France?

[ETAIPOS]

I'm looking for suggestions on playing France (want to stay democratic, so no govt change).

They start with almost no mil factories (and 3 months of no production event), and have terrible deficit in weapons, that takes years to fill.
To make matters worse, you have to burn through a lot of equipment you do not have, to gather enough army exp to change templates to sth reasonable (infantry div alone needs at least 35, for eng/sig or eng/rec, 2 line Art and line AT)
With no equipment, you can't really train enough divisions to defend Italian (at least 25 div needed), Maginot (14-20) and Low Countries, not to mention potential Spanish front. And the fact, that UK AI will loose the fight in Africa, you need to send some forces there (10 divisions?)

You have no PP at all, and what little you do have needs to be resrved for mobilisation of economy and population.

They can't research doctrines until it is too late...

What foci should I chose and in what order? What effective template can you suggest? Any general tips?

 

[spartansociety]

It this SP or MP. If it is multiplayer a lot depends on your allies helping. and how good Germany is. You need the allies to send lots of support to hold a Germany with tons of tanks etc. Forts how everyone in this. The up shot is, if you stop Germany you have basically won the game.

If it is SP then:
-grab political power dude first
-go down the tree to remove the PP drain first
- send no forces to Africa, in fact send all divisions from overseas home.
-use all Military experience to improve your one infantry division template until it is decent
- go hard on the infantry, with some artillery
-on normal mode in SP, you can even get some HTD for your divisions
-make sure you take the foci to get extra forts before the war starts
-build some more to fill in the gaps , for example around sweden
-hold the netherlands and belgium if you can, pull back if you cant
-don't waste industry or the airforce etc, rely on britain

 

[Achab]

The fate of France is massively influenced by the election event in May 36. If a neigbouring country is at war (SCW, ITA vs Ethiopia) you have like 50% chance the event will give you one step upgrade on your economic policy. So don't do the tragic mistake of hiring the Silent Workhorse. Instead accumulate 150pps (you need that focus) and switch to Early Mobilisation. You will then be upgraded to Partial Mobilisation by that event.

 

[Tomnoddy]

France is fun, in SP on normal difficulty there is a real sense of danger you won't get playing other nations. Also, you can focus and micromanage one front. There is no need to defend your empire, because the other Allies are likely to do that for you and even if they get beaten, you are still never likely to run short of resources. Staying alive for the first year is the tough bit.

They key is to keep the Rhine and Meuse between you and the Panzer divisions. You will need some fast moving divisions that can move north along the west bank of these rivers as soon as the Benelux countries join the Allies. You will need some Radar installed along the franco belgian border and about 600 modern fighters to stop the Axis bombing your factories and forts to ruins (UK does not base fighters in france). You should probably extend the maginot line 3 provinces towards the belgian border to stop the Germans breaking through here.

First 15-18 months, build CIC, then forts, RAD then MIL.

The national focus that removes the Political Power regen malus is a high priority, but i generally stop running NF after Goverment Reform to get a Silent Workhorse in place then have 150PP banked to change economy laws when the Spanish Civil War starts. After resuming the Focus tree, PP regen is agonisingly slow but as soon as you hit 150 get a Military Theorist to start earning land XP. This is even more important than making your second economic laws change. The first one is important as it helps you build CIC, the second one gives a boost to MIL factory production, but TBH it doesn't matter if you don't get that too early as you'd only be spamming out of date equipment anyway.

Oh yes, army XP. At the beginning, change template on all your divisions to Colonial, then go to the division equipment tab in the Division Designer and have them only use the most obsolete 1918 stuff. That way you can exercise them continually without breaking the good equipment. You might find some divisions don't downgrade to 1918 stuff because there isn't enough to go around, and keep exercising with 1936 equipment. Disband these divisions, eventually this will free up enough 1918 gear so the whole army can use it.

The goal is to bank about 70 XP by Jan 1939 - after which i stop the exercises. I use this XP to make my mobile divisions for Benelux.

