France under 1.06

[Prufrock451]

oooooh mama.

Having a soft spot in my heart for the brave sons of Marianne, I decided to play a game as France. I thought I'd start by loading as Germany to check their starting position.

ooooof.

Germany starts 36 with better techs, including basic mechanical computers. I noticed as well that the AI was churning out huge armies. I immediately quit, got two liters of Pepsi, and started as France.

The revision of tech sharing hurt me, since one of my favorite tactics is pouring modernization into the minors surrounding Germany. On the other hand, those minors got better starting techs, so that's cool. The Commonwealth was a lot less useful tech-wise in this game. I had to research Pre-War Field Testing MYSELF. Stupid priggish Anglophones.

My Spanish intervention wasn't the cakewalk of old. Juin's Armored Corps quickly got itself in trouble in Pamplona, and I had to rush in another full infantry corps to extricate them. It took me a full six months of ruthless slogging to knock out the Nationalists.

As Juin rode through the Arc de Triomphe in, well, triomphe, I couped Italy. Ha! How much trouble could Italy's new Socialist government cause me?

I forgot that Mussolini started as a Socialist.

The Danzig Crisis, and war begins on schedule. I'm outnumbered 225 divisions to 85. That ain't good. Luckily, the Commonwealth begins its usual trickle of expeditionary forces.

I load up troops for another of my favorite exploits, raiding along Germany's northern coast. Germany finally has garrisons in place, and the revised ports prevent me from landing anywhere in the Baltic. Admiral Darlan returns to port meekly.

Desperate to break the stalemate before Germany can finish that 80-division stack in Koln and push past De Gaulle's front in Belgium, I get military access from Switzerland. (yes! at least that still works. For good measure, I also get military access from Socialist Italy and Denmark.) The inhabitants of southwest Bavaria awaken to the sound of half a million French boots. They then go back to sleep, as a million German boots hurl themselves forward. Instead of the 2.5:1 casualty rates I could expect under 1.05, the Germans here suffer only 1.5:1 casualties. My manpower pool can't maintain that for any length of time. I retreat to lick my wounds in the Alps.

Speaking of which, I have to rush my mountain troops south fast, when Socialist Italy joins the Axis. Fat lot of good that 40 DP did me. While the Franco-German stalemate grinds on, the British mount a really impressive invasion of the south while I whip through the Italian north. The mopping up operations take us into early 1942. As a sideshow, the ANZACs knock out Bulgaria. That's the last I see of them for a while, as Japan declares war on the Philippines. Suddenly, the European war is WWII, as the US joins our crusade and Japan joins the Axis.

1943 sees sparring on both sides- America pushes Japan back in the Pacific and knocks a really stupid Argentina out of the war. Germany launches minor offensives in Venezia, which end in retreat.

1944 is where things get seriously AWESOME. Yugoslavia joins the Axis, just as I'm moving my mountain troops with engineering brigades into Venice. Suckas! Inside of a month, Yugoslavia is puppeted, and Germany is panicking trying to reorganize its defenses. Greece joins the Allies, Romania the Axis. This doesn't matter, though, as the Russians finally jump in and overwhelm the Germans in Poland. As Nazi troops get sucked into the Big Red Grinder out east, I strip the Alpine frontier and mass troops in the neutral Netherlands- sixty divisions. (This is definitely the biggest remaining flaw in the AI. Surely it should realize that half a million French troops anywhere is bad news?)

After a month of what the stunned German defenders call "blitzkrieg", the Rhineland is ours. Ninety Allied divisions, and twenty American divisions at Hamburg, fan out and ferociously annihilate the remaining German troops. January 10, 1945- the Russians seize Festung Winterberg in the Czech Carpathians and the European war is over. The Soviets grab Austria and good chunks of Bavaria, but we get Dresden and some Czech mountain forts. All in all, the Allies did better in this timeline's Yalta Conference- we did seize Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, after all.

Time to reorganize. I disband ten divisions of vanilla infantry, since half of my army is now motorized, mechanized, or armor, and I need the manpower. My 100 remaining divisions are sent to southern Italy, to be shuttled east.

Siam picks now to join the Axis, and I puppet them for being morons.

Fast-forward to June, 1945. I've taken Taiwan and the Brits, ANZACs, and I have helped the Chinese reclaim everything south of Beijing. The Americans are glaring at the Soviets over the 38th parallel in occupied Korea, and the Canadians are stomping through the Kurils. It's just about time to menace Japan's Home Islands, so I save and reload to get the AI moving.

This was a mistake. The game keeps crashing. Damn all.

[alpinit]

WoW
very nice
you have any screenshots?

[killerdude11]

WOW. I never manage to hold on to France.
Your an inspiration to us all

[Immortalitate]

which difficulty settings did you have? i m currently playing as france in a multiplayer game

[Jason]

I'm surprised the newly revised "fortress fear" factors didn't make for a German invasion on the French defensive line in the North. As of 1.05c, a line of forts running along the Belgian border and a ton of vanilla infantry could provide "time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions, before the taking of a toast and tea."

