Capturing Paris

[Snowbart1943]

I am adjacent to Paris and am curious what the effects will be if I take it on the next impulse. I have smashed through Belgium and pushed the BEF back 2 hexes to get here. I have hardely engaged the French in ground combat, so they are still very strong militarily. I was hoping taking their capital would cause them a massive blow. They will lose the 30 morale points, but with France still being so strong militarily, will capturing Paris really speed up their defeat?

[Munro]

It will speed up their surrender, but prolly won't cause it, all by itself.

[hjaco]

It is really hard to get a French surrender without taking Paris so it will speed the process up considerably, but you will have to make a really major effort to get them down at all.

With minimal French losses you will probably have to take Orleans, Lyon and the pocket between them and the German border.

Have fun [:D]

[Snowbart1943]

Exactly!  I was kind of hoping they will attack me in my center.  I think ill make my center weak, transfer those men to my south flank, and try and envelop the whole lot of them. 

[hjaco]

In any case you should aim for the resource hexes at Verdun at SW from that. One of those hexes even counts double.

[EUBanana]

As far as Dijon in the south and Rouen in the north and some heavy casualties will make them surrender if you're doing a northern focused Schlieffen plan sort of approach.

It's pretty easy against the AI I think.  [:(].  You got until mid 1915 to trash them without being disturbed greatly by British and Russians, which is quite a long time.

[Snowbart1943]

Excellent EUBanana... Dijon, Rouen, and Paris are now my goals.  I agree, if i have until mid-1915 to knock France out, that should be plenty of time.  Hopefully I can pretty much hold the line in the East, then i can focus on Russia after France falls. 
 
If you knock France out, how does this effect Britain?  I suppose the BEF forces will remain in France and just the French troops disappear from the map upon capitulation?   

[hjaco]

You gain NE part of France and some of the border hexes as part of a peace settlement.

All units in now neutral France is then transferred to nearest controlled hex.

So it's only in case of Brits being in hexes which France will cede to Germany that you will have to worry about them but don't worry - they will have a serious supply problem [:D]

Just make sure to garrison Dunkirk !

If you don't have to fight to hard for it aim for Lyon. It's 10 morale worth for France which is 1/2 exhaustion level - quite a lot of casualties.

But EUBanana is right. Against the AI it's not going to be a problem to knock out France.

One hint though. Strive to have 6 B infantry corps in France at the time of their surrender. You will be stripped of that many corps acting as garrison for the remainder of the game and you will need A quality to beat the Russians.

[Snowbart1943]

Thanks hjaco.  About the 6 B Corps.....does the game pick your lowest quality units to be the garrisoned troops? 

[hjaco]

Yes it does and current SP is irrelevant.

[SMK-at-work]

I'm playing a game vs the TE AI using the patch Beta - I've KO'ed France late 1915, and am about to move on the Russians.....trouble is the Russians have done absolutely nothing - they've lined their border 1 corps per hex and sortied in hte Baltic where they got beat up (but have come back...read on....)....and nothing else.....I dread what reserves they have after 6-7 turns of inattention.....they've at least managed to repair their ships and must have a couple of hundred equip in reserve by now....[X(][X(]
 
so I'm gonna need those A corps!!

[Snowbart1943]

Good to know, thanks!