Advice for New Player - Beating a strong France as England

**Sleep1804** · July 21, 2011, 04:24 PM

Hey everyone!

I'm new to EU3 - I just started a game yesterday as England, starting in 1399 on Easy difficulty. I'm using the EU3 Complete version of the game (with the Napoleon and In Nomine expansions).

The year is 1425. Here's the situation: I have England and Scotland under my control with two provinces in Ireland. I'm allied with the two southernmost states in Ireland. The light blue one (Munster) is my vassal, and soon I'm hoping to be able to force them to annex.

I've been at war with France twice. I sold Calais to them before the wars and just gave up on my other provinces on the continent, instead focusing on Ireland. When France attacked me on the continent, Scotland joined in and I took them over. The problem is that France has been fielding huge amounts of troops, especially cavalry (like 25 regiments of cav). I sent over two armies of 14 regiments each (with an even mix of Halberd Infantry and Latin Knights). This was before I knew about France's giant armies. That was easily overwhelmed.

I built up a similarly sized force and attacked Normandy again, but that failed. I couldn't really afford to build a larger army.

France is getting more powerful and is expanding to the east:

We're at peace now. I originally controlled that green province in Ireland, but the French had me free it in return for peace (they're now allies with France, and I'm having trouble making them a vassal so that I can peacefully take back the province).

I have plenty of ships in the channel to prevent a naval invasion. But my question is, how should I go about becoming strong enough to take over France? That's one of my main goals for the campaign.

I was worried about France's expansion, so I invaded Norway's territories to try and gain a bit more cash (maybe I'm too used to Total War

). I have occupied the small island north of the British Isles and all of Iceland. Norway is a vassal of Denmark, and they refused to handover those territories in return for peace, so I launched an invasion of Norway itself. Norway doesn't have much left that is unsieged, and Denmark has been busy with its own wars.

Is this land invasion a mistake? Should I focus on forming colonies? (I don't have the New World idea yet).

**Poach** · July 21, 2011, 05:27 PM

Welcome to the forums.

Norway is an ok move, it's not avery rich land. If you can, restrict yourself to taking only the richer provinces, you don't need a poor colony that needs garrisoned.

As for France, here's a few handy guides: http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Fighting_France and http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Ho..._defeat_France

That whole wiki is full of strategy guides, country guides, tables, stats etc. I'd recommend the whole site to you.

Good luck! Bringing down France for the first time always makes you feel great.

Also, I'll throw in the obligatory suggestion of getting the two newer expansion packs. Both are absolute game-changers, and as someone who played each of IN, HttT and DW in detail, I can tell you each of the new expansion packs brought the game along leaps and bounds. I'd never go back to IN or even to HttT these days.

**Sleep1804** · July 21, 2011, 05:46 PM

Thanks for the help! I really appreciate it! I'll be sure to get the other expansion packs.

**Lord Romanus III** · July 21, 2011, 11:36 PM

I'll second what Poach said. I stuck to HTT long after DW came about, but when I finally switched, it was truly a game changer. It made the game much more fun and slightly removed the snowball effect of the major nations.

**Musthavename** · July 22, 2011, 04:57 PM

First thing to note. In HTTT France got extremely nerfed. In IN France is an absolute behemoth who will almost certainly outnumber you at every turn. The way to beat France in IN is to realise you can beat them without actually occupying them.

Now, you need to pick a prime moment to do this. A great moment would be if France is already involved in a large war. This'll help your chances immensly. Then declare war. Grab your Navy, find the french Navy, and sink them (obviously, make sure you actually have a better Navy than the French at all times). Then, blockade the entire french coastline by sticking your ships in naval zones bordering their ports (you need Naval 9 or so to actually do this, can't remember the exact figure). This will cause a lot of problems. It'll rack up War Exhaustion steadily, prevent them doing anything naval related, and reduce the income of their coastal provinces.

Now, the French will likely outnumber you in straight fights. That's fine! Get reasonably large armies (10-15k) and now go in and attack French coastal towns. Assault them if possible. Once you've occupied it or French armies come, get back on your ships and leave. You're attempting to wittle down their numbers and rack up war exhaustion. If you have access to spies, even better. Go to their capital (Ile-de-France) and select a Spy Mission. Aim for "Sow Discontent". This will reduce their stability by 1 if successful. Keep doing this, but don't waste money if you can't get them to at least negative stability.

Hopefully the French will be high on war exhaustion and low on stability by this point. This is when the AI often smells blood and will dogpile on the French, further increasing their problems. Rebels will run amock. Now what you have are huge distractions to every single French army going. This is the time to land and stake your claims. Go in and occupy provinces you want (plus more to increase your warscore, though the AI is very eager to peace if it's at negative stability/high WE/low manpower). If you see small French armies, kill them; if you see large ones, run and leave them be and let attrition do some work for you. Even better, watch the rebels and help them free separatist nations. You can totally waste France in one war this way. It might be an incredibly long war, but they will be destroyed (especially as the IN AI is very poor at dealing with war exhaustion / attrition).

Until then, ignore your Norway idea. More land doesn't nescessarily equal more power in this game. You want more rich-land! As England, the New World and Naval assets are your calling; go for them! A common mistake among Total War players is to treat this like Total War. Don't feel the need to mass land grab. Restrain yourself and concentrate on improving your station everywhere. Don't expect to conquer the world. Bare these in mind and you'll pick up the game in no time.

**Knight_of_Ni** · July 22, 2011, 05:17 PM

I would also add that you should try to ally with large neighboring nations that border France ie; Aragon, Burgundy, Castille, current leader of HRE, etc.