France's role in Global 1940 SE

@FranceNeedsMorePower said in France's role in Global 1940 SE:

@AndrewAAGamer I highly doubt the Allies could win without France. Germany keeping all of it’s unit intact.

Well, first off, I didn’t say France was to be removed from the game completely. If you actually read what I wrote you would see…

The Allies CAN win the game even if there was not a single French unit on the Board at the end of Turn 1, before France goes.

…that I said after everyone else had already taken their Turn. Thus Germany has already attacked France and Italy has already attacked the Southern France Fleet.

However, there probably is a pretty solid argument that France and French units on the board are insignificant to the overall game. On average, the Axis should lose about $49 killing the French units. (see below)

• France attack = 7.5 units or $23
• Southern France Fleet = 0.84 units or $5
• Fighter in Moscow = 3.3 units or $10
• Remaining units = 3.6 units or $11

For taking France the Germans collect $19. Therefore, the entire French contribution to the game destroying Axis TUV is roughly $30.

For the Allies, excluding France, their combined total TUV is $1,845 to start the game. I think a very fair average in collection over 10 Turns is an additional $1,750, or an average of $175 per Turn. (Yes, I know this is probably to low but I am being conservative). Thus, the combined TUV of the other Allied powers is $3,595 by the end of Turn 10. $30 is 0.8% of that amount or said another way less than 1% of the entire production. If the entire French contribution to the game affects it less than 1%, in just the first 10 Turns, as it continues to lessen over time, then again, a pretty solid argument could be made that their presence is irrelevant to the final outcome.

Having said that France is also the most important power in the game. If the Germans fail to take France on Turn 1, then most likely, unless the player’s experience level’s are vastly different, the Axis are doomed. Luckily the failure to take France, with the standard attack, is only 13 out of every 10,000 games. Though, I have seen it happen twice in games that I saw, yet did not participate in. Never trust the dice…

@FranceNeedsMorePower said in France's role in Global 1940 SE:

@AndrewAAGamer I have seen 3 games were France is still alive and well. All three failures were because Germany tried to do so much in Round one… …This mainly happen because the Axis made some mistakes.

Just because the Axis plays poorly does not change whether France has a role or not. All of my discussion points assume players of good caliber following a sound strategy and using proper tactics. Anything is possible with poor play and is therefore irrelevant to any discussion.

@FranceNeedsMorePower

I have never personally seen a game where France grew into a monster like China. I just didn’t want to sound like that France never, in a bizarre stroke of luck become a monster when it mattered out of the tens of thousands of Global and Europe 1940 games played around the world in history.

The only possiblity I can think of is the Big 3 Allied powers specifically making moves so that France will cheaply capture most of Germany and Italy. In some games I ran with the TripleA AIs, the French took 1 or 2 territories because Germany was already incredibly weak after Paris was liberated.

In both scenarios France would become a monster far, far too late in the game to matter (as opposed to China or ANZAC, where them expanding by a lot could potentially be game decisive).

As the Dutch territories don’t have an original owner similar to the neutrals, if ANZAC captures several of them, they can be churning out quite a lot of air and naval units. With their national objectives I’ve seen them reach 30-35 IPCs a turn before (I can’t link specific games, but this has happened only a few times, perhaps 1 out of 10 Global or Pacific 1940 games I’ve played, including ones with small house rule changes like Balanced Mod).

I find it amazing that there has been this much discussion on France “having a role” in this game. So much so that I logged in and made a post for the first time in roughly 365 days. I love it and think it is hilarious!

@FranceNeedsMorePower I have never seen an Axis & Allies 1940 Global France Strategy youtube video. Every other playable power/country in the game has one, even China. Maybe you should make one? Topics could be: 1. What to do with that French Fighter? (much like the Flying Tigers for China), 2. The mighty French Navy and how best to utilize it, and 3. “Consolidation of Defensive Strength - Determine the area of battle” in regard to North African French forces (this ties in to element #7 of AndrewAAGamer’s Warfare Principles.

@FranceNeedsMorePower That sounds great. I love watching Axis & Allies content, it really relaxes me to be honest. General Hand Grenade has some great videos out that I consider to be “classics”. Floating Bridge, Middle Earth, ANZAC, China, etc. Good luck on your video and let us know when it is published, I am sure you will get a decent number of views.

@FranceNeedsMorePower Great job on the video, I watched the whole thing. One rule I realized I have been playing wrong for years is in Europe when Germany/Italy takes over Normandy/Southern France. I didn’t know that if USA or UK liberated Normandy or Southern France that they would collect those IPCs until France itself is liberated. We have our yearly game coming up at end of the month and we will make this adjustment. Again, nicely done on the video.

@FranceNeedsMorePower

I agree, I’ve made that mistake too. I’ll write my comments on the video in the post you made for it.