France

[Iavorios]

Yes the Mongols are mobile (as they should be) but you dont have to be. You have armored sergants, scots guards and a hell of a knights. O and DFK, how basicly dont have the habith of dieing. And a HUGE empire. So it is a litlle laborios, but not realy hard, even ot VH\VH.

[Ratwar]

I'm playing on H/H just for reference.

France is without a doubt an interesting play. They’re one of the few Catholic factions that can easily become a super power by only attacking rebel settlements. This is due to their large number off starting of provinces (5, only Germany has more) and easy access to Rebel Land (6 Rebel Provinces start off on the French boarder and another two or three are within easy reach). This has several affects on game play, some player dictated and others AI forced.

For the French, quick expansion is really a requirement. Sure, you start off quite large, but over 50% of your territories are inland, reducing their income from trade, and of the two settlements that are on the Mediterranean one is a Castle and the other is under developed. Without expansion, your ‘Empire’ will be poor, and facing a potential four front war (England in the North, HRE in the East, Milan in the South, and Spain or Portugal in the West). These competitors will also be going after many of the same settlements as you, so it is best to move quickly in securing them. Personally, I use a three prong strategy to expand: Louis and his army siege Bordeaux, a militia force is dispatched from Rheims and Paris to take Dijon, and a third army Is rapidly raised in Angers to take Rennes. After these Settlements are secure, Louis is transferred over to the East to take Bern, the militia army moves to take Metz, and the Angers army is used to hold the city, deter the English from attacking, and preparing to form part of the army that will advance on Bruges.

Now, with all these three armies require training, upkeep, and providing little to no real income from sacking the small rebel villages, money becomes a problem. In the early going, France really doesn’t have that much economy. The land based trade and farming that exists will not finance you rapid expansion for very long (especially once the other major powers in the region decide they want your newly conquered territory), so you’ll need to invest every available cent into infrastructure. You first order of business should be Marseille, since it is your lone port city and Paris. As I alluded to earlier, these two settlements alone will not bring in that much wealth, but since four of the bordering rebel settlements are coastal, it won’t be much of a problem to grab a few more ports. Plus three of these rebel territories are already cities, and the lone castle Bordeaux is an excellent choice for conversion to a city, as it is bordered by three castles, two of which you already control.

Once you’ve got out of the early game (for our purposes here, once Bruges and Zaragoza have fallen to a major power), you’ll begin what amounts to the ever-present cycle of ‘Total War’ caused by having too many territories. That is to say that your land grab will have pissed off all your neighbors. That is to say that taking Metz angers the Germans, Milan wants Dijon, Spain/Portugal will attempt to force you off of the Iberian peninsula if you expanded on that direction, and Scotland/England want Bruges. Now in my most recent game, I got an early marriage alliance with Spain, so they left me alone in Zaragoza and I bought Caen from England and they’ve left me alone in Bruges for the moment. Scotland (who’s also at war with England) keeps landing near Bruges and recently Portugal decided to attack, but both of those fronts have been quieter than I expected. At this point, you should have the finances and production to expand as you chose.

Troop wise the French faction is quite boring in the early game. They’re basically the standard western faction assortment of decent spearmen, serviceable archers/crossbows, and mailed knights (The roster is almost exactly the same as HRE in the early game). You’ll find yourself fighting that old Hammer/Anvil strategy, though the frontal cavalry charge does have a role if Scotland invades or Milan decides to spam Crossbows with little backup. As time progresses, the French find themselves in a much more unique situation. Their heavy cavalry is second to none, and the presence of mounted longbowmen and the Scots Guard give them a lot of flavor.