Civilization 5 France - Leader: Napoleon
Civ Bonuses, Strategies, Unique Units and Buildings
Civilization Name: 
France
Civ Leader: Napoleon
Civ Bonus: City of Light:
Doubles theming bonuses from Museums and World Wonders in their Capital. This will not kick in until the mid-game, but you should play with using this bonus in mind. Focus research on Technologies that will let you acquire the World Wonders you need to take advantage of this. France gets a 'Pyramid Scheme' achievement when they hit +16 Theming Bonus through filling the Louvre with appropriate Art/Artifacts and taking all Social Policies in the Aesthetics tree.
Unique Unit: Musketeer:
Requires Gunpowder Tech. Obsolete with Rifling, Upgrades to Rifleman
Musketeers come with 28 Combat Strength unlike the Musketmen they replace. These have the simplest bonus of any of the Gunpowder unit replacements, but it's plenty strong for giving them an advantage in the short period they are available. Kill a unit with two other Musketeers nearby to get a Three Musketeers Achievement through Steam.
Unique Tile Improvement: Chateau:
Requires Chivalry Tech, Improves with Flight.
The Chateau can only be placed next to a Luxury resource and within your territory. They give +1 Gold and +2 Culture initially, but this goes up to +3/+3 when Flight is researched. Additionally, they'll provide a +50% defensive boost to any unit stationed in the tile.
Although changed in Brave New World, France obviously still best played toward a Cultural Victory. They will not see any special bonuses until Chivalry when they get the Chateau, but you can save yourself some Worker time by planning where you will position your Chateaus beforehand. The beauty in this Tile Improvement comes through to aid France in Tourism Generation indirectly via the Hotel and Airport, which give each +50% of a tile's culture as Tourism - meaning they will earn +3 Tourism for a City when worked with both constructed.
Key to playing France is getting the World Wonders needed to take advantage of City of Light. The Great Library, Sistine Chapel, Uffizi, The Louvre (must Adopt Exploration), Globe Theater, Broadway, and The Sydney Opera House are your targets, roughly in that order. Read the guide to Theming Bonuses to learn more about them and see a full list along with the requirements. Thankfully, The Great Library is the only one of these that is in the Ancient or even Classical Era, so you are not rushed but should focus your attention toward being first to build all the Wonders you can get on this list.
As you'll read on the Theming Bonuses guide, you can trade Great Works of Writing, Art, and Artifacts with the AI. Those you can't trade, you are capable of fighting for when the Musketeer comes about. Look for high culture Civs that will be harder to overtake later in the game and bring your Musketeers down on them when they first become available. If you can make a Military production city with Barracks, Armory, and the Alhambra World Wonder, you'll have units that start with Drill I, which allows you to grab two extra upgrades and get Siege for a big +50% boost vs Cities, just what you need with a Unit thats only feature is higher Combat Strength than its regular counterpart.
When you capture a City, you don't only get any World Wonders that were built there, but also any Great Works and Artifacts. Note that for the purposes of filling out the Louvre with France and getting that huge boost to Tourism from Paris along with the Achievement that you do not have to necessarily steal digs from other Civs to get the two different-Civ Artifacts you need. You are able to get them from City States and Barbarians as well - each distinct City State is its own 'Civ' for theming purposes, along with Barbarians.
Paris should be a high population, strong city capable of of producing Wonders before other Civilizations can get them out. Tradition is probably the best option for that reason. If you can pull off The Great Library, great, but otherwise shoot for Hanging Gardens (to keep Paris growing quickly) and The Sistine Chapel next. Tradition gives a bonus to Wonder Production, and so long as you eventually have other Cities with Workshops sending Production to Paris along with a Technological lead - at least for the specific Techs you need - then you should have no trouble getting most, if not all of the Wonders I've listed.
Later, take Aesthetics to get another doubling of your Theming Bonus (except in all Cities, which will likely only impact Museums aside from Paris if you do it right). France gets double twice - so where other Civs would get 6 with Uffizi over the base +3 while using Aesthetics, they will get +12. This is added up with other flat tourism rates before being multiplied by all percentages that are affecting a city - be sure to have Open Borders, a single Trade Route, and shared Religion (hardest to do) with a Civ to maximize your Tourism generation against them. If you can manage to found a religion, spread it, and get a World Congress proposal enacted to make your Holy City's religion the World Religion, you'll get a +50% Tourism bonus there, and that is the single biggest boost you can receive to Tourism generation. Read the Diplomatic Victory guide to learn more about manipulating other Civs to get their votes for your Proposals.
As for Ideological Tenet selection, Freedom is a reliable if not necessarily optimal choice for France, offering +25% Great Person generation, helping you to get same-era Musical pieces you need for Broadway. Extra culture out of all your Great Works will help you with future policies, and the Foreign Legion tenet to get 6 free units which can aid you in taking a couple of Civ's Capitals to help you fill out the Louvre. Arsenal of Democracy will boost production of Military units by +25% to also aid in late-game War simply to steal Great Works and World Wonders. You'll also snag influence from military unit gifts to city states, so this is an interesting way to avoid upgrading units into the Modern Era and instead make a new Military. Freedom also helps with Specialists' consumption and unhappiness, allowing you to utilize more Scientists and Artists while keeping Paris growing. By the time you get the wonderful +34% bonus to Tourism output for Cities with a Broadcast Tower, added in with a total 75% for open borders, shared religion, and having a trade route, you should be able to get some Theming bonuses going and see significant change in the rate your Tourism is passing the other Civ's cumulative Culture.
| Sid Meier's Civ 5 is a deep strategy game. I created these individual Civilization Guides to highlight the strengths of their specials and unique units. If you have an opener or tip for playing this Civ that you would like to share with other readers, please use the comments form below. Some Guides are in need of update and will be improved to a new standard of quality or altered to reflect gameplay changes in G&K and Brave New World. | ||||||
| America | Arabia | Assyria | Austria | Aztec | Babylon | Brazil |
| Celts | China | Dutch | Egypt | England | France | Germany |
| Greece | The Huns | Inca | India | Indonesia | Iroquois | Japan |
| Korea | Maya | Mongolia | Morocco | Ottoman | Persia | Poland |
| Polynesia | Portugal | Rome | Russia | Shoshone | Siam | Songhai |
| Venice | Zulu | |||||
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