Can't take control of territory belonging to capital-less ally?

Having a single British infantry trek half way across Africa in the opposite direction of enemy units just to claim an empty French territory worth 1 IPC… is silly IMO. Basically all French territories (or the territories of any nation that lost their capital) would essentially become pro allies neutrals that can be looted like vultures on a dead caracas. I agree that the UK split economy is a problem for Global gamers, the game should have been designed for Global use first with the separate theatre games being the side option, not the other way around.

@Marshmallow:

@odigity:

Does anyone else find this silly?  Does anyone house-rule it to allow NCM walk-ons, like when taking control of a friendly neutral?

The part that I find silly is the UK division, whereby UK Atlantic can’t even liberate and control UK Pacific territories if India has been taken, and UK Pacific can’t liberate UK Atlantic territories if London has been taken.

Marsh

Then you have to play the G39 games if you want to do that. :-D

@creeping-deth87:

There’s no oversight there at all, it would be pretty ridiculous if it worked the way you think it did. Britain would gobble up plenty of French IPCs in Africa and Madagascar without risking any units if it were that simple.

based on that logic why can the allies take the dutch east indies? It’s been a while since i read the rules but i thougth the reason was that their capital was conquered by germany…  Seems like the same logic behind taking the east indies could be applied to french territories once paris falls.

That’s what I do with friends when playing face to face. I won’t take nonsense from a gamedesigner that doesn’t know how to come up with a consistent ruleset. Houserules rule!

Allies not being able to take French territories is extremely ridiculous and very anti-historical.  We play whoever grabs them, gets them.  But I think it could even be taken a step further.   Let’s look at the four principal French Territories:

• Madagascar:  Status after the fall of France was Vichy controlled.  ALLIES attacked Madagascar and gained control of it in 1942 with the Battle of Madagascar.

• Syria: Status after the fall of France was Vichy controlled.  ALLIES attacked Syria in 1941 during Operation Exporter.

• Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia aka French North Africa:  Status after the fall of France was Vichy controlled.  ALLIES attacked with Operation Torch

• French West Africa: Status after the fall of France was Vichy controlled.    ALLIES and Free French attacked in 1940.

I think a more accurate way to model France would be to have all French territories on the European side start as “Vichy” after the fall of France (for simplicity’s sake … I know some of the Central African Territories would be Free France from the start … but for simplicity’s sake lets make all of them Vichy)  Then, Allies have to fight their way into them to make them “Free” and hence collect the IPCs.  Therefore, Axis start with control of the French land units on the European side of the map after the fall of France, but should not be able to move the French units out of their original territories.

In fact, it could even be argued that Germany should collect the IPCs for these Vichy French territories after capturing Paris.  … but that might be going a bridge too far.

EDIT:  CWO Marc has an excellent breakdown of the French territories and their alliances after the fall of France.  … And yes, the game would be much more accurately modeled if all remaining French Units became Vichy (and German controlled) after the fall of France.  Here is a link to his post.  France is listed under Sections 6A, 6B and 6C.  http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=36590.0

Yeah this has come up a few times, and I also feel that it’s silly. My main gripe is that it prevents the British or Americans from building bases in French West Africa, which would provide a useful alternative to Gibralter.

The “Balanced Mod” version currently being played by some of us on the forum does include a Vichy France simulation. You might want to take a look:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=37341.msg1500015#msg1500015

Thanks to regularkid and others for coming up with this.

@Ehpic:

@creeping-deth87:

There’s no oversight there at all, it would be pretty ridiculous if it worked the way you think it did. Britain would gobble up plenty of French IPCs in Africa and Madagascar without risking any units if it were that simple.

based on that logic why can the allies take the dutch east indies? It’s been a while since i read the rules but i thougth the reason was that their capital was conquered by germany…  Seems like the same logic behind taking the east indies could be applied to french territories once paris falls.Â

Only UK and ANZAC can take control of Dutch territories that have not been captured by the Axis.  This is due to their guardianship arrangement with the Dutch government in exile.

US can’t? I haven’t noticed that before. Of course, it’s pretty unlikely that Celebes or any of the DEI wouldn’t be claimed by the time the US arrive.

@the_jetset:

In fact, it could even be argued that Germany should collect the IPCs for these Vichy French territories after capturing Paris.  … but that might be going a bridge too far.

While I agree with this in spirit, I do think it could be taken too far. You could have people that say it should be this way for all countries: Once the capital is captured, the capturing power now controls all the territories and units of the vanquished nation.
For one thing, this would eliminate any possibility of liberation and I think this game would end up being a sort of Deluxe Risk rather than Axis & Allies.
Imagine this scenario:  Germany goes after Russia and tries punching straight through to Moscow along the north route, thereby NOT taking Ukraine or Stalingrad.  Suppose Japan didn’t attack Russia at all in the far east.  Now suppose Russia was foolish and bought a battleship for the Caspian Sea instead of infantry so they didn’t have a proper defense in Moscow and Germany wins.  Now Germany controls territory all the way to the Pacific and Japan now has a buddy to their north instead of an enemy. Plus, Germany becomes instantly rich, almost doubling their income with all the Russian 2 point territories plus all the troops that were guarding those territories (not to mention Germany’s shiny new battleship in the Caspian Sea.).

I wonder if a crazy rule like this would make games longer or shorter?  Capital defense would probably be even heavier.