Conquering France as England?

[Akira112]

Can anyone offer any stratergies for conquering France as England, starting in 1399?

[Musthavename]

First off, as a shortterm goal its very difficult to do, don't bother with it immediatly. As England, I always sell off Calais to the French for as much as I can get on Day 1, and then sell the two Aquitaine provinces to Brittany, even if its for nothing. Then I turn my attention to the Scots.

If you do that, and you're in a position of controlling the British mainland (don't worry about Ireland), then is the time to potentially focus on France. If the Burgundians are still alive and are a reasonable force, great, but I wouldn't ally with them. Military access from them is great though. If the Castillians have beaten Aragon, they're a simply amazing ally against France.

Now, use your navies to destroy France's. Don't bother landing any troops unless you're helping Castille. If you have the naval tech, blockade all of the French coast. You'll help damage their coffers and increase their war exhaustion.

Now, the time for landing troops. Take a 10-20k stack of infantry, land somewhere, assault, then immediatly reboard your ships. If you can do it quick enough, land the biggest stack of cavalry there you can transport/supply. Eventually, the French armies will come. If you're winning, defend your ground. If you're losing, quickly leave on your ships. You don't want your army trapped in France. If the French armies arn't coming, bring your infantry back and assault a few more places and you've got your beachead. A similar thing also works if there's a Burgundy/Netherlands you can grab Military Access from. If the French themselves don't have access, it's a safe haven.

Once you've beaten France once and got a prescence back, then beating them again is self explanatory. Ideally, high war exhaustion and low stability (sow discontent) could fracture France and cause a few minors to appear, in which case, France is never going to be a threat again.