France don't reach their historical borders (constructive criticism)

[Travis_Bickle]

This is frustrating me too much not to make a post about, but I would like this thread to remain as constructive as possible because I know people will disagree with me. I would ask you read the thread through, because "Big Blue Blob" has become a bit of an EU4 meme that doesn't actually hold true anymore. France have been cut down massively by 1.30 and if you have the courtesy to read I'll explain why.

1) The vassal-swarm is frankly useless. It prevents France getting any kind of decent alliance network until 2 of the vassals are gone (reminder, France starts allied to Provence and guaranteeing Scotland).

If you look at a 1444 map of France, if Paradox wanted to be accurate, France would have 15 vassals: source.

Either give France 15 vassals or totally remove them so France can get some kind of alliance network going. Given they are in between a rock and a hard place, I think they need it. Otherwise they have Armagnac going on a 2k stack solo mission into Bordeaux with a landing 16k English stack.

2) The Burgundian Inheritance is broken.

Firstly, it rarely fares because the game throws "flavour events" for heirs at Burgundy.

Secondly, if it fires, it usually fires for the Emperor. The result is France declares a suicidal war on Austria and their entire alliance network. If the Inheritance fires for Austria, they should be forced to cede Western Burgundy (at the very least) to France or it is a defensive war for France (much like Maine is a defensive war for France).

Look at the actual Burgundian succession war: source.

France just annexed that land. It wasn't France vs half the HRE. The suicidal war here basically kills any chance of French expansion off and I've indeed seen them disappear.

3) The reason the above is important is...France has zero room for expansion otherwise. The most common argument I hear against a powerful France is they wreck havoc in Iberia...they do that because the HRE is so OP they won't attack into the HRE thus never reaching their historical borders.

I will ask anyone who disagrees with me to tell me how many times they've seen France reach their 1789 pre-revolutionary borders? source.

Never, unless they get a strong Burgundian Inheritance which rarely happens.

Not only this, but try playing France yourself...the impact of AE on France is more pronounced than any other nation meaning the AI won't take Strasbourg and the player won't without a coalition.

4) AI France can't even take their cores back from England.

Charles VII didn't need to land in London to administer Bordeaux as French. That's what the AI needs to do. So France can't even get off the ground getting their cores back whilst their closest rivals expand their influence rapidly.

Occasionally, France lands in England but this is an exception not the rule. Still doesn't change they won't reach their historical peak.

I'll further this, I've played the Maine event on both sides and it's far easier to win it as England. Why? Alliances.

Paradox have basically taken arguably the greatest, or at least one of the greatest, military nations of all time, butchered them with a bunch of vassals that don't offer value and suffocated them with overpowered HRE mechanics and I dislike it very much.

Again, for those who disagree with me, I ask you this:

1) Is the opening vassal swarm realistic and historical?
2) Is it not true France didn't need to fight the entire HRE to take Burgundy proper?
3) How often do you see France reach their pre-revolutionary borders?
4) How often do you see France not even take their cores back from England?
5) How often do you see France not even as a top 3 Great Power?

This all can be fixed by the changes I mentioned above:

1) Vassals gone. France gets a decent alliance network.
2) Burgundian Inheritance requires Austria cede land to France or face an offensive war on their part.
3) Influence of the HRE diminishes over time (IA doesn't impact the strength of the HRE itself) allowing a France/Poland/Russia or dare I say Prussia to emerge as a continental power.
4) Modify the Maine event so France can take their cores back.

Bonus point:

5) France should focus on building an army rather than taking Defender of the Faith in 1480 and wasting resources fighting the Ottomans over Albania.

I find this all utterly disappointing but in the mean time I can have a moan.

 

[RMS Oceanic]

I think you're right about Burgundy being far too likely to end up entirely in one set of hands or the other, but I've seen France get it a lot of the time. It really depends who Burgundy starts off rivaling. The war part has the same flaw as the old Dutch Revolt event, with the attacker finding it super hard to get their allies involved and thus becoming a charge of the light brigade. Honestly the war could do with a custom peace option like "Partition Burgundy" with 50% war score and make the AI weighted to enforce that. A player can still contest for the whole kit and kaboodle, but the AI are likely to end up with the historical outcome.

