Tips on Playing the French? (BTS)

[TheMeInTeam]

Doing the math, CR I+II amounts to 45% bonus cut from the defender (normally, Longbow, base strength 6), whereas C I+Cover on muskets is 10% on the attacker and 25% from the defender.
6 * .45 = 2.7
6 * .25 + 9 * .1 = 2.4

Difference between being CR II and Combatcover when attacking cities: .3 strength on defender in favor of CR.

Now add the fact that Maces have one less base strength, and musketeers ignore walls and castles, as well as have another move. Now go tell me why Maces are better. Muskets are better AND faster.

The ONLY thing better about maces is that they do show up sooner .

I love maces in their time and all, but once muskets start turning up I use less of the maces, instead making muskets. I don't need CR maces as much as I need CR trebs (and later cannons). Anything can clean up after that, and often their best promo in such a scenario is drill.

 

[futurehermit]

Artists produce 14 before any bonus. Somewhat confusingly, Great Artist produce 312 though.

Ah, ok, yes I was mixing it up with settled GAs. Regular artists produce a eh? That is indeed interesting and I will have to keep it in mind for SE-cultural kinds of games where I can nab the pyramids.

Definitely awesome though for the french UB. 4 and 4 when going for a SE domination win? Yes please

 

[JujuLautre]

The ONLY thing better about maces is that they do show up sooner .

I love maces in their time and all, but once muskets start turning up I use less of the maces, instead making muskets. I don't need CR maces as much as I need CR trebs (and later cannons). Anything can clean up after that, and often their best promo in such a scenario is drill.

Same here; I worldbuildered some test one day and concluded that, for the purpose of attacking cities protected by longbows, muskets are almost always superior to macemen with the same number of promos.

In this case, the only good point for macemen is that you can upgrade them to CR rifle or grenadier, which are (I believe) better at city busting than rifle or grenadier with the same number of other promos.

 

[CivCorpse]

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.

Then you will just giggle your pants off using DeGaule instead. Libraries/theatres and colusseums are normal price, but honestly, you need to whip those unhappy people away. Charasmatic also deals with unhappines and extra promotions are always a good thing.

 

[Yeekim]

I, too, used to heavily underestimate Musketeers. Until recently.

Like the thread starter, I had my first game with a French leader - De Gaulle. It was on Emperor, and I got lucky with getting easily accessible Stone and Marble. While my neighbors (Pacal, Huayna and Willem) were far away (no early rush), I didn't have much land to settle either: there were swaths of desert/ice/tundra between me and them.
So I went Wonder happy (Great Wall, Pyramids, Gardens, Parthenon, Mausoleum), which helped greatly with my SE, but I still got only 5 cities on Standard Map - and 2 of them were just for getting Iron, Marble, Deer and Fur from otherwise sucky Tundra locations.
My first 2 GP were spies (GW!) which I used to infiltrate my neighbors for great benefit - only due to this did I manage to keep up sciencewise: I was surprisingly first to Lib, and took Econ - first as well.

By that time, both Huayna and Pacal had grabbed prime real estate: 10-12 good cities both. As land is power, I would have been left in dust real quickly from that point. Not much production capacity for an army either. But Police State/Nationhood/Slavery/Theocracy along with drafted Musketeer rush saved my ass. It worked like a charm. And the Chm trait went very nicely along with it.

Don't underestimate Musketeers!

 

[Daedal]

1. It takes a while to rally units from around your empire. 2 move units halve that time. Build them in faraway cities while you build siege in cities close to the front lines.
2. Move & take action in a single turn. Move & pillage. Move & fortify. So even if you need to move the stack slowly to let siege units catch up, you can still have a fortified stack defender each turn. Bring along at least two and you can move, fortify, and pillage improvements all at once.
3. Best unit for Renaissance Blitzkrieg. Position a stack 2 spaces diagonal from an opposing city at the second border pop or less, declare war, capture said city on the same turn.
4. You can draft them.

Musketeers may not be completely broken like Praets or Quechas, but they're pretty nice.

 

[eewallace]

OP reporting back in:

I was out of town and didn't get back to my game until last night. Napoleon had no problem taking out Wang Kon, really. Although those Hwacha things he's got are pretty nice. Actually, he mostly seemed to be trying to use spies against me, which I've never seen the AI do before. Maybe that is something new on prince level.

