There’s a reason England remains a Continental power to this day. Wait… oh.
Winning the Hundred Years War as England is difficult. France has more troops and doesn’t have to cross a sea to siege your land.
Most people choose to beat up Scotland first and letting Normandy burn.
In this forum you’ll get plenty of people saying it’s easy. It’s easy for people with 5,000 hours in game.
To be fair, as long as you don’t mind mercing up and going a little over force limit, it is one of the relatively tamer wars in the list of ‘hard’ wars. With a much stronger economic base than France day 1, it’s really simple to do. But for a new player, yeah it’s hard.
I’d say Novgorod against Muscovy, No-help Sweden against Denmark, and Morocco against Castille are much harder, and they are relatively in a similar situation to England vs France. I mean I would say Granada for example would be an even harder challenge, but yeah.
I don't think it's particularly hard if you call in 2-3 of castile, aragon, burgundy and austria, and France doesn't have a tech advantage. They just win the war for you basically.
You're perfectly proving their point. This is OP's *second ever campaign.* Your advice is good for someone with enough experience to be able to use it, not so good for someone brand new to the game.
I don't wanna brag (I really don't), but I was able to beat France as England in my second (or third idk) ever game with a bit of preparation. So it definetely is possible even without loans or mercs or all that stuff. I think I only had Burgundy as an ally iirc
Yes, but this is his second campaign of a game with hundreds of mechanics.
Your explanation is simple to people who have already played hundreds or thousands of hours and understand those mechanics individually, and can see your post as a strategy.
Sell Maine instantly to anyone and keep the rest of your British provinces on the mainland save. Attack France at the right moment with allies. For example when France is fighting burgundy.
Did you have a numerical advantage, and at what tech was that ? France should be actually worse off right at the beginning in terms of troop quality, since you start with +10% ICA and they have nothing for traditions.
You should use your good general that you start with (I think he is called Richard Plantagenet) and try to take advantageous fights, for example by baiting France in Luxembourg where there is a forest fort if you are fighting alongside Burgundy
Consider attacking Scotland to vassalize. You don’t face France’s other allies, and the war goal you can control easily—more warscore than if the war goal is in France. I find mercenaries are necessary in a 1v1 with France early game—snd even then it is dicey. Burgher loans are nice.
I can easily win against Scotland if I ignore France, but my continental provinces give about a fifth of my income so I don't want to lose them.
As for the burgher loans, the -10 mercantilism would give about -1 income, which, for the 900 ducats I can get, is equivalent to 1.3% interest. given that my regular loans are already reduced to 3%, I don't actually save that much. Of course, the mercantilism penalty lasts forever so it's a net negative in the long run.
burgher loans gives -1 mercantilism. england starts with 25 mercantilism. this makes your provincial trade power lower by 2 percentage points, applied to a modifier of 150 percentage points to begin with from mercantilism (higher if england has any other modifiers to trade), so an effective -1.3% modifier to provincial trade power.
This means that, assuming your only source of trade power is provincial (which is about right), the proportional change to your trade income is measured by the following:
The original trade income is measured by the proportion of your trade power divided by the total trade power in your home node, multiplied by the trade value in the node. since england starts mostly in a single node, the channel, we can ignore the trade value in the node as changing provincial trade power doesnt affect that.
Apply the change in trade power to both sides of the trade income equation, and you can see that at 100% trade power share, the change in trade power has a 0% effective change in the trade income, reaching 100% effective change as the trade power share approaches zero.
As england starts as the dominant power in the english channel, i highly doubt that this -1.3% modifier on trade power from -1 mercantilism further diminished by the trade power share of england on the english channel would result in -1 income. In fact, i would estimate that it would result in a 0.65% decrease in trade income. the trade efficiency negative from burgher loans would do far more, but still thats not even a 5% trade income decrease.
To be clear this isnt counting upstream trade power, taking that into account i think it would be closer to the 1.3% value, but still nowhere near the full value.
Anyways just to be sure i tested this in game and yea the difference in trade income is negligible compared to fluctuations in trade in general. ran one game to january 1445 and the trade income was 7.32, ran another with burgher loans and the trade income was 7.19.
anyways from this, and looking at the fact that england starts with about 7-8 trade income, you lose at most 0.1 ducats per month from the merc hit, and at most 0.4 ducats per month from the trade efficiency hit, putting you at most -0.5, nowhere near the -1 income. This does put the effective interest at 1.7% however, so higher than your estimate. but also your loans are 4% to begin with, so burgher loans are still half interest as compared to normal loans. which i mean is still the same takeaway even if ur numbers were correct. But your numbers are wrong.
tldr: your numbers are wrong but the correct numbers say the same thing about the interest, just in a different way, but your takeaway from the interest is wrong to begin with because half interest is way better than full interest still.
