For the love of god, PLEASE F***ING NERF FRANCE

[moglus]

Since we likely won't ever have Ironman without Lucky bonuses, then at least some of the military Lucky bonuses could get a little nerf...

yeah, that or make it so that historical lucky nations also applies to the player if they are playing a country that would otherwise get the bonus, if we have to have lucky nations in ironman then i would prefer that everyone that should get it, gets it, regardless of player status. after all it is called "HISTORICAL lucky nations" i don't see why England/Great Britan would stop being a major historical player just because of:

NOT = {
is_player = yes

 

[moglus]

I fed Brittany my cores and they did just fine holding off France. Don't just abandon your cores, give them to an ally or vassal.

france would have declared the war anyway, it's not like those 4 provinces are the sole reason france is OP

 

[JoeSteel]

I'm guessing it's like my war with the ottomans in my ruthenia game.
Have twice as many troops, even more discipline in some ally states, but they're armies are just so much better that they come in and whipe your armies out before allies can help, and then the allies are too stupid to realize that they have to group up to roflstomp them early in the war or else it's a loss.
Really hard to simulate historical france's shortcomings in the realm of leadership and the like.

 

[Swami]

I actually like the lucky nations, in my Ethiopia game I lost the first war from the Ottomans, after that I managed to defeat them 3 times in a row, just by picking fights in the mountains, river crossings, after I lost the war I made tactical alliances with QQ, Yemen and Mutapa so that the next time I would have enough strenght in my alliance.

Now the AI might do such tactical stuff sometimes taking mountains or river crossings in their advantange, but are usually easily tricked and their alliance set-up is sometimes really stupid, for instance the TO that doesn't want to become allied to Russia or Bohemia while those nations want an alliance and then dies of course. It's a really stupid thing to do what a player would never do...

So in my opinion the lucky nations are good as long as they don't build a AI that can handle all tactical aspects of the game, which will probably take a while... You'll probably just ally some other people, do some upgrades so that the next war wil go better, ajustments the AI never makes after losing a war. They will happily go into the next war with the same setup that made them lose the last war.

 

[moglus]

I actually like the lucky nations, in my Ethiopia game I lost the first war from the Ottomans, after that I managed to defeat them 3 times in a row, just by picking fights in the mountains, river crossings, after I lost the war I made tactical alliances with QQ, Yemen and Mutapa so that the next time I would have enough strenght in my alliance.

Now the AI might do such tactical stuff sometimes taking mountains or river crossings in their advantange, but are usually easily tricked and their alliance set-up is sometimes really stupid, for instance the TO that doesn't want to become allied to Russia or Bohemia while those nations want an alliance and then dies of course. It's a really stupid thing to do what a player would never do...

So in my opinion the lucky nations are good as long as they don't build a AI that can handle all tactical aspects of the game, which will probably take a while... You'll probably just ally some other people, do some upgrades so that the next war wil go better, ajustments the AI never makes after losing a war. They will happily go into the next war with the same setup that made them lose the last war.

the main problem with france being a lucky nation is that they already gain massive bonuses from other places

 

[Swami]

But they need it simply to make a shot a becoming succesfull. They are now often destroyed by Burgundy / England early game... If the get weaker then France will pretty much get destroyed every game and I kinda like a strong France, Ottomans and Russia, the last is allready patched to never come into existence, I don't think the same should be done with France.

 

[grommile]

yeah, that or make it so that historical lucky nations also applies to the player if they are playing a country that would otherwise get the bonus,

Being meatbag > being a lucky nation.

Being meatbag + being a lucky nation = faceroll.

 

[Zwirbaum]

the combat width at tech 8 is 9, so my armies were set up like this 9/2/9, i did exactly what you said, but ultimately it didn't matter, for some reason France just won every battle in a matter of seconds

On tech 8 you went for so much artillery? Why? Arty before mil tech 13 is utter garbage for battles, on 13-16 starts to become acceptable and useful. And with frontage of 11, you're getting flanked A LOT, and quickly evaporate espiecally when France have Elan.

 

[Jibril]

On tech 8 you went for so much artillery? Why? Arty before mil tech 13 is utter garbage for battles, on 13-16 starts to become acceptable and useful. And with frontage of 11, you're getting flanked A LOT, and quickly evaporate espiecally when France have Elan.

Yea, @Zwireq is completely right. I tried using 10/0/10 on tech 8, my infantry got obliterated so quickly that I immediately reverted to 12/4/4.

 

[davej]

Ottomans steamrolling through western europe in the religious league war also comes to mind (11.4)

 

[Axe99]

My last England game, in the 1.13 beta, I had no trouble knocking over France without too much trouble from anyone. In my recent games (and some westernisation rate tests as observer games), I've only see France go 'crazy' once and take over Spain, other than that, they've either been around where they were historically, or struggled and got knocked down a fair bit. I wouldn't say there's any more need to nerf it at this point. To the OP, sounds like you may have got unlucky with your allies - remember to work with them, and try and focus your forces together for the battles.

 

[misiceman]

Also note that in an earlier post you mentioned we outnumbered him in the mountains. you need to reinforce the army getting attacked not just sit there like 60-30 in the mountains cause only so many troops will fight and your moral will still get wrecked even though the troops are just sitting on their collecting backsides. So like wait till 75% moral and come in from the neighbouring territory.

