France, aggressive expansion and alliences

[rohirrimelf]

So far i have started 3 campaigns with france. The first was mainly a test to see how i could play the nation. On the 2nd and 3th playthrough i seemed to do very well. I expanded like a madman but when i conquered provence on my 2nd attempt and brittany on my third attempt. I ran into a big alliance of England, Burgondy, Austria and Castille. I think it might have to do something with aggressive expansion as it did have a score of about 50 on castille who declared war on both occasions. I dont know if annexing vassals has much to with it but it did reduce my diplomatic reputation by -3.

When i play France on my 4th attempt it might be very obvious to reduce the amount of wars to the point that there is not a worrysome coalition of big nations against me. But i dont know yet how to handle this. Should i wait when attacking another nation until my aggressive expansion is 0. Or should i make more or bigger allies. I did ally with scotland and aragorn on my 2nd game and switzerland/venice on my third game.

Ill probably have to keep my agression a bit lower when playing france and look out for a good moment to attack and expand. Might it be a good idea to start attacking burgondy after the 100 year war with England?

Man i thought France was easy. But my campaigns with England and Muskovy were much better on patch 1.7

 

[Krask]

Some advice I wish i'd known from the start was that anything that increases relations % also increases the burn-off rate of aggressive expansion. So advisers, idea groups etc. Secondly take into consideration now that with the new patch france has been indirectly nerfed as austria and spain now have better military traditions and NIs.

Your best bet would be to just start of conquering slow and wait for your AE to drop to 10-20 before conquering more land. Make sure you always have claims, don't be too greedy until you have ideas that ease aggressive expansion.

 

[rohirrimelf]

"Your best bet would be to just start of conquering slow and wait for your AE to drop to 10-20 before conquering more land. Make sure you always have claims, don't be too greedy until you have ideas that ease aggressive expansion."

Thanks. Ill keep that in mind

 

[dav77-b]

Some advice I wish i'd known from the start was that anything that increases relations % also increases the burn-off rate of aggressive expansion. So advisers, idea groups etc. Secondly take into consideration now that with the new patch france has been indirectly nerfed as austria and spain now have better military traditions and NIs.

Your best bet would be to just start of conquering slow and wait for your AE to drop to 10-20 before conquering more land. Make sure you always have claims, don't be too greedy until you have ideas that ease aggressive expansion.

wow. I did not knew that relation boni helps for AE :blink:

 

[Ricox]

Check the coalition mapmode constantly and be careful if it gets too far. And even if you have really good wars where you can snatch huge lands - it's better to hold off and be conservative, as already said, because that way you can easily burn off the AE before the truce expires and then get back to conquering (while getting high AE from a single war can result in a coalition which might take way longer to get rid of, thus limiting your expansion way too much if you're aggressive, unless you can beat any coalition that comes up, but that puts a strain on your manpower & resources). Just started another France playthrough for the millionth time and it's really easy to keep AE in check - ex. I didn't take all French cores in the HYW, I finished it in two wars, both to avoid wasting too much manpower waiting for ticking warscore (or trying some shenanigans with landing in England which I've done before with great success) and to keep AE down (apparently even taking cores gives AE).

EDIT: Also - look for policies, advisors, ideas etc. that have "better relations over time" bonus, that also increases the rate at which AE is "burned" (and any other negative relations penalty, if it is decreased with time, ex. diplomatic insults, AE, rejected alliance, but not things like rivalry, heretic religion etc.).

 

[A_Cruel]

Yesterday, on my French ironman game, i was DOWed by Eng-Cas-Bur coalition. With the help of my Austria ally i have beaten them, and got to 'war reparations' peace. Afterwards, all of those left the coalition! I wonder, if it's the proper behavior novadays?
Also - when i was warring in Italy later on, and annexed a bit of land, Castilian rival with 50+ AE still refused to join the coalition..

 

[Krask]

Yesterday, on my French ironman game, i was DOWed by Eng-Cas-Bur coalition. With the help of my Austria ally i have beaten them, and got to 'war reparations' peace. Afterwards, all of those left the coalition! I wonder, if it's the proper behavior novadays?
Also - when i was warring in Italy later on, and annexed a bit of land, Castilian rival with 50+ AE still refused to join the coalition..

This was patched in with 1.8, if you defeat a coalition, all members are kicked from said coalition and can only rejoin when they no longer have a truce with the target. A much needed addition imo.

 

[Gaamel]

Unfortunately, France is increasingly boring to play. You start the game in 1444 with a very powerful military, and as soon as your cores are retrieved you have a huge manpower and basetax. Stealing maine and anjou from provence in tricky : Provence is your ally in the HYW and as soon as they peace out England they move their capital to Anjou, this means you cannot annex anjour+maine in one war. To prevent this, activate autopause for peace messages and declare on Provence as soon as the HYW is over.
When the inheritance of Burgundy plays out you gain 7 cores for free, after that vassalize brittany and move port to bordeaux.

But you cannot expand east at all (expanding in the HRE is a madness. You might be able to annex/diploannex 1 province or 2 every 10 years and get away with it, that's the maximum. Influence and curia control really help to reduce AE though).
Taking all of Iberia is a safer plan provided Austria still befriends you. Annex Aragon first to benefit from the TP provinces (Valencia and Barcelona). If the iberic wedding has not fired yet you might be able to fight the iberic states separately.
In my recent games I try to be at war against the emperor and the 7 electors in the same time to dismantle this bloody golden eagle for good, but as soon as you fight the emperor you cannot fight anyone else inside the HRE...This is really broken, I don't want to vassalize the electors, neither do I want to be emperor (François 1er tried to bribe his way to the imperial throne in the 1510s but failed to the infamous Charles V of Habsburg)

 

[Aries666]

I have found the best allies for France are Poland and Denmark. A coalition will be more reluctant to declare war if those two nations have their usual PU. They will also keep Austria busy meaning you can focus on Castile. You may also consider Portugal, Venice is decent too.