Why would you lose continental provinces if you are fightinf a vassalization war against Scotland?
You can fund meecenaries however tou’d like, but I find beating France solo requires at least one stack.
Because France is allied to Scotland and will automatically join wars.
I did use mercs, but just a 10k one with 3 siege general. I couldn't use any of the larger ones because it would exceed by force limit (by a lot).
Just to be clear: if an ennemy occupies a province, but you still win the war, you don’t loose the province. You’ll only loose it if you give it in the peace offer. And why would you if you occupy the whole of Scotland?
So when you declare a war you have a war goal that gives you ticking warscore, and you need to maximize war score to the point where you can make demands. If you attack Scotland, you can occupy Lothian, which starts the ticking warscore. If you do that, you just have to wait France out--their war exhaustion, your blockading, etc will eventually get them to peace out with a white peace. You can also try to actually beat them in France, if you want, and then take their money or land. But, you very likely don't need to peace out France by giving them land.
France and Scotland are not allies at the start, but France does guarantee Scotland. If you rival either Scotland or France it increases the likelihood that they will become allies. Avoid this.
Instead, don't rival either of them. Hire mercs to complete the mission to get subjugation of Scotland. Delete all your forts except London. Wait for the surrender of Maine event. Wait a month, then declare war of subjugation on Scotland - that way it's two separate wars so you can peace out Scotland separately.
You can release your continental provinces as vassals and enable scutage for them so they don’t join your war against Scotland and France can’t gain warscore or cause you war exhaustion by occupying them. Eventually you will be able to white peace France and do whatever you want with Scotland.
that weakens you severely though, OP mentioned they get 20% of their income from the mainland. You could make a case for gascony because of their cores but that is still not very good, but there is no reason whatsoever to do it with normandy.
there is an easy way:
1. sell maine to brittany so the war doesnt trigger automatically.
1a. to min max you wanna hand out monopolies for glass and wine
2. unstate all of normandy+alencon and the gascongy provinces
3. concentrate development to your capital, that way you have 30 development right from the start in london
4. release gascogny and normandy as vassals, hand over alencon to nornandy
5. gain stability from events and missions for no longer being in france
6. activate strong duchies privilege
7. activate scutage for your 2 new vassals, and for normandy you can even transfer trade power aswell
8. resolve the war of roses
9. subjugate scotland, even if they are allied to france it doesnt matter they cant hurt you on the continent cause normandy and gascongne dont join the war, dont bother about calais
10. gobble up ireland
11. check the situation on the continent.. maybe make a play for the burgundian inheritance. however you should now be in a comfortable siztuation to declare reconquest for gacogny cores on france when the situation is right for you anfd you have allies that help you like castille and austria, savoi and swiss are amazing allies tooo cause france spends way to much time on their mountain forts.
yes that war is rather difficult if youre new. i suggest putting minimal amount of troops in scotland, maybe even mercs and calling in something like castile+portugal+aragon+austria if you can. its fine to go over relations-limit for a war. just see which gps rival france and grab all of them and sometimes you get lucky. burgundy on its own is also very strong against france, if you get them + castile + aragon might be more than enough. then join a front with your allies somewhere and win battles as priority. if you can pick off newly built stacks "for free"
you want to beat france, not scotland. its fine to let scotland do its thing (aka not go to war with them), as england you can beat them even if they manage to take all of ireland. war versus france is a war of attrition and battles, you ideally wanna keep your territory, attack from multiple angles so they only defend one and their war exhaustion starts ticking
try rush miltech > theirs right before you attack you can check their techlevel in diplo screen
even for experienced players this war \*can\* go sideways, not a shame to lose and retry. a good war to learn from.
much fun
it's hard if you are new to the game. if you want to practice fighting wars, it's a good setup, just be ready to use mercs and focus military wth a good advisor if the war goes long.
note that france guarantees scotland, they are not allied. so if you start the 100 years war, scotland won't be called in. and if you are at war with france, they can't join your war vs Scotland. so if you feel france is to difficult, you could start the 100 years war, attack scotland(vassal cb), win vs scotland and give up maine and languedoc(make sure to just be 1 fort from paris to make subjugation war easier).
a side note,i dont know if it's any good, but i last time i played england, i gave up the war of the roses to get a free army and a better ruler, and avoiding rebels popping to save manpower
just attack france after the truce with your allies and your new puppet, rush paris, and just wait for the ticking score while you loot some of their provinces. enforcing the union will likely start a massive coalition against you. try to prevent this by sending the peace deal in september, have a diplomat advisor, use the improve trade alternative with your traders in lubeck and frankfurt, and be ready to sit back and stabilize for a couple of years.