And as so many others have said Arty before tech 13 or 16 is only useful to help with sieges and not in actual engagements.

Assuming same pristige , army tradition and mil tech, France even with Elan, should only be 5% higher on moral than Castile. After that its either events or the adviser but if you reinforce in the mountains properly they should ge appropriately shredded. My wife just had this issue fighting the Ottomans and she didnt get that 2-1 odds not on plains isnt worth it (frankly I find it almost never worth it and would rather re-inforce with the second army)

 

[Incompetent]

i usually play at speed 4 or 5, i never actually look at the individual battles unless there is something wrong

it's in iron man mode

This might be a problem if you are facing a non-trivial opponent. If nothing else, you need to react quickly if your armies are about to get crushed. A few days can make a big difference.

Being meatbag > being a lucky nation.

Being meatbag + being a lucky nation = faceroll.

Also this. Compared to the AI, a human brain is ludicrously OP. Of course, you can negate a lot of your cognitive advantage by playing on speed 5 all the time.

 

[Zak Preston]

AI France needs buffs or AI England needs some severe nerfs, IMHO: in mist of my game poor baguettes collapse and go into full development of their territories.

 

[Chat]

Craziest thing I've seen France do was maintain over 260 regiments with ~170 force limit. I have no idea how they managed to keep positive income, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to go that high over the force limit in my England/Great Britain game where I literally owned every inch of the new world, the Iberian penisula and half of France (the other half being my PU partner).

 

[panda_Express12]

get good

 

[Scottx105]

France is so weak in this patch its not even funny. Burgundy will roll over them, queue in DOW from England and its pretty much gone by 1480.

Their first idea does nothing for an AI France.

That's not entirely true, France 1v1 against burgundy will win. Unless burgundy gets some strong allies or both England and Burgundy attack at the same time France is fine. At the point of perfection I would say, weak early game, first 10-20 years. After that France becomes easily the strongest nation in Europe.

 

[Bella Gerant]

Historically, France did have 1/4 of Europe's population. Plus, France has Kalmar Denmark and not-OP Sweden on its side, so that neutralizes the Hansa and should be contributing to France's army size (probably more like 135,000 v 100,000 due to the Kalmar Union). And Elan's +20% morale, any ideas (offensive probably), and any military buff advisers mean that France should be able to take on that alliance of your's with some difficulty (Seriously, +20% morale is massive. I had +100% piety as a Shia Tabrestan and I beat a Timurid army twice my size (10v20) thanks to mountains and the +20%. Might have had a +10% morale adviser too. But that's not even considering leaders).

 

[KillingMeSoftly]

I think this is mostly a case of player error. Not to be condescending here, but you are getting wrecked by France's superior morale and their superior generals. Defending in the mountains and across a river isn't enough for victory... it will only hedge the rolls to be a bit more balanced against France's obscene generals.

The issue here is that you are stacking all of your units in a province and expecting to win on the defensive. The reason this is a problem is because only a few of your units are able to fight at once due to the restricted combat width in the mountains. However, this doesn't stop your entire army from taking morale damage. France will have superior morale than you and this means they will do more damage to your morale than you do to theirs (barring absurd luck). By the time your initial combat units flee and are replaced by your group's extra units, they're beginning the fight with severely depleted morale. Furthermore, their 3-star generals mostly negate the defensive qualities of the mountain.

This means that the proper way to defend in the mountains is to split your army into a few stacks. Three is a nice number. Really you should look at the combat width and use that as a basis for your force size to resist the French attack. As your unit in combat suffers losses their morale will deplete, and as it gets close to half you should order your second army to move into the province. Be sure to calculate travel times so that your reinforcements do not arrive too late. Your army mid-battle will receive a large morale boost because the fresh regiments have suffered no morale damage and will begin to fight as your wounded regiments retreat as their morale is broken.

If you have enough soldiers you will definitely win battles in this way which you would never have any hope of winning if you simply stacked all of them in a mountain province at once.

 

[vfmikey]

I fed Brittany my cores and they did just fine holding off France. Don't just abandon your cores, give them to an ally or vassal.

Last time I just created custom nations in Normandy and South Eastern France, which allowed me to ally France, as England, lol.

What I'd usually do is get rid of continental holding, form vassals and abandon them, or just dow France and insta loose. France is not going to get Calais before it's dealt with Burgundy and even after that it can take them a lot of time to put their focus there.

Honestly I don't have a problem with OP's game. Last week in my Sweden capaign I declared on super-Kazan allied with The Otto Man and Crimea totaling around 200-250k troops, half of which was the Otto Man (tech 23). I had 60k (and, mind you, I was at force limit) and huge income for mercs (tech 23), my march Novgorod supplied 30k of obsolete troops. And that was all. And all the battles took place at Kazani steppes. And I still won. So AI France also should be able to beat you, especially since your allies seem crappy.

As for comp - before 1550s I roll with literally one or two regiments of arty per army, and depending what my bonuses are either 2 cav, or spam cav up to insufficient support limit.

All your allies seem week. Honestly? If I were France and had any reasonable allies I'd expect to win that war. 2-1 odds aren't that bad, especially when you have gone through a military idea group as France.

Also: pdx pls return to France and England starting at war.