France: Land Fortress or not ?

[unmerged(42764)]

Hi all,

I´m new and play with France (1.06c vanilla). May I expend my valious IC building land fortress in the north or not ? I think maybe it´s better I research land techs and train infantry divs. What the veterans think ?

P.S.: Sorry if my english is not ideal.

 

[SirBlase]

Hi all,

I´m new and play with France (1.06c vanilla). May I expend my valious IC building land fortress in the north or not ? I think maybe it´s better I research land techs and train infantry divs. What the veterans think ?

P.S.: Sorry if my english is not ideal.

Far from calling myself a 'vet', but since noone answered your post i'll try.
First, don't bother building forts. you won't build anything like Maginot Line (lack of time), and besides it's waste of IC.
As for research, that's AFAIK the most important aspect of the game. try to get decent inf and art techs. Since most of your army is inf, you have to beef 'em up so the jerries will be quite suprised when they try to cut through your lines.
I personally think, that building good Arm units is key to crush every country. try to build 15 - 20 Arm Div before the war starts. you'll have fun chasing german army as they retreat
Of course you shouldn't forget about Doctrines (esp. Land since you're far behind "uncle Adi").
Good luck,
Blase

p.s. your english is ok

 

[ville]

I think you should build fortresses i got to level five focusing on almost only that then with the start troops i held out till i got strong enugh to chase them back

 

[unmerged(26983)]

Build as many fortresses as you can to the north, try to hold belgium but if you can't don't worry and just retreat to France. If they bomb Paris heavily, don't be affraid to build some AA guns.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

My opinnion is too that you should build forts to the north. Using Belgium as frontline is a good suggestion. If you have to retreat you have strong defence, where remaining defenders of Belgium can retreat and re-organize. Holding AI Germany back isn't that difficult (but it's hell trying to hold back Human Germany in MP). :rofl:

 

[unmerged(42764)]

Well, everybody is correct, and I make a wrong choice. I didn´t buid land forts. "Let´s to hand-to-hand fight, with a lot of good inf divs e with the D.52O (fighters)", I said. "Forts are useless", this wise newbie said to the french people o . When the nazis came, I was slaughter. 22 days to Vichy event. Now, I begin to play like Germans TO ALL NEWBIES: If you wanna play as France, build forts, a lot of forts, and pray.

 

[unmerged(8319)]

Both strategies are viable. It really depends how active a defender you want to be. If you are a static fighter, forts are a good investment (in single play only). But if you are a hothead Patton like player, invest your IC in land tech and lots of units instead.

 

[unmerged(25930)]

Both strategies are viable. It really depends how active a defender you want to be. If you are a static fighter, forts are a good investment (in single play only). But if you are a hothead Patton like player, invest your IC in land tech and lots of units instead.

You inspired me to start a game as France. I believe forts are critical to the defence of France.

By Jan 1940 you can have Level 5 forts in Lille, Sedan & Chaumont with AA under construction. With a garrison of 12-18 divisions this is a tough nut for the Jerries to crack. This has the effect of deterring the AI from attacking these territories & buys you time. In this time you can develop a counterattack force & make the Jerries start worrying about the USSR as you move into 1941.

If you pursue this defensive philosophy I recommendyou go the whole way, i.e. employ the Static Defence Minister (+10%), Defence Doctrine Minister (another +10%), and the Man of the People (available 1939) to boost your crappy Manpower reserves. I garrisoned the border with Italy with a total of 6 Mountain troops & this was sufficient. 6 divs held the Italians at bay in Tunis.

Beware of garrisoning the Marginot Line with at least 6-9 divs, as Alsace can be triple teamed by the Germans with 40+ divs. I almost lost this key section of the line this way.

Further benefits to a defensive French player is the Military Control of Belgian forces in 1940, and all the Exp forces that the Canadians etc give you.

Don't worry about the Germans bombing you. All this does is give your leaders experience. Through a combination of bombing & Spanish Civil War experience I had de Gaulle, Weygand etc up to levels 5 & 6 FM by mid-1940.

Lozza12

 

[unmerged(1047)]

I would think, seeing as you've got all those rivers and the Germans are unlikely to have river-crossing techs that early on, that you should not fortify right on the border, or at least not make it your only line of defense. Put a secondary row of forts behind the first river they will have to cross, and at least think about whether you can hold the ones on the border or if they will just use them against you.

A similar strategy, actually, is good for Soviet Union - you can fortify Riga-Vitebsk-Stalino behind the first line of rivers and stop the Germans cold there if you have enough troops.

 

[Christian D]

Build AA in the northern provinces, but don't bother with Land Fortresses.

 

[unmerged(25936)]

Build AA in the northern provinces, but don't bother with Land Fortresses.

You've played as France right?

As everyone has said, lvl5 fortresses in the northern Provinces is the way to go. The IC cost is basically nil. The northern border provinces have ICs of like 3 and 4.

Stocked with 12 division armies the German AI will be real hesistant to even attack. Keep 1 or 2 rear armies though as response armies. I usually only build a band of fortifications 1 deep, which means I can't afford to lose even 1 province. You may want to go 2 provinces deep if you are feeling insecure.

