A poll for what the community thinks about France.

[winsingtonIII]

there's two simple strategies when it comes to France in ironman Europe, depending on who you are playing of course

Ally France for the entire game to kill Austria and/or Castille
Kill France early with Austria and/or Castille

if you don't use any of these options....France will find you, and France will kill you

I don't think is really true.

I'm currently playing an ironman Friesland>Netherlands game, and initially I allied with France to take apart Burgundy. I of course did not really give them any land during those wars though.

However, once Burgundy was destroyed, I then switched sides to Castille and started joining wars against France. We have won every single war we fought against them. Admittedly, our efforts to dismantle them haven't been great, as Castille or Austria (who hates me unfortunately) is almost always the war leader and never releases that many nations.

Despite this, it's 1600 and I'm really not that scared of them anymore even though they still have almost all of modern day France under their control. Yes, they still have 80,000 manpower and a force limit of 65, but at this point I have a force limit of 55 and 60,000 manpower (from building every manpower building I can), and more importantly, I have loads of money and can just use mercs so I don't lose manpower. I'm also 2 military techs ahead of them, and I have better morale than they do (defensive ideas + reformed religion bonus = +30% morale).

Honestly, I think France is weaker in this patch than they used to be.

 

[ZangoZett]

Is France immensely powerful? Yes.

Should France be immensely powerful? Yes.

The fact that seems to be completely forgotten here lately is that balance is boring. If every nation has exactly the same capability to perform as well as any other, I think you'd find yourself losing interest in the game rapidly. Why?

Being a historical grand strategy game, the entire game's entertainment value comes from competing with other nations and watching alternate histories play out. While watching the world can be very amusing, most would probably agree that the competition aspect of the game is more important. The problem is, of course, that the AI cannot compete with the player in any meaningful way.

Assuming a player doesn't get immensely (or even just a little depending on start conditions) unlucky, you can pretty much guarantee the player is going to finish the game as a world-power, maybe not in score but certainly in scale and influence. What makes EUIV a compelling experience is not this inevitable destination, but the journey the player takes to get there. The reason we find WC as Ryuuku and the prospect of playing this new Theodoro so compelling is the challenge involved in reaching what ends up being the same end as almost every other round we play. If every nation were "balanced" in the way some people seem to want them to be, practically all of the challenge and replayability is ripped out of the game.

An extremely important part of the game's challenge is fighting off the nations that are by right stronger than you. If you're playing as Aragon, France should very well be something to be afraid of, as well as one should fear Russia when playing as an Asian nation, or the invading Europeans when playing as an African or Native nation. The tension in every individual game played is born out of the fear of your neighbors and competitors; how many games do you vividly remember in which you simply steam-rolled everything versus that one when you got that Peasant's war just when the coalition came a' knocking but you managed to hold on and triumph?

Much of the game's value is drawn purely from its challenge, and in order for the AI to be a challenge it needs to be far stronger in stats than the player to make up for the fact it's the AI. Nerfing France would be the equivalent of giving Darth Vader a plastic lightsaber; France needs its fangs to be the Big Bad it should be.

Plus, France has an important role in the balance of powers in Europe. Wanna know what stops Spain from using its wealth from its colonies to steam roll Europe? France.
Who stops the HRE from becoming the Holy Roman Europe? France.
If you take France out of the equation, someone else will simply fill the power gap, and then we'll have Nerf Spain! and Nerf Austria! threads, and then once they're gone it'll be Nerf Russia! and Nerf Prussia! until every nation is completely "balanced" and the game is devoid of any flavor, personality, challenge, or fun.

 

[TomosCaerllion]

France is not OP, but perhaps Austria is underpowered.

I never feel that France is too strong, and even though I fear them greatly in most games (which is fun) they can always be laid low once you've won one or two carefully placed wars. France can be eclipsed.

Granted, unless you get a lot of luck then AI Austria has traditionally not been the big rival that they were in history (but you could argue that they had a lot of luck in history, so diplomatic and imperial buffs are enough for them).

 

[Brent15]

France is not OP from what I can tell. The AI is just terrible at containing them. It does spoil immersion since I get tired of having to police them alone.

 

[Knut Skallagrim]

Often france has to fight alone against multiple targets. They are ok for me

 

[nicechinos]

France is not OP, with the appropriate allies anyone can survive them. Try playing a muslim nation near the Ottomans, that is more difficult because there is no Muslim counter balance to them.

Muslim like who? The Mamelukes?

 

[nicechinos]

Is France immensely powerful? Yes.

Should France be immensely powerful? Yes.

The fact that seems to be completely forgotten here lately is that balance is boring. If every nation has exactly the same capability to perform as well as any other, I think you'd find yourself losing interest in the game rapidly. Why?

Being a historical grand strategy game, the entire game's entertainment value comes from competing with other nations and watching alternate histories play out. While watching the world can be very amusing, most would probably agree that the competition aspect of the game is more important. The problem is, of course, that the AI cannot compete with the player in any meaningful way.