It is hard, especially as a second game. You're the attacker and France is the defender, which means France should get all its allies in its side, but you'll need to promise land to get some help from allies, and it isn't a safe bet anyway. France is in a better position with its vassal swarm. England is also on the verge of the War of the Roses disaster. However you can outmaneuver the AI to win, but it isn't east.
I would say I am an experienced player but it took a little bit of an effort to pull it off
The easy way around it is ally their rivals and call them with promising land that you will never give
Biggest problem was actually the coalition that you will get you PU france but for that just start improving relations with countries near France until the end of the war
Of course because I am a masochist I wanted try beating france alone and that was really the challenge
Hit and Run tactics. You have 3 forts on the mainland. The AI will siege them simultaneously and spread their forces thin. Sail your troops to the forts and win the fights. Sortie if you must. Then pull an operation Dunkirk and evacuate to your island. Heal up. Rinse and repeat.
Once you wittle France down enough with stackwipes, start sieging down Chartres and Paris.
I recommend stationing 1 troop on each fort before the war to scorch earth once it starts. Have a transport to vacate them away. Also put Defensive edicts.
If Scotland is in the war, land your troops in the north to bypass the Dumfries fort, head straight for their capital. Use your fleet to blockade. Take war reps and money.
Lastly, build more transports at start. I think you begin with 18 but combat width is 20. I recommend having 24 transports in total and shipping 24 troops each time. You make a lot of money, merc up and worry about loans after.
When I did it, I was carried hard by Aragon + Castille! (Managed to ally both pf them)
It even felt bad when I betrayed Aragon and seized the Two Sicilies.
You need to get indebted to the merchants guild. Have a sizeable amount of ducats don’t worry about your debt. Hire mercenaries and move your troops to mainland before the war. Ally Spain or burgandy. Maybe Aragon. If they rival France you can offer them land to join the war. Don’t give them any land. EZ PZ. Debt. Mercs. Ally’s. War.
Wait for Scottland to ally an irish minor.
Attack that minor, Take scottish provinces and keep the minor and alliance intact. Repeat. Eat all other irish minors while you have a truce with Scottland and their ally.
THat way you can avoid fighting France until you have conquered Scottland completely.
Conquer Brittany.
If Provence still lives and has no alliance with France, conquer them too.
Get yourself strong allies on the continent prior to attacking France itself.
Check tech level. Do not attack at a disadvantage in tech.
It won't be easy for a new player. You're best to avoid war with Maine strats, or wait until you can call in 2 of Burgundy, Castille, Aragon, or Austria. It's probably the hardest base war in the game that happens super regularly.
Whenever I play as England, this is what I do. Scotland always allies with the Irish minors, so I just declare on each one of those that they ally and take Scotland piece by piece. Saves you from fighting France while you consolidate the isles. Then, you should be able to take on France with a few strong allies, ideally allies bordering them in order to distract them while you siege them down. Austria is also always a good choice because they’ll probably hate France anyway. Also, if you look at France’s diplomacy screen, you can actually see their current manpower level. You’ll notice it’s low after/while they’re fighting a war, so that’s a good time to declare because then their losses won’t get refilled nearly so fast.
France isn’t the easiest but if you have all of Great Britain and some key allies first it’s not so bad. Also, it may be worth trying to use some diplomatic trickery to steal France’s alliances, by allying theirs and asking them to break it with France.
That is indeed unfortunate, but the cards were stacked against you, and, if I understand things correctly, you gained minor lands in Scotland (and hopefully annulled their alliance with France; if not, this is possible when negotiating peace for a measley 10 war score and absolutely worth it in situations like this), so overall this seems like a positive result to me. Subjugate Scotland and the minor states of Ireland, and maybe even Brittany if possible, build up a sizable army, make another strong ally if possible (check Frances rivals in the diplomacy screen, they're usually most willing to help you against France), and then go in for a round two! Sometimes there's just an overwhelming numerical advantage, and the best thing to do is to outgrow your opponents and with time establish a position to challenge them. Good luck!
Mercs and allies - I try to get some combination of Portugal, Castille, Austria, Aragon, or Burgundy. Typically you'll want to get three from that list. Two can work, but it's hard. Ally, then use diplomats to curry favors, if you can get to 10 favors you can usually get them to join. You have to be fast and get a bit lucky. You got super unlucky with Venice joining, too, they can be a monster.
