To Plunder or Not to Plunder - Ukraine & France

[Edwin P.]

Some time ago it was discussed by several on this forum (or was it in the SC1 forum?) giving the Axis player the option to plunder or not the Ukraine when 3 cities and 1 mine in souther Russia are conquered.

- Yes - Axis decision to plunder the Ukraine means that it gets full production from the conquered cities in the Ukraine, but also the problem of partisans. (Standard Game Option)

- No - Axis decision not to plunder the Ukraine causes the Axis to receive no production from these conquered cities, but also no partisans appear in this area. (or perhaps the chance for partisans in this area is reduced)

A similar option was also proposed for Conquering France;

Does the Axis player 1) plunder France or 2) allow it to join the Axis

- Plunder France - the standard game option where the conquerer receives plunder, conquers France and allows for the creation of Vichy France.

Popup: "France surrenders"

- France Joins the Axis - The Axis does not receive any plunder for conquering France but French units in France and its overseas possessions join the Axis. French units in the Uk become Free French. France remains an independent country, but one controlled by the Axis player.

Popup: "France joins the Axis."

In my view, allowing the Axis player a choice of how to handle the surrender of France would add variablity to the game while preserving play balance and allowng players to experiment with another "What If" situation.

So it would be:

When Paris is captured:

Popup: "Do we plunder France or welcome them into the Axis Alliance." Player selects option.

Selection Option 1 = Popup: "France surrenders"

Selection Option 2 = Popup: "France joins the Axis"

The good part about this idea is that HC has already programmed much of the mechanics. Just expand Vichy France to include all of France if the Axis player selects option 2 and have Vichy France join the Axis as an Axis Minor Nation.

[ December 10, 2005, 11:28 AM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[Qyusson]

nice ideas Edwin

[Edwin P.]

Thanks, Qyusson.

Any thoughts on how to improve on it?

Perhaps the option for France to join the Axis appears only 50% of the time, so that the Axis player can't choose it all the time. Or having the French reject the offer to join the Axis 30% of the Time.

Option 1 - Plunder France

100% Germany Plunders France, Vichy France Created.

Option 2 - Offer France Opportunity to Join Axis

70% France Accepts the Offer, switches to an Axis Nation.

30% France Rejects the Offer and Germany Plunders all of France, overseas colonies(Algeria and Syria) join Allies along with the ENTIRE French Navy.

[ December 11, 2005, 08:05 AM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[Qyusson]

thx to ask for my opinion but it seems like i dont have much to add to it

[John DiFool the 2nd]

Let some Ukrainian units join the Axis, popping up

3-12 months after the surrender. A lot of them

fought for the Germans anyway...

[Mr.Dozer]

this is a awsome idea.

[JerseyJohn]

Edwin,

You've proposed this several times before and I've always supported it 100%. To me it's a no brainer, especially the Ukraine part; that region's support was Germany's for the asking. All they had to do was not act like a bunch of homocidal racist morons, which turned out to be beyond their abilities.

France is a harder nut to crack. Socialism was so strong in the country that in the late thirties there was fear of a left wing takeover. So, making the shift from left to extreme right would have been a longshot, but certainly possible.

Of course, if that happens, and France proper joins the Axis, there's no guarantee that all, or even most of the colonies would automatically follow suit.

[Edwin P.]

JerseyJohn, good analysis and thanks for your support.

As for France, in my view the French didn't much like the British and at the time blamed them for their defeat. If offered a choice of joining the Axis as a full partner or being subjugated they may have chosen to join the Axis.

I doubt that these features will be included in SC2 but if they were it would make the game less predictable.

On the allied side I would like to see the US player having a choice of foreign policy options vs the Empire of Japan: Do we embargo Japan or not? Why? This was the key casaul event that lead to the US entering the war in December 1941.

[ December 11, 2005, 11:43 AM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[JerseyJohn]

Thanks Edwin.

As one French general put it many years later when discussing the BEF withdrawing to Dunkirk instead of Northern France, "It is acceptable to be a little selfish in these things. But in this case they (the British) were very selfish indeed."

Even the Frenchmen who joined the Free French seem to have felt that Britain sold them out in 1940. Of course, if the French high command had acted sooner to block Guderian's advance, it's possible that the BEF would have pulled straight south, along with the French armies in their sector, but few Frenchmen saw it that way.

An additional aspect to this is, if France throws in with the Axis, how does it affect Britain's decision to continue the war? Do they become more receptive to a negotiated peace? It would be good to have diplomatic options of that kind, but I doubt we will. In fact, I think Hubert might drive down to New Jersey and rough me up for even suggesting such a thing!

[Edwin P.]

After completing the AI, HC might, just might (1% chance) , consider adding one or two diplomatic options if they are simple to implement and add variety to the game without adversely affecting play balance.

a. The French Surrender option would be at the top of my list for the Axis.

b. US Relations with Japan would be at the top of my list of diplomatic options for the Allies.

August 1941 Popup:

Mr. President, should we pursue peace with Japan?

No = Standard Game

Yes = No Russian Siberian Reinforcements as Japan is free to threaten Siberia AND Increased US Production as the USA does not have to divert resources to the Pacific Front.

EDITED:

If a player selects the peace with Japan option it weakens Russia while strengthening the US, but there could also be a side effect that occurs part of the time; (30%) - USA war readiness is reduced by 20%.

