France is broken. AI imbalance?

[Ganymede]

I just played a game that by mid way through Spain had conquered half of France. France was basically dead. England still had not yet managed to cross over but Spain in that one was the one to watch out for. Both were AI's. Sometimes its just down to luck. I usually found it best when warring against France that when war is first started you wait for them to come to you it is easier then going gun ho.

Agree with the above statement about the AI messing up with their troops. Observed one war where England had troops in France but one army could not make up its mind about where to siege so just went to one spot, to another then back too the first... continuously. For the whole war. "they engage very poorly" would be accurate.

 

[MikeCK]

Well, in real life, if you were a European power facing France in the mid to late 17th century, you would have thought they were over-powered. There is a reason why they pushed around everyone in Europe for 50 years and it wasn't because they were "balanced".

 

[UrineArtist]

From my own experiences, I've finished three full games so far, France hasnt survived any of them, on all three occasions I didnt interfere in Europe until after they had already imploded, I suspect they are so strong a nerf would make them stronger.

 

[RedHunter]

Its the France ideas, and them sometimes taking the defensive ideas. It makes them super strong but then they were super strong up until WW1 when it came to fighting wars. I don't see an issue with it. If anything it makes playing a nation near France a lot more fun. Keeps you on your toes.

What I do see an issue with is how poorly the AI works together with each other in wars. Defeating alliances stacked against you can be easy because they don't use the edges they have.

 

[Hystarea]

I always have issues with France. They have, so far, broken all my games. They usually Annex all of Northern Iberia and all of Burgundy and then into Italy.

 

[Minarchist]

The French Wars of Religion would be a big one. I think there are actually events in the game that model this, but they just must not be enough. (I've never played France)

This probably plays a large role in why France is ahistorically strong; the Wars of Religion stalled France for almost half a century. France could face off versus the rest of Europe in the 17th century, but definitely not in the 16th century. I'm not sure what the answer is though. I would not mind seeing an increased revolt risk in Reformed provinces and making Reformed spread further--though I would not want to see religious disunity more impactful generally.

 

[Fawr]

Historically Charles V had difficulty holding France away from Italy, and his empire is larger than most of the ones you see in game. France is a large, rich, populous country (about twice as many people in France in 1500 than in England/Spain/Portugal put together) and the game shows that quite well.

That said there could be improvements in how the AI helps you. I remember seeing another thread that complained it was better in the demo...

 

[alanschu]

France hardly exists in my game, so it's hard to say that they're definitively broken.

 

[Fatkidsz]

I'm playing as Italy, started as Venice. Early on Austria inherited Burgundy and proceeded to rape France every chance they had. At some point France was just a 3 provinces state around Paris, even Brittany had conquered Anjou & Maine. Kinda cool since a lot of other countries appeared for some time : Dauphiné, Guyenne, Armagnac, Orleans etc..

Out of pity (i'm french irl), i allied them and proceeded to help them in wars, now they hold about 75% of their supposed territory, although without my help they cant defeat the austrian doomstack. But, as the time goes by and they gain in strength, i'm just wondering if i just created a monster who will turn on his father when he'll have a chance.

So I guess the start of your game really defines how France is going to be. If they cant take on Burgundy, or if Burgundy is inherited by Austria they will have a hard time keeping it together. But they surely has the potential to be the #1 threat in Europe, as they were historically (vive le roi!).

 

[Incompetent]

Out of pity (i'm french irl), i allied them and proceeded to help them in wars, now they hold about 75% of their supposed territory, although without my help they cant defeat the austrian doomstack. But, as the time goes by and they gain in strength, i'm just wondering if i just created a monster who will turn on his father when he'll have a chance.

So I guess the start of your game really defines how France is going to be. If they cant take on Burgundy, or if Burgundy is inherited by Austria they will have a hard time keeping it together. But they surely has the potential to be the #1 threat in Europe, as they were historically (vive le roi!).

In my game as the Ottomans, I'm kind of sad that France has crumbled because it means no great Franco-Ottoman alliance with which to terrorise the HRE and Iberia. Of course, it does mean I could dive in and try to rebuild France from the ground up as an Ottoman vassal

 

[BigHamster]

If france were not that strong, it could become food for Spain,Gb and Austria. They all hate France and they all occasionaly attack it. France is able to hold that, thus while slightly blobing itself it prevents others from blobing.

 

[DigohD]

France is ridiculously overpowered. Here is the proof.

I'm not giving up on this guys. Yesterday I was frustrated. That frustration turned to anger today. I do want to say that I do not think that France is overpowered every single game session. It's just that in the game I currently play (and a few more games I played before), they are just simply unstoppable. And that's messed up Ive been playing for a couple of hours today and had 4 more of those coalition wars against France I was talking about in the original post.

