Slitherine

The French player can transport all of the garrisons from Africa, Corsica, and the Middle East to help defend the homeland vs. Germany (I don't know how historical this move is), yet these units--and more--magically reappear as either Vichy or Free French units, once the Armistice is accepted/rejected.

This leads to silly play, like in some recent AAR's, where the German deliberately waits to conquer Paris due to the fact that once he takes the capital (if Axis wants to refuse the Armistice), these units will spontaneously reappear. And, of course, the even sillier "suicide" play by Allies to deliberately destroy the Paris defenders or leave Paris vacant to prevent just such an exploit.

IMO, it would be an appropriate disincentive for the Allies to pull all Gar from the colonies if they knew that these units would be gone for good.

Do I have my history wrong here? Was there actually a surge in formation of Vichy/Free French units that would be parallel to what happens in the game?

Troops from North Africa certainly served in France, but obviously, the French colonial holdings weren't left without defences. In fact, colonial troops outnumbered the Vichy's "Army".

I agree that the current rule causes strange results and promotes gamey behaviour. It would be best if France didn't get free units after armistice is refused or if they got only 1 GAR.

Vichy should get free GARs, though. Otherwise, the Allied player will always leave the North Africa undefended after the Battle of France is over so that there will be no opposition to Torch.

Diplomaticus wrote:The French player can transport all of the garrisons from Africa, Corsica, and the Middle East to help defend the homeland vs. Germany (I don't know how historical this move is), yet these units--and more--magically reappear as either Vichy or Free French units, once the Armistice is accepted/rejected.

This leads to silly play, like in some recent AAR's, where the German deliberately waits to conquer Paris due to the fact that once he takes the capital (if Axis wants to refuse the Armistice), these units will spontaneously reappear. And, of course, the even sillier "suicide" play by Allies to deliberately destroy the Paris defenders or leave Paris vacant to prevent just such an exploit.

IMO, it would be an appropriate disincentive for the Allies to pull all Gar from the colonies if they knew that these units would be gone for good.

Do I have my history wrong here? Was there actually a surge in formation of Vichy/Free French units that would be parallel to what happens in the game?

As far as I know the units will not reappear if the armistice is rejected. If the Allied player empties the Med, the Axis player should reject the armistice for an easy conquest of North Africa.

Cheers Zechi

zechi wrote:
As far as I know the units will not reappear if the armistice is rejected. If the Allied player empties the Med, the Axis player should reject the armistice for an easy conquest of North Africa.

Cheers Zechi

Actually, they do. This has just happened in my current game. Playing the French, I'd emptied every colony to help defend France. Then, when Axis rejected the Armistice, voila! New--and much better quality!--Free French units appeared in several North African cities that had not yet been occupied by the Germans.

All Allied controlled French North African cities will get garrisons if armistice offer is rejected. This is the same as when Vichy France is created. These units can be seen as all Allied units escaping France or being formed in French colonies to fight on.

Originally we didn't let any units spawn in French North Africa and then the Axis could too easily take these territories. They just sent Italians transports to each port and immediately grab the cities.

This is still possible to do if you land before the armistice offer is rejected. So if you empty all of French North Africa you open up the territory to Italian invasion.

The game balance in France requires that the Allied player sends the reinforcements to north Africa to fill second line gaps in the front line against Germany.

So if we shouldn't spawn garrisons in French North Africa then we should let France start with more garrisons already in France. France is quite weak in September 1939 and that means they're quite vulnerable to a blitzkrieg attack. It takes some time to get the African garrisons to France and to the front line.

Stauffenberg wrote:All Allied controlled French North African cities will get garrisons if armistice offer is rejected. This is the same as when Vichy France is created. These units can be seen as all Allied units escaping France or being formed in French colonies to fight on.

Originally we didn't let any units spawn in French North Africa and then the Axis could too easily take these territories. They just sent Italians transports to each port and immediately grab the cities.

This is still possible to do if you land before the armistice offer is rejected. So if you empty all of French North Africa you open up the territory to Italian invasion.

The game balance in France requires that the Allied player sends the reinforcements to north Africa to fill second line gaps in the front line against Germany.

So if we shouldn't spawn garrisons in French North Africa then we should let France start with more garrisons already in France. France is quite weak in September 1939 and that means they're quite vulnerable to a blitzkrieg attack. It takes some time to get the African garrisons to France and to the front line.

Then I share the opinion Diplomaticus. These units should not be replaced. Firstly, I don't think that it is necessary to get the French NA GAR for a good defense of France. I usually manage quite good without them.

Secondly, with the new transport rules, it will even be cheaper to bring these GAR to France, as you get back the costs for the transports. It will then be a no brainer to bring these units to France. It will also lead to the unrealistic scenario that Diplomaticus described, that the Axis will try to keep the French artificially longer in the game to get a foothold in NA and the Allies will try to force a decision about the armistice to avoid any easy conquest of French NA, i.e. going suicidal with the defenders of Paris.. However, this is of course a ridiculous situation.

