Matrix Games Forums

I noticed this yesterday.

I am playing as UK only - the rest of the Allies being AI - as it's my first game on this title and I wanted to get a feel for it. The campaign I selected is '39-'45.

As the French armies started to crumble, I had manually sent the French navy units to British ports thinking that when France surrenders, the Brits would take control of these assets, and boost the available Royal Navy fleet & also flew the the French air force to the UK to salvage all available French aircraft.

However, despte the French Navy staying in British ports when Paris fell - when the info screen message at the end of the turn advised that France had surrendered - all the French Navy units disappeared. Surely if this had been for real - the fleet would have kept sailing under Allied control?

Only one of the French AF units stayed in the UK post surrender. The others disappeared too.

Later on - the pop-up message re the french CL being transferred to Britain appeared.

Also, the scripted message re the RN attacking the French Fleet in Tunisia to prevent them falling into Axis hands appeared later - despite them actually having been in the UK as stated above.

Is all this:

a) because I temporarily took manual control of the French AI (without amending the in-game AI control settings) and "interfered" with it's logic, or ...

b) because that is what the script states and that's that despite what we do?

Many thanks in advance.

It's a bug the French planes stayed with you. All French units should be removed. Why do you claim if this had been for real the french units would have stayed? There is no historical proof of this.

Also, you can read the manual about the events that gave you the French ship.

Not sure that this is a bug.
If i remember correctly there was a forum answer from Bill (or was it Hubert?) some weeks ago which expained that there is a certain chance that French units in the UK might fight on after the Fall of France.

Oh ok. When I did this all units vanished so thought that was the way it was. I moved the tank unit, the air force and two armies and all got removed.

I also had the French Syrian corps become "Free French" (i.e. under British control) once because it had moved down to Egypt when France fell. It's a nice touch as long as these things happen only occasionally.

Regarding the fleet I think it's wise to leave things scripted, though. Otherwise, everyone would just move the French fleet to UK ports. Thing is we KNOW what happened to the French, so we must to a degree have some incentives to not just abandon them to save all the units. Thus I like that stripping all units from Africa will make Musolini enter early, and I like that removing the BEF will make French morale plummet.

Hi ghostrider293

With the French, their land forces and air units have a 20% chance of fighting on from exile when France surrenders, providing they are in the territory of a friendly country when that happens, i.e. the UK or Egypt.

However, I don't recommend evacuating French units wholesale in the hope of this providing large forces for the war ahead. Just as historically very few became Free French, this is also the case here.

With the French navy, it won't continue fighting after the country surrenders. Instead, what happens to it is governed by a number of Decision Events that occur on France's surrender, especially the British decision on whether or not to recognize Vichy France or de Gaulle, and if they go with de Gaulle then subsequent decisions on attacking Mers-el-Kebir and Dakar.

So your best use of the French navy is to use it wisely in battle before France falls. Though note that recklessly suiciding it can hasten France's surrender due to the effect its loss would have on French National Morale.

Hi Bill,

Many thanks for the explanation, now it all makes perfect sense.

In my defence - no pun intended - I was only seeing if a "what if" scenario would play out or not, as opposed to a realistic more historical approach.

I understand, we used to have the navy set on a % chance to swing over to the Free French, but it meant that it happened whether or not the UK opted to support de Gaulle, rather than cultivate good relations with the Vichy authorities.