Civilization 6: A to Z - France - Thoughts, Strategy, Rankings [Includes RAF Changes!]

[@alexandermoore2959]

This is my multiplayer thoughts for this civ. France is a civ with Magikarp power, that is has a really weak early game but has catch up mechanics, and once they get going they are one of the most dangerous civs. One extra spy may not sound like much, but the real bonus here is that you get it without having to produce it. On top of this, spies come with a free promotion, making them considerably more dangerous off the bat. In multiplayer, people are usually highly protective of their borders and will not grant open borders to anyone, ever. This is a problem for espionage focused players but there are 2 ways around this: 1) you can use city states to explore by gaining suzerain status. Catherine's extra spy and free promotions can help her fabricate scandals in competitive city states to gain a temporary suzerain status for a exploration push. 2) Catherine can suicide apostles in enemy territory. Tactic 2 doesn't require catherine to found a religion, just that she has one. Placing holy sites in cities after getting Mont St Michel, a relatively uncompetitive wonder, allows her to get loads of missionaries and apostles and forces enemy players to mmake a difficult decision: let catherine explore your lands? Or kill her apostles and give her relics? Catherine has bonuses that help both these strategies, which makes her surprisingly better geared for a multiplayer game than initially thought. Her biggest shortcoming is her early game hell. Where many other civs are getting production bonuses to strong units, Catherine is relying on a plus 3 bonus from diplomatic visibility to survive. Once she gets to castles however, she can dedicate one sy to listening posts in civs she is at war with and have a plus 6 combat boost. Catherine is geared to a culture victory, which makes her often seem weak in multiplayer. However, Garde Imperiale have the combat bonus on the home continent, which combined with Catherine's diplomatic visibility, a spy with a listening post, Oligarchic Legacy and (maybe) the fascism government can give her units an overwhelming combat bonus, even before Corps and Armies enter the picture. Counters to catherine: kill her early. If she gets strong her spies and diplomatic visibility will make your life very difficult. They are extremely strong and versatile boosts that often go underestimated. If she can;t be removed from the game early on, teaming her late in the game may be necessary to due to the strength of her units and her spies. Forcing her to use her spies to gain diplomatic visibility to survive will stop her using them to steal great works and sabotage spaceports. This is a brief summary of her in multiplayer. Chateau have been left out as their purpose is largely the same.

[@JGushi87]

Thanks for this! Do you think the strat still work? And how do you play the early game? :O

[@sirensoulegaming4158]

@@JGushi87 I am the original commenter, but on a different account. The civ can still work, but prevalence of power creep makes them harder to play. Still, clever use of spies can slingshot you ahead of the competition from behind. Early game you have a few goals - secure a few safe cities that you can build tall. Taller cities can be more productive and can build more districts, and you will need quite a few districts in your core cities. You want a trade route districts, a campus district in safe cities, an Encampment district in less safe cities, A government Plaza for important buildings, and Industrial Zones in cities to prepare for power mechanics later. The only requirement in every city is a trade route - everything else depends on the terrain and is your judgement. For settling locations, mountains are ideal for campuses, however cities that can grow really big and become production hubs, you want to settle near rivers for chateau and wonders. While building these cities you want to beeline for Military Science as fast as you reasonably can (a load of techs on the path greatly benefit France, or have notable synergy with their strategy). For governments, you want Oligarchy (Oligarchic legacy bonus strengthens your garde imperiale push, and oligarchy helps you survive the early game) and Monarchy (you will do a lot of warring at this time, plus you will want to build loads of walls - more on that later). For your government buildings, you want Warlord's throne (you HAVE to take cities at some point, or you will never ever catch up, and the production bonus can be put towards wonder construction) and National intelligence agency (your entire bonus is a free spy - extra success rate makes death less likely, which can eventually snowball a lead). Your final goal is to build Garde Imperiale and secure a level 2 spy - these 2 units are the crux of the french war machine. First, the level 2 spy - can give you a +6 diplomatic visibility combat bonus with a listening post in an enemy city. The best promotions for a spy this early in the game are Smear Campaign and Technologist, although Cat Burglar is good in a game with lots of culture civs, Disguise is good for "invisible" exploring in peace-time, and quartermaster will strengthen your underworld spy network later. Garde imperiale have a +10 strength bonus on the home continent, and with printing and a level 2 spy, you can push for a +16 minimum, +22 maximum strength bonus overall. With your border city encampments as well, you might even be able to get an appropriate general to add to the bonus further - all these bonuses combined should make conquering a neighbour child's play. Take siege towers as well to bypass city walls. Once the war machine is running, you can take cities on your continent, and use the warlord's throne production bonus to build wonders in your core cities. Your new, outer cities don't need to become as tall - they should focus on building Victory districts, followed by trade, and then industry/entertainment to suit the current needs of the empire. This is the end of the "early game hell" for france. if you succeed, you become a dangerous opponent, and you're able to stop thinking about surviving, and start thinking about winning. Best options for France are Tourism and Science. Tourism seems like an obvious choice, however, building Renaissance walls didn't just help you survive early - it now affords you flexibility here, with tourism (conservation civic) or science (Military research policy, urbanization civic). Thanks to building encampment districts to help survive early, those military academies also bump your research a bit too. Finally, Culture from Chateau obviously add tourism. Less obviously, the culture gives you access to stronger policies and governments sooner than other science civs, which can help you play catchup even further (Democracy for Tall Cities, Communism for Science Bonus, Fascism for even more aggressive gameplay if you can press that further). Hope this helps a bit? Reply was longer than I hoped it would be - it's difficult to give a general approach for a game with so many variables. If you have more questions it might be better to DM me.

[@Farsightful]

@@sirensoulegaming4158 i keep losing very early to religious civs. I understand that the game cannot allow a Civ to be as powerful everywhere as IRL but man religion is a hell of a mar h up for me playing France.