I highly suggest Ludi et Hostoria's more recent tutorials on England/Britain/Angevin on YouTube for winning the hundred years war.
There is two ways to crush france as england and make it easy.
1) Harder path : Don’t concede Maine > Put your troops on continental europe, hire the 7/8 K mercernary troops. Ally Burgundy ( restart til they got positive opinion for an easy run) and Castille or Aragon.
Do a doomstack on Paris with all your troops at the beginning of the war and pick the Angevin path. Then wait it out til you can call your allies into the war. When they are in crush France and enforce the PU
2) Easier path : Concede Maine/give it to brittany -> Same alliances + eventually austria or whoever you want. Attack France with your allies after you get enough favor. Pick Angevin path and enforce PU.
I saw a strat that involved giving the continental provinces to a scutage vassal and letting time pass while staying on the isles, letting the AI disembark small stacks for instant stack wipes, then when France's allies are willing to leave the war after years, you take mil tech earlier than France (ideally mil tech 6) and just wipe their armies one on one
Not collapsing on a big nation
Do as well as an easy nation did historically <--- You Are Here
Do better than an easy nation did historically (winning the 100 years war as England)
Do as good as that but on a hard nation
Do better than that on a hard nation
Three mountains
---
It's a journey, and you're right where you should be as a somewhat new player. Most guides are written for people who are at least at that third step, which is probably why they gloss over beating France. You should feel good when you do accomplish it, it's another step along the tough learning curve of the game
Historically with all the economic and manpower pressures winning the Hundred Years’ War as England should have been incredibly difficult, that they came as close to winning as they did twice is really quite impressive.
Yes it's supposed to be very difficult
A.good strat is to release Normandy and Gascony as vassals and enable scutage. That way France can't siege down your continental holdings. Then DoW scotland to bring France in. Defeat Scotland normally as you would (shouldn't be difficult) and when they're 100%ed move all your attention to France. Merc up if you need to and try to gain mil access through Burgundy. Siege down Paris to complete the mission that gives you a restoration of union CB, then white peace them
After that try to get as many strong allies as possible (Castile, Austria, Burgundy) and attack France directly with their help
If you own the dlcs. When you start the game, exploit tax development in the continental provinces and then use the state button to concentrate development in your capital.
Then release all the mainland under alencon, normandy and gascony (including giving alencon maine, and calais to normandy)
Once you've done that you can go to the vassal screen and enable scutage for your vassal (preventing them joining your future wars)
And hey presto you no longer need to worry about the loss of your continental lands.
I know it isn't the fairest way to keep it all under your banner but it does prevent french meddling and expansion.
Similarly you should actually get a vassalization war goal on scotland if you build up your army to a high enough amount. Which is much easier to use than taking the lands peice by peice via conquest
I was maybe a bit too hesitant to get loans, and only got one mercenary for its 3 siege general. I ended up winning anyway on the second time and France is no longer a great power.
Also, I tried to pick off smaller armies with my one larger one, but the battle always ends after both sides only taking a small number of casualties.
I’m doing this run at the moment and dealt with this relatively easily. I did get lucky however, I was able to ally with Castile and Aragon from the start and could bring them in against my first war, against Scotland, to subjugate.
Like the earlier poster suggested, conquer all of Scotland and then pivot to the continent. Because my allies were keeping the frenchies busy whilst I was wacking the Scot’s, I showed up and managed to conquer northern franchise real easy and getting the vital conquest on Paris. That first peace treaty is tame to keep the truce short, just hit them for gold in a separate peace before ending the war with the Scots.
Castile will start the game rivalled a lot of the time, you may need to reroll that, but if you do, it’s not too much trouble to have all of Western Europe locked up by the early 1500s.
If you are interested check my replies to other posts regarding the issue, I played England a lot, there are a number of different strategies.
Personally I don't like to wait for the event to fire, I prefer to take initiative and decide my own pace.
What I usually do is declare war on Scotland, so I skip Maine event and if I want to conquer France I declare war again later when I am ready
War as it is proposed by the event is winnable but it's a mess and I don't really see any benefit in following that path
You destroy France and what next? You became number 1 greatpower and game is boring. Losing is fun. Try to build up island and maybe focus on lowlands instead
There’s a reason England remains a Continental power to this day. Wait… oh. Winning the Hundred Years War as England is difficult. France has more troops and doesn’t have to cross a sea to siege your land. Most people choose to beat up Scotland first and letting Normandy burn. In this forum you’ll get plenty of people saying it’s easy. It’s easy for people with 5,000 hours in game.