These consist of 8 MOT & 2 Light Armour with Support Companies of Anti tank (need to stop those panzers), Engineer (need to dig in, and move fast over rivers), Recon (need to move fast, and get an advantage vs superior generals), Signals (reinforce chance increase - very important).

France has a large stockpile of tanks dating back to the great war. I use the Duplicate function to make separate templates for the different tank models (different speeds). So I end up with about 3 divisions of 1936 tanks rocking 12kph, 4 of the 1934 model with 10kph, and finally 5 or so with great war tanks that only manage 6kph. In the 6kph formations i swap the moto for cav, since mots would be wasted on these slow vehicles.

During the Nazi's initial rush for the low countries, get your starting bomber force doing ground support day and night, and temporarily move all your fighters there to establish (temporary ) air superiority. Once the defenders are in place all the way out to Rotterdam, you can have them return to protecting your industry.

I usually don't get the 75% land doctrine research penalty removed until 1940, i just got so many other priorities. I think most of these are more useful on attack anyway. You will have to micromanage the defence. Rotate fresh divisions in when units are running out of org. If you have units in reserve on less than full org, consider retreating them as they can't regain org while in a province that has combat.

 

[Bernard95]

I've played France as every ideology and you basically have two main strategies- either:

a) You play defensively, wearing the Germans down until equipment and manpower shortages end them. Even if you only have the AI on your side, the combined forces of the UK and France can make life hell for the invading Germans. Take advantage of the Grand Battleplan doctrine with all the extra entrenchment, furthered with fortifications and your Old Guard field marshals. Coincidentally, I've also been able to use the same basic strategy for the Belgians as well- fortify the heck out of everything and stay put, while only occasionally probing for weakness.

b) You go on the attack, attempting to smother Germany in its cradle before they become a problem. Take advantage of your starting armor and motorized divisions and attempt to out blitzkrieg the Germans. If you catch the Germans with their pants down while they're invading the Czechs and/or Poles, you can bum rush a large portion of their industry since a lot of it is conveniently placed right over the Maginot Line and in surrounding provinces. Fighting the Italians, especially if they inevitably tick off the Brits is trivial with one decent army of 24 divisions (throw everything else at the Germans)- just be mindful that your battle plans will probably get messed up along the way, since in all likelihood a portion of your forces will go after Rome and another will move towards Venice and Istria.

Either way, focus on removing the Disjointed Government modifier asap, bring back your various colonial forces (abandon Africa and let the Italians waste their time) and upgrade them to proper infantry, and build nothing but military factories. If you opt for going on the attack especially, you should also generally let your political power build up after you get your first advisor, since the last thing you want is to be out of political power when your manpower drops to zero.

 

[dave1233]

Haven't played France much in SP but in mp I took a different approach.

Drop down to one division at the start and build a training template for exp, that should allow you to build some decent templates. You may have to deploy a bit green and train up but that's not normally the end of the world. I also only took the 120 pp focus then sat off focuses to save 150 pp for the pp adviser, then I went down the french industrial tree to get the extra research slot. You don't need any of the designers really so the extra pp isn't essential early on and the extra factories are always helpful. I'd also only build military factories, you need to be ready for war in 1939 not any later than that and the civs won't have time to pay back before then.

Having said that, I do like achab's idea of going for partial mob, that could be really powerful assuming you get the wt for early mob early enough

 

[Kaosium]

The fate of France is massively influenced by the election event in May 36. If a neigbouring country is at war (SCW, ITA vs Ethiopia) you have like 50% chance the event will give you one step upgrade on your economic policy. So don't do the tragic mistake of hiring the Silent Workhorse. Instead accumulate 150pps (you need that focus) and switch to Early Mobilisation. You will then be upgraded to Partial Mobilisation by that event.

I didn't know you could switch to Early Mob and then get a switch to PM! That makes democratic France a lot more viable.

