Is France really meant to capitulate when fighting Germany?

[Oscar Chan]

After many attempts to not suck as Italy, at last one time Germany does not need to pick up my mess, and I successfully helped fend off the Americans. I thought that an allied faction will be a good next choice, so I chose France.

Turns out this country is as good as a bag of baguettes placed for a week in room temperature. You start with a crap ton of modifiers which basically trashed your whole economy, that's fine. I can start to build up. I did not stop Germany for militarizing Rhineland since, come on, they are just fortifying their borders! Maybe I will attack them, you never know ;). As I kept building lots of civvies and mobilizing my troops, in 1939 Germany wanted to eat up the Czech republic. I did not want the Germans to break through Belgium so I would gladly help the Czechs to defend their homeland.

Can you guess what happened?

A. The Czechs did not put much much of a defense, and fell. After some time fighting on my borders they felt that the war effort was too great and surrender.

B. The Czechs defended their territory quite well, and I did too. Shortly after the Germans surrender.

C. Both of us did not put up a good fight.

or........

D. Germany putting ALL war effort on FRANCE while Czechoslovakia did not bother to do ♥♥♥♥.

I mean, WHAT THE ♥♥♥♥? Isn't Czechoslovakia what you wanted? Why would you want to point the spearhead on us? At least capitulate the stupid minor nation before taking me down! Bastard Dummkopf.....And what did the British do? Sipping out of their ♥♥♥♥ing tea cups like the Boston tea party did not happen! They did not even bother to help me by the slightest! I requested expeditionary forces from them and the Czechs, and both denied my request. What stupid dog ♥♥♥♥ is this? I cannot even pull Britain to war even if my actions are perfectly justified! 48 divisions could not hold long, even entrenched on the Maginot line against the Germans, why? Shouldn't the forts basically rendered their attacks worthless? I had more than 50% entrenchment bonus and somehow the AI knows how to overwhelm me with ~15 divisions and punch a hole while my AI pulls my troops out of the area. They are basically donating the Maginot line to the Germans! Why?

Next game I decided to not care about Vietnam, North Africa and just pull every single division to fight in Europe, that did not help since both Germany and Italy poured all of their war effort to take me down like Jack Torrance breaking down the bathroom door so he can kill his wife. Italians broke through the Alps and Germans broke through the Maginot. I understand I would not let Germany have what he wants (like in real life) and I literally picked a fight on my own hands, but won't the allies do something? A lend lease?? Some Expeditionary forces?? ANYTHING????

That was quite a rant, sorry if I offended anyone but does France even have a chance in this game? War was about to happen yet our civilians want more stupid consumer goods that does not do anything anyway!

tl;dr, I suck at this game, France capitulated, how to fend off Germany and Italy on my own?

[HunterFromAbove]

What kind of templates did you have? And it might be better to just wait it out until they attack Poland, then Britain is guaranteed to join the war.

[「SHAORUNE」]

1. Don't build Civ as France unless you go fascist, you go to war early,has a lot of front to manage, so many debuff, and you start with a big defecit of gun. So focus on Mil

2.Historically France and Britain can't help the Czech because they need time, you go to war early with the german, while your troop lack the equipment to hold the frontline, the German can just bomb the maginot and cycle charge it to reduce it lv until your line break

3. Try to make your division templates better,train your troop,use AA and AT. You only need to care about the african front, the Italian, and the German

4. France start off weak and need alot of time to get stronger, you will need to practice playing them alot, but i recommend to keep thing historical and don't go too alt historical.

[HunterFromAbove]

İlk olarak -Shaorune- tarafından gönderildi:

1. Don't build Civ as France unless you go fascist, you go to war early,has a lot of front to manage, so many debuff, and you start with a big defecit of gun. So focus on Mil

2.Historically France and Britain can't help the Czech because they need time, you go to war early with the german, while your troop lack the equipment to hold the frontline, the German can just bomb the maginot and cycle charge it to reduce it lv until your line break

3. Try to make your division templates better,train your troop,use AA and AT. You only need to care about the african front, the Italian, and the German

4. France start off weak and need alot of time to get stronger, you will need to practice playing them alot, but i recommend to keep thing historical and don't go too alt historical.

What about Japan?