Meanwhile the Hundred Years War kinda suffers from what is a larger structural issue with the game: The AI pushes for 100% war score, and will take a very long time to peace out for less. Since the bulk of England's War Score is across the English Channel and usually safely behind the wooden wall, eventually France will give up with just Normandy. I find they leave Gascony alone a lot unless they somehow land in England, I think because their vassals have cores there and the AI doesn't prioritise those? I'm not sure.

 

[gronak]

This post seems rife with conformation bias, but still France doesn't always do as good as they used to. There are plenty of games where they reach their historical borders and more, but they still eat into Iberia. So it's not because they can't expand into the HRE, but they often end up rivalled to Spain. In EU4 rivals often want to take each others land. That is why we see when France unrivals Spain after eating into it they will stop desiring the land and leave horrific looking borders.

1) Is the opening vassal swarm realistic and historical?

It's about balance. 15 vassals is, to put it bluntly, extracting the urine. It is historical to show how feudal France was at the time, centralising the state shouldn't always be guaranteed.

2) Is it not true France didn't need to fight the entire HRE to take Burgundy proper?

I agree that the Burgundian Inheritance needs work still.

3) How often do you see France reach their pre-revolutionary borders?

Most games they are pretty similar.

4) How often do you see France not even take their cores back from England?

Very rarely.

5) How often do you see France not even as a top 3 Great Power?

If I haven't crippled them, rarely.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

I think you're right about Burgundy being far too likely to end up entirely in one set of hands or the other, but I've seen France get it a lot of the time. It really depends who Burgundy starts off rivaling. The war part has the same flaw as the old Dutch Revolt event, with the attacker finding it super hard to get their allies involved and thus becoming a charge of the light brigade. Honestly the war could do with a custom peace option like "Partition Burgundy" with 50% war score and make the AI weighted to enforce that. A player can still contest for the whole kit and kaboodle, but the AI are likely to end up with the historical outcome.

Meanwhile the Hundred Years War kinda suffers from what is a larger structural issue with the game: The AI pushes for 100% war score, and will take a very long time to peace out for less. Since the bulk of England's War Score is across the English Channel and usually safely behind the wooden wall, eventually France will give up with just Normandy. I find they leave Gascony alone a lot unless they somehow land in England, I think because their vassals have cores there and the AI doesn't prioritise those? I'm not sure.

For France to have a decent shot at the inheritance (if it fires) then Burgundy needs to like France and dislike the Emperor. How likely is that? He basically needs to rival Austria, ally/RM France and not have a third strong alliance option. I'm not saying I have never seen France get it but it's much more likely to fire for the Emperor.

This post seems rife with conformation bias.

I am happy to be criticised.

but still France doesn't always do as good as they used to

I'm glad you can see this though. I've heard a lot of complaints about the Ottomans not reaching their historical peak, when in most games they are still big and will do a bit of blobbing in the Balkans and Levant if they're having a "weak" game. Meanwhile a strong France still won't/can't attack into the HRE.

It's about balance. 15 vassals is, to put it bluntly, extracting the urine. It is historical to show how feudal France was at the time, centralising the state shouldn't always be guaranteed.

Why does France have 5 vassals then? Why not 3? or 7? I am genuinely curious how Paradox came to this conclusion. The game should aim to be historically accurate but not so much if it breaks game mechanics.

 

[JaxElite]

I agree with the BI issues.

Regarding not seeing france as a top 3 great power, due to the way great powers are calculated based on development france will almost never be top 3. Aside from the player the 3 highest ranked powers will almost always be Castille/Spain, Ottomans and Russia

 

[FrogCrusher]

In my last 5 games, France was wreckt when I wasn't playing in Europe nor middle east. I don't think it's so confirmation biased. If one is honnest and objective, one should say there is a problem with France in hand of AI (in hand of player, it is of course something else).

There is additionnal problem with current France in my opinion: Spain and Austria recieved a buff in their traditions, the first one with +15% moral and the second one with +10% moral. France has +20% but it's their 2nd national idea so it comes late to fight efficiently Spain and Austria. This is another reason why France under perform.

The other fun fact with their first war with England is that the war of the roses that should destroy England is in fact detrimantale for France. Why ? Because 18k pretenders spawns in Bordeaux or Calais killing siege and vassals armies. I saw several times the pretenders armies beating France and its vassals army on the continent before moving to England.

Final problem is Brittany. Their first mission is to take back Brittany but there is nothing to help them doing that. So in some cases, France does not fabricate on them and doesn't DoW them.

