First game ever, should France go first?

They have been known to survive, but then the Italians would be unwise not to finish them off.
It was done this way to “gift” Germany the necessary income to be a contender in the game. The game begins with a large Allied income edge, which can get bigger still if the Axis cannot close it quickly.
If France goes first, it would skew the game too much in the Allies favour.
Try it with your friends if you wish, but it may nt be too much fun being the Axis.

Usually, if Germany fails to take Paris round 1, even if Italy finishes off the French, it tends to be a bad game for Germany. Germany really needs that French treasury to spend on round 2 so they have enough to counter England and prepare against Russia. If they don’t get that extra cash, they usually end up short. England starts getting the upper hand and when Russia can declare war, they come pouring over the border. Also, even though Italy gets that French treasury money, it just doesn’t seem to work as well. Although, that extra cash for Italy could help them rebuild their navy and/or prove a bigger threat to the Brits in the Med and Africa. In that case, it could get England off of Germany’s back and they can better prepare to invade Russia.
I had a game once where Germany did not allocate enough forces and failed to take Paris. Britain sent planes over and Italy wasn’t able to take Paris. On round 2, since Germany used up most of it’s land forces in the first attempt and purchased navy, they again failed to take Paris. Italy finally got it on it’s second turn. Both Germany and Italy were so drained by that time that further plans just failed miserably. Once the US and Russia got into the war, the Euro Axis got stomped out fairly quickly. Japan did pretty good in the Pacific, but not good enough to win and soon ALL the Allies turned on her.
One thing I will say about your idea, it would be nice to see France buy stuff for a change. Usually Germany wipes them out round 1 and all that is left is a few straggling units that do little for the Allied cause. As for it’s impact on the overall game, I just can’t figure it out. Maybe it would make it much harder for Germany to take Paris because France would have been able to purchase 19 IPCs worth of units, almost doubling their defensive force.

@Leon_Corona:

I sincerely appreciate everyone’s input.  It is quite a shame to not give France a chance at the game, since prior to the war they were the strongest country in Europe other than the Soviet Union.

Just curious, what would be your FI opening Strategy?

Crush Northern Italy! Would hit a heavy blow. IMO

Yeah, that would certainly screw up Italy’s plans. Italy would lose their Major IC, strategic bomber and a good part of their offensive weaponry. If Britain pulled off a Taranto and killed the Tobruk force, I’m not sure Italy would be able to do anything.
Also, now Germany would have to make a choice of either to liberate Northern Italy OR go after Paris. Not sure they would have enough to do both, although I guess they could use the infantry and artillery from Greater Southern Germany instead of attacking Yugoslavia.

Most of the time France goes first, would prob. end in a build up.
Even if France would attack Nor.Italy, the very next turn of Axis would be a easy pick up for Germany.
BUT with an income of 19 it is to consider what France might be able to do!

In case you ask me, I think the turn order is the problem. It would be better with an all Axis turn, followed by an all Allies turn, and then an all Neutrals turn. Now that would solve a lot of the issues that I got with the current game rules

Interesting Razor… Assuming the axis goes first you would be letting Italy go before UK.  That’s going to change the game for sure.  It would make for an interesting invasion of USA.  If you let both Italy and Germany attack before USA and UK then Italy is going to have a Navy and will take Gib round 1.  With USA still out of the game for 3 rounds I think Germany would have no problem pulling off an attack on USA with Italy poised to intercept any blocks USA or UK try to setup.  The way the game is setup you give whoever starts first a consolidated navy.  If Axis goes first the Italy consolidates their entire navy otherwise UK consolidates their entire navy.  The staggered order of play is designed to allow the opponent a shot at the ships first.

Our group is looking to try something new like this at the Field Marshal Gaming Convention. We would like to play together as we always do, but we would like to try a new type of system to make our convention game new and interesting.

@cyanight:

Interesting Razor… Assuming the axis goes first you would be letting Italy go before UK.  That’s going to change the game for sure.  It would make for an interesting invasion of USA.  If you let both Italy and Germany attack before USA and UK then Italy is going to have a Navy and will take Gib round 1.  With USA still out of the game for 3 rounds I think Germany would have no problem pulling off an attack on USA with Italy poised to intercept any blocks USA or UK try to setup.  The way the game is setup you give whoever starts first a consolidated navy.  If Axis goes first the Italy consolidates their entire navy otherwise UK consolidates their entire navy.  The staggered order of play is designed to allow the opponent a shot at the ships first.