[ December 12, 2005, 02:06 AM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[SeaMonkey]

I have to say these are brilliant ideas and have some credence for actual occurrence.

I thought Jersey and I(not the only ones) were at that pinnacle for creation of alternatives, but Edwin's imagination seemingly eclipses us both, well at least mine anyway.

The potential rift between France and Britain is a very good twist on reality. For it was not that long ago, say the 19th century, when the Prussians helped some guy named Duke of Wellington defeat a rag tag bunch of French gentlemen under the leadership of some obscure figure named Bonaparte.

You don't suppose they(French) would want to return the favor?

[JerseyJohn]

SeaMonkey,

Edwin's alternative ideas leaves me in the dust too!

The funny part is, if the Ethiopian Invasion hadn't finished driving Italy away from Britain, the potential alliances a few years later might have been much more interesting. After WWI, Britain had rivalries with both France and the United States and had better relations with Italy than with either of the other two. Later, most Brits felt that the French had dragged them into Eastern European entanglements they shouldn't have been involved with.

So, things might have gone several different ways and a lot of Edwin's hypotheticals reflect these situations.

Personally I've always thought that Hitler rushed through the Vichy arrangement believing the UK would agree to terms as soon as France was out of the war. Afterwards Petain, either by design or accident, had Hitler convinced that France would formally join the Axis -- soon, soon ... but of course, that never came about.

It's a good premise that, if Hitler had realized France would never join him, that he might not have allowed Vichy and would simply have conquered the country outright, throwing Italy Marsiells and Tunisia and using Algeria & French NW Africa as leverage to entice Spain into the Axis.

[Edwin P.]

JerseyJohn: The funny part is, if the Ethiopian Invasion hadn't finished driving Italy away from Britain, the potential alliances a few years later might have been much more interesting.

Perhaps Germany would have done better if Italy had remained neutral throughout the war. Then Germany would have avoided the diversion of resources to Greece and North Africa.

In fact, this can be recreated in Sc1 by setting Italy to Neutral.

Would the USA enter the war if Italy remained neutral? It would be interesting to play a game with Italy and USA neutral throughout the conflict.

[ December 12, 2005, 05:16 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[JerseyJohn]

That's a good idea, Edwin. I never considered it.

Historically, there would have been other advantages for Germany as Italy would have been an avenue for war materials Germany couldn't have gotten otherwise.

Churchill did his best before becoming PM to convince the Mussolini that the UK would to into massive trade agreements with Italy if it stayed out of the war and, for a time Mussolini considered that course. That's the reason it took so long for the Italians to enter the war.

On the other hand, much of the reason for Italy's poor showing was due to Mussolini's poor wartime leadership, so whether it was Italy's involvemtent or Mussolini himself that made them such a liability is part of the question.

I doubt their stance would have had much to do with the United States either entering or not entering the war.

The main significance is that, before the war, Hitler might not have gone for either Austria or Chzechoslovakia without Mussolini's support.

[Retributar]

Yes EDWIN P. we need as many realistically plausable Scenario & Campaign variants as is possible...not only...to add to the longevity of SC2 , but also a continued fresh interest in this game!.

Besides that,...im inclined to explore the variants moreso than the historical rote!. Between your ideas EDWIN and those of the others in this forum...a great deal of possibilities exist for this niche!

[Guest Mike]

Nice ideas, but not really tenable historically IMO.

Hitler WAS a lunatic - so there can never be any historic opetion not to go hard in hte East. France was never goign to be "invited to join the axis" either - Hitler wanted to humiliate thenm in particular because of the outcome of WW1 for which he blamed French intransigence IIRC.

Certainly I like the plunder/not plunder option - but the rewards for not plundering a fairly minimal in your scenario!!

I'd rather see somethign like - plunder: get an immediate "cash" handout but severely decreased production from the area + more partisans.

Not plunder: Get only a small cash handout, if any, but area retains ful production and less chance of partisans.

[JerseyJohn]

Regarding Stalin's Organist's comment. Of course Hitler wanted France to throw in with the Axis. He may not have broached the idea at the surrender ceremony, but he certainly pushed it on Petain, and the old Frenchman kept giving him elusive answers, never seriously considering the possiblility. Meanwhile, Hitler kept making promises like returning all the French POWs and giving French territory back to Vichy. Hitler's reasoning was he'd get more than that back after conquering Russia.

If he'd been as hateful of the French as the statement implies, he'd simply have given French territory to Spain in the Summer of 1940, as Franco asked, and it's likely that Spain would have entered as an Axis nation.

-- Many Frenchmen fought in German units, including some of the last defenders of Berlin.

-- -- Regarding scenarios in general,

There are two ways of looking at these things.

The first is to work strictly within the historical parameters and only change a country's hardware. In SC-1 I did that in the Z-Plan Scenario. It shows as a 1939 setting but, as I stated in the description, the idea is the war breaks out in 1942, after Hitler has partially fulfilled his promise to the various services.

The second is to set things in a fictitious environment, which is what I did in the Brest-Litovsk Aftermath. It's 1939, but the assumption is that, in 1918, Imperial Germany accepted the Anglo-French peace propossal and withdrew from Northern France/Belgium in exchange for recognition of it's gains in Eastern Europe and Russia. In a radically different 1939 Europe, Germany again starts off in a two front war when the USSR moves to retake the lands it ceded two decades earlier. The UK & France are sucked into the fight in a similar situation to the 1914 multi-alliance mