France totally useless

I would usually not liberate Paris until Northern Italy and Western Germany were both in Allied hands. OR, Italy was taken out and Germany is in such a poor position that they couldn’t afford to mount an attack against Paris. In that case, the US/UK would have to have a lot of units in Paris along with the free 12 IPCs of French units. So much so that Germany just can’t muster enough attacking units to make it worth their while.
I remember one game where we had a situation like this and our German player got all crazy like “Oh, I got to get Paris back!”. Germany did get Paris back and gained something like 15 IPCs (some French territories were still in Axis hands), but they lost so many units in the process it ended up being a negative for them. Plus, their defenses were severely weakened both in W Germany and Germany itself. Russia had a fun time on the Eastern Front.
So, basically I wouldn’t liberate Paris unless the Allies had an overwhelming force to either keep it or make it stupid for Germany to retake it.
Another reason is the Normandy and S France factories. I like for the US in particular, but also the UK to have factories on mainland Europe. I don’t want to give them up until I have and can keep the factories in Italy and possibly W Germany. Then you can give up the French factories.

In the Pacific rulebook it states: “At the beginning of the game, Japan and China are at war. However, none of the other Allied powers…” thus implying that China is an Allied power, and Allied powers are unable to declare war on each other.

If you try it out, you’ll see that the U.K. can’t sufficiently reinforce France, even with the additional 6 French troops, from having Germany crush it on round 2.  Even if every available plane is landed there, and the strafe leaves 2 tanks plus the fighter, it’s impossible to hold.  So all that landing planes accomplishes is wiping out the British airforce (and keeping France from falling to Italy).  The payoff isn’t worth it.

The biggest downsides I can imagine are that (1) it is much more difficult to hold off serious landings at Normandy by the US and/or UK.  Italy then has to protect Western Europe and the Med–although with Germany taking S France, they can dump ships in the Med as well if it comes to that (subs backed up by planes would be cheap).  And (2) delaying the war on the Pacific side until round 3 (which would make this work much better at times, depending on the US builds) means that UK Pacific can shuttle some troops over.

The really nice thing about this strategy is that it’s more efficient to have Italy be the 1 force in the Med, and not have to worry about building enough ships off the S France factory right away to protect them from UK planes.

I think it’s going to be the standard opening in our play group for the foreseeable future.

The counter someone mentioned above about making sure to buy troops in S Africa–either mechs, or infantry/artillery to go with transports, in combination with some shuttling from India, is probably the safe response.

Grover and I just started another game, with me being the Axis, and I’ve got to say I’m enjoying the big Italian boost.

I’ve seen some threads with the question how many units does each country have? So I took my two sets and figured it out, the results are as follows.

–--------------------------------------------------- Allies –--------------------------------------------------

**US

Europe**
Infantry- 20
Artillery- 6
Mechanized Infantry- 6
Tanks- 6
Fighters- 7
Tactical Bombers- 6
Bombers- 6
Sub- 6
Transport- 6
Destroyer- 6
Cruiser- 4
Aircraft Carrier- 4
Battleship- 4

Pacific
Infantry-20
Artillery- 6
Mechanized Infantry- 6
Tanks- 6
Fighters- 8
Tactical Bombers- 6
Bombers- 6
Sub- 6
Transport- 6
Destroyer- 6
Cruiser- 4
Aircraft Carrier- 4
Battleship- 4
–------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**United Kingdom

Europe**
Infantry- 20
Artillery- 8
Mechanized Infantry- 6
Tanks- 8
Fighters- 8
Tactical Bombers- 6
Bombers- 6
Sub- 6
Transport- 6
Destroyer- 6
Cruiser-4
Aircraft Carrier- 2
Battleship- 4

Pacific
Infantry- 18
Artillery- 6
Mechanized Infantry- 6
Tanks- 8
Fighters- 7
Tactical Bombers- 6
Bombers- 6
Sub-6
Transport- 6
Destroyer- 6
Cruiser- 4
Aircraft Carrier- 2
Battleship- 4
–------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ANZAC

Infantry- 20
Artillery- 6
Mechanized Infantry- 6
Tanks- 8
Fighters- 8
Tactical Bombers- 5
Bombers- 6
Sub- 6
Transport- 5
Destroyer- 6
Cruiser- 4
Aircraft Carrier- 2
Battleship- 4
–------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Russia

Infantry- 40
Artillery- 8
Mechanized Infantry- 8
Tanks-10
Fighters- 8
Tactical Bombers- 9
Bombers- 2
Sub-4
Transport- 4
Destroyer- 4
Cruiser- 2
Aircraft Carrier- 2
Battleship- 2
–--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
France

Infantry- 20
Artillery- 8
Mechanized Infantry- 6
Tanks- 10
Fighters- 8
Tactical Bombers- 6
Bombers- 2
Sub- 4
Transport- 4
Destroyer- 3
Cruiser- 2
Aircraft Carrier- 2
Battleship- 2
–--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
China

Infantry- 30
Artillery- 0
Mechanized Infantry- 0
Tanks- 0
Fighters- 0
Tactical Bombers- 0
Bombers- 0
Sub- 0
Transport- 0
Destroyer- 0
Cruiser- 0
Aircraft Carrier- 0
Battleship- 0

–--------------------------------------------------- Axis –---------------------------------------------------

Japan

Infantry- 40
Artillery- 12
Mechanized Infantry- 6
Tanks- 12
Fighters- 16
Tactical Bombers- 6
Bombers- 8
Sub-12
Transport- 12
Destroyer- 12
Cruiser- 8
Aircraft Carrier- 8
Battleship- 8

–--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Germany

Infantry- 40
Artillery-8
Mechanized Infantry- 9
Tanks- 12
Fighters- 8
Tactical Bombers- 9
Bombers- 4
Sub- 6
Transport- 6
Destroyer- 6
Cruiser- 4
Aircraft Carrier- 2
Battleship- 2

–--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Italy

Infantry- 21
Artillery- 8
Mechanized Infantry- 6
Tanks- 12
Fighters- 8
Tactical Bombers- 6
Bombers- 4
Sub- 6
Transport- 6
Destroyer- 6
Cruiser- 4
Aircraft Carrier- 2
Battleship- 2

As the Germans another fun little trick is use the transports you start with to land in lenningrad and take it very easily on G2 and maybe even G1.

France surviving the first round attack by Germany puts up a very interesting rest of the game. Various things can happen.

1. Italy takes France on their turn making Italy a very rich country. 30+ IPCS gives them a strong I2 purchase letting them destroy the British navy in the Mediterranean Sea, fulfil their NO’s, take over Africa and the Middle East and most importantly open a new front for Russia and survive whatever America can throw at them. This makes Italy more powerful than Germany so there should be Italian intervention going on in Russia and the French coast.

2. The French open a land campaign against Germany and Italy causing trouble. Creates an opening for British and eventually American troops to land and land fighters. More importantly it takes Germany’s attention off of Russia and Italy’s off of Africa and the Mediterranean Sea. This almost gaurentees that America will invest in Japan.

3. France can build a fleet with England to land troops early in the game. This can in turn put more heat on England as Germany may build a navy as well. Puts alot of heat west and off of Russia. The Navy can later help Germany and attack Russia in two places. This navy that France and England builds may make America fully invest in Japan as well.

The last 2 of these these seem to ask for a German capture of London as a German capture of Moscow doesn’t seem possible at that point. The first looks like America will invest in the Europe side. This begs for the capture of Moscow.

In conclusion I think that the French surviving the first attack doesn’t make the Axis lose but it limits their choices.

buy trannies g1, invade finland, and g2 kill novgorod and surrounders

I could be undefeatable by anyone currently living on planet Earth and never skip a sacking of France on Germany 1 or failing Germany 1, at least whacking him good and doing it with Italy. (Although, with at least 4 fighters there, I highly doubt I would let Italy even try.)