French

[Boris of Bohemia]

If you ever finish the krak, I'd like to hear how. Seems like you'd need a chain of luck as long as the chain of ships. You'd need there to be a war between Egypt and somebody else, and you'd need the war to go just so... Once, playing Aragon, Antioch revolted fairly early so I bought it. Might have built a citadel, but couldn't hold the place.

[TwinMfg]

EARLY, GA, NORMAL

I hadn't played the Froggies before, and from reading this thread it seems that building the Krak is rather difficult. Therefore, I decided to give it a shot. I know, I'm playing on normal difficulty, but I'm still relatively new to the game.

I did not want to conquer the world, but rather focus on all the GAs. But I felt it necessary to have a strong starting position in Europe. Therefore, I followed Katank's advice and attacked England on turn one. Normandy, Anjou, and Aquitane fell quickly. Wessex was not much tougher. I bribed the Welsh longbowmen soonest, which were ready to attack Mercia along with my forces in Wessex. The pope gave the stop command when I invaded Wessex. Since I'm playing the good catholic, I stormed the fort in Wessex and stopped there. Ah, but Mercia rebelled and the Brits retreated, so I walked into Mercia. The Brits were down to just Northumbria.

While waiting for the 10 yrs to expire, I build defensive armies consisting of 4 spears, 2 UM, 2 archers, and a 1-2 cav (RKs or Hobs). Toulouse, Brittany, and Wessex build toward ships. Flanders is my cash cow. Other provinces build units, and 40% agriculture.

After the 10 yrs are up, Northumbria and Scotland are mine. Still building ships and pushing them directly to Tripoli so I can crusade. Once Toulouse is pumping boats, it builds a chapter house.

A small delay occurred when HRE attacked Flanders- and only Flanders, the fools! I knew I couldn't win the battle and I didn't have enough room in my fort for all my units. So, I fought a retreating battle, raining arrows from 360 archers into their advancing units. I defeated the first wave, but retreated while their reinforcements were deploying. Next turn, I retook Flanders and invaded Freisland, Lorraine, Bugandy, Prov(whatever is next to Toulouse). I now have a nice 4-province eastern border, and never suffered a slowdown in my ship building.

I had ships in the eastern Med just after 1130 AD. I built a crusade in Toulouse and launched it to Tripoli. The Eggys had a keep there, which I suspected would be reduced to a fort once I secured the province. Well, surprise, surprise! They finished a castle the turn I invade. It is reduced to a keep by the time I'm done fighting (in a very tight battle. See the Praise to the camels thread), but that still saves me 12 yrs, and its only around 1137 AD. I immediately launched another crusade at antioch and will soon do the same to Palestine and Edessa, followed by every other Eggy province. Then the only other GA goal is conquest, so the Turks will be next.

[Don Corleone]

Well, I finally finished my GA game as the French. I was less agressive than TwinMFG, I focused on throwing the English off the continent, then sued for peace. They had a civil war and collapsed anyway, so I went ahead and annexed the Brittish Isles, to save them for civilization, of course.

The Italians attacked in 1134, just about the time I got my ships to Sicily. Between this naval struggle, and some unfortunate weather patterns, it took me a little longer to reach the Eastern Med, I arrived in 1134, during the reign of Charles IV. I immediately launched a crusade which was successful. For some reason, this really angered both the HRE and the Spaniards, who attacked me. I got a great battle in Aragon (annexed that in 1124 when I destroyed the Aragonese). I didn't take any Spanish territory, even though they attacked me with an alliance in place. Normally, my role playing has me take two provinces from a backstabbing ally (I take one from a neutral party). Likewise, the HRE were allied, so with them, I did take Burgundy & Provence. They wouldn't listen to reason and kept offerering ceasefires, then breaking them, so I taught them a lesson and took Lorraine as a lesson. That was then end of it, they were good neighbors after that. Once Tripoli is taken, it's a simple matter to build the Krak, it's just a matter of time and proper building queues. Ditto for the Cathedral of Notre Dame.


Anyway, even though I tried very hard to NOT to take very much territory, apparently I took too much. Nobody would ally with me. All in all, I was a little disappointed. It was fun to roleplay the game and keep focused on the GA goals, not conquest, but it could have been a little more exciting and realistic. The lack of steady allies was disappointing.

High period has sucky GA goals. They're all conquest. I'm going to investegate some of the Late ones next, they have some cool ones (Brittish have to establish a monopoly on wool, etc). I'll start a thread in the main hall to discuss the Late GA goals as this won't be focused on just the French.

Au Revoir...

[Don Corleone]

Erh, I'm sorry, naval chain reached the shores of Tripoli and the Crusade were launched in 1144.

