France strategy
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[edit] Introduction
When the game starts France is the most powerful country in Europe. It has numerous armies and is just winning the Hundreds Years War. Generals are very talented and cash flow is stable and one of the highest in the known world. It is really difficult to fail with France. The plan to dominate the world is simple and consists of two steps. First you consolidate all France under your rule, then you build a huge colonial empire. Let's go:
[edit] Consolidation
- Get Calais and Gascoigne from England in your starting war, if you manage to win a siege or two in their homeland they will agree - try to circumvent their fleets as yours are seriously underdeveloped. Sail away to the ocean and around the isles to drop your troops in Scotland if necessary.
- Attack, vassalize and diplo-annex Brittany as soon as possible, preferably just after dealing with England. Makes you safe from that direction and also gives you a nice launchpad for producing fleets to rule the Atlantic.
- Improve relations with your vassals: Orleans, Bourbon, Provence, Foix, Armagnac, Auvergne and diplo-annex them all after 10 years of the game, much easier than waging a war against every single of them. No stability hits, low badboy score (just 1 point per province).
One very important thing here: They are all very wealthy, also all are sitting on your cores. AI France often makes an alliance with every single of them early in the game. It is not really worth it. Their troops are weak and low in numbers and are more a problem than an asset (Especially when they take provinces for themselves in separate peace deals. Do you want Foix to own Cornwall on the isles?).
Also, it is easy for the enemy to retaliate on your vassals while at war with you and annex them quickly. If you don't ally with them, they are safe forever and also your mutual relations don't lower due to you starting a war and dragging them into it. So don't ally with them even if they want it.
- Wage two wars against Burgundy, take as many cores as possible in the first one (but don't take Vlaanderen if you ever plan to trade - taking it will produce 15% penalty to your merchants' success rate and thus kill them all in a week), vassalize them in the second one. Do it quickly, at the beginning Burgundy is a bit weaker than you are. You can outnumber and kill their elite troops with huge stacks of cavalry. Also, try to strike from as many directions as you can and siege many provinces at once. Don't bother with building any fleets and chasing their ships. If an army or two slip to your land, outnumber them with mercenaries.
- Force-vassalize and diplo-annex Lorraine in one of your wars with Burgundy (they should be allied with each other). Make sure you do it before signing a truce with Burgundy. Making peace with the leader of an alliance means peace with every single country in that alliance. Don't let Lorraine slip out of your hands!
- Wage a war against Aragon and take Roussilion from them forcefully between your wars with Burgundy. Avoid fighting aragonese fleets, your ships will be dead sooner than you can notice. Don't even build a fleet and hide your starting ships well (in Calais?). If Aragon is allied with Castille, leave this war for now, too much hassle to take just one core. Postpone it as long as you can. Their alliances with Sicily (the one they start with) and with Castille (remember they compete to become Spain) will sooner or later detoriate.
Finally:
- Steal Avignon (Tax Assessor inside!) from the Pope if you are not afraid of going to hell
To do all of this you need Military Drill National Idea (+50% to your morale) and as much Land tech investment as you can afford (better soldiers, even more morale). Having consolidated France takes around 50 years if you are a good king. Try to base your armies on cavalry. Use many generals. Land tradition will be high, generals will own everything that dares to fight with them. Employ advisors that add to your Land research or to your Stability investment. Move your sliders towards Offensive (you will be able to do that two or three times and this means your troops and generals will be almost as elite as burgundian ones).
As a bonus to that you can bribe electors of the Holy Roman Empire to choose your king to become the Emperor. Most of the bonuses for becoming the Emperor are useless. You don't need additional manpower and land force limit. If you have reached your limits it means that your army is twice too big for the task you have to perform. But being the emperor also improves your stability investment and this is a noticable improvement. This bonus is worth spending a few years on making friends with German minors, it really is.
[edit] Colonization
If you didn't neglect your Goverment research during the consolidation phase, you should have a chance to get your second National Idea soon after taking all or almost all necessary provinces.
This is the time you'd better went exploring the new world and found a cosy nice place to send all the colonist you're getting for your high Narrowmindness and Free Trade.
There are three places worth going to at the beginning of the colonization effort. One of them is USA, most probably already taken while you were consolidating, Carribean that needs a huge fleet to defend and huge fleets aren't really a specialty of France.
