The State of France

[guprad]

Most of all, I'm freaking disappointed that Paradox is standing by the 70-day focus tree model. I'm not advocating switching all French focuses from 70d to 35d, but France could definitely use the same rich and extensive focus tree as Spain. That's the idea of a nation rework, and if the Soviets/Italy are going to receive the same thing as France did, while Finland/Poland get the Spanish rework, it's going to be very, very disappointing.

What do you mean that you are disappointed that paradox is using the 70 day focus model if you don't want to reduce the time on the focuses? And it's highly likely that the Soviets/ Italians will be done by Archangel the guy who made the French focus tree, can't be done by Bratyn who made the Spanish tree because he left the team already. France's tree is already extensive and big. After playing both I do not think that Spain is a better tree than France, they seem about the same to me. France has a lot of different choices it can do in the beginning and different strategies you can pursue. France's tree won't change anymore.

Spain has the ability to core the provinces that belonged to it at the peak of its colonial expansion, provided that they have high compliance enough. Not being historical is not an argument here, though. It's about the options the focus tree brings, and the quality of the rework.

Spain can only core territories that belonged to them in the beginning of the civil war, only anarchist spain can core provinces that otherwise belong to it. Carlist Spain can core portugal territories if they accept annexation. Every other spain can't core any other territories other than ones that belong to mainland spain. Point me to a focus that shows that falangist spain can core territories that is not in iberia.

 

[Secret Master]

Just because you can basically load up the game and play from 1936 to 1945, it doesn't mean it's just fine in SP. You having lower standards doesn't make it okay to be a subpar rework. Honestly, it doesn't feel like you've read any of my points brought up in the main post at all.

I did, and they seem to boil down to France being weaker than the other major powers.

Some examples from your own post that indicate this kind of thinking:

For example, you complain here about me "beating the AI."

This is gonna sound rude so I'm sorry in advance, but if you think this post is about "being able to beat the AI Germany 1v1", then you're totally missing the point. Congratulations though, you've managed to beat the AI.

But in your initial post, you had these complaints:

Among its main challenges is getting rid of the Disjointed Government debuff, and while Fascists might be able to rid themselves of it fairly easily (racking up Fascist support at the cost of Stability > regenerating Stability with its unique advisor), the rest are about 420 to 785 (!) days long.

On top of that, France is locked out of its rearmament focus tree until later in the game that the world tension spikes far enough. And while that makes perfect sense, coupled with the rest of the focus trees you're left completely unable to actually get your stuff in time.

It's also the common meta for France to just drop most of its mainland-related focuses until late and build up their industry in Algiers / Africa, however that doesn't even remotely solve the issue.

All of these posts seem to point to an inability to actually beat Germany. If you can win the war, then why would any of this matter? You overcame a tough challenge and a poor starting position to win the game. What else do you want? Whip cream on your sundae instead of fudge?

You even make this statement in your first post:

The player should be offered challenges, and opportunities to overcome them. The idea is to allow people to succeed if they calculate it right, but there's no way to skip the focuses.

Well, there you go. Overcome those challenges. Succeed and win the war.

You then make this statement in your reply to me:

Because Germany beats itself with attrition 90% of the time, not to mention it attacks one single province which is easily microed against, so as long as you have some basic 24-div army on the Belgian border, a 10-16-div on the Maginot and 24 with the Italians that can hold the basic line, you're in the clear.

Does that mean you are or are not overcoming the challenges France faces?

You say this in your first post:

So, now it sounds like you can beat the Germans just fine. Or is it that you are able to defend France, but you can't go on the attack? If you can keep your position on the continent, you should be able to eventually go on the attack with even a mediocre industrial plan going forward from 1939.

But then you also mention this:

Balance-wise, it's practically worse off than the pre-rework state. The only benefits this rework brings is an ability to form the French Union into 1942-45+ and alt historical paths, some of which are just meh. The experience of playing France has largely stayed the same — you're still doing nothing, you're still helpless, you're still playing a "void" country.

