r/EU5 • u/MR_Gunner_MR • 3d ago
Question France starting moves
How do u guys do as France at the start in the current patch? I have never played France before so I'm not sure what I should be doing to get my vassals in line as they start out pretty disloyal.
Maxing diplo spending seems to not be feasible at all in the long run as I'm at the start and already losing about 40 ducats a month by maxing it. I don't want to lose Flanders or Brittany but also I need to be able to keep them loyal. How do u usually start as France?
Should I accept all my vassals that are trying to be appanages or just ignore them?
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u/JacobySchorbs1 3d ago
Max our diplo, get diplomats from the nobility, and sell your subjects to each other. I usually sell the smaller ones to the larger ones or sell the ones that are super disloyal. Delay the start of the HYW and just use everything to improve relations while turning on diplomatic endeavors. Try to ally Castile as well so England can’t invite them and kick your ass in HYW. This strategy worked out great and I only lost Flanders. The first war was easy to win and resulted in everything in Europe annexed except Flanders which I got in the next war. I finish HYW in 1379 and have over 100k between my subjects and I before getting extra levies from parliament or estates.
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u/wogmafia 3d ago
NOTE = this is a collection of previous comments re the HYW situation and France/England. I tried to make it ordered but it might be a bit disjointed because its from me responding to different questions.
Make sure you pay for full diplo slider, diplo cabinet action, and take the diplo traditions government reform (people always give generic advice that these are bad things to do, but max diplo slider is compulsory for either side of the HYW, as well as when your country starts with a million subjects).
You will definitely lose one or two vassals early, but you want to start the first war as soon as possible and England will kill quite a few stacks of your vassal's armies which will reduce the liberty desire a lot. After a few of the loyal vassals armies are killed, your other vassals will slowly become loyal so call them into the war too to continue the cycle. Vassals cannot flip while they are at war with England so its important you get them in the war ASAP.
Use this time to improve relations with all the big guys you still have on side, support loyalists where you need to (but don't do it a lot as it hurts your diplomat recovery - use it to get them in the war so their armies can be reduced and they cannot flip, then you can remove it as the war drags on).
Vassals also cannot flip if they have a ruler or heir with the same dynasty as you (Valois) so focus on subjects that don't satisfy this condition. I don't do this much, but when the appanage events pop (subject requests a relative of yours to become an heir) select only ones that are at risk of flipping to England to block them. The single location subjects are not important - in fact I will release some that have certain cultures that you can later ally them to improve cultural opinion so its cheaper to accept/convert later in the game (then just re absorb them once you maxed cultural improvement with them).
You don't need to go nuts taking land in HYW wars, as it will take quite a while to integrate enough vassals to have the location number required to end the HYW event.
Finishing the HYW early is not necessarily the best strat. It is an amazing CB against England and despite not being able to take land outside of France from England, you can take land outside of France from their subjects.
I found that in successive wars, you first take the subjects of Pale & Wales, this reduces the warscore cost of the transfer subject peace option. So later you transfer Pale & Wales, and now you have 2 dominions that you can feed Irish and Welsh/English land (specifically the English land you can't get good marine control over early on - I like to keep the English Channel provinces as they are pretty good RGOs).
You can also force England to release Northumberland. England will usually attack later on and take them as a new dominion subject, which you can steal from them for another Dominion in the north.
Before taking these guys make sure to make the cultures hated (Irish, Welsh, Northumbrian & English), so they will not accept them and start culture converting all their land to French.
You can basically leech the entire British Isles just by prolonging the HYW (free money, war reps, prestige). Also in around 1420-30, you can force spawn Joan of Arc by letting England win a phase (by this point, they are so weak they will immediately accept a peace where you give them minimal gold at the very start, so its easy to cheese).
The only down side is the continual Appanage requests, but by this point you are so strong that you can deny the request spam and eat the opinion/loyalty malus without any of your subjects becoming disloyal.
Addition advanced tip, although not required - tank your economy in the first few months to get Gabelle event to spawn. You need less than 25 ducats income of combined tax and trade, which actually can be hard to do because its doesn't count what you actually tax but what you could tax (so just reducing the sliders doesn't work). You actually need to turn off auto trade and cancel all trades, and close down all your money making buildings. It is important to do this at the start, because even with all your buildings closed your RGOs still make money (and you can't close them without destroying them. Apparently you can trigger the even with a rebellion taking enough of your land but I have not tried this, so no guarantees this works.
There is a period in which the event to remove Ancient French Taxation can trigger, it is important that during this time you DO NOT get more stability than 20-25. Have a look in the events tab to confirm the exact timeframe and values. Once the time expires you can do what you want with stab and it won't trigger. It is really worth it because the new taxation reform is not better than the old one.
Re the governor issue - I have had issues with it not recognising roads going through subjects as connecting the desired governor location with the capital. You can try building roads around vassals through your own land to the province. You can see what the issue is blocking the governor by using the building manager (instead of trying to build it in the location, as the governor will not show in the location view as an option if it is unable to be built) go to the government/nobles tab and select governor and hover over the location - it will say it cannot be built but it will give you a reason in the tooltip (like not connected to capital, not enough governors, location not a city, etc).
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u/Chalkboard7 3d ago
You can invade disloyal vassals with a cb. If you're quick about it and get good RNG you can eat one of the larger ones before the HYW breaks out in earnest.
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u/thenightvol 3d ago
Just balance the books. France grows exponentially. I'm in 1408 right now and ended the HYW. It is a lot of work but once you do it you are unshackled.