I need counselling on French Grand Campaign

[Lord Khaliqo]

I started out expanding. I figured if I need to rule over 45 provinces, I might as well get crackin real fast. So I made lots of enemies early. I waged a successful crusade against Acre I think, but then the Pope excommunicated me because I was at war with too many Catholic nations.

So I got pissed because the man was calling out crusades against me, and I decided to shut him up for good. I eliminated Milan, pushed Venice out of the Italian peninsula (but they still exist unfortunately), then fought the Papal states in a series of bitter wars. I conquered Rome, but it's been rebelling and I keep recapturing it (the Pope creeps up and occupies it when it riots). Also, Sicily keeps raiding me from time to time, but I push them back.

Up North, I eliminated England and am now at war with Scotland. I have Caernarvon, London, and Nottingham. I'm also at war with Denmark. I took Bruges and Antwerp from them. I took a bunch of German provinces and the HRE isn't doing so good. They're too weak to recapture their lost territories.

I have also eliminated Spain and am about to eliminate Portugal. I have 27 provinces (I had 30 but some of them rebelled or were taken by crusaders).
I am at turn 100 and something.

I have most of the nations at war with me (including the Moors, Scotland, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Sicily, Venice, the Papal States, the Holy Roman Empire...), and only one ally, the Byzantine Empire. I have a terrible reputation because of having executed prisoners and exterminated some towns, and I find it impossible to negotiate ceasefires, or establish diplomatic relations or any diplomacy of any kind. Here are my major problems:

1. I've expanded very rapidly and my empire is starting to crumble from within. There's always rioting, I've lost some provinces that way. I keep getting crusades called against me, and I'm fighting on many different fronts. I have a feeling like everything will come tumbling down at any second, so I spend loads of time every turn to make sure I make the good decisions. I moved my capital to Marseille to keep the Iberian and Italian peninsula from rising up all the time, but I'm still in trouble.

2. I'm dirt poor. I'm trying to build and recruit, to build to keep my people happy and my nation advanced, to recruit in able to deal with invaders and to conquer more land. But I have serious financial troubles.

3. I have enemies everywhere. I'm trying to consolidate my borders to the East so I can expand into North Africa, but I can't get ceasefires from any of my European enemies.

Any advice gentlemen?

[Viking Prince]

First -- I would like to welcome you to the forum.

Something of a random walk or rant, but maybe some help can be found here.

Before going further, please review the posts at TotalWar.org M2TW Guides France if you have not already read up. Also search this subforum for France restricting the search to only title under advanced methods. Search functions are your friend. If you need help with this, pm me and I will try to talk you through this or any other issue.

When I first played France I thought that having so many settlements to start meant a head start compared to Spain. I was wrong. First, I play on vh/vh with the Retrofit Mod and fully patched, so some things may be differant for you.

The game is structured (in retrofit Mod, at least) so that you will have peace for the first 20 to 30 turns if you do not attempt to grab all available rebel settlements and certainly do not attack another faction. The game is long and 45 settlements are not really that many. During the game you will with artillery begin a conflict on a faction and take perhaps 4 settlements in one turn. No need to worry about taking what you will not hold.

If you go marauding with sack and pillage -- your option. Not my style and my advice may not be helpful to you.

To have a good economy is always the basis for a sustained military expansion. I do not sack and pillage as a preference for my style of play. To be honest, pillage is at times necessary, but not against other Catholic regions. Just keep the army present as a garrison while buildings are repaired (usually one turn).

There are many threads on building an economy - I usually build two levels of land and the first level of churches in all settlements. In cities I add the brothel, market, and roads. When able ports, first level townhall, and wharf. Also as France you have a wealth of mines available -- I usually only do the first level and only when the initial payout is 200 florins per turn. Warch for these when they appear since some are not available immediately.

As far as where to go and what to take, I usually do grab Rennes, Bordeaux, Djion, and Metz directly. The low countries are good also. To keep your opponants honest you need to keep a garrison in Paris and Marseilles. Free garrisions are best, but build up another couple of militia units as the economy allows. Cavalry is expensive with low revenues and not too effective when on the defensive. They are not very useful for rebel settlement assaults either. Stick to militia units until you get at least to a drill square in your castles. You only really need Bordeaux and Metz. Metz is only needed until a better castle exists. I do not tend to build stables for that reason. A bit of armor for militia builds in the cities is nice, but not at the expense of the economic builds.

