Ideas for France in the Grand Campaign?

[Egbert]

I think I may try playing as France in the Grand Campaign. How is France as a faction, overall (military, economy, starting position, etc.)? Any other ideas on how to succeed as the French?

Thank You!

[Nole4694]

This belongs in battle planning but I dont play them too much but I can tell you that if you are planning on going to war with any one early on your screwed. The economy can barly sustain enough men to capture the reble settlements around you and deal with bandits. And also earlyon the troops are pretty generic too though that might be good

[Queen Annes Revenge]

Hi, I began typing a response to this, but it became so long I decided to turn it into a mini-guide in another thread you can find here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=177822

Hope this helps.

[Ciaran S]

France isn´t that bad. A very well-filled unit roster (France being, for all intend and purpose the very definition of the average western Europe M2TW faction), once you´re built up, access to two sea areas to boost trade, fewer rivals on the borders than, say, the Holy Roman Empire, a dwelling on Cyprus (you might want to try convert Cyprus to a city to train Merchants, the exotic goods of the Middle East can, with a bit of luck, be a huge boost to your purse!). On the downside, your rivals on the borders, while fewer, are actually the other big players, Spain, England and the HRE, and wars will be long and messy. Italy might be the weakest border. Crusades can be another option to expand in the Holy Land, but neither Egypt nor the Turks are exactly pushovers, and resupply is a long way away, unless you manage a couple of quick successes in the Holy Land.

[Zio Zihk]

Conquer Iberia first. The countries there are small and weak; perfect for the French crown.

[Hazzy101]

I would take englands town because the AI never invade by sea *1 enemy down, 2 to go*

[♔The Lizard King♔]

I love playing as France. This is what I do.

First off, start off with a small army, and do NOT go too war with anyone. You have a horrible economy, and like an above poster said, you only have enough too conqour rebel towns near you. Conqour all of the towns that are in modern day France and sit tight. Build up your forces, though delete unnescessary ones (like town militia- spear militia is much better)

Over time build forts on the Rhine, in the Alps and in the Pyreenes. This will prove a sturdy defense from the HRE and Spanish/Portugeese that over time would be your main enemy. You should slowly start to gain a lot of cash, so when you get over say 15k then it is safe for you too start your expansion.

I always start with taking some African provinces and Mediterranean islands, something small, but a good place too fall back on if your European affairs don't work out too well.

Then, you reverse WW2 and Blitzkrieg the Germans. I suggest having 4-5 armies (perhaps Fort Garrisons?) with artillary attack german towns. They should lose 3-4 towns every turn, if you do this right.

More then likely by now you'll have enough power too stomp the little nation of Milan off the map. Do it. Do it now.

Then focus your greedy eyes on Iberia. But don't stop at Spain like Napolean did, take Portugal, and thrust into North Africa.

Over time you can see where you need too go I.E. after the HRE falls, the Balkans are next, then the Steppes etc.

Hope that helps lol.

[Anglo-Pole]

^ That's a nice informative post +rep

On topic, France can be quite a fun nation to play if you get past the first few turns. I've won a campaign with France but it was too long ago to be able to offer good advice so I'd urge you to read the above

[Cavebear]

One strategy I found highly entertaining was to convert all my cities except Paris into castles as soon as possible. Castles are much easier to defend against the backstabbing traitorous vermin that are your neighbours in every direction.
My plan was to use Aventuriers as the core unit for my armies, so I didn't bother building barracks or stables or siege workshops at all. With so few things to build, and minimal garrisons in most of my castles, my finances were in good shape quite quickly.
Allowing the Holy Roman Empire and Milan to attack me resulted in their swift excommunications, after which I could counterattack as I pleased. Whenever I sacked a city I didn't want to hold, I gave it to Poland or Denmark. Denmark eventually backstabbed me anyway, but Poland never did.
England hurt itself so much attacking me that it was overrun and eliminated by the Scots--a very satisfying sight.
Then I discovered that although I had set the difficulty to hard/hard, I had forgotten to set the campaign to long, so I won. What I learned from this experiment was that although I had planned to use some infantry screens to protect the Aventuriers, covering the flanks with experienced generals proved to be all the protection the valiant armoured crossbowmen needed to win the day.
I'm not sure that this strategy would have worked on campaign difficulty very hard, as your opponents attack you almost immediately, but it would have worked on battle difficulty very hard, most of the battles weren't close at all.

