• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Status
Not open for further replies.
Hi all,

I`ve tried my hand at Nat France and the communards were beating the snot out of the Krauts before I pressed the wrong button and uninstalled the game...

Cracking AAR BTW!

Rgds, Oldtimer
 
Say whut?

Please note the French divisions in the Ukraine.
This has never happened in any of the dozens of games I've played through. How the hell did this happen BTW? I'm really curious, as the farthest I've ever seen France get is on the Rhine river before being pushed back. Even when I play I never get that far, but then again I'm terrible.

Actually, I did see France win ONCE. And that was when I played as Russia>Soviets, and took the brunt of most of the German forces. And even then, the Germans still broke through the border and were about to reach Paris before I stopped them with my onslaught of troops. Which doesn't really detract from my point, but still.
 
CoF wins on occasion but, in my experience, it loses a heck of a lot more often than it wins. Which, in fairness, is fairly historically accurate as france is smaller than germany, is less industrialised and therefore couldn't win without innovative tactics - which don't always get selected during the military reorganisation events.
 
On another note, I'm currently trying to balance finishing off the next update with writing up various interviews from my trip to Strasbourg - I'll try and get something done by the weekend though.

Incidentally, if anyone's interested, I found out the future of the eurozone while I was there. And the interview in which I found it out can be found here.
 
CoF wins on occasion but, in my experience, it loses a heck of a lot more often than it wins. Which, in fairness, is fairly historically accurate as france is smaller than germany, is less industrialised and therefore couldn't win without innovative tactics - which don't always get selected during the military reorganisation events.
The problem I see with France isn't industrialization (Which shouldn't be a problem with Syndicalist industrialization policies) or manpower (Germany has a huge colonial empire to defend, so you can justify a smaller manpower gap with that) but the fact that Germany's puppet states help a lot in holding off the French advance, while the SRI and UoB do fuck all. Syndie!Netherlands is barely useful, and Syndie!Ukraine could be helpful I guess, but whenever I play CoF Ukraine never turns syndie. I feel like the game just likes mocking me at times.
 
The problem I see with France isn't industrialization (Which shouldn't be a problem with Syndicalist industrialization policies) or manpower (Germany has a huge colonial empire to defend, so you can justify a smaller manpower gap with that) but the fact that Germany's puppet states help a lot in holding off the French advance, while the SRI and UoB do fuck all. Syndie!Netherlands is barely useful, and Syndie!Ukraine could be helpful I guess, but whenever I play CoF Ukraine never turns syndie. I feel like the game just likes mocking me at times.

I know that the whole trigger with Denmark is in order to try and get the UoB to invade germany from the north but yeah, it is a fairly hard slog with only the AI as allies. The only sure fire way to win that I've seen is if you can conquer the Italian Federation and incorporate it into the SRI before the war starts. At the very minimum it seems necessary to get the FAI to win the civil war and to join the Internationale.
 
On another note, despite what I said earlier about having difficulty balancing the different writing I have to do, I'm pleased to announce that I've managed to get the next update completely done and have made a good start on the next one. So you should be getting another update around wednesday or thursday :)
 
I know that the whole trigger with Denmark is in order to try and get the UoB to invade germany from the north but yeah, it is a fairly hard slog with only the AI as allies. The only sure fire way to win that I've seen is if you can conquer the Italian Federation and incorporate it into the SRI before the war starts. At the very minimum it seems necessary to get the FAI to win the civil war and to join the Internationale.
Exactly. The problem, as always, is Germany. That is, you have to keep saving and reloading with France when war starts with the IF if Germany decide to be dicks and warn you. Which, when it's the Italian Federation that declares war on the SRI after Anzio, as what happens to me a lot, is a real jerk move from Germany. Same with Spain.

I just imagine Germany as this big troll-face in the KR world that likes to squash any chances the Commune has.

"Oh hai Commune of France, want to unite Italy under socialism? TOO BAD!"

"Random French Syndicalist assassinated a guy? WAR!"

"Building up your forces in '41 while waiting for the Spanish Civil War to end already? HAHAHAHAHA!"