Also -- send a diplomat to Rome. I usually just station a guy near the Pope for personal tending to the relationship. The Pope likes you and keeps your rating up -- you will find fewer factions will even bother starting a conflict. I like to first get trade rights. Then alliance. then give access. Then give 200 florins tribute per turn. Then give map information. All seperate offers (do not exit the diplomacy screen) on the same turn. I think your rating rises faster with the seperate deals, I may be wrong though. As soon as you have the high papal rating -- think about a convenient crusade. If it is your choice it may be a bit more useful for your objectives rather than waiting to be called to Cairo. I would rather pound on Tunisia or El Cid. Later in the game you will be able to Crusade on the excommunicated, but Crusades are not really necessary as long as your rating is high and your opponant's rating is toilet bound.

Regards.

EDIT -- Take Caen with a pair of catapults when ready. Just walk up and ....

Regarding dipolomacy -- never make an alliance and break it. Never make a trade agreement and attack -- always send a diplomat and cancel one turn prior to the attack. This will help keep reputation high.

[Morkonan]

...Any advice gentlemen?

Well, it sounds like you're in a pretty bad way. You know, it's possible to get yourself in such a bad reputation that very little, if anything will get other factions to stop beating up on you. You also don't have any money to "Gift" to them to increase your standing in their eyes.

As far as the Pope is concerned, he's going to keep popping up. The best thing you can probably do there is loot a city by selling everything in it, evacuating your troops and then try to give it to him for a ceasefire. Let him deal with the mess afterward.

That may be something you can do with some other settlements and other factions as well. Check on which ones are hardest to defend and make a decision whether or not to try to give them to a faction in exchange for a Ceasefire. Even then, you may not get a ceasefire agreement. But, if you can keep from attacking them for a few turns you may be able to gift them with a little bit of gold, some map freebies and raise your standing enough to get a ceasefire. Hey, if it doesn't work, just reload and take your medicine.

Do whatever you can to secure peace with the Pope and whoever is causing you the most trouble. You can try to get a princess married into your line or declare war on one of their enemies (if they aren't close by). IIRC, NOT attacking them will help to alleviate some of the reputation hits as well. If you just keep defending, where able, it may help.

You've pretty much torqued off the entire world and overextended yourself in doing it. If you can't defend what you have, can't advance and can't support it financially, you might need to pull back. A tactical withdrawal, giving up undefendable regions and regrouping of your forces to concentrate them may help you achieve a victory in the end.

Don't underestimate the importance of the terrain on the Campaign Map either. See what approaches you can defend with some units and a fort, place watchtowers where necessary and minimize the necessity for lots of units by maximizing your strategic use of mountain passes, hills, bridges and fords. You can sometimes stall armies by simply being better able to get to certain easily defendable strategic terrain faster than they can. If you can pop back and forth between two bridges faster than their attacking force can, they need two forces to cross into your territory unmolested while you just need one to defend it! etc..

PS - Don't underestimate the value of a few good boats either. It's sometimes difficult because the AI has a tendency to build big fleets but, if you're noticing stacks coming over on barges, all you have to do is sink that boat and they're all dead - end of story, no massive battle, no massive casualties.. profit.

[wupwup]

first. the pope will be a problem he is a stuck up jerk. so you may want to gift all of teh italian peninsula to him. this will also create a buffer zone between you and sicily. dont do this all at once because you have to see how he reatcs. maybe 1 a turn. oh and destroy eveything exept churches in them. as soon as you can request reconciliation.
apart from that all i can say is take countries out 1 by 1. if protugal is bothering you withdraw all of your troops from the spanish peninsula and set up forts in hte mountains to stop the attacking you. destroy all of the biuldings and gift them, again to the pope. then portugal cant attack them and increase power. any spare troops can be sent to help quickly crush denmark. or you may want to leave denmark and destroy portugal quickly. economy is a problem but once you have a war free area you can move the troops to more needed areas. good luck

[The Rights 2]

yeah i have to say that you went to hard way to fast and have paid the price. your lucky that the posts above mine have given great tips.

the biggest tip i could give is pick one enemy and go for it, crush them, sack them, make them lemenade i dont care. Just dont attack two-three factions at once, for (as you have found out) you dont make much progress and the pope hates you.