As for the May first event, I've found it's not quite 50-50, it's also predicated on whether the Matignon event has fired and whether there's any wars going on in the world. If the workers have struck (and you made a deal) I think you get the 'Communists in Government' automatically. The same seems to be the case if Italy has won in Ethiopia and the Spanish Civil War hasn't started yet. Only if you've not made the deal and there's a war going on in the world does it seem to be 50-50.

With democratic France, decide when you want the war to start. If you object to the militarization of the Rhineland in 1936 you can start a winnable war with Germany but will face a civil war at home, which you can also put down with a little effort but some destruction and loss of your best starting generals. If you build the Little Entente you can fight Germany (and usually Italy) in September of 1938 with Czechoslovakia and anyone else you put into your alliance, wait until Italy threatens Yugoslavia and the Anschluss (so Yugoslavia has a border with Germany) before asking them though. You can win that war and it's lots of fun, you can end up fighting the Bear over Poland if they haven't changed it in the recent patches.

Going with Britain is the least advantageous option for France, the war will start in August of 1939 and soon afterward the Germans go for the Low Countries--and you around the Maginot Line. I've not played it since the newest patches but you used to be able to stymie them in the riverlands/rough terrain there and take Italy to task in the Alps. I find special forces, notably Mountaineers and Marines, to be the best option for France in that circumstance, though of course real tanks will also be useful/required.

 

[ETAIPOS]

Ok, so I tried some of suggestions. I tried to build CIC, forts then MIC and I got to 47/56 MIC/CIC, with 10lvl forts in three provinces W of Metz. Managed get line of nice inf divisions, but not enough.

In Alpes 25 of mine divisions barely hold Italians, as even though they loose 10 to 1 in casualties, they are still deorging me. And they just keep coming - for over a month they were banging into same 4 provinces, non-stop, so my units can't reorg. I guess I'd need way more, 10? divisions to rotate them.

But all fell apart when Germans attacked. I managed to get defensive line on Belgian/Dutch rivers. But id doesn't matter, as Germans just picked a province and attacked with 40 divisions. What's more, they had 140 attack across river, into my light entrenchments.

I have to admit AI got better since last year when I was consistently winning the war with Poland* Or maybe France is more difficult?

*without any cheesy moves, waiting till German declaration on 1st september, no earlier expansion, no govt change, it was a matter of waiting them out for a month or so and then counterattacking.

 

[The Nothing]

But all fell apart when Germans attacked. I managed to get defensive line on Belgian/Dutch rivers. But id doesn't matter, as Germans just picked a province and attacked with 40 divisions. What's more, they had 140 attack across river, into my light entrenchments.

One secret to master France, is to often switch your troops on the frontline, do not hesitate to lighten some of your defence to replenish with fresh troops a province under heavy assault, make extensiv use of belgian, dutch and british expeditionnary corps, and do not hesitate to fall back with a few divisions at full org in a province with strong defences, to reinforce a difficult fight.

Why all these advices ?

Switching troops : because the AI will send countless waves against your lines, slowly eating your division's org. It's so effecient it could even work through the Maginot line if you don't pay enough attention. A combination of strong generals, luck, reckless assault and airforce superiority could pierce through your pretty level 10 fortline. Especially if you don't garrison it with enough units, which most people do. As for myself, I station there mere garrison division, 4* inf if I remember right, or 6 * inf + support art. By doing so, you free some troops for other area of the front, but you expose to a reckless attack getting through, so pay some attention to the line.

Lightening your defences : if someone is using 40 of his divisions to attack 6 of yours, then it means you can clearly have lighter defences somewhere, and still have an advantage in ratio. You might still have less divisions than Germany, yet your whole front will less suffer than if dear Germany had 6 divisions attacking you in each province. Beware, however, that after lightening some provinces, the enemy might of course attack you, so you need to pay attention to your frontlines (and to never use the frontline system from the battleplanner, 'cause your units would just do crazy things like abandonning the Maginot line, yes last time I checked it still happened some times....)