[@sirensoulegaming4158]

@@Farsightful if someone is playing religious in multiplayer, you need to have a few military units at the ready to declare war and condemn heretics so they can't spread religion. Religious civs usually have to put themselves behind a bit early to get religion, so even if you don't plan to conquer them, they probably can't afford to fight you too. If the civ in question is byzantium, things change a bit - if they're your neighbour they will probably use war to spread their religion, and they get their strength with culture, not science, so they can keep up with you. You need to be prepared to go to war with them really early. They need an early holy site, so they won't have much military - locate the holy sit before they get a religion, pillage it and force them to get military. By setting their religion back you buy yourself a bit more time. Also, you will have a +3 combat strength bonus on them, so you will have the advantage.

[@vermount0844]

this series is a must watch if u are new to Civ 6!! thankyou for making this👍

[@brentleycollin8931]

you probably dont care but if you are bored like me atm you can watch pretty much all of the latest movies and series on instaflixxer. I've been streaming with my brother these days xD

[@trevorlouis7041]

@Brentley Collin yup, I have been using InstaFlixxer for since november myself :D

[@kholdanstaalstorm6881]

Good summary, looking forward for the next one! Have changed my strategy on dealing with a few of the civs after these videos.

[@Broyar]

I'm glad that you are enjoying them. :)

[@sdl1ishappy]

Good analysis. France is incredibly powerful, except perhaps on Deity when it doesn't have any early boosts to get you to the mid game. If you can be on solid footing by mid game and know how to use spies and exploit city state bonuses (assuming there are some left), it's a great civ.

[@jessewood3196]

I've been watching a lot of Civ 6 strategy / analysis videos by different youtubers. The framework in which you break down & rank these civs is by far the best that I've seen. Please keep these coming!

[@hagape3150]

Oh man I absolutely love France! Well, almost all because of the leader bonus, this is absolutely one of the bonuses in the game that keeps me coming back to play a specific civ. The free promotion level for spies is just amazing, I feel like my spies are gimped when playing any other civ. Spies are just so fun to use, in my opinion, with all the fun ways they can be used to ruin your opponents in less convetional/direct ways. Their unique unit is actually really powerful when the +10 is active, but their low movement points (standard for melee) is a bit restricting. Now, however, the commando promotion also grants +1 movement, so it can be mitigated. If it was a replacement unit I'd love to use these, building up promotions and upgrading into them.

[@Hashel]

Keep those up, i find those videos really interesting and help to better understand the subtleties of the game =)

[@Broyar]

These are actually helping me as much as they help you guys as well. As I was researching France, I realized that I very rarely see them in any of my games so I actually didn't know what their bonuses were. I just knew Catherine like spies a lot.

[@kholdanstaalstorm6881]

Broyar If I'm on the same continent as France I try to target them as early as I can. They always backstab me if I don't take them out.

[@phraenk_sch2287]

Sign Kholdan.

[@littlebig2162]

U definitelly need more subscribers. The content is so clear and informing! thumbs up, keep it up!

[@Benjamin-085]

Looking that this Summery its accurate for her Style etc. Personally, I use France for Domination. I do it because I believe that using the Tech combined with the Spies, you can pretty much get so far ahead it will be like Swordsmen vs Tanks (Just an example)

[@Farsightful]

T’as déjà joué en divinité ?

[@sweetICEmen]

the extra diplomatic visibility results in RaF in an extra +3 combat strength, which would make her just slightly better in domination victory (maybe 5 (6) instead of 4 (5)). Don't know if it applies to religious units as well.

[@Broyar]

Thanks for catching this. I completely forgot about the diplomatic visibility bonus. I think I'd consider bumping the Leader bonus up to about a 6 instead of a 4 for Domination, but I don't know if I'd change the overall score too much.

[@neojazex]

Nice video. In the few France games I've played I found that river wonders like Hermitage and Taj Mahal were more useful than most others as they usually guaranteed 4 boosted chateaus. But I thought that was a bit counter-intuitive personally as you want to save river tiles for more chateaus

[@ppp45690]

Well made, good job!

[@phraenk_sch2287]

Very informative. Right on! Thanks a lot

[@MrCyberGal]

This is always a must watch

[@MrCyberGal]

By the way, in case you didn't know, the Rise and Fall Expansion made a change to diplomatic visibility that grants military units +3 combat strength for each level of diplomatic visibility your civ has over the opponent's (so, for example, if you have 4 diplomatic visibility on someone and they have 2 on you, your units get +6 combat strength against them), so Catherine having an automatic, free level of visibility over anyone is also pretty useful for Domination, or just for defending yourself.

[@Broyar]

Great catch! Diplomatic visibility bonuses seem a bit hidden and though I know they exist, I honestly forget about them half the time.

[@MrCyberGal]

Yeah, I only really learned about it because of Mongolia's civilization ability. At first I thought only they got the combat strength bonus for increased visibility, but no, apparently everyone gets it, and Mongolia only gets more than average.

[@marcnawezi1877]

In domination i think catherine is one of the srongest character it's +3 for each level you have in advance it can easily go to a +9

[@roppnerr]

besides france has a natural combat bonus duo to diplomatic information

[@excancerpoik]

When i play frabce i play elanor but anyways the garde imperiale are very good for defence like really good

[@tycoontim82224]

Love it!

[@michaelmilam4472]

St. Basil's cathedral is not pronounced as the herb "basil' but more like 'Baz-ell'

[@Broyar]

According the the internet, which is never wrong of course, it can be pronounced both ways, lol.

[@NaneRulz]

Can't wait for Poland.

[@dasde7514]

Its right :D

[@eudaimonia0221]

“De Mèdici”, not “De Medìci”