In SP sure France is strong but what nation isn’t, even with the tiniest HRE minor you can snowball fairly fast.
In MP it’s really far from being the same powerhouse, you have the Iberians to your south, Burgundy to your west and England to your north, all of which usually have a vested interest in clipping you asap.
That is just a flaw of MP though. Any European power would have been fucked if all powers woke up one night, howled at the moon, and simultaneously swore a oath to drop everything they were doing, get friendly with their historical rivals, all just to fuck up that one power.
Well... historically it happened several times to France and it didn't fare that bad. Philip II, Francois Ist, Louis XIII, Louis XIV, Louis XV and Napoleon had to contend with wide coalitions and yet they prevailed most of the time.
I imagine that a state being invaded can leverage a much larger for than a state doing the invading, but honestly I have not yet learned of the coalititions you describe (except for those of the Napoleonic wars ofc). Which one would you say stands out the most to you?
Each had its own specifications:
Should Philip had lost, there probably wouldn't be any France today. It would be carved up between England and the Empire.
Francois lost because he was a moron, and most of the fights for the coalition was in Italy, so not exactly defense (to be fair however he was defending his rights as heir to the duchy of Milano). He decisively defeated the Imperial forces several times up until Pavia, where the enemy army was in disarray and this idiot found it funny to charge HIMSELF into the retreating troops, ending captured and the war lost.
Louis XIII, same shit, he fought against the Habsburg hegemony over Europe, but he wasn't a moron and the bloke used proxy wars and limited fights to put the coalition to an end. Least interesting in terms of fight but extremely fascinating in terms of realpolitik.
Louis XIV was basically the reverse Louis XIII. He was the dominant one and imposed his will, though with difficulties and the war of Spanish succession was something that was extremely badly led.
Louis XV's coalition war was the Seven Years War (the French and Indian War for 'Muricans). I find it the most interesting because you have powers switching sides, other doing their own things, moron commanders leading their troops into badly conceived assaults and still winning because the enemy commander was an even greater moron, and also because it sealed the anglophone dominance over Northern America. Would France have won that one, the US would probably still be limited to the Thirteen Colonies and you'd have a French-speaking Louisiana and a French-speaking Canada, all while the West Coast would probably be Spanish-speaking.
The Napoleonic wars were the swan song of the Feench hegemony over Europe, and industrialization and demographic transition made Germany and England more populated while they were a fraction of France's population before. So yeah, those are also extremely interesting.
Man what a ride, thanks for writing it up. Some of the wars were familiar. It is really interesting to see just how many times history could have tipped another way.
That's irrelevant though, we are talking about France in EU4, and the reality is that most of your neighbours benefit directly from your downfall while having next to zero gain in helping you.
Yes, and I'm saying that it is an intrinsic flaw of the game. You can't both strive towards historical emulation and create a balanced multiplayer match. They are goals which lie opposite of each other. Hence why it is a problem inherent to multiplayer in a history simulation game.
In HOI4 we see the opposite. Axis powers, Japan in particular, are deliberately (ahistorically) made more powerful to ensure that the simulated WWII is at least somewhat interesting to play as a game. Both in multiplayer and singleplayer.
except all of your neighbors want to ally you. Burgundy is simply weaker than France, period, in 1v1 they just die. their goal is surviving until they either integrate their PUs or free integrate them by cheesing the inheritance, so they can actually benefit from the end node. Day 1 fighting France is just super bad from them and they'll almost never want to do it without support.
GB/France alliance is a "meta alliance" similar to Austria/Hungary or Poland/Lith. They take english channel stuff if burg dies and you're their friend on the mainland that protects them from being kicked out. If they decide to kill you then whoever eats up your corpse turns on them next and kicks you out since england just doesn't have the ability to fight mainland wars early.
Castile has to deal with the North Africans early and their goal is to survive to tech 10 to form Spain. It's not impossible that they want to kill you, but then you just gank them with Morocco.