 

[Pornek]

I honestly think France got a lot harder. I dont know if it is always the case, but in my current game all nearby majors have rivaled me. Inheritance didnt fire either so Im stuck between Burgundy/Castille-Aragon-Naples/Portugal alliance or Austria-Hungary/Denmark and additional HRE members. Getting only Picardie back, cost me ~900 ducats and all manpower to defeat that unholy alliance (yes, I had Elan).

 

[Gaamel]

I honestly think France got a lot harder. I dont know if it is always the case, but in my current game all nearby majors have rivaled me. Inheritance didnt fire either so Im stuck between Burgundy/Castille-Aragon-Naples/Portugal alliance or Austria-Hungary/Denmark and additional HRE members. Getting only Picardie back, cost me ~900 ducats and all manpower to defeat that unholy alliance (yes, I had Elan).

It's funny, in my last two games with France the inheritance fired in the first months of the game. Currently I play with Prussia, the king died in August 1499 but Burgundy only had 3 provinces left which went to Austria. In 1447 Burgundy was already being gangraped in 3 (!) wars against France, Austria, England and some HRE minors. The fact that England now actually lands troops on the continent really contribute to Burgundy's demise. Unless they manage to ally the relevant countries they die very fast.

Regarding France : RM/ally Castille or Austria day one is the way to go (even if you must sacrifice some dip points), they can be very reliable partners on the long term with the +trust modifier. Castille is bound to be your prey later on so I'd rather ally Austria, but it's not always doable. Denmark is generally pathetic, invlolving you in pointless wars against Hansa and eventually Sweden. Hungary and Poland are Eastern tech thus very weak, though Poland is lucky now.

 

[Krask]

I honestly think France got a lot harder. I dont know if it is always the case, but in my current game all nearby majors have rivaled me. Inheritance didnt fire either so Im stuck between Burgundy/Castille-Aragon-Naples/Portugal alliance or Austria-Hungary/Denmark and additional HRE members. Getting only Picardie back, cost me ~900 ducats and all manpower to defeat that unholy alliance (yes, I had Elan).

Unfortunately I agree, I used to enjoy France being the Big boss of the game, but with this recent patch England has become a lot stronger with the added base tax and the improved naval AI, Castile and Austria both have military traditions and NIs added to them. With the Spanish tradition their soldiers start with 15% more morale than the french for instance. This really isn't helped by the fact that the relations with France and the surrounding countries doesn't appear to have changed so they are still completely isolated diplomatically, but have lost the military edge that helped them survive.

It's not so much that playing France is a problem, i'm more disappointed at the fact that I was able to slap France in every war as England even with lucky nations on. I enjoyed the Napoleonic France feel that they used to have.

 

[Pornek]

It's funny, in my last two games with France the inheritance fired in the first months of the game. Currently I play with Prussia, the king died in August 1499 but Burgundy only had 3 provinces left which went to Austria. In 1447 Burgundy was already being gangraped in 3 (!) wars against France, Austria, England and some HRE minors. The fact that England now actually lands troops on the continent really contribute to Burgundy's demise. Unless they manage to ally the relevant countries they die very fast.

Regarding France : RM/ally Castille or Austria day one is the way to go (even if you must sacrifice some dip points), they can be very reliable partners on the long term with the +trust modifier. Castille is bound to be your prey later on so I'd rather ally Austria, but it's not always doable. Denmark is generally pathetic, invlolving you in pointless wars against Hansa and eventually Sweden. Hungary and Poland are Eastern tech thus very weak, though Poland is lucky now.

Unfortunately I agree, I used to enjoy France being the Big boss of the game, but with this recent patch England has become a lot stronger with the added base tax and the improved naval AI, Castile and Austria both have military traditions and NIs added to them. With the Spanish tradition their soldiers start with 15% more morale than the french for instance. This really isn't helped by the fact that the relations with France and the surrounding countries doesn't appear to have changed so they are still completely isolated diplomatically, but have lost the military edge that helped them survive.

It's not so much that playing France is a problem, i'm more disappointed at the fact that I was able to slap France in every war as England even with lucky nations on. I enjoyed the Napoleonic France feel that they used to have.

I think what makes or breaks France is the Inheritance.
In the game I mentioned I doubt an AI France would be able to handle fighting 3-4 lucky nations. Especially if all stars allign and Castille inherits all of Aragon/Naples + Austria getting the PU over Hungary. One lost war on the side of France and England would probably try to get their cores back aswell. The lack of any useful ally that isnt just negative warscore, really hurts. Apparently that is just bad luck on my side, since others have been able to ally Austria.
I dont mind it however.

 

[Gaamel]

There is a random factor at start, austria and castille can rival you or not. If neither of them can be your ally I advise you to restart...
The inheritance is not totally needed for france, if austria is already your rival and inherits the low countries you're done : sooner or later castille will ally austria and you're totally stuck in Europe. Better go exploration then.
As of 1.8 burgundy gets raped big time by england and the various HRE minors, so if you play smart you can fabricate the claims beforehand and get back your cores+the non-HRE part of burgundy. Release minors like holland, brabant, luxembourg etc to prevent austria from inheriting all of them.

Another thing I noticed : religious was a good idea group in 1.7 with france, because without it and the curia you could get into serious trouble with the provinces flipping everywhere. In 1.8 the reformation centers are usually far in the north, so you can pick something like innovative/expansion/admin instead.

 

[ultrapowerpie]

Really? I've found the opposite. As trying to take it down as Castille and Burgandy, the new system makes it quite easy for France to call in fresh troops years after the war has gone on, and there goes everything if it's a larger nation.