France survives turn 1, what now?

@KGrimB:

@JDOW:

@ShadowHAwk:

Even if a normal Paris attack
7 inf 3 art 4 mech 6 tanks results in mutual annihilation for germany and france it will be a pretty uphill battle…

The odds for this battle are 99,916%, that is good enogh. In fact, I once lost that battle against Karl. However, these are the 1 in 1000 games you just lose in G1 due to the dice. Nothing you can do about it.

However, I can only recommend to not dilute the France attack and always bring at least 20 units. Otherwise the chance is too high that Germany loses many mechanized units which is also very bad.

I think 7inf 3art 6tanks is enough to attack Paris. ~97% victory and I disagree that you always need to bring 20 units into Paris. The benefits of taking Normandy or Southern France G1 should not be ignored. The consensus of this thread is that if you lose a battle with French victory below 10% it is a result of luck because the units brought were more likely to score hits. The income gained from taking Paris G1 is what let�s Germany get aggressive and make buys countries hovering at 35 income could not. If you lose Paris playing it out changes the dynamics of the game too much because G2 buy is probably the most important purchase in the game.

I would let an Axis player start over a game where they were favored to win Paris >80% because at the end of the day Im playing the game to have fun.

I just loaded it up in triplea, set the battle calc for 1000x and clicked it several times. It ranged from 94 - 98%. Going into Paris with just 7 inf / 3 art / 6 tanks is super light too me at least. Average units left in that battle is 7.

When Paris rolls a whiff and Germany’s 1st roll is a slam dunk, it looks cool to be taking other Normandy / S. France at the same time or sending your mech to Poland. However, if 7 units left is average units left if attacker won, than 4 or 5 would just be a little under average units left if attacker won. I just don’t see the benefit of losing tanks.

Sending lots of ground into Paris increases chances of infantry being left over which can be cannon fodder for Normandy or s. France.

@Caesar:

I am trying to figure out what exactly to do if Paris remains. I don’t know if it is wise to pull the French out of Paris (if any survive) or to try to get the allies to reinforce it as best as possible and try to hold on to it.

Also USSR fighter can’t legally land on Paris unless Germany declared war.

I’ve only seen 1 game where Paris survived. Since the Allies still controlled Normandy/Bordeaux and Southern France, the British ferried the Normandy troops to England, and the French built 2 transports in Normandy. This enabled 2 infantry, 1 artillery, and 1 tank from Paris to escape. 2 French infantry stayed back in Paris to fight a delaying action.  Also, the British managed to land the Southern France units in Algeria. On G2, the Germans got Paris and the French treasury. Things went poorly for the Axis. The Germans had to spend G2 and G3 building units to hold the west, and an arms race with Russia started in the east (except the Russians had a headstart). On R4, the Russians took Romania, Finland, Poland, and Hungary. Eventually, an Italo-German force pushed Russia back, but by that time Japan was dead, and the US could land a huge army in France every three turns, so the game ended with Germany and Italy getting killed from the west, and being equal to the Russians in the east.

I’ve seen it a few times, usually when Germany got greedy and weakened the Paris attack to do other things (like try to get Normandy and Southern France on G1 as well).

Barring insanely bad die rolls (something on the order of Germany missing all rolls on round 1 and France hitting with all rolls), the France attack failing is always the fault of the player running Germany. Germany has more than ample forces to the job.

Marsh

@ShadowHAwk:

Even 90% odds are good, given that the diceroller has its odd scewed.

Why are you assuming tripleA and the tripleA rolling calc? If the tripleA rolling calc is wrong, use a different one instead of assuming it to be a counterargument.

If you are attacking paris at 90% (with a real battle calc), you are simply not a good player.

Going into this battle with 90% odds is poor play. There is a high probability of losing many of your mechanised units. What is the benefit you would get from that?

In Balanced Mod, I’ll normally strip 3 units from the attack because of the importance of taking down Normandy (96%). If I’m playing standard, I’ll strip 3 less powerful units to attack Sth France (98%).

It’s really hard to justify greater risks. Even those risks (4%) are debatable to be honest.

Going light on Paris with 80% and losing isn’t bad luck, it’s poor play.

Think about it from this perspective:
Taking Normandy and Southern France on G1 (or whatever else you’re using those units for) results in a 1 in 5 chance of losing the game outright. Are those good moves?

Or from your opponent’s perspective:
Wouldn’t you take a battle at 10-20% chance of success if winning it gave you the game and losing it only cost you a couple of IPCs?

Balanced mod, just play it like it is global. Axis still have a massive advantage. Just take France with germany g1. Italy 1 southern france, no need normandy.

^ I don’t know. I think the Vichy rule gives the Axis enough of a benefit to target Normandy G1.

Activating Vichy helps the allies as much as it helps the axis, maybe more.

There’s two basic allied responses to holding France G1.

1. Run away and allow Italy to clean up.
2. Bulk up France with UK so Italy can’t take it.

In case (2), I say surrender, even though it may cost the allies the entire RAF. In case (1), you may be able to keep playing. I’ve got a game going now where Paris did fail, I think I should have deferred the DOW on USSR until G4 and played Japan as normal. This does allow a few allied actions like USA reaching the med or Norway. However, it is better than letting the Soviets push back all over the shop and get communism objectives for Scandinavia etc. I suppose this is a bigger deal in balanced mod because as soon as you DOW, you release the increased NOs for USSR. Also, all the money from being at war allowed the Soviets to buy enough planes to stop me from being able to effectively strat bomb Moscow.