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:
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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.
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Syria: Status after the fall of France was Vichy controlled. ALLIES attacked Syria in 1941 during Operation Exporter.
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Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia aka French North Africa: Status after the fall of France was Vichy controlled. ALLIES attacked with Operation Torch
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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