Damnnable Frenchies!

[RabidSheepLegion]

Playing as English and France has attempted to take over Caen from me at least like 20ish times now, and I have broken each siege. Then they keep asking for peace, fine for a few turns, then they try again.... I keep beating them really bad... Getting a bit annoying having to stream endless reinforcements there while they bring endless frenchies! Tempted to just create_unit and wipe them off the planet lol... I would try to improve relations but I don't trust that they will ever be "peaceful" with me... help? They've devastated rennes and caen like crazy and it's hurting my funds

[newt]

Take Angers and maybe Paris if it's not garrisoned. That will take care of their best money maker and the nearest castle. They will never have good good relations with you. They are programed to hate you, so anything you do besides war will be for nothing. England has 4 natural enemies out of the Catholic factions- France, Denmark, Norway and Scotland. Don't trust any of these!

[HbHadast]

They will never have good good relations with you. They are programed to hate you, so anything you do besides war will be for nothing. England has 4 natural enemies out of the Catholic factions- France, Denmark, Norway and Scotland. Don't trust any of these!

Anyway to change this in the script? I don't like the idea of programmed relations no matter what you do.

[newt]

Anyway to change this in the script? I don't like the idea of programmed relations no matter what you do.

Open descr_faction_standing.txt and search for "## FACTION RELATIONS ##"

Either delete the whole section, or just ; out the ones you don't want. Like this:

Trigger England
WhenToTest FactionTurnStart

Condition FactionType england

FactionStanding factions { egypt, moors } normalise -1 60
;FactionStanding factions { scotland, france } normalise -1 80
;FactionStanding factions { norway } normalise -1 120

The first number is what matters. Negative is bad relations, positive is good. Deleting the whole section will have unpredictable results on your campaign. I suggest keeping relations for opposing religions.

Then you have starting relations, found in descr_strat.txt. It's at the bottom of the file.

[rockman4417]

France is giving me problems as well in my campaign. The Pope has been increasingly problematic in my conquest of the Scottish so I've been trying to stay at peace with the French so I can focus on that. Meanwhile I unfortunately lost the male side of my bloodline and sent my princess to marry a Capet.

Soon after the wedding the French ambush the poor bastard. He was the French king's own brother! Or cousin or some such. It's hard to tell because the Capet family breeds like rabbits. I couldn't help but notice the French king is titled 'The Greedy'. Maybe he was jealous of his brother's claim to the English throne.

I send the tiniest little raid against them and the Pope gets pissed. But I've got their king under siege at Angers now with a catapult so if I can win that battle before the turn ends... what? Another Capet takes the throne and I'm back where I started.

[Tears of Destiny]

Give the frenchies a thousand gold every turn, it works for me, and give it as a "Gift" option.

[charlesonmission]

I had a similar problem with the Moors as I was Portugal. In the end Aragon, Leon and I all took on the Moors in Spain. We've taken all the cities, and now there are only a couple armies left. Perhaps you can try and alliance and fight the French if you can't do it on your own.

[RabidSheepLegion]

I took out scotland within the first ten turns which pissed off the pope but i built all churches and priests and am now outstanding/perfect with him. I'll have to build a third full stack and take out those two places in France to weaken them, but everytime I attack someone the Pope says don't you dare. I toggled fow and noticed spain and portugual only have one province each, on coast so I could just send a stack or two there and take out two enemies of my own, but then I would have to deal with the Moors whom almost have all of spain except pamplona, zaragoza and barcelona.

EDIT : Although I have noticed, if I am besieging a settlement, and he tells me to stop when I am besieging and attaack while besieging, it doesn't excommunicate me lol Maybe I'll besige those two places at once and then take them out

[Ichon]

The war with France would be the only exciting part of playing England to me. France should try to recapture Caen, it owes its vassalage to the King of France not an English King who was formerly a Duke and vassal of the French King.

I would probably invade Antwerp etc and build them a bit then gift them to France so we could recreate some of the epic battles of the 100 years war settling the dispute for the French Crown between the Plantagenets and the Valois.

Make war with Norway and the Moors or send a Crusade to the holy land in the meantime. You can even get involved in Castile or Portugal as historically Edward the Black Prince invaded to support a deposed Castilian King and won some victories but then left when the restored king backed out of his promises to reward the English help. His rival for the throne subsequently allied with France and combined they recaptured Castile and thereafter Castile was allied with Valois in their wars against the Plantagenets. This time you can do better and gain Castile as an English ally...

The constant sieges on Caen are annoying but easily defended with a full stack and it is a great opportunity to train up your generals. The devastation does hurt income but if you have united the British isles income shouldn't be much of a problem.

[RabidSheepLegion]

The war with France would be the only exciting part of playing England to me. France should try to recapture Caen, it owes its vassalage to the King of France not an English King who was formerly a Duke and vassal of the French King.