Assuming a player doesn't get immensely (or even just a little depending on start conditions) unlucky, you can pretty much guarantee the player is going to finish the game as a world-power, maybe not in score but certainly in scale and influence. What makes EUIV a compelling experience is not this inevitable destination, but the journey the player takes to get there. The reason we find WC as Ryuuku and the prospect of playing this new Theodoro so compelling is the challenge involved in reaching what ends up being the same end as almost every other round we play. If every nation were "balanced" in the way some people seem to want them to be, practically all of the challenge and replayability is ripped out of the game.

An extremely important part of the game's challenge is fighting off the nations that are by right stronger than you. If you're playing as Aragon, France should very well be something to be afraid of, as well as one should fear Russia when playing as an Asian nation, or the invading Europeans when playing as an African or Native nation. The tension in every individual game played is born out of the fear of your neighbors and competitors; how many games do you vividly remember in which you simply steam-rolled everything versus that one when you got that Peasant's war just when the coalition came a' knocking but you managed to hold on and triumph?

Much of the game's value is drawn purely from its challenge, and in order for the AI to be a challenge it needs to be far stronger in stats than the player to make up for the fact it's the AI. Nerfing France would be the equivalent of giving Darth Vader a plastic lightsaber; France needs its fangs to be the Big Bad it should be.

Plus, France has an important role in the balance of powers in Europe. Wanna know what stops Spain from using its wealth from its colonies to steam roll Europe? France.
Who stops the HRE from becoming the Holy Roman Europe? France.
If you take France out of the equation, someone else will simply fill the power gap, and then we'll have Nerf Spain! and Nerf Austria! threads, and then once they're gone it'll be Nerf Russia! and Nerf Prussia! until every nation is completely "balanced" and the game is devoid of any flavor, personality, challenge, or fun.

That should be put as a sticky post somewhere in this forum. That's a gem among all this OP/ not OP whining. All time balance is not very historical, indeed.

 

[Casus_Belli]

france is exactly where it should be, very strong nation
human player won't do the same mistake as the leaders of France did

most game you play end up with a very strong France...
well if you remember your history, a 5'6 guy named Napoleon allied and conquered pretty much all europe in less then 10 years.
I think paradox made it exactly where it should be.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, not the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries.

 

[Casus_Belli]

Before I get crucified by everyone, I'd like to say that I didn't lose a war against France to make me bitter, I am playing the Byzantines, and managed to bait France in the alps and drained their manpower, (but the game crashed and hadn't been saving ).

I am saying this because I am fed up of them destroying the AI, in this game Castille was their ally, and Austria got super strong, but otherwise they seem to blob (this is my first 1.8 game, so correct me if I'm wrong.)

 

[Zqrfmb]

France is fine, it just needs better opposition, in a vast majority of situations with no player involvement, they get out of control, and it's not offering other nations a chance to spiral out of control; I've never seen AI burgundy push into France (or possibly even replace France) due to being overtaxed by austrian and castillan pressure, even without burgundian inheritance firing off that game, but I have witnessed a Novgorodian Russia due to muscovy being kept weak by AI poland, when those two are in a similar position to france/burgundy.

 

[GabbyDieJaeger]

France was brokenly overpowered in earlier patches, but 1.8 seems to have mitigated this quite a lot.
And don't tell me that France isn't overpowered because the player can beat it, because that's not the point. A player can conquer the world as Ryukyu or dominate Europe as the Aztecs.
The problem arises when, without the player directly intervening, France could be pretty much guaranteed to annex almost all of the low counties, northern Italy, and occasionally a chunk of Spain, which was very silly.
However, perhaps due to Castile and Austria's military buffs or England's improved AI, France seems to be a lot more manageable in AoW. In the two games I've played so far, France has expanded at a reasonable rate, and although it can take on a large chunk of Europe single-handedly, as it should be able to, a strong Spanish-Austrian alliance can keep it firmly in its place, just as it should be able to.

 

[Casus_Belli]

OK I've counted them up, and against is winning by 1 point (so the community is saying France is not OP).

Keep commenting if you want, and I'll check the posts afterwards.

 

[Denkt]

France is maybe a bit to strong at the start, but it do have some weaknesses:
Many of its competitors are in far better positions for trade and navy focus, allowing them to greatly outperform France's economy.
It also is a neighbour to many of these nations and HRE which can make expansion for it not as easy as if it had Muscovy or Ottoman location.

 

[KillingMeSoftly]

France isn't OP. The new changes have slowed them down nicely.

(I don't play with Lucky Nations for numerous reasons. A nation's starting position being great, like France's, is lucky enough).

 

[zemuzil]

They need to stay strong

 

[lemonsquid]

its not OP. I watched Austria beat France in 1490 mostly on its own... Frances positioning is what makes it so scary, but now that EUIV has progressed, new powers form and contest the french in my games