That is correct. The set-up is designed to be balanced when you play with the current turn order. If you want to change the turn order, it is obvious that the set-up need to be slightly changed too. Just remove some Italian and German ships, and strengthen the British navy. And if you fear that the Axis may attack USA, just use the rules from Pacific map, that says if any Japanese ship is closer than 2 seazones to USA mainland, then USA can declare war and mobilize before the Nazis can put their boots on the beach. Maybe even trough in a few extra infantry in the set-up, and the Canadian Shield will not be so easy. It should be harder than the Sea Lion anyway, even if this is just a game, and ideally all options should be equal balanced.

Staying with the topic:

I like the idea of the French going before Germany, but I agree that if France went first, you would need to re-do the starting set-up, and tweak the political rules as well. Right now the game is set for the French to fall early to give the axis an economic boost (Germany 1st turn in most cases). If it took a couple turns to take Paris, then you would probably need to push back the US/Russia entry by a turn too.

If this was to happen, I think you would probably need to make new political rules for the French, not allowing them to attack Italy on the first turn. The allies were still trying to bring Italy to their side or at least keep them neutral at this time by offering Italy territory as compensation. Italy didn’t DOW against the allies until June 10th, 1940 after Paris fell (Mussolini wanted in for the spoils). Italy starting off neutral say until its first turn would also change the game as we know it (UK couldn’t attack it like it does now).

The Germans start the game with Hol/Belg, and a good size army bordering France so they have position, but the starting set-up couldn’t allow for the French to attack into German held territory (unless it was a suicide run). Ideally for this to work, there should have been another French territory between W Germany, and France (Lorraine) with Paris completely land locked by French territory. Also extending S France to Switzerland so N Italy only touches S France (stalling the Italians from taking Paris). If this was the case then you could leave the French turn were it is, allow them to move and buy units because the Germans couldn’t get to Paris on the first turn. Paris would still need to fall on G2 though, so Germany might need a boost in units (probably mech/tanks). This would be a cool scenario to play out, but I think these map changes would allow it to work better.

Getting to all axis/all allies turn order:

The G40 turn order has most euro allies, and euro axis going back to back. US 4th and UK 6th pretty much go back to back (only China 5th between them), and Italy/Germany only have Anz/France between them once the game gets going (Ita 7th, Anz 8th, Fr 9th, Germ 1st). France, and Anz rarely get to do much in-between, but there is the occasional threat of taking out a blocker, grabbing a key territory, or suicide mission.

Many ppl play w/all axis, the all allies, and I have always wanted to try it (just haven’t). I’m assuming that we are talking about certain axis/allies powers working together though, and also able to make attacks at the same time. This would take out the can-opener strat that the game has, but major power preforming attacks together does sound pretty cool. It would probably boil down to US/UK/Anz/France all buying moving, and attacking at the same time. Germany/Italy doing the same, but Japan and Russia still having their own turns, not able to work with their with their team partners.

I have also heard some ppl say to use the turn order as is for the first round, then merge the abilities of the powers that can work together round two.

I guess round two would look like this (again I have no experience with this):
Germany/Italy (Japan, but can’t make attacks with friends)
US/China/UK/Anz/France (Russia, but can’t make attacks w/friends)

We played a game a little while back where the turn order was changed due to an idea from someone here on the forum. It is very close to your idea Wild Bill. It goes like this:
Euro Axis (Germany/Italy)
Russia
Japan
Western Allies (UK, USA, ANZAC, France, China)
I think the setup was tweaked a little, but the main thing besides the different order was that in the case of the Euro Axis and Western Allies, while the individual nations had to buy their own units, they could all move and attack together as one. Also, how territory IPC values were rewarded was changed. Territories in certain areas were given to certain powers no matter what composition of the attacking forces were.
In the case of the Euro Axis, All territories in Africa were awarded to Italy while all other gains were awarded to Germany. So, say a force totally made up of Italian units took over a territory in Russia, it would be awarded to Germany. If a totally German force took over Egypt, it would still go to Italy. I can’t remember about Middle East territories, but everything else outside of Africa went to Germany.
The Western Allies were even more complicated so I won’t get into all of that here. Oh yeah, the UK and ANZAC were actually divided up into UK and Commonwealth. The Commonwealth was ANZAC, Canada and South Africa. All the rest was simply UK (No more UK Pacific).
One of the main differences was immense benefit to Italy. They were able to trash the UK Med fleet and take Egypt round 1. From then on, there was really no stopping Italy in the Med, especially since German aircraft could come down and support them at the same time.