Thirdly, these units were needed by the French to maintain order in North Africa. Furthermore I doubt that these units could easily be reformed from the possible remnants of the French Army beaten on the continent. At least there should be some window of opportunity for the Axis to attack an unguarded North Africa.

Also, it's plain stupid that the Axis player has to delay the fall of Paris if they want to capture North Africa easily...

One thing we have to remember is that there were in fact MORE French units in French North Africa than in the GS 1939 scenario. We haven't added all of them because then most Allied players would send them to France and that means a French garrison blob against Germany. Then Germany won't be able to take Paris in June.

The alternative could be to add more units in France and none in French North Africa, but that means Axis players can for sure land anywhere there and take the cities without opposition.

The only problem I see is that Axis players might want to delay the capture of Paris to be able to take the cities in French North Africa before the fall of Paris. This is why we added the rule that the armistice offer will automatically be offered if Paris is empty in June 1940 or later. So if the Allied player sees the Axis stalling then he can just move the unit out of Paris and the armistice offer will be offered. If Paris is surrounded then he can make a suicide attack on an adjacent unit to make it become empty.

So the Axis won't gain many turns doing so.

What we want is that French North Africa should require an Axis invasion to ensure the conquest of the key cities. So there must be units present there to ensure this happens. Those were the units that weren't placed on the map initially.

One thing we could do as an alternative is to spawn the French North Africa garrisons at the end of the Allied may 1940 turn if France is still alive. That means no extra units will spawn when France surrenders and the garrisons in French North Africa arrives too late to be used in France so the Allied player will keep them in Africa in case the armistice offer is rejected. That's maybe more realistic.

On the other hand I haven't seen anyone complain that Vichy France gets garrisons in all the French North African cities. Those were the same troops that would have become Free French if the armistice offer was rejected.

France had troops many places in the world. Some from the foreign legion, some from colonial troops and some from troops that escaped from France.

When the Allies launched Torch there was a considerable troop concentration in Vichy French territory in French North Africa. They didn't perform well and several units surrendered quickly.

In GS all French units will suffer a morale loss when France surrenders if the armistice offer is rejected. So it should be pretty easy for the Axis to grab cities in French North Africa if they're prepared for it.

One thing we could discuss is the strength of these spawned units. Maybe they should spawn at e. g. 5 steps instead of 10? I just on't want the cities to be empty so the Axis can land directly into the cities.

Stauffenberg wrote:One thing we have to remember is that there were in fact MORE French units in French North Africa than in the GS 1939 scenario. We haven't added all of them because then most Allied players would send them to France and that means a French garrison blob against Germany. Then Germany won't be able to take Paris in June.

The alternative could be to add more units in France and none in French North Africa, but that means Axis players can for sure land anywhere there and take the cities without opposition.

The only problem I see is that Axis players might want to delay the capture of Paris to be able to take the cities in French North Africa before the fall of Paris. This is why we added the rule that the armistice offer will automatically be offered if Paris is empty in June 1940 or later. So if the Allied player sees the Axis stalling then he can just move the unit out of Paris and the armistice offer will be offered. If Paris is surrounded then he can make a suicide attack on an adjacent unit to make it become empty.

So the Axis won't gain many turns doing so.

What we want is that French North Africa should require an Axis invasion to ensure the conquest of the key cities. So there must be units present there to ensure this happens. Those were the units that weren't placed on the map initially.

I don't see your point here. The Allied player has to take the decision to either bring in reinforcements from North Africa for a better defense of France, but he then risks an easy capture of French North Africa should the Axis reject the armistice OR alternatively he does not transport the French GAR from North Africa, but can be sure that it will not be an easy Axis conquest.

Now with the new transport rules it will be an absolute "no brainer" to bring in the French GAR, as you will get the transports costs for free.

I agree with zechi. However, I think that Vichy should be kept as it is, because there should be at least a minimal opposition to Torch, which happens in 1942, not in 1940, anyway. GAR steps could be reduced, though.

The French player should choose either to leave GARs in Africa and prevent easy grabs for the Axis or to ship all/most of GARs to France in order to delay the Germans. For balance, maybe one additional GAR should be added to France at the beginning of the 1939 scenario.

zechi wrote:I don't see your point here. The Allied player has to take the decision to either bring in reinforcements from North Africa for a better defense of France, but he then risks an easy capture of French North Africa should the Axis reject the armistice OR alternatively he does not transport the French GAR from North Africa, but can be sure that it will not be an easy Axis conquest.

Now with the new transport rules it will be an absolute "no brainer" to bring in the French GAR, as you will get the transports costs for free.

The Allied player is SUPPOSED to bring in the units from French North Africa. The game balance in France depends on it. The alternative is to remove the units in Africa and place them directly in French cities. Then we can spawn the units in Africa in the Spring of 1940.

The balance depends on getting these garrisons to France, but we don't want garrisons from all cities to get to France. Therefore they're not placed in the 1939 scenario at start.