I would probably invade Antwerp etc and build them a bit then gift them to France so we could recreate some of the epic battles of the 100 years war settling the dispute for the French Crown between the Plantagenets and the Valois.

Make war with Norway and the Moors or send a Crusade to the holy land in the meantime. You can even get involved in Castile or Portugal as historically Edward the Black Prince invaded to support a deposed Castilian King and won some victories but then left when the restored king backed out of his promises to reward the English help. His rival for the throne subsequently allied with France and combined they recaptured Castile and thereafter Castile was allied with Valois in their wars against the Plantagenets. This time you can do better and gain Castile as an English ally...

The constant sieges on Caen are annoying but easily defended with a full stack and it is a great opportunity to train up your generals. The devastation does hurt income but if you have united the British isles income shouldn't be much of a problem.

Kinda hard as I am currently at war with

Spain
Portugal
France
Norway
Denmark

Any naval expedetion gets destroyed by longboats or hispanic ships I don't want to do move_character thing, makes game go by too quickly

[YourOnlineHero]

Playing as English and France has attempted to take over Caen from me at least like 20ish times now, and I have broken each siege. Then they keep asking for peace, fine for a few turns, then they try again.... I keep beating them really bad... Getting a bit annoying having to stream endless reinforcements there while they bring endless frenchies! Tempted to just create_unit and wipe them off the planet lol... I would try to improve relations but I don't trust that they will ever be "peaceful" with me... help? They've devastated rennes and caen like crazy and it's hurting my funds

Don't accept peace negotions. Sucessfully defend against them a few times in a row without attacking them back or going in their land. They will be excommed. Then it's a simple case of sacking settlements untill the pope forgive them. And if you still have that outstanding relations with his holiness from before, call a crusade on them to make sure a few other factions go to war on those frenchies too.

[Alavaria]

Don't accept peace negotions. Sucessfully defend against them a few times in a row without attacking them back or going in their land. They will be excommed. Then it's a simple case of sacking settlements untill the pope forgive them.

This works pretty well. One thing tho, if you see their faction leader, try to leave him alone (unless he's in their last settlement of course), as killing the guy will pretty much always make the pope reconcile them.

And once they're reconciled, the pope will of course drop an annoying "ceasefire or excommunicated" mission, just to annoy you. In particular, if you're crusading against them, the crusade ends. And if you were crusading through them, even worse, as the crusaders won't attack a non-excommunicated catholic faction.

[Ichon]

Kinda hard as I am currently at war with

Spain
Portugal
France
Norway
Denmark

Any naval expedition gets destroyed by longboats or hispanic ships I don't want to do move_character thing, makes game go by too quickly

Hmm... you should have plenty of money as England even before you unite the islands. It is one of the few factions that has positive income in the first few turns without doing anything. If you build roads, farms, mines, and markets even without trade you should be fine. Merchants on amber, silver, glass, and gold.

Even with all those wars you only need a few strong garrisons. Caen, Inverness, Cork, a bit on the north east coast in case Norway comes. That means 5 or 6 cities can have minimal garrison and they will still be having decent income though. Caen at full stack is obviously the most expensive to garrison but you should have Holk available soon and build 5-6 of those to clear out enemy navies should be considered part of your defensive armies. Once enemy ships are gone you can reduce northern garrisons more but keep reserve army and 1 ship somewhere along middle of north east coast in case some enemy slip by.

Really the English is pretty much the easiest faction so not much more advice to give.

[newt]

When he first gives you the mission to stop attacking, note what he says - excommunication or lose standing. This is important because when you attack it will say "you will be excommunicated" every time no matter what he said to begin with. But he will in reality only excommunicate you if that is what he said originally.

[chris7ian]

Why not ally with zee Germans and have them occupy the French's attention?

[Bucle_CT]

If you have united all your island you should be able to build up two o three full stacks in a few turns....then, invade, and I mean INVADE France, you want them off this world.

Begin attacking their least garrisoned towns (use your spies) cutting them off their income little by little, group up your armies and try to defeat their main armies separatedly in the field....also an alliance with the HRE could help, specially if you give them some coins to attack the frenchies.

PS: and pray the vikings don't try to rush your island meanwhile XD

[MonkeyChief]

The French and Scots allied together and then attacked me (England) surprisingly well. What I wasn't expecting was Leon to invade by ships - they are now beseiging Exeter! I am now trying to rush reinforcements back form France to deal with the Spanish.

Overall, a bloody fun campaign!

[Silhouette]

Anyone remember SS5.1 where the HRE dominated Paris by the 6th turn like every campaign? Now the French are bloody juggernauts

[MonkeyChief]

The French are indeed tough, and can be a real pain for the English early game. As i said above, a Franco-Scot alliance can really slow you down, while the pope continuously threatens you with excommunication for fighting back.

[Birk]

I've been playing England several times never had any problems with the French people. I always building up an heir in Caen so they won't attack me.