And of course, I agree with the fact that France allied no-one because of vassal swarm which is a problem. And To handle this swarm, PDX gave France a nobility privilege and as AI doesn't know to handle properly estates, they have less crownland than England, Spain or Austria.

In fact, the end of BBB is not from 1.30 but from 1.19, with spain desinherit his heir and having quicker Iberian wedding, as I shown here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...most-unplayable-for-me.1017945/#post-22746310

 

[FrogCrusher]

From my current Mali game:

 

[Travis_Bickle]

From my current Mali game:
View attachment 699298

When I posted something similar:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/france-are-overpowered.1455540/

People said it was my fault for killing the Ottomans.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

In my last 5 games, France was wreckt when I wasn't playing in Europe nor middle east. I don't think it's so confirmation biased. If one is honnest and objective, one should say there is a problem with France in hand of AI (in hand of player, it is of course something else).

There is additionnal problem with current France in my opinion: Spain and Austria recieved a buff in their traditions, the first one with +15% moral and the second one with +10% moral. France has +20% but it's their 2nd national idea so it comes late to fight efficiently Spain and Austria. This is another reason why France under perform.

The other fun fact with their first war with England is that the war of the roses that should destroy England is in fact detrimantale for France. Why ? Because 18k pretenders spawns in Bordeaux or Calais killing siege and vassals armies. I saw several times the pretenders armies beating France and its vassals army on the continent before moving to England.

Final problem is Brittany. Their first mission is to take back Brittany but there is nothing to help them doing that. So in some cases, France does not fabricate on them and doesn't DoW them.

And of course, I agree with the fact that France allied no-one because of vassal swarm which is a problem. And To handle this swarm, PDX gave France a nobility privilege and as AI doesn't know to handle properly estates, they have less crownland than England, Spain or Austria.

In fact, the end of BBB is not from 1.30 but from 1.19, with spain desinherit his heir and having quicker Iberian wedding, as I shown here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...most-unplayable-for-me.1017945/#post-22746310

I actually think that even in the hands of the player, France are nerfed.

If you're a very experienced player, you can still have an okay game but just imagine Burgundy fires for Austria or Burgundy joins the Empire, Milan PU event fires when they're still inside the HRE and Castile/Spain rivals you.

Where exactly are you going to expand? You just sit around waiting until you can charter a company in Africa.

Also, I agree regarding War of the Roses...somehow half the Pretender rebels fire in France...

 

[FrogCrusher]

When I posted something similar:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/france-are-overpowered.1455540/

People said it was my fault for killing the Ottomans.

The thing is you began your carrier on the forums with too huge rant posts, with low standard in term of objectivity and exposing your point in calm and polite maner. So now, you have haters ^^

 

[FrogCrusher]

I actually think that even in the hands of the player, France are nerfed.

If you're a very experienced player, you can still have an okay game but just imagine Burgundy fires for Austria or Burgundy joins the Empire, Milan PU event fires when they're still inside the HRE and Castile/Spain rivals you.

Where exactly are you going to expand? You just sit around waiting until you can charter a company in Africa.

Also, I agree regarding War of the Roses...somehow half the Pretender rebels fire in France...

Nerfed but not enough to be a problem for an experienced player. You restard until you can ally Castille (which is very common) and you declare yourself reconquest on England without waiting the Maine event. You buy fleet right to Scotland and you play with navy (means sacrifying some heavies) to land on Scotland and it's GG. Portugal is not so hard to handle.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

The thing is you began your carrier on the forums with too huge rant posts, with low standard in term of objectivity and exposing your point in calm and polite maner. So now, you have haters ^^

I don't deny that although I think recently more people have warmed to me.

Nerfed but not enough to be a problem for an experienced player. You restard until you can ally Castille (which is very common) and you declare yourself reconquest on England without waiting the Maine event. You buy fleet right to Scotland and you play with navy (means sacrifying some heavies) to land on Scotland and it's GG. Portugal is not so hard to handle.

It's not as reliable of a start as Castile, even with the Civil War disaster a Castile start is pretty reliable. And as I've said, The Hundred Years War is much easier to win on the English side whilst Austria is the Emperor...my point is of all the major Western tech powers France has by far the most precarious start and since this game is all about snowballing it has a lasting effect.

