• When I play the balanced mod I ignore Vichy France, as I am quite convinced that Axis can win easily without the crutch and otherwise see no advantage for attacking Normandy in G1.

  • '15

    A lot of people misunderstand how Southern France factors into Vichy.  You don’t have to kill the french units there.  The only situation where you would need to attack the territory without taking it would be if the UK landed a plane there.

    And honestly, at that point it probably makes sense to just take the tt and give up Vichy entirely.


  • What is the advantage as axis to doing vichy france?

  • '19 '18

    You do not need to kill the french destroyer+cruiser. These usually score 1 hit on average if you attack them. So, at the very least, you save 6 IPC for a submarine.

    You do not need to kill the french Infantry+Artillery in South africa, saving you 1 Infantry in the process, worth 3 IPC. Additionally, you can send the Italian troops (or German) to the Eastern Front 2 rounds faster.

    You do not need to kill the french infantry in North africa. Each of these has a chance to kill a unit too, and additionally it forces you to send a small army that way, if you want these territories (you can’t just walk there with one infantry). At the very least you save 1 infantry here too, which would otherwise die, for another 3 IPC.

    You get 3 (!!!) Inf for free in north africa, which is worth 9 IPC. And we are talking about 9 IPC spended in north Africa, where you normally need to use transports. Which is not always possible when UK has a strong fleet / airforce at Egypt.

    You get another free inf in Syria, worth again 3 IPC + 1/3 chance of losing another infantry.

    You get free blockers at South france, if the Allies are at Gibraltar with their fleet and threatening Rome.

    So, at the very least you save around 25 IPC, get free blockers for Rome and you can speed up the attack on Russia or Egypt. For the cost of 3 IPC per round.


  • I would say that you would very quickly back those 3 IPC per round from French North Africa, plus you now have more options on using your Italian troops on I1 if you aren’t trying to destroy the French Navy. Furthermore the UK needs to lose a fighter in Southern France if they want any chance of blocking Vichy France.  That fighter should die if the Italians can strafe the sea zone with a ground unit and planes.    I put the benefit to be around 40, but I need to play a full game to find out.  Guess we are going to see, huh MrRoboto.

  • '19 '17 '16

    Germany can be attacking with 8SBs on G3 - but after that their growth slows. The thing is London has insufficient incentive to repair damage. They have factories in Quebec and South Africa which they can use. They need to do something to get fighters across from Quebec but it is far from impossible. Buying a US carrier and positioning it off the Quebec Coast seems to suffice but there is also staging via Iceland (still out of range of bombers) and building an airbase are all options. Assuming London is already maxed out for damage after turn 2, then what do these bombers actually do but provide a threat? Attack Leningrad and Kiev seem their next target but they’re hardly juicy targets. I guess G4 you can be getting to bomb Moscow, assuming a G2 DOW. They won’t likely be intercepting 8SBs unless they have a lot of fighters, although 8 inbuilt AAA rolls would be against them. Still, without a few turns of ground troop production, USSR isn’t likely to fall too quickly.

    Perhaps that is the counter to this strategy - build a lot of Russian fighters the first few turns. Even if you buy all ground troops R1, R2 & R3 you could build 7 fighters for 9 total. Has anyone tried this counter? Germany can’t out build Russia unless it is already winning, it has to out fight it with its starting superiority.

    They can’t do what they did in the actual war - relocate their factories to Siberia. All the territories have a production of 1 so can’t build a minor complex. However, you can repair Stalingrad cheaply and build some more planes there. Probably lasts for a turn.

    I’m going to call this the Red Sky counter. Once many German bombers are out of reach of London and the Royal Navy, the UK can be active again.

  • '19 '18

    The strength of dark sky is not only the damage of bombardment. It is projecting a threat. Buy enough ground troops G1, G2 and G3, after that mostly bombers.

    US can’t build lots of transports, chances are they can’t build any at all. UK can’t build a fleet in the med. UK even needs to reinforce london at some point, since it can fall to even 1 transport, if there are enough bombers behind. Of course Moscow is still doomed. Once moscow falls, germany can either continue via middle east or threaten London heavily.

    At some point, probably after a lot of rounds, though, USA has a fleet big enough to withstand the bomber threat. They can finally move to Gibraltar. They probably have lots of destroyers and carriers, not many transports. What can they do now? whereever they land, the ground troops are immediately killed by 30 bombers. And another problem is that USA very likely don’t have such a large fleet, that they can defend two seazones. So once they move out of Gibraltar, they can’t get reinforcements.

  • '19 '17 '16

    I would say that by that time the Allies should be about bombing the cr*p out of Germany and West Germany or ready to do so. I guess they can still buy their bombers at one of their minor complexes. I would say with this approach, you haven’t been convoying UK much or at all because they can counter - destroyer in Quebec + planes from London.

  • '19 '18

    well, UK should be busy defending Cairo against Italy.
    And how is USA supposed to bomb Germany? With a J3, they can only move to Gibraltar as early as US3. And do they really have enough already to not be bombed out of there immediately? Probably not… And if they indeed have a fleet that’s big enough, they either don’t have lots of transports or they didn’t invest in the Pacific at all, which means Japan will win anyway

  • '19 '17 '16

    J3 DOW is a bit non conventional. If that happens, you can be in Norway US4, landing fighters on Finland the same turn. Bombers can be doing unescorted raids on West Germany US4, escorted US5 and also on Germany.

    UK can do unescorted raids on West Germany UK1, although it isn’t likely to do so.

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