France totally useless

calvinhobbesliker

Actually, Bulgaria never bordered the USSR…Romania was in the way.

CWO Marc

Actually, Bulgaria never bordered the USSR…Romania was in the way.

Good point. I was referring to Bulgaria and the USSR both having a shoreline on the Black Sea, but I should have been more precise.

CWO Marc

@General:

I understand the novelty of adding France to a large scale European map, but can someone remind me why they use USSR sculpts for so many units that they won’t build? Once liberated they used British and American equipment so they may as well have blue American pieces. Or just cut their piece count and give them to the British and American piece pools.

My guess is that it’s related to the large power / small power pairings in Global. Except for a game with two players (one Allied, one Axis), the number-of-players chart always pairs China with the US and always pairs ANZAC with the UK in games involving three or more people. The USSR and France each get tacked on to one of those pairings in 3-player games, but get tacked together in the 4-, 5- and 6-player games. The rules say that US artillery and aircraft units should be used for China, which reflects the US / China pairing. ANZAC’s equipment pieces are of Commonwealth – and sometimes specifically of British – origin, which reflects the UK / ANZAC pairing. The leftover Allied powers are the USSR and France, so they form a similar major / minor pairing and their sculpts reflect this. Also, France has sometimes (but not always) been an ally of Russia, for instance as was the case during WWI. And a few years earlier, during the Russo-Japanese War, European naval specialists watched the naval side of that war with great interest because the Russians were trained in the French naval tradition while the Japanese were trained in the British naval tradition, so the conflict was seen as kind of rough analogue to what a Franco-British naval war might theoretically look like. The British Admiralty was no doubt happy from that perspective to see Japan utterly clobber Russia at sea, even though Japan’s rise as a major naval power did have some uncomfortable implications for Britain.

MakeMaps

@calvinhobbesliker:

Yeah, France is mostly useless, though sometimes you can use your fighter and your North African infantry to skirmish against the Italians, or you could use any remaining ships and the fighter to kill some small ships.

But mostly, you’ll be using your units to boost the defense of important territories.

You know something. If Axis ever declares war on true Neutrals, Turkey would make a great forwarding base to set up a FreeFrench forces HQ against the Axis.

calvinhobbesliker

@MakeMaps:

@calvinhobbesliker:

Yeah, France is mostly useless, though sometimes you can use your fighter and your North African infantry to skirmish against the Italians, or you could use any remaining ships and the fighter to kill some small ships.

But mostly, you’ll be using your units to boost the defense of important territories.

You know something. If Axis ever declares war on true Neutrals, Turkey would make a great forwarding base to set up a FreeFrench forces HQ against the Axis.

I think I’d rather have Russia take Turkey, since they can actually use the money and the inf to invade the Balkans and take advantage of their +3 per Axis territory NO.

MakeMaps

@calvinhobbesliker:

@MakeMaps:

@calvinhobbesliker:

Yeah, France is mostly useless, though sometimes you can use your fighter and your North African infantry to skirmish against the Italians, or you could use any remaining ships and the fighter to kill some small ships.

But mostly, you’ll be using your units to boost the defense of important territories.

You know something. If Axis ever declares war on true Neutrals, Turkey would make a great forwarding base to set up a FreeFrench forces HQ against the Axis.

I think I’d rather have Russia take Turkey, since they can actually use the money and the inf to invade the Balkans and take advantage of their +3 per Axis territory NO.

Of course.
However, we are speculating on the subject about France’s uselessness….

Nippon-koku

I’ve got it

1. Get a Frenchman on a UK transport

2. Bring him around to Hawaii

3. Have America strike Japan and clear out the island

4. Move the UK transport up there

5. Unload the Frenchman on France’s turn

6. France takes Japan

7. ?

8. Profit

teslas

9: Liberate Paris with US + 4 free frech inf pop in

10: Non-com in as much UK support as possible

11: Survive Italian counter-attack on Paris

12: France can actually spend that Japanese money, building 3 units and upgrading its mIC to a major, saving rest for 10 units on the next round.

13: Survive, somehow, a German attack on Paris.

14: ?

The only thing stopping you is common sense, your own inhibitions, and more common sense.

Narvik

I suspect this belong in House Rules, but how about joining France and Canada as one Power with two Economies ? Not very different from the case with UKE and UKP.