How in the Hell is France helpless if even a weak player of France like myself can be sipping lattes in Berlin in 1941 using the democratic path? How is wiping a milling Italians in 6 months "doing nothing" as I prepare for the Rome offensive so I can capitulate Italy? How is it weak if the army of democratic France can beat the Soviets to Berlin despite more German tanks and planes in the field.

Isn't that part of the fun? The challenge of winning even under less than ideal conditions?

Then you say this:

You could say it makes sense since France was messed up IRL, but that's not how game design works.

To which I can only reply:

Well, if you think France being "messed up IRL" is too challenging, just turn difficulty down. France wasn't in the best situation economically or politically during the time frame of the game. If you don't like that, why even play HOI4 in the first place?

You do talk about the alternate history paths, but so much of your first post is focused on complaining about modifiers like Disjointed government, rearmament, 70 day focus times, and dropping the focuses for the mainland completely to focus on the colonies and Algeria, I think I can be forgiven for thinking that you are primarily concerned with not being able to waltz around Europe and just easily defeat every country in five minutes.

 

[Metroidkirby]

France has a lot of different choices it can do in the beginning and different strategies you can pursue.

No, there is one single strategy: You rush to remove your disjointed government.

You do talk about the alternate history paths, but so much of your first post is focused on complaining about modifiers like Disjointed government, rearmament, 70 day focus times, and dropping the focuses for the mainland completely to focus on the colonies and Algeria, I think I can be forgiven for thinking that you are primarily concerned with not being able to waltz around Europe and just easily defeat every country in five minutes.

He insists on it, because if you play France, you need to face all of it. Wanting a better focus tree doesn't mean an easier one. The historical focus tree contains the Blum-Viollette proposal, which is... ahistorical and never happened. That's the quality of this focus tree. It can't be a finished product like this.

 

[yerro]

What do you mean that you are disappointed that paradox is using the 70 day focus model if you don't want to reduce the time on the focuses? And it's highly likely that the Soviets/ Italians will be done by Archangel the guy who made the French focus tree, can't be done by Bratyn who made the Spanish tree because he left the team already. France's tree is already extensive and big. After playing both I do not think that Spain is a better tree than France, they seem about the same to me. France has a lot of different choices it can do in the beginning and different strategies you can pursue. France's tree won't change anymore.

I don't want the French focused just reduced to 35 days as a solution, I want an overhaul that introduces an actual sensible chain for each area: industry, rearmament, politics, alt history.

I mean if they're the same to you then you're a denialist at best, but you do you.

I did, and they seem to boil down to France being weaker than the other major powers.

Some examples from your own post that indicate this kind of thinking:

For example, you complain here about me "beating the AI."

How is that the conclusion you came to? I'm making the points that France NEEDS to be weak as it was IRL, but it needs to be delivered in the shape of challenges to the player. For example, the U.S. was too fucked to leave its isolationism early, but that option is presented to the player for an economical cost (prolonged recovery).

All of these posts seem to point to an inability to actually beat Germany. If you can win the war, then why would any of this matter? You overcame a tough challenge and a poor starting position to win the game. What else do you want? Whip cream on your sundae instead of fudge?

A three-province Poland can win against Germany, doesn't mean it's a healthy and good design though.

You seem to be trying to target some "inability" of mine to beat Germany. I've beaten Germany as Popular Front Dem in the Allies, as Popular Front Dem with the Strasa Front, as National Bloc in both Allies and Little Entente, as Orleanist Monarchist Fortress France, as Napoleonic.

But hey, yeah, let's try to derail this by attacking my skill as if that solves the problem or dismisses the points about the quality of the rework in the areas of immersion, sensibility, balance, timing and meta.

Well, there you go. Overcome those challenges. Succeed and win the war.

That's not a challenge. Sitting with no political power isn't a rewarding experience. Having to manage how to spend that political power is. Load up Fuhrerreich and give some of the reworked nations a go. While it is too lenient on giving the players political power, it's also pretty strict on taking it away (Soviets, for example).

How in the Hell is France helpless if even a weak player of France like myself can be sipping lattes in Berlin in 1941 using the democratic path? How is wiping a milling Italians in 6 months "doing nothing" as I prepare for the Rome offensive so I can capitulate Italy? How is it weak if the army of democratic France can beat the Soviets to Berlin despite more German tanks and planes in the field.