Anyway, I now own my home continent. I got astromony and started exploring and it turns out there are 2 other continents with 3 civs each. I haven't met them all yet but I've traded enough maps to have a good idea where and how big they are. I don't have the tech lead, but I guess that is not surprising since they've had more trading partners.

My tentative plan is to work toward muskateers and transports next.

 

[Belisar]

Personally, I would not bother with musketeers if I already own my continent.
Instead, I would work on a more advanced military, for oversea invasions, rifles (built and drafted) cav or cannons (which have the added benefit that they are on the ship tech-line) work better,
Prebuilding some for upgrading is ok if you have the money, for example from a GM-trade mission.

Many players think: "I play the French, I must actually use musketeers"
Instead, every game setup is different, just try to use the unique caracteristics from the leaders depending on the situation.

 

[AbbieRevo]

I've only had one real France game, and those muskets saved my patooty from an invading lady celt stack.

But I would also like to say that TroyTheFace might be my favorite poster on these forums.

 

[Molybdeus]

True, you lose out on collateral, but the AI has much less time to build/whip/draft/relocate defenders and your economy spends less turns affected by WW.

I have never really understood this argument. If I am hitting the AI's city with numerous siege units before attacking, I generally don't give a crap how many units the AI has in its city. They are all going to die anyway. After being hit by numerous siege units, they are going to be in no shape to counterattack, so you don't need to kill all of them in one turn. More units at 1/4 power = more XP for my invaders.

Conversely with musketeers you are facing very bad odds against longbows if you don't use collateral. A combat 2 musketeer vs. a City Garrison I longbowman in a level 2 cultural city gives you only a 26% chance of victory without even calculating fortification for the longbowman. You are going to take massive casualties with this strategy.

The real advantage of musketeers is pillaging. Musketeers have no natural counter, and are thus better pillagers than knights.

 

[futurehermit]

Don't use musketeers to attack cities. Use cuirassiers/cavalry for that. The musketeers zip along serving as stack/city defenders allowing for a quick romp through enemy territory.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Don't use musketeers to attack cities. Use cuirassiers/cavalry for that. The musketeers zip along serving as stack/city defenders allowing for a quick romp through enemy territory.

They attack cities just fine though...

 

[The Fishman]

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.)

France starts with agriculture and the wheel, so chariot rushes are definitely in order.

 

[futurehermit]

They attack cities just fine though...

I agree, but cuirs and cav are of course better on average.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I agree, but cuirs and cav are of course better on average.

Of course they are . Generally units later in the tech tree will be better for attacking cities than earlier ones . Depending on your tech path even cuirs may not be so close, and depending on your game this might not matter! I think my De Gaulle NC game did a pretty good job with mixing offensive musketeers in (and they DID see offensive use for city capture), although the primary unit to war in that one was something a bit earlier.

 

[troytheface]

Playing the French one must decide upon De Gaulle, or Napoleon. (Louis is not worth mention) Most prefer De Gaulle as he is more modern with Industrious and Charasmatic for winning wars and building wonders.

The UB is the Salon- an observatory replacement so it would be wise to think of building a strong navy for France as you need to get to Astronomy for this.

Gunpowder is one of those easy to get techs so a draftable Gunpowder UU
that is the best musket replacement in the game is a good thing for the ol
French. All blue colored civs should immediately attack any orange or brown colored civs. (complimentary color- ergo they are the antithesis of each other )

 

[aelf]

Wow, reading the replies from this thread I realised how far the community has travelled since the time I wrote the Musketeer entry for the UU guide

 

[troytheface]

a good article but i think it left out the babylonian bowmen - a looks good on paper uu that is unweildy at best -and you can just kill them like flies with horse.
perhaps the bowman should get its own article. Effective use and abuse of the bowmen.

the lesson is - a uu given 2 move is better than a uu with shock.

 

[aelf]

a good article but i think it left out the babylonian bowmen - a looks good on paper uu that is unweildy at best -and you can just kill them like flies with horse.
perhaps the bowman should get its own article. Effective use and abuse of the bowmen.

the lesson is - a uu given 2 move is better than a uu with shock.

It's not complete yet. Well, it was until BtS came along

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Musketeers have synergy with curaissers because they both have 2 moves... never thought about it that way. Used to think the French are not very good warmongers. I still feel that the AI tends to have muskets before you do though, and muskets in cities can't be busted until rifles really.

Having said that, I do kinda like the salon though: combining this thing with representation is NOT trivial.