what advantage in refusing Vichy?

[gwgardner]

What is the advantage to the Germans in refusing Vichy, in game terms?

[Mike Parker]

*ponders* I have thought about this alot, but I have never done it.  But assuming you can get an early start on France, and believe you can project enough power into N. Africa and Syria to get all the VP sites you do then get all the production sites.  If your plans do not involve activating Vichy later, and you think you have time to defeat France completely and still do whatever you want (maybe nothing) in the Balkans then might as well.  It makes a pre-emptive strike on Spain easier also.. but I haven't had much trouble attacking Spain through the Bordeaux corridor in any case.
 
All in all I think a German refusal of the Vichy Armistice is foolish, but perhaps if your really kickin' France hard in the early months of '40 and you think you won't delay conquests of Yugoslavia/Greece, then it might be worth it to have the extra production.

[Chocolino]

Mike, I fully agree. With the new French VPs in N.Africa and the Middle East it is not a question any more whether you want to go to the trouble of conquering Marseilles or not. Not accepting Vichy will mean the French hang around for much longer and accumulate further income in the meanwhile - even if it is not that much any more.

Furthermore, despite some posts to the contrary elsewhere, I am not yet convinced that it is easy to win against the British in the desert and get to those VPs easily via Lybia. So suddenly we are talking about either an invasion of Turkey or amphibious landing in the Levant with RN hanging around.

(Gary, don't try to read anything into these comments as far as my decision for Time of Writhe is concerned....)

[Champagne]

I am also curious about this issue.

I refused Vichy in my game against the AI. I have taken all of the Middle East and French North Africa. Yugoslavia is conquered, but, I did not bother Greece. Greece is independent. I could still attack Greece, however. Maybe this is a job for Italy.

It is mid-May 1941 and I am about to attack Soviet Russia.

I am not sure of the advantage in refusing Vichy. It takes a very long time and lots of expense to capture every French VP in North Africa and Lebanon-Syria, which is what you need to do to trigger French surrender, if you refuse Vichy.

[gwgardner]

ORIGINAL: Chocolino

(Gary, don't try to read anything into these comments as far as my decision for Time of Writhe is concerned....)

Haha, you saw through my little ruse, then ....

[Michael the Pole]

A better question is why would any human (non-AI) French player accept the creation of Vichy, and if a human player would never do something, why should the AI do it?

[Chocolino]

Welcome back Michael.

I agree. Currently it is not a tradeoff but a no-brainer for France to refuse.

The current "penalty" for France when refusing Vichy seems to be higher Social Unrest. It is a disadvantage but compare that to accepting Vichy which means (in the game, for the Allied player) total loss of an allied country. Furthermore, as long as France stays alive it reduces German income due to the difference made between "occupied" vs "annexed" cities and France continues to draw a small income and has some forces alive.

If you don't offer a real trade-off you may well save yourself the trouble of implementing a Vichy event.

[doomtrader]

Don't forget about it's impact on Britain.

[Chocolino]

Interesting....the British were very very quiet about that in my ongoing PBEM. They are playing with their cards very close to their chest indeed.

OK, this may make a real difference if it is severe enough. Any additional information you can disclose here?

I will test it out by playing as France and UK against AI and see if I can reproduce this effect - whatever it is.

[doomtrader]

Nothing special,
a chance for few SU points for UK with every French refusal.

[Chocolino]

Thank you, Doomtrader, now I understand why the choice comes up so often again.

[Michael the Pole]

This is an excellent example of how an anti-historical decision in design keeps leading to ahistorical results in the game which have to be papered over again and again.
How much easier this would have been if we had corrected the problem in the first place.
For those of you who are interested in how we should have done it please see the following link.  I won't bore the rest of you Grognards by repeating myself (again!)  http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2124015
However, I will perdict that we wiull see this problem again and agasin until we fix it (i.e: No one in his right mind will accept Vichy while playing as France, but the AI will continue to do something that no sentinent player would.)[8|][:-]

[gwgardner]

ORIGINAL: doomtrader

Nothing special,
a chance for few SU points for UK with every French refusal.

Hmmh, kind of wish that had been explained in the events! I thought the social unrest was going to the French!! no wonder the UK has such abysmal production.

It is not at all clear for which country the events show up.

[doomtrader]

Theirs an event for UK, telling that the France has lost the war but didn't surrender.

[micheljq]

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

What is the advantage to the Germans in refusing Vichy, in game terms?

Maybe a lower US reaction? also maybe a clearer path to Spain in case Germany wants to attack Spain/Gibraltar? If vichy is created, there is only a somewhat narrow corridor that whermacht can use to get to the spanish border I believe.

[gwgardner]

ORIGINAL: doomtrader

Theirs an event for UK, telling that the France has lost the war but didn't surrender.

Unfortunately, when the even pops up, it is not labeled as an event for the UK. If it is, I have certainly missed it. Many events are ambiguoous in that regard.

