How to deal with the French?

[HansDuet]

Okay I only recently discovered how awesome this game is, so I'm new. Its challenging and quite fun.

But frustrating. I blame the French.



I'm Spain and peacefully minding my own business killing natives in Americas when the French declared war. Yea they are a monster but they were even more powerful than I suspected. We have same land tech and I have like 80% quality. But I cant match their manpower. War ended quickly when French went "kekeke" trashed my armies and Zerg-Rushed almost whole Catalonia. I quickly offered them Barcelona and Roussillon and they took it.

But what now? What to do? I got no hope matching their manpower, I got $$$ and largest navy there is (maybe a mistake) But nobody is going to ally me in fear of the French.

I am sending them flowers and chocolate boxes but it would be nice to beat them... or weaken them somehow instead of being a .


Any good advices?

[Ishoss]

Austria? How does the rest of Italy and Germany/Low Countries look?

Try to get some allies on their border. Austria looks big and nice in your save.

[Kanaric]

the french in the newest version of the game are rather pussified.

Make friends with them as best you can and try to enter in a royal marriage or ally with them. They are too powerful at this point it looks like. The only thing you can really do is expand into africa or into colonies.

A good way to stop them from DOWing you is to have a larger army than them. Look in the ledger to see how large their force is and surpass it if possible.

[Ishoss]

the french in the newest version of the game are rather pussified.

Make friends with them as best you can and try to enter in a royal marriage or ally with them. They are too powerful at this point it looks like. The only thing you can really do is expand into africa or into colonies.

A good way to stop them from DOWing you is to have a larger army than them. Look in the ledger to see how large their force is and surpass it if possible.

No-no-no, you have to kill them! Hope is not lost! They can be killed just like any other mortal man! Or horde...

If the AI is stupid (like the AI is) you could for example build huge fortifications in provinces close to the border. (say 3 provinces away from the border) When the French attack you next time, all you have to do is scorch the earth of these provinces and they will stand around trying to win the sieges, while they slowly die of attrition.

[Tankfriend]

Yes, a war of attrition is about the best possible solution against a powerful France. They just have too many troops (and lots of military bonus) to outright beat them in the initial phases of a war. Whittle them down through attrition and try some guerilla warfare where applicable. If possible, also try to gain naval supremacy against them. Defeat their fleets, blockade their ports and, when everything is safe so far, ferry in some small armies into their main territory and siege, plunder and harass them there as well (preferably have some small cavalry troops as scouting forces around so you know when to retreat). It's all about building and keeping pressure on them so they have no chance to take a breath.
If you want to step it up further and fight even dirtier, send some spies to incite revolts, bribe their military away etc.. France tends to be extremely well protected against this but all those measures are well worth the effort. Especially "incite revolts" can easily defeat the most powerful of nations in a matter of months if things go well.

[Musthavename]

Defencive scorched earth wars are key.

That, or get HTTT. France got the nerf stick there, whereas Burgundy got buffed.

[Hopit]

and the game is?

[HansDuet]

EU3 IN.

Thanks for the tips, finally managed to get allies (Austria and Sweden) so French threat is much smaller. The bad thing about alliance with Austria is that they drag me to every little war they have at the balkans, causing my stability go upside down. I already beat the living hell out of Turkey and Byzantine and Austrians just collect all the goods. Ah well.

[Mightypeon]

IN? Well, I usually tend to play as someone a bit weaker (like, Bavaria or, Brandenburg or the Hansa or Cleves), but what works for them should also work for Spain.