Canada got 7 IPC and France 19. After France is captured, Canada get the colony income.

I start a new thread about this in the HR section, so stay alert, man…

calvinhobbesliker

But that weakens the UK a lot, in exchange for a country that can only build in faraway Canada…

Narvik

never satisfied, are we ?

General Veers

@CWO:

@General:

I understand the novelty of adding France to a large scale European map, but can someone remind me why they use USSR sculpts for so many units that they won’t build? Once liberated they used British and American equipment so they may as well have blue American pieces. Or just cut their piece count and give them to the British and American piece pools.

My guess is that it’s related to the large power / small power pairings in Global. Except for a game with two players (one Allied, one Axis), the number-of-players chart always pairs China with the US and always pairs ANZAC with the UK in games involving three or more people. The USSR and France each get tacked on to one of those pairings in 3-player games, but get tacked together in the 4-, 5- and 6-player games. The rules say that US artillery and aircraft units should be used for China, which reflects the US / China pairing. ANZAC’s equipment pieces are of Commonwealth – and sometimes specifically of British – origin, which reflects the UK / ANZAC pairing. The leftover Allied powers are the USSR and France, so they form a similar major / minor pairing and their sculpts reflect this. Also, France has sometimes (but not always) been an ally of Russia, for instance as was the case during WWI. And a few years earlier, during the Russo-Japanese War, European naval specialists watched the naval side of that war with great interest because the Russians were trained in the French naval tradition while the Japanese were trained in the British naval tradition, so the conflict was seen as kind of rough analogue to what a Franco-British naval war might theoretically look like. The British Admiralty was no doubt happy from that perspective to see Japan utterly clobber Russia at sea, even though Japan’s rise as a major naval power did have some uncomfortable implications for Britain.

I see, I never made the connection between major/minor pairings for sculpts. It makes sense, but it is funny that this pairing is loaded with naval units that will never be purchased by neither the USSR or France unless the game is already decided.

CWO Marc

@General:

It makes sense, but it is funny that this pairing is loaded with naval units that will never be purchased by neither the USSR or France unless the game is already decided.

In a certain sense, the “naval units that will never be purchased by neither the USSR or France” element could be said to represent the historical position of both countries as frustrated naval powers. For such a huge country, Russia has surprisingly little access to the sea: its huge northern coastline is ice-bound most of the time, as is the upper part of its eastern coastline, leaving basically just the Baltic, the Black Sea and the area rougly around and south of Vladivostok. Russia’s performance in naval warfare hasn’t been very good as far as I know, with its low point being the Russo-Japanese War of 1905-1906. One particularly embarrassing action during that war was the Dogger Bank Incident, in which a trigger-happy Russian battle fleet opened fire on some British fishing boats in the North Sea (in waters roughly halfway between Britain and Denmark) because the Russians suspected that they were combat vessels of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Russia almost ended up at war with Britain because of that little debacle.

As for France, it has excellent access to both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and it also has a long naval tradition, but its problem is that its neighbor Britain – which as an island nation depends on naval trade – has historically had even more reasons than France to be a first-rate naval power, with the result that France has often ended up in second place compared to Britain. This explains in part why French naval thinkers have tended to be open to unconventional approaches to naval warfare (such as guerre de course, or the use of “equalizers” such as destroyers and submarines) in attempts to neutralize Britain’s superiority in traditional fleet combat. Unfortunately for France, Britain’s approach to dealing with this problem has often (though not always) been: let other nations be the first ones to innovate (since there’s no point in rendering your own fleet obsolete), then adopt the same technologies and overtake the other nations by using your superior industrial base to out-build the competition.

calvinhobbesliker

Interestingly, at the end of the war, the Red Navy was the third largest in the world (after the US and Royal Navies).

CWO Marc

@calvinhobbesliker:

Interestingly, at the end of the war, the Red Navy was the third largest in the world (after the US and Royal Navies).

Yes, though by some estimations it was the Royal Canadian Navy that was in third place. Admittedly, part of the reason for the RCN’s high numbers was that it had a large number of small combat/escort vessels like corvettes, and another part of the reason for its place near the top of the world ranking was that much of the competition – the IJN, the Krigsmarine and the Regia Marina – had been eliminated from the game.

