Shoot, my sentence was in the wrong order. I edited it to mean what I wanted to say.
How can we add simple Vichy rules to Europe and/or Global 1940 2nd Edition?
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So, everyone give me your ideas for adding Vichy rules! I am getting a little tired of the unrealistic OOB setup which eliminates historical French rules. I would like to stress that I want changes to be simple and not changing the balance. Thanks! :roll:
de Gaulle
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Here are some ideas I have. After Paris falls the following take place: 1 France splits between Vichy and Free. 2 Vichy gets all French territories except French Equatorial Africa and Normandy and Indo-China. French Equatorial Africa and Normandy and Indo-China become Free French 3 (assuming no other French units have been destroyed) the French units are split up as follows: units in Normandy, England, SZ 110, and SZ 72 become Free French. All others are Vichy. (Units in France are gone.) 4 Vichy is worked like this. Vichy gets a turn. However Vichy may only purchase and deploy (infantry.) Vichy deploys wherever the Axis want them to but they may not deploy beyond the IPC value of a territory. Vichy collects from all territories controlled by Vichy. Vichy does not have a capital. Vichy is controlled by the Axis. Vichy goes tenth in the turn order. Axis may not invade any Vichy territory unless they declare war on Vichy (causing all Vichy to become Free French). Axis treat Vichy as a Axis power and all such rules apply. If Axis capture Southern France from Vichy, Sea units in sea zone 93 become owned by tge attackng Axis power. When Allies attack Vichy territories, combat lasts one round. After that all remaining Vichy units in that territory become Free French(unless all attacking Allies were destroyed or Axis units are also present). If Allies attack Vichy sea units, Vichy onky gets to fire one round. After that the Vichy sea units are destroyed. If Paris or southern France is liberated all Vichy become Free French and Vichy will never return. Allies always capture Vichy territories. 5 Free France: Free France is the same as France in an OOB Game. However Free France may buy units. After Paris falls, Free France automatically gets the money from its territories listed above. Free France may buy any unit type and place in any space it controls or in England. Sea units may go in any sea zone bordering a Free French territory or England. If Paris is liberated, Free France takes over the French ecoonomy as normal and may no longer build anywhere. Troop bonus is still in effect.
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G40 Balance Mod has a Vichy-France rule set, a playable tsvg-file of which is attached. Rules are laid out in the Game Notes. Basically, France enters into the Armistice with Germany when certain conditions are met, whereupon French territory and French units turn Pro-Axis Neutral. Its intended for play with the Balance Mod and is a lot of fun.
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More special rules to clutter down the playability ?
You do know that Germany has the option to not invade Southern France by the current OOB rules ? Just don’t combat move into it, let the French inf and art live, and USA can never use that Minor IC as long as Paris is occupied. Now you will get pretty much the Vichy look you ask for, but without a book of complicated special rules and a 10 pages FAQ to explain it.
Even if I admire your effort to drag a part of France down in the fascist mud, which is actually historically correct, since Vichy did contribute economically more to the fascist war effort than Italy, it will add nothing to the game. It may please some history class school teachers, and even maybe some complicated-house-rule lovers, but it will also open Pandoras box.
Now every nation, neutral or playable, will turn into a state of civil war as soon their capital are occupied. Take Paris and the French forces will split into pro Allies and pro Axis. Take Rome and the Italian forces will split into pro Allies and pro Axis. Take Bejing and the Chinese forces will split into pro Allies and pro Axis. Take Jugoslavia or Greece, and that forces, who is not represented by generic plastic soldiers in the OOB game, will turn into pro Allies and pro Axis. It is a pattern in this, a historical correct pattern, but making house rules of this will not benefit the playability. Before getting Vichy special rules, I would rather see Norway as a playable power with national specific plastic units.
Nuff said
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I understand all your points. My rules there are quite complicated but another thing I wanted was to allow France to build even after its capital is taken. Adding Vichy would be the only way to balance this. The whole idea is to make France have a bigger role. Adding Norway would be fun as well as adding any other country.
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C’mon, we can’t blame a man modeling himself after Charles de Gaulle for trying to make France a more important and interesting factor in the war! But now that we’re at it, let’s have the Dutch! and the Greeks, Yugoslavians, Poles! A separate Chinese communist faction, Indonesian freedom fighters, the resistance! And Finland of course, a separate Axis nation.
Seriously, from a gaming point of view, I agree that we don’t want to add more rules, and I also think that it’s slightly pointless to have France as a separate nation at all. It can never do much, and has no income…. no fun playing it. For simplicity, it could simply be removed, by just assuming that we would be a little bit further in the war.
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@Herr:
But now that we’re at it, let’s have the Dutch! and the Greeks, Yugoslavians, Poles! A separate Chinese communist faction, Indonesian freedom fighters, the resistance! And Finland of course, a separate Axis nation.
