Here are some things that you need to do in order for the achievement to work:

• Make sure the game is on regular
  
• Make sure Iron man mode is on
  
• Run away

Other than that I think that you should be ok!

Ok so the first thing you want to do is start making military factories with your Civ Facs. This will help in the war effort later. You need as much equipment as possible since France's troops lack equipment at the start of the game. Put 2 factories on Weapons 1 and one factory on everything else. Don't worry too much about naval factories since you won't really be needing them unless you want to naval invade Germany.

The factories should be done sometime in the middle of 36 and you should be able to pump out more equipment. There are some random events that trigger that will lower your factory output but you should be ok if you just research concentrated industry 1.

MAKE SURE TO GET PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY 1 AND CONSTRUCTION 1

I can't stress how important this is to get the French war machine going. It will help you make more factories and pump out more equipment.


Here are the things that I think would be best for the upcomming war:

• Mountaineers

The Mountaineers will help when Italy eventually gets dragged into the war

• Construction 1 and Efficiency 1

Like I said, you need to get as much industrial power as you can early game so you can pump out the equipment faster than your enemies

And after that you can go down any route. I went down the research speed route just for the encryption and decryption.

The order in which you take the National Focuses is important as well. You don't want to go through the wrong part of the tree and not be ready for the war with Germany and Italy.

Here is the order that I would recommend to you.

• Government Reform
  
• Support The Status Quo
  
• Little Entente
  
• Invite Yugoslavia
  
• Invite Romania
  
• Strengthen Government

After all the political ones have been done I would hold off on Polish Guarentee until after the war or during. There is no real point to this since Czechlosovakia is the first one Germany targets. I would instead go for the far left of the tree in the Industry area.

• Metropolitan France
  
• Industrial Expansion
  
• Military Factories

If you want to get the extra research slot you can but I feel it's not really worth it until after the war since Nuclear Effort is better the later you get it.

The military part of the tree is next. Completely ignore the defense side of the tree. Go down the aggresive side completely.

• Aggressive Focus (employ Maurice Gamelin if you can)
  
• Motorized Focus
  
• Mechanized Focus
  
• Automitrailleuses
  
• Army Reform

Army reform will get rid of the Victors of the Great War spirit which hinders the speed of researching land doctrines. This is a very nice bonus to pick up but you'll probably get it after the war is over.

So France generally has a crappy army at the start. We should've fixed this with the industry pumping out the new equipment. You can't really set up division until the war starts going. You should go with the basic 7/2 set up with support of artillery, recon, and engis. Here is what I would do when setting up plans for armies.

• Set up 24 division on the Maginot Line and put them on a plan to push across the river first. Then put them to push all the way east to meet up with Czechlosovakia. Then push north manually and focus on surrounds. You should be able to get to Berlin pretty easily with Czechlosovakia helping as well.
  
  
• Set up 24 division on the border of Italy. Most of them should be Mountaineers followed with some tanks and Motorized. Normally Italy will want to go for Yugoslavia first which should put very few troops on the western border. You should be able to push right into the Italian capitol while Yugoslavia holds out. Then just take the major cities south of Rome and you should have Italy.
  
  
• Africa isn't really much of a problem. Just put all the divisions in Africa into 1 army and have them push into Libya. They should encounter very little or no resistance as most of Italy's troops should be in Ethiopia or Mainland Italy.

Here some things you should know while playing France.

• Whatever you do, don't go communist. There are some random events that will make your party popularity go up for communist which is fine until it gets too high. Don't go communist. This will ruin the alliance as your allies are democracies.
  
  
• National Unity is everything. France starts with pretty crappy NU. If Germany and Italy push into France, your playthrough is generally over. The front grows too big and they go immediately for your VP areas.
  
  
• If Japan joins, you need to protect the SEA area. Japan puts most of its units into mainland Asia so you can just naval invade mainland Japan and win the war.
  
  
• In order for the achievement to trigger, you or one of your allies needs to control ALL of mainland Germany. If the USSR joins the war, make sure that they don't take any of Germany because this will ruin the entire achievement. You will have to declare on the USSR and take the land back.
  
  
• Don't really worry about Spain early on. Only worry about them if the war lasts until the early 40s. They will want to join Axis and will push up through southern France.
  
  
• Keep a mindful eye on the actions of the UK. They might intervene which is fine but they might intervene on the wrong side! They might actually declare on you because you have generated the most world tension.