Isn't that part of the fun? The challenge of winning even under less than ideal conditions?

Because again, beating an AI (or capability to beat an AI) isn't an argument here. AI beats itself due to poor management of the frontlines, divisions and combat width, airforce, issues with causing self-attrition, tactics (it miscalculates which provinces to attack, i.e. France can easily hold the border as ANY ideology by just building level 5 frontlines along the Belgian border and level 6-7 in Sedan, which Germany AI tends to attack).

You do talk about the alternate history paths, but so much of your first post is focused on complaining about modifiers like Disjointed government, rearmament, 70 day focus times, and dropping the focuses for the mainland completely to focus on the colonies and Algeria, I think I can be forgiven for thinking that you are primarily concerned with not being able to waltz around Europe and just easily defeat every country in five minutes.

I think you can be forgiven for being insulted to be told that you're wrong. Do bother to read the actual post without thinking that you need to fish something to say against me, but actually read the points therein.

I'm talking about the quality, the experience of playing France.

- Having a believable storyline offered to the player in each game. The U.S. gets the Congress/Senate mechanics, the UK gets plenty of options to intervene in the world/interact with its Commonwealth, China has a unique warlord / province control, same goes for Spain with its bonuses, the NL is about relocating safely to the Dutch East Indies, Mexico gets a plethora of turmoil-related events. France gets jackshit, calling in a random guy that has no support and offering the player no justifiable story as to how some Orleanist Monarch comes to power and just happens to be the guy. Not even mentioning who the fuck's actually /running/ the country, considering that Jean dude is a constitutional monarch, after all. France also has enormous potential with its Matignon agreements and political violence. Instead, they're added as mere debuffs you just watch and get rid of in a gamey manner, and it doesn't feel rewarding.
- Having a balanced focus tree that allows France to focus on either rebuilding its industry or rearming in time. Not leaving the naval / air parts of the focus tree just to lay around there uselessly, giving you bonuses that you'll get to only after 1943, when you've already conquered the world and fuck if you need 100% off your next fighters. Having a /usable/ focus tree. There's absolutely no explanation behind giving the Pop Front Dem several more focuses than the National Bloc Dem that keep it even more busy to get-- extra air research speed air company? A few more mils?
- Having interesting characters (generals) and some actual interaction to allow certain leaders to come to power and introduce their doctrinal changes. Look at Spain with its many memorable generals that each have their allegiances to either the Republicans or the Nationalists in the civil war, as well as the means to "sway" them over to the Nationalist cause. Load up Kaiserreich and give the American Civil War a try if you want to see what it's like to have memorable characters that you can relate to.
- Providing a rewarding experience to the player. This is a concept many seem to be absolutely unable to get, but from the point of game design, you don't crush the player under unrewarding penalties all the time, you give them means to direct their power. In other words, Disjointed Government is an amazing mechanic, but it should be presented to vthe palyer in a different manner. Load up Kaiserreich and try the Commune of France; think of merging those systems and actually making the player SPEND their PP actively, calculating the best and most optimal candidates to push forward in their government to actually RID the government of the volatile elements and assume control. Which could also be an extremely good basis for alt history paths (going commie, fascist, monarchists).

Or well, you can pout and pull things outta context to attack my skill, knowledge or whatever to make yourself better. You do you.

 

[CantGetNoSleep]

Going back to the original post:

- yes France is very badly nerfed in this update. There’s simply zero chance of holding it in MP. There wasn’t in the pre LaRes update either, but at least you could make Germany sweat for it.

- I find it amusing the devs decided that in order to make sure France really really collapses, they gave them more problems than anyone else. Sure France has issues but... anyway we all know them but just to remind everyone how silly this is:
- Political violence
- Inefficient economy
- full employment
- disjointed government
- Victors of the Great War
Most of these requires about five focuses - a year - to fix. Some take longer. So you can’t fix them all before the war kicks off.

- Vichy now gets all the provinces so if the German player does it (and the rules don’t ban it) it’s more or less game over for you. That makes it even more boring than playing as NZ.

