The French Kiss of Death: A Strategy for Dominating the World as France

[futurehermit]

The French Kiss of Death​

First off, big thanks to BWS, Sanabas, and the gang over in this thread for helping me to reason out that 8 (correction, thanks BWS!) up to 10 cities is the way to go for the opening for this France strategy.

Overview

The general idea for this strategy is to leverage first France's UA with respect to per city bonuses, which means liberty and cranking out cities. However, as opposed to full out ICSing, I recommend halting expansion at some point (explained below) so that you can continue to rake in policies and not tank the rate at which you are gaining them. To support the UA, I outline how to complement France's culture production toward policy generation.

From there, the next piece of the puzzle is how to leverage France's two UUs toward domination. This means hitting Gunpowder and Replaceable Parts at a good enough pace that you can use what is hopefully a tech and military advantage to do a lot of damage, preferably wiping out multiple opponents.

In this strategy, which I playtested extensively at Emperor/Standard/Continents, I show how to open with 8 cities (correction -- can go up to 10 cities), wipe out your closest neighbour with composite bows, and get both sistine chapel (acoustics) and gunpowder by about turn 165. I outline an objectives-based strategy where the objectives are reference points for the strategy that you can deviate from and return to based on the specifics of your map and neighbours.

Part 1: Opening

Capital Build: Scout -- Monument -- Settler -- Settler -- Shrine

Tech: Pottery -- Archery -- Everything you need for happiness (Mining, Masonry, Calendar, Sailing, Trapping)

Buy: Worker -- Worker

Policies: Liberty -- Republic -- Collective Rule -- Citizenship

Religious Beliefs: Messenger of the Gods

(note: if you get a great desert location for desert folklore, go for it, it is insanely powerful. It just doesn't happen a ton with France start bias)

2nd City Build: Archer -- Shrine -- Monument -- Archer

3rd City Build: Archer -- Shrine -- Monument -- Warrior

4th City Build: Shrine -- Monument -- Archer

Objectives:

There are four main opening objectives:

1) Scout your region extensively with scout and warrior to get goody huts, meet city states, locate neighbours, and identify 7 (correction: up to 9) city spots (preferably near unique luxuries). Use your scouting to decide whether you can settle these spots before wiping out a neighbour or if you will have to expand through a neighbour.

2) Have a 4-city empire by about turn 40. Two settlers hard built and one free from collective rule. Try and keep a city site, preferably with a unique luxury, nearby so you can quickly settle it with your 3rd settler.

3 and 4) Get shrines and monuments up and running so you can push through liberty and also get a pantheon for messenger of the gods. You will make good use of the tech boost from this pantheon.

Part 2 to be continued below...

 

[futurehermit]

Part 2: Second Wave Expansion

General Comment about City States: Mercantile City-States are a huge boon for this strategy, as alliances with them will help keep your empire happy and growing. Try and do their quests and gift them gold as you are able to obtain and maintain alliances with them.

Capital Build: Archer -- Archer -- Settler -- Settler -- Settler

Tech: Wheel -- Construction (delay completion until you have 6 archers to upgrade) -- Writing -- Philosophy or Drama

Buy: Archer Upgrades -- Worker

Policies: Representation -- Meritocracy -- Honor

Religious Beliefs: Ceremonial Burial -- Asceticism

(note: if you went with desert folklore, you could consider going pagodas first before asceticism)

2nd City Build: Library

3rd City Build: Library

4th City Build: Library

5th City Build: Monument -- Shrine -- Library

6th through 10th City Build: Monument -- Shrine


Objectives:

There are four main objectives for part two:

1) Assuming you have a reasonably close neighbour, take them out with 6 composite bows and 2 warriors. Take out their units first with the bows, then fire on the city with the bows while positioning the warriors to be able to both land next to the city in one turn. Once the city is about to fall, move in the warriors and take the city. Rinse repeat until the opponent is gone. If you are expanding through this neighbour, you may want to annex the capital and possibly other cities (if available) to save yourself some settlers (but at the cost of the production and maintenance of courthouses). In my test game I just puppetted the Swedish capital (his only city) and kept building cities as normal.

2) Finish Liberty by about turn 70 (I usually average between 60-70). Unless you took desert folklore, take a great prophet and found your religion, taking ceremonial burial and asceticism. Otherwise, if you took desert folklore, you will have enough faith for your prophets, and can opt for whatever great person you would like to supplement the strategy (or take the prophet anyway and just go straight into pagoda spamming).