Using expeditionnary forces : of course, belgian and dutch troops are poor quality forces. Yet, behind a river, and defending in a forest, or hill, or urban province, they can slow down German divisons for a long time, and even win on their own sometimes, while freeing some french and british divisions to use in less favorable terrains. By the way, I didn't mention it, but using rivers to form good defence lines is also quite important. It is also important to limit as much holding provinces which can be attacked from 3 sides.

Falling back : when you'll try to send some troops reinforcing a province under heavy attack, the AI will most likely attemp an attack on the province you're moving your troops from/through. Your moving troops are no more entrenched, that's a great opportunity for the AI, and also for a player. Such attack will probably go on recklessly, delaying a lot movement of your divisions. Thus, voluntarily retreating, then sending your reinforcement from non bordering provinces is crucial, even if it is slower to do so.

I've played France as every ideology and you basically have two main strategies- either:

If I may, I have a third strategy which works quite well. And it goes like this : attack Germany from its soft belly. A soft belly called.... Italy. In the hands of a player, I think it would be harder to do so than against an AI Italy, however human played Italy would probably still be weaker than human played Germany.

You need to hold long enough for Italy to join the war, and then sustain the first months of fighting in the Alps. Italy will usually have more troops than you do there.... but as time goes, UK and its dominion can help you turn the tide of the war, freeing some divisions to push through the Alps (with a good old battleplan giving a huge attack/breakthrough bonus, or with a harder yet more rewarding encirclement of the italian army between the sea, and Switzerland). Once Italy has fallen you can attack Germany through Austria, grabing some important industrial regions, securing a front were panzers won't be of much help to Germany (while french Alpine divisions can be good).

If you're playing against the AI, that second front will most likely make AI Germany sends lots of troops to contain you in Austria, while a corps of 24 divisions is far enough to hold it. It will most likely allow you to take back the low countries, and even perhaps attack the eastern bank of the Rhine, and take the whole Rhineland ! At that point, Germany will still have the upperhand in manpower, and divisions, yet it industrial capacity would be on a par with yours.

 

[Kaosium]

I didn't know you could switch to Early Mob and then get a switch to PM! That makes democratic France a lot more viable.

Having started a game to try this it soon became apparent it cannot work on Veteran setting as there's no way on God's green earth France can get to 150 PP by May First. Even trying it on the medium setting is a wing and a prayer, you need more than 5% threat and the Rhineland will give you only 5 thus the Spanish Civil War must have fired and Italy cannot have conquered Ethiopia. At best those are maybe 50-50 and even with the parameters set 'The People Have the Right to Feel Safe' only comes up about half the time. I'd guess you have on the order of a 10% chance for all those to fall in line for you and thus it wouldn't be a worthwhile gamble in multiplayer and if you really want to do it in SP you'll likely have to reload until you get it.

 

[dave1233]

Having started a game to try this it soon became apparent it cannot work on Veteran setting as there's no way on God's green earth France can get to 150 PP by May First. Even trying it on the medium setting is a wing and a prayer, you need more than 5% threat and the Rhineland will give you only 5 thus the Spanish Civil War must have fired and Italy cannot have conquered Ethiopia. At best those are maybe 50-50 and even with the parameters set 'The People Have the Right to Feel Safe' only comes up about half the time. I'd guess you have on the order of a 10% chance for all those to fall in line for you and thus it wouldn't be a worthwhile gamble in multiplayer and if you really want to do it in SP you'll likely have to reload until you get it.

If you take the 120 pp focus you can easily get the pp

 

[Kaosium]

I'd also only build military factories, you need to be ready for war in 1939 not any later than that and the civs won't have time to pay back before then.

You end up with more military factories in the long run (meaning by August 1939) if you first build a significant number of Civ Facs. The exact number depends on the setting you play and the options you take and when you do the Industrial tree, but starting from the beginning building only military factories means you'll only be building on average about one per month and the most you'll end up with by August 1939 is about 60.

