Vichy France

[Atlantikwall]

I read that Vichy France is declared after GER took Paris (Western France).

Even if it would be "silly", you could (theoretically) attack Southern France in turn 1 or is this a "forbidden" move?

Coming back to "normal": What happens with the impressive 11 units in Eastern France once Paris is taken? Are the 6 units of Southern France "reduced"? Will some french units defect to the WA? What happens with the french navy in the Med or elsewhere?

[Becket]

Yes, you can choose to conquer all of France (including French holdings in North Africa). Just don't take Paris until you've taken what you want. I've done this in a game, but the cost in men and supplies was very very high. French units are WA units; the navy can escape, but the land units are simply destroyed when Vichy is declared.

[Szilard]

Formation of vichy should be a German *option*, rather than something which happens inevitably when Paris falls. Hitler didn't have to give the French such an easy armistice; he could have demanded total surrender & kept the fighting going till he got it. He probably wouldn't have had to invade Algeria to get the French to cave in totally; and he probably let France off lightly to give himself a quick easy victory for home consumption, and as an inducement to Britain to come to terms.

If he had followed a strategy of taking control of the Med as a prelude to a serious attempt to defeat Britain, Vichy wouldn't have happened. The course of the war might have been radically different, and it should be the kind of thing WaW lets you play around with.

This is a bug-bear of mine about all these games, ever since SPI's WWII.

Turning it around, if Hitler had wanted, it's quite possible he could have gotten a "Vichy"-style outcome from Stalin in 1941. An automatic Vichy makes no more sense in a game than an automatic USSR "Vichy" would. In the first case, Hitler chose Vichy; and in the second, he chose a war of annihilation.

The game should let the German player make different choices. If Germany does well enough early on in Russia, the German player should have the option of signing an armistice with Russia. Germany can declare war again if it wants to, and Russia comes back into the war if German relative strength in the east falls below a certain level.

There would be play balance issues you'd need to address, but it broadens out the scope of things a whole lot & I think makes for a much richer game, and one which would give you more of a feel for the strategic concerns of the particpants before the war settled down into its post-1941, rather predictable course.

[Becket]

I'm not sure what you're complaining about. The German player can choose to conquer all of France -- then, when you've taken all the territory you want, take Paris and Vichy will be declared to end it. You just sacrifice badly needed supplies to do it.

[Drax Kramer]

ORIGINAL: Becket

I'm not sure what you're complaining about. The German player can choose to conquer all of France -- then, when you've taken all the territory you want, take Paris and Vichy will be declared to end it.

I guess the problem lies in automatic creation of Vichy the moment Paris falls to Germany. German player should have an option of refusing Vichy and fighting Western Allied troops (i.e. French) for the rest of the war. German player should not be forced to do gamey movements (conquering everything but Paris) in order to exercise the very historical option not to accept French offer.


Drax

[Atlantikwall]

Well, this is a strategy game and not a history simulation. I find that game already very, very "realistic" (supply, draw of territories, "frozen" allies, combat values of units) even the so called "trigger events" (if ..., then ...). But the automatismns they created in the game (Vichy and Balkan & Finnish axis powers) are based on history. It´s not a simulation "what if GER didn`t accept Vichy". Germany accepted it and the creators of the game handled that fact in a very appropriate way for a computer game. Btw, Vichy units come into play later, if WA attack them.

[paullus99]

And if you want to handicap yourself by leaving the French fleet intact in the Med - go right ahead....your North African options will suddenly drop to about zero.

[Becket]

ORIGINAL: Drax Kramer

ORIGINAL: Becket

I'm not sure what you're complaining about. The German player can choose to conquer all of France -- then, when you've taken all the territory you want, take Paris and Vichy will be declared to end it.

I guess the problem lies in automatic creation of Vichy the moment Paris falls to Germany. German player should have an option of refusing Vichy and fighting Western Allied troops (i.e. French) for the rest of the war. German player should not be forced to do gamey movements (conquering everything but Paris) in order to exercise the very historical option not to accept French offer.


Drax

The game currently assumes that Germany can force the unconditional surrender of the French by taking Paris. One could debate for hours whether or not 2by3 should implement a workaround to allow the Germans to refuse that surrender; they have not chosen to do so. The game does allow to you take the entire French empire by conquest, or take as much as you want before forcing Vichy. You can do all of this in one turn, but it will cost you, and cost you bitterly, for little gain. If the German want to secure southern france against invasion more strongly than the Vichy garrison, the German should invade Spain and then take Gibrabralter. He who controls Gibralter and Cairo controls the Med.

Note: my own belief is that Weygand, Petain and the forces of surrender had won out over Reynaud so completely, that if the Germans had refused to allow Vichy as a separate regime, the battle for France was still over. No more combat. The army had disintegrated. I think Weygand, Petain & Co. would have simply capitulated. Whether this would have caused French North Africa to become independent is an open question, not one that, I believe, can be settled sufficiently to allow a game mechanic to be created.

What would be more realistic, in my opinion, is to assume that the historical fall of France was a perfect storm. OKW believed the attack had little chance of success. Gamelin made two critical errors that allowed the blitzkrieg to have success beyond the wildest dreams of its planners. The next part of the "storm" was the political situation with Reynaud. Change a few things here and there, and perhaps Reynaud could have successfully resisted Weygand on the surrender issue, and gone to London to lead a government in exile, as he desired. In that case, there is no Vichy (again, in my opinion). The most realistic game option would be to give the German player one chance to get a Vichy result: go through the Netherlands and take Paris. Any deviation from that strategy would take away the Vichy option and require the German to take France by force.

The game currently doesn't do that, but it comes fairly close.

[pzgndr]

German player should have an option of refusing Vichy and fighting Western Allied troops (i.e. French) for the rest of the war.

I assume Vichy is created as a neutral and not as an allied Axis minor? So Germany should be able to refuse Vichy by attacking it, and thereby continue to fight the French. Since there are no political consequences of doing this in GGWAW (ie, provoking an earlier USA entry) then the only concerns a German player may have would be loss of troops, supply and time versus whatever benefit a conquered Vichy might provide. Seems like this is already an option for the German player, unless there's something preventing an attack on Vichy.

[Becket]

Vichy is a politically frozen German territory. It cannot be attacked by Germany.

In case it's not already clear, the cost in supplies and forces to take all of France instead of getting it as a gift will be crippling to the German player. There are better ways to make your game more challenging than intentionally shooting yourself in the foot. [:D]