3) Have an 8-city (correction: up to 10-city) empire and an eliminated opponent by about turn 90. The math is pretty complicated (see the thread I linked above), but the basic idea is that if you settle more than 7 (correction) 9 cities beyond your capital, your UA culture bonus is no longer enough to immediately offset the policy cost penalty from settling the city, when taking into account that your existing cities will be starting to have monuments and then ampitheatres. Start into Honor around this time as well.

4) Techs are getting more expensive. Get some libraries up and running.

Empire at about turn 90:

Spoiler :

Part 3 to be continued below...

 

[futurehermit]

Part 3: Booming to Sistine Chapel (Acoustics) and Musketeers (Gunpowder)

General Comment about Diplomacy: If you ignore a pile of hostile neighbours, you risk getting dogpiled, doing serious damage to your empire. In this game, I have Mongolia (hates me) and Egypt (hates me) to my immediate north and Polynesia (hates me) overseas. At one point, they did both declare war on me, but I had prepared with some pikes to support my comp. bows and they never really seriously invaded anyway. The rest of the time, I kept bribing Mongolia to war with Egypt, which usually ended up stalemating, with some Egyptian cities switching owners back and forth. This kept them both weakened and ripe fruit for the plucking once musketeers and cannons arrived...

General Comment about Espionage: Once you get a spy, get him out there stealing tech! Then another. Then another. Then another.

Builds: Rather than give hard build orders at this later stage, I will just say that you want to build libraries and universities (tech/scientist slots), ampitheatres (culture/artist slot), circuses/coliseums (happiness), markets (money), workshops (production), and military units (for defense, unless you want to and are able to continue conquering). The order in which you build these things will depend on your current needs. You will need all of them at some point. I give highest priority to culture, then tech (though these need to be highly balanced against one another or else you will "waste" a social policy on something other than Autocracy later), then everything else, usually money unless I need military.

Tech: Drama or Philosophy -- Math -- Currency -- Horseback Riding -- Theology -- Civil Service -- Education -- Acoustics --> Fertilizer Beeline, picking up Gunpowder on the way.

Buy: Whatever you need, such as City State alliances, workers, buildings, bribing neighbours to war with each other, etc.

Policies: Discipline -- Military Caste -- Professional Army -- Warrior Code -- Military Tradition -- Autocracy

Religious Beliefs: Pagodas -- Religious Texts

(note: once you have enhanced your religion with religious texts, don't worry about missionaries and stuff, just start spamming pagodas as you are able -- your religion will spread like wildfire)

Objectives:

There are four main objectives for part three:

1) Getting to Acoustics. Along the way, start adding amphitheatres, markets, and universities to boom your empire. Once you hit Acoustics, start the Sistine Chapel in your capital. Make sure your capital is developed for production.

2) Enhancing your religion. Since you started your religion with your early prophet from liberty (or from desert folklore ownage), your first prophet from faith will enhance your religion and you will most likely be first to enhance (at least up to emperor level). This will net you religious texts and I prefer pagodas for the 2 and balanced culture/faith production. Try to get all 8 as soon as your faith allows (without prioritizing temples).

3) Getting to Gunpowder. Once you finished Acoustics, open up your tech tree and click Fertilizer. You want to get to Industrial by the time you hit your 13th policy, so that you can start into Autocracy without having to "waste" a policy on something else. It will be tight, so you have to balance your empire well and not deviate too much from the strategy. However, if you do have to "waste" a policy, it isn't the end of the world (...yet, heh heh heh...). The rationalism opener, for example, is not a bad choice, as it won't be too hard to keep your empire happy a lot of the time with this strategy. Or, commerce opener is ok to unlock the left-hand side of commerce, for your intercontinental warfare to come.

4) Musketeer spam. Get ready to wipe your continent. Once sistine completes and you hit autocracy, you will want your cities on full-out musketeer-and-cannon spam. From there, try before turn 200, turn your continent into a bunch of puppets. Then you can turn your eye overseas...

Empire at about turn 165:

Spoiler :

Part 4 to be continued below...

 

[futurehermit]

Reserved for Part 4

 

[kamex]

Enjoying it so far. I see you a have settled on a lot of resource tiles. Any reason for this? The initial city tile yield boost maybe?

 

[OwlRaider]

You should consider delaying your expansion for a bit and go for an early National College on 2 or 3 cities(if 3 than buying the 3rd library rather than producing it) before entering full expansion mode. A good way to do it is to go for Citizenship before Republic and Collective Rule, build a worker rather than settler after the monument and buy your settler ASAP, usually with the money you get from selling luxuries to the AI. That way you have 2 workers, 2 quick cities, a beeline towards philosophy before the other luxury techs(mining, masonry, animal husbandry and trapping) than after you get philosophy go back to all these other luxury techs than continue with your current strategy, getting everything much faster thanks to the National College.