If you take the 120 pp focus you can easily get the pp

Not on Veteran, you start bleeding 0.3 PP per day and only have 99 left of the 120 you get for Government Reform on March 11th, 1936. If you then sit without a focus you're only gaining 0.7 a day and will be at about 134 PP on May First, 1936.

 

[dave1233]

Not on Veteran, you start bleeding 0.3 PP per day and only have 99 left of the 120 you get for Government Reform on March 11th, 1936. If you then sit without a focus you're only gaining 0.7 a day and will be at about 134 PP on May First, 1936.

Didn't realise veteran also lowered the amount of pp you got, thanks for pointing that out.

You end up with more military factories in the long run (meaning by August 1939) if you first build a significant number of Civ Facs. The exact number depends on the setting you play and the options you take and when you do the Industrial tree, but starting from the beginning building only military factories means you'll only be building on average about one per month and the most you'll end up with by August 1939 is about 60.

Will have to do a playthrough but I think the civs just take too long to pay back.

Assuming instead of the civ you build 1 and a half mils, then that civ will start pumping out a mil factory every 564 days (1939 construction tech, export focus, level 7 infra, partial mob). That means to get the same amount of military production the civ needs 1694 days to break even (about 4.5 years). Not a perfect comparison because it doesn't factor in that later you have better factory techs so the mils are more efficient then, but it also doesn't factor in that the mils built later will also need to get up to efficiency, so assuming they about cancel out, I don't think france can afford to wait until mid 1940 for the civ to pay back

 

[Kaosium]

If you take the 120 pp focus you can easily get the pp

Didn't realise veteran also lowered the amount of pp you got, thanks for pointing that out.


Will have to do a playthrough but I think the civs just take too long to pay back.

Assuming instead of the civ you build 1 and a half mils, then that civ will start pumping out a mil factory every 564 days (1939 construction tech, export focus, level 7 infra, partial mob). That means to get the same amount of military production the civ needs 1694 days to break even (about 4.5 years). Not a perfect comparison because it doesn't factor in that later you have better factory techs so the mils are more efficient then, but it also doesn't factor in that the mils built later will also need to get up to efficiency, so assuming they about cancel out, I don't think france can afford to wait until mid 1940 for the civ to pay back

With Military factories every so many you build lowers your production of them so while you may start building about 1.5 a month your production rate will steadily decline until you're averaging less than one per month from there on. You also won't have much of any production to build a fortress line or much of anything else for that matter by the time you are done. With Civ Facs every so many you build significantly increases your production rate (outside the one which will go to pay the civilian goods tax) so you soon reach a point where you can build more at a time, enough so there's a significant increase in the final total and by the end you'll also be able to build a fortress line (or whatever else) drastically faster as well.


There's some tricks to getting every last ounce out of France's production. Build your factories one at a time (per province, you'll need more than one province building factories initially) so when one completes the next most-complete one immediately moves up so that ones being built by fractions of 15 factories (like the second one at the start) moves up to be worked upon by the full fifteen production line. That will ensure the next one gets built as fast as it can be so it will start helping your production sooner. When you start, build only on Pas de Calais and Ile de France, the 80% infrastructure provinces, and you'll soon get more spaces on them through your industry techs and more 80% (and sometimes 90%) provinces to build on with Metropolitan France, which is currently randomly giving out the bonus infrastructure so you don't know what you're gonna get.

Building an average of 3 per month for 18 months is better than building 1.25 or so per month for 42 months.

 

[Tomnoddy]

In Alpes 25 of mine divisions barely hold Italians, as even though they loose 10 to 1 in casualties, they are still deorging me. And they just keep coming - for over a month they were banging into same 4 provinces, non-stop, so my units can't reorg.

I managed to get defensive line on Belgian/Dutch

I didn't realise you were playing on Veteran difficulty. I'd probably stick with Normal, that provides enough of a challenge playing historically.

