HOI4 France Guide: Napoleon Path and Munich Conference

This HOI4 France guide, updated in August 2026, follows one complete campaign from the 1936 start to a French empire that has beaten Germany, Britain and the Soviet Union — and it doubles as a map of the whole French focus tree. The short answer to how to play France in HOI4 is that France does not lose in 1940 because of its army; it loses because of a national spirit it starts with, and almost everything below is downstream of removing that. The campaign takes the Bonapartist restoration, and the democratic branch, the fascist branch, the naval branch and the colonial branches each get their own section, so the rest of the tree is covered even where this run never walked it.

Patch and DLC are not stated anywhere in this video — no version number or DLC name is spoken, shown in a tooltip, or present in the description. Checked against the video dated 2026-01-16 (upload date), used here only as an honest fallback rather than a guess.

🎯 The core idea

This path inverts France's usual script. Instead of turtling behind the border and waiting to capitulate, it rushes the Bonapartist "Third Empire" branch of the focus tree for free war goals on the Low Countries and the UK, fixes France's worst starting national spirit first, then uses a single decision — the Munich Conference — to pick the fight with Germany on France's own timing instead of Germany's. From there it's Spain, the UK, Italy, and the USSR, roughly in that order, before the video runs out of clock around 1944.

• free costs nothing
• cheap small cost
• setup needs preparation
• grind pays off slowly
• skip the thing to avoid

The whole tree at a glance. The center-right column is the path taken below: Utilize the Leagues → Council of Rambouillet → Revise the Constitution → Repeal the Law of Exile → the three-way monarchist fork.

The HOI4 France focus tree, branch by branch

The screenshot above is the whole thing at once, which is exactly why it is hard to read. The HOI4 France focus tree is really a set of separate branches meeting at one early decision, and everything about the campaign below — including which restoration is even available — is settled by that decision.

Form the Popular Front and Revive the National Bloc are mutually exclusive, and the whole right-hand half of the tree hangs off the second one: Revive the National Bloc opens Utilize the Leagues, and that forks into National Regeneration for a fascist France and The Council of Rambouillet for a monarchist one. Those two are mutually exclusive with each other as well, so a single campaign never sees both.

The colonial branches

France's colonial empire is the half of the country a HOI4 France guide usually skips, and on the tree it behaves as a manpower branch rather than a territory branch. The Blum-Viollette Proposal — reachable from either Reform the Labour Laws or Protect the Rights of Man, so both halves of the political opening get to it — grants cores on the Algerian states, and annexes Algeria outright if it is already a subject.

• Expand the Citizenship follows it, for a spirit worth 3% non-core manpower.
• France Indivisible replaces that spirit with a stronger one worth 5% non-core manpower.
• Encourage Immigration is the mutually exclusive alternative, and removes the Full Employment and Worker Shortage spirits instead.
• French Union sits behind France Indivisible, needs France to be at peace, and triggers referendums in the colonial territories.
• On the naval side, Colonial Naval Bases builds naval bases across four colonial states and Develop Colonial Dockyards adds building slots and infrastructure to them.
• On the fascist side, Grow the Empire hands France the Belgian Congo states without a war, and Bring Home Quebec puts claims on Quebec and a conquest casus belli on Canada.

The France rework in HOI4

If you have read an older France guide that never mentions a monarchy, it was written before the rework. The France rework in HOI4 arrived with La Résistance, released on 25 February 2020, and the expansion's own feature list is unusually direct about the branch this guide walks:

New National Focuses for Free France and the Vichy France Regime, as well as an option for conservatives to restore the old French Monarchy.

That option is The Council of Rambouillet sub-branch, and everything from Repeal the Law of Exile down to Je Suis Le Déluge exists because of it. The practical consequence is that France is no longer a country whose only plan is holding the Maginot Line until help arrives: it has a non-aligned route with war goals of its own, a claim on the Spanish crown one branch over, and focuses that delete two of its worst starting spirits.

The source video states no patch number and no DLC, so nothing here is claimed about which build it was recorded on. The focus names, prerequisites and effects in the sections added around it are checked against the Hearts of Iron IV wiki rather than against the video.

HOI4 France early game guide: the 1936 opening

France starts with seven national spirits and five of them are penalties. Reading them in order is the fastest HOI4 France early game guide there is, because the opening is almost entirely a question of which ones you can remove and how quickly.