 

[KGPurrs]

Enjoying it so far. I see you a have settled on a lot of resource tiles. Any reason for this? The initial city tile yield boost maybe?

You cannot expand that quickly without killing your happiness. He simply doesn't have enough workers or time to keep his happy normal. Whats the point of 6-8 cities when they all cant grow past population 2.

 

[chazzycat]

thanks for the write up. It's good to know 8 cities is the ideal for France...sounds about right based on experience. I like how you make the most of the cheap policies by going through honor and autocracy, which fits nicely with their UUs. I tend to go a different route, i.e. piety patronage or commerce, because I don't like domination too much. Your strategy seems a bit more focused.

 

[RedRover57]

Why not secure your entire continent before turn 150 using a more aggressive comp bow strategy? Beeline to Machinery instead of Education after Construction. Use a free GS from the Liberty finisher to speed Machinery. This way you will wind up with 3-4 cities to start plus numerous puppets, the better of which you can annex later (e.g., the AI capitals). You can also fill in additional cities later. Less settled cities to start will also allow you to build the NC before starting Phase 2 of settling (after the continent is yours). You start with slower science rate but quickly make it up later. Once you have secured your continent you can pretty much do anything.

 

[BWS]

Nice work! I'm wondering about this, though:

3) Have an 8-city empire and an eliminated opponent by about turn 90. The math is pretty complicated (see the thread I linked above), but the basic idea is that if you settle more than 7 cities beyond your capital, your UA culture bonus is no longer enough to immediately offset the policy cost penalty from settling the city, when taking into account that your existing cities will be starting to have monuments and then ampitheatres.

Can you show how you determined that 8 cities was the turning point? I'm having a hard time seeing what's special about that number. The math shouldn't be that complicated – let's see what turns up. If all of your existing cities have monuments, then founding a new city is pure win, culturally, if (5N+B)/(N+9) < 3, where B is bonus culture from palace, wonders, and city-states. Before the Industrial Era, B is small, so we can estimate: New cities are good if 6N/(N+9) < 3.

6N/(N+9) < 3
6N < 3N+27
3N < 27
N < 9.

If you have monuments everywhere and modest bonus culture, then a 9th city is positive, a 10th city is roughly neutral, and more than 10 cities will slow you down unless you can build a monument promptly. If you can afford to build a monument immediately, then the solution becomes N < 27, and you can effectively expand as much as happiness allows – sanabas found a similar result in the other thread. Otherwise, you're best off building 9–10 cities, depending on other factors.

Things change a bit once you have amphitheaters throughout your empire. A lot depends on how quickly you can afford to build a monument and an amphitheater in the new city. I estimate that an empire with amphitheaters has about 10 culture per city, including bonus culture and artists in your strongest cities.

New city has|Formula|Solution
No buildings|10N/(N+9) < 3|N < 3.9
Monument|10N/(N+9) < 5|N < 9
Amphitheater|10N/(N+9) < 8|N < 36

Coincidentally, the solution is the same – expand to 9–10 cities – if and only if you can build a monument promptly in the new cities. Once you have widespread amphitheaters, do not found new cities at low-production sites unless you can afford to pay for a monument with cash. (And again, if you can afford to buy amphitheaters right away, add as many cities as you can.)

 

[Moriarte]

Well, having 8 size 5 cities by turn 165 may be good for emperor, but not beyond that.. I think France's cultural bonus is great, but expanding that much is shooting yourself in the foot in terms of happiness and culture. One can take advantage of the UA (in another way) and waltz 3 in rationalism & Order opener by turn 165 with 3 tall (size 20 - 18 - 18) cities and 6-7 minor puppets.

I am also puzzled how you guys determine degradation of strength of the UA judging from the number of cities .. To me, the improtant indication here is science per turn. If i can't reach 200 beakers in first 140 turns of the game (preferably earlier) i am doing something wrong. Of course, i want strong culture, faith and good happiness too. Taking just culture out of the context can lead you, well, to 8 size 5 cities by turn 165. No offence..

