The discussion about what would`ve happened in France tried to push into Saar seem quite wierd.
A nice look at what actually happened, reveals that Polish army, 2 weeks into the invasion, bu 14 september was already crushed, huge portion of it was surrounded and Poland lost huge territory and simply couldn`t mobilize any more forces.
Considering Allies only managed to start Saar the offensive on 7th of September, Allies basically had 7 days to make Germans radically review their plans, which is doubtful.
These are all good points. Time really is against France on this one. Which feeds into your next point:
French army couldn`t attack at similar to Wehrmacht speed, and it would see opposition. Yes, those were not Best German forces, but even bad forces, can hold the line for long if sufficient morale is present, and Germans had prepared defense line to fall back on, and did I mention Germans could fight in Urban areas for very long, forcing allies to commit huge forces to surrounding the cities.
Most probable outcome would be French simply failing to make enough progress in the 1-2 weeks they had to make it meter. Neither French, nor british were really capable of fast offensive, and it is quite questionable if the French even had the necessary spare parts and repair capacity for their tanks, considering how hard they failed at using them in their own soil, in 1940.
You seem to be arguing that the fast operational tempo required to make the Saar offensive matter in 1939 isn't present in either French or British capabilities. I won't argue against your point on this one. You'd need someone like Guderian, backed up by a logistics network and superiors who can support such an action.
But that line of arguing is silly, you`re suggesting that German player needs a skill advantage, which shouldn`t be necessary. Also, you may want to look at MP games, France tends to hold way more than historical in HOI3, despite your claim that the German buffs make his army imbalanced.
No, I'm saying that historical Germany had a skill advantage in its leaders and doctrines. This means that if you want to replicate the historical results, you need that kind of skill advantage.
If you just want to defeat France in general terms, then you don't need that skill advantage. Take a leisurely 12 months to defeat France if you want. Bleed the French white, or bomb them to death, or slowly pick apart the French army in key combats, or even let the Italians soak some bullets for you.
But if you want the gold medal (and Germany gets the gold medal for winning the Battle of France in such a short time and with such few losses), then I don't think it's unreasonable to demand gold medal performance.
I certainly wouldn't tell the least skilled player in an MP group to take Germany for a spin if decisions weren't in play. Germany just isn't going to have the resources for Barbarossa in MP if she doesn't defeat France quickly and easily. (And even then, it's touch and go if the Soviet player has skill, or if house rules don't prevent certain kids of things.)
Of course, lots of people (not just in HOI3) just play MP for the lulz. And I also understand that. But if your playing just for the fun of it, then the time it takes to defeat France isn't as important.
France falls in MP games, but the importance is not IF it falls, but how it falls and how much did Germany lost. I can`t see how you, of all the people fail to see the difference.
Yes, I see there is a major difference. In fact, part of France's contribution to the war effort (in MP or SP) is how much is hurts Germany during the Battle of France. I get that.
I also understand that Germany winning or losing Barbarossa has a connection to its victory over France. I also understand that.
Magic modifiers are bad, but do be fair, Allies, and especially SU rely on those even heavier. The game mechanics simply doesn`t allow SU to rebuild army as fast, needing to give them magical buff making their militia as good as infantry, while their tanks super cheap and fast to produce, but only for a year.
Well, since you brought it up, I don't like those decisions either. The Their Finest Hour decision in particular is irritating to me for a whole list of reasons, although the Soviets conjuring up manpower, tanks, and ORG out of thin air rankles me, too. The near invincibility of the RAF for several months is even worse than Germany's decisions, but it's less of a problem, because British ground forces aren't affected, making Sealion still a possibility. An invincible RAF, ironically, makes getting across the Channel more important, because there is nothing to be gained for months on end by just waging an air war over Britain (or the cost to benefit ratio is so bad that you might as well build some extra battleships and just force the damn Channel when the human player isn't looking).
Again, though, these decisions create bizarre strategic situations for players, causing strategies to be based on the decisions rather than the actual circumstances of the war. Their Finest Hour is a classical example of this: clever players who are in the mood to bomb Britain into rubble will start bombing Britain before France falls just because the British can't fire the decision yet. This has nothing to do with strategic position, resource allocation, or national goals. Then there's the whining from Soviet players in SP who want their 2500 manpower up front, rather than triggering it by losing territory. There are whole strategies that involve losing just enough VPs as the Soviets to fire the extra manpower, so you can then go on the conquer the world.