France vs Germany in 1936 is therefore a matchup France loses on modifiers rather than on divisions. Two of those spirits tax the economy and the manpower pool directly, one makes land doctrine half again as expensive to research, and one halves how much ground France can give up before it capitulates. None of that is fixed by building more infantry, which is the trap most France campaigns fall into well before Munich.

1. Take Revive the National Bloc, not Form the Popular Front setupThey are mutually exclusive. Revive the National Bloc is the root of both the fascist and the monarchist halves of the tree; Form the Popular Front commits you to the democratic and communist side instead.
2. Bank political power rather than spending it early cheapDisjointed Government charges 0.80 political power a day for as long as it is up, so anything bought before it is removed is bought at a worse rate than the same thing bought after.
3. Do not read Protected by the Maginot Line as a defensive plan skipIt is −25% planning speed and +25% maximum planning. It rewards drawing a battle plan early and leaving it alone to fill, which is an offensive habit as much as a defensive one — the campaign below uses it to attack.

The achievement that measures whether the opening worked is Vive la France: reach 1948 as France without capitulating or surrendering.

Fix Disjointed Government first

1. Prioritize getting rid of Disjointed Government setupIt costs +0.8 political power per day, −10% stability and −50% surrender limit — the surrender limit hit is why historical France always folds fast once Paris falls. Everything else on the tree waits for this. 3:56
2. Allow communists into government when the election event fires freeRefusing costs more stability than accepting does — communism is manageable later in the game. 8:05

None of these exact numbers are read aloud — the video only calls the political power gain "horrible." Disjointed Government alone accounts for −0.80 of it here.

Day counts past the first few focuses are almost never shown or spoken in this video — the table above lists everything that was.

How to restore Napoleonic France in HOI4

Restoring the empire is a six-focus chain, and two of its gates are one-way, so it is worth reading the whole chain before starting the first focus.

1. Revive the National Bloc setupMutually exclusive with Form the Popular Front. Nothing on the monarchist branch is reachable without it.
2. Utilize the Leagues freePolitical power plus decisions that push fascist and non-aligned popularity. This is the focus the branch forks from.
3. The Council of Rambouillet setup+10% Non-Aligned popularity, and mutually exclusive with National Regeneration — taking it closes the fascist route out of this fork for the rest of the game.
4. Revise the Constitution grindGrants the Constitutional Revision spirit, worth +0.20% stability a week. The next focus waits on it, and that wait is the slow part of the chain.
5. Repeal the Law of Exile free+120 political power, and the end of Disjointed Government. This is the focus that pays for the four before it.
6. Proclaim the Third Empire setupNapoléon VI takes the throne at the head of the Parti bonapartiste, and France creates the Continental System faction. Mutually exclusive with the other two restorations.

Repeal the Law of Exile is where the three restorations separate, and the one you pick decides which country France goes to war with first.

Restoring the empire is not a country swap. France keeps its own tag and its own focus tree, and Avenge Waterloo, Retribution For Sedan and the rest are ordinary French national focuses; what changes is the country leader, the ruling party and the faction France leads. The only place this tree produces a genuinely different country is the Legitimist branch, where France can form the Kingdom of Franco-Spain if Spain goes Carlist.

The Napoleon path

Repealing the Law of Exile opens a three-way fork, and this is the fork the whole video hinges on.

Three restoration paths, screen-confirmed by name. the route below follows the right-hand branch, Proclaim the Third Empire — the Bonapartist/Napoleon path — for its war-goal-granting follow-ups.

1. Take Proclaim the Third Empire, then Avenge Waterloo setupAvenge Waterloo grants war goals on Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the UK all at once. Declare on the first three only — provoking the UK this early isn't the plan yet. 20:38
2. Skip Retribution For Sedan skipTake Invest in Metropolitan France instead — it's only picked for the research slot at the end of that branch, not for its own effect. 21:19

The HOI4 France democratic path

The HOI4 France democratic path is the other half of the tree, reached from Form the Popular Front rather than Revive the National Bloc. Its economy branch is the strongest France has: Reform the Labour Laws, then Nationalize Key Industries, then Reorganize the Aviation Industry and Form the State Arsenals, which together open General Work Council — the focus that removes Inefficient Economy outright. Dirigisme and National Champions follow it, and Ban the Leagues, off Form the Popular Front itself, removes Political Violence.

