Tips on Playing the French? (BTS)

[eewallace]

I've recently moved to prince level and am looking for a new challenge. Looking at my high scores, I realized I have never played any of the French leaders, so I'm thinking my next game should be as France.

I usually play normal speed, standard size, fractal or continents, with random AI leaders. My biggest strength is handling economy, and my weakness is calculating how much military I need and where they should be at any given time.

Any suggestions on which leader is best, or what type of victory to go for? (I'm thinking maybe space race or cultural, given the UB.)

 

[patagonia]

France is perfectly set up for a lightning renaissance war with drafted musketeers and cuirassiers, backed up with spies to drop cultural defences if your army needs the extra edge that gives. You end up with a balance of good offensive and defensive units and your whole stack can move 2 squares a turn allowing you to rip through the enemy.

The bulk of your draftees can come from the globe city if you get it set up nice and early, and the bulk of your cuirassiers can come from a good HE city assuming you can unlock that wonder. Taking nationalism or MT from liberalism and using the Taj GA to gear up for war works very well (as does getting the great wall early for a head-start espionage), so one of the industrious leaders (either De Gaulle or Louis) will have an edge over Napoleon in that respect.

 

[Belisar]

Napoleon for warmongering or Luis for a builder game you really have the choice here.
Personally, Nappy has one of my favorite trait combinations because he can support the land he captures.

 

[CivCorpse]

The free artist from the salon is nice but not game breaking for cultural wins. Personally I hate the salon because it dirties the GP pool in situations where I do not want an artist. Needless to say that is non-culture win situations. If you're thinking about a cultural victory Louis is a good choice for the cheap theatres and libraries as well as being industrious for important wonders like Sistine Chapel. DeGaulle is ok as well with the extra happiness in the early game for a more powerful start pre-HR or rep.

 

[armoredcrawler]

One thing to remember about France is that they start with both Wheel and an Animal Husbandry pre-req, so if horses are a possibility starting with Animal Husbandry for a possible chariot rush is something to keep in mind.

Napoleon is an awesome medieval warmongerer (cheap vassalage and theocracy plus charismatic!), it usually makes sense for De Gaulle to want to build Stonehenge (Industrious plus he'll get the happy bump everywhere) and Louis is a good pick for a SE (cheaper Pyramids plus 1/2 price libraries from Creative).

 

[ParadigmShifter]

What is Napoleons 2nd trait (I know he is charismatic, in Warlords, BtS). Organised?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yeah, his 2nd trait is organized. He's a scary warmonger.

 

[eewallace]

Okay, I'm going to try Napoleon. My initial thought was Louis, but he really looks good only for cultural, and I'm still needing to learn warfare on prince level. Maybe an early rush if I'm positioned for it, then gear up for science and working toward muskateers. Then the UB will be for possible space race rather than for the artists, which might be sort of a waste, I guess.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

French UB is rubbish unless going for cultural, proper "fingers crossed" time. You can use the artist for a golden age, that's all.

 

[JujuLautre]

I used to think the same about the french UB, until I realized that with Representation, it's +3 beakers for each observatory.
After all, you don't need to produce an artist

 

[Belisar]

You can have a lot of fun with Nappy.
Charismatic will help you over the full course of the game.
I'm not a fan of early wonders, unless it fits perfectly in the strategy. With Cha., you can chop stonehenge and your initial happy cap is 50% higher than normal a huge bonus for both working more tiles and whipping more often early.

Also, every barack-axe you build that gets an animal or a barb is granted to get 2 promotions (I usually find that my early units get 4 or 5 XP, with Cha. I therefore end up with twice as many CR2 units for the first attack, another huge bonus in the early game)

Later in the game, the difference between 13 and 17 XP for the 4th promotion in your military city saves the equivalent of 2 great generals, so I usually end up with another dedicated military city.

And while you conquer your neighbours, you do it with a smile on your face because organiced and the higher happy-cap keeps your eco on track.

 

[troytheface]

I suggest all most recent leaders are superior (roosevelt, de gaulle, ect.) although i have never tested this out. Maybe they are best for a space race, the early one good for cultural, and the middle ones good for domination.

 

[Iranon]

Well, I think the +4 (artists produce one beaker naturally even without Representation) is woefully underpowered at that stage of the game if you don't care about culture. If you do, pretty much any other culture-related UB will do better simply because early availability matters even more here.

