Playing the French

[Cooter of Hazzard]

I'll keep this short and sweet. I have never played the French faction before even though I've been playing TW since the first Medieval. I thought I'd give it a go now. Any and all advise would be great.

[frederickm]

I played the French a bit, but the francais one liners and accent put me off, so I decided to play HRE and eliminate Turks ASAP so I could play Turks.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Okey Dokey here we go...

1. Ally with England. Don't worthy it's just til your castles go up and start yielding good stuff.

2. Secure both southwestern castles, then stick good chivalry fm/generals in them to speed up growth.

3. Go ally with the Pope.

4. Build theologin's guild in Paris. Later all college of Cardinals will be French.

5. Concentrate on church structues in Paris, remember Notre Dame becomes availibe later.

6. Take Palma if you like to fight alot.

7. Don't go war war until you get better equipment unless you like fighting with toothpicks.

8. Hire mercenaries and build'em up. Their worth Keeping.

9. Concentrate on economy after you secure local rebel settlements.

That should get you started...

[Cooter of Hazzard]

Thanks for advise so far Mega, thats a good starting point for me. Keep'em coming.

[Babagitta]

I'm interesting about it too! I've never played as France.
Somehow, I believe that it's an easy campaign (like the English one) so I'm playing the others.
Of course, it's only in my fantasy so I can't be sure.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

I don't know how patient you are but if you play it goody two shoes for the first 90 turns it gives the ai a chance two get going. Now and then a few cities will go Johnny Reb and Genoa will take a swipt at you.

Key to fast turns times... turn off follow AI. Keep FOW on to see where the oppurtunities are.

[Cooter of Hazzard]

Thanks for advise so far my friends, very much appreciated.

[delra]

A few more tips:

Retake modern day France + everything around you can and convert everything but Bern, Antwerp and Toulouse to cities. Those are your border security posts.

For guilds I'd pick Templars, for role-playing reasons. You can demolish them and build merchants later on though.

Buy Caen from England for an alliance and starting cash if you can. If not, add tribute. Steal their princess too if you can. Will reduce their amount of allies significantly.

In armies, rely on heavy cavalry charge rather than other unit types. Also role-playing but it's fun too. Far more fun than stakes + archers.

Your natural allies are Spain, Scotland, Papacy (role-playing!), Venice and Hungary+Poland+Denmark (aka HRE's scourge).

Genoa and Aragon will come for Tolouse and Marseille if you don't guard them. Scotland will land next to Bruges and Antwerp. Bern will be at constant danger from Italians and Germans. So keep those garrisoned.

If you manage to snatch Metz, HRE will be down one important castle on your border and it will delay their offensive significantly. Convert it to a city if you feel secure.

Since the beginning, build siege equipment factory in Paris. You're going to need those Trebuchets to prepare enemy for your charge since you won't have lots of missile troops until late-game.

After you're secure, you can either conquer Aragon (Zaragoza+Barcelona, two excellent cities guarded by two strong castles of Valencia and Pamplona) or England (trade income from ports will be immense), Northern Italy (but the Pope will hate you) or go to HRE (worst option since they have poor cities).

Guilds? Marseilles needs extra troops so build there a chapter house (nothing worse for Genoa than seeing a few units of Templar cavalry charging at their crossbow arses), so does Bruges.

Swordsmiths in Antwerp, Horsebreeders in Bern (it has stables since the start anyway) or Toulouse.

The rest is up to you. I'd build merchants everywhere else. If you catch Sardinia and Corsica, Corsica is a good spot for priest production cause it is one turn of sailing from ten Muslim provinces. You can desant your priests there to disorganize Moorish empire and when they become Cardinals, bring them back home so they can hunt heretics in France.

The fun part is crusades since your specialty (very heavy cavalry) is exactly what Egyptian light armies fear the most. Run down those peasants. :-)

Oh, one more thing, the previous poster suggested that you need a theologicians guild to manufacture Cardinals. You don't actually need it (although it helps). All you need is a city with a Cathedral in it and good standing with the Pope. Train priests in this city (I usually pick Corsica for this task since it's producing priest desants for Africa anyway), and let them sit there for a few turns. They will get buffed by the Cathedral and the Pope will pick them over AI priest to become Cardinals.