Matrix Games Forums

I am coming back to this game after several years, and am now playing with the Deluxe AWD mod. It's a great enhancement to the game - BTW. My question is this: can anyone give me some good advice for attacking France? Once I storm through Poland, and the Low Countries, I typically end up in an arms race with France and typically get tossed out with much loss after a few turns. If anyone is still actively playing this game with the Deluxe mod I would appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks,
MJ

Before attacking France try clearin the sea zones out of transports, english units then would be destroyed. Destroying rail lines before attacking also helps, but that's four hits, hard to achieve leaving aside AA and air units. I think in AWD Deluxe France is too strong and as you said her counter attack can be painful for Germany.

There are four steps to taking France easily:

1) Summer 39; build extra artillery units in Western Germany.
2) Fall 39; Concentrate every available ground/air unit in Western Germany/
3) Winter 40; Send a little over half of this massed force into Belgium. The Belgians are obliterated, and you have sufficient firepower to repel a WA counterattack (crippled by the winter weather) against either Belgium or Western Germany.
4) Spring 40; seize Eastern or Western France, whichever looks easiest.

There are plenty of small refinements to these builds/moves; but those are the basics.[;)]

Yes as SGT Rice has said it is rather easy and routine once you know how. You'll only suffer about 3 production points worth of damage.

I deliberately made France this way in Deluxe AWD so that it builds normally and allows a bit of variety. For instance, the Allied player could decide to skip some building and instead use a bit of France's production points on tech, or you could find clever ways to spend French supply before it's gone. You just have to decide if its worth the extra tech/supply vs less damage to Germany's forces.

The allies can punish the Axis player if he sees poor deployment is used. Would you want it any other way? It's part of learning. The lesson of how to play AWD well should be exercised as early as possible, and the assault on France is the perfect time for it IMO.

It is possible for the Allies to hold France a bit longer if they transfer more Brits to France and the German player poorly deployed and built for it. And conversely if the Allies did the same thing but Germany did not make any building or deployment mistakes this move on the Allies part would serioulsly hurt them and leave them open to a Britain first strategy. Sealion or the Suez become very likely targets after heavy British loses in France. When both players know the game well France falls on time and the Germans suffer very few loses and the Brits preserve as much of their forces as possible. That is the standard normal outcome.

In my PDF on Deluxe I intentionally left out a how-to on conquering France because I wanted players to find their own path. We all build a bit differently and while my own build is sound and gives a sure result with only 2-3 PP's worth of damage to my forces I'm sure there are other good strategies that would give a similiar result.