"Oh, we're still suffering from Black Monday? And China's fighting some weird cultist? INSTANT ALLIANCE, INDUSTRY'S ALL GOOD NOW!"
(For some reason the Spanish Civil War always lasts for the longest time for me. When I'm playing as the CoF and waiting for the FAI to just gorram attack the last Kingdom province in Gibraltar, it gets very frustrating.)
 
Well, the situation in France is complicated at best(a bloddy stalemate at worst). Instead of beating the Syndies, we wind up losing France (what we're supposed to be liberating in the first place) to the Germans, who might probably place another man(perhaps Jean de Boubon, or evem a German princeling) to a rival throne of some kind.
 
I played a multiplayer game as UoB and CoF and we beat Germany together. THat being said I've yet to see the AI pull it off. On the other hand I've never seen the UoB fall, nor have I seen the Entente do anything much at all. The successful AI countries tend to be some version of Russia, Germany and Japan, with one or two sometimes beating out the others. The US also recovers well from its civil war in general then proceeds to do nothing.
 
First of all, a lurker and love the AAR. I was very disappointed when DH reduced the chances of Nat. France to ally with the Catholic League as AI, so this was refreshing!
Secondly, i've seen the UOB fall. To itself. (in HOI2 KR.) Germany was losing horribly but managed a landing somewhere in England, the event for the Postwar CTU congress fired for the UOB, they chose the military option, and then the "Lawrence is a closet monarchist!" option. The Jerries kind-of sort-of helped the Lawrence UK before being pushed off the island, resulting in the Lawrence U.K holding all of Britain just south of Scapa Flow. Strange game, strange game it was.
Anyways, enough with my rant. Wipe the floor with those dirty reds, show them that a Bonaparte knows exactly how to deal with dirty revolutionaries and Prussians :p
 
Anyways, enough with my rant. Wipe the floor with those dirty reds, show them that a Bonaparte knows exactly how to deal with dirty revolutionaries and Prussians :p

Revolutionaries are easy enough. Taking on the might of the German military might have to take just a little while...

Glad you're liking the AAR :)
 
I just imagine Germany as this big troll-face in the KR world that likes to squash any chances the Commune has.
when i played KR in HoI2 i imagined that OTL old empires UK and France are replaced by Germany, and beligerent, revanchist axis is replaced by the syndies. back in HoI2 CoF had a lot more chances to win with germany. i think that the AI germany should have a bigger chance to get a wimpy chamberlain-like government to allow the early syndie expansion and to give them chance to build up some military power.
after all in OTL if the allies went to war over austria, czechoslovakia, or did something during the polish campaign, germany would have almost no chances. that would most likely lead to an easy allied victory and a boring game :p
i think that KR germany + mitteleuropa are powerful enough to come to its senses after a couple of years of undisrupted syndie conquering spree
 
Perhaps the best option might be for there to be a lower chance of the German AI choosing to guarantee the independence of its neighbours...
 
when i played KR in HoI2 i imagined that OTL old empires UK and France are replaced by Germany, and beligerent, revanchist axis is replaced by the syndies. back in HoI2 CoF had a lot more chances to win with germany. i think that the AI germany should have a bigger chance to get a wimpy chamberlain-like government to allow the early syndie expansion and to give them chance to build up some military power.
after all in OTL if the allies went to war over austria, czechoslovakia, or did something during the polish campaign, germany would have almost no chances. that would most likely lead to an easy allied victory and a boring game :p
i think that KR germany + mitteleuropa are powerful enough to come to its senses after a couple of years of undisrupted syndie conquering spree
That seems like a nice idea. Another idea I had was more expansionism on the part of Germany's neighbors, like Russia (Not the Soviets) attacking while Germany's distracted in the west, or Ethiopia, Nat. France, and Egypt taking German ports near them, with the German option to either declare war (Low chance) or let them have it (High chance, small dissent hit) with the events to demand those lands back in-case Germany wins. Because Germany winning means a lot of nations don't get many opportunities to expand in certain ways.
 
The Second Weltkrieg: the Return to France

On November the 30th, under cover of heavy rain, the Imperial First Army, six divisions strong, landed on the undefended beaches of Marseille.

screensave483.jpg

Within hours they were in control of the city and its vital harbour. The Empire had returned to France.

