Matrix Games Forums

Already spotted a couple "weird" things in the GC and all Gelb scens, can't pass them as I'm French !

- French ports on Map : there is Caen as a port, but not Cherbourg, which always was a bigger port. As Le Havre is near Caen, I suggest removing Caen and put Cherbourg instead.
(Cherbourg is on the tip of the Normandy "peninsula")
More importantly, there is no Dunkerque !!! Where will the BEF reembark then ?? [:D] Seriously, no port in N France means none between Rotterdam and Le Havre, whereas Dunkerque/Calais always was very big French ports ... Please add one port hex for them !

- French AF seems overpowered, or rather overteched : France gets 4 lvl 2 Air armies and 2 lvl2 Air div rigth by Sept'39... this means the same tech level than Germany, better than UK !
Yet in '40 French AF proved it was obsolete. I don't think there should be more than 1 lvl Air corps and 1 div with lvl 2, rest should be 1.

Modding the map/ports and naval paths is out of my abilities, so I'll have to wait for a patch, but I saw that unit/OOB changes are a blast to mod, in the air_, naval_, and land_units.csv, I'll do a small scenario "patch" soon for French AF changes !

- French ports on Map : there is Caen as a port, but not Cherbourg, which always was a bigger port. As Le Havre is near Caen, I suggest removing Caen and put Cherbourg instead.
(Cherbourg is on the tip of the Normandy "peninsula")

This is done due the playability issues.

More importantly, there is no Dunkerque !!! Where will the BEF reembark then ?? Seriously, no port in N France means none between Rotterdam and Le Havre, whereas Dunkerque/Calais always was very big French ports ... Please add one port hex for them !

Dunqerkue is already planned for next patch IIRC

- French AF seems overpowered, or rather overteched : France gets 4 lvl 2 Air armies and 2 lvl2 Air div rigth by Sept'39... this means the same tech level than Germany, better than UK !
Yet in '40 French AF proved it was obsolete. I don't think there should be more than 1 lvl Air corps and 1 div with lvl 2, rest should be 1.

This one I left for our OOB specialist

AFAIK this is one of the sources:
http://france1940.free.fr/adla/ada_may.html
But again I'm not the one to talk

Thx doomtrader for the hindsight.
Can you elaborate on the "playability issue" with Cherbourg ? The city happens to sit ...where it is, the gameplay should adjust to the reality rather than the other way round ! [:D] Nice if we get Dunkirk soon though !

Re French AF, I know this source, the trick is what we talk here about an abstract "tech level", hard to tell if a Morane 406 was level 1 or 2 (a Dewoitine 520 was certainly 2, and Bloch 152 and Potez 531 were 1, but all this aggregated is ...well  dunno lol) !
What is clearer is that the French AF performed rather badly even when not outnumbered, and it was often outnumbered, because it used obsolete tactics and strategy. As the game does not model specific equipment, tactics or training levels, the only way to simulate this "backwardness" is through tech level.
Same for French and early war Soviet tanks : they both had plenty, some models were relatively recent or even very good, but overall were badly employed, so warrant a low tech level.
As it stands, German air superiority in the West should be really difficult to get, and from my limited experience Luftwaffe is bled by French AF much more than I could expect.

Playing the Fall Gelb scen  somewhat more, seems now to me that the biggest problem is balance more than the map ... At +25% the Germans didn't even took Netherlands or Belgium after 6 weeks, with me as France/GB not even helping them (I thought they were lost) !!
On the Ardennes sides Germans didn't go past Luxemburg, I just maintained a front ... In the air I dish them more damage than I take. Only drawback is with convoys, whatever fleet I put in the boxes my GB-Fr convoys got pounded, but I sink 1-2 raiders a turn, so they will stop soon bothering me.
As it stands France could last eternally vs such half-hearted attackers, her army seems too strong to give historical results, or is that an AI issue ? I'll try playing Germans to confirm.

Vielen dank!

I downloaded the demo last night and played a couple of turns tonight.  I like the look and feel (with traditional counters, of course), and I get that infinitely better from a demo than I do from AARs and screenshots.  This seems like just the game I've been looking for since SC.

One minor issue -- the scrolling and mouse control seems very loose.  Not sure if that can be controlled or fixed, but my mouse control lags.

Thanks!  I'll probably be buying this one soon...