- Some of that is because MP games are completely toxic with so many rules that remove options (eg no strat bombers, Allies can’t send troops to France except UK, etc) and so many pro-Germany rules that all everyone does is build 40w tanks mediums and heavy. That cripples France even more.

Side note: The game is generally very pro-fascists - even the generic trees have incredibly strong fascist paths and rather pathetic democratic ones. Makes one wonder about the devs politics. Devs...?!

I think in general fascists should get a massive stability and research hit - there were no coups against democratic leaders, but there were many attempts against fascists for example.

To go back to the tree yes it totally sucks in MP but current MP games are toxic (and really boring) anyway unless you’re playing off the main ones or doing role play. On the usual “competitive” servers, the same guys do the same thing over and over again and cry like babies if anyone does anything different that might break their meta.

In single player, the focus tree is awesome, because - aside from the easy win Little Entente - if you can hold until 1941, some of the buffs start to kick in and the you gradually become economically massively stronger than Germany, which is hilarious.

PS: and France has the best advisors in the game - once you have enough PP...

 

[yerro]

PS: and France has the best advisors in the game - once you have enough PP...

Just gonna say this much, when LR just came out, I was fairly impressed with the advisors available to France. It had some unique and unorthodox options, like the Technocrat dude granting you construction speed + research, etcetera.

But yeah, you nailed it — once you have enough PP. The thing is, with most countries I manage to get enough PP to change my laws here and there, get a couple of advisors, get the industrial/weapon/armor/aircraft designers, a theorist, I like to even get the illusive gentleman for spies (man, I just love spies), and then fill a couple of my military staff roles.

With France? Yeah, you'll get your silent workhorse with the 120 PP focus, but after that you're a sitting duck. You're stuck for up to 2 years generating heavily diminished PP. Even the U.S. gets more of it back in its hands despite being arguably in a more fucked position (but then again, its government is actually more in control than that of France).

Oh and to add on a totally separate note, if anything, Fascist France is too strong. Allow a Fascist France in your games (but still have it fight Germany) and it'll be unbreakable for a long while.

 

[guprad]

Side note: The game is generally very pro-fascists - even the generic trees have incredibly strong fascist paths and rather pathetic democratic ones. Makes one wonder about the devs politics. Devs...?!

Don't make this political please, I don't see why you care what the devs support, they have anarchists there too, no one complains about them, please don't make this political.

PS: and France has the best advisors in the game - once you have enough PP...

France has good advisors yes, but I don't know about the best, Germany has dope advisors as well, also they have two silent workhorse advisors .

I think in general fascists should get a massive stability and research hit - there were no coups against democratic leaders, but there were many attempts against fascists for example.

Strong disagree with this point, no reason why fascists should take a research hit as Germans did launch the first rockets. While I am unsure if democracies had any coups there was the battle of cable street against Oswald Mosley, which probably should also be a stability penalty but which doesn't exist in the game, I'm fairly sure that every nation has people who oppose a regime, so fascist regimes weren't particularly unstable compared to democratic regimes, the weimer republic was fairly unstable, the National Socialist regime was more stable than it, at least in the beginning .

 

[CantGetNoSleep]

Don't make this political please, I don't see why you care what the devs support, they have anarchists there too, no one complains.

Oh please don’t lecture.... I wouldn't play this game if I thought the devs were neo-nazis, no. Would you? I don't think they are but my point is that the game lacks balance for the minors. There’s really no point whatsoever ever going democratic. That lacks depths and I wish the devs did something about it.

Strong disagree with this point, no reason why fascists should take a research hit as Germans did launch the first rockets. While I am unsure if democracies had any coups there was the battle of cable street against Oswald Mosley, which probably should also be a stability penalty but which doesn't exist in the game, I'm fairly sure that every nation has people who oppose a regime, so fascist regimes weren't particularly unstable compared to democratic regimes, the weimer republic was fairly unstable, the National Socialist regime was more stable than it, at least in the beginning .

Well the stability came, in large part, because the fascists themselves were no longer trying to overthrow the government. But no, it wasn’t stable. Night of the long knives? 20 July plot? The place was a powder keg and the gestapo was just as busy keeping a lid on thing at home as they were in France.