Think about what I just said: there are whole strategies built around losing enough territory to get the benefits Soviet decisions and events provide. I never do it (I consider it part of playing the Soviets better than history to never get to the point where I fire Great Patriotic War), but that doesn't change the fact that it is very efficient to do this.
No that is not what I'm saying. There are many reasons to 'nerf' France but only one scenario not to. Also there are many ways to 'nerf' them and I'll discuss a few.
1) AI Germany vs. AI France. This needs nerfs else the whole game is busted if France survives.
2) Human Germany vs. Human France (MP). Again you need to have France lose fairly quickly else the whole rest of the game is busted.
3) Human France vs. German AI. Heck even in HOI3 WITH the nerfs you could still win. Now you want to make it easier? At least the nerfs offered a somewhat harder game as France.
4) Human Germany vs. French AI. This is the ONLY scenario where an argument can be made to make France stronger.
I have already acknowledged that in AI versus AI, some kind of set up is needed to ensure France screws up. I'd prefer some kind of crappy battleplan and crappy use of leaders to buffs and whatnot, though. After all, a human Britain needs some kind of incentive to support the French, and if Voldemort waves a wand and causes 80% of the ORG in the French army to disappear via event or decision in AI versus AI play, a human Britain is just going to write off AI France every time.
As for #2, why is the whole rest of the game busted? If the only MP players are France and Germany, then nerfing France to ahistorical levels makes no sense. If there are several MP players, then perhaps you have identified another flaw in the game inadvertently. You seem to really be saying, "HOI3 is not interesting if Germany doesn't start Barbarossa on schedule and with sufficient strength." Fair enough, but shouldn't the rest of the game be interesting regardless? I mean, not to be picky, but there's the whole Pacific War to think about. If the Pacific is interesting, then even if Germany gets stuck in a 12 month slog in France, a US player has something to do in the future. Now, you are going to say, "But it's not interesting in MP," and I might agree with you (depends on house rules and how Japan is played), but that's got nothing to do with France and Germany. That has everything to do with how Asia and the Pacific is represented.
So, it seems to me that the real problem is "In MP, there is nothing interesting to do if things go off the rails in 1940." That's not the same thing as saying, "Well, we need to nerf France in MP."
Now I'm not going to get into which army was better etc. But we do know Germany defeated France in 6 weeks. That can't be denied.
There are many ways to do this 'nerf'. HOI3 picked one way. But I've played board games where either Germany got a +2 to die rolls and France a -2 or if they had CRT's with multiple columns the Germans got a positive column shift and the French a negative one.
We can't force the French AI to make stupid decisions when playing against the AI but smart ones against a human so nerfs based on those (like battle plans) will most likely apply across the board. Maybe the combat formulas for HOI4 will be very different from HOI3 but who knows.
Well, you can do this, but I think podcat and other Devs have made it clear that they won't deliberately try to make a "dumb AI" for various reasons.
But I submit to you that giving France a crappy battleplan (or two) and just letting the AI run with them would go a long way to giving a nerf to France that doesn't involve deleting the OOB or just giving Germany arbitrary bonuses. I mean, the historical battleplan Gamelin used has flaws. And if you know the AI is going to use the Dyle Plan most of the time, the a human Germany can strategize around that.
The bottom line is this. For all but one scenario France needs to lose and lose historically fast. So it really falls on those that don't want a nerf to France to come up with ideas where the rest of the scenarios don't break. HOI3 took an easy route to do this. Most likely HOI4 will also pick a method that doesn't require lot's of programming, balancing and other issues.
No. In at least one scenario, France needs to lose fast because apparently there's nothing else to do in MP if Frane doesn't fall, or nothing interesting to do at least. Perhaps HOI4 will rectify this problem.
And, of course, there's nothing stopping anyone in MP from just picking a start date after the fall of France. That is, assuming your not playing in one of the "fast" MP games that starts in 1936, and sees war in 1937.