There is also rich in gold and sugar Brazil where you can build a huge country that will be very easy to defend with your great cavalry. This is your best choice here.
If Brazil is already taken, try to colonize around your opponents, build a city or two (with forts!), ship some troops from Europe and do harm them like you were harming everybody around you during the consolidation phase. Remember, you're the worst bully in this school, nobody wants to have a brawl with you, they are afraid of you, they really are. If you don't believe me, start a game with Portugal, colonize for 50 years and wage a land war against France. You will be beaten in seconds! Colonize Brazil from Santana up to Surinam. It will take another 100 years. When bored with colonization you can annex Incas, Aztecs, Mayas and Zapotec. You have all the resources for that and you don't want anybody to take them before you do that. Be sure you convert Cuzco and Zacotecas to your religion and culture if you ever want to trade. Also be sure you conquer them before they build forts. Not having to siege every single province in Andas makes things much easier.
How should your future empire look like? Well, start with colonizing provinces that produce gold and after that go along the coast from Santana up to Florida. Ignore Carribean, leave it to the little guys (like Venice, Teutonic Order and other naive wanna-be-a-colonial-superpower countries). After you have the coast, colonize inland.
Leave the USA and Antilles for those minor countries. Instead of that, go and take those little islands around the world that can serve as naval bases preparing to become a naval super power later in your game. St. Helena, Bermuda, Falklands and Mauritius are good targets.
You're all set for colonization right from the start. Two things you could improve is moving towards neutral Land/Naval orientation and hiring colonial governors as your advisors. You will also need (obviously) Quest for the New World National Idea and some research on Naval tech to make your ships less disappointing.
[edit] Back to Europe
What else can be done in Europe after having consolidated France? Well, in fact you can do anything you want. Good choice is moving where French failed in the real history. Italy is full of universities and wealthy provinces. This is the direction you want to expand to. You have a nice foothold, a claim on Lombard. Take Milan by diplomacy or by force and then pick little countries one by one. Always force-vassalize and diplo-annex the ones you conquered. If you get greedy your badboy will be recovering for centuries.
Also you should consider taking at least a little part in the world trade. Being such a giant makes research rates quite slow so boosting them with trade incomes is very advisable. Just take Shrewd Commercial Practices and National Trade Policy as your next ideas and with enough Trade research (a bit above world average) you will be able to place 5 merchants inside every single center of trade you know about. It really is not that hard and the profit is beyond any imagination.
[edit] Summarizing
200 years have passed. You have united France and became the Holy Roman Emperor. Then you colonized Brazil and conquered Italy. After your reputation recovered you became the wealthiest country in the world thanks to your patient and careful trading politics. For the rest of the game you can drink wine and become a Patron of Arts as there is nobody that could possibly endanger you.
[edit] What to be afraid of
- Land war in Scandinavia - attrition is deadly and the land is not really worth the effort
- United Germany (Austria, Brandenburg and Mecklemburg are most capable of taking so much of Germany that they will be able to endanger you)
- United Italy (Tuscany sometimes does that, watch them carefully!)
- Coalition of colonial superpowers that smashes your fleets and siezes a huge part of your colonial empire before your troops reach their homeland to teach them a lesson (an alliance of Spain + Portugal + England with their fleets late in the game, this is painful)
- Weakling kings (3 or 4 administration kills your merchants, stops your research, slows down your colonization... Send the guy to kill natives in Africa, maybe he will die of malaria and the next one will be better...)
- Low stability (when you see it goes negative drop all your research and spend all the money on raising it)
- Stupid alliances (you don't want so called friends drag you into thousands of insignificant wars, just avoid making any alliances)
- Too huge standing army - although it is tempting, try not to have more than a half of your limit
- Too few ships - especially transports - you need a fleet that can quickly and safely ship 20k of cavalry to any place you colonized to defend it
- Armies based on infantry before 1550 - as infantry is useless in that period
- Colonization of anything in Africa except Cape (RPA nowadays) and gold near it
- Taking poor land from countries in Africa, Asia and Scandinavia
- Useless National Ideas - like all the naval ones
- Ignorance in the area of trade
- Conversions to protestantism and becoming a republic - you are too big for that
- Austria or Aragon inheriting Burgundy - no explanation necessary here...