 

[Deliberus]

1) Once we get an imperator style map (EU5 basically) we'll be able to count that in, until then we have to work with what we have, which isn't bad, but it isn't good either.

2) Absolutely agree

3) Attacking into HRE as France is not difficult at all if you know what you're doing (and I don't mean cheesing the AI). That being said, the AI has no clue how to attack HRE though. Though I don't think it's the AIs fault as I believe the HRE is still very simplified than it was in reality that allowed the French troops to succeed in taking bits and pieces of HRE land.

4)

1) Is the opening vassal swarm realistic and historical?
2) Is it not true France didn't need to fight the entire HRE to take Burgundy proper?
3) How often do you see France reach their pre-revolutionary borders?
4) How often do you see France not even take their cores back from England?
5) How often do you see France not even as a top 3 Great Power?

1) Not as realistic and historical as it could be
2) Depends on who the HRE emperor is. If it's Austria they're doomed, double doomed if Hungary is in PU. If it's anybody else they'll have an easy time
3) 75% of the time they don't, 5% of the time they do and 20% of the time they far exceed them thanks to getting a PU with Burgundy and Austria not challenging them
4) Only time I see this happen is because England allies with Castile which the French AI sees as a death trap
5) Only about 20% of the time surprisingly, guess I have good RNG with them? Eh

5) Ye most people know how DotF is overprioritized by AI...

 

[agonistes]

The only noticeable nerf to France's progress I have seen is that often Brittany remains in the game.

In the hands of a player, France is buffed. Vassals are always a buff.

Regarding Burgundy and eastern expansion, it usually depends on the pope, provence, and switzerland. And Naples. And Venice.

Sometimes Burgundy attacks england while england is still at war with France.

Many variables.

Probably the biggest issue arises if spain allies england or austria. But if spain doesn't, france usually eats into spain.

 

[MK1980]

1.30 france usually fails (or at least underperforms severely) in my campaigns. i've seen them wiped out altogether in 2 campaigns (except maybe some irrelevant leftover islands colonized somewhere) and in my Kandy run (buddhist conquest of india) where i certainly didn't interfere with europe they remained so passive that they fell off the great powers list by the time i quit.

in my current campaign they are doing very well and reconquered all english lands, absorbed their vassals and conquered most of provence, britanny and burgundy by 1500. and they are allied to portugal and castille. of course this had to happen in the campaign where i'm playing granada

 

[Sapa Inca]

I also dislike of the current way that Burgundian Inheritance works.
The most common outcome is Burgundian surviving and losing all their PUs (or 2 from 3 PUs), the second most common outcome is Burgundian being integrated in the HRE and Austria releasing all low countries tags in independent HRE princes

The results are a weak AI France and AI Netherlands almost never forming, this make the gameplay in west Europe more static, make the colonial game more unfun because you have 2 less colonial powers to compete and make native american gameplay more boring because you have 2 less colonial powers to interact and juggle around.
The most frequent result for the Burgundian Inheritance when all parties involved are controled by the AI should be Burgundian being divided between France and Austria and AI Austria should not take the option that release all low countries tags and integrate these new independent princes in the HRE, this would make a Netherlands formation more probable and would open new avenues to France expansion without facing HRE extra AE.

If the Inheritance fires for Austria, they should be forced to cede Western Burgundy (at the very least) to France or it is a defensive war for France (much like Maine is a defensive war for France).

I completely agree with this point, the same should be true in the reverse situation, if the inheritance fires for France (rare but can happen) they should be forced to cede the Low Countries to Austria or it is a defensive war for Austria.

 

[iClipse]

France is just subject to a lot of randomness. Which isn't a good thing in too high quantities.

Say, the surrender of Maine. If it doesn't fire it often means England gets through its disasters and finds some good allies while France is stuck integrating its vasals. By the time they're done integrating England is considered too powerful and they don't attack them. This doesn't always happen, but pretty damn often though.

And this scenario is just as detrimental or even worse than the Burgundian Inheritance.

In general I like some randomness, like the Iberian wedding sometimes not firing or Poland going for a local noble. France however is subject to two of these high variance events. If one of those goes South it's often lights out for France.

Also, France should spend more money actually building buildings in their land instead of spending it all on Trade Company investments. France has fantastic provinces to develop, but they're often void of anything (including the lvl 2 forts in 1720)

France remains incredibly powerful in the player's hands though. But the AI isn't very good at running it.

