Gave up on the first french campaign a long time ago when I realized most of my problems were due to bugs (and not seeing the gift button and wondering why no one would accept money, whoops! lol). Carls bugfixer and the 1.1 patch have made the game playable again but I have yet to come back to start another campaign as France.

I think trying to play the good and noble way with armies of large powerful cavalry will be fun to do. I think this will be my next campaign.