As for techs, forget Air and Naval techs. Concentrate immediately and solely on Infantry techs/doctorines. Particular attention to defense of course. Eventually you'll want to dabble in armored divisions when you are able to go on the offensive and for manpower considerations (foot divisions are expensive in terms of manpower-to-firepower ratio).

Fairly soon you'll be able to begin a credible offensive in Italy (when they enter) without weakening your line with Germany. Use the dozens of expeditionary forces to free up French divisions for your offensive.

Use your navy initially to crush the Germans at the outset with Britain then swing into the Med. to smash the Italians. Help the British take Libya as soon as possible and finish of Italy on the mainland.

Eventually Russia declares war and winning WW2 is gravy.

In theory you dont even have to kill Italy and invade Southern Germany. You can just sit back and let the Russians win the war.

Anyways France is a fairly boring game by yourself but it has some entertaining moments.

 

[unmerged(8319)]

What I lack in all the posts of you who write about the way you play France, is the difficulty level.

At v. hard, lvl 5 forts won't be enough if you don't have a sufficient # of infantry to man them. And that can be a problem at v.hard setting.

 

[Christian D]

Yes, I've played as France. The main problem is getting bombed down to >10 org. If you've gotten your soft attack near Germany's you should be fine, keep your AT in the rear until you see armored units approaching.

Forts without sufficient AA get destroyed rather quickly by air attacks anyway.

 

[unmerged(33615)]

I agree with Christian D! Best mixture I figured out were 3 level forts with at least 3 level aa + mobile defence force behind the fortified and manned lines. It is nearly a garantee for surviving (and later winning) the war!

 

[Patriotes1837]

Nah. The Ai doesnt recognise that the ORG is low. However, it does calculate the defense bonuses (ie: fort levels). So even if the german airforce bombs the shit out of your troops, if you have a good stack and level 5 forts, they wont even attack you by land. You then have the choice to invade Italy or attack Germany once the SU joins in the fun.

Building forts vs AI Germany is the way to go.

But level 4 plus AA is also good if you have enough troops. level 3 is still risky and requires a lot of troop movement which decrease the org levels and adds to the potential breakthrough risk due to late arrivals and such.



Somebody mentionned that it could be better to build them behind a river. It is possible altough I'm not so sure it is wise. If I recall corectly, most of France steel and coal resources are in the north-east so if you loose those, you might be in trouble. Of course, this needs to be confirmed.

 

[unmerged(8319)]

One should pay attention to the increase in cost. Ie. lvl 1 costs only 180 days while the rest cost 360 (or does lvl 2 cost less?). Building a lvl 5 fort is really expensive in terms of IC lost from that province. Not only due to the halving, but also because you don't get to upgrade IC either.

 

[dojoboy]

Okay, this thread got me jazzed to play a game as France. It has somewhat turned into an oddity.

It is currently November of 1941 and no one is at war. Poland capitulated to Germany's demands, Czechoslovakia is intact, and the Baltic states and Finland have capitulated to Soviet demands. There was no Winter War between the SU and Finland. Germany did annex Austria.

I built up to level 5 fortressess in Lille, Sedan, and Chaumont. The Maginot Line has level 10 fortressess. I stopped at level 5 because I expected to be at war, when level 5 was completed. Had I expected this, I would have built level 6 and so on. May still. I've 43 divisions deployed and about 170 divisions in strategic reserve (SR). But, my infantry is only at 7 ATT and 13 DEF - not very good. I'm slowly improving my tech, and my allies have been generous. Hopefully, I can significantly increase my ATT/DEF numbers before having to deploy my SR.

I have done a really good job at sharing techs with Belgium and Poland, not that it will turn the tide, but... . I expect war will start first between the SU and Germany, with the SU attacking them. If so, I'll give Germany time to fully engage the Soviets before declaring war. The only problem is they will have a limited front due to Poland's continued existence. After declaring war on Germany, I may have to wait for (sacrifice) Poland to be consumed. This will ensure that, I think, Germany and the SU can really mix it up. I think at this point, the longer it takes for war to erupt, the better position I'll be in.

 

[Christian D]

Nah. The Ai doesnt recognise that the ORG is low. However, it does calculate the defense bonuses (ie: fort levels). So even if the german airforce bombs the shit out of your troops, if you have a good stack and level 5 forts, they wont even attack you by land.

Forts are destroyed from bombings pretty quickly.

The AI will attack you anyway, even if it doesn't calculate org, unless its below normal aggressiveness.

 

[dojoboy]

Forts are destroyed from bombings pretty quickly.

Didn't happen in my recent game as France. I built level 5 forts to the English Channel. It turned out to be a very odd game. And, I wonder if my forts in any way discouraged Germany from declaring war on the Allies.


France: Road to War

 

[Christian D]

Didn't happen in my recent game as France. I built level 5 forts to the English Channel. It turned out to be a very odd game. And, I wonder if my forts in any way discouraged Germany from declaring war on the Allies.


France: Road to War

When Poland gives up Danzig, Germany sometimes just doesn't declare war-without France building forts- and thats on furious, though France sometimes DoWs the Axis. Playing on normal aggressiveness Germany may never declare war when it already has Danzig, forts in the west or not. You'll probably have to wait for SU to DoW Germany.