 

[Battlex]

I don't deny that although I think recently more people have warmed to me.

Yeah you definitely have got better in your posting quality, but having a thread complaining about ottos, without ever playing ottos, has definetly soiled your reputation here a bit so it will take awhile to build up again

This is frustrating me too much not to make a post about, but I would like this thread to remain as constructive as possible because I know people will disagree with me. I would ask you read the thread through, because "Big Blue Blob" has become a bit of an EU4 meme that doesn't actually hold true anymore. France have been cut down massively by 1.30 and if you have the courtesy to read I'll explain why.

1) The vassal-swarm is frankly useless. It prevents France getting any kind of decent alliance network until 2 of the vassals are gone (reminder, France starts allied to Provence and guaranteeing Scotland).

If you look at a 1444 map of France, if Paradox wanted to be accurate, France would have 15 vassals: source.

Either give France 15 vassals or totally remove them so France can get some kind of alliance network going. Given they are in between a rock and a hard place, I think they need it. Otherwise they have Armagnac going on a 2k stack solo mission into Bordeaux with a landing 16k English stack.

we got the vassal rework with emperor, a dev diary for it included a screenshot of voltaire's nightmare and said we could do this, but we won't. Eu4 likes to strike a balance between historical accuracy and fun. That's why HRE minors have such good dev, why brandenburg is strong at game start when quite depopulated from the hussite wars. Having lots of vassal at game start makes the early game feel different to the mid and late game. Bourbon being in is cool because one of the early Bourbon's helps Charles V in a battle, to then become the ultimate hapsburg rivals. Armagnac being in means you can have a nice burgundian armagnac rivalry.
England was largely centralised in 1444, with bastard rather than true feudalism causing the war of the roses, Denmark has PUs, Castile gets Aragon and Naples in PU, Austria gets Hungary and Bohemia in PU, although full annexes Burgundy with BI when it really should have the unified lowlands in PU, and imperial burgundy cored.
If we look at most wiki pages (just cuz its easier) we see France relatively alone, or with a single ally or two, until the early 1500s. As such the vassal swarm, by occupying French diplo slots prevents what it used to do; allying genoa, brittany, switzerland, and aragon or castile in 1444, which just makes it too strong for any tag to easily oppose at start. There are also further debates to be had about whether provence should be an independent tag or not, much with brittany, and whilst burgundy does have the league of public weal via mission event, philip the good did reproach the valois kings

tl;dr 5 vassals are picked for game balance

2) The Burgundian Inheritance is broken.

Firstly, it rarely fares because the game throws "flavour events" for heirs at Burgundy.

Secondly, if it fires, it usually fires for the Emperor. The result is France declares a suicidal war on Austria and their entire alliance network. If the Inheritance fires for Austria, they should be forced to cede Western Burgundy (at the very least) to France or it is a defensive war for France (much like Maine is a defensive war for France).

Look at the actual Burgundian succession war: source.

France just annexed that land. It wasn't France vs half the HRE. The suicidal war here basically kills any chance of French expansion off and I've indeed seen them disappear.

Charles being made a general less often now is quite annoying. France did just seize that land, and that's what the BI used to do, but the old BI, you wouldnt often get future wars over the issue of burgundy, as you did irl, with the head of the rivalry being Charles V and Francis I. It's either 25% or 33% chance for hungary to pick the free PU with austria instead of Matthias, however if Ladislaus doesn't die, then when he becomes ruler of Austria he gets the PU.
Arguably this just shows emperor was breadth of content, and so wasn't sufficiently playtested, relying largely on internal mp. Having Further Austria be independent at game start, and so robbing Austria of the schwaz gold mine is an option. Having Austria unified at start, but then choosing whether to play as Ladislaus giving the player Austria Proper, Hungary in PU, and perhaps a vassal Translyvania and ban in Croatia to weaken Hungary's strength; or continue as Frederick holding onto Inner Austria, the emperorship.
Sigismund of Tyrol was 17 or so in 1444, so might have still been in a regency irl. So could start in PU with Austria, but then break once Sigismund would be his historic age. Geneva, Naples, and Thurgunia start as subjects, which soon after start get events to be released or suffer high liberty desire, naples and thurungia both having preset rulers to receive, all of which were added in emperor, so it would be consistent. Sigismund's independence means Switzerland can have a more expansive early game, which could then lead to the swabian league, or just coalitions from an aggresive switzerland, fear of Swiss aggression can lead to Sigismund selling his properties to Charles the Bold, increasing his strength and making him more likely to survive the Liege wars. Something I would like to see is either cores or claims to be got when burgundy is inherited by France or the other, to help make the burgundian wars something that does last 200 years as historically happened, the same could be applied to either Frederick's Austria or Ladislaus' Austria then getting cores or claims on Sigismund's lands, if full annexed. France can take up the Angevin claim to Naples once Provence is full annexed, so why not something similar for those with shared dynasty and a specific for Burgundy and Tyrol