what you might want to consider is to letarly disband armies and sack youre own cities (that aren't french area) then give them away or let them rebel either ways gives you a buffer for the other factions. in the mean time you can build your ecomeny up slower and more stably

[A Demented Goldfish]

why not just use some minor cheats to get ceasfires or more money

[Basil the Great]

why not just use some minor cheats to get ceasfires or more money

Don't cheat J/K

Don't play as them the are very untrushworthy

[Jianadaren]

In the General Case

I really like going hard and fast with France. I've done it before and won the long campaign very quickly. For future reference, the key is to attack strategically, rather than indiscriminately. From the beginning, in broad strokes, I took the Army in Toulouse and together with the starting army in Angers, captured Bordeaux and Rennes in Turn 2, then drove the English out of Caen, then took Rebel Bruges and Antwerp, hired a mercenary cog, took London, Nottingham, York, Edinburgh, Inverness, Dublin, Caenarvon, then taking them by ship to Denmark. Simultaneously, I used the armies in Marseilles, Rennes, and Paris, and took Dijon, Metz, Staufen, Bern, Innsbruck, Genoa (raised a small army in Toulouse and shipped it over to take Milan so that Milan as a faction was destroyed the same turn in which war was declared upon it) and then moved south to control the Italian Peninsula. I also fended off the Moors and Sicilians by attacking their navies, and the Danes by attacking them when they landed in Bruges.

Yes, you will get excommunicated, and yes you will stretch yourself thin, and yes it's risky.
But there are lots of keys to ensuring you don't get in trouble.

Don't go into Iberia, just send two spies to keep an eye on things, and get ready to ramp up production in Toulouse if Armies cross your borders. I only like to attack if I have 40+ regions, can ramp Toulouse up to full-production and can land an army at Valencia for support simultaneously.

Don't push east into the heart of the HRE. Again, send spies and be ready to ramp up production for a defense and counter-attack if they enter your borders. I've taken Staufen and Innsbruck, thus capturing their only castles, so they're pretty neutered for a bit. Once Innsbruck and Staufen have developed into troop factories (Knight's Stables, Drill Square, and full recruitment slots), Italy is fully captured, and your British force is about land in Denmark do I consider myself ready to push East.

Also, be sure you will win. This seems simple enough, but it involves using intelligence (spies) to figure out what you're up against, and making good use of troop production and mercenaries to tip the scale in your favour. I personally like to hire mercenaries while sieging, either to increase my build points, or to increase my forces immediately before a battle (thus saving on upkeep costs). There is nothing worse than running into a wall. If you can't push forward you're dead on the water.

Also, as hinted earlier, use spies. Open gates open worlds. With open gates you can do things like declare war on Milan and destroy the faction in a single turn. You can capture London and Nottingham in a single turn (sometimes destroying the faction). You can capture Edinburgh and Inverness, Naples and Palermo (you get the idea). This idea leads into...

Destroy Factions and Finish Fronts. When you destroy a faction you castrate their field armies, making them rebel and passive - now you can destroy them at your leisure. You also end the war- another good thing. Furthermore, you kill their Cardinals, getting you one step closer to the Papacy.

Similarly, finish fronts. If you don't have the stomach to finish the job, don't start the war. Long, protracted wars are where players get in trouble. These wars decrease your income by disallowing you from trading with your enemy. They increase your costs by increasing demand for military upkeep, military recruitement, and military building (at the expense of economic building). Furthermore, they don't gain you territories. Focus on winning two wars instead of surviving four.

Finally, the Papacy. I've found a very crude way to control the papacy by turn 14 without building churches or recruiting priests, without paying off the papal states, without joining crusades or papal missions, and without making peace with catholics. I've done this by Turn 14, but Turn 18 might be a little more accomplishable. First, attack Rome (turn 14 or 18 w/e) and be sure to have the gates open, because otherwise the pope will order a crusade on you during the turn you're sieging it. This will kill the pope. And... crusades can't be called when the papacy is vacant! Now, be sure that your Roman is quite formidable and attack the papal army nearby. If you can obliterate it, every subsequent Pope will spawn in the Rome area without the support of an army (sometimes the Pope's in the trees and so you'll have to search him out). Rinse and repeat. Militarily kill every reincarnation of the Pope (a spear militia and a General will suffice, but more might help) until your pope is elected. The AI won't produce more cardinals this early in the game. When Etienne Tristam becomes Pope you will be reconciled.

