Slitherine

Just wondering:

How do you hold France? I've found that a motorized inf. in Paris builds up a few entrenchments and then other inf corps around it, entren ch as well...by the time the Germans are there, it takes them a bit longer to take than if you held a line further north and ended up with little around Paris.

Other ideas/strategies?

What's a good date to hold until? Or, as the German, what's an important date to have Paris captured by?

There's a discussion of this issue in the Freeverse (CEAW for Mac) site [http://forum.freeverse.com/viewtopic.php?id=2353], but remember that a lot of these older points were based on the old 1.04 version, when France had fewer units at start and when it was legal to transport garrisons (it used to be common practice for the UK to ship some garrisons to France).

IMHO, the historical June conquest of France (Paris was captured 6/14/40, a few days after Italy's DoW) should be considered 'par'--meaning a more or less expected, neutral result. The more turns before that date that Paris falls, the better for Axis, and vice versa.

Against human opponents, my best Axis performance was an early April (4/8?) conquest, but that was in 1.04. My best as Allies was... never. That is, we called off the game in November 1940, but that was against a newbie and also 1.04.


You raised the issue of which unit to put in Paris. Don't forget that a capital city allows an entrenchment factor of '8'--but units only entrench 1/turn, so it's critical to place your Parisian defender with plenty of time to dig in. Some folks like placing the French armored unit in Paris because it's the toughest unit the French have got. OTOH, that means your best counter-attack threat is hors de combat. It's one of those countless tough decisions that make CEAW such a replayable game.

Defending Paris depends on how your opponent tries to take it. What works against the AI doesn't work too well against a human opponent.

That said, a good rule of thumb is that if Paris holds past its historical capture date, then the Allied cause is doing well. If before, then there are problems. The main value of France is to last long enough to allow England to be able to survive until the entry of the US/USSR. That means you shouldn't send anything into France that isn't absolutely necessary to its defense, and no British units should ever be allowed to die in France. While a succesful Seelowe is tough to pull off against a human, if the Germans are able to take southern England (essentially, every city with more than 1PP in England) and didn't lose too much doing so, then British production will be pitiful.

Jyri

I am playing 2 games on PBeM with my opponents as Axis. Lets see how long I hold France.

Any one tried to attack the Germans through the Maginot Line ? How long will that last ?

Yes and its not recommended. It ruffly lasts until the Germans decide to deal with it. But against a very inexperienced player or one that has gotten too aggressive early it can be some what effective. For example I recently played a TCPIP game with an individual who attacked Poland, Denmark, and Holland by turn 2 of the game failing to take any capitals. I almost cut his army off in Holland by attacking out of the Maginot. But that was a very specific set of circumstances that would probably not happen again. You could do it against the AI with no problem though.

julyderek wrote:Any one tried to attack the Germans through the Maginot Line ? How long will that last ?

I've got a good scare story for you on this one, for anyone thinking of employing this strategy.

This worked several times against inexperienced opponents; I even took and held the Ruhr for a few turns against one of them. But then I ran into someone who I now see is the best vanilla player I've played against. I tried this, and he RR half of his army out of Poland in response. I retreated to the Maginot line, but he was able to breach it. Long story short, he ignored Holland and struck through Belgium, hitting the already weakened French from 2 sides. France fell in January. January! After a successful Sealion, my opponent invaded the USSR in April 1941 and captured Perm by late 1942. By far my worst defeat ever (I'm doing much better on rematch, thank you very much ) I will never send the French into Germany in 1939 again. Most of the time, it's far better to just sit tight and defend.

Thanks guys. I am playing 2 games as Allies and I guess if I hold France post June 1940 I should congratulate myself ?

Does producing a French General make any difference to the defenses ? Or is it a waste of precious PP ?

julyderek wrote:Thanks guys. I am playing 2 games as Allies and I guess if I hold France post June 1940 I should congratulate myself ?

Does producing a French General make any difference to the defenses ? Or is it a waste of precious PP ?

Well, June 1940 is the historical date, so I'd consider that "breaking even." But if you can hold a good German player off that long you've done a fine job. I usually recruit that 25 pp, 3 leadership French general in the second turn, and stick him in Paris. If you purchase the 5 leadership general, you end up paying 30 extra pp for only 2 extra leadership points. That is a waste of pp that the French can't afford, especially when the 3 leadership commander gets the job done well enough (French effectiveness gets up to the mid-70s before the Germans invade).

The difference is not just 2 points its more like 4 points (leadership rating *2) so the actual numbers are 6 vs 10. Is that worth 30 pp I think so but to each there own. But either way IMHO you have to have a leader for your units to be effective. I also think June is also the break even point, but it really depends on the tactics that both players are using for that matchup.

When defending France what is better to produce ? 1 Armour or 4 Garrisons ?

julyderek wrote:When defending France what is better to produce ? 1 Armour or 4 Garrisons ?

I've been using:

1st>>> motorized inf for inside Paris
then>>> inf...as much as possible...no garrisons...

The idea is to ring Paris, make the germans fight for it...cause as many casualties to them as you can...if a panzer korps takes casualties in the german turn, hit it with the armour and as many inf corps as possible...

Paris fell as scheduled in June 1940. And now I am waiting for my opponent to invade England or will he not ?

In the other similar game, instead of building up my defensive forces in France, I have moved North into Belgium to assist my Belgium buddies. My opponent is attacking Belgium and Holland at once.