[「SHAORUNE」]

İlk olarak HunterFromAbove tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak -Shaorune- tarafından gönderildi:

1. Don't build Civ as France unless you go fascist, you go to war early,has a lot of front to manage, so many debuff, and you start with a big defecit of gun. So focus on Mil

2.Historically France and Britain can't help the Czech because they need time, you go to war early with the german, while your troop lack the equipment to hold the frontline, the German can just bomb the maginot and cycle charge it to reduce it lv until your line break

3. Try to make your division templates better,train your troop,use AA and AT. You only need to care about the african front, the Italian, and the German

4. France start off weak and need alot of time to get stronger, you will need to practice playing them alot, but i recommend to keep thing historical and don't go too alt historical.

What about Japan?

Unless you capitulate, Japan can't demand France Indochina, and Japan only has wargoal on the Philippine-Dutch East Indies so you can chose to not join the war if you still haven't deal with the German.

[j0nathan800]

As France, (Note I don't have La Resistance but the Democracy tree is the same I think, also my France game was helped through 1 division training since it wasn't patched yet) I believe if you do the focus tree path you should be able to remove disjointed government and almost get rid of Victors of the GW. The problem is that I didn't do that much in the Economy/Industry tree and I had to leave the Czechs to die. From what I can tell, both the Popular Front and National Block are good in their own ways.

[Admod, the Equivocal]

Vive la France
Reach 1948 as France without capitulating or surrendering.
...I mean. It is possible. There are several achievements made saying it's possible too.

I haven't played France or Hoi4 since La resistance though.. xD Maybe it's harder now?

Something new players tend to forget is an air force is quite useful for stopping your forts from being bombed. Neglect the air force and your forts are meaningless.

[FreaK 🖤]

Yes, France is meant to be that weak because they were that pathetically weak IRL. In 1939 a soldier being moved to the Maginot line on a truck complained that they had next to no rifles and 1 box of 10 bullets for all of them which they were not allowed to open.

There were various arguments in the french military about the "Maginot Line mentality", which was just "let's wait safe behind the line while we wait", political violence was everywhere and even one of france's top dogs in the army said he'd need 2 years (after war was declared) to fully re-arm the nation.

Czechoslovakia's our land was targeted not because of it's german population primarily, but because the Sudeten territory was home to 70% of czech industry and because their army could put up a huge fight against germany. That and their outer region was full of mountains and fortified heavily, hence why the germans don't push. It's too fortified, so they hold it until they can get more troops there to overrun the czech army.

It is not impossible to not capitulate as France but yes, France is meant to capitulate, hence why it's considered an achievement to survive.

Take a chill pill. The allies weren't total idiots irl. Yes, he wanted Czechoslovakia, but if he has 2 huge armies on the other border which pose a bigger threat, he's gonna focus on that.

[coolman552]

lmao i just built lvl 10 forts all over the german and italian border they just sat there doing nothing

[Bourgeois Conformist]

The reworked French focus tree helped them immensely. The little Entente, with enough members, can overwhelm Germany early.

[|H|H| Fr3ddi3]

The AI will not attack level 7+ forts, deems it too costly to do so and thus, if you cover every land border with them ... congratulations France is safe, providing you don't accidentally leave the forts unmanned that is (use a fallback line to make sure).

State AA helps ensure that the forts to don't get bombed down to a level where the AI will attack.

In terms of divisions ... more or less 'anything' in a fort works, so no you don't need a huge army of 40w or even 20w. 5/0 with support arty will 'hold' ... because they won't be attacked.

This means that you don't need to build mil factories till much later in the game.

You will need to extend your forts across the Swiss border cause Germany will attack through them if they stall out in the north, which they will.

Nationalist Spain can present a problem if they exist but which form of their existence gives you more time to deal with them.

1 - If they have won the SCW before Germany goes for Danzig, they will have a national spirit which prevents them from joining the Axis for a number of years, you will need to defend that front eventually but it's not a priority. This the the preferable outcome if the Republicans have not won / are not winning.

2- If The SCW is still on going when Germany goes for Danzig, Nat Spain will join the Axis and become an active 'threat', how much of a threat they are depends on how they have fared vs the Republicans (/others if you have la res), if they have crushed the Republicans you'll need to dedicate a sizeable force to deal with them AND hold Gibraltar for the UK (and yourself) ... if the Republicans are winning then you can leave them to it ... unless the Nationalists hold territory along your border.