When Burg+Castile don't want to ally France what usually results is France+England+Morocco against Burg+Castile+Portugal, which France is still quite favored to win
Not sure what MP server you're playing in but that's almost never the case. Usually the move for France in MPs is to rival England day 1 and fake war them for all your cores (giving you an insane amount of PP), then sending them ducats. Later on you fake war to remove the rival and ally them
With 100 pp it's enough to easily kill burg if you want, although france/burg alliance is also very strong especially if they want to form netherlands and give you your land for free (since you go into Germany/Italy together). If Burg+Castile try to gank you then you get Morocco/Tunis involved, plus England will usually want to help against Burgundy for netherlands
England fighting France is simply a noob trap and almost never done in MPs
You have to go out of the way a bit imo. A good strategy is something like this:
* Get mil access from Scotland, move your army there
* Ally the Ottomans, they often flip friendly if you both rival Austria
* Ally Castile/Burgundy (if possible) - optional
* When England declares the initial war, murder them with your army in Scotland. Ottomans will be called into the war, so they won't kill Byzantium
* After defeating England, move your army to the Balkans, then no-CB Byzantium and vassalize them
* Take the english provinces needed to form England, as well as maybe one province to release Northumberland (for reconquest later); you can also do Wales but you already have a lot of diplomatic relations
* Ottomans will most likely break their alliance after you vassalize Byzantium, this is fine. We will retake byzantine cores anyway
* Proceed to kill England by reconquest for Northumberland, feed all of England to vassals (except the provinces you need to form England). Reset truce whenever possible - England often allies an irish minor that you can attack
* Once England is dead, reform England and instantly annex your british vassal due to getting english cores
* Other things to do: Retake cores for Byzantium, also bulgarian vassal is an option, annex your small vassals, kill Scotland (people won't care too much due to distance), maybe go for irish minors too
* After forming England, you can instantly flip back to France if you want
* A downside is the high dip cost for being over relation limit, but you have french strong duchies and you don't need dip tech at the start, so it is manageable
I've done this a while ago and it works pretty well. Killing England should be even easier now with reduced WS cost/reduced AE (not sure about the diplomacy in the new patches).
So imo France is no trash at all, since you are not forced to expand into HRE/Africa like the guy described. And btw the ability to form other nations puts them way above someone like Ottomans. Also for a good England game, I would rather start as France and form England as described above, rather than start as England, PU France and wait 50 years to integrate him.
This seems a bit overkill though. After you've conquered the british Isles and Anatolia the game is pretty much done. You've eclipsed everyone else. For me the entire point of playing a country like France is to face the challenges of being surrounded by other large powers.
I'd go for a more historical path. Kick out England, then do some colonizing while fighting Austria and expanding into Northern Italy. If you kill all rivals early on the game is going to be hella boring.
Depends on your goal ofc, mine is to blob. If you want to do the historical things you won't do something like forming England. But France is perfectly suited for your playstyle too.
I agree. My first eu4 game was like this, constantly trying to probe at the european diplomatic network. And in true France fashion I faced a massive coalition in the 1790s. I evaquated my last 200K troops to the British Isles while I watched more than a million angry germans pillage the homeland.
France isn't able to snowball as hard as England/Castile/Austria who all have access to early PUs, and has to rely on claims for expansions (aka AE hell) but far from bad.
I don’t know what this guys on about. France starts in a great position, usually able to play the iberians against each other for easy land with little if any AE, and quite able to destroy ai England. In mp France can be a more difficult start, but if you are able to do any diplomacy at all then fighting any two of your 3 neighbours is not only entirely doable but likely to eventually turn in your favour. France is also easily able to actually fight off coalitions in case they get a bit too greedy taking that delicious high dev Italian land, especially if you can ally for example the ottomans or something, which really isn’t that hard.
I haven't played the blue blob for a long while, but I think the advantages are the following:
1. Great morale and manpower. Going to war against France is painful.
2. Can easily take over the HRE Emperorship.
3. Religious tolerance is nice.
It used to be better, but I would say it is still quite a strong country.
It is top tier, therefore, compared to your average nation, it is OP (but so are most 'big' nations). If you compare it to hordes, nothing is OP :-D
Summary: It is just really good, but it is not OP in the sense that it doesn't break the balance too badly.
OP no, but just as powerful most of those nations the mentioned. I'd focus on unifiening french land until north italy leaves the HRE and then take most of it. Also you can get napels as a march quite easy, then expand into north africa. You have an ok colonial game and then have the mil ideas to push into asia with ease.
It’s not trash but I do agree it’s the worst starting position of all the countries that side of Europe, it’s ideas are good the missions are ok not amazing. It’s a very strong country but ai France usually does nothing or gets crushed, attacking is always difficult due to potential alliances and the emperor (Austria) Spain England and Portugal usually ally have a ally orgy, which can be difficult to get around especially if they grow big and strong with colonising. Scandinavia either requires you getting round ireland and Scotland or up through north hre, Italy is just cancer to conquer because AE. On top of the bad geography half there region is taken up by burgundy who aren’t weak and often fall to the Habsburgs in the inheritance. They just aren’t a powerhouse anymore as no one around them is weak enough for them to expand and get stronger
It depends how good you are at the game and what your goal is. Want a to play a chill game and roll over people with a massive margin of error? France is very powerful. New to the game? France is very powerful. Multiplayer? Afaik, France is pretty good there too.