Yes! A tech roll for resistance fighters that steal PU’s like convoy raids. :-)
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From an gaming point of view France is unnecessary after turn 1-2. Because if this is there any way we can make France more fun? Perhaps by giving them the ability to build? Sometimes more fun = more complications :roll:
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Charles, don’t listen to the naysayers. I think you’re onto something ;)
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You could try out something we have done a few times: Alternate Alliances.
We played a game where France was a part of the Axis with Germany and Italy. All you have to do is change the UK tank and artillery in Paris to French pieces, swap out the French Infantry and Fighter in London for UK pieces and move the French Cruiser in SZ 110 to SZ 105.
This way instead of Germany tromping France with Italy finishing them off in the first round, now they go in other directions while France gets to buy stuff and attack the Allies. It was fun. -
@Charles:
is there any way we can make France
There are Axis and Allies maps for earlier European eras in which France is more significant than it was in WW2. If you specifically want France to be more involved, play one of those. The fact of the matter is that France was a bit player in WW2 because of how rapidly it collapsed, and its representation on the G40 map is thus accurate.
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The OOB rules, for the sake of simplicity, don’t depict the historical Vichy / Free French split. Instead, they depict a kind of altermate-history scenario in which France continued to fight as a single (but greatly diminished) power on the Allied side, but with rule restrictions that reduce it to near-irrelevance.
I can see the point of eliminating the historical Vichy / Free French elements of WWII, since otherwise A&A would be much more complicated, but at the same time I disagree with the combination of rule restrictions that make France nearly irrelevant. I think that France can be made more interesting, without adding too many complications, by simply allowing it to collect income and build and mobilize units despite the fact that its capital has fallen (which is essentially what China is allowed to do). It could be, for instance, allowed to do so as long as the Allies are in control of London, or even allowed to do so without any such restriction.
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@CWO:
The OOB rules, for the sake of simplicity, don’t depict the historical Vichy / Free French split. Instead, they depict a kind of altermate-history scenario in which France continued to fight as a single (but greatly diminished) power on the Allied side, but with rule restrictions that reduce it to near-irrelevance.
I can see the point of eliminating the historical Vichy / Free French elements of WWII, since otherwise A&A would be much more complicated, but at the same time I disagree with the combination of rule restrictions that make France nearly irrelevant. I think that France can be made more interesting, without adding too many complications, by simply allowing it to collect income and build and mobilize units despite the fact that its capital has fallen (which is essentially what China is allowed to do). It could be, for instance, allowed to do so as long as the Allies are in control of London, or even allowed to do so without any such restriction.
This would be quite interesting! Give the French the same rules as China after Paris is taken so they can still collect for Arfica and Syria.
The downside to this rule would be that these rueles would not hurt the Germans or Japan but ony Italy. If the French can still collect 6 - 9 IPC’s each turn its impossible for the Italians to take some countries in Africa. The Italians already have a hard job to resist the UK. With even more French untis in Africa/Middle East its impossible for Italy to sustain themselves.
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The Chinese rules only work because a) they can be eliminated completely within a few turns with focused effort by Japan; and b) they are restricted both in unit selection and movement range.
Apply those rules to the French without the unit and movement restrictions and you’ll get a crazy powerful version of it which is way more than anybody would want to see. Imagine France getting a mech inf in FEQ and Syria every turn, which is what they can afford after all three territories in mainland Europe as well as FIC are gone. Or they could alternate turns building a mech inf one turn and a bomber the next, or any other combination thereof.
If you think the setup is unrealistic now, imagine games where by the end of round 6 there’s a group of four French bombers that can grow by 2 every three turns thereafter.
The proposed rule actually makes France significantly more powerful than Italy, which often finds itself pulling in less than the 8 income that France would be getting in most games.
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@Charles:
I wanted was to allow France to build even after its capital is taken.
OK, I think we are on to something here. Every power that lost its capital, would establish a government in exile, as long they had any decent place to go. So, keep on building after your cap is gone makes sense, as long as you got income from free territories or colonies, or other players give you lend/lease.
But, and this is extremely important, the Rule must be mainstream and fit all playing powers. We cant have special rules to each country in the world. I figure the Chinese special rule should be an option to all powers that lost their capital. After all, China lost two capitals, first Peking, but then they moved the government to Bejing and lost that too, but that didn’t stop them fighting. If Moscow fell, woulntd they just move the government to Sibir and keep fighting ? And if London fell, wouldn’t they move to Canada ?
I say, if your capital is taken, you can still build infantry as long as you got income and free territories. This is true for any power.
Also, if your allies have access to your free territory, they let you buy artillery too, just like the Burma road etc.
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You’d get into situations where losing a capital made a country stronger.
China’s “build anywhere” ability is crazy powerful. Without the severe limitations that come with it, it would dominate the game.
