France strategy guide from the original cog.

[Harvey Birdman]

Strategy Guide
By Steve Rose and Eric Babe
France 1805
Geopolitical Situation
France begins allied with Spain. The two nations are at war with Britain, Austria, Russia, and Sweden. All powers start with their units in their home nations. The Coalition against France is converging on Paris, and France’s best chance of stopping them is to defeat them in turn before they can converge
in Ile de France. Austria is the most immediate threat, and a good strategy is to move rapidly on Austria’s capital in Styria and hold that province until Austria is forced to surrender. France begins the 1805 scenario with the Rapid March military upgrade; this allows its armies and corps to make an extra move attempt whenever they are force-marching.
If they force-march down from Flanders, then they have a better chance of arriving in force before the Coalition can concentrate its forces.
Don’t settle simply for forcing Austria to surrender. If you do this, they’ll be back later, and probably at a very inopportune time. Punish them. Aim at reducing their army to ruins. Try to capture all their artillery and force as many of their cavalry
to surrender as possible so that you can strip away their horses. If you don’t plan on needing any allies, go ahead and plunder their territory.
Britain may invade by sea, most likely along the northern coast, but they may also disembark further south, perhaps in Guyenne. It is a good idea to leave some forces behind to keep them out of Paris. Britain starts with a protectorate in Hanover, and if France has the opportunity, besieging and occupying Hanover is a good way of denying Britain a base of operations on the continent. France has enough ships to threaten the British fleets… if France can converge its scattered
fleets and can avoid meeting all of the British fleets at once. France might try to supplement its fleets by borrowing the Spanish fleet with a treaty clause, although the morale of the Spanish ships is quite low, making them not very dependable
in a naval action.
Sweden has only a small navy and so will approach by land down through Denmark. They only have a small army, but their units’ morale is very good.
Russia is on the march across Austria. Moscow is too far away for France to threaten, and so it will be difficult to knock Russia out of the coalition unless France can prevail in a series of major battles against them. They will be more likely to consider peace – perhaps a cease-fire – if France can remove Austria from the Coalition.
Prussia and Turkey are begin unallied and at peace with every other nation. Both would make excellent allies for France. France can try to propose a treaty to Turkey to borrow
one of their armies using the lend unit treaty clause in order to open a new front on Austria’s rear, and also perhaps borrow Turkey’s fleet for use against Britain. In exchange France can give them passage rights, an alliance, enforced peace for several years. Or instead, France can try to propose
a treaty to get Turkey to declare war on Russia. If the Turks can bother Moscow, then the Russians will be compelled
to fall back from France in order to defend their own capital, giving France a free hand against Austria. If Turkey and France become allied and both are at war with a common
enemy, then the attitude of Turkey toward France will become increasingly friendlier each turn. A similar proposal toward Prussia can be used to keep Sweden occupied, or to open up a new front on Austria.
Be wary of attacking the minor countries while you are at war with other nations. Attacking a minor country also influences
the attitude of its neighbors against you, and its neighbors,
as well as the country itself, are more likely to rush into the arms of your enemies.
Armies
France begins with its forces overextended. The Bavarian Army in Nuremburg will be an immediate target of the Austrian
forces, and France should either order them to fall-back into Wurttemburg, Thuringia, or Baden, or perhaps make the audacious move of pressing north into Bohemia in order to try to extend the Austrian front.
The VII Corps in Brittany is too weak to stop the British should they decide to invade in force. France might consider
detaching a cavalry and artillery division to it from the Grande Armee, or to have the Baden and Wurttemburg divisions
join up with it. France can also immediately begin production on a new infantry division in Ile de France or perhaps Berri to help augment the VII Corps.
Ile de France has the best level of barracks in France, and its combination of high levels of barracks and factories means that an infantry will be produced faster here than in other French provinces. However, the Coalition is headed toward the France’s capital in Ile de France, and the presence of enemy
troops in a province suspends all work on military units under production in the province. So if France fears that the enemy is closing in on the capital, it’s better to produce units away from the capital province.
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Don’t overlook the Army of Naples down in Calabria. If France acts slowly against the Coalition, they sometimes will first attempt to force a surrender against France’s Spanish allies by marching on Madrid. Spain has a hard time defending
against even a single Austrian or Russian army. France may want to have the Army of Naples, in conjunction perhaps
with the Italian Corps in Italia and the Army of Italy in Lombardy to converge with the Spanish military forces. France can set a rally point for its Spanish allies in the military
advisor; pick a province and the Spanish will move their army to this location. There are many good places to consider
rallying the Spanish: up to Ile de France to protect the French capital, aggressively toward Hanover or even up into Sweden in combination with the French forces in Batavia, or into Austria to help deliver a knockout-blow against the Russians. Beware that Britain may invade Spain while their army is away. Be cautious of Portugal, who is on good terms with Britain and may in any turn spontaneously choose to ally itself with Britain and become a British protectorate. If the Portuguese become a British protectorate, they can move to menace Madrid in short order.
France may consider reorganizing the Grande Armee to create
more combined arms in each corps, by removing some cavalry and artillery from the reserve. It may also be advantageous
