Anyone out there play france?

Tehhiv

Chieftain
Joined
Jan 28, 2013
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19
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Canada
Hello all,

I am playing France for the first time (emporer). They seem to be a pretty powerful civ. The chateau seems like a great building. However I do not full understand their Unique Ability?

Does anyone know of any strats out there that can point me in the right direction on how to play France.

Thank You
 
Their UA is pretty passive. It doesn't require a special strategy you just get more out of the theming bonus of wonders. So just do your usual culture victory strategy and you will just get more out of the wonders.

Then just build some chateau, work them and build hotels to make them generate tourism.
 
Emperor as France cultural victory amounts to:

1. GL can be skipped, but on some starts (A mining luxury as the primary one + forest that can be chopped), then GL can be built on this level.

2. Following the normal NC and having reached Education for Universities, you want to make Printing Press your next priority. Hand build Leaning Tower and use it to get The Globe for free.

3. The next key tech is the one unlocking Uffiizni, which is a higher priority to build than Sistine Chapel due to having a larger theming bonus. Note that you need 3 Great Artists in the same era for Uffizni, but you can get one of them from one of the Aesthetics policies.

4. You will also want to unlock Exploration opener in early Industrial era to build the Louvre. There's actually an achievement as France for doing this (+ finishing Aesthetics) but you'll want to do this anyway. (Skip the rest of exploration, Rationalism would speed up cultural victory more than finishing exploration.)

5. It's really easy to reach Radio early to build Eiffel Tower & Broadway via Oxford.

6. Don't forget there are national wonders that also have theming bonuses.
 
the main thing with France is to make sure you get all your culture wonders in your capital.

It's actually incredibly powerful once you hit the late game and build the visitor center and get internet. Even with only two theming wonders (not even the best ones) say Globe Theatre and Sistine, plus Oxford and Hermitage can be enough to win the game up to immortal level (assuming proper usage of great musicians, international games, etc.).

uffizi and louvre are not even necessary IMO, but they can help. I actually prefer Sistine to Uffizi because you fill the slots much earlier, and extra culture helps get the good policies/tenets faster. But Uffizi is quite good. As for Louvre, I've won culture with France on immortal probably over a dozen times, and only built Louvre once for the achievement. It's just not worth a social policy, IMO. You are much better off with another rationalism policy or ideology tenet. Remember culture is mostly a science game. Once you hit internet the game should be over, so more tourism is just overkill.

on emperor i would consider going for GL with a good start.
 
Thanks a lot folks. I am gonna put some of these into practice.
I usually win with science or diplomatic. I would like to start branching into culture, from what it seems like it is the most difficult victory type.

I will create some posts of what i learn a long the way and how i am playing so people can give me pointers.

Thanks a lot.
 
Emperor as France cultural victory amounts to:

1. GL can be skipped, but on some starts (A mining luxury as the primary one + forest that can be chopped), then GL can be built on this level.

2. Following the normal NC and having reached Education for Universities, you want to make Printing Press your next priority. Hand build Leaning Tower and use it to get The Globe for free.

3. The next key tech is the one unlocking Uffiizni, which is a higher priority to build than Sistine Chapel due to having a larger theming bonus. Note that you need 3 Great Artists in the same era for Uffizni, but you can get one of them from one of the Aesthetics policies.

4. You will also want to unlock Exploration opener in early Industrial era to build the Louvre. There's actually an achievement as France for doing this (+ finishing Aesthetics) but you'll want to do this anyway. (Skip the rest of exploration, Rationalism would speed up cultural victory more than finishing exploration.)

5. It's really easy to reach Radio early to build Eiffel Tower & Broadway via Oxford.

6. Don't forget there are national wonders that also have theming bonuses.

For point number two: Is that your usual strat? Beeline to education? Or do you tech based on Lux and so on and so forth.?
 
For point number two: Is that your usual strat? Beeline to education? Or do you tech based on Lux and so on and so forth.?

Normally people will pick up mining, calender and husbandry before writing while they get 3 core cities going, then writing and philosophy. With Babylon, you'd go straight for writing first.

I have found that going for the Great Library to be too costly in building time to be worth doing. All those turns you spend on building it, could be time spent building the foundation of 3 cities. You do get a boost of 20ish tech turns on the free philosophy, but then you are stunted on total population because you don't have your cities built.

Perhaps on King and below, you can go for it after you build your settlers, but on Emperor, you don't have time to build your scouts, shrine, worker and settlers before you'd have to have GL started.
 
at which turn do you usually start a settler? Or two?

my build order is usually
scout scout monument then depending on ruins and what have you i'll usually try to either steal a worker or buy one...
i try to build an early granary as well



side note: how do i post a screenshot?
 
at which turn do you usually start a settler? Or two?

my build order is usually
scout scout monument then depending on ruins and what have you i'll usually try to either steal a worker or buy one...
i try to build an early granary as well



side note: how do i post a screenshot?

I typically go Tradition, so I do not build monuments. I get them for free. I build, scout, scout, shrine, worker (unless I get lucky and find one to steal by then), settler, settler.

