posted 12-17-06 02:58 PM EDT (US)
Well, I've been playing quite a bit of French lately and have developed a pattern of strategies that I tend to use vs certain civs that seem to work fairly well. In this guide, you will see strats that you may have seen before, as well as some rather odd inventions of my own, which I can guarantee you have If you are just reading for strats, you might want to skip this section, as it is more of a general overview of the French Civilization. If you feel you already know their strenghts and weaknesses, then go right down to the next secion. Everyone is familiar with the strengths of the cuirassier and of french fortress economy strenght, but what other benefits does one gain from playing as France as opposed to any other civ. Well, to be honest, there are not many major advantages the french have; instead, they have an array of minor bonuses that can put you above the competition. The most obvious of these is the CdB. These guys are extremely hard to raid with their massive ranged resistance and high HP. Combined with market upgrades, they can be a force to be rekoned with. This allows for much easier time getting to fortress with economy in tact, and gives you a little less pressure to build outposts on far hunting grounds or distant gold mines. If you were engaged in a battle at your base, with settlers in the middle of the fight collecting resources, they would be instantly targeted by enemy units and obliterated. But not the CdB. Due to their much higher resistance to enemy fire, opponents are often reluctant to waste firepower on them when your forces are firing back. This gives us our first minor advantage: a more stable economy. A second advantage of the French also lies in the CdB: faster, better economy. CdB cost 20% more than normal settlers, but are more than 25% more productive (due to speed increase). Since they last longer than normal settlers under fire, one could estimate they are as much as 15% more efficient for their cost than normal settlers are. They also take up less population, leading to larger armies, and reduced reliance on wood early in the game. Not to mention the 3 CdB shipment is much better than its traditional 3 settler counterpart. This leads to a much better early economy than most other civs, and provides the basis for many french strategies. The French also benefit from several unique native warrior upgrades, which are now actually quite good due to their percentage boost in TWC. Cards such as Wilderness Warfare and TEAM Native Combat should be used any time you plan on making minor natives. Also, though these may be looked over at first, the French can utilize the best age up politicians in the game, such as the Quartermaster and Exiled Prince. These allow for a large diversity of strategies, and make France quite a fun civ to play. One MAJOR advantage (that I almost forgot, silly me) is the starting Native Scout. This guy is OP! With him, you can scout the whole map in less than a minute, and he is excellent for killing enemy explorers (in conjunction with your own explorer of course, do not try to kill an explorer with the NS alone). Also, he can go stealth! This means that you can know exactly what your opponent is doing at all times. From age up crates, to military building position, he lets you see all! Remember, his LOS is greater than TC stealth detection radius, so use that to your advantage. And of course, we cannot forget the awsome power of the cuirassier. Combined with skirmishers, your fortress power is extremely difficult to match. Once you reach industrial, the game might as well be yours for the taking. So now that we know what makes the French tick, let's find out how to implement them, shall we? In this section, strategies will be divided into groups according to strategy type (rush, delayed FF, FF, FI) and according to opposing civilization. Some strategies, which can be used vs many civs, will be posted last. Russia is actually a fairly easy matchup. Since recent TWC nerfs, they simply cannont prevent you from getting to fortress, nor can they penetrate your TC's protective radius and destroy your buildings. With age up times along the lines of 5:20, their only option is to harrass you as much as they can before you hit fortress and own them with devastating shipments (mainly 3 cuirs and 2 falcs). Vs many FFing civs, this works rather well. It takes a fair amount of strelets to keep settlers off of hunting near your TC, but they can manage it. However, the CdB proves much more troublesome. It takes almost Discovery Age: -All CdB to hunts Discovery-Colonial: -9 CdB on hunts, 5 on gold Colonial: -Have 2 cdb collect the wood crates Use these hussars as you see fit. Make sure that you conserve them, however. The best time to attack is when they have 23 strelets. You basically reset them at 0 strelets, while you usually have 3-4 hussars remaining. Stay away from their BH though, as you will take unnecessary damage. Use the remaining hussars to raid as much hunting as you can find. Use your scout as much as possible. Russians lose when they cannot hunt. -If you kept making vills, you will be able to click age up to fortress around 7:30-7:50, depending on how much you have been raided. This will net you around a 9:30 fortress time with plenty of econ to start spamming cuirs. While aging, ship 700 wood and use it on additional housing, a rax, and a trade post. If the map doesnt have a trade route, just build more houses. You have probably lost your hussars about now (unless you used them extremely well, or your opponent sucks). Make sure you age with the 6 skirm politician to counter the muskets that he will no doubt be making to counter your supposed hussar spam. During age up, you will need to put only a couple vills on wood (2-3) and the rest divided roughly evenly between gold and food (a few more on food, then set TC waypoint to gold). When you age, ship 8 skirms and queue 3-5 cuirs. Enter 5 cuirs + 14 skirms, and your opponent says "zomg OP" and dies. GG Discovery Age Use the Quartermaster (400 Wood) Politician Transition: Discovery/Colonial -Move roughly half your CdB to wood as soon as you click age up Colonial Age -Arrive in Colonial as close to 4:30 as possible Once you have repelled the first wave, continue to mass xbows until he lets up pressure. If he jan rushed, this usually means he is starting to make abus guns now. Once this happens, make sure you build a stable and move around 7 CdB to gold. This will allow a stable