Rotating divisions is essential because the enemy never stops attacking Liége and Eindhoven. They attack with max frontage of units and as soon as that attach runs out of org, another army group attacks the next hour. Divisions in these provinces never get a chance to regen org. You should have enough units to cover the frontage width of the battle and the rest should be moved out to a quiet province to regen org.

If you can hold on for 6 to 9 months, the enemy divisions start looking seriously banged up and things get much easier. The air war over france also lasts at least 4 months, till all their strategic bombers are shot down. Prioritise repair of your radars, then CIC, and any land forts that are getting dangerously low. After that they've probably run out of rubber, so the bombing stops.

 

[MadDjinn]

Defensively I found that 14 entrenched shovel carrying infantry units, with the old guard, do wonders on Alsace to prevent the Germans from even trying to attack for quite some time. I just set them on guarding the forts and make sure they cover the right ones. Adding radar there really does help keep the skies cleared. AA is a nice to have as well.

I did start to use guard there instead of a front line as it made them move off the forts less.

I also tend to add a few more mountaineer units on the Italian line and give the hills 2 each plus an infantry. the city gets a few extra. That side also gets the old guard entrenchment plan on the guarded forts.

The Italians have a bad tendency to be either in Greece or Yugoslavia's borderlands when the war starts. Once in a while they are ready on the French border, but the reserve armies can help back up the sides getting attacked.

Offensively, yeah you can sometimes get Germany attacking you while their whole army is near Poland, but mostly they'll be near you. Using a breakthrough plan to push to the next river can really help, but when in doubt just re guard the Alsace forts and wait.

Belgium/Netherlands have a tendancy to just hand over all of their units, which makes everything easier if they did it before the Germans blitzed them. Hold the line behind the rivers and push down the coast of Italy to get into the Alps. The UK will drop tonnes of invasions on the Germans, so eventually one may stick and you win with encirclements. Or the Russians faceroll Germany.

I don't usually bother with the training bit. I just build up supplies where possible and change templates after the first bits of fighting (after going CIC mainly til the war kicks in, aside from a few once I've two or 3 ish full civilian lines running). The AI doesn't usually go pro on breaking forts.

A few troops in Africa can help prevent the AIs from dropping mass units down there. Rush the harbours and just hold them - everything else will slowly die.

 

[henzington]

I have had success naval landing in order to cut off the Italian forces when rushing down the boot. With these extra factories it is quite easy to out produce the Germans especially if you form the little entente.

 

[ETAIPOS]

So, I finally managed to hold out as France (3rd attempt)

I went for initial CIC build-up until I had almost three full building lines. And MIC from then on. I also used all industrial foci to increase production. Other constructions were 3x8 forts in between end of Maginot and place where Meuse turns north, into Belgium, 4 additional forts in Alps, one in each of the endangered provinces, and 2 AA there. During the war I added radar sites along both fronts. After the war started I converted 4-5 CIC to MIC, but as trade with other Allies ramped up I was able to keep 2,5 construction lines.

I switched all Infantry divisions to colonial template after shipping them all home. They were training till Feb 1939, and this with the Theorist gave me enough XP to construct templates... with only one small cheat (giving myself back xp used for Alpine template, as it was the same as infantry). Though it turned out unnecessary as leftover xp and fighting in Alps gave me enough to work on LARM templates before they were needed (invasion of Low Countries).
As main force I used Infantry divisions 8Inf, Art with Rec/Eng/AT/Art Support, and mountaineers with identical template. LARM (or DLM as French call it) had 3 LT, 6 MOT, with Rec/Art/Eng, and later, during 1940, I added to add SPART and Signal. All tank units were turned to this template. MOT divisions got only support (Rec/Eng/Art/AT) and I had to turn one of them to colonial inf to get the trucks I needed for tanks. Later (late 1940) they got 2xSPART.

I trained some 20 additional colonial divisions to be switched to normal inf template as production allowed, and managed to do it before war.