I'm also unsure about planning for a massive Cuirassiers + Musketeers war; picking Spain and conquering the world with Conquistadors would do the same thing better. Musketeers make stacks of Knights a little more resilent, but I wouldn't want to fight a war without siege just to make use of the better mobility.
Being able to get fresh defenders from neighbouring cities and to get garrison untis to the frontline quickly is nice, but I'm not excited about Musketeers at all.



The leaders themselves aren't bad, but I think they naturally suffer from the less than exciting Uniques.

Louis is quite good for wonder-fueled cultural victories, but Huayna Capac, Augustus and Qin are also excellent at this (all of their UBs help) and each of these has a UU that dominates their era, giving one more flexibility.

DeGaulle lacks the sheer power of said other Industrial leaders and doesn't even benefit from the synergies that make Louis halfway attractive. Imo the worst French leader.

Napoleon definitely has his uses, filling the gap between the natural choices for economy-minded warmongers (Frederick or either Indian) and true military monsters. Again, I personally prefer the competitors. Frederick has a very powerful economy for warmongering that imo eclipses the lacklustre quality of his units, and Shaka gets going more quickly while also having a noticable economic benefit that becomes very pronounced in the late game (after corporations).

 

[Bandobras Took]

DeGaulle lacks the sheer power of said other Industrial leaders and doesn't even benefit from the synergies that make Louis halfway attractive. Imo the worst French leader.

Charismatic and Industrious? A little extra happiness goes a long way in a builder game, and faster promotions when you decide to war is no bad thing. As with Stalin (on Prince and below, anyway), there are number of Wonders you can shoot for as an aid to Warmongering.

 

[eewallace]

Okay, I got a nice start with Napoleon. I took Belisar's advice and chopped stonehenge and have expanded to 7 cities by 200 AD, and have cut off Kang Kon with only 4 cities, who is the only other guy on my continent. I've got nice resources, room for a few more cities, and the beginnings of a good army, so I don't think I'm going to wait for muskateers before taking out Wang Kon.

 

[tycoonist]

napoleon is my favourite warmonger. char/org is to my mind the perfect combination. cheap upgrades, combined with low cost courthouses to support the empire and the lowering of the support costs for those expensive war civics like vassalage and police state.

 

[troytheface]

Seems like france and the other musketman uu civ would benefit the most from nationalism and drafting (if you draft do u get a musketeer for france?) Napoleon and the draft. A two move drafted uu can't be bad.

 

[JTMacc99]

Wow, I forget what crappy UB and UU the French have, given how much of a pain they almost always are as opponents. I'm playing all of my games now with a luck of the draw leader for me (trying to shore up my gameplay before making the permanent move to the next level), and I've found that UUs with automatic promotions are my favorites.

Got the vikings this time, and upgrading my combat 1, amphibious, CRII or CRIII UU macemen all the way through Grens/Rifle/Infantry is an excellent example of why the musketeer offers so very little in comparison.

I guess if you take the French, it is pretty much all about the very nice leader trait combinations you can get, and focusing your strategy on that (rather than focusing research on getting your UU or UB) would be the way to play it. They also have nice city names, much nicer than the Vikings. I actually changed the name of one Viking city to Minnesota, because I had no idea how to even come close to pronouncing it.

 

[Diamondeye]

Since you said you are having trouble handling war: Keep in mind when judging how much force is needed to kill off Korea that:
1) Wang Kon is PRO
2) He has the Hwacha UU.

 

[futurehermit]

French UB is great if you are running a SE while warmongernig. The artist helps with border pops and consolidating land and, with rep, you are getting +3 beakers/city as well. Sweet imo.

Also, people who think Louis is only for cultural are out to lunch imo. Sure, he is great for cultural, don't get me wrong, but he also has an excellent warmongering SE imo. He can nab pyramids/parthenon/gl/ne/he/gt quite easily. Cheap libraries to run and support scientists while running slider at 0. Cheap theatres/coliseums to manage WW. ind also for pentagon, SoL, etc. His UB to help as mentioned above. UU for blitzing during the renaissance with cuirassiers and cavalry.

Some of my best warmongering games have been with Louis. You just need a few wonders early to ensure your economy is in great shape and then you can conquer, conquer, conquer.