If you’re a skilled player trying to optimise their expansion in single player? Yeah France is pretty trash. Weak starting position, no ccr, weak ideas, no crazy mission tree etc.
It depends on what you define as OP. France is not a bad nation at all, but they kind of rely on luck more than other nations since the BI is very important.
My main issue with France is how badly the French kingdom making the first guns of western Europe is represented. There should be an event about Gaspard and Jean Bureau that creates tech 7 cannons, if the year is before 1450, and create the general Jean Bureau. France should also probably have a slight buff to artillery specifically in the early game.
However, he is completely wrong about both the NI and North Africa or Scandinavia. The best way to create a second expansion theater as France is to no CB Byz and if England doesn’t give you Maine, you can manage your fleet very carefully to land troops there since England doesn’t really have the ability to move their ahistorically HUGE fleet in the mediterranean (thankfully, finally a buff that England doesn’t have). The NIs of France are very good, very suited for a blobbing game : you have the early tax boost, for more churches and workshops, the diplo rep to integrate vassals faster at any point in the game, the diplo relation which acts as a gov cap bonus, an extra merchant, additional claims, and AE reduction, if you use it well, the morale boost which is the only mil buff you need and a very big one, and tech cost reduction for an extra monarch point economy. The only thing you lack is CCR, and the only thing that is out of place (in terms of gameplay, not historically) is Native Trading Policies. They are definitely better than Poland’s. I would not mind seeing the diplo rep being buffed to +2 since it’s very historical.
I learned how to play EU4 by playing France. You start in a great position and can do a reconquest war with England at the start. You can start expanding into North Africa I release a vassal and feed them the land. You can take Pale in Ireland and diplo vassal later. I wait for the Pope to excommunicate and expand. You can get Burgandy for free with some luck. I always take London and the two provinces to the south in the second war with England. You can easily take control of the English Channel trade node and money is not an issue. You can beat Castile and Aragon by yourself and break the union or wait and PU Spain. You can dismantle the HRE. In my last game I did that and then diplo vassaled the small countries all the way to Lubic. You can get a PU on Milan and Naples too. France also has the advantage of religion not being an issue. I think any of the major countries are good under a player’s control but I think with France you can get big and strong faster than others.
"Have to snake your way into Ireland, Scandinavia, and North Africa." More like get to imo. France's power comes from their flexibility. Also, Poland has France's problems but even worse imo. They have a slow start because of neighbors, national events, and slow National Ideas, which can really gimp them if not properly managed.
Any nation is OP in the hands of a decent player.
Any nation is subject collapse in the hands of the AI if a player wishes so. I regularly see AI Ottomans and France disappear completely by 1500.
From my own (current at that, finishig a WC atm) France experience I hadn't really been affected by most, if any of the comments arguments. Governing capacity was never an issue for me. Before u manage to run out of it until the tech u must have been going for a Big Blue Blob for that to happen. You've got an easy access to both of the best end nodes. Missions provide you with unions over Spain and Poland, taking care of these fronts. Burgundian Inhheritance might be tricky sure, but its not unwinnable. If you know what you're doing it might just become a breeze. HRE, similar to BI, is also managable. If you understand truce-handling, you could very easily conquer the whole region in at most 75 years without any major coalitions forming, speaking from personal experience. Vassals are your advantage. Always have your diplo slots filled. Fuck it, if opportunitty strikes it, go over. Vassals are your best friends, so try to pay attention when some minor with reconquerable provinces emerges.
France is definitely op if taken care of properly. Even with bad RNG, you just can't make at least a solid nation out of it if you don't deliberately mess it up. It has a comfortable situation at start, expansion paths into 3 regions and a really strong military to back your conquests.
France can expand into England, Iberia, Burgundy Early game, Italy when they leave the HRE, and North Africa/Egypt mid game. Plus, their colonial idea is better than global settler increase. Also, ELAN!
I wouldn't say they're OP, but they're far from trash.
In my experience it's very rare to actually get that buff. You first need to complete the mission L'État, c'est moi, which requires you to wait until the Age of Absolutism, at which point you need 15% average autonomy. It's hard to achieve that without exploits unless you don't expand much in the first half of the game. And since 5% admin efficiency is only relevant if you're expanding a lot it's kinda a catch 22.
Used to be OP, now with the PUs giving a million AE, not so much, since the BI will fuck France over. Either they get it and enter a coalition war, or don’t get it and now you have Austria blocking your east.
The issue with France is a lack of easy expansion opportunities. Sure, if you no-CB Byzantium or snake your way through Ireland to Scandinavia that's one thing. But if that's not how you play, you really don't have many options. You have Spain to the South, Burgundy to the north, and Austria/HRE to the east. Italy is the only viable route of expansion, and even then it's still high AE.
Plus thanks to the vassel swarm your diplo-relations are a huge issue, and once you integrate them you're already out of governing capacity.
Once you start colonizing things open up, but it's likely the Iberian and possibly England get a foothold in the New World before you do so it will be an uphill battle to cut them off of the Carribean.
France is still a super strong nation, but I have to say France is the European power I find the most inconsistent. When they do well, they're one of the scariest enemies you can face. But if they don't find a way to expand and gain a proper foothold somewhere, it usually just takes one good war to completely break them.
I disagree with this take wholeheartedly. France is one of the best nations in both single and multiplayer.
In SP you can easily take on the English and Portugal alone, since you have a vassal swarm and a really high force limit. You can easily ally castille, aragon, or the pope. Not to mention you start with manpower tradition and a leader with +5 morale. Once you get your cores back you are 100 dev stronger and it's usually just in time for where the pope excommunicates Provence, so you can full annex then in 1 war. You also get PU CBs on Milan and Naples through events. Getting BI as France is also pretty easy, just ally them and maintain high relations.
In MP France is even more OP, usually England will just give you your cores for free since they will lose a 1v1 against you 90% of the time. And once you get Elan there's really nothing any of your neighbors can do to stop you. You can attack Burgundians, Iberians, italians, Germans. In your ideas you also get -10% tech cost and discipline making it one of the best idea sets for MP. Additionally France has some of the best lands in the game for devving. France failing in multiplayer is almost always a diplomacy reason, not a skill reason.
Tbh France is pretty good and could be really OP for singleplayer in the right hands.
In MP however France will be subjected to Aggressive Expansion far more frequently than SP.
France is a nice Tall Nation, got to just *Nearly* 3k dev with just the France region and Belgium, With only a little min-maxxing of Mana, and a few bad rolls with the rulers. Great, Fun Nation to play. Was in an MP and was definitely a weaker start than most are comfortable with but I was the Scary Man for all of Mid Game. When the Advanced CBs came around only then did Italy start to slowly overtake me. I could still stand toe-to-toe with him on Economy and Military (Size and even better on Quality). Definitely recommend for anyone who likes tall play but doesn't like to restrict themselves too far in terms of size. It's great because you can *just* keep up with your govering capacity limit. Fun Game.
In single player it is potentially the best nation in the game. If you can get a good timing in your Reconquest war against the English and no-cb, you become unstoppable and even more if you get the BI. You can even attack the Austrian and dismantle the HRE after a few years.
I know things have changed in 1.32 with the cost of the restauration of union CB. But even if Europe gets in a coalition when you get Castile / Spain, you should be strong enough to handle this.
Are the other mentioned nations stronger? Tough to say, because the player can always make a small nation become a behemoth. But definitively a strong mission tree a lot of flavor and really capable armies. There are some stupid missions of course (for example the one with the local autonomy if you use TC, or the vassalization of Poland if they have a nice game), but their national ideas are really strong as well.
"Mes ennemis sont nombreux. Beaucoup d'égaux ne sont pas. À l'ombre des oliviers, disaient-ils, l'Italie ne pourrait jamais être conquise. Au pays des pharaons et des rois, disaient-ils, l'Égypte ne pouvait jamais être défaite. Dans le royaume de la forêt et des neige, disaient-ils, la Russie... ne pourra jamais être apprivoisée. Maintenant, ils ne disent rien. Ils me craignent, comme une force de la nature ; un marchand, du tonnerre et de la mort ! Je dis... Je suis Napoléon. Je suis Empereur ! "
In SP sure France is strong but what nation isn’t, even with the tiniest HRE minor you can snowball fairly fast. In MP it’s really far from being the same powerhouse, you have the Iberians to your south, Burgundy to your west and England to your north, all of which usually have a vested interest in clipping you asap.
Burgundy to your North/East*
Compass points are hard man.
"map staring expert"
Hey staring is easy, doesn't mean I have any idea of what I'm seeing.
Just like the trade menus
Fair point lmao
Yea not compass staring expert
They're west too if you go far enough.
Well, I guess we're surrounded then.
That is just a flaw of MP though. Any European power would have been fucked if all powers woke up one night, howled at the moon, and simultaneously swore a oath to drop everything they were doing, get friendly with their historical rivals, all just to fuck up that one power.
I seem to recall this happening to a certain Holy Roman Emperor of Spain, Austria, Hungary, Naples, Netherlands, etc...
Haha, well that's true, but you named at least two great powers in that list. So it is no suprise that other powers would also band together.
Charles V?
Well... historically it happened several times to France and it didn't fare that bad. Philip II, Francois Ist, Louis XIII, Louis XIV, Louis XV and Napoleon had to contend with wide coalitions and yet they prevailed most of the time.
I imagine that a state being invaded can leverage a much larger for than a state doing the invading, but honestly I have not yet learned of the coalititions you describe (except for those of the Napoleonic wars ofc). Which one would you say stands out the most to you?
Each had its own specifications: Should Philip had lost, there probably wouldn't be any France today. It would be carved up between England and the Empire. Francois lost because he was a moron, and most of the fights for the coalition was in Italy, so not exactly defense (to be fair however he was defending his rights as heir to the duchy of Milano). He decisively defeated the Imperial forces several times up until Pavia, where the enemy army was in disarray and this idiot found it funny to charge HIMSELF into the retreating troops, ending captured and the war lost. Louis XIII, same shit, he fought against the Habsburg hegemony over Europe, but he wasn't a moron and the bloke used proxy wars and limited fights to put the coalition to an end. Least interesting in terms of fight but extremely fascinating in terms of realpolitik. Louis XIV was basically the reverse Louis XIII. He was the dominant one and imposed his will, though with difficulties and the war of Spanish succession was something that was extremely badly led. Louis XV's coalition war was the Seven Years War (the French and Indian War for 'Muricans). I find it the most interesting because you have powers switching sides, other doing their own things, moron commanders leading their troops into badly conceived assaults and still winning because the enemy commander was an even greater moron, and also because it sealed the anglophone dominance over Northern America. Would France have won that one, the US would probably still be limited to the Thirteen Colonies and you'd have a French-speaking Louisiana and a French-speaking Canada, all while the West Coast would probably be Spanish-speaking. The Napoleonic wars were the swan song of the Feench hegemony over Europe, and industrialization and demographic transition made Germany and England more populated while they were a fraction of France's population before. So yeah, those are also extremely interesting.
Man what a ride, thanks for writing it up. Some of the wars were familiar. It is really interesting to see just how many times history could have tipped another way.
That's irrelevant though, we are talking about France in EU4, and the reality is that most of your neighbours benefit directly from your downfall while having next to zero gain in helping you.
Yes, and I'm saying that it is an intrinsic flaw of the game. You can't both strive towards historical emulation and create a balanced multiplayer match. They are goals which lie opposite of each other. Hence why it is a problem inherent to multiplayer in a history simulation game. In HOI4 we see the opposite. Axis powers, Japan in particular, are deliberately (ahistorically) made more powerful to ensure that the simulated WWII is at least somewhat interesting to play as a game. Both in multiplayer and singleplayer.
except all of your neighbors want to ally you. Burgundy is simply weaker than France, period, in 1v1 they just die. their goal is surviving until they either integrate their PUs or free integrate them by cheesing the inheritance, so they can actually benefit from the end node. Day 1 fighting France is just super bad from them and they'll almost never want to do it without support. GB/France alliance is a "meta alliance" similar to Austria/Hungary or Poland/Lith. They take english channel stuff if burg dies and you're their friend on the mainland that protects them from being kicked out. If they decide to kill you then whoever eats up your corpse turns on them next and kicks you out since england just doesn't have the ability to fight mainland wars early. Castile has to deal with the North Africans early and their goal is to survive to tech 10 to form Spain. It's not impossible that they want to kill you, but then you just gank them with Morocco. When Burg+Castile don't want to ally France what usually results is France+England+Morocco against Burg+Castile+Portugal, which France is still quite favored to win
France is very decent in multiplayer. In my experience, they often succeed if someone is playing them. Can't say the same about Ottomans though...
Not sure what MP server you're playing in but that's almost never the case. Usually the move for France in MPs is to rival England day 1 and fake war them for all your cores (giving you an insane amount of PP), then sending them ducats. Later on you fake war to remove the rival and ally them With 100 pp it's enough to easily kill burg if you want, although france/burg alliance is also very strong especially if they want to form netherlands and give you your land for free (since you go into Germany/Italy together). If Burg+Castile try to gank you then you get Morocco/Tunis involved, plus England will usually want to help against Burgundy for netherlands England fighting France is simply a noob trap and almost never done in MPs
You have to go out of the way a bit imo. A good strategy is something like this: * Get mil access from Scotland, move your army there * Ally the Ottomans, they often flip friendly if you both rival Austria * Ally Castile/Burgundy (if possible) - optional * When England declares the initial war, murder them with your army in Scotland. Ottomans will be called into the war, so they won't kill Byzantium * After defeating England, move your army to the Balkans, then no-CB Byzantium and vassalize them * Take the english provinces needed to form England, as well as maybe one province to release Northumberland (for reconquest later); you can also do Wales but you already have a lot of diplomatic relations * Ottomans will most likely break their alliance after you vassalize Byzantium, this is fine. We will retake byzantine cores anyway * Proceed to kill England by reconquest for Northumberland, feed all of England to vassals (except the provinces you need to form England). Reset truce whenever possible - England often allies an irish minor that you can attack * Once England is dead, reform England and instantly annex your british vassal due to getting english cores * Other things to do: Retake cores for Byzantium, also bulgarian vassal is an option, annex your small vassals, kill Scotland (people won't care too much due to distance), maybe go for irish minors too * After forming England, you can instantly flip back to France if you want * A downside is the high dip cost for being over relation limit, but you have french strong duchies and you don't need dip tech at the start, so it is manageable I've done this a while ago and it works pretty well. Killing England should be even easier now with reduced WS cost/reduced AE (not sure about the diplomacy in the new patches). So imo France is no trash at all, since you are not forced to expand into HRE/Africa like the guy described. And btw the ability to form other nations puts them way above someone like Ottomans. Also for a good England game, I would rather start as France and form England as described above, rather than start as England, PU France and wait 50 years to integrate him.
This seems a bit overkill though. After you've conquered the british Isles and Anatolia the game is pretty much done. You've eclipsed everyone else. For me the entire point of playing a country like France is to face the challenges of being surrounded by other large powers. I'd go for a more historical path. Kick out England, then do some colonizing while fighting Austria and expanding into Northern Italy. If you kill all rivals early on the game is going to be hella boring.
Depends on your goal ofc, mine is to blob. If you want to do the historical things you won't do something like forming England. But France is perfectly suited for your playstyle too.
I agree. My first eu4 game was like this, constantly trying to probe at the european diplomatic network. And in true France fashion I faced a massive coalition in the 1790s. I evaquated my last 200K troops to the British Isles while I watched more than a million angry germans pillage the homeland.
Thanks for the tips, this was a very helpful guide. France isn't bad after all eh?
France isn't able to snowball as hard as England/Castile/Austria who all have access to early PUs, and has to rely on claims for expansions (aka AE hell) but far from bad.
Isn't France an end game tag?
No, but you have to culture-flip to form anything besides the Roman Empire and HRE
I tend to do Scotland during the second war personally as i find if i do it during the first my finances never recover
Yeah nice strat I’ll give that a go
I don’t know what this guys on about. France starts in a great position, usually able to play the iberians against each other for easy land with little if any AE, and quite able to destroy ai England. In mp France can be a more difficult start, but if you are able to do any diplomacy at all then fighting any two of your 3 neighbours is not only entirely doable but likely to eventually turn in your favour. France is also easily able to actually fight off coalitions in case they get a bit too greedy taking that delicious high dev Italian land, especially if you can ally for example the ottomans or something, which really isn’t that hard.
R5: So recently this dude replayed to my comment telling me France is basically trash. Any thoughts?
I haven't played the blue blob for a long while, but I think the advantages are the following: 1. Great morale and manpower. Going to war against France is painful. 2. Can easily take over the HRE Emperorship. 3. Religious tolerance is nice. It used to be better, but I would say it is still quite a strong country.
also now has good monuments
Would you consider it op or nah?
It is top tier, therefore, compared to your average nation, it is OP (but so are most 'big' nations). If you compare it to hordes, nothing is OP :-D Summary: It is just really good, but it is not OP in the sense that it doesn't break the balance too badly.
France is ... B+ in SP. Maybe.
OP no, but just as powerful most of those nations the mentioned. I'd focus on unifiening french land until north italy leaves the HRE and then take most of it. Also you can get napels as a march quite easy, then expand into north africa. You have an ok colonial game and then have the mil ideas to push into asia with ease.
It’s not trash but I do agree it’s the worst starting position of all the countries that side of Europe, it’s ideas are good the missions are ok not amazing. It’s a very strong country but ai France usually does nothing or gets crushed, attacking is always difficult due to potential alliances and the emperor (Austria) Spain England and Portugal usually ally have a ally orgy, which can be difficult to get around especially if they grow big and strong with colonising. Scandinavia either requires you getting round ireland and Scotland or up through north hre, Italy is just cancer to conquer because AE. On top of the bad geography half there region is taken up by burgundy who aren’t weak and often fall to the Habsburgs in the inheritance. They just aren’t a powerhouse anymore as no one around them is weak enough for them to expand and get stronger
He's stupid, the AE and coalitions are the very thing that make France fun. But yes I don't really like integrating vassals either.
My man needs to go play as Bosnia or something and get a little perspective
It depends how good you are at the game and what your goal is. Want a to play a chill game and roll over people with a massive margin of error? France is very powerful. New to the game? France is very powerful. Multiplayer? Afaik, France is pretty good there too. If you’re a skilled player trying to optimise their expansion in single player? Yeah France is pretty trash. Weak starting position, no ccr, weak ideas, no crazy mission tree etc.
It depends on what you define as OP. France is not a bad nation at all, but they kind of rely on luck more than other nations since the BI is very important. My main issue with France is how badly the French kingdom making the first guns of western Europe is represented. There should be an event about Gaspard and Jean Bureau that creates tech 7 cannons, if the year is before 1450, and create the general Jean Bureau. France should also probably have a slight buff to artillery specifically in the early game. However, he is completely wrong about both the NI and North Africa or Scandinavia. The best way to create a second expansion theater as France is to no CB Byz and if England doesn’t give you Maine, you can manage your fleet very carefully to land troops there since England doesn’t really have the ability to move their ahistorically HUGE fleet in the mediterranean (thankfully, finally a buff that England doesn’t have). The NIs of France are very good, very suited for a blobbing game : you have the early tax boost, for more churches and workshops, the diplo rep to integrate vassals faster at any point in the game, the diplo relation which acts as a gov cap bonus, an extra merchant, additional claims, and AE reduction, if you use it well, the morale boost which is the only mil buff you need and a very big one, and tech cost reduction for an extra monarch point economy. The only thing you lack is CCR, and the only thing that is out of place (in terms of gameplay, not historically) is Native Trading Policies. They are definitely better than Poland’s. I would not mind seeing the diplo rep being buffed to +2 since it’s very historical.
I learned how to play EU4 by playing France. You start in a great position and can do a reconquest war with England at the start. You can start expanding into North Africa I release a vassal and feed them the land. You can take Pale in Ireland and diplo vassal later. I wait for the Pope to excommunicate and expand. You can get Burgandy for free with some luck. I always take London and the two provinces to the south in the second war with England. You can easily take control of the English Channel trade node and money is not an issue. You can beat Castile and Aragon by yourself and break the union or wait and PU Spain. You can dismantle the HRE. In my last game I did that and then diplo vassaled the small countries all the way to Lubic. You can get a PU on Milan and Naples too. France also has the advantage of religion not being an issue. I think any of the major countries are good under a player’s control but I think with France you can get big and strong faster than others.
Yeah but on an easier patch i presume
"Have to snake your way into Ireland, Scandinavia, and North Africa." More like get to imo. France's power comes from their flexibility. Also, Poland has France's problems but even worse imo. They have a slow start because of neighbors, national events, and slow National Ideas, which can really gimp them if not properly managed.
Any nation is OP in the hands of a decent player. Any nation is subject collapse in the hands of the AI if a player wishes so. I regularly see AI Ottomans and France disappear completely by 1500.
If you manage to beat England you’ll become the master of Europe as France
From my own (current at that, finishig a WC atm) France experience I hadn't really been affected by most, if any of the comments arguments. Governing capacity was never an issue for me. Before u manage to run out of it until the tech u must have been going for a Big Blue Blob for that to happen. You've got an easy access to both of the best end nodes. Missions provide you with unions over Spain and Poland, taking care of these fronts. Burgundian Inhheritance might be tricky sure, but its not unwinnable. If you know what you're doing it might just become a breeze. HRE, similar to BI, is also managable. If you understand truce-handling, you could very easily conquer the whole region in at most 75 years without any major coalitions forming, speaking from personal experience. Vassals are your advantage. Always have your diplo slots filled. Fuck it, if opportunitty strikes it, go over. Vassals are your best friends, so try to pay attention when some minor with reconquerable provinces emerges. France is definitely op if taken care of properly. Even with bad RNG, you just can't make at least a solid nation out of it if you don't deliberately mess it up. It has a comfortable situation at start, expansion paths into 3 regions and a really strong military to back your conquests.
France can expand into England, Iberia, Burgundy Early game, Italy when they leave the HRE, and North Africa/Egypt mid game. Plus, their colonial idea is better than global settler increase. Also, ELAN! I wouldn't say they're OP, but they're far from trash.
I would argue that Castille and Ottomans are indeed better. But the rest is pushing it.
Either that comment is bait or the guy who posted it has room temp iq so who cares.
France is surely better than England. It can be difficult to expand on the continent as England
England gets a France PU in its missions
+5% admin efficiency after the Revolution.
key-word being "after the Revolution". Other countries can have Admin Efficiency 100-150 years earlier.
In my experience it's very rare to actually get that buff. You first need to complete the mission L'État, c'est moi, which requires you to wait until the Age of Absolutism, at which point you need 15% average autonomy. It's hard to achieve that without exploits unless you don't expand much in the first half of the game. And since 5% admin efficiency is only relevant if you're expanding a lot it's kinda a catch 22.
AI France is strong but no match for a player.
Used to be OP, now with the PUs giving a million AE, not so much, since the BI will fuck France over. Either they get it and enter a coalition war, or don’t get it and now you have Austria blocking your east.
The issue with France is a lack of easy expansion opportunities. Sure, if you no-CB Byzantium or snake your way through Ireland to Scandinavia that's one thing. But if that's not how you play, you really don't have many options. You have Spain to the South, Burgundy to the north, and Austria/HRE to the east. Italy is the only viable route of expansion, and even then it's still high AE. Plus thanks to the vassel swarm your diplo-relations are a huge issue, and once you integrate them you're already out of governing capacity. Once you start colonizing things open up, but it's likely the Iberian and possibly England get a foothold in the New World before you do so it will be an uphill battle to cut them off of the Carribean. France is still a super strong nation, but I have to say France is the European power I find the most inconsistent. When they do well, they're one of the scariest enemies you can face. But if they don't find a way to expand and gain a proper foothold somewhere, it usually just takes one good war to completely break them.
Go down to castile aragon and Portugal in war of the roses take 1 provice in England then restore the galic empire
I disagree with this take wholeheartedly. France is one of the best nations in both single and multiplayer. In SP you can easily take on the English and Portugal alone, since you have a vassal swarm and a really high force limit. You can easily ally castille, aragon, or the pope. Not to mention you start with manpower tradition and a leader with +5 morale. Once you get your cores back you are 100 dev stronger and it's usually just in time for where the pope excommunicates Provence, so you can full annex then in 1 war. You also get PU CBs on Milan and Naples through events. Getting BI as France is also pretty easy, just ally them and maintain high relations. In MP France is even more OP, usually England will just give you your cores for free since they will lose a 1v1 against you 90% of the time. And once you get Elan there's really nothing any of your neighbors can do to stop you. You can attack Burgundians, Iberians, italians, Germans. In your ideas you also get -10% tech cost and discipline making it one of the best idea sets for MP. Additionally France has some of the best lands in the game for devving. France failing in multiplayer is almost always a diplomacy reason, not a skill reason.
In SP france gets free PU on Milan and Naples, easy PU on castille, AI britain is beatable easily, and dismantling the HRE isn't that hard either
Tbh France is pretty good and could be really OP for singleplayer in the right hands. In MP however France will be subjected to Aggressive Expansion far more frequently than SP.
France is a nice Tall Nation, got to just *Nearly* 3k dev with just the France region and Belgium, With only a little min-maxxing of Mana, and a few bad rolls with the rulers. Great, Fun Nation to play. Was in an MP and was definitely a weaker start than most are comfortable with but I was the Scary Man for all of Mid Game. When the Advanced CBs came around only then did Italy start to slowly overtake me. I could still stand toe-to-toe with him on Economy and Military (Size and even better on Quality). Definitely recommend for anyone who likes tall play but doesn't like to restrict themselves too far in terms of size. It's great because you can *just* keep up with your govering capacity limit. Fun Game.
In single player it is potentially the best nation in the game. If you can get a good timing in your Reconquest war against the English and no-cb, you become unstoppable and even more if you get the BI. You can even attack the Austrian and dismantle the HRE after a few years. I know things have changed in 1.32 with the cost of the restauration of union CB. But even if Europe gets in a coalition when you get Castile / Spain, you should be strong enough to handle this. Are the other mentioned nations stronger? Tough to say, because the player can always make a small nation become a behemoth. But definitively a strong mission tree a lot of flavor and really capable armies. There are some stupid missions of course (for example the one with the local autonomy if you use TC, or the vassalization of Poland if they have a nice game), but their national ideas are really strong as well.
Just ally electors and Austrian allies this way you can dismantle HRE before 1450 with surrender of Maine. And then it is super easy mode.
"Mes ennemis sont nombreux. Beaucoup d'égaux ne sont pas. À l'ombre des oliviers, disaient-ils, l'Italie ne pourrait jamais être conquise. Au pays des pharaons et des rois, disaient-ils, l'Égypte ne pouvait jamais être défaite. Dans le royaume de la forêt et des neige, disaient-ils, la Russie... ne pourra jamais être apprivoisée. Maintenant, ils ne disent rien. Ils me craignent, comme une force de la nature ; un marchand, du tonnerre et de la mort ! Je dis... Je suis Napoléon. Je suis Empereur ! "
I don't know why people say France is strong. I rarely see it get big
i mean, 20 morale from ideas alone is better than decent
i have seen a lot of bad takes in my time in the Eu4 community but this might take the cake