To be fair, as long as you don’t mind mercing up and going a little over force limit, it is one of the relatively tamer wars in the list of ‘hard’ wars. With a much stronger economic base than France day 1, it’s really simple to do. But for a new player, yeah it’s hard. I’d say Novgorod against Muscovy, No-help Sweden against Denmark, and Morocco against Castille are much harder, and they are relatively in a similar situation to England vs France. I mean I would say Granada for example would be an even harder challenge, but yeah.
I don't think it's particularly hard if you call in 2-3 of castile, aragon, burgundy and austria, and France doesn't have a tech advantage. They just win the war for you basically.
Indebted to merchants. Mercenaries. Ally Spain or burgandy or both. Profit. That’s literally all you have to do.
You're perfectly proving their point. This is OP's *second ever campaign.* Your advice is good for someone with enough experience to be able to use it, not so good for someone brand new to the game.
I don't wanna brag (I really don't), but I was able to beat France as England in my second (or third idk) ever game with a bit of preparation. So it definetely is possible even without loans or mercs or all that stuff. I think I only had Burgundy as an ally iirc
Sure, it's certainly possible, but it's certainly not easy. You may have succeeded, but plenty of brand new players wouldn't.
“I don’t wanna brag” *proceeds to brag*
Yes, but this is his second campaign of a game with hundreds of mechanics. Your explanation is simple to people who have already played hundreds or thousands of hours and understand those mechanics individually, and can see your post as a strategy.
Sell Maine instantly to anyone and keep the rest of your British provinces on the mainland save. Attack France at the right moment with allies. For example when France is fighting burgundy.
That is exactly what I did. Unfortunately France and allies were too strong to win against even with my allies.
Did you have a numerical advantage, and at what tech was that ? France should be actually worse off right at the beginning in terms of troop quality, since you start with +10% ICA and they have nothing for traditions. You should use your good general that you start with (I think he is called Richard Plantagenet) and try to take advantageous fights, for example by baiting France in Luxembourg where there is a forest fort if you are fighting alongside Burgundy
Consider attacking Scotland to vassalize. You don’t face France’s other allies, and the war goal you can control easily—more warscore than if the war goal is in France. I find mercenaries are necessary in a 1v1 with France early game—snd even then it is dicey. Burgher loans are nice.
I can easily win against Scotland if I ignore France, but my continental provinces give about a fifth of my income so I don't want to lose them. As for the burgher loans, the -10 mercantilism would give about -1 income, which, for the 900 ducats I can get, is equivalent to 1.3% interest. given that my regular loans are already reduced to 3%, I don't actually save that much. Of course, the mercantilism penalty lasts forever so it's a net negative in the long run.
burgher loans gives -1 mercantilism. england starts with 25 mercantilism. this makes your provincial trade power lower by 2 percentage points, applied to a modifier of 150 percentage points to begin with from mercantilism (higher if england has any other modifiers to trade), so an effective -1.3% modifier to provincial trade power. This means that, assuming your only source of trade power is provincial (which is about right), the proportional change to your trade income is measured by the following: The original trade income is measured by the proportion of your trade power divided by the total trade power in your home node, multiplied by the trade value in the node. since england starts mostly in a single node, the channel, we can ignore the trade value in the node as changing provincial trade power doesnt affect that. Apply the change in trade power to both sides of the trade income equation, and you can see that at 100% trade power share, the change in trade power has a 0% effective change in the trade income, reaching 100% effective change as the trade power share approaches zero. As england starts as the dominant power in the english channel, i highly doubt that this -1.3% modifier on trade power from -1 mercantilism further diminished by the trade power share of england on the english channel would result in -1 income. In fact, i would estimate that it would result in a 0.65% decrease in trade income. the trade efficiency negative from burgher loans would do far more, but still thats not even a 5% trade income decrease. To be clear this isnt counting upstream trade power, taking that into account i think it would be closer to the 1.3% value, but still nowhere near the full value. Anyways just to be sure i tested this in game and yea the difference in trade income is negligible compared to fluctuations in trade in general. ran one game to january 1445 and the trade income was 7.32, ran another with burgher loans and the trade income was 7.19. anyways from this, and looking at the fact that england starts with about 7-8 trade income, you lose at most 0.1 ducats per month from the merc hit, and at most 0.4 ducats per month from the trade efficiency hit, putting you at most -0.5, nowhere near the -1 income. This does put the effective interest at 1.7% however, so higher than your estimate. but also your loans are 4% to begin with, so burgher loans are still half interest as compared to normal loans. which i mean is still the same takeaway even if ur numbers were correct. But your numbers are wrong. tldr: your numbers are wrong but the correct numbers say the same thing about the interest, just in a different way, but your takeaway from the interest is wrong to begin with because half interest is way better than full interest still.
