FRANCE

[Jurand of Cracow]

France is a shining example of feudalism in its rawest, and arguably, most delicate form. The French lords eagerly embrace the system that splits the country up into smaller provinces, duchies and fiefdoms, actively building up their forces to ensure their own security and power. About the only thing the French lack at this point is a sense of unity... The Ile de France may be where the monarchy resides, but the royal family rarely leave Paris. This is not because of a great love for the city, but rather because the surrounding lands are under the shadow of bastions owned by "Robber Barons" that serve their own interests. Frankly, the way things are now, the King isn't truly safe to wander a kingdom that is supposedly his. The Normans are clearly serving their own best interests, having recently taken England for themselves, it's hard to believe that they will be content to stop there. Other provinces such as Aquitaine, Burgundy, Brittany and Flanders aren't quite so dangerously ambitious... exercising a little authority over these lands looks like an essential move for the French if they're to have any hope of creating a power base that can stave off the might of the Holy Roman Empire to the east. Even less pressing concerns like Castillian and Aragonese expansion will soon become a royal headache for the monarchy if France does not establish solid fronts to the south.

I. General information

This thread is meant to gather all information about the faction and to conduct discussions on the faction related issues.
The entries should be developed by both the SSHIP team and the interested players.

It continues the discussion conducted in this thread.

[Jurand of Cracow]

II. Strategy & gameplay


To be developed in due course. If you've played the game with this faction and have insights how to help fellow players, please write a proposal for this section.

[Jurand of Cracow]

III. Provinces

The provinces that have historically been assigned to this faction are listed here - it's usually defined by the "faction_creator" in the "descr_strat.txt" file.

PT: Provincial titles - explanations for rule are to be found in the relevant thread on the PTs.
Catholic: .
Orthodox, Muslim: generic "Knyaz of" and "Emir of".
Coats of arms: .
Names of provinces: ...


Roazhon (Bretaigne (Britany))
PT: Duc ...?
CoA: not checked.
Settlement name: Roazhon.
Province name: to be checked.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Angers (Anjou, Angers_Province)
PT name: Conte de Anjou
CoA: not checked.
Settlement name: Angers.
Province name: Anjou.
Resources: xxx.
Fertility: xxx.
Initial buildings: xxx.

Rouen
PT name: Duc de Normandie.
CoA: not checked.
Settlement name: Angers.
Province name: Normandie.
Resources: xxx.
Fertility: xxx.
Initial buildings: xxx.

Poitiers
Province: Poitou, possibly Poictou (to be confirmed)
Title: Conte de Poitiers (Count of Poitiers)
Description:

Bordeaux
Province: Aquitaine (became Guyenne from 1229 AD)
Title: Duc de Aquitaine (Duke of Aquitaine) or Duc de Guyenne (Duke of Guyenne) if that option is choosen.
Description:

6. Toulouse
Province: Languedoc (used from 1209 AD, before just called County of Toulouse)
Title: Conte de Toulouse (Count of Toulouse)
Description:

7. Clermont
Province: Auvergne
Title: Conte de Auvergne (Count of Auvergne)
Description:

8. Arles
Province: Provence Ocidental (Western Provence - not accurate but best guess for the game)
Title: Conte de Arles (Count of Arles)
Description:

9. Nizza (Italian name)
French name: Nice
Province: Provence Orïental (Eastern Provence - not accurate but best guess for the game)
Title: Conte de Nice (Count of Nice)
Description:
Note: Originally an Italian Republic based on Genoese model.

10. Lyon
Province: Albon Viennois (Viennese Albon)
Title: Dauphin de Viennois (Viennese Dauphin, same as Count of Albon-Viennois)
Description:

11.Orleans
Province: Orleanais (subject to change)
Title: Conte de Orleans (Count of Orleans)
Description:
Note: Can't find a real province name. Used to be considered as the French capital before Louis VI the Fat. Title of Count used until the end of the 10th century. Title of Duke used from 1344 AD (created by the French King to give it to his youngest son). Nothing found between both.

12. Troyes
Province: Hault/Hausse Champaigne (High Champagne - still need to find the right translation for "High" in old French)
Title: Conte de Champaigne (Count of Champagne)
Description:

13. Reims
Province: Basse Champaigne (Low Champagne)
Title: Conte de Roucy (Count of Roucy)
Description:
Note: the right title for Reims was Archbishop. Roucy was a county very near to Reims.