to place the two Imperial Guard divisions into corps rather than keep them attached directly to the army: units attached to corps arrive faster as reinforcements in detailed combat and are more likely to begin adjacent to other units in the same corps.
Money
France cannot afford the army it starts with in 1805. The appetites
of your own soldiers are just as likely to defeat France in 1805 as any force of the enemy. France needs to save money
and to expand its base of revenue.
Save money by foraging. Don’t build depots unless you have 1000 money in reserve to help bear the enormous cost. When you do build depots, try to do so only when your troops mass for an important battle in which you need the supply to win. Increase your draft size to replace foraging losses. If you start increasing the draft pool size early in the game, then it’s easier to restrict the conscription age and increase the training time of new draftees so that the draftees available later in the game are of much higher quality than they would be if you had to try to recruit them all on-the-fly. Also note that France has an enormous draft advantage relative to the other nations at the start of the game because France starts with the Levee en Masse military upgrade, which increases the strength available from drafting population.
Increase revenue by raising your tax rate. This will cause a loss of national morale each round, but France can compensate
for this by winning spectacular victories on the battlefield. Also, Napoleon’s special ability is to increase the national morale of France each month by 20, which allows France to sustain a much higher tax base than it otherwise would be able to do.
Develop banks in the French provinces. Each level of banks adds 10% to the money generated by the province, so start out by developing banks wherever there are low levels of banks initially to get the biggest return on your investment. It’s worth it to borrow money in order to build banks, provided
you have sufficient labor to build them.
In the Development Advisor, labor allocation can be set to partially control the economic output of the provinces. Don’t overlook putting some labor into “development” – even small amounts of labor allocated here will greatly increase the speed at which new developments are finished. Other labor
should be placed into those areas at which the provinces excel: a province with a “Best Resource” of iron should have a lot of labor allocated to iron production. Be careful not to remove too much labor from food production. However, France starts with a large population available in 1805 and so population availability increase through a large excess of food production is not immediately an important goal for France. Provinces with at least 3 levels of factories should have labor allocated into the “labor” area to help continue to build provincial developments and military units.
For trade, set the trade policy options to avoid exporting money, horses, or textiles. (This only works if you have the Trade Expert turned on, otherwise simply refuse trade route proposals that would have France export these things.) A cease-fire with Britain is extremely valuable to France is it allows France to deploy Her merchant ships, and to use Her high income of textiles to build more merchants.
Diplomats
France has many options for Her diplomats. Diplomats with high Legal and Influence, such as Tallyrand, can be sent to England to Pressure Peace. If France can arrange a cease-fire with Britain, then She can deploy Her merchant ships. For the same reason, diplomats high in Espionage can be sent to work Propaganda in Britain, or those high in Influence can be sent to Charm Britain. Diplomats don’t require transport by ship, so you can simply walk through the English Channel
to get to Britain. A diplomat with high Espionage, such as Fouche, who is set to Spy in England can detect British troops loading onto ships and can give France a full month’s warning of an English invasion. The diplomats can be also be put to good use making friends with Denmark, if only to keep it from falling into the Swedish sphere of influence, or with Saxony, which is an excellent supplier of horses. Also consider using diplomats to stop British trade, especially if you are not planning to become friends with Britain any time soon. Britain has a small population base, but tends to have many trade routes exchanging money for food. If you send your diplomats into Britain, keep an eye open in case they should be expelled.
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Strategy Guide
Strategies for Later in the Game
As soon as you can afford to regularly supply from depots, pick three provinces to be your centers of military production.
Ideally they should not border each other so that they have access to the widest possible dispersal of population. Build up their barracks and factories - this affects what they can build, how fast they build it, and the morale quality of the units produced. Try to build balanced groups of units: 1 corps containing 1 guard (if possible), 3 infantry (1 light infantry
if possible), 1 cavalry, and 1 artillery. If you can afford specialty units such as riflemen or horse artillery, try to keep them in a centralized location so you can move them into positions where they are most needed quickly.
Continue to balance food production so that your population
does not shrink, but try to avoid too rapid a population growth. A large population requires a large amount of food, and when they cannot be fed this causes a continuous loss of national morale. On the other hand, if national morale is negative, the effects of keeping your population well feed has a larger effect on increasing national morale, so if things are looking bleak, it’s often worthwhile to increase your populace’s
food supply. Increase your farm developments so that your food production requires smaller levels of labor allocation,
which frees up the labor for production elsewhere. If the population level of a province reaches maximum level, build roads there to increase the maximum population limit.
Consider building extra barracks and culture to get higher levels of military upgrades.
The more you are winning, the more likely your computer-controlled allies are to cooperate against you. Anticipate this by building strong alliances with one or two nations mid-game to help bear the brunt of a strong coalition late in the game. Get your alliances confirmed in writing with Enforced Alliance and Pledge of Defense treaties.