 

[BWS]

Good point about growth and science, Moriarte, but expanding to eight cities does not shoot yourself in the foot in terms of culture. That's a widespread myth that I've been trying to dispel. Rapid expansion may not be the best choice overall, but I wish folks would stop using culture as a reason to avoid it: That hasn't been true since they cut the city penalty in half in the first major patch. (More precisely: There is a point where you can hurt culture by over-expanding, but it's much higher than most people think &#8211; at least 11 cities for France.)

 

[futurehermit]

Nice work! I'm wondering about this, though:


Can you show how you determined that 8 cities was the turning point? I'm having a hard time seeing what's special about that number. The math shouldn't be that complicated – let's see what turns up. If all of your existing cities have monuments, then founding a new city is pure win, culturally, if (5N+B)/(N+9) < 3, where B is bonus culture from palace, wonders, and city-states. Before the Industrial Era, B is small, so we can estimate: New cities are good if 6N/(N+9) < 3.

6N/(N+9) < 3
6N < 3N+27
3N < 27
N < 9.

If you have monuments everywhere and modest bonus culture, then a 9th city is positive, a 10th city is roughly neutral, and more than 10 cities will slow you down unless you can build a monument promptly. If you can afford to build a monument immediately, then the solution becomes N < 27, and you can effectively expand as much as happiness allows – sanabas found a similar result in the other thread. Otherwise, you're best off building 9–10 cities, depending on other factors.

Things change a bit once you have amphitheaters throughout your empire. A lot depends on how quickly you can afford to build a monument and an amphitheater in the new city. I estimate that an empire with amphitheaters has about 10 culture per city, including bonus culture and artists in your strongest cities.

New city has|Formula|Solution
No buildings|10N/(N+9) < 3|N < 3.9
Monument|10N/(N+9) < 5|N < 9
Amphitheater|10N/(N+9) < 8|N < 36

Coincidentally, the solution is the same – expand to 9–10 cities – if and only if you can build a monument promptly in the new cities. Once you have widespread amphitheaters, do not found new cities at low-production sites unless you can afford to pay for a monument with cash. (And again, if you can afford to buy amphitheaters right away, add as many cities as you can.)

Thanks BWS -- you're rock solid with the math. I looked back at my spreadsheet again and saw that, you're right, I was looking at the wrong column, which factored in some other sources of culture that I was testing. Bah! I'm happy to stand corrected though and will mention in the original posts.

 

[futurehermit]

thanks for the write up. It's good to know 8 cities is the ideal for France...sounds about right based on experience. I like how you make the most of the cheap policies by going through honor and autocracy, which fits nicely with their UUs. I tend to go a different route, i.e. piety patronage or commerce, because I don't like domination too much. Your strategy seems a bit more focused.

With the France UUs, I feel like domination is the way to go -- though you can win other ways, of course

Why not secure your entire continent before turn 150 using a more aggressive comp bow strategy? Beeline to Machinery instead of Education after Construction. Use a free GS from the Liberty finisher to speed Machinery. This way you will wind up with 3-4 cities to start plus numerous puppets, the better of which you can annex later (e.g., the AI capitals). You can also fill in additional cities later. Less settled cities to start will also allow you to build the NC before starting Phase 2 of settling (after the continent is yours). You start with slower science rate but quickly make it up later. Once you have secured your continent you can pretty much do anything.

Well, yeah, comp bows are overpowered, so you can do that and I have done that. I had one romp where I took my continent with archers/warriors/catapults later upgraded to swords/CBs. Just doesn't leave much for the musketeers to do imo, as after securing your continent, you want to head for navigation, which is on the other side of the tech tree. I'm working on this strat as a way to leverage all 3 aspects of France (UA, UU1, UU2). Also, if you give the AI more time to expand, they will have more puppets for you and you can get more culture from autocracy.

Enjoying it so far. I see you a have settled on a lot of resource tiles. Any reason for this? The initial city tile yield boost maybe?

Happiness and city spacing are the main considerations.

You should consider delaying your expansion for a bit and go for an early National College on 2 or 3 cities(if 3 than buying the 3rd library rather than producing it) before entering full expansion mode. A good way to do it is to go for Citizenship before Republic and Collective Rule, build a worker rather than settler after the monument and buy your settler ASAP, usually with the money you get from selling luxuries to the AI. That way you have 2 workers, 2 quick cities, a beeline towards philosophy before the other luxury techs(mining, masonry, animal husbandry and trapping) than after you get philosophy go back to all these other luxury techs than continue with your current strategy, getting everything much faster thanks to the National College.