One time, France were at 18k manpower at start of war and we had an approximately 100k man strong army, while they had an army of about 50k. I alone had an army of 40k and manpower of about 25k. We lost. We even lost pretty bad.

Another Time I had them down to about 10k army total while my allies were unharmed. I had to retreat since my manpower was drained to almost zero, hoping my allies could beat a 10k army France by themselves when they totaled about 60k. Hell no, after about half a year France had an army of 30k that just took one walk around France and destroyed all my allies' armies.

They are broken. If these are the starting conditions in a war, any nation is supposed to be beaten. I don't see how you can justify that France is supposed to be that much stronger than every other nation. It doesn't matter if I have double the army size. a technology advantage and the defending position. They still inflict more casualties to my army than I do to theirs. With the new retreat system it doesn't matter if I beat them when I take more damage than they. They recover manpower so fast that, at this time in the game, I dare to say that they are impossible to beat.

I checked the battle log after a couple of years. About 100 battles in total. Pretty much every single battle I took part in I won, since I know when to engage and when to back off. The AI barely won a single one. They just split their armies up into 7-10k pieces, spread them across France and then the french armies just annihilate them one at a time.

In ironman mode, normal difficulty it's just hopeless right now. France has started to eat their way through Austria, Spain and Germany even though all of Europe are against them every single war.

Some of you guys talk about beating them fast before they get anywhere. That's stupid. What you really say is that: "They are balanced! You just have to not let them get unstoppable before it's to late!". It is a game! No nation is supposed to be unstoppable. It's not historically accurate either. Sure, Napoleon beat the shit out of Europe but that was in the late 18th century. I've barely started the 16th century.

They have lucky nation, they have ridiculously good national ideas and they have a really good territory to start with. This might work in multiplayer games. But in single player the AI is just to terrible to make it work when opposing France. If France get a good start (better than avarage) their power increase so fast they get to a point where they can't loose.

This is the issue I try to emphasize. They are not always overpowered. But they have a pretty good chance to turn unstoppable. And that is not okay in any game.

Edit: Also, I don't get why lucky nations must be set to historical in Ironman mode.

 

[lebigmac]

The also dont have provinces changing hands much.

This means their buildings dont get destroyed every few years when they change hands.

 

[KGrob]

I'm in my second Ironman game, the first as Castile and the second as Sweden. In the first, France pretty much did a historical repeat (as much as those can be done in EU4). But in the second, France has pretty much got beat up and is close to being eliminated...Spain has grown pretty powerful in the second game though.

 

[brifbates]

I'm not giving up on this guys. Yesterday I was frustrated. That frustration turned to anger today. I do want to say that I do not think that France is overpowered every single game session. It's just that in the game I currently play (and a few more games I played before), they are just simply unstoppable. And that's ****ed up Ive been playing for a couple of hours today and had 4 more of those coalition wars against France I was talking about in the original post.

One time, France were at 18k manpower at start of war and we had an approximately 100k man strong army, while they had an army of about 50k. I alone had an army of 40k and manpower of about 25k. We lost. We even lost pretty bad.

Another Time I had them down to about 10k army total while my allies were unharmed. I had to retreat since my manpower was drained to almost zero, hoping my allies could beat a 10k army France by themselves when they totaled about 60k. Hell no, after about half a year France had an army of 30k that just took one walk around France and ****ed all my allies in the ***.

They are broken. If these are the starting conditions in a war, any nation is supposed to be beaten. I don't see how you can justify that France is supposed to be that much stronger than every other nation. It doesn't matter if I have double the army size. a technology advantage and the defending position. They still inflict more casualties to my army than I do to theirs. With the new retreat system it doesn't matter if I beat them when I take more damage than they. They recover manpower so fast that, at this time in the game, I dare to say that they are impossible to beat.

I checked the battle log after a couple of years. About 100 battles in total. Pretty much every single battle I took part in I won, since I know when to engage and when to back off. The AI barely won a single one. They just split their armies up into 7-10k pieces, spread them across France and then the french armies just annihilate them one at a time.

What I'm reading here is a rant that is misplaced. Your problem isn't so much that France is so strong but that your allies, who should allow you a decent chance of winning against them, are useless. That is really the issue I've seen crop up a lot in this type thread-when the player is hefty enough to take them on by themselves the powerhouses (OE & France seem to be most complained about) aren't so powerful. The issue is when the player needs some help from the coalitions because that help turns out to be a war score bleeding hindrance instead.

 

[grumphie]

I'm not giving up on this guys. Yesterday I was frustrated. That frustration turned to anger today. I do want to say that I do not think that France is overpowered every single game session. It's just that in the game I currently play (and a few more games I played before), they are just simply unstoppable. And that's ****ed up Ive been playing for a couple of hours today and had 4 more of those coalition wars against France I was talking about in the original post.

One time, France were at 18k manpower at start of war and we had an approximately 100k man strong army, while they had an army of about 50k. I alone had an army of 40k and manpower of about 25k. We lost. We even lost pretty bad.