As for research, there was an enormous brain drain. Yes the Germans had rockets, but that’s because they poured their entire efforts into them. The allies had computers (breaking the enigma) vastly superior radars, better artillery, much more advanced manufacturing technologies, better planes (with the possible exception of fighters), and of course the bomb. In game terms, that means by 1942, the Germans would be behind on almost every tech except rocketry, tanks and fighters - and particularly industry techs.

This is partially reflected in the give refuge to German and Italian scientists (at an unaffordable PP cost for France!) decision, but Germany and Italy do not get a debuff. Japan does, which is right. To be fair, in single player, they sort of do because they can't go free trade. In MP, it's easier for Germany and Japan to go free trade than anyone else because they have so much PP and then just trade with each other. And they can sustain the consumer goods hit because they're on war economy - so perversely they actually get a research buff vs everyone else except the USA. That's a bit ridiculous. It might easily be solved by preventing fascists doing anything other than limited exports/closed economy.

 

[Leinad965]

France has too harsh penalties, but I like the new focus tree. You need to think, to make a strategy, not just click focuses and do them all before war. I did not tried monarchy yet, only fascist and both democratic.

Only I miss more war goals when play as democratic. I want to attack Iraq or Iran to kill German oil supplies and improve my oil situation and it is not possible as democracy. These kind of goals are available for UK, but not for France.

 

[CantGetNoSleep]

Only I miss more war goals when play as democratic. I want to attack Iraq or Iran to kill German oil supplies and improve my oil situation and it is not possible as democracy. These kind of goals are available for UK, but not for France.

I think anyone trading with your enemies should be a legitimate war goal target. It's not an issue for fascists and communists as they can declare, but as democracies, you should be able to declare on anyone trading with Germany, Italy or Japan. Historically, the allies did declare on Iraq and Iran for that reason, and probably would have done on Sweden if they could to stop the iron flow. Similarly, had the Swedes not been accomodating to the Germans on iron or worse still, exported to the Allies, Germany would probably have declared.

 

[guprad]

Well the stability came, in large part, because the fascists themselves were no longer trying to overthrow the government. But no, it wasn’t stable. Night of the long knives? 20 July plot? The place was a powder keg and the gestapo was just as busy keeping a lid on thing at home as they were in France.

The Germans already have lower stability than Britain though, fairly sure during war the Germans have like 66% stability and Britain has near 100%. Night of the long knives made the government more stable, and the July 20 plot, wasn't that done by people who were acting like terrorists? I mean Stauffenberg planted a bomb to kill the leaders of the government, I'm fairly sure that planting a bomb to get what you want is a terrorist act, anyone who plants a bomb to kill the leaders of the government count as terrorists. There are terrorist attacks today in every portion of the world, even democracies.

Oh please don’t lecture.... I wouldn't play this game if I thought the devs were neo-nazis, no. Would you? I don't think they are but my point is that the game lacks balance for the minors. There’s really no point whatsoever ever going democratic. That lacks depths and I wish the devs did something about it.

If they were National Socialists, I would still play this game, it wouldn't matter to me what their political ideology is, because it has no effect on the game itself that I play. I don't see why people really care what their ideology is, I can still enjoy the game, everyone is allowed to have their own opinion. I do agree with you that democracies can be improved vastly.

 

[SmashingQuasar]

So I made a long post a few weeks ago about the French focus tree which was rather detailed about what was wrong. I invite you to read it @Mescaline because I think you may agree with most of it. I read your post and I agree with most.

Here is the original topic: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-french-focus-tree-needs-a-rebalance.1365809/

Now I am concerned by what I have read so far on this thread. Yes, democratic France is strong now because you basically get an alliance with everyone. The problem is that... Well democracies are sadly not fun in this game. It's really horrible how crippled they are.

I know we will probably never see any change made to this focus tree. I believe that "France has to fall" meme is something that Paradox supports. It is common knowledge that France fell because of an abysmal political and military leadership (hence, the player in HoI IV). This means if they made France as it was, it would be really strong. That would be fine. Germany is absurdly strong right now and nowhere near facing any of the issues it really faced. Have you ever seen the Germans run out of fuel in SP? No. That never happens.