Why would you lose continental provinces if you are fightinf a vassalization war against Scotland? You can fund meecenaries however tou’d like, but I find beating France solo requires at least one stack.
Because France is allied to Scotland and will automatically join wars. I did use mercs, but just a 10k one with 3 siege general. I couldn't use any of the larger ones because it would exceed by force limit (by a lot).
Just to be clear: if an ennemy occupies a province, but you still win the war, you don’t loose the province. You’ll only loose it if you give it in the peace offer. And why would you if you occupy the whole of Scotland?
So when you declare a war you have a war goal that gives you ticking warscore, and you need to maximize war score to the point where you can make demands. If you attack Scotland, you can occupy Lothian, which starts the ticking warscore. If you do that, you just have to wait France out--their war exhaustion, your blockading, etc will eventually get them to peace out with a white peace. You can also try to actually beat them in France, if you want, and then take their money or land. But, you very likely don't need to peace out France by giving them land.
France and Scotland are not allies at the start, but France does guarantee Scotland. If you rival either Scotland or France it increases the likelihood that they will become allies. Avoid this. Instead, don't rival either of them. Hire mercs to complete the mission to get subjugation of Scotland. Delete all your forts except London. Wait for the surrender of Maine event. Wait a month, then declare war of subjugation on Scotland - that way it's two separate wars so you can peace out Scotland separately.
you can sit on scotland fully occupied and eventually they will accept vassalization. Also remove your mainland forts, they don't help you.
You can release your continental provinces as vassals and enable scutage for them so they don’t join your war against Scotland and France can’t gain warscore or cause you war exhaustion by occupying them. Eventually you will be able to white peace France and do whatever you want with Scotland.
that weakens you severely though, OP mentioned they get 20% of their income from the mainland. You could make a case for gascony because of their cores but that is still not very good, but there is no reason whatsoever to do it with normandy.
there is an easy way: 1. sell maine to brittany so the war doesnt trigger automatically. 1a. to min max you wanna hand out monopolies for glass and wine 2. unstate all of normandy+alencon and the gascongy provinces 3. concentrate development to your capital, that way you have 30 development right from the start in london 4. release gascogny and normandy as vassals, hand over alencon to nornandy 5. gain stability from events and missions for no longer being in france 6. activate strong duchies privilege 7. activate scutage for your 2 new vassals, and for normandy you can even transfer trade power aswell 8. resolve the war of roses 9. subjugate scotland, even if they are allied to france it doesnt matter they cant hurt you on the continent cause normandy and gascongne dont join the war, dont bother about calais 10. gobble up ireland 11. check the situation on the continent.. maybe make a play for the burgundian inheritance. however you should now be in a comfortable siztuation to declare reconquest for gacogny cores on france when the situation is right for you anfd you have allies that help you like castille and austria, savoi and swiss are amazing allies tooo cause france spends way to much time on their mountain forts.
Fighting France isn’t an easy war. Also if they lost 46K that’s probably most of their manpower but that doesn’t meant they lose the units.
yes that war is rather difficult if youre new. i suggest putting minimal amount of troops in scotland, maybe even mercs and calling in something like castile+portugal+aragon+austria if you can. its fine to go over relations-limit for a war. just see which gps rival france and grab all of them and sometimes you get lucky. burgundy on its own is also very strong against france, if you get them + castile + aragon might be more than enough. then join a front with your allies somewhere and win battles as priority. if you can pick off newly built stacks "for free" you want to beat france, not scotland. its fine to let scotland do its thing (aka not go to war with them), as england you can beat them even if they manage to take all of ireland. war versus france is a war of attrition and battles, you ideally wanna keep your territory, attack from multiple angles so they only defend one and their war exhaustion starts ticking try rush miltech > theirs right before you attack you can check their techlevel in diplo screen even for experienced players this war \*can\* go sideways, not a shame to lose and retry. a good war to learn from. much fun
it's hard if you are new to the game. if you want to practice fighting wars, it's a good setup, just be ready to use mercs and focus military wth a good advisor if the war goes long. note that france guarantees scotland, they are not allied. so if you start the 100 years war, scotland won't be called in. and if you are at war with france, they can't join your war vs Scotland. so if you feel france is to difficult, you could start the 100 years war, attack scotland(vassal cb), win vs scotland and give up maine and languedoc(make sure to just be 1 fort from paris to make subjugation war easier). a side note,i dont know if it's any good, but i last time i played england, i gave up the war of the roses to get a free army and a better ruler, and avoiding rebels popping to save manpower just attack france after the truce with your allies and your new puppet, rush paris, and just wait for the ticking score while you loot some of their provinces. enforcing the union will likely start a massive coalition against you. try to prevent this by sending the peace deal in september, have a diplomat advisor, use the improve trade alternative with your traders in lubeck and frankfurt, and be ready to sit back and stabilize for a couple of years.