[Timur_the_Lame]

take bordauex with touluse army, rennes with armies from angers and paris and dijon with riemes army(s). DO ALL THIS RIGHT OFF BAT. retrain all armies and then 3-6 turns later take Caen with rennes army, and then ur done with the english. during the next 7 turns u should also take metz. DO NOT TAKE BERN. to big of a rebel garrison and you will get attacked. after you took bordauex before go and take zaragzota or w/e it is called. after all this is done u should be building up ur Caen army and go and take bruges. if denmark hasnt, go and take antwerp too. england will have offered u a cease fire, and so u will not be at war with anyone. this entire time (forgot to tell u) u should have been buildingspear milita and ballistas in marsellie. go and take ajaho and calgari with this army (make sure u leave 5 spear in marsellie). conver both islands to towns. from here on u should be set. do not attack anyone until they attack u (hint, milan and portugal will be). other than those islands, do not covert anything else

[Celsius]

take all of rebel territorie inside france, then move onto the the island of sardinia and ajaccio. then into milian and into italy.

[Old Geezer]

Ignore rebels. Go for the English and the Scots (don't wait for them to recruit some good longbowmen and knights.) Send one unit to sit on the river to keep the Danes away from Antwerp. Once you have taken Great Britain turn back and get the rebel settlements. You have effectively won the game and can play around with any strategy that strikes your fancy.

[Wibbler]

I found France pretty easy. Start off defensively and only take the rebel settlements around you. When you've built up a town or castle enough to get a blacksmith build it and churn out your first full stack army. Take this and use it to assault anyone who's declared war on you, take a few of their towns and it should scare them into accepting a ceasefire. Keep an eye out for an excommunicated faction near you and go to town on them. Send an army by sea to the Moors foothold in Iberia and take it from them, this is usually enough to get Portugal or Spain to declare war on you and you can snatch Iberia from them. Once this is done, you're fairly safe and just need to watch your eastern front.

[KoS]

Start out with the rebels. France and HRE share the advanatge of being literally surrounded with rebel settlements at the start, all of which - with the exception of the Flemish cities - have reasonable enough garrisons to take down. After you've secured these borders, you can move on to England to the north, Iberia to the southwest, or Milan to the southeast; all are good moves for gaining land. After that, you should have a strong enough position to do basically whatever you want without the risk of being driven back into Burgundy with nothing else left.

[Empress Meg]

I'll move this to Battle Planning as it deals with specific tactics and tips.

Devoirs The Empress

[clandestino]

France has one of the best overall armies in the vanilla game and well balanced unit roster, they only lack good foot archer but that can be compensate with crossbowmen especialy later when you can train Aventurier which are one of the best ranged units in game. Their starting position is excelent, you have a bunch of rebel provinces around so you can expand fast without getting involved in war with everybody. On the north England has one big stack in Caen so you should put some troops to watch for them while you take rebel provinces, England will eventualy attack you but since their army in Normandy is rubbish you shouldn't have to much problem with them. Once you take Caen, make peace with England and they wan't attack you anymore, that's lock, stock and barrell. Your main enemy in the beggining will be of course Milan which allways try to get Dijon, Bern and Marseille so you have to watch them closely. Economicaly France is not superpover but with taxes on max and developed trade and roads it will get you decent income, especialy from coastal cities Marseille, Rennes, Antwerp and Brugges. Sacking Milanese towns in northern Italy is always a good solution and with Milan stubbornly attacking you will find that not only usefull but also necessary.
I hope I helped.

[Xamt]

How is France as a faction, overall (military, economy, starting position, etc.)?

Military: as the game itself tells you, france has average units in the early eras of the game, but excell mid- and late-game. Your option are numerous and you can play anything from an all infantry to all HA army, with any combination of strong infantry, strong artillery and superb cavalry, it really depends on what you want to do

Economy: you start off in a pretty "bad" position, with only 2 settlements (one of them a castle the other a town) that have access to a port, you dont have easy and fast access to any high income resources (closest one is amber in skandinavia) and your land neighbours are all rebels, so trading with them isnt an option... as far as economic development goes u are in a superb position, where you can turn all your coastal settlements into towns while still maintaining a few stong castles near your heartland (Angiers, Metz, etc)

Starting Position: your starting position is a bit tricky, you border many rebel settlements and can expand in any direction you feel like, but this in turn means that nations near you can also expand and take these settlements, so set your priorities and follow them... in the first few turns you must know why you take each rebel settlement you take and not just capture it coz "it seems like a good idea"

Expanding: while playing the french i found that expanding too fast too soon was a REALLY bad idea (which holds true for every nation). After capturing every single rebel settlement around me i stifled milan, hre, england, denmark, spain and portugal, and all of them at one point or another declared war on me draining away my funds and preventing me from growing as fast as i could. So my advice to you is, regardless of which rebel settlement you take first (attacking another nation is plain idiotic imo since u get excommunicated and become everyone's fav target) you should take your time and ally with EVERYONE (exept maybe england) around you (namely spain, portugal, hre, milan and denmark at least). After that feel free to expand since the ai will hesitate to attack an ally
after the initial expansion you can pray upon the english or any faction that is excommunicated, or the moors... but normally, after you have captured and secured the land mass france has today you have more or less won the game