Added bonus: if you save and reload after you kill the first Pope, a papal election will occur and you can kill the second Pope.

Second added bonus: if you can manage to destroy the factions of England, Scotland, Milan, Sicily, and sometimes even Denmark before their Cardinals are elected Pope, the cardinal will die, making one less Pope to kill.

Third added bonus: you can kill Froderigus, the Papal Cardinal, before he becomes Pope by surrounding him with military forces and then stepping on him.

In the Specific Case

Now I don't see your map, but from what I hear I suggest the following. With each front, either push or collapse to a certain line. I suggest you push with Scotland because they're isolated, and once you've controlled the Isles, then you can disband the army or ship it to Denmark or Iberia.

With Iberia, either collapse to Pamplona- Zaragosa, or push to the Straight of Gibraltar. I'd like a push, because destroying Portugal would be nice.

I hate Central/Eastern Europe because there are no natural lines to draw. Everthing can attack everything else. If you're not too far East already, I'd collapse to the Antwerp, Metz, Staufen, Innsbruck line, and use the forces to push Italy. With all settlements you choose to abandon, either gift them to your ally, gift them for peace, or abandon for a rebel buffer.

Hopefully this withdrawal will free enough resources to push on your other fronts.

[Barry]

+rep Jiandaren, excellent advice.

[Owain Glyndŵr]

Just a general piece of advice; cut down on your aggression a bit. Pull back even if it costs you a province or two, try to obtain peace, focus on your economy, and pander to the Pope.

[Jianadaren]

Thanks ManOnFire. I appreciate it.

[France]

My main strategy with France, whom i just love to bits, is to start off taking all the rebel regions you can around France, and try allying with everyone around you except England. Once you got your economy up and running, try to persuade England into attacking you. Try leaving a small garrison in Angers or any other settlement near Caen and they will soon attack. Bring back your actual garrison and fight off the invasion. Wait until they are excommunicated to take the fight to them. Take Caen and they will want peace. You can accept it if you don't want a large war this early in the game (remember France's true unit roster comes in later in the campaign). The AI doesn't know how to cross water, so they can't invade inner France anymore. If you want to eliminate England early just drop a few stacks of soldiers on the Bristish Isle and take London, Nottingham, and another city (apparently forgot the name). They shouldn't have taken anything else if you attack early on. Convert Bordeaux to a town if you want, as it has good money making potential, and considering it is pretty high up North of the Spaniards and Portugese, Toulouse can work alone to wall them out. If you're worried about them breaking passed Toulouse, keep it a castle and make Angers a city. You should've been able to take Metz before the HRE could get to it, and if you were lucky, you got Bern. Those two can keep out the HRE as long as you keep producing soldiers. The HRE will attack you either because they just feel like blockading a port or ramdomly attacking an army on an open field, or because you took Metz (in which case they will siege Metz). Again if you don't want to call upon the wrath of the Pope, wait until they are excommunicated. If you plan on taking the Papacy by cruel methods (killing him) later, take the fight to their own soil. And you might as well take as many Catholic factions with you before you control the Pope (They will all be pissed at you anyway for being excommunicated). If you plan on breaching their defence, go for their only two castles first. If you want to economically destroy them, take their capital or a few big cities. Either one would help your empire as well. After you finish off the HRE you should then focus on Spain/Portugal. Try taking them when they're at war and one at a time. I would aim the gun at Portugal first, as they like to cross the sea a lot (once they sailed all the way up North to take Dublin lol) and can get pretty annoying to get rid of. When you are finished with them, Milan should've betrayed you by now, those backstabbing bastards. Take both of their settlements within a few turns if you want to play it cool for the Pope. After Milan is destroyed, focus on taking Italy. While you're at war with Sicily, for some reason they like to attack Ajaccio a lot. Keep trying to keep your reputation with the Pope if you're not planning on taking the Papacy yet. Destroy Sicily and from there stablize your empire. Plan on being friends with Venice, Poland, and Hungary so you can use them as a wall to build up troops for a long war, as your next challenge is the Mongols.