14. Dijon
Province: Bourgoigne (Burgundy)
Title: Duc de Bourgoigne (Duke of Burgundy)
Description:
Note: do not confuse with the Kingdom of Burgundy which was under HRE rule.

15. Paris
Province: Isle de France (not accurate but best guess for the game)
Title: Conte de Paris (Count of Paris - real title but under Carolingian dynasty - best guess for the game anyway)
Description:

Have a look at the Medieval Paris here.

Gand
Province: Flandres (Flanders)
Title: Conte de Flandres (Count of Flanders)
Description:

A very nice clip on Brugges is to be found here.

[Jurand of Cracow]

IV. Faction specific features (Crown, Offices, Bloodline, Traits, Buildings)

The Crown of France is discussed in this entry. The map is below.

The Offices are described in this thread.

France has access to some buildings that may be not available to every faction: Castle Library, University (highest level), Tourney Fields.
(note: this might be important for getting certain traits).

In particular, there are two unique buildings that are available in France:
Notre Dame

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Mont Saint Michel

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Also Hanseatic Kontor is available in Ghent:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

There are also unique buildings in vicinity of France: in Zaragoza, Santiago di Compostela, Speyer.

There's an excellent webpage on the Gothic architecture in France at Columbia University.

Royal_Blood_French: should work, not verified.

Specific traits: don't know.

[Jurand of Cracow]

V. Starting position in 1132 (incl. settlements, armies, generals, traits, political situation)

to be developed in due course

[Jurand of Cracow]

VI. Units

France has access to number of units and even in the cities at some point there might be many units available (well, ok, only in Paris, in the other cites perhaps a half of it) :

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Breton Cavalry and Longbow are deadly weapons. Breton cavalry unit can destroy half a Knight unit with their throwing spears and rout them quickly.

[Jurand of Cracow]

VIII. Reserve

to be used if needed

[Thorbjorn Jagelund]

I have taken issue with yet another rather insignificant but still historically inaccurate aspect in the game: One of the starting FM, Philip Capet. This previously rebelled lord is the brother of the king from a different mother. All I could find about Philip is that he was the count of Mantes, and during Louis’ struggle for influence against the feudal lords, including his half brother Philip, enables by the decentralised state of the kingdom.
In the spring of 1109, Louis besieged Mantes and subsequently subdued Phillip, who is at this point just a brigand lord. Last record of Philip being alive is 1123, after which he fades into obscurity.
This brigand lord starts the game as the faction heir because nobody else is available. What I suggest is increasing the age of Louis’ firstborn child by 2 years and make him come of age at the start of the game. He would be the faction heir, instead of Philip. Philip may be kept, to keep the available “French blood” royalty, or discarded entirely and replaced by a more loyal and more importantly, significant general.

[Lifthrasir]

During the capetian dynasty in middle ages, it was customary to have the heir name Philippe if his father's name was Louis and Louis if his father's name was Philippe.
If there were brothers, the 1st born name was as said above and the 2nd one had his father's name. However, this was mainly the principle and even if respected most of the time, there are some exceptions. Not to mention the 1st born who died before to get the throne

Anyway, regarding this particular "issue", there are several factions with the king's child too young to be considerd as heir by the game. Hence these weird situations. In the present case here, I'm fine with your suggestion.

[Thorbjorn Jagelund]

What you’re referring to is Philip of France, I assume, who was indeed the firstborn of Louis VI. I mistakenly referred to Louis VII as firstborn in my previous comment I think my point still holds. At the start of the game, the king Louis has a brother called Philip who I think shouldn’t be included because of the reasons I mentioned above. My suggestion was bumping up the oldest living child of the king Louis, who was also called Louis, soon to be called Louis VII The Younger, to 14 years of age. This would make the child Louis to be the heir instead of his rebellious uncle, which makes more sense imo.

[Lifthrasir]

Oh yes, fully agree with you.

Actually and just for a bit of history, Philippe, 1st son of Louis VI, died in 1131 from a ridding accident caused by a pig. The pig was considered as the lowest of the lowest in the animals hierarchy in Middle Ages. So, his death was considered as disgraceful, resulting from the sins of his ascendants. To erase that, the abbot Suger made a kind of propaganda resulting with the creation and use of the 3 "fleurs de lys" as royal symbol.
Btw, did you know that cemeteries got fences more or less at that period to avoid the pigs (who were totally free) to go there, to dig out the deaths to eat them.