[PDiFolco]

ORIGINAL: Michael the Pole

This is an excellent example of how an anti-historical decision in design keeps leading to ahistorical results in the game which have to be papered over again and again.
How much easier this would have been if we had corrected the problem in the first place.
For those of you who are interested in how we should have done it please see the following link.  I won't bore the rest of you Grognards by repeating myself (again!)  http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2124015
However, I will perdict that we wiull see this problem again and agasin until we fix it (i.e: No one in his right mind will accept Vichy while playing as France, but the AI will continue to do something that no sentinent player would.)[8|][:-]

Your link points to some restricted access private forum ... [:(]
The problem for me is that Vichy should just occurs and not have to be "accepted". The French lost, comma. Proposing "Vichy or no surrender" choice makes no sense.
What could be done - as in many wargames- is that when France falls (upon capture of Paris and maybe some other cities), *either* Vichy occurs or not. But if it doesn't occur, France (metropolitan) has to get occupied as any other conquered country, but in return the Allies get Free French assets in NA.

[Michael the Pole]

Exactly (more or less) my point. Sorry about the restricted access -- I had forgotten that it was a team only board. I'll copy the pertinent section:
BORING WARNING!! MICHAEL RANT CONTINUES BELOW!!!
This subject was beaten nearly to death over on the main board, and I hesitate to raise it again after finally conceding gracefully to Les and some others. However, in keeping with my dictum that wargamers will always find any available loophole in any set of rules and then proceed to drive an entire convoy of 18 wheelers through it, I need to report a major flaw in the decision that was made concerning the Vichy Armistice.

Essentially, my arguement was that the Vichy Armistice, as was the case for any number of other armistices such as Rumania, Finland and all of the other Allied and Axis minor powers, came about when a cascade of defeats brought the political decision makers in the effected country (simulated in game terms by the "social unrest" number reaching a certain critical level) to the conclusion that further military resistance was simply impossible. As was the case in France, when that point was reached, the political movers and shakers made it clear to the French Prime Minister (Paul Reynaud) that he must sue for an armistice or he would be replaced by someone who would. Reynaud repeatedly insisted that the French government should move to North Africa and continue the war with the aide of the United Kingdom. Churchill went so far as to offer all Frenchmen joint citizenship with England if they would continue the war. But the political pressure from the defeatist politicians and generals was so intense that Reynauld resigned on June 16, 1940, rather than seek the armistice that they demanded. Petain then formed a government which sued the Germans for a cease fire.

The point to all this is that an armistice occurs when the defeated country appeals to the victorious country for a halt to hostilities. The victorious power then states its terms and the defeated country has no choice but to accept them. (Interestingly, this is exactly what happened to Germany in 1918 and in 1945. The Germans were shocked by the extremely rigorous demands made upon them by Woodrow Wilson, but once it became known, particularly to it's own Army, that the Government was seeking a cease fire, the Germans had no choice but accepting the demands of the Allies, no matter how rigorous they were.) Once the French appealed to the Nazis for terms, they had no choice but accepting them.
Unfortunately, it was the decision of the developers that they would invert that process for the French surender which resulted in the creation of the Vichy Government. The appeal for an armistice just sort of happens spontaniously when the French have lost Paris and certain other cities, and is not the result of a French appeal to the Germans. The French are then allowed the choice of accepting or refusing to accept the German terms. This is clearly ahistorical, and as is usually the case when a well designed game system is asked to model something that couldn't have happened historically, it leaves a gaping wound that can be exploited by the advantadged player.
...
IThe only way to avoid this outcome is to make the Vichy event dependent on the Axis player deciding to accept the French requst for terms. The best way to do this is to have the request for terms come when Frances social unrest number reaches a certain point. In fact, this should be true of all countries, particularly the major powers. (We have seen several examples lately in the AARs on the main board of the Nazis taking Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad, but there is no sign of Soviet surrender or the fall of the Soviet Government. They are faced with the prospect of advancing to the artificial "end of the world" at the eastern map edge.) If we cant institue a surrender based on social unrest due to programming difficulties, we must, at a minimum, take the decision of accepting Vichy away from the French.

[PDiFolco]

Ok, we mostly agree.
But note that Vichy was a French "request" to the Germans, they didn't impose it and Petain sold it as a success to the French.
Then my suggestion allows for simulating whom from Reynaud or Petain prevails. If Petain (most probable) you get Vichy, else you don't have it, all France falls to Germans but you get N Africans French territories  joining the Allies.
It should be doable by event...

[lomyrin]

Playing Human as the English, French, and the USA against Germany, Italy and Russia all AI with all Countires at -25% including the human ones.
Refused Vichy and the French continues on, their PP is now at -700 or so.  But their fleet helped knocking out the Italians.
 
At March 43 there is no Axis left so now it is war Against the Russians with the front lines in mid Germany.