Diplomatically the branch is one early either-or:

Two focuses on this branch matter more than they look. Defensive Stratagems is the democratic answer to Disjointed Government — it removes the spirit and enables volunteer forces — but it sits behind Strengthen Government and waits for that focus's temporary stability spirit to expire, which makes it a slower fix than Repeal the Law of Exile. And Franco-Soviet Treaty, off France Leads, sets up mutual guarantees with the Soviet Union, which changes the shape of a 1939 war more than any division template does.

The achievement on this branch is Big Entente: as France, complete the Little Entente national focus and have all German cores owned by you or someone in your faction.

The HOI4 France fascist path

There are two ways into a fascist France and they are not variants of each other. They start from different focuses and they remove different spirits.

Route one, through the leagues. Revive the National Bloc opens Utilize the Leagues, and National Regeneration behind it makes the Mouvement Franciste the ruling party with Pierre Laval leading it. It needs 50% combined fascist and non-aligned support, and it is mutually exclusive with The Council of Rambouillet — so this route and the Napoleonic one cannot both happen in one game. Below it, Political Unity removes Disjointed Government, Integralism opens the mutually exclusive Work, Family and Fatherland trio, and Diplomatic Freedom cancels the eastern guarantees and forks again:

• Latin Entente makes François de La Rocque the leader and builds a southern faction — Reach Out To Spain, Invite Portugal, Compensate Italy and Intervention in Greece, then The Congress of Paris, The Natural Borders of France, Expand to the Suez and Dominate the Middle East.
• Towards a New Europe makes Jacques Doriot the leader instead and points at Germany — Establish Spheres of Influence puts France in the Axis if Germany accepts, then Split Belgium or Align Belgium, Grow the Empire and Bring Home Quebec.

Route two, through the rhetoric. Right Wing Rhetoric brings in Marcel Bucard as a fascist demagogue worth +0.10 daily fascism support, and Army of Aggression behind it is the most aggressive single focus France has: it removes Disjointed Government and Protected by the Maginot Line, grants a spirit worth +5.0 division organisation and −25% justify war goal time, and pulls France out of the UK's faction. It then forks three ways, mutually exclusive — France First to lead a faction of your own, Woo Italy to build one with Italy, or Join Germany to ask for a place in theirs. Dismantle the Democracies sits behind Woo Italy and grants an annex war goal on Germany if Germany has gone democratic.

Losing Protected by the Maginot Line is a real cost rather than a footnote: it is the +25% maximum planning that the 77% planning bonus further down this page is built on. The achievement here is Die, Perfidious Albion! — as fascist France or Vichy France, occupy all of Great Britain.

The one decision

This is the decision the video is named for.

Two options, one choice. The battle plan into Germany is already drawn before this popup even appears — the decision is the trigger, not the preparation.

1. Pick "France supports her friends" at the Munich Conference cheapCosts 200 political power. Germany declares on Czechoslovakia, who join your faction immediately — ask to join their war and France picks the timing instead of waiting to be invaded. 23:45

A Maginot-line-style static defense is the usual French answer to a German attack — this path deliberately skips that by attacking first instead, using the planning bonus from Protected by the Maginot Line offensively rather than defensively.

Aircraft — the only equipment design in this video

No Division Designer, Tank Designer or Ship Designer is ever opened here — the whole army runs on the game's default infantry template from the six-minute mark onward. The Plane Designer is the only equipment screen used.

The base airframe before a weapon is attached — Air Attack still reads 0.0 here.

Political power and advisors

Every one of these per-advisor percentages is screen-only — narration only ever describes the total as "terrible" or "nice," never the breakdown.

1. Grab the Silent Workhorse advisor once 150 political power is banked cheapRoughly doubles the political power gain rate at this stage of the game. 13:18
2. Take the War Industrialist advisor after Repeal the Law of Exile free+10% military factory construction speed, affordable the moment the +120 political power from the focus lands. 17:31

None of these action costs are narrated at any point — worth knowing before spending political power on them mid-game.

Research order

The air branch this video leans on hardest — France's whole war plan runs on close air support and fighters, not tanks.

1. Prioritize basic small airframe early grindCalled "very, very important to defeating Germany" — skip it and the air war is much harder later. 8:05

Best France template in HOI4

The honest answer for this campaign is that there is no template: the run below uses the game's default infantry division from the six-minute mark to the end and never opens the Division Designer at all. That is reported rather than recommended — for an actual template, this site's defensive division templates guide is the right page.