[Jurand of Cracow]

I think it would be very good if somebody could make a comprehensive review and gather a proposal for changes in the French family tree.

the current situation is as follows:

character	Louis Capet, named character, male, leader, age 51, x 94, y 198 traits Factionleader 3 , LogisticalSkill 1 , Royal_Blood_French 1, GovernorInclination 1 , Intelligent 7 , GoodAdministrator 1 , Western_Edu 2 , GoodCommander 2 , HaveChilds 1 , BattleChivalry 1 , Hardened 1 , ReligionStarter 1 , GoodTrader 1 , Slothful 4 , FearsEngland 2 


character	Philippe Capet, named character, male, heir, age 39, x 105, y 201 
traits Factionleader 2 , LogisticalSkill 2 , GoodEngineer 1 , NaturalMilitarySkill 1 , MilitaryInclination 1 , LoyaltyStarter 1 , ExRebel 1 , ReligionStarter 1 , Royal_Blood_French 1 , GoodCommander 1 , HatesEngland 1 , Coward 1 , Stoic 1 


character	Guillaume de_Nevers, named character, male, age 51, x 91, y 190 
traits LoyaltyStarter 1 , NaturalMilitarySkill 1 , MilitaryInclination 1 , GoodCommander 1 , CrusaderHistory 1 , ReligiousActivity 1 , Loyal 1 , StrategyChivalry 1 , ReligionStarter 1 


character	Raoul de_Valois, named character, male, age 47, x 97, y 202 
traits LoyaltyStarter 1 , NaturalMilitarySkill 1 , MilitaryInclination 1 , GoodCommander 1 , Loyal 1 , Energetic 1 , BattleDread 1 , Hardened 1 , ReligionStarter 1 


character	Thibaut de_Blois, named character, male, age 39, x 105, y 192 
traits NaturalMilitarySkill 2 , GoodCommander 2 , MilitaryInclination 1 , ReligionStarter 1 , Disloyal 4 , Brave 2 , HighPersonalSecurity 1 , Disobedient 1 


character_record		Philip Capet, 	male, age 90, dead 24, never_a_leader
character_record		Fleury, 	male, age 37, dead 13, never_a_leader
character_record		Bertrada de_Montfort, 	female, age 85, dead 15, never_a_leader
character_record		Constance Capet, 	female, age 70, dead 7, never_a_leader
character_record		Adele de_Savoie, 	female, age 40, alive, never_a_leader
character_record		Louis, 	male, age 12, alive, never_a_leader
character_record		Robert, 	male, age 7, alive, never_a_leader
character_record		Pierre, 	male, age 6, alive, never_a_leader
character_record		Constance, 	female, age 4, alive, never_a_leader
character_record		Mathilde, 	female, age 26, alive, never_a_leader
character_record		Henri de_Champagne, 	male, age 5, alive, never_a_leader
character_record		Thibaut, 	male, age 2, alive, never_a_leader


relative 	Philip Capet,	Bertrada de_Montfort,	Constance Capet,	Louis Capet,	Philippe Capet,	Fleury,	end
relative 	Louis Capet,	Adele de_Savoie,	Louis,	Robert,	Pierre,	Constance,	end
relative 	Thibaut de_Blois,	Mathilde,	Henri de_Champagne,	Thibaut,	end

[Thorbjorn Jagelund]

Here are a few suggestions about the French characers:

1) Raoul de Valois -if he is Raoul the Valiant as I suspected- should be renamed as Raoul de Vermandois, as he was the count of both and more, but known as the count of Vermandois. He also should be considered a family member, since he is the son of Hugh de Vermandois, and he is the cousin of the current king, Louis. If this character is who I think he is, he should also get a bravery trait, because he was known as Raoul the Valiant.

2) House of Blois should be removed from the family member status because they aren't related to the Capetians. The closest relation I could find was Thibaut de Blois' niece was married to Raoul of Vermandois, couis of the king- until their divorce and subsequent war between the Houses of Blois and Capet. At this point in the game, they are family members but they don't show up in the family member tree because they are NOT. They still use up space and because Thibaut has his own children, the royal House of Capet gets less children. This is caused by the game engine as explained in the game. They just leech off space and all of their offspring have the trait "father was treacherous" which drastically inreases the unrest in any settlement they govern, because Thibaut just can't be satisfied with the County of Troyes and wait to die.
This brings me to another point about the rebellious House of Blois. I don't understand why they are part of the French Kingdom. Thibaut de Blois should be a rebel general with a moderate garrison in Troyes. It is both more historical and practical, as he rebels against both Louis VI (current king) and Louis VII. He is always conspiring when he isn't downright hostile, and he supports his broher Stephan de Blois(soon to be King of England in the game) when France goes to war against England.
I could talk on and on about the rebellious, decieving rascals that is House of Blois, who tries to gain power in every opportunity not just in France but in Englad too, like the slithering snakes they are.
Ok, enough about de Blois.