flow of hussars while also giving you enough gold to research the next improvement line in the market. He will come back with and army of roughly 20-25 jans and 10-15 abus guns (most players wait until they have this arrangement for some reason, I have no idea why, they just do) a few minutes after the first few waves have been beaten back. You should meet this with at least 10 hussars and 30 xbows. It may sound like a lot, but you will find you will often field more xbows than you ever thought possible (ie. 45+). If you win this battle, you are pretty much sure to win by taking the military offensive and going for his bases now. Your economy will be miles ahead of his now if you kept up vill production and even his superior unit combination can't stop you. If you lose the engagement, you still have an excellent chance as long as you took out most of his abus guns. Since xbows are produced so quickly, it is easy to pump out emergency forces of 10 xbows + MM or even CdB to fight back the rest of his shipment powered army while you happily keep massing units through a massive econ. Never be defensive! Always be as aggressive as possible. If your opponent retreats, he has good reason. Chase him down! And never forget to raid the ottoman. It seems impossible in game, but even if you dont think you can spare the units, do so anyways and give it a try. Often the ottoman player will lose all micro abilities and your hussars will have a much easier time killing abus guns if you have some raiders guarding his hunts. And lastly, don't forget the market villager upgrades! Your CdB are practically immune to jan and abus gun fire when upgraded with the Great Coat, and only for 75 food! These 230+ HP tanks can take over 20 janissary shots to the face and live to tell the tale, so don't worry so much about leaving vills to gather while your xbows fight his jans. In fact, you want him to shoot your vills to take fire away from your precious military. Aztecs, I have to say, are probably the easiest opponent you could have as french. Their colonial arsenal sucks, as xbows counter maces, pumas, BB jags, and even coyote runners fairly easily. How do we get a bunch of xbows with a good econ to support them? Discovery Age: -All CdB hunts Discovery-Colonial: -Move 7 hunting vills to wood Colonial: -2 vills collect 400 wood Quote: Sounds pretty simple eh? Well.....yeah, actually it is. That is all you have to do to beat aztecs EVERY SINGLE TIME. Just spam xbows at them like an idiot and they roll over and die. Your econ mows them over early game before they can get warpriests going. Once you have 25 cdb, switch 7 over to gold and build a stable. Once you get xbows + hussars rolling, there is nothing an aztec player is going to do to be able to effectively siege you. After making 5 hussars, you can either decide to go to fortress and raid, or if you are totally owning him and can afford pikes on top of hussars + xbows then go ahead and stick it out in colonial. I prefer the fortress method, as 2 falc shipment can take out a ton of warhuts before they finally resign. Now, this is what I was going to say, until good ol' beatnik joe goes and posts an actual useful aztec strat. Curse you joe! CURSE YOU!!!1!!1!11 If you find youself fighting against native scouts, simply build a church, ship 700 gold, and proceed to spam xbows. even just 5 spies mixed in with your xbows makes his scouts utterly worthless, so just keep them back and it becomes essentially LI + HI vs LI + cav all over again, but this time your HI has a x6 multiplier vs his cav instead of x4. Hmmm... Let's skip to the fun part, as I'm running out of time. For use against Germans, Portuguese, Spanish (yep, spanish), Dutch, Sioux, and Britain: You read correctly. Two trade posts before colonial! The reason it works against the aforementioned civs, is that they all tend to delay their attacks for some period of time, whether to build an economy, get to fortress, or because their colonial time just sucks (sioux), all of them are susceptible to Trade Route rushes (such as IOR and this one). Let's see how it works eh? Discovery: Starting crates is a big deal here. If you start with 300 food, 200 wood, you are in great shape. 400 food, 100 wood is slightly worse, and 300 food, 100 wood, 100 gold kinda sucks. Fortunately, the overall effect on the game is not major, so don't worry about it too much. -3 CdB collect crates, 2 go to hunt Discovery-Colonial: -You should receive a second shipment very shortly after you click up. Send *When fighting spain, send 3 cdb forward and stick them on wood or hunts near a tp that you want to claim. If your opponent tries to take it, blast the dogs away with your vills. They have 85 HP, and you do 48 shots per volley, so they die pretty quick. No trade route is safe from the cdb of doom Colonial: -You either have a third shipment ready or it is just about to be ready. Ship either 700 wood or 8 xbows, depending on how aggressive your opponent is going to be. Now you are free to do whatever you want. Good combinations are xbow + hussar or xbow + pike. Set the trade route to whatever resource you need (usually wood, or in the case of hussars, gold/food). Proceed to ship in whatever is necessary. Common card orders are: 700 wood or 8 xbows Xbows are an extremely deadly unit if used properly. Contrary to popular opinion, they counter heavy infantry quite well if you can hit and run decently. Xbow + hussar is the best way to go vs most civs, especially those with actual multiplier vs heavy inf LI* in colonial, such as sioux and dutch. If you can master the art of the xbow, you can obliterate all opposition!(Ok, maybe not, but they still pwn). EDIT: Wow, I completely forgot: This is a generic strat that works well vs all civs but ottoman and iroquois (superfast heavy siege rushing hurts). The goal is 2 tps, a decent econ, and a fortress time of 7:30-7:40 Discovery: -All cdb hunt Discovery-Colonial -Move 5 vills to gold. If you dont have 100 wood, chop it with the gold vills, then move them to gold. Colonial: -Collect 400 wood with 2 gold vills Colonial-Fortress: -Distribute vills 7 food, 3 wood, 6 gold Fortress: -Ship 8 skirms Pretty basic, I know, but it works if you have decent micro and as long as you can be aggressive. Now I know I left out Iroquois and French, but I seem to have run out of time. I'll add them in once I get back. Hope you enjoyed reading. __Sephiroth__ [This message has been edited by xMatt the Greatx (edited 12-18-2006 @ 08:08 PM).]
