Rhye’s and Fall of France

UHV

Frances unique historic victory conditions are:

  1. Make Paris the #1 cultural city in 1700 AD
  2. Colonize Quebec, the Hudson Bay and Louisiana by 1760 AD
  3. Build Notre Dame, the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower by 1900 AD

France UHV 2

Unique Power

Entente: Other civilizations have a friendlier attitude.

That’s what it says. What it doesn’t say is that this only applies to non-European civilizations. France may be the only civilization to get open borders (and thus trade routes) with Japan. But this unique power doesn’t make Germany your friend…

Unique Building – Parlour

unique building

Unique Unit – French Musketeer

Rhye's and Fall France Unique Unit French MusketeerAn extremely disappointing unique unit in Rhye’s and Fall of Civilization. The French Musketeer has only 1 additional movement. This is not particularly useful, as you’ll use it anyway to protect (and walk with) siege units, which have only 1 movement anyway. If you could builds hoards of these, maybe they would be more useful, but with focus on culture and wonder production, these Musketeers provide only a mediocre advantage.

French Strategy

Playing Rhye’s and Fall France is great! It’s fun to push the boundaries of Amsterdam and London where they belong: To the Netherlands and England! Also it’s great to change the history of colonization and make the world a better place (culturally).

Here’s as quick summary:

  • found Constance
  • conquer Italy (must) and Spain (optional)
  • colonize the new world and build your wonders

The usual official strategy guides are still here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20090514073418/http://rhye.civfanatics.net/wiki/index.php?title=Rhye%27s_and_Fall_of_Civilization_-_French_strategy

Playing France is actually one occasion where I think my strategy exceeds the guide. So here it comes:

Found Constance

Rhye's and Fall France UHV 1852
Unique Historical Victory with France

Use your initial troops to raze Mainz. If you keep it, it will eventually flip to Germany and make them your enemy. Furthermore it will take your production leaving you with beautiful but unproductive land in France. Also with only one city you can’t push back on the Netherlands so their culture will eat into your land, too.

So again: Raze Mainz, found Constance on the stone. It’s gonna become a nice production center and it’ll help push back the Netherlands and Germany.

Conquer Spain

Rhye's and Fall France Bordeaux legendary 1962
Bordeaux reaching legendary culture level in 1962

The official guide doesn’t recommend it. Maybe it also doesn’t work on the highest difficulty, but I always played Rhye’s and Fall of Civilization on the medium difficulty… Conquering Spain comes with so many advantages for France:

  1. With Madrid you have another production center to build your world wonders and settlers (see Madrid in the world wonder list below)
  2. You can easily take out Portugal, too
  3. You get more coastal cities to produce ships
  4. With Spain gone and Portugal crippled you remove two big players from the rush for the Americas

Now with Constance you have a weaker Germany and Constances culture makes it easier to conquer Italy. Having these production centers, no other European will be a threat to you anymore. Nobody can outproduce you! A save homeland is the best basis for expansion (sounds pretty American, doesn’t it?).

Build World Wonders and create Great Artists

Rhye's and Fall France World Wonders 1852
French World Wonders

Of course you need to build Notre Dame, the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower for your UHV. But you also might want to build Sistine Chapel (more culture) and University of Sankore (more research). The research will enable you to reach all other world wonders quicker and build even more!

Do frequently check the “Top cities” list. There you can see whether some other civilization (old India and China are candidates here) have more culture than Paris. In that case – create some great artworks in Paris to take the lead.

Colonization etc.

The rest is simple: Build ships and colonize your target area in America. Colonize more if you want! I like having the US surrounded the moment they emerge. Denying them the Midwest and the Rocky Mountains will leave them a small vassal at the east coast of your colonial empire.

Rhye’s and Fall France – Beyond the Unique Historical Victory

Using Frances unique power I was able to “convince” 5 civilizations to become my vassals. The USA and the Incas as my vassals secure my rule over America. Mali, Egypt and Persia control the middle east and biggest parts of Africa in my name. The rest of the world has barely been colonized, thanks to the absence of the Netherlands and Spain.

England falters under my cultural pressure and I started a final attack on China (+Khmer) and India. In the mid of the 20th century they were the only real military challenge.

All this dominance in my game of Rhye’s and Fall France would not have been possible without the conquest of Spain. Try it! Change history! Rule the world!

2 thoughts on “France”

  1. One note. You do have to found Paris on the spot you spawn. I just played an awesome game where i put my capital 1NE of spawn and really crowded Amsterdam. Then 1703 and I didn’t get Paris culture even with renaming the city Paris. My culture was close to 10k so no question this city was #1.

    1. Wow! Super important point! Thanks, D, for sharing. 🙂

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