Thanks for the rapid feedback!
yay France! my favorite civ. Very good job overall, I think you captured the gist of it.
Few points:
1) I don't like cathedrals for France, you will never fill those slots because you need them for Sistine/Uffizi/Hermitage.
Maybe not immediately, but you can fill them later on, especially once you start getting archaeologists in the field. Also, they make great storage for your art in the medieval and renaissance prior to building Sistine Chapel, Hermitage, Uffizi, and museums.
2) would not recommend piety tree and sacred sites at all, this is a bad idea IMO. France should not employ this gambit because they are so good at generating tourism, in a way that doesn't cost an entire social policy tree. You need tradition and aesthetics ASAP...there is just not room for another entire tree.
Agreed that tradition and aesthetics are higher priority, and at higher difficulty levels, France should probably ignore piety. However, I've been successful on Emperor difficulty at alternating between those three trees, taking the policies that have ealier payoffs. Even though it unlocks in the classical, a lot of aesthetics policies don't have much benefit until later in the game. So after adopting aesthetics for the faster GWAMs, I sometimes go into Piety for better shrines and discounts to religious buildings that have payoffs earlier in the game.
I'm usually late at getting reformation and enhancer beliefs when I take this approach, which is why I suggest looking at some of the less popular beliefs for France. Nobody ever takes Religious Art, so it will almost certainly be available even if you don't enhance your religion till the renaissance.
Since France has no religious perks, it will be very hard to be the first to found / reform a religion (unless you get very lucky with goody huts and city states), so Jesuit Education will almost certainly be taken. I also only really recommend Sacred Sites if you have access to more than one religious building.
3) there is a pretty clear cut off point for whether you want to attempt GL or not. That point is emperor level. Emperor and below go for GL, immortal do not.
I typically play on Emperor, but I do play on immortal sometimes. I have built the Great Library on Immortal, but doing so crippled me since I was late at building workers and settlers.
4) I think it's worth mentioning that France is absolutely amazing for OCC on emperor & below (~200 turn times are possible).
5) You dont need to wait 8 turns after hitting internet, musicians dont work like scientists.
I'll have to look into the musician. I thought their strength was based on the average tourism over the previous 10 turns. Perhaps I was mistaken...
6) I don't agree with your oxford timing around acoustics. This is far too early IMO. I would rather use it on plastics or something around there to help ramp up the great scientist slingshot towards internet. I usually go for globe theatre and do 1-2 political treatise to speed through rationalism during the world fair, so I don't have spare writers that early anyway. But that could just be a matter of play style. I prefer to rush printing press rather than acoustics, to found world congress earlier and build leaning tower. Then Sistine or Globe is free anyway (use spies to keep an eye on any AI that enters Ren. if necessary to choose between the 2 wonders). But I usually try to get both, by building ironworks in my 2nd best city and hard building LT there (since no theming bonus). This is doable on immortal.
Yeah, if you're only thinking about the free tech from Oxford, it might be better to save Oxford for Architecture or Archaeology at the earliest. However, if you are looking for the tourism boost, then the earlier the better, since being influential with other civs early can pay off when it comes time to adopt ideologies. At least, that's been my experience.
Could you talk about how to approach an Autocratic Cultural Victory vs a Freedom Cultural Victory?
I generally try to keep these strategies focused around the aspects that are unique or specific to the civ, and I didn't really see any ideological strategies that were particularly potent with France. So players should feel free to adopt whichever ideology matches their play-style / victory goals.
Did I miss something though? Are there any ideologies that you feel work particularly well for France?