-First: They cannot supply their Doomstacks indefinitly. When one of their Doomstacks (lets say 40K) is just Sieging (instead of assaulting), it will (assuming attrition of 5 %) loose around 2000 Man per month. Of course, you will not immidiatly see it due to France having the manpower to replace this, but if you scorch the earth first the Attrition can get up to 15%, which would means a staggering 6K losses.
-Do not Fight their Doomstacks, but threaten them with multiple "medium" stacks. 10-12 K is a good number. Have multiple such stacks that support each by virtue of beeing in adjactent provinces. This means the French get the following options: Either they assault the border province. This gives your medium stacks the ability to interfere and attack while the assault is in progress (this will often mean that only their Cavarly fights), if you medium stacks are big enough they will not do so. Alternativly they could attack your medium stack. If they do this, have your medium stack initiate a retreat, and send reeinforcements to either were it will retreat too (if it gets away in time) or to the point it is at the moment (if you feel that terrain boni etc. can be enough to hold the province.
Ideally, you retreat, get away, and that Doomstack is in your province, seperated from the rest of France. If a stack is seperated from any owned or occupied territory, it will receive nearly no reeinforcments. Wait for attrition to work, and strike then.
To further annoy France, put up a total Blockade. To get this without problems: Find out the location of their mainfleet, park your mainfleet in front, Blockade that port with lets say 50% of what the French have and retreat your mainfleet to a sector the French cannot see. The main fleet will sally out, your fleet will come in in time, and the French Navy should be at the bottom at the ocean. Sinking a large fleet can generate a lot of war exhastion, which is important since other states view war exhations as a benchmark for when to backstab.


A last strategem is the following: Create a transport fleet of Fort Size X10 Cogs, and fill it up with Infantry. If the French Siege and Take a coastal town, they will often pursue before the garrison refills. Land this transport fleet, assault the castle and get the out. THe act of assault the caste will often mean destroyed supply lines. Often a Main Stack will attempt to retate the territory, often wasting much morale with an assault.
If you didnt scorched the earth their, do so now (before retreating).

[Frederich Barbarossa]

Hmm I did a late campaign with Austria, 1700 and I literally trashed the French, really really dirty. You just need really good generals and a descent army. With this youll beat them...


In early stages of the game its sort of a problem because the largest French armies can encompass already 30,000 soldiers! But if you sacrifice a bit and try to conquer unnoticed you can reach 30k and get the military tradition +1% per year idea which will help you a lot.


I did a comparation of two campaigns, both with England. 1st was against France. I tried to withstand them at Aquatine, failed, countered, failed. It was full of phail.

Next one I did with military tradition idea, and I got around 30%. Enough for 1 good general. I managed to get invaded by Poland in my German Mecklenberg provinces, they had 12k I had around 10k I beat them. French attempted at 7k, I beat them and they continued and were repelled. Basically I kicked them in the butt using other countries as shields.

[removeduser_487563287433]

At this point in your game I would just avoid war with France. If you absolutely need to fight them then the answer is to concerntrate your forces as much as possible in your mountainous borders and do not attack by land. Use your fleet to fully blockade them, and land small armies to destroy their issolated forces from the sea.

Eventually their war exhaustion and then their war capacity will shoot up, resulting in rebellions. This is France's great weakness - its chock full of nationalist states. Once these start succeeding, your laughing.

This is the tactic I used to completely destroy France - as Ireland - recently. Check out the post your Empire thread.

[Town Watch]

yea definitely annihilate the French navy and blockade all their coastal provinces, try to get some allies and in the best case scenario HRE into war with them. Spies that fund patriots or nationalists is also a good way to distract France. Scorched earth definitely works on land, I used the strategy described by Mightypeon quite succesfully when playing England, French siege and assault a scorched province, their strength and morale gets drained then you can usually attack them and incur high losses, especially if you got a good general.

[Poach]

Race them.

Build 1 or 2 dedicated "siege stacks" comprised of 8-10k artillery and 20-30k infantry. When they DoW you and move in, sneak your siege stacks past their line and go wild. By using a combination of delay tactics (scorched earth, high level forts, etc) you can capture more of their land than they can capture yours, allowing you to peace out with no losses or even minor gains if you act fast enough. Another trick with doomstacks is to have a smaller stack, say 2k art 8k inf, with the best maneuver general you can get, to follow the enemy stack. Once they siege and capture a province they'll move onto the next, at which point you swoop in and retake your province as the fort will only have 2-500 defenders. If the doomstack turns on you, your general should be fast enough to get out of dodge. It does require good micro skills though.

These strategies are manpower intensive, you need to act fast and win fast. They're not designed to be used if your game plan is a war of attrition.