, since turn 51.

Half the population in London is at this point French.




Now Flanders is destroyed, Calais can focus on sending over the hammer-force when Canterbury is besieged. 300 horses, mostly Knights.





The amount of enemy factions at this point in the game. Thus as France, lots of battles to attend to, almost every single turn.





As seen, Castille is getting powerful in the south. Only French location left is Narbonne.





Also, I managed to capture Liege from HRE. A close win, and I only won because the relief-force send by HRE to aid the garrison, marched around on the map and never used the ladders I had placed at the walls, to capture the gate. Had this AI bug not been there, I would never have been able to capture the caste.





I also lost Orleans. My entire eastern border is open for any army to move to Paris or as in this case Orleans. So I was forced to recapture it, and the council of knights priced its capture with 2500 Florins. I had no armies in this part of France, so my Brittany army, at this point heading to siege Nante had to be turned around. It recaptured Orleans, however, Brittany then send out its army and besieged Caen, which I was able to just hold until it received reinforcements from Rouen, Cherbourg, Anger and several other towns.

After the recapture of Orleans, the population raised its happiness to 200%. Haven't seen that before in this mod.

[twmplayer]

Okay, I have now reached turn 112 and things are going really bad. So far I have fought more than 300 battles and that is ridiculous many. On average close to 3 battles per turn. Ill post some screens in the next post.

I'm beginning to doubt if the mod-team actually have play-tested France, cause I am only playing on medium level and I am constantly attacked by 4 out of 5 enemy factions, fighting between 4 and 10 battles per turn now. That eventually destroy the game experience. Battle after battle after battle.

The map of France should have better defensive areas in inner France I think. Perhaps embedding the river Loire, only providing it a few bridges would help? Actually the rivers on a whole should have less bridges, so at least inner France can be defended.

Otherwise the Strategy for France has to be to attack from start, trying to take out Brittany, Navarra, or Castille within the first 30 turns or so. Cause when playing France, longer into the game, you need a safe rear. Otherwise you will never be able to focus your armies, and that fact destroy the fun of playing the faction.
If you into the game do not have that safe rear, as I dont have in this game too, you are forced into a constantly defensive and reactive situation, continuously having to relief a siege or prevent an enemy army to move unhindered into central France. For instance the HRE AI sends tons of small stacks into France, on a broad front, going from Calais to Nevers. That is a long front to cover, when all you have to train units in, are Clairemont and Bourges.

[=NF= Vasileios_the2nd]

Your reports are most welcome!
Very interesting thoughts my friend.
Only one member of the team has tested France, and Im not very sure to what extend. Your suggestion of fortifying central France is very sensible. If only I had more time..

[twmplayer]

Glad to hear they are. Reason I haven't continued the last report, is that I essentially gave up that campaign - again giving up at half-time :-)

Think I have tried to start some 20 long campaigns now, as France, mostly on M/VH hard, giving up on average at turn 70 - 80, sometimes 100+, sometimes 70-.

So I therefore started yet another long campaign, this time on VH/VH, and that game is different. I have reached turn 58 and managed to destroy Flanders in turn 45 I think? But now as always I am in war with HRE, Burgundy, Aragon, England and Brittany, so things aren't looking good and I am probably stopping within the next 5 - 10 turns. I managed to make peace with Castille from start though which actually is not that difficult. Aragon is easier to fight than Castille, so I didn't put up a dedicated fight when Aragon sieged Pau out. On VH/VH the AI siege settlements out!

Interesting campaign though, cause the AI seems more smart on VH/VH. It doesn't keep on sending in tiny 3-stacks to siege a settlement, but half and full-stacks. So fewer battles so far, but bigger battles, which is good. Especially the Brittany AI changed its game-play. It naturally betrayed me as it almost always does before turn 30, this time before turn 13 I think it was and its armies are difficult to beat cause on VH they fight longer, don't rout easy, even after having lost the general, so you as human player in general has higher casualties and takes fewer prisoners, since everybody fights on and on.

Also, for the first time Scotland is now bigger and stronger than England. Perhaps because I kept blocking the ports of Flanders while I besieged Flanders settlements? I did capture Canterbury and London, before turn 12, but did not have forces to capture Colchester. Saintes I managed to capture before turn 35, I sieged it out until the last turn where the English AI went for sallying out. So a little later than when playing on medium level. I actually lost a huge field-battle, east of Saintes, in turn 25 perhaps, but CTD saved my day. Had this CTD not happened I think my capture of Saintes would have been postponed significantly.

On vh/vh the AI puts up a good fight. Both on the strategical and tactical level. It make use of mercenaries a lot. Sometimes entire armies, full stacks, only of mercenaries, making it difficult for the human player to buy any.

However, although the game really is more difficult as France on VH/VH, the main problems are the same:

1. France is very difficult to defend.

2. France start the game being in war with two factions.

3. Your allies betray you.

4. Its difficult for France to develop a decent diplomatic reputation, due to the many rebels inside the land and on the coast / rivers. Rebels not being fought or bribed actually have an impact in the game-engine, in how the other AI factions perceive you. So when playing France and you are not able to counter the rebel threat, the other factions will begin to think less of you and consequently the risk of them betraying you or attacking you, will increase.

5. To few French Castles can support each-other.

6. Militia units are similar are not possible to recruit in cities, so you only have those 7 Castles from start to recruit from; Calais, Clairemont, Caen, Bourges, Ventadour, Feurs and Perigeux. You can create your own castles and I always do, but it cost florins and take time.

7. No unit/florin-bonus is given when deciding to give up land / settlements. For instance when HRE attacks France later in a game, it normally does so with a huge army, forcing you to either fight with your garrisons or withdraw them, in order to create an army - at for instance Bourges or Paris.

8. Since France is at war from start, it should have free upkeep in many of its settlements. Otherwise the race for better upgraded cities and castles and units will be lead by the AI factions.

9. Jeanne should have a much bigger impact on the English forces. She did so in reality.



--

I would like to help out with your excellent mod, but sadly haven't tried doing so before. I have thought about trying to test some few changes on the mod though; like 4,6 or 12 turns per year and giving France more florins from start. Not something big but a start I guess.