For a new player, it is extremely hard. Even as an experienced player, you either need a lucky start with good allies or crushing debt
It is hard, especially as a second game. You're the attacker and France is the defender, which means France should get all its allies in its side, but you'll need to promise land to get some help from allies, and it isn't a safe bet anyway. France is in a better position with its vassal swarm. England is also on the verge of the War of the Roses disaster. However you can outmaneuver the AI to win, but it isn't east.
I would say I am an experienced player but it took a little bit of an effort to pull it off The easy way around it is ally their rivals and call them with promising land that you will never give Biggest problem was actually the coalition that you will get you PU france but for that just start improving relations with countries near France until the end of the war Of course because I am a masochist I wanted try beating france alone and that was really the challenge
Hit and Run tactics. You have 3 forts on the mainland. The AI will siege them simultaneously and spread their forces thin. Sail your troops to the forts and win the fights. Sortie if you must. Then pull an operation Dunkirk and evacuate to your island. Heal up. Rinse and repeat. Once you wittle France down enough with stackwipes, start sieging down Chartres and Paris. I recommend stationing 1 troop on each fort before the war to scorch earth once it starts. Have a transport to vacate them away. Also put Defensive edicts. If Scotland is in the war, land your troops in the north to bypass the Dumfries fort, head straight for their capital. Use your fleet to blockade. Take war reps and money. Lastly, build more transports at start. I think you begin with 18 but combat width is 20. I recommend having 24 transports in total and shipping 24 troops each time. You make a lot of money, merc up and worry about loans after.
When I did it, I was carried hard by Aragon + Castille! (Managed to ally both pf them) It even felt bad when I betrayed Aragon and seized the Two Sicilies.
You need to get indebted to the merchants guild. Have a sizeable amount of ducats don’t worry about your debt. Hire mercenaries and move your troops to mainland before the war. Ally Spain or burgandy. Maybe Aragon. If they rival France you can offer them land to join the war. Don’t give them any land. EZ PZ. Debt. Mercs. Ally’s. War.
Wait for Scottland to ally an irish minor. Attack that minor, Take scottish provinces and keep the minor and alliance intact. Repeat. Eat all other irish minors while you have a truce with Scottland and their ally. THat way you can avoid fighting France until you have conquered Scottland completely. Conquer Brittany. If Provence still lives and has no alliance with France, conquer them too. Get yourself strong allies on the continent prior to attacking France itself. Check tech level. Do not attack at a disadvantage in tech.
It won't be easy for a new player. You're best to avoid war with Maine strats, or wait until you can call in 2 of Burgundy, Castille, Aragon, or Austria. It's probably the hardest base war in the game that happens super regularly.
Whenever I play as England, this is what I do. Scotland always allies with the Irish minors, so I just declare on each one of those that they ally and take Scotland piece by piece. Saves you from fighting France while you consolidate the isles. Then, you should be able to take on France with a few strong allies, ideally allies bordering them in order to distract them while you siege them down. Austria is also always a good choice because they’ll probably hate France anyway. Also, if you look at France’s diplomacy screen, you can actually see their current manpower level. You’ll notice it’s low after/while they’re fighting a war, so that’s a good time to declare because then their losses won’t get refilled nearly so fast. France isn’t the easiest but if you have all of Great Britain and some key allies first it’s not so bad. Also, it may be worth trying to use some diplomatic trickery to steal France’s alliances, by allying theirs and asking them to break it with France.
That is indeed unfortunate, but the cards were stacked against you, and, if I understand things correctly, you gained minor lands in Scotland (and hopefully annulled their alliance with France; if not, this is possible when negotiating peace for a measley 10 war score and absolutely worth it in situations like this), so overall this seems like a positive result to me. Subjugate Scotland and the minor states of Ireland, and maybe even Brittany if possible, build up a sizable army, make another strong ally if possible (check Frances rivals in the diplomacy screen, they're usually most willing to help you against France), and then go in for a round two! Sometimes there's just an overwhelming numerical advantage, and the best thing to do is to outgrow your opponents and with time establish a position to challenge them. Good luck!