With a toehold on the mainland, the First Army rapidly spit into smaller corps which spread out in every possible direction in order to capture as much territory as possible before the Commune was able to react. Behind them flowed all the reinforcements that the Empire could possibly commit to battle.

The Empire could not match the Commune in numbers so commanders were ordered to push as hard as possible until they encountered significant resistance, at which point they were to dig in. With winter fast approaching, the weather would favour the defenders.

By Christmas, the area of France liberated had grown significantly - with Imperial forces threatening the key industrial centre of Lyon and having joined up with Italian Forces in Toulon.

screensave484.jpg

But the Germans were swiftly sweeping south. It was obvious to everyone that the only chance the Empire had was to seize enough of southern France to give it a strong hand at the post-war bargaining table with Germany. In order for this strategy to succeed, Lyon had to be prevented from falling into German hands.

So, on New Year’s Eve, the First Army launched a massive assault on Lyon with seven divisions - the largest force of Imperial troops on the entire continent.

screensave486.jpg

Following the meeting of Imperial and German lines just south of Vichy in the new year - effectively creating an immense pocket of Commune troops to the east of Lyon - it was decided that, despite the winter weather, a breakout to the west had to be attempted if there was to be any chance of reaching Bordeaux before the Germans. On the 5th of January the 37th Corps, consisting of five divisions under General Noque, launched an assault on Toulouse. What would later be called the Breakout had begun.

screensave487.jpg

Just over a week later, with the aid of Italian troops Toulouse fell, opening the way to the west. At the same time, bitter urban fighting continued to rage in Lyon to the north while successive joint French-Italian attacks failed to capture Avignon.


In the west the Italians took advantage of a gap in the lines to push into Agen while the 37th Corps launched an attack on the Communard soldiers defending Tulle.

screensave497.jpg

However, the focus of everyone would remain on Lyon where brutal urban fighting, in freezing conditions, was resulting in some of the bloodiest fighting of the war - with many of the thousands of casualties being civilians. Several volumes have been dedicated to the Battle of Lyon - covering such events from the siege of the Cathedral to the levelling of the Basilica. While there is not sufficient space here to cover the battle in detail, suffice it to say that, prior to the battle, the city had a population estimated at 600,000 including refugees and contained some of the finest examples of renaissance architecture in southern France. After the battle, the civilian population was 200,000 and much of the city had been reduced to rubble.

screensave498.jpg

This massive, on-going tragedy, however, was about to be overshadowed by the events of the 24th to the 26th.

The 37th Corps, having been bested in the mountainous terrain of Tulle, began by launching a massive offensive against Perigeux. With Communard troops drawn into the battle, a division of mechanised cavalry exploited a gap in the Commune’s lines to capture the undefended city of Bordeaux - forcing the Commune’s government to flee the city just as they had fled Paris a few months earlier.

Buoyed by their success, the cavalry pushed further, capturing the minor port of La Rochelle, before coming under heavy attack and being forced to retreat to Bordeaux.

screensave501.jpg

Though the cavalry defending Bordeaux were able to beat off an attempt to dislodge them, the Italian troops guarding the narrow corridor leading to the city were coming under fierce pressure from the larger Communard forces.

screensave504.jpg

Perhaps critically, the generals were distracted from the increasingly precarious position of the forces holding Bordeaux by the news on the 30th that, after a month of bitter fighting, Lyon had fallen to the forces of the Empire.

screensave507.jpg

However, just a day later, disaster struck. The Italians defending the Agen corridor were overrun by the Communards, leaving 15,000 Imperial soldiers trapped in Bordeaux and outnumbered and surrounded on all sides.

screensave509.jpg

Two days later, after a valiant last stand, the defenders of Bordeaux were overrun and the survivors forced to surrender. So ferocious was the fighting, and so strong was the determination on both sides to take no prisoners, that, of the 15,000 Imperial soldiers who had entered Bordeaux, only 5,000 would be left alive to face captivity.

 
Last edited:
Ouch losing that pocket must have hurt. At this rate you will only get the small foothold you have and the germans will overrun everything else
 
Ouch losing that pocket must have hurt. At this rate you will only get the small foothold you have and the germans will overrun everything else

Well, I still have six divisions over in Lyon... And one of the titles I'm considering for the next update is "The Breakout"...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.