I think you can see that this focus tree was reworked because "they had to" and not because "they wanted to". Just think about something, France starts with "Full Employment" as a malus. I was really surprised about this. I mean there was something called "The Great Depression" going on a few years before, how can France be in a "Full Employment" situation? I looked it up. 15% unemployment rate is not exactly "Full" employment. It took me 5 minutes to find this information (I looked it up in French so it may be more difficult in English).
No "Full" employment was not a thing. It was a thing during the "Trentes Glorieuses" which are completely outside of the game scope.
You also have the Fascist path merged with the Monarchist path... I mean, why? Charles Marraus was leading "Action Française" (the monarchist party) and while he clearly was anti-Semitic, he was all against Germany and him being fascist is a little far fetched. He was a nut case but not a fascist nut case. What is amusing is that the Monarchist path actually would make sense in the political context of France at this time. France has such a complex and rich political landscape that anything is possible.

Also, what are those "Invest in" focuses? These are... awful. I min maxed France a lot and there is no reason to use them until very late in the game, just do "Invest in Algerian France" to rush the Research Slots.

When you follow the Third Empire path (which leads Louis-Napoléon to the throne) is illogical. Napoléon VI was a war hero. He was a foreign legionnaire and after the armistice he joined the Résistance. He even has the Medal of the French Resistance, the War Cross and other distinctions. How can he not have any trait while other leaders have traits? Also how does it make any sense to "Avenge Waterloo"? That's just a cliché right there. He fought alongside the Allies and the British. When he was captured by the Germans, they offered him a special treatment because he was the heir of the Bonaparte family and he refused saying "Either deport me to Germany or release me immediately.". Remember that he did this while the Law of Exile was still a thing. This means he fought for a country that had him banished. For the record, he had to live in Switzerland after the war because of this law.
Regarding "Reorganizing the Dutch": Why not Belgium and the Luxemburg as well? They were directly annexed by the French Empire. Same goes for northern Italy. If anything, there should be an option to gain cores on all of those states as the French Empire. Southern Italy and rest of Europe (Germany and Austria) were puppets.

All of this demonstrates to me that there was really little care about France when developing this DLC.

 

[guprad]

Charles Marraus was leading "Action Française" (the monarchist party) and while he clearly was anti-Semitic, he was all against Germany and him being fascist

You raise interesting points in your reply but being anti-semitic isn't a part of fascist ideology though. Mussolini clearly allowed jews in his government before the Hitler influence and Mussolini was also against Germany before 1936, he was one of the strongest contenders against Germany. Every fascist country works differently and they won't all work together.

 

[SmashingQuasar]

You raise interesting points in your reply but being anti-semitic isn't a part of fascist ideology though. Mussolini clearly allowed jews in his government before the Hitler influence and Mussolini was also against Germany before 1936, he was one of the strongest contenders against Germany. Every fascist country works differently and they won't all work together.

Fascism core values has notably a certain type of population being better than others. This was also true in Italy were Italians were supposedly successors to Romans and thus superior people. It wasn't expressed in the same way as in Germany but there is still a core xenophobic idea going on. This is why Spain being Fascist is so often contested. They were far-right, autocratic and definitely nationalist but not really fascist. Maurras was known to be extremely anti-Germans and anti-Italians. He also said that a French surrender would be the worst thing to ever happen. In the end I think that if Paradox wanted to make a way to restore monarchy, it would have to go through Maurras. However he must be suppressed afterwards because he was agnostic and the French monarchy was based on Catholic authority and divine right to rule. The Pope condemned the AF because it was led by Maurras because of his religious beliefs.
It would also make sense to have a Catholic monarchy in France at this time. Catholicism was through the roof at this time in France and the German oppression of Catholics would make a perfect Casus Belli. Not mentioning that even if the communists had weight, they were still mostly considered as weirdos at this time. Now that I think about it, a fully communist French state would make less sense than a French monarchy in the 30s.
People should remember that in 1936 monarchy was over for less than 70 years in France. Unlike today, the monarchists had weight and were a credible power in the country, especially since the Third Republic was regarded as the worst political system the country had ever seen.