Another Time I had them down to about 10k army total while my allies were unharmed. I had to retreat since my manpower was drained to almost zero, hoping my allies could beat a 10k army France by themselves when they totaled about 60k. Hell no, after about half a year France had an army of 30k that just took one walk around France and ****ed all my allies in the ***.

They are broken. If these are the starting conditions in a war, any nation is supposed to be beaten. I don't see how you can justify that France is supposed to be that much stronger than every other nation. It doesn't matter if I have double the army size. a technology advantage and the defending position. They still inflict more casualties to my army than I do to theirs. With the new retreat system it doesn't matter if I beat them when I take more damage than they. They recover manpower so fast that, at this time in the game, I dare to say that they are impossible to beat.

I checked the battle log after a couple of years. About 100 battles in total. Pretty much every single battle I took part in I won, since I know when to engage and when to back off. The AI barely won a single one. They just split their armies up into 7-10k pieces, spread them across France and then the french armies just annihilate them one at a time.

In ironman mode, normal difficulty it's just ****ing hopeless right now. France has started to eat their way through Austria, Spain and Germany even though all of Europe are against them every single war.

Some of you guys talk about beating them fast before they get anywhere. That's stupid. What you really say is that: "They are balanced! You just have to not let them get unstoppable before it's to late!". It is a frekkin game! No nation is supposed to be unstoppable. It's not historically accurate either. Sure, Napoleon beat the shit out of Europe but that was in the late 18th century. I've barely started the 16th century.

They have lucky nation, they have ridiculously good national ideas and they have a really good territory to start with. This might work in multiplayer games. But in single player the AI is just to terrible to make it work when opposing France. If France get a good start (better than avarage) their power increase so fast they get to a point where they can't loose.

This is the issue I try to emphasize. They are not always overpowered. But they have a pretty good chance to turn unstoppable. And that is not okay in any game.

Edit: Also, I don't get why lucky nations must be set to historical in Ironman mode.

1. dont make 40k armies if you only have 25k manpower. that leaves you depleted very fast if things get ugly.
2. and how competative were the individual countries? if castille has 12k and france 10k, dont expect it to win. france is STRONG. dont epxect them to win that.
3. how much gold did france have left? they could have hired mercs, raised mroe troops because they have LOTS of manpower thus LOTS of replendishment, they could already have been busy buidling new troops.

basicly, fight smarter not harder. fighting france head on with brute force is HARD. blockade them, cursh their armies with minimal casualties, siege down key provinces. its not supposed to be easy

 

[kraussda]

Turn lucky nations off -> France doesn't get 6/6/6 rulers all the time -> France not OP by any stretch. They're supposed to be OP with lucky nations.

 

[Teije]

In my current game, France just got thoroughly trounced by a coalition of Spain, Austria and others (I wasn't involved). Had to give up several provinces. So although they are a healthy historical size, they aren't bullying their way across Europe. Seems like more an issue of your allies not helping you out properly than France being overpowered.

 

[k_merse]

In my last game France threw stack of 80-90k at me. Not one but 2-3 armies at once! My whole army was 85k and it was the third biggest on the world... The next biggest army I saw together was 45k. One army of France is as big or bigger than the whole military establishment of 95% of the countries only Russia and Ottos/PLC/GBR/whoever gets blob have a chance to keep up with them.

 

[Gannayev]

The year is 1663. Spain has just started a war, along with a coalition of most of Europe, against France. France's standing army notches at an extremely powerful 130,000, divided into three stacks of 60,000, 50,000, and 20,000. While the coalition is nominally superior at 150,000, but only just, allowing it a slight advantage. The war begins in a manner that acts completely contrary to sense. Instead of attempting to stand together and use their initially powerful armies in tandum, the coalition armies rush to besiege individual French provinces, allowing France's juggernaut of arms to sweep them out one by one. France's exceptionally powerful general team, with 6 Shock, 6 Fire, and 4 Maneuver allows it to effectively eliminate all armies with relatively few casualties. This is mere pittance next to the fact that France has sat on monarchs with at least 6/6/5 since 1443. France is at least two points ahead of tech than every other modern European nation, and has a lofty idea count of 33, next to its second runner up, England, who has only 22.

But the absurdity doesn't stop there! Miraculously, France's only ally in the war, Salzburg, does not attempt to act individually. Instead, Salzburg glues its army to France's main stack and travels with it everywhere, trumping all the surrounding armies. This is what I suppose the AI is supposed to do, combining armies to eliminate opponents. Yet the coalition doesn't combine allied stacks once.

Unfortunately, I've got to agree with the main thread. It doesn't seem like just pure chance that France has become the juggernaut of Europe. Once it had claimed even two thirds of its full provinces, its armies effectively outmatched anything the rest of Europe could field at the time.