@Whitshadw:

Crush Northern Italy! Would hit a heavy blow. IMO

Northern Italy + either 96 or non-com to 91

I don’t think the NOs really help the big Axis nations (Germany and Japan) until they are really close to victory already.
Take Germany’s NOs:
$5 if Germany controls Norway and Denmark and Sweeden is not Pro-Allied or Allied controlled.
$5 for German control of Leningrad
$5 for German control of Stalingrad
$5 for German control of Moscow
$5 for Axis control of the Caucasus
$5 for at least 1 German land unit in Axis controlled Egypt
$2 each for German control of Iraq, Persia and NW Persia
Now, the first NO (Sweeden) Germany will get for most of the game, especially if they are winning. The Allies could take Norway to prevent this NO, and while that in itself doesn’t necessarily mean a lost game for Germany, it usually means things are going rough for them.
The NO for 1 land unit in Egypt would mean that either Italy or Germany is doing well in the Med and UK is doing poorly. Loss of Egypt doesn’t mean game lost for UK, but it certainly puts them in a bad place.
When Germany invades Russia, they will often get Leningrad in 2-3 rounds and that extra $5 can boost production for Germany, but not to an outrageous extent when you consider they have to maintain an offensive in Russia while holding off the Western Allies and maybe aiding Italy all at the same time.
As for the other NOs in Russia and the Middle East, if Germany gets that far, that usually means Russia has been taken out of the game or is very close to it and Germany is very strong already. By this time, the extra cash from the NOs are almost superfluous because Germany is close to winning.
However, I have seen games where Germany takes Russia out, but the Western Allies end up beating Germany, so even with those new NOs it is not necessarily a game winner for Germany.
Japan’s NOs are pretty much the same. They get $5 for control of all four DEI islands but they have to commit a good amount of resources to do that, which could leave them vulnerable back home if the US goes strong in the Pacific.
The 5 island NO is next to impossible for Japan to achieve and maintain unless they just totally rule the Pacific.
Japan’s other NOs are Calcutta, Sydney, Honolulu and San Francisco. They have to get two of these to win the game. Calcutta is usually doable for Japan. Sydney and Honolulu is harder and Japan has to concentrate on one or the other. Assuming they keep Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Manila and Calcutta, then manage to get Sydney or Honolulu and hold all of these for a full round, they win the game so the extra $5 doesn’t mean so much. If Japan manages to take San Francisco, let’s face it, they have pretty much won the game anyway.

Where NOs really help are the small countries like Italy and ANZAC. For one thing, they start with such small incomes, they really need that NO money to be able to do anything worth while in the game. I think that is why their NOs are relatively easier to accomplish (at least when compared to some of Germany’s and Japan’s NOs).
Italy:
$5 for no Allied surface warships in the Med (sea zones 92-99) –— fairly easy
$5 for Axis control of 3 of the following: Gibraltar, Southern France, Greece and/or Egypt ---- harder but doable. Since it is Axis control, Germany can help with this.
$5 for Axis control of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Tobruk and Alexandria ---- Fairly hard but can be helped by Germany.
$2 each for Italian control of Iraq, Persia and NW Persia ---- Pretty hard, but if accomplished Axis might be winning.
ANZAC:
$5 for Allied control of Malaya and all original ANZAC territories — VERY easy, until Japan takes Malaya in which case the Allies have bigger problems to worry about.
$5 for Allied control (not Dutch) of Dutch New Guinea, New Guinea, New Britain and Solomon Islands — Easy and unlikely to be disrupted. Again, if Japan does disrupt this NO, Allies have bigger problems to worry about.
So you see, while the NOs do provide small boosts to the income of the larger nations, they are really needed by the little nations. However, if you really don’t like them, you can always play the game without NOs. A lot of people do that. I think most of the game will pretty much balance out, but don’t expect too much from Italy or ANZAC. I think overall playing with no NOs would benefit the Axis. The US gets an extra 20-25 IPCs upon entering the war. That will make a big difference in what they can do against the Axis.

I house ruled an extra NO for France.
$5 for any European Axis territory under French control.
This could happen if the Axis fail to take Paris and France is allowed to build and possibly attack. Also, if the US/UK land in Europe and liberate Paris, thus allowing France to purchase units once again. Granted, it is unlikely to happen, but I wanted them to have something.

Simple rule for beginners: Attack France with no less than 7 Inf, 3 Art, 4 Mech and 6 tanks. The end:)