[British Mutt + Viking]

I used to play French a lot and I found a unique strategy of trading one space for another. I took out the English provinces. but not to keep the lands, but to eliminate the English as a faction when stage two is done. Stage two, I build up some extra troops, then deconstruct most of the buildings in France for the gold. I mass all, and I do mean all, my troops in Flanders and then invade and crush all of England, including Wales and Scotland. In the meanwhile, the Germans generally go crazy and invade my french lands, but it is ok, for as long as I can hold onto Flanders, I am ok. Now, I convert England into my new "base." This way, I lose the farming revenue of France, but I need only worry about defending Flanders, and then I can building up my trade-links, and so on. Once I bring Ireland under my control, I have all I need to smash the HRE out of France. The idea is simple. I trade rich but hard to defend France for poor but easily defended England. England doesn't have the resources for me to conquer the world, but it does have the resources for me to reclaim France and then the world.
The advantage is protecting your infrastructure, by placing your production centers in England, out of harm's way. There is just enough money in England to fund a reclaimation of France later, and once you secure France, you have all the money you need to conquer the world. You will be able to concentrate on building soldiers and farms, not protecting your production centers. As long as Flanders is in your hands, the door to England is closed, if you fail to reclaim and hold onto France, you can just try again later

[British Mutt + Viking]

The lack of steady allies was disappointing.
Just a note, steady allies were rare in reality, but the issue with the game is that there is no simple "hand-slap" option, in which a battle is fought just to make a point, like "if you put too many troops in this province, Ill destroy them, but thats all." It is all extremes. You are either in total war, completely neutral, or the best of buddies, whereas in reality, you could fight your best ally more often than your enemies and still be friends. What I would like is a raid feature, in which you can attack a province, but in exchange for not being able to "conquer it," you do not become official enemies, your general does not register a defeat for withdrawing after the battle, and if you win, you gain prestige and discourage the target, and if you lose, you lose prestige and the other guy gets gloating rights.
More than once I would like to have been able to "slap the hand" of the French army massing in Flanders threatening to invade Wessex. All I wanted to do was convince the French to not invade my lands, not lose my trade-links, and spend a dozen turns trying to get a cease-fire and re-establish my alliance. The French have far too often been too busy massing 5-6,000 men in Flanders for 50 or more turns just threatening Wessex while the rest of their empire falls apart around them.

[katank]

That's a good idea. More diplomatic options has been a dream for a long time.

As for strategy, I find taking Lorraine to shorten the border.

[Advo-san]

I used to play French a lot and I found a unique strategy of trading one space for another. I took out the English provinces. but not to keep the lands, but to eliminate the English as a faction when stage two is done. Stage two, I build up some extra troops, then deconstruct most of the buildings in France for the gold. I mass all, and I do mean all, my troops in Flanders and then invade and crush all of England, including Wales and Scotland. In the meanwhile, the Germans generally go crazy and invade my french lands, but it is ok, for as long as I can hold onto Flanders, I am ok. Now, I convert England into my new "base." This way, I lose the farming revenue of France, but I need only worry about defending Flanders, and then I can building up my trade-links, and so on. Once I bring Ireland under my control, I have all I need to smash the HRE out of France. The idea is simple. I trade rich but hard to defend France for poor but easily defended England. England doesn't have the resources for me to conquer the world, but it does have the resources for me to reclaim France and then the world.

Aren't u affraid of re-appearing factions? If the English reemerge and attack your probably poor defended english inland you ll be between a rock and a hardcase imho...Defeat guaranteed...

The french have always been my favorite faction, because Geoffrey de Bouillon (the first 5star general) is my favourite hero.

But my strategy is to ally with the english, garisson flanders and chew down a bit of HRE or Iberia... The continental english provinces are little menace, as long as I keep the way from flanders shut..The english will be annexed but later in the game, after I crusaded, after I reached my frontiers to provence swabia friesland, franconia...

Sometimes I actually haven't fought any cathies, if they r either my allies or busy in other frontiers I go straight for my beloved "goldmines" of tripoly and Antioch and I start shipping to Europe Turkopoles, in order to have a blast with early cathy infantry...

[dgfred]

I like playing the French (mother's family name= LaRoque) I swamp the English
on the continent asap, build up economy and then either slap the HRE or the
Spanish. The Spanish generals are especially tough , so most times
it is the HRE that gets the early, I'll pop the Spaniards later .
Smacking the Germans does open up many other options, but it seems the
other AIs like to get in on the action. I usually just build up afterwards and
sometimes slam into Denmark, who are usually still weak at this time. As soon
as the Alo's distract Spain a little, I'll go after them. I agree with the earlier
post that the Citadel in Tripoli is almost impossible, I have yet to accomplish
that goal .
I love the $ that the French can generate, it is much different than my other
favorite- HRE. I also seem to do well as the Danes, but that is usually bad
news for the HRE too. Viva la France!