To get GL on emperor, you need it built by turn 50 or so. With all that other stuff to build, it's tough to manage to build the GL, as you still need to build a Granary and caravan.

To post a SS, go to the advanced posting screen and click on the paperclip.
 
I am gonna have to try that. I just started a new game and got steamrolled for some reason by japan.
Might turn down the difficulty one until I start frequently playing again.
Was really struggling happiness
 
at which turn do you usually start a settler? Or two?

my build order is usually
scout scout monument then depending on ruins and what have you i'll usually try to either steal a worker or buy one...
i try to build an early granary as well



side note: how do i post a screenshot?

I just press F12 then upload using steam...

btw if you have unhappiness problems chances are you've overexpanded. 2-3 cities is plenty enough on immortal and below. (3 works on deity nicely)
I usually just buy my settlers though :lol: so whenever the gold from selling stuff to friends shows up, since if not deity there'll be plenty of land left for you usually.

Prioritize: food (granary ASAP if wheat/deer/banana), a mine or two at most, then get those luxes connected by the time you have friends (if you have no friends don't bother wasting 12 turns or so improving that marsh sugar for example) Chop forest only for worker/settlers/wonders, and never waste forest chop on unimportant things. Also sell your luxes, even single copies, as long as your happiness is not in the red.
 
For point number two: Is that your usual strat? Beeline to education? Or do you tech based on Lux and so on and so forth.?

Techs to work the local starting Luxuries are before NC. I skipped it because that is the case no matter what. AH & Mining also tend to fall into this category even if there's nothing local. (Mining to chop forest even without a mining luxury and numerous strategic resources will need it, AH to reveal horses even if you don't see sheep or cattle)
 
I typically go Tradition, so I do not build monuments. I get them for free. I build, scout, scout, shrine, worker (unless I get lucky and find one to steal by then), settler, settler.

To get GL on emperor, you need it built by turn 50 or so. With all that other stuff to build, it's tough to manage to build the GL, as you still need to build a Granary and caravan.

To post a SS, go to the advanced posting screen and click on the paperclip.

you don't really need caravan on emp. With Babylon you can have education with Nc , Hg and Gl in the cap and 4 cities ready at T90 ...
 
you don't really need caravan on emp. With Babylon you can have education with Nc , Hg and Gl in the cap and 4 cities ready at T90 ...

I assumed we were operating on the assumption of maximizing your cities, not on the minimum to win. Caravans are "needed", but the provide the same advantages that they do on any other difficulty. You can also have all that at T90 without the GL (not every time). I just remember that Emperor level is when the GL was always contested, and required you to start early, meaning that you had to cut out added settlers. Exceptional starting dirt aside.
 
well GL is huge ... no caravan can give you such boost. BO : scout, scout, shrine, worker, GL, NC. With Nc done around T50 and then expand. Babylon is probably the only civ that you need early writing with, so I don't see a reason not to get Gl when you can. After all, you have writing around t20, so time to build is more than enough.
 
well GL is huge ... no caravan can give you such boost. BO : scout, scout, shrine, worker, GL, NC. With Nc done around T50 and then expand. Babylon is probably the only civ that you need early writing with, so I don't see a reason not to get Gl when you can. After all, you have writing around t20, so time to build is more than enough.
My point was that not building other cities and going after GL so early is not really an advantage. I believe I mentioned it may be a wash at best, but then you may still get beat to finishing it.

It may work for you, but I doubt you gain much if anything from it. If you don't gain anything, or very little, it probably is not worth the risk.

Take your Babylon example of having education by turn T90. I've done that without the GL, but would have a larger population, which would mean I'd be producing more science per turn. Granted, I won't normally get all that by T90, but I would usually have it by T95-T100 with Babylon, but I assume that is the same case of your example.
 
GL is quite nice for France/culture victory on the lower/mid levels. It's by far the earliest opportunity for any theming bonuses.
 
Tgl or any other wonder can be used to get a good cultural output with French ua. Musketeers during the middle ages can easily help you to fend off the usual crossbow rushes...
 
My point was that not building other cities and going after GL so early is not really an advantage. I believe I mentioned it may be a wash at best, but then you may still get beat to finishing it.

It may work for you, but I doubt you gain much if anything from it. If you don't gain anything, or very little, it probably is not worth the risk.

Take your Babylon example of having education by turn T90. I've done that without the GL, but would have a larger population, which would mean I'd be producing more science per turn. Granted, I won't normally get all that by T90, but I would usually have it by T95-T100 with Babylon, but I assume that is the same case of your example.

Well, if you go OCC NC before expanding, I see no reason to skip it. That means around 15 turns faster NC. If thats not huge ...
 
Well, if you go OCC NC before expanding, I see no reason to skip it. That means around 15 turns faster NC. If thats not huge ...

If that is what you want to do, yeah, it would work. The downside is that you have more difficulties with good city placement, and lower total population. I'm not sure how all the numbers works out, but that emperor game we had both played, did show that population and city placement can be greatly effected.

I suppose there are times it might work out. I'm just not certain it holds onto its advantage throughout the game.
 
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