[Azrael]

Afaik the AI tries to circumvent lvl 10 forts, that is a behaviour also observed in Stellaris, when you build a top-notch star fortress there, enemy Fleets try to circumvent it rather than attacking head on.

It's reasonable to assume, that the devteams at Paradox interchange ideas with each other for their respective games.

Regarding France in Vanilla HoI 4:

I never played France in Vanilla HoI 4 myself (but I should try it sometime), but regarding the fact, that I only have 3 years, maybe less, to get ready for war, I'd focus on building military factories, I'd build up an espionage agency and send agents to Germany to destabilize it and thus hamper their efforts to get ready for war.

I'd let my armies train to build up the needed templates, in that context engineers are a must-have and I'd probably give my infantry, if my industry allows it, line-artillery and support-anti-tank weapons, to counter german armor offenses.

If possible, and that is a great "If", I'd try to fortify the french-belgian border as good as possible because, if you stick to a historical order of actions from your side (even if you play a free, not a historical match), Germany will try to bypass the Maginot Line via Belgium.

Having just overran France in the Kaiserreich Mod the same way as Imperial Germany (since the Mod makes nearly no changes to the landscape), I know that there is a lot of flat land between the Belgian Border and Paris and if you can't stop the German tanks sometime before Paris and Paris falls, you're screwed, if you try to go for the Achievement to survive until 1948.

Politically, If I aim to stay democratic and don't aim for a challenge, I wouldn't go for rebuilding the Little Entente, I'd always Go with Britain, because Britain is a Major Power with a comparable industry might, a mighty navy to shield the islands and it can directly support you.

And Czechoslavakia, if it decides to take a stand, usually gets overrun, we're talking about the AI after all here, don't expect wonders from it.

The Italian Border, except the small strip of coastal land, should be able to hold without forts, but you could build a fort in the coastal landstrip and maybe like lvl 1 or 2 forts in the mountains, more shouldn't be necessary.

Don't let the Enemy get Air Superiority, so take care that you build up enough fighters and if you ask me "How many fighters are enough?", I'll give you the Meme Answer "Yes" because there isn't anything like "Enough" in that regard.

Aim for 2000, since you want to defend yourself successfully against two major powers (and Italy is a major due to industrial power, no matter how many jokes exist about it), if you get the feeling during the war, that at some point you shattered the enemy airforces, you could reduce fighter production to build something else.

And don't forget, that you need tons of Infantry Equipment and Support Equipment, these should be build by 30 factories each, so you don't run out of equipment.



And one final note: If you can, you should try to help the friendly orientated forces in the Spanish Civil War to Win it, so the Republic of Spain, assuming that it stays republican.

Otherwise, if Anarchists, Monarchists or Fascists win, you could find yourself in a situation, where Spain sooner or later could join either the Axis or Comintern and get ideas of marching into France, where then you'd have to deal with a war on 3 fronts, vs Germany, in the Alps vs Italy and in the Pyrenees vs Spain.

Although Spain would be the weakest of the three, a hand full of divisions is enough to sow chaos or make your country fall, if you simply can't spare any divisions to stop them.

[Azrael]

A more risky maneuver to try would be to try to flip Italy to being democratic and opposing the Axis.

If Italy is on your side and Germany "as usual" annexes Austria, Italy could invade Germany from the South, thinning German forces and making it easier for you in return to attempt to invade Germany itself.

But that is a quick thought, as I've written, I never tried playing France and don't know, if that is feasible.

[|H|H| Fr3ddi3]

İlk olarak 18tesAzrael tarafından gönderildi:

Afaik the AI tries to circumvent lvl 10 forts, that is a behaviour also observed in Stellaris, when you build a top-notch star fortress there, enemy Fleets try to circumvent it rather than attacking head on.

I can't speak for steallris but fundamentally yeah, the AI won't attack a level 7 fort head on unless it has 4+ flanks on it to attack from or the forts get bombed down to a lower level, since there is no part of the french border which can be attacked from 4+ tiles ...it more or less causes Germany to just stalemate. Technically level 6 forts will hold all of Frances borders but 7 gives you a buffer to work with just in case.