tl;dr to make BI more balanced, weaken austria by giving it the 3 tags it already has, although with semi easy reunification.

3) The reason the above is important is...France has zero room for expansion otherwise. The most common argument I hear against a powerful France is they wreck havoc in Iberia...they do that because the HRE is so OP they won't attack into the HRE thus never reaching their historical borders.

I will ask anyone who disagrees with me to tell me how many times they've seen France reach their 1789 pre-revolutionary borders? source.

Never, unless they get a strong Burgundian Inheritance which rarely happens.

Not only this, but try playing France yourself...the impact of AE on France is more pronounced than any other nation meaning the AI won't take Strasbourg and the player won't without a coalition.

I have seen French savoy this patch, with them not just transalpine but cisalpine, although not at war with Milan sadly. Italy is high dev, HRE is a large investment, but the more wars with Austria the more in debt they are. However pre rev borders are extremely conditional because of just how far into the future it is from game start. When does Prussia ever form, and take silesia, thus weakening Austria, and making it only 1 fort away from Vienna being sieged.
Because eu4 makes people stick to their allainces until they want their allies land, you don't get something like the war of spanish succesion, where milan and two sicilies are robbed from spain, the former annexed to austria and the latter independent a few years later. If austria got full burgundian inheritance more often then itd get the full dutch revolt, giving austria a threat in the rear, as well as france likely being dragged into that war. Ottomans dont expand as much as they need to early game to be a siginficiant threat to. the 30 years war often doesnt do enough damage to Austria, as well as rarely firing

tl'dr balance of power and more province swap events are needed to achieve these borders

4) AI France can't even take their cores back from England.

Charles VII didn't need to land in London to administer Bordeaux as French. That's what the AI needs to do. So France can't even get off the ground getting their cores back whilst their closest rivals expand their influence rapidly.

Occasionally, France lands in England but this is an exception not the rule. Still doesn't change they won't reach their historical peak.

I'll further this, I've played the Maine event on both sides and it's far easier to win it as England. Why? Alliances.

Paradox have basically taken arguably the greatest, or at least one of the greatest, military nations of all time, butchered them with a bunch of vassals that don't offer value and suffocated them with overpowered HRE mechanics and I dislike it very much.

The surrender of maine should have a far lower chance of war, as it didnt happen irl. War of the Roses is made a bit harder by needing a angevin, lancastrian, or york heir to be avoided, and the rebel fleeing keeping it going despite an heir is a good touch, but England is still quite strong.
Maine event is easier for England this patch due to vassal swarm instead of mediums and regional allies I agree, but you still need to savescum to have both castile and burgundy willing to marry on 11th nov
France is still quite good miliatrily, espeically starting generals, just powercreep means their ideas stick out less.

 

[Piotrzeci]

From what I've seen playing France in my last game they start with very low manpower (I think 5k), taking all cores is basically impossible without landing in England and I am pretty sure taking my own cores in a defensive war had a cost of 150 DIP for Unjustified Demands.

I just restarted and declared reconquest on England on 11th, it meant fighting Portugal but at least AI was kind enough to give me my land in peace deal.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

@Battlex

I agree with your post by and large, I also think there are arguments for whether there should be events for Brittany and Provence but I understand France in 1444 is very hard to depict within the context of EU4. Therefore, however France is depicted in EU4 should be consistent with giving them a route to becoming a serious powerhouse and the end-game boss battle. France are just as worthy of that title as Russia, Ottomans, Spain, Ming or whoever else yet it rarely happens that France is the end-game tag.

Bear in mind, they caused me a tremendous amount of pain in my Mughals WC but that's only because they'd PU'd several countries.

The Ottoman thread was created in 2020 September btw it'd be nice and I'd appreciate it if we could move on from there.