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I've played the WaW quite often as the Axis power, but now that explorer has put so much work into it after Tweber made it(Thanks to both) I thought I'd start playing the game again. I get the Vichy card and started thinking what does Vich France really do for me. Should I play the card or not?

As the Axis powers; I create Vichy to wipe the West from France, the battle for France comes to an end. I can concentrate on other operations. Is there any other reason why as the Axis power to create Vichy or not to create it? Other than that Japan gets Hanoi as soon as Vichy is formed.

As the West; if I let Vichy to be formed I lose all my forces on the continent. So really I should either get as many units out of France ASAP (which many players don't really like) or be so powerful so as not to allow it to be formed. Holding Paris for as long as possible.

But are there any other advantages as an Allied player to allow/disallowed Vichy to be formed?

How do you use the Vichy side of the game? Do you use the create Vichy card as soon as you get it or wait till the 4 turns are nearly over?

All info is much appreciated.

Mat

Interesting question.

When I play the axis I have always made Vichy asap. so I could move on to the Balkans and Russia.  I did it to deny the west that supply center in persia and to keep the west out of north Africa and having a secure southern border in France is nice. I also hope that the west will declare war on vichy and ill get the French navy. It was a easy selection  and free to do so I did it and moved on.
However
the next time i play axis I may try something different. the extra production from Marseilles would help plus having the supply in persia open to be taken by japan would help them.

as the west I never had the PP to spare for the card or it was lost so fast I didn't play it. But the next time I play west I am going to try it. the 120 PP can be recovered from the extra supply in Persia and if you can delay the loss of Marseilles for a few turns you can recover some pp from that. So the cost isn't really 120pp. Plus having north africa open for invasion would allow you to make an early effort on Tripoli and help take the pressure off of cario. This would also force the germans to man italy with german troops and use the italian production mostly for supply and PP due to the morale loss if Italy is thrown out of north Africa. It would force a larger commitment to north Africa by the axis and take some pressure off of Russia.
plus having Persia open would allow the Turkey units to be supplied if attacked by Germany.

as for Hanoi I am confused about how it works. it seems different in all four games I am playing.  in the oldest game , the test game with explorer, he made Vichy as the axis player and when china came online Hanoi belonged to them and I tried to defend it from japan and lost it of course. but in none of the others does it appear to be that way with or without Vichy. in one it still belongs to the west ( no vichy) in another it belongs to japan. (Vichy)
It dosent really matter because Japan has the power to take it when they want but it was nice for china in my game with explorer to have that extra supply for a few turns.

all in all I can see advantages and disadvantages for both sides and a smart player who decides on a early strategic plan can use the creation of or the stopping of the creation of Vichy to their advantage.