[Joram]

Don't have much to add here.  You really are king of the roost in 1805.  You should rarely need to take a break, just keep your army marching on country after country.  You may want to consider leaving Russia alone but if you don't defeat them early, you may never get the chance again. 

[Harvey Birdman]

France 1792

Goal: Survive the revolution, unrest, rebels, inflation, negative money, starvation, prussia and the Austrian juggernaut and capture antwerp and luxembourg.

You need to set the draft to 4 and get morale to 4.5 to replenish your divisions and increase your taxes.
You always need a depot next to your troops to keep replenishments coming to beat austria.
Whenever you get an unrest event reset your taxes or food production if negative or starving.
Your better off trying to capture luxembourg first than antwerp so you gain control of both. If you get antwerp first then luxembourg you control antwerp but only get a claim on luxembourg.

The prussians will come first and can easily be defeated in lille and sent packing never to be seen again and eventually you'll get peace through a lapsed war. Don't forget to send the army in marseilles north you need it to defeat austria.

Send a small army into antwerp to defeat the 2 austrian infantry small enough not successfully siege it in one turn. Keep attacking them until they're dead and then move into luxembourg to support the siege there.
Send the rest to sieging luxembourg, put a cav in strasbourg, put all your units with the engineer upgrade in an army container. The other 2 amies in luxembourg give a support move "s" to the cav in strasbourg. do it every turn. Eventually a small austrian army will run into the cav at strasbourg a battle will take place.
When luxembourg falls move your engineer army to antwerp.

When you get the event to build infantry in every province. Build them you'll never survive austria without it. Because you'll be seeing a 200+k army in paris via strasbourg if you don't. In a series of battles keep attriting it and it will disappear. By this point in time everyone will declare war on austria.

Then declare war on baden and wutemburg if independent and capture them and keep capturing austrian provinces till vienna.

If you win cr lose. You need wool so war with holland for groningen and piedmont for sardinia are nice.

Production: a few cav and arty units to defeat austria. Due to inflation events the only elite units you can afford are heavey cav and arty.
Farms in montpellier,guyanne, normandy, lille and antwerp for wool and farms in Berri(horses too) and franche compte for wood. Up to 5 farms
Factories in paris for labour, factories in luxembourg and strasbourg for iron and labour. Up to 7.
Factories and barracks in troyes, le mans and nantes(best textile production[:'(]). Up to 7 each. Allocate labour to development and one of the 3 build courts 10 for super diplomats.
Docks and banks in all your naval provinces. up to 7 docks and build banks till rate of return/turn is less than 5%/turn. This maxiimizes merchant income in bordering sea zones.


Dealing with austria and rebel events are such a pain in the butt, with hindsight I'd recommend using diplomats pressuring peace or propaganda on austria.