Nippon-koku

@teslas:

9: Liberate Paris with US + 4 free frech inf pop in

10: Non-com in as much UK support as possible

11: Survive Italian counter-attack on Paris

12: France can actually spend that Japanese money, building 3 units and upgrading its mIC to a major, saving rest for 10 units on the next round.

13: Survive, somehow, a German attack on Paris.

14: ?

The only thing stopping you is common sense, your own inhibitions, and more common sense.

I think we’re onto something!

ghr2

@calvinhobbesliker:

But that weakens the UK a lot, in exchange for a country that can only build in faraway Canada…

Not really.

calvinhobbesliker

@ghr2:

@calvinhobbesliker:

But that weakens the UK a lot, in exchange for a country that can only build in faraway Canada…

Not really.

The British lose 8 IPC’s from Canada, which is about a third of their Europe income…

Narvik

Correct, but Toronto can build 12 + IPC Worth of units every turn, its like a bomber every turn in Exchange for the loss of 8 IPC

Black_Elk

The inclusion of France is one of those game concepts that might have been interesting, but just wasn’t executed.

In order for the French to have much interest as a player nation, they need at least an opening turn where their capital isn’t already occupied by Germany. I find it curious that the German balance was designed for them to take Paris immediately on G1. I think it would have been cooler if the balance was designed for Paris to fall on G2.

I think the best shot at a more interesting France, would be a revision to the turn order sequence of some kind. For ease of use, you could preserve the same essential sequence but just change the starting point. For example…

Germany, Russia, Japan, USA/China/UK/Pac, Italy, Anzac/France > Germany

Could change to…

Italy, Anzac/France, Germany, Russia, Japan, USA/China/UK/Pac > Italy

This sequence would have showcase the new player nations (especially Anzac and France) in a more engaging way than the OOB order. Anzac could snap up an NO and start in a stronger position vs Japan. Italy could screw with the Med sure, but this would be offset more or less, by the fact that France is still in play. To take France, G would have to bring almost everything available, which gives the UK the starting fleet that it seems to need. I mean remember that line in the manual about “Giving Germany their Stukas” ?
Wouldn’t it be cooler if those Stukas were used against France on G1 instead of the UK in the channel?

Then we could just offset things with cash. Whichever nation is screwed the hardest from this turn order revision, gets a starting income bonus of comparable value. Who knows? maybe you don’t even need a bonus? The change would surely favor Allies, and they are at a definite disadvantage OOB. Italy would be more powerful and be able to destroy Allied TUV in the Med/Africa, but Germany would have a much more challenging opener, with a more formidable Royal Navy to deal with on G2.

Using such a system it’s possible to make every nation more interesting to play, since you can basically fast forward or rewind the sequence to give the game a new dynamic. In this case we rewind a bit… to an Italy and Anzac/France opener. Start date, vaguely May Day 1940
:-D

I had some HRs to randomize the turn sequence in this way for AA50, with a 1d6 roll. I tried it a couple times in Global (though for G40 I used some other 6 position sequences as well, to split the Anglo-American turn.) In some cases the player could roll a turn sequence with France ahead of Germany, which allowed for the French to have some use. It of course collapses the following round, as German TUV is too powerful to overcome, but the stall allows the French player to have at least one real turn, before they hand over their cash to the Germans or Italians. This is a simpler version of that approach, it’s not a randomized turn order sequence per se, just a shift backwards in the sequence by 2 positions. With Il Duce leading the charge.

Instead of being a useless afterthought, France would actually be pivotal to the opening round. They would have several options.

Stack Paris for defense is an obvious one.
But they might also abandon Paris and stack S. France. Maybe even build a channel or med fleet?
Or perhaps they invest in the long term Allied war effort and buy some Bases in the colonies!

It would just be a more fun game all around I think, whatever the balance by sides ends up being. Italy would be more fun. Anzac would be more fun. And France would definitely be more fun!
;)

It might even work out so that you don’t have to change anything at all in the OOB set up, keep the same turn sequence, just go with a different start position.

It, Az/Fr, Gr, Ru, US/Ch/UK:
and then back to Italy

Any thoughts?

France totally useless

Featured Topics

T-shirts, Hats, and More

Suggested Topics

Southern France

Leaving France for Italy

Liberating France or not?

Italy in France??

Should you liberate France?

France

Two stupid questions about capture of France and alpha

DO NOT retake the Capital of the UK, France or Italy just to hand the IPCs back

35

17.0k

39.3k

1.7m