Just think of the difference alone the ability to build in a newly captured factory would make to the game. The Chinese have that, except there are no limits to the number of units they can build and it’s not limited to territories with factories.
And to take it one step further, try applying it to powers that make 50+ income rather than China’s meager teens. It’s absolutely game-breaking.
Here’s an example: The US captures Normandy on its combat move. At the end of the combat move, it places 25 infantry in Normandy.
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Generally speaking, the evolution of A&A has been to make it more, not less, complicated. I’m all for this as I think it adds things to the game that people want. There’s a reason none of us are still playing 1984 MB rules. And if you look at house rules, a lot of the evolution can be traced to people experimenting with new ideas and seeing how they fit – Italy and China as separate players, dogfights, 2 hit battleships.
So in principle, I’m in favour of a Vichy France as long as it doesn’t tilt the balance too much, though I’m not sure how this could be achieved. Free french units can already prove useful in Africa and sometimes in the Indian Ocean without needing any help. So even though I’m not sure how it could be done, but my vote is behind anyone trying to come up with a good compromise that adds realism without bloating the game.
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I will preface this post by saying the below is by no means a perfect idea, but is something I had thought about a while back also.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=36528.0
I made that on the overwhelming feeling on these boards that the Axis have an advantage OOB, so certain things could obviously be changed, like letting Axis units enter Vichy territories for example. I didn’t want to change a lot from the game format, but also thought this added some flavor to adding Vichy, while still also making the Free French kind of playable still.
While it’s true that historically France was essentially a non factor in the war, we must remember that this game starts in 1940 BEFORE France was at war. I point this out only because not a single power at the time would have predicted such a swift French collapse and defeat, and were largely seen to be a formidable foe. This is a game after all, not a historical simulation where France HAS to be relegated to pointlessness. I’m just seeing the comments on here of people being worried about having to give Norway, Yugoslavia, Greece, and any other country on the map the same powers, but that’s unrealistic. All of those smaller countries generally WERE non-factors in the war, and no one was really worried about them. Obviously every nation contributed manpower and what not to help either side with the war efforts, but on a game scale like this, we really don’t need to worry about having exiled forces of these smaller nations shown. France is certainly different in that aspect in my opinion at least.
Point being, I agree Charles de Gaulle, this is certainly a house rule worthy to be looked at!
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Just a few historical notes:
After all, China lost two capitals, first Peking, but then they moved the government to Bejing and lost that too, but that didn’t stop them fighting.
Peking and Beijling are the same. But otherwise, the Chinese were indeed quite flexible about which city was their capital at any given time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_capitals_of_China
While it’s true that historically France was essentially a non factor in the war, we must remember that this game starts in 1940 BEFORE France was at war.
The game starts with the Netherlands and Belgium under German control, but France still free. Because the 1940 German operation known as Fall Gelb attacked all three countries (and Luxembourg) simultaneously, and France had already declared war on Germany in 1939, France was definitely at war at the point in time depicted by the start of the game. Also, by the time the Germans had taken Belgium, they also held northern France. I’d say that the game starts in late May, 1940, before the fall of Paris but with France already in deep trouble and on the verge of military collapse.
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@Herr:
While it’s true that historically France was essentially a non factor in the war, we must remember that this game starts in 1940 BEFORE France was at war.
The game starts with the Netherlands and Belgium under German control, but France still free. Because the 1940 German operation known as Fall Gelb attacked all three countries (and Luxembourg) simultaneously, and France had already declared war on Germany in 1939, France was definitely at war at the point in time depicted by the start of the game. Also, by the time the Germans had taken Belgium, they also held northern France. I’d say that the game starts in late May, 1940, before the fall of Paris but with France already in deep trouble and on the verge of military collapse.
True. I guess I should have clarified this in game terms again, and I certainly did not mean to say before they were at war, since they had been at war since 1939, poor word choice, and not at all what I meant, sorry for the confusion/misleading quote. What I had meant was before they had been taken out entirely. I’ve studied WWII history a bunch, so I am certainly aware of the timing of the low countries falling with the attack of France! �  :-)
Based on the map given, it looks as though for gaming mechanics France has yet to be attacked. I’d assumed this was done for gaming simplicity, but you could very well be right in that perhaps the starting troop numbers are designed to help show that France was on the verge of defeat. I just read the rulebook preface, and it does state that the start of the game is supposed to be at Dunkirk, which of course would help to show that France was on the verge of collapse.
My post was on an assumption of French military strength being still largely intact, and had assumed a gaming mechanic of an un-invaded France as of yet, in a quasi-alternate history sense if you will.
Regardless, the point of the post still stands, in that the contributions of France in the war/game outweigh those of the smaller nations mentioned to the point where France is the first country to be looked at for adding house rules of this sort!
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