I've played around with NC and haven't been able to balance culture against science to get the policy timing that I want. I'm not really claiming this strategy is optimal for France, just that it's fun

Well, having 8 size 5 cities by turn 165 may be good for emperor, but not beyond that.. I think France's cultural bonus is great, but expanding that much is shooting yourself in the foot in terms of happiness and culture. One can take advantage of the UA (in another way) and waltz 3 in rationalism & Order opener by turn 165 with 3 tall (size 20 - 18 - 18) cities and 6-7 minor puppets.

I am also puzzled how you guys determine degradation of strength of the UA judging from the number of cities .. To me, the improtant indication here is science per turn. If i can't reach 200 beakers in first 140 turns of the game (preferably earlier) i am doing something wrong. Of course, i want strong culture, faith and good happiness too. Taking just culture out of the context can lead you, well, to 8 size 5 cities by turn 165. No offence..

I'm not claiming the strat works on immortal/deity. A lot of things are different on the highest levels where the AIs get very strong bonuses. I'm also not claiming it's the most optimal strat for France, just that it synergizes well their UA with their UUs.

 

[budweiser]

To me, the improtant indication here is science per turn. If i can't reach 200 beakers in first 140 turns of the game (preferably earlier) i am doing something wrong. Of course, i want strong culture, faith and good happiness too. Taking just culture out of the context can lead you, well, to 8 size 5 cities by turn 165. No offence..

Do you need puppets to get that much science on 140? And are you opening renaissance or industrial at that point?

 

[Moriarte]

Good point about growth and science, Moriarte, but expanding to eight cities does not shoot yourself in the foot in terms of culture. That's a widespread myth that I've been trying to dispel.

That's not a myth. Think about how much culture can 3 huge cities + 6 puppets produce by turn 165. That's 100+ gpt (spent on cultural CS and such) and each cultural bulding takes 5-6 turns to finish. Besides, since your science is rolling above 200 bpt you can quickly unlock later cultural buildings and improve your culture even more, where as with 8 size 5 cities you just stall in the middle of Rationalism.

We're talking about a small bonus of +2 cpt, which is only visible during first 3-6 policies. During rationalism, when you need 1k+ culture to finish one policy, that +2 becomes irrelevant.

That hasn't been true since they cut the city penalty in half in the first major patch.

Do you have exact figures for that reduction?

 

[Moriarte]

Do you need puppets to get that much science on 140? And are you opening renaissance or industrial at that point?

Yes, i open industrial between 140-160. No real need for puppets for that much bpt, but t.140 is a good time to be in a middle of puppet wars .

 

[jtravers88]

You cannot expand that quickly without killing your happiness. He simply doesn't have enough workers or time to keep his happy normal. Whats the point of 6-8 cities when they all cant grow past population 2.

This was my first thought. How can you maintain happiness after the 3rd city without working the luxes and trading copies to other civs? I've been working on an expansion strategy for Attila (love the battering ram - so op) but without a friend with a duplicate lux I'm having to build Circuses.

 

[OwlRaider]

1 thing that going semi wide(8-10 size ~5 cities is just that) can really benefit from in terms of science is the Messenger of the Gods founder belief, or just pantheon if you don't bother turning it into a religion. You can always argue for the likes of Fertility Rights obviously, but that benefits tall empires more than semi wide Imho, whereas Messenger of the Gods is the exact opposite, not as good in tall empires but much better in semi wide and of course ICS. Just make sure to research The Wheel a bit earlier than usual and get your trade network up ASAP, even if it won't be profitable for the first few turns(until all the small cities get to size 3-5 to start raking in profit from the new trade routes), the +2 science per trade route is a huge bonus early on, and later when you get Meritocracy, the extra happiness allows your smaller cities to grow taller while still being at positive happiness.

Never actually tried going for a culture victory with the French, only domination, so I'm not even sure whether their UA works with puppets or not. If it also works with puppets than a semi tall empire that cleans out a neighbor or 2 early on with a CB rush or something than puttimg those CBs into defending your semi tall empire and use Muskets+Cannons to get yourself a few more puppets can put you in an excellent position for an early culture victory while taking full advantage of both the UA as well as their 2 UUs.

 

[Tabarnak]

This strategy can work very well but you need something really important : CS allies. They can really help you to stay affloat in happiness. More population means more production so you can start and finish coliseums faster(and maybe build the circus maximus).

It can be a pretty strong approach, even at deity. But like a good cake, you also need the best icing on that cake and that must be either a whole bunch of trades and/or cs allies. The real kicker here is the possibility to get 7-8 cities AND stay happy.

I would even counsider getting a free ge for ND if you don't mind beelining physics.