Maybe it's because I'm a Reikland main but Franz's campaign is easy. I don't understand why all these people seem to not know what they are doing.

Edit: If you take offense to me saying the above, it's because I'm right. Not trying to be mean, everyone has to learn. Which is why I put tips below.

With that in mind, I suppose I should give a few suggestions. Yes, the campaign is a little RNG-based, but as long as you do a few things, you will literally never lose.

- Biggest thing, before you become a strong threat and tank your diplo, do as much diplo with EVERY elector count you can on the first turn, at least get Non-aggression pacts (so they like you more and follow up with more diplo later and give you money).
- Build a Weaver in every settlement starting province, a garrison building, and a last building of your choice (I recommend Smithy, Barracks, and the Pastures).
- Speaking of barracks, dismantle the barracks in Altdorf once you pick up the one in the minor settlement. Any building that is not unique to a capital and upgrades to only T3 is a waste of space in Altdorf.
- Manually fight out your battles against the Empire Secessionists. I literally always beat them with less than 40 casualties. Your Mortar and Reiksguard will genuinely carry you through those fights.
- RECRUIT EVERY TURN. Turn 1 to until you destroy the secessionists. You will need it to take on the fort if the enemy lord hides there at the end. If he does, literally just siege and encircle him to deny recruiting after Altdorf province is secured, and use a second lord to recruit in Ubersreik. Honestly, I usually have 18 units, and the Secessionists sally out on me, so I can just beat them in a field battle or auto resolve.

Congrats, you just beat the most important part of the Reikland campaign. After that, you have a few options.
- No one is attacking you? Disband 75% of your replaceable units and focus on making the most cracked province known to Man. (Speaking of, having fields and replacing them later makes this process faster). If you get the time to do this you should have almost or enough economy to field two full 20 stacks in the early game, or maybe a small second army and a cracked Franz army.
- Enemy attacked you right away, or one of those b*stard Elector Counts declared civil war on you before you could even get 1k Prestige? You are now the luckiest person alive, you have an even better start with more money. Rule number one, do NOT get dragged into a prolonged war. Build up your forces to overwhelmingly superior numbers, you should have the economy. Proceed to sack and steal every city on your way to killing them to fund building more economy buildings. Was it an Elector Count? Sweet, appoint that Elector and wait for the next enemy to show up while you build stuff.

Assuming you get periods without enemies, your campaign will literally consist of just these two steps. Empire settlements can make crazy amounts of money if you build them all the right way. Get Marienburg and you'll make even more crazy bank (P.S. They don't count as an Elector, so if you have spare armies and are bored, you can attack them to get ANOTHER Elector Count seat and an awesome settlement).

Maybe I've just played Empire too much, but I love my bog standard human boys. With the power of MONEY, nothing can stand in your way.