French Sea Domination

In my experience with the French Grand Campaign, I believe it is neccersary to build a powerfull fleet to eliminate the threat of British sea power for several reasons:

• Because The British have a much more powerfull fleet, they can land BEF's anywhere on the Atlantic & Mediteranean coastlines. The NW French coast is paricularly a target for the AI, but I have played several games in which British armies have landed in Spain & threatened my southern border via the Pyrenees. This requires the permanent positioning of ar least one army around Caen & one in near the Spanish border. This leaves you with 7-8 armies (if you can afford their upkeep) to protect your conquered territories AND drive on Berlin, Vienna & Moscow; a HUGE area to cover with the forces at your disposal. Those 2-3 armies which you have to hold back to monitor British BEF's invading by sea are badly needed with your eastern offensives. If you can eliminate Nelson's main fleet with your own, the converse is true; YOU can now land armies anywhere on the northern European, Mediteranean & Black Sea coast without fear of being intercepted by the British, whilst at the same time you can redeploy your 2-3 covering armies to the east.

• Your valuable trading points are safe from being rolled up by a marauding British fleet around Gibraltar & the Mediteranean basin (your small starting fleet is no match for Nelson should he venture south). Instead it is YOU who eliminates the enemy's merchant ships & repaces them with your own.

Granted, all this takes an awfully long time to accomplish & the march on Moscow has to be done in a rush, but it maintains the integrity of your French provinces as you push further & further east.

Definitely agreed that Britain needs to fall early in a French campaign. You can't afford to keep an Army of England sitting around the Channel, wasting time and resources on a second front that can come anywhere. Britain should be neutralized first before French armies move too far away into central Europe.

However, for me, taking down Nelson is hard within the first year. Villeneuve is appallingly mediocre, and Nelson has more stars on his command banner than some national flags. Unless you're willing to pull the frigate trick or abuse the AI with a fleet of bomb ketches, naval action against Nelson takes overwhelming firepower and a massive naval construction budget.

For me, it's usually a deliberate strategy to avoid action against Nelson while moving my landing force past him. Paris is a massive production facility that's within 2 turn striking distance from London. Also, Britain has a fine general but not much of a ground force in the first 5 turns. Against the AI, I find it easier to blitz England, as the Channel is usually poorly defended -- Nelson wanders off station occasionally to attack your trade routes. Usually, I can raise a full stack of artillery/cav/militia in Paris by Turn 3 or 4, get 2 sloops from the Channel dockyards, sneak across by Turn 4 or 5, beat Wellington on Turn 6, and sneak in reinforcements on Turn 7. Without London and Scotland, England will usually accept peace terms, and neither Ireland nor Wales produce much -- especially in terms of naval forces.

If I can get across the Channel (just 1 turn of an open crossing is enough), Britain can be neutralized without having to take on its incredibly overpowered admiral. Either way, a campaign against Britain should be done early on; otherwise it becomes more and more aggravating as the campaign goes on.

Originally Posted by valentinian

Definitely agreed that Britain needs to fall early in a French campaign. You can't afford to keep an Army of England sitting around the Channel, wasting time and resources on a second front that can come anywhere. Britain should be neutralized first before French armies move too far away into central Europe.

However, for me, taking down Nelson is hard within the first year. Villeneuve is appallingly mediocre, and Nelson has more stars on his command banner than some national flags. Unless you're willing to pull the frigate trick or abuse the AI with a fleet of bomb ketches, naval action against Nelson takes overwhelming firepower and a massive naval construction budget.

For me, it's usually a deliberate strategy to avoid action against Nelson while moving my landing force past him. Paris is a massive production facility that's within 2 turn striking distance from London. Also, Britain has a fine general but not much of a ground force in the first 5 turns. Against the AI, I find it easier to blitz England, as the Channel is usually poorly defended -- Nelson wanders off station occasionally to attack your trade routes. Usually, I can raise a full stack of artillery/cav/militia in Paris by Turn 3 or 4, get 2 sloops from the Channel dockyards, sneak across by Turn 4 or 5, beat Wellington on Turn 6, and sneak in reinforcements on Turn 7. Without London and Scotland, England will usually accept peace terms, and neither Ireland nor Wales produce much -- especially in terms of naval forces.

If I can get across the Channel (just 1 turn of an open crossing is enough), Britain can be neutralized without having to take on its incredibly overpowered admiral. Either way, a campaign against Britain should be done early on; otherwise it becomes more and more aggravating as the campaign goes on.

I'm not usually in a position to lock horns with Nelson until late c.1809 at the earliest, so I have to keep 'fire brigade' armies in NW France & the Spanish Border until then. I normally play a defensive game until my economic infrastructure is built up, then build up & max out my armies quickly for the Eastern offensives. That way I've plenty of money in reserve & don't have to stall my advance because I've run out of cash to consolidate my newly conquered provinces. Once I gain momentum the drive east goes relatively quickly without too many difficulties.

Your early 'Operation Sealion' gambit is definately intriguing. Such an aggresive strategem has never occured to me. I'll give it a try. Cheers.

One method to defeat the British fleet is to jump them when they are making a landing. Chew them up and then repair your fleet and jump them again while they are still damaged.

Tried invading Britain via the Ireland - Scotland - England route. The Brits still wouldn't negotiate a peace even with me occupying all 3 countries (I also took Gibralter), so I decided to knock over Wales as well & trash every facility in the British Isles - what a great feeling ! I then pulled out my armies & redeployed them to France. The Nelsonian threat had ceased to exist. All this was done by early 1806.

Why when you destroy a major power does it rise again ? I would have thought neutral faction rebels would appear, but no. It didn't matter though, as this gave me plenty of time to build up a fleet & Britain wasn't a threat for the rest of the campaign. I could now concentrate all my armies in the east.

Thanks v. much for the idea, Val !

Just land in Ireland and use your land supremacy to win.