What belongs here instead is why the best France template in HOI4 is decided by France's national spirits more than by battalion arithmetic. France carries Full Employment (−25% recruitable population factor) and Victors of the Great War (−5% war support and +50% land doctrine cost) from the first day, so a wide army of cheap divisions costs France more than it costs Germany, and doctrine — the thing that actually multiplies whatever template you settle on — is half again as expensive to research. Both penalties are removable, and the focus tree is where you remove them.

Practically that means France answers its template question late rather than early. Pick one land doctrine and commit to it, keep the division count low enough that the equipment deficit visible in the logistics screenshot further down does not become permanent, and spend focuses on manpower rather than on the designer.

The war with Germany

Division counts on both arrows are screen-only — narration never states how many divisions are actually assigned to either push.

1. Build the planning bonus to 77% before the first big push setupPairs with the Protected by the Maginot Line spirit's max-planning trade-off — a flat combat buff on offense, not just defense. 25:29
2. Switch from aggressive to careful execution once casualties start piling up grindExplicitly used to slow down and rebuild the planning bonus rather than snowball uncontrolled — the creator halts the push entirely for a stretch. 26:11
3. Don't fully annex Germany — puppet it instead skipKept as a puppet specifically to inherit its air force later (around 1,000 planes). 32:11

HOI4 France naval strategy

France's navy comes with a rule attached before a single ship is designed. The London Naval Treaty Signatory spirit caps tonnage — carriers at 9500, cruisers at 5300 and heavy ships at 10000 — so every French capital ship is designed inside a ceiling that a non-signatory does not have.

The Naval Rearmament branch then asks one question, and its two answers are mutually exclusive:

Both sides converge on Naval Doctrine, worth two 50% cost reductions on naval doctrine research. Colonial Naval Bases and Develop Colonial Dockyards sit on the same branch and are the only focuses in the tree that build naval capacity outside the metropole.

The achievement for the light-ship route is Vive la Jeune Ecole: as France, have at least 150 destroyers and research the maximum torpedo launcher technology before 1945.

None of that is what the campaign below does. It builds no school and designs no ship — it merges the starting French fleet with everything taken from Spain and Germany and sails the result into the Channel, which works only because the war is already won on land. For a fleet built on purpose rather than inherited, the navy guide covers the ship designer.

Spain, the UK, and the Channel invasion

Spain falls fast once justified — "one of the easiest wars you can possibly do." The bigger project is the navy built up to take the UK: the whole French fleet, plus whatever's absorbed from defeated Spain and Germany along the way, gets merged into one stack in the English Channel — 228 ships at that point, later 264 (called comparable to the UK's own navy), eventually 604 once everything is combined.

Landed uncontested. The control-ratio numbers are never spoken — only the outcome ("this seems like a rousing success") is narrated.

1. Time the UK war for when their navy is distracted elsewhere setupDeclared specifically while the UK is occupied in Finland, per the video — landing at Portsmouth with 6 divisions goes uncontested as a result. 37:01

Italy, the USSR, and the rest of the world

Italy falls to a fast naval invasion (Marseille → Roma, just 6 divisions) once the "better landing craft" tech raises invasion capacity to 10 divisions per landing — the next tech tier is explicitly skipped as an 800-day research cost isn't worth it.

The scale by the late game — conveyed far better here than by any spoken summary.

An exact early-game snapshot (1 Jan 1936) — narration only ever describes this deficit in rough terms ("several tens of thousands," later "only 15,000 down").

Against the USSR, the video deliberately holds a wide, patient front rather than concentrating for a narrow breakthrough — soft attack spread across a long line still wins the attrition math even while individual sectors show red, because Soviet losses (estimated at "like 3 million already") accumulate faster than French ones across the whole line. Moscow and Leningrad both fall without a prolonged siege; Soviet surrender is tracked climbing 65% → 78% → 94% → 100%.

Three points stay open in the source video. The upgraded fighter and CAS stats after the Engine 3 refit are never held on screen long enough to read. "Electronic mechanical engineering" in the early research order matches no research name in the game. And the "America and Japan" line near the end is left unclear. No patch number or DLC name is stated anywhere in the video.

Sources

Channel: Jaush. Video: "This ONE DECISION Makes France UNSTOPABLE In WW2" (55:18). Top comments reviewed; substantive ones credited above.