As for Italy, I find even when I coup them they end up DoWing in the Balkans as historically, which often (actually, every time I've tried) has led to Allied-Italian war. If they could be brought to the Allies it'd be one thing, but that'd be even more DI and time and risk. I find it easier just to station troops in the Alps, and for that matter, I get my easiest (read: only, on hard levels) expansion in Italy.

I'm very glad to hear France is still practical, however, even if I thought it was too weak in 1.05c to begin with. I mean heck, where are France's heavy tanks? I long for an historical French option, in which the Allies are relatively sure of victory or at least stalemate so long as they don't replicate the insanity of the Dyle-Breda variant. Ernest May's "Strange Defeat" makes good reading for pro-French players. It had this great quote in it, from the phoney war, when the Germans put up a gigantic sign reading "BONS FRANÇAIS. PENDANT QUE VOUS MONTEZ LA GARDE ICI, LES ANGLAIS, DANS LE NORD, COUCHENT AVEC VOS FEMMES." To which the French unit opposite, from the south, replied with an equally giant sign reading "BONS ALLEMANDS, ON S'EN FOUT ON EST DU MIDI."

[Fermor]

Ernest May's "Strange Defeat" makes good reading for pro-French players. It had this great quote in it, from the phoney war, when the Germans put up a gigantic sign reading "BONS FRANÇAIS. PENDANT QUE VOUS MONTEZ LA GARDE ICI, LES ANGLAIS, DANS LE NORD, COUCHENT AVEC VOS FEMMES." To which the French unit opposite, from the south, replied with an equally giant sign reading "BONS ALLEMANDS, ON S'EN FOUT ON EST DU MIDI."

Great quotation!

[Mr.G 24]

Alas my french classes pay off, wait I'm not sure what that words like fout and others mean well not to be a bafoon I babel fished it:

GOOD FRENCH. WHILE YOU ASSEMBLE THE GUARD HERE, THE ENGLISH, IN NORTH, SLEEP WITH YOUR WIVES
and

GOOD GERMANS, ONE Fout ONE IS MIDDAY

[Jason]

It's colloquial and refers to the Midi, the south of France, not midday. To get the sense it's best to fudge the part where north appears.

Roughly,

"BRAVE MEN OF THE NORTH. WHILE YOU STAND GUARD, THE ENGLISH SLEEP WITH YOUR WOMEN!"

and

"BRAVE GERMANS, WHO GIVES A DAMN, WE'RE FROM THE SOUTH."

[Prufrock451]

Heh heh! Those southerners and their Cathar humor.

Anyhow, I played on normal/normal for my first France 1.06 game. I'm not a total masochist.

I have no screenshots. I wanted to take one after the fall of Japan, but the corrupt save game file seems to have different ideas.

The Germans were surprisingly quiet in the north, yes. I had four 12-division stacks in Belgium, but only 18 total along the Maginot- and that was all vanilla infantry expeditionary forces. At one point, just before I drew off troops to the south by taking the Italian Alps, Big Gray had 60-70 divisions in Koln and another 40-60 moving into position along that front. Why they didn't move (or take out the Netherlands to flank me) is beyond me.

Oh, another point, too- the Luftwaffe took exactly SIX DAYS to wipe out my entire pre-war air force. Total and utter annihilation, not the endless 20-plane attrition battles from 1.05. I was completely floored. I didn't rebuild any planes until after the end of the European war.

[MegaPIMP]

In all 3 games I've played with 1.06 germany get's stomped, stomped stomped stomped stompedy stomp.
First I wack them as the US of A, then as the soviets(allied with Poland, Tjechoslovakia, Yugo, Italy, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Rumania, Bulgaria, Greece, Tureky and finally Persia*phew*) My beggining army+40 Inf divisons were all that was needed against the tiiiiny german army(Actually I did not need all those worthless minors).
And the third game...well Playing as the Japs so far and things ain't looking to good for the Pesky Germans, what's with their spirit?
In the mean time(mean time? Evil time? ) I annex Siam, really you do not need that rubber!

[Maximilian I]

Originally Posted by MegaPIMP

then as the soviets(allied with Poland, Tjechoslovakia, Yugo, Italy, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Rumania, Bulgaria, Greece, Tureky and finally Persia*phew*) My beggining army+40 Inf divisons were all that was needed against the tiiiiny german army(Actually I did not need all those worthless minors).

guess we should set USSR 36 di to to -72...

[MegaPIMP]

well I used the DI I got at the start to get Austria, Poland and the Cjechs the rest were just for show

[Maximilian I]

Originally Posted by MegaPIMP

well I used the DI I got at the start to get Austria, Poland and the Cjechs the rest were just for show

-105 (48 months * 2.5 di/months) for 36 then

[Roxxor]

Hey if you want to continue your game, you can heres how:

Reload with you as another nation (like el salvador) and advance the date until you go past the crash date. Then return to france. The AI will have done some crazy things with your units but c'est la vie!