French (Civ5)

The French people represent a civilization in Civilization V.
* Symbol: Fleur-de-lis
* Musical Theme: Cancan from Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld (composed by Michael Curran, orchestrated by Geoff Knorr)
* Music Set: European
* Architecture: European
* Spy Names: Jean-Paul, Martine, Lucien, François, Augustine, Monsieur X, Dr. Dupont, Vipère, Yvette, Renard
* Preferred Religion: Christianity () or Catholicism ()
* Preferred Ideology: Order
The Foreign Legion is a French unique unit in vanilla Civilization V and Gods & Kings. In Brave New World, it is replaced by the Chateau (the French unique improvement), but remains available to any civilization through the Volunteer Army ideological tenet or allied militaristic city-states.
== Strategy ==
The French civilization is aimed plainly at achieving cultural dominance, and thus pursuing a cultural victory. Both their vanilla and Brave New World unique abilities focus on that, although the new state of affairs is even more pronounced in that direction, because of their new improvement, the Chateau. Not only does it help defend their lands, but it also provides extra for the empire, so use every opportunity to build Chateaux after researching Chivalry.
To make use of the unique components of the French, it is best that you develop France as a heavily centralized cultural civilization. Set technologies providing cultural buildings and wonders as your priority, and try to at least make friends with cultured city-states. This way, you will also be able to adopt social policies faster thanks to the abundance of . Most importantly, build every World Wonder with multiple Great Work slots in the ! This will double their usefulness, thanks to France's new "City of Light" ability, and give you a jump start at heavily influencing other civilizations through . (Note that the ability affects only wonders and other buildings to which a bonus applies, not those that directly contribute to - for example, the Eiffel Tower isn't affected.) To do this, make sure your has the latest advancements in so that it can build wonders quickly.
In addition, the French are also a surprisingly good military civilization. Their unique Renaissance Era military unit, the Musketeer, gives the French an edge in the middle game, allowing them to expand more easily if they need to conquer new lands with resources.
However, it's generally not very advisable to expand too much - a cultural victory, even in Brave New World, is most easily achieved by relatively small empires.
== Civilopedia entry ==
== Cities ==
== Trivia ==
* France's vanilla and Gods & Kings unique ability is named after the political and social system of the Kingdom of France from the Late Middle Ages until 1789.
* France's Brave New World unique ability comes from a nickname given to Paris, the capital of France.
== Gallery ==
File:France map (Civ5).png|Map of French Empire
== Related achievements ==
== See also ==
* French in other games
es:Francesa (V)
fi:Ranskalaiset (Civ5)
ru:Франция (Civ5)
Category:French