With careful micro, my line in Alps kept well with 20-22 divisions and air cover. Against Germans, I entered LC with more than third of my forces including all LARM and MOT, and established defensive line on Meuse. Here it also required much micro to survive, but it worked well, esp after I got NED and BEL divisions under my command. Around historical time Germans declared on Denmark and Norway, sending away some forces I managed to crush 4-5 divisions but was forced to retire, and for some reason AI decided it is too weak take to Kopenhagen itself (after taking entire island).
Holding straits proven impossible as I was unable to keep forces in Denmark. Even 2 divs they gave me could not be supplied, no matter total naval superiority (in fact, total destruction on German navy)

This also allowed British to finally land in Wilhelmshaven with 20 divisions and expand towards NED. It again required me to send forces there to stop them from killing themselves, as they expanded without taking into account the need to keep flanks covered... Thankfully the invasion, or growing number of Belgian divisions (or both) made Germans stop attacking, so I had some forces to spare.
After some time invasion stalled, and left Germans stretched out in thin but unbeakable, 1-2 prov line from Hague almost to Rhur, with east front of landings along the Weser. I tried to break out into eastern Belgium, but it turned nigh impossible, I made bridgehead on the other side of Meuse from Liege, but couldn't break out from there. Germans seemed unbeatable until my forces entered from Alps after capitulation of Italy.

One thing that I found strange, was how much effort I had to put in defeating Italians after they burned all equipment in constant Alpine attacks. Yes, they were not much of a threat, but it still took disproportionate long time to dislodge them from positions, and in times they kept never-ending attack even though they had less than 15%-20% strength and less than 10 org at all times... True that I had way less divisions (25?) against their (initially) a hundred or so, but mine were full strength almost all the time. It seems 12 20% divs can hold out longer than 2-3 divisions.
They finally broke down after they lost all manpower, from reserve and from units themselves, after I landed in south, near Taranto and expanded from there, finally reaching Rome.

I used 2 major cheats:
As AI decided to support Axis with Hungary after Second Vienna Award I was forced to reload and use console to make Hungary Allied. Why? They were pro-german and nationalistic but not suicidal. Besides, they joined war only during Barbarossa, and I do not believe they would if France held and started winning. They were not eager to be in war, as evident by refusal to give military access to Germans prior invasion of Poland, and mostly free passage for Polish troops.
I'd prefer to force them to stay neutral, but I don't know how.

I also teleported 8 Polish divisions to Africa after Poland started loosing (interesting that they held till November) and gave them myself as expeditionary force. I wanted to have Polish Army in Exile I would agree 8 divs is a bit too much... 4-5 would be more appropriate. After securing N Africa, I gave Poland strip of land with Benghazi, as there was no other way to send LL to them, and they didn't want to take supplies straight from my stocks. Interestingly, one division got South African guns, but those could be from LL delivered during defence of Poland.
Similarly, I "saved" two invasion forces (10 and 8 divisions) UK wanted to send to die in Wilhelmshaven soon after the war started, tag-swithing and making them expeditionary. Though, as they were preparing in Pas de Calais, I consider myself excused

 

[SahintheFalcon]

I'm going to give the people the benefit of the doubt here and assume that they're talking about singleplayer. Otherwise there's a lot of bad advice going around. I really do want to help the OP though, he seems sincere. Anyway, here we go.

The #1 objective of any multiplayer game is that you need to be ready for war the moment it is permitted to happen. In the most obvious circumstance, you need to be ready when Germany invades you. Keep in mind that the Axis have the initiative in most games. But if Germany doesn't happen to be ready, you declare war on him and take the fight to Berlin.

Without going into too many exhausting details, I will outline several errors and fallacies that 95% of players in multiplayer make, especially pertaining to France. France is weak for a major, so perfect play is required. Nothing less than that. You need to be ruthless. 95% of players can't seem to get this around their heads. I'm actually not kidding when I say 95%. In dozens and dozens of games I actually never seen anyone play France without making one of these key errors:

- Basic errors: Not getting rid of disjointed government ASAP, not getting the factories focuses, making anything other than infantry/artillery, leaving extraneous divisions in the colonies, trading with your enemies, etc. Not much debate here. People haven't done their homework if they do debate this. Now, on to more common errors/fallacies that will get you into trouble if you try to argue these in the average teamspeak...

