Vichy France always independent?

[Gandi]

After the Vichy event, if Vichy were a German puppet, all of their colonies would simply be invaded and taken over which is a-historical. Vichy simply can't defend itself very well. They seem to get some of the French navy, but have to start building land forces on their own. In the Core rules for HOI 1, Vichy was nuetral. It actually works much better because as Germany, you don't have to worry about British invasion from the Med into France.

If you start the campaign in 1941 you'll see that Vichy-France is indeed Germany's puppet. In my opinion, it doesn't make much sense to design the events in the '39-campaign in a way that puppeting Vichy is not possible or at least very unlikely. I think this should be fixed in the next patch.

 

[Gandi]

>> In Hoi2 Patch 1.01 they DON'T get puppet status...

Okay, that explains why my one game it did. It was Version 1.00.

That explains nothing.

I have version 1.00 and they don't get puppet status.

 

[Gandi]

I'm sorry, I made a huge mistake! I was too frustrated to play on, when Vichy was not a puppet of mine. But today, I played a few (ingame) hours and suddenly a new event arised which gave Vichy the puppet status.

However, my other question remains valid (supply of encircled troops).

 

[unmerged(38672)]

Why did the Germans create the Vichy Puppet state historically? Wasn´t France thoroughly defeated after the fall of Paris anyway? Or was it just to avoid the French Fleet to fall into British hands? Otherwise it would make more sense to annex the whole country, using the resources and industry of the southern parts, and the ports in Mediterranean.

 

[WarDog]

Why did the Germans create the Vichy Puppet state historically? Wasn´t France thoroughly defeated after the fall of France anyway? Or was it just to avoid the French Fleet to fall into British hands? Otherwise it would make more sense to annex the whole country, using the resources and industry of the southern parts, and the ports in Mediterranean.

I belive it has a lot to do with the objectives of adolf at the time. He was still convinced that UK would be reasonable and negotiate a peace. The Vichy-deal was hard, but nothing compared to the terms presented to Germany in 1918.
All out conquest was not the plan for 1940. Adolf still belived he could have his polish cake and eat it too...

To me, a neutral Vichy in 40 seems correct. Having Vichy as a puppet and looting Madagascar for rubber in HOI1 always gave me a exploit-feeling.



On the question of supplies in the Maginot-line:

You have to take all provinces down to the swiss border.

Then try to save and reload. In HOI there was a bug that never got fixed. The AI did not discover that it was cut of. So reloading made it check status and ensirclement starting to effect troops. I still always save and reload when I ensircle. A positive side-effect is that it keeps the AI awake and giving you a minimum of recistance...

Note however that the level of fortification in Maginot serves as a supplymodifier, making it take a lot longer time to starve them out. I think....

My advice is:
Ensircle, reload, interdict with all aerial power you got to speed up the supplylosses (and keeping an eye on their org), and the might of Maginot will crumble.

 

[boylinux]

Exactly. Besancon belonged to me as well. Believe me, there was no land connection to the three encircled provinces. And to repeat it, resuplly by air did not happen.

The french divisions had no drain on their effectiveness due to supply shortage.

It the Swiss. They are supplying the maginot line, I knew it they aren't as neutral as we beleived. Take them out too :rofl:

BTW do you have air supperiority in the area? Might they be supplying themselves partially by air and with a huge stockpile they might last for quite a while.

IMOExperience I bypassed the maginot line and kept going. Eventually the Vichy France event triggered and it was just a matter of mopping up two belgian divisions left behind.

Cheers,

 

[unmerged(28147)]

It the Swiss. They are supplying the maginot line, I knew it they aren't as neutral as we beleived. Take them out too :rofl:

BTW do you have air supperiority in the area? Might they be supplying themselves partially by air and with a huge stockpile they might last for quite a while.

IMOExperience I bypassed the maginot line and kept going. Eventually the Vichy France event triggered and it was just a matter of mopping up two belgian divisions left behind.

Cheers,

It could be that bug I heard about that seemes to have piggy backed from HOI I. Where a pocketed unit remains in supply until you load the save game, then the AI/Computer realizes it's out of supply.

 

[unmerged(19246)]

If you start the campaign in 1941 you'll see that Vichy-France is indeed Germany's puppet.

That's not necessarily true. My current game is a 1941 campaign, and Vichy is independent.

 

[silmaauki]

I have strugled with Mulhouse for a long time. The eight divisions (2 inf, and rest garrisons and militia) can resist all my attempts. Even though I have 35 more advanced divisions. If I try a full out attack, I will simply fail. I have waited for 18 months or so for French to loose strength and organisation. I think you all know what happens. Nothing. Simply because Mulhouse is their capital and thus it survives.

Bug!

I think I will load the saved game on French side and on purpose attack the Germans. I think it is the only way out...

 

[silmaauki]

Actually I just dispanded the troops.

The DRAWBACk of this solution is that the short moment AI had hands on my German nation AI changed everything! Leaders were replaced, my production queue was fingered, etc.... uuuppss. :wacko:

 

[unmerged(9136)]

Heh. Remind me why I never do that. I only did it once in HOI1, to force a surprisingly pacifist Japan to attack me. (Would have been a pretty boring USA game if they didn't.) When I went back all my army was split into groups of 2 or 4, and the leaders were replaced with respectively Major Generals and Lieutenant Generals. (As in, each stack of 2 was commanded by some no-name who can effectively command 1 division, and each stack of 4 by someone who can command 3.) The navy and airforce too. And yeah, lots of fun stuff in the production and tech queues too.

Decided that, nah, all thing being equal, it's not worth it.

 

[Josephus I]

I have heard that if you immediately pause the game when you load up as a new country (actually it starts up paused doesn't it); the AI doesn't start doing anything with your units until you unpause.

So if you load up new game, disband units, save and reload, all without unpausing, it may not tinker with your units. I have never tried this though.

 

[unmerged(15260)]

That's not necessarily true. My current game is a 1941 campaign, and Vichy is independent.

My HOI2 (1.1) starting a campaign 41 vichy is german puppet every time. So u must rember wrongly or maybe it has been freed of puppet status.
Try it for yourself, start new campaign and u will see...

 

[Darkrenown]

Where did the French capital move to when you took Paris? It may now be in the magiot line and supplies comes from the capital...

 

[unmerged(15260)]

U don't need to take out the maginot line provinces to get vichy event... Just paris is enough
If u really wan't to kill the maginot defenders it's more cost effective to lure them out since the fortress bonus is so great that non fortress buster units have 1% attack effeciency.

 

[Wolf52]

I have heard that if you immediately pause the game when you load up as a new country (actually it starts up paused doesn't it); the AI doesn't start doing anything with your units until you unpause.

So if you load up new game, disband units, save and reload, all without unpausing, it may not tinker with your units. I have never tried this though.

Yes, this works every time. The AI does nothing if you pause immediately.

 

[silmaauki]

I have heard that if you immediately pause the game when you load up as a new country (actually it starts up paused doesn't it); the AI doesn't start doing anything with your units until you unpause.

So if you load up new game, disband units, save and reload, all without unpausing, it may not tinker with your units. I have never tried this though.

Nice to hear it now. Actually I had more torubel since after I managed to correct most of the drawbacks I tried to remove an empty naval unit. And my attempts crashed the game. So I ended up doing most of the stuff twice.

 

[Kelvin]

I've seen an event trigger for UK wher they get to invade Vichy North Africa, and makes the Vichy join Axis.