 

[guprad]

Fascism core values has notably a certain type of population being better than others. This was also true in Italy were Italians were supposedly successors to Romans and thus superior people. It wasn't expressed in the same way as in Germany but there is still a core xenophobic idea going on. This is why Spain being Fascist is so often contested. They were far-right, autocratic and definitely nationalist but not really fascist. Maurras was known to be extremely anti-Germans and anti-Italians. He also said that a French surrender would be the worst thing to ever happen. In the end I think that if Paradox wanted to make a way to restore monarchy, it would have to go through Maurras. However he must be suppressed afterwards because he was agnostic and the French monarchy was based on Catholic authority and divine right to rule. The Pope condemned the AF because it was led by Maurras because of his religious beliefs.
It would also make sense to have a Catholic monarchy in France at this time. Catholicism was through the roof at this time in France and the German oppression of Catholics would make a perfect Casus Belli. Not mentioning that even if the communists had weight, they were still mostly considered as weirdos at this time. Now that I think about it, a fully communist French state would make less sense than a French monarchy in the 30s.
People should remember that in 1936 monarchy was over for less than 70 years in France. Unlike today, the monarchists had weight and were a credible power in the country, especially since the Third Republic was regarded as the worst political system the country had ever seen.

What fascist core ideas are is different according to who you ask. An anti fascist will tell you something different than a historian, who will also tell you something different from core fascist thinkers like Giovanni Gentile, however Franco is a authoritarian religious conservative and he definitely use fascist symbols and stuff but he himself wasn't really one. If you're saying that fascist is inherently xenophobic well that isn't really true, Hitler in Hitler table talks did praise the Japanese and Chinese for having a history more superior to the Germans, so according to Hitler himself Germans are inferior to Chinese and Japanese. Also every nation had someone they didn't like, so doesn't that mean that every ideology is xenophobic?

 

[SmashingQuasar]

What fascist core ideas are is different according to who you ask. An anti fascist will tell you something different than a historian, who will also tell you something different from core fascist thinkers like Giovanni Gentile, however Franco is a authoritarian religious conservative and he definitely use fascist symbols and stuff but he himself wasn't really one. If you're saying that fascist is inherently xenophobic well that isn't really true, Hitler in Hitler table talks did praise the Japanese and Chinese for having a history more superior to the Germans, so according to Hitler himself Germans are inferior to Chinese and Japanese. Also every nation had someone they didn't like, so doesn't that mean that every ideology is xenophobic?

Well of course if you base the definition of fascism on people's opinion you will get pretty much everything. In the end I think we agree that Maurras was not fascist.
Let's go back to the original topic which is really important (at least to me): France's national focus tree is messed up.
In my opinion, they should, at the very least, make "Ban the Leagues" and "Banned Communism" a 28-35 days focus. 70 days just to achieve this is way too long. It removes "Political violence" but not really. You will still get "Protests descend into violence" for appointing Marcel Bucard or Maurice Thorez for example.

I think the "Road to 56" mod had great ideas about France (why lock the generals behind defeat though?) that could be used to make the country better.

 

[yerro]

So I made a long post a few weeks ago about the French focus tree which was rather detailed about what was wrong. I invite you to read it @Mescaline because I think you may agree with most of it. I read your post and I agree with most.

Here is the original topic: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-french-focus-tree-needs-a-rebalance.1365809/

Sure. I'm bad with forums so I haven't really searched beyond just checking the first page of suggestions and general discussions before posting. I'll go take a look!

I think the "Road to 56" mod had great ideas about France (why lock the generals behind defeat though?) that could be used to make the country better.

Totally off-topic but that's what made me quit playing R56 back in the day. The idea of telling the player they have to lose to play it right is just wrong.

 

[guprad]

I think the "Road to 56" mod had great ideas about France (why lock the generals behind defeat though?) that could be used to make the country better.

I've played Road to 56 once in an multiplayer game, it had too many desyncs, what exactly did Road to 56 have that had great ideas? I mean vanilla also has generals that are only available to Free France, perhaps these generals only became generals after France fell? Not very familiar with French history