Cybvep wrote:I agree with zechi. However, I think that Vichy should be kept as it is, because there should be at least a minimal opposition to Torch, which happens in 1942, not in 1940, anyway. GAR steps could be reduced, though.

The French player should choose either to leave GARs in Africa and prevent easy grabs for the Axis or to ship all/most of GARs to France in order to delay the Germans. For balance, maybe one additional GAR should be added to France at the beginning of the 1939 scenario.

I think you miss the point here. Ideally there should be garrison units in EVERY French North African city and fortress at the game start. But if you do that then you can rest assured that the Allied player will send all of them to France to delay the German advance.

So instead we removed most of them from the map and only add them after Paris has fallen. If we start to mess with this then we can disrupt the game balance in France and we don't want to do that now. What we're discussing is only the situation where Germany rejects the French armistice offer. If they accept then Vichy France will have garrisons. If they reject we don't want the Axis conquest of French North Africa to happen without any opposition. Rejecting the armistice offer should be an option only if the French squander the navy, air force and the land units in France. This should not become the norm for most games.

What you're doing now is to reopen discussions we had several montsh ago before GS v2.0 was launched. Then the beta group decided upon this solution. If it's broken then we need to fix it, but so far I don't see that. We spent a lot of time discussing how to deal with this in the beta group.

So things have become the way they've become for a reason. At the moment GS v2.01 is NOT open to major changes that will alter the game balance unless we really have to. By that I mean we do it to fix a current game balance issue.

What benefit is it in making French North Africa wide open to Axis invasion if they reject the armistice offer? Then French units would have evacuated to southern France and sailed to Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco to fight on there as Free French units. So it's not historical at all to not have any units in Africa.

Even the Poles managed to evacuate some units to Britain in 1939.

Stauffenberg wrote:

zechi wrote:I don't see your point here. The Allied player has to take the decision to either bring in reinforcements from North Africa for a better defense of France, but he then risks an easy capture of French North Africa should the Axis reject the armistice OR alternatively he does not transport the French GAR from North Africa, but can be sure that it will not be an easy Axis conquest.

Now with the new transport rules it will be an absolute "no brainer" to bring in the French GAR, as you will get the transports costs for free.

The Allied player is SUPPOSED to bring in the units from French North Africa. The game balance in France depends on it. The alternative is to remove the units in Africa and place them directly in French cities. Then we can spawn the units in Africa in the Spring of 1940.

The balance depends on getting these garrisons to France, but we don't want garrisons from all cities to get to France. Therefore they're not placed in the 1939 scenario at start.

I don't think that this is true. In my last four games as Allies I did not know that the French GAR would "reappear" in North Africa if I bring them to fight in France and the armistice is rejected. Therefore I only brought the GAR vom Syria to France , but not the others nor the one from Corsica. In none of these games I lost France before June 1940 and in one I even hold out till September 1940 (in all games I used standard BEF).

If I remember correctly you can bring in two GAR from North Africa (not counting Syria) and one from Corsica. Before the latest changes this would result in transport costs of 24 PP. To buy these three GAR you would need 45 PP. So I was in fact 21 PP behind, which is about 1 1/2 GAR. I don't think this is decisive for the battle in France. However, with the latest changes you will not lose any PP for bringing in the GAR from the Med, which will result in a net gain for 60 PP (four GAR), i.e. it will be a no brainer to bring in these forces to France.

Have to agree with most posters here, current situation with Axis deliberately not taking Paris to avoid autospawning of garrisons is very gamey and does not "feel" right.

The Vichy garrisons can easily be rationalised as the Vichy regime given years of preperation to defend their colonies, but he instant respawn of troops shipped to the mainland is just weird.

trulster wrote:Have to agree with most posters here, current situation with Axis deliberately not taking Paris to avoid autospawning of garrisons is very gamey and does not "feel" right.

The Vichy garrisons can easily be rationalised as the Vichy regime given years of preperation to defend their colonies, but he instant respawn of troops shipped to the mainland is just weird.

The Allied player can ruin that Axis strategy by leaving Paris empty. Then the armistice offer is automatically offered.

Given the delays in releasing 2.1 up until now, it makes more sense to me to leave the situation unchanged, except possibly weakening the armistice-spawned units to 5. As long as the manual spells out this particular counter-strategy (suicide Paris to force armistice) players should be able to cope. Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good. (Seeking perfection in simulation is a never-ending and fruitless quest. Leave major adjustments for 2.2 or 3.0.)

dagtwo wrote:Given the delays in releasing 2.1 up until now, it makes more sense to me to leave the situation unchanged, except possibly weakening the armistice-spawned units to 5. As long as the manual spells out this particular counter-strategy (suicide Paris to force armistice) players should be able to cope. Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good. (Seeking perfection in simulation is a never-ending and fruitless quest. Leave major adjustments for 2.2 or 3.0.)

+1,

I think French units after the fall of France are too strong, as they have lost their normal source of supply and equipment that Britain could not replace in 1940/41.