Tips for France?

[kidnotorious15]

Hello

So I was wondering if I could get some tips in playing the French empire. Normally I would prefer a more dominant play through. At first I start up building my economy then later on build a mass army, but I am not sure if this would also apply to France. Please bear in my mind I am only new to all this, highest difficulty that I've ever played is warlord. Hopefully I can move up to prince with this civilization

I would like to know your thoughts on this.
My usual build order is
Scout >Worker > Monument > Settler > Great Library> Stonehenge> Army > Settler

Then research
Animal Husbandry > Trapping > Pottery > Writing > Mining > Plantation > Bronze Working > Iron Working

First policy is usually Honor

Also how many ideal cities should I make?

 

[kidnotorious15]

A little help pls

 

[Gedemo]

My current game with Napoleon:

Build 5 cities with markets in it, then run till the musketeers and now invading my neighbours

 

[Estarrioll]

Well, France is much more culture-oriented civilization. I'd suggest to do monument before worker to start getting more culture. Also Stonehenge is much needed for France, so do this path of research (Writing, if I/m not mistaken).

And if you like play rough ,build some army, adopt Honor and get double exp for military units policy and lvl-up your military on barbarians. Keep an eye on your economy, grab resources and so on.

To sum up, your main focus should be culture to enhance your military, economy and science by adopting more and more policies. BTW, do not spam too many cities - policies will be much harder to take. Three usually is enough for Warlord-Prince and for first Medieval-time wars.

 

[Frank327]

I'd say go completely another way. Ignore culture buildings and wonders early on, because you don't need them. Remember, +2 culture per city gives the greatest benefit with a lot of cities, and it isn't a great trait for cultural victory because +2 culture is only a very small part of what you should be getting in the end.

One strategy that can work with France that doesn't work with a lot of other civs is rapid expansion + liberty SP's. You can get SP's very quickly even if you build lots of cities and no cultural buildings at all. This means you can get +1 production in all cities, or +1 culture in all cities or +1 happiness for every connected city to your capital very early.

Of course you can also choose honor or tradition to start with, you'll get any of them pretty fast. Anyways, either expand early on or go on early wars with honor SP's, to get you in a good position in the mid game so you can start using your UU's to win the game.

Of course you can also start building lots of monuments to give culture an extra boost, but just make sure that it doesn't hurt your early landgrab. This may be necessary once the policies get more expensive. The worst thing to do with France is waste all that potential on only two or three cities. Those +2 culture per city aren't going to save your small empire against the bigger empires.

 

[troytheface]

Tradition over honor

this is the superior

 

[Celevin]

Here's what I do most of the time with France, if I don't want to exploit any glaring game holes:

1) Warrior/worker, in any order, out of the city.
2) By the time they finish, you get your first social policy. Choose Liberty and build a settler, taking advantage of the faster build time. You'll expand *fast*.
3) Your goal is 4+ cities with the +1 culture / +1 happiness per city. Don't bother going for +1 production, as you have to go through a useless policy to get it. Don't worry if your cities seem kind of compact, that will just lower road costs.

There's 2 roadblocks to rapid expansion: culture, and happiness. Those 2 Liberty policies counter that perfectly.

At this point, you're gaining a lot of culture. Feel free to choose between peaceful building and expansion, or to quickly open up Honour and go to war. If you go to war, don't annex unless you feel forced to and you have mathematics. Always always puppet cities, decide if they're worth adding to your empire (they won't add policy costs), and sell any unwanted cities back to the coms.

A good secondary tree is Patronage when it opens, and Commerce as well. But the best by far is Rationalism if you can afford to wait. Usually I have policies coming in fast enough that I really don't want to wait at all. I do a slingshot for Medieval, and gun for Commerce.

 

[troytheface]

aiming towards building foreign legions and building a fort in the desert near dunes is what i aim towards

 

[Patholos]

Doing a epic/marathon continent game on Prince with France.

Just go horse, you cant lose with it.

As for policies, I saved up till i got the whole patronage tree. As CS bonuses feed my empire better than they being under my heel.

Prolly go for Order and Commerce, depending on how big you wanna go.

But dont sweat it, Prince is.... not very hard compared to before.

Just attack, raze, get in a settler, rinse repeat.

 

[qyll]

Hello

I would like to know your thoughts on this.
My usual build order is
Scout >Worker > Monument > Settler > Great Library> Stonehenge> Army > Settler

Then research
Animal Husbandry > Trapping > Pottery > Writing > Mining > Plantation > Bronze Working > Iron Working

First policy is usually Honor

Also how many ideal cities should I make?

France is built to kill. Go down Honor, definitely. Later on, you can get Patronage if you've got some CS allies, and then get Order. Don't bother with wonders. Hope someone else nearby builds Stonehenge and invade them. After that, make gunpowder a priority.

I can't tell you a good tech path until I see your start. Definitely take animal husbandry first, then take the tech that you need to work nearby resources. Once you're done with that, take wheel --> horseback riding or bronze working --> iron working and invade a neighbor.

For Napoleon, the more cities the better. Some might disagree with this, but if you can combat unhappiness, you can pull it off. Target cities with new luxury resources in them, always liberate city states, build coliseums, try to get banking after gunpowder and build forbidden palace. In the early game, try to have at least 2 cities before you start invading.