3) Actually, no. I have one more argument about the character I most hate in this game. Even if you let Troyes rebel, because Thibaut is building his own empire there, he dies if the city revolts because he has -200 movement points and therefore can't even get kicked out of the settlement. The guy can't even get what he wants... He doesn't pose a threat to anyone because you can just lower the taxes and keep a few milita in there to keep him at bay, or just remove him completely from the settlement and wait for him to rebel alone, only to crush his skull housing his little plotting brain. He makes no sense from RPG point of view because he can't even rebel and take the city for himself, and no sense from normal gameplay POV because it is so easy to deal with him. It is just a really bothering waste of time, waiting him to die while rejecting every single marriage offer to his sons.

4) I don't know why Louis the Fat fears the English, as he went into conflict with them and not just sit in Paris like a coward. The most possible reason is the Battle of Bremule, which French disastrously lost, and the king himself lost his horse and banner to the enemy, escaping only with his life. This event didn't stop the French king from taking to the field however, so I don't think he was "afraid". Maybe I have missed something. Also Louis may start the game with a "grief stricken" trait, since he lost his firstborn Philip of France at the age of 15, and this event apparently devastated him.

5) Fleury Capet was married to Alice de Nanges and had a daughter named Elisabeth de Nanges before he died, so maybe a princess of royal blood could be added if found necessary.

6)As I've mentioned in my posts above, Philipe Capet shouldn't be the heir, since Louis would never make him one. Increasing the age of Louis' son Philipe by a couple of years and making him an actual character instead of a child, this problem can be fixed.

7) During the struggle between England and France to put an ally count on the seat of Flanders, Guillame de Nevers -our friendly, old, crusader, noble general- convinced Louis to back a guy against the English candidate. That is how the conflisct began. Because of this action, Guillame was imprisoned by certain somebody, can you guess who it was? Yes it is Thibaut obviously.

I have failed to find any good replacements for the characters I suggested to remove. Any advice would be aprreciated.

I've forgoten to cite my sources. Main source I used was the p. 637-659 of Cambridge Medieval History Volume V. I also used some less dependable sources like Wikipedia, etc.
If a mod can merge this post to the other, that'd be great.

[Lifthrasir]

Give me until this week-end. I have a book about the Capetians. I might find some good info

[Jurand of Cracow]

Describe as well their character - I can add the relevant traits for these guys.

Besides, it would be very good if somebody would code this family in the descr_strat. In our team it was VineFynn who made some order for 096, but he's gone for a while.

[Thorbjorn Jagelund]

Oh yes, fully agree with you.

Actually and just for a bit of history, Philippe, 1st son of Louis VI, died in 1131 from a ridding accident caused by a pig. The pig was considered as the lowest of the lowest in the animals hierarchy in Middle Ages. So, his death was considered as disgraceful, resulting from the sins of his ascendants. To erase that, the abbot Suger made a kind of propaganda resulting with the creation and use of the 3 "fleurs de lys" as royal symbol.
Btw, did you know that cemeteries got fences more or less at that period to avoid the pigs (who were totally free) to go there, to dig out the deaths to eat them.

Blinded by the passion and enthusiasm of composing a rant about my arch nemesis Thibaut de Blois, I have completely missed this comment. That is a really interesting story about the fleur de lys which I did not know, definitely gonna check it out.

[Lifthrasir]

That's not recognized by all historians. But if you can find it in English, read the book named "The Blue and the Pink" from Michel Pastoureau. That's a very interesting book about that event and its (possible?) consequences

[Tripledot]

Scots Guard had their own distinctive livery, wearing green, red, and white, with a plume on their helmets.

[kingman1337]

Jukoman made an excellent model for these units. Its actually one of my personal favorites.

[kostic]

When did this livery appear ? This table is probably dated from the 16th century and should only concern the units which arrive later in the game.