France

[Mete Han]

Dear Puppetmaster

currently i am playing a vh vh campaign with france. i am on turn 22 and i have thrown out all the outlanders from the french provinces, conquered frankfurt with a crusade bla bla bla....

the problem is I checked the french troops from the custom battle and the building browser and I think their late armies are not satisfying. they do not have superior heavy infantry and their archers cannot lay stakes. in the late game when people start to use musketeers you are stuck with those archers because you do not have muskets. The heavy cavalry seems to be superior but not very much. I mean, statistically the lancers have like little advantage over knights hospitaller... I like commanding cavalry armies but the weaknesses of french will seem to haunt them in the late game as well for example the english archers will be much better, spanish will have better gunpowder units and venetians and germans will have better heavy infantry plus pavise crossbowmen... can you tell me, other than cavalry, where does the french arsenal excel? Are voulgiers worth using them or just a waste of money? because i will really linger on in order to play a good late game and i am not sure if playing with france in late game will be fun..

thanxs are in order

[TheLastPrivate]

Lancers are So much better than Knights hospitaller as they come pre-equipped with Advanced plate, which is more than your general unit. Not to mention lancers have more mass which gives them added shock value as well. Also mounted french archers have AP and scots guard are never too weak compared with english archers and aventuriers hold solid ground against pavise crossbowmen. And Voulgiers are probably the only spearwall halberd unit that is better than milita-grade as well. And finally they get serpentines :D

[Mete Han]

Lancers are So much better than Knights hospitaller as they come pre-equipped with Advanced plate, which is more than your general unit. Not to mention lancers have more mass which gives them added shock value as well. Also mounted french archers have AP and scots guard are never too weak compared with english archers and aventuriers hold solid ground against pavise crossbowmen. And Voulgiers are probably the only spearwall halberd unit that is better than milita-grade as well. And finally they get serpentines :D

So, there is more to it than just statistics concerning the Lancers? But still I am not convinced about the heavy infantry.

[Iavorios]

The fun with th French is in the overall strategic situation. Fighting at all fronts is really a big challenge. As for the army the DFK are not to weak compered to the another heavy infantry. Scots guards are exelent even thou they dont have a shield, but they come from a huge stone wall only. And they are the only catolock nation with the possibility to play as the Mongols, with troops only from the huge sites- chandarms, french archers and scots guards. And they have very easy axes to armored sergeants, feudal and noble knights. France can easy play any game stile you want. So yes there is fractions ho have samethimes better units, but none is fun and challenging as France. O, and by the way I am not seing this because I am french- i am Bulgarian and my ancestors kick their bottom in 1205 .

[Mete Han]

The fun with th French is in the overall strategic situation. Fighting at all fronts is really a big challenge. As for the army the DFK are not to weak compered to the another heavy infantry. Scots guards are exelent even thou they dont have a shield, but they come from a huge stone wall only. And they are the only catolock nation with the possibility to play as the Mongols, with troops only from the huge sites- chandarms, french archers and scots guards. And they have very easy axes to armored sergeants, feudal and noble knights. France can easy play any game stile you want. So yes there is fractions ho have samethimes better units, but none is fun and challenging as France. O, and by the way I am not seing this because I am french- i am Bulgarian and my ancestors kick their bottom in 1205 .

even if you were french i would trust your judgement mate

[TheLastPrivate]

You need to have the voulgiers 3-rank deep and in a long, wide formation or they'll get overrun from the sides by pretty much anything. The problem is that they have smaller unit size compared to other pikes/spearwalls, so thats a downside i guess. HOWEVER, a great thing is that they don't have swords so they don't screw up formation and run around like a fake swordmen like pikes do..

[c4stigator]

As France, you're pretty much surrounded by Catholic factions, and you wont be able to invade anyone without invoking the Pope's wrath. However, the HRE will usually get excommunicated, so use that as a chance to snatch some easy territory. To make this even easier, try and get a French pope and boost your pope-o-meter to the max, then call a crusade on Frankfurt and take it with a free army.

[TheLastPrivate]

I just did a series of tests with voulgiers and venetian heavy infs.
I took both, none-upgraded, and pitted them, both with spear wall on/off. I tested this for 3 times each, and voulgiers were victorious in 5 cases out of 6 total trials. One loss was because voulgier general died first and the unit routed.
Voulgiers won mostly because VHI routed of general death, but the numbers were a bit in favor to the voulgiers as well. With both the 2h bug and shield-bug fixed i think this proves that voulgiers are better than most ppl assume them to be.

I just did another experiment pitting them against zwei handers, and voulgiers took care of them with much more ease. AP and spearwall mixed together is just too good. Their charge is 5, which doesn't suck much either.

All my experiments were done on grass terrain with Very Hard battle difficulty.

Of course, voulgiers are more expensive than VIH, but they can stop cavalry charges much better than VIH so its well worth it. They're weak to missile due to lack of shields but you have DFKs for that, and Dism. chivalrics in multiplayer as well.

With upgraded voulgiers in line, scots guard in back, aventurier in front, and lancers at flank and mounted french archers - my basic french army setup - its hard to beat. And it's so versatile too. You can practice my french-ed up version of macedonian phalanx line with voulgiers and cavalry, or you can add/substitute dism.feudals and dism.french knights for shock value, increase french mounted archers, etc.... just so much versatility and lacking in no category - Unlike Englsh who have piss-poor cavalry, and better ranged than HRE. Although the lack of musketeers is disheartening, you don't exactly need gunpowders all that much as heavy cavalry tactics work fine without gunpowder.

Wait..I don't even play French that extensively yet Ive become an advocate of their roster. Must be the lancers hands down, lol.

[Mete Han]

I just did a series of tests with voulgiers and venetian heavy infs.
I took both, none-upgraded, and pitted them, both with spear wall on/off. I tested this for 3 times each, and voulgiers were victorious in 5 cases out of 6 total trials. One loss was because voulgier general died first and the unit routed.
Voulgiers won mostly because VHI routed of general death, but the numbers were a bit in favor to the voulgiers as well. With both the 2h bug and shield-bug fixed i think this proves that voulgiers are better than most ppl assume them to be.

I just did another experiment pitting them against zwei handers, and voulgiers took care of them with much more ease. AP and spearwall mixed together is just too good. Their charge is 5, which doesn't suck much either.

All my experiments were done on grass terrain with Very Hard battle difficulty.

Of course, voulgiers are more expensive than VIH, but they can stop cavalry charges much better than VIH so its well worth it. They're weak to missile due to lack of shields but you have DFKs for that, and Dism. chivalrics in multiplayer as well.

With upgraded voulgiers in line, scots guard in back, aventurier in front, and lancers at flank and mounted french archers - my basic french army setup - its hard to beat. And it's so versatile too. You can practice my french-ed up version of macedonian phalanx line with voulgiers and cavalry, or you can add/substitute dism.feudals and dism.french knights for shock value, increase french mounted archers, etc.... just so much versatility and lacking in no category - Unlike Englsh who have piss-poor cavalry, and better ranged than HRE. Although the lack of musketeers is disheartening, you don't exactly need gunpowders all that much as heavy cavalry tactics work fine without gunpowder.

Wait..I don't even play French that extensively yet Ive become an advocate of their roster. Must be the lancers hands down, lol.

I did the same test voulgier vs the venetian heavy inf. with spear wall off and both parties were attacking 3 out of 4 times vfi won by a big margin and lost once by a very small margin. with the spear wall on the voulgiers lost both of the two tries. but I don't have the patch though. but still i am somewhat impressed, the voulgiers are a little better than their statistics.