- If you're not on partial mobilization (or war economy for fascists/communists) the instant world tension hits 15%, you've basically cost yourself the game against any competent player. Period. Don't go early mobilization in the VAST majority of cases. If you get early mobilization from the event, good. If not, save for partial unless you can detect that Axis will keep WT under 15% until 1938 (EXTREMELY rare - I have only been in this circumstance ONCE in over 50 games). And for the love of God, do not go for the silent workhorse.
- Always assume world tension will hit 100% sooner rather than later. Don't be caught with your pants down when an opportunity arises. This includes wasting time in 1936-1937 making civilian factories, wasting time making forts, and deleting your entire army down to 1 division. Doing this in a multiplayer game means you can't see the forest from the trees. Hearts of Iron 4 is not about maxing out your efficiency as if you're playing in a bubble. it's about maximizing opportunities.
- Assume war will begin by 1939. Nothing less than 120 infantry divisions at this point will suffice. If you get your build down correctly, you should be prepared by summer of 1938 at the latest.
- Forts are last priority. To be constructed ONLY after you have used up every last drop of manpower before going onto Extensive Conscription when war starts. I feel I need to reiterate this point. With 100 divisions from the UK + 120 French divisions, you will hold Germany at the border, forts or no forts (as long as UK maintains air superiority, which is easy to accomplish in the game's current balance). A good UK/Commonwealth team should be able to provide 150 divisions by mid-1939, so 100 really is a minimum level for the metagame. Without help from the UK, you may as well Alt-F4 and exit the match, because you aren't going to beat Germany even if you have level 10 forts across the entire border. The only circumstance in which forts are helpful are when the UK player is an idiot and Germany is also an idiot, in which case you're literally playing a game surrounded by noobs and it's a waste of your time anyway.

I realize that much of this may be a shock, but feel free to test some of this stuff out and I can provide an iron-stamped guarantee that it will work.

 

[SahintheFalcon]

With Military factories every so many you build lowers your production of them so while you may start building about 1.5 a month your production rate will steadily decline until you're averaging less than one per month from there on. You also won't have much of any production to build a fortress line or much of anything else for that matter by the time you are done. With Civ Facs every so many you build significantly increases your production rate (outside the one which will go to pay the civilian goods tax) so you soon reach a point where you can build more at a time, enough so there's a significant increase in the final total and by the end you'll also be able to build a fortress line (or whatever else) drastically faster as well.

Building an average of 3 per month for 18 months is better than building 1.25 or so per month for 42 months.

This here is the single biggest fallacy in alllllll of Hearts of Iron 4, and it's one of the reasons my winrate is near 100%. Building 1.25 per month for 42 months is actually FAR better than building 3 per month for 18 months. Let me rephrase that for you:
Option A: Build 1.25 military factories per month for 42 months straight.
Option B. Build 0 military factories per month for 26 months, then build 3 per month for 18 months.

What you (and admittedly 75% of the playerbase) is advocating is a sacrificing TWO YEARS of military production in favor of a higher factory count at the end. Having a higher factory count doesn't mean jack if it takes you so long to even start making those factories that they have no time to produce anything.

What truly matters is your aggregate production, not your final production rate. If you build civilian factories for even a single year, it will literally take until 1940-1942 (depending on your nation) for you to even break even with having made military factories from Day 1, if we are measuring aggregate production. Please, test it out for yourself: Delete all your men and build only Weapons I, and check your logistics tab for how much have made by 1940. The only benefit to your strat is that with a higher military factory count later on, you have greater flexibility to make more advanced equipment. In other words, a higher percentage of your aggregate production will be the more advanced equipment, but in my experience this effect is totally dwarfed by the much more common scenario in which war begins before 1940.