-Build one house
-First shipment:
-Age with 14 CdB with 400 wood politician
-Queue 3 CdB and place waypoint on gold
-Ship
-When you have 200 wood, build a stable with 2 cdb.
-Build 2 houses
-Once the stable is up, queue 5 hussars.
-3 Cdb collect food, 2 hunt
-Ship 3 Cdb as first card
-Make sure you have at least 2 huntable groups very near your TC by the time you age up
-Click up between 3:00 and 3:08 with 14 CdB.
-Build a market and research the first tier food and wood gather rate upgrades
-Build a house
-Collect 400 wood with 2-3 CdB and put up 2 raxes
-Ship 8 xbows ASAP
-Once the first rax is made, queue 5 xbows and make another house. You should now have 13 xbows, 2 raxes, and 40 population on its way.
-By 5:15 you should have 13 xbows with several more queued up at your raxes and your economy rolling. Your opponent will have chosen one of 2 routes, the first being pure jan and the second includes abus guns. The former hits you at the same time that your Xbows arrive with 10 jans and the second will arrive a minute later with 5 abus guns. If he chooses pure jans (you should assume this if you find no artillery foundry but do find his rax) just continue to mass xbows while trying to maintain constant vill production. With proper hit and run, you will easily be able to fend off his attacks due to your massive numbers. If he goes for abus guns, make good use of your 3 hussar shipment to fight down the first wave. This will delay his attack for another minute and gives you time to put up a stable if need be and make a few hussars locally. Never let those jans melee your xbows! It means certain death, so you should always hit and run and keep your distance. Make good use of buildings such as your market for cover. I highly discourage building walls however, as they force you into a defensive mindset.
Wow, this is getting longer than I thought. Is there a limit to how much one can type on one post? Anyways, continuing.
-First Shipment:
-Age with 14 cdb using 400 wood politician
-Build a market and research first hunting and chopping upgrades.
-Build a house
-queue 3 Cdb
-Ship 8 xbows
-Build a rax and housing with wood from crates
-Start spamming xbows.
-If you started with 400 food, send all 3 CdB to wood, so that you have 2 on hunts and 3 on trees. If 300 food, send 3 cdb to hunts, and 2 to wood.
-Set the TC waypoint to wood
-Build a house
-Keep waypoint on wood until you have 5 choppers, then switch waypoint back to food.
-First shipment:
-When you have 250 wood, build a TP with your explorer and switch all vills to hunts. This can occur anywhere between 1:30 and 2:30, depending on treasures/starting crates.
-When you have 15 cdb, click the age up button with 400 wood politician. Click up no later than 3:40, usually 3:30.
-Switch 7 vills to wood, keep 8 on food.
-Build a market and research first hunting and chopping upgrades. You may need to mine a bit of gold, but then switch back to food/wood.
-When 300 wood arrives, build a second tp with explorer. It should get up very close to when you age up, either right before or right after.
-Queue 3 cdb
-Build 2 houses.
-Collect the 400 wood and upgrade the trade route. Build a rax.
-If 700 wood was 3rd shipment, build another rax (or stable), a tp, and housing. If 8 xbows, I don't think I need to go over what to do with them :P
4 cdb
8 xbows
700 wood
4 cdb
-First Shipment:
-Age with 14 cdb using 400 wood politician
-Keep the other 9 vills on food
-Queue 2 cdb
-TC waypoint to food
-Build two TP's with your explorer
-Ship 700 gold ASAP
-When it arrives, have your 5 gold vills collect it. You should have enough for age up by 5:50, sometimes as early as 5:35.
-Age with either 4 hussar or 6 skirm poli, depending on what strat opponent is doing (harrassment, use 4 hussar, siege rush/FF, use skirms).
-Ship 700 wood
-When it arrives, build a stable, rax, and 3 houses
-Build as many houses as you can with the 3 wood vills. Usually one, then another as soon as you reach fortress.
-Queue 2-3 cuirs
-Spam shipments/cuirs/skirms until opponent dies.
Cheers,
). 