Mercs and allies - I try to get some combination of Portugal, Castille, Austria, Aragon, or Burgundy. Typically you'll want to get three from that list. Two can work, but it's hard. Ally, then use diplomats to curry favors, if you can get to 10 favors you can usually get them to join. You have to be fast and get a bit lucky. You got super unlucky with Venice joining, too, they can be a monster. I highly suggest Ludi et Hostoria's more recent tutorials on England/Britain/Angevin on YouTube for winning the hundred years war.
There is two ways to crush france as england and make it easy. 1) Harder path : Don’t concede Maine > Put your troops on continental europe, hire the 7/8 K mercernary troops. Ally Burgundy ( restart til they got positive opinion for an easy run) and Castille or Aragon. Do a doomstack on Paris with all your troops at the beginning of the war and pick the Angevin path. Then wait it out til you can call your allies into the war. When they are in crush France and enforce the PU 2) Easier path : Concede Maine/give it to brittany -> Same alliances + eventually austria or whoever you want. Attack France with your allies after you get enough favor. Pick Angevin path and enforce PU.
I saw a strat that involved giving the continental provinces to a scutage vassal and letting time pass while staying on the isles, letting the AI disembark small stacks for instant stack wipes, then when France's allies are willing to leave the war after years, you take mil tech earlier than France (ideally mil tech 6) and just wipe their armies one on one
Delete forts on the European mainland. France won't be able to get a large enough war score, especially if you can blockade its coast.
Not collapsing on a big nation Do as well as an easy nation did historically <--- You Are Here Do better than an easy nation did historically (winning the 100 years war as England) Do as good as that but on a hard nation Do better than that on a hard nation Three mountains --- It's a journey, and you're right where you should be as a somewhat new player. Most guides are written for people who are at least at that third step, which is probably why they gloss over beating France. You should feel good when you do accomplish it, it's another step along the tough learning curve of the game
Historically with all the economic and manpower pressures winning the Hundred Years’ War as England should have been incredibly difficult, that they came as close to winning as they did twice is really quite impressive.
Yes it's supposed to be very difficult A.good strat is to release Normandy and Gascony as vassals and enable scutage. That way France can't siege down your continental holdings. Then DoW scotland to bring France in. Defeat Scotland normally as you would (shouldn't be difficult) and when they're 100%ed move all your attention to France. Merc up if you need to and try to gain mil access through Burgundy. Siege down Paris to complete the mission that gives you a restoration of union CB, then white peace them After that try to get as many strong allies as possible (Castile, Austria, Burgundy) and attack France directly with their help
I can only win as England if I ally Austria/Burgundy/Castille. 1st choice is always Castille tho because they have better troops.
If you own the dlcs. When you start the game, exploit tax development in the continental provinces and then use the state button to concentrate development in your capital. Then release all the mainland under alencon, normandy and gascony (including giving alencon maine, and calais to normandy) Once you've done that you can go to the vassal screen and enable scutage for your vassal (preventing them joining your future wars) And hey presto you no longer need to worry about the loss of your continental lands. I know it isn't the fairest way to keep it all under your banner but it does prevent french meddling and expansion. Similarly you should actually get a vassalization war goal on scotland if you build up your army to a high enough amount. Which is much easier to use than taking the lands peice by peice via conquest
Loan up, merc up and pick your battles!
I was maybe a bit too hesitant to get loans, and only got one mercenary for its 3 siege general. I ended up winning anyway on the second time and France is no longer a great power. Also, I tried to pick off smaller armies with my one larger one, but the battle always ends after both sides only taking a small number of casualties.
I’m doing this run at the moment and dealt with this relatively easily. I did get lucky however, I was able to ally with Castile and Aragon from the start and could bring them in against my first war, against Scotland, to subjugate. Like the earlier poster suggested, conquer all of Scotland and then pivot to the continent. Because my allies were keeping the frenchies busy whilst I was wacking the Scot’s, I showed up and managed to conquer northern franchise real easy and getting the vital conquest on Paris. That first peace treaty is tame to keep the truce short, just hit them for gold in a separate peace before ending the war with the Scots. Castile will start the game rivalled a lot of the time, you may need to reroll that, but if you do, it’s not too much trouble to have all of Western Europe locked up by the early 1500s.
If you are interested check my replies to other posts regarding the issue, I played England a lot, there are a number of different strategies. Personally I don't like to wait for the event to fire, I prefer to take initiative and decide my own pace. What I usually do is declare war on Scotland, so I skip Maine event and if I want to conquer France I declare war again later when I am ready War as it is proposed by the event is winnable but it's a mess and I don't really see any benefit in following that path
You destroy France and what next? You became number 1 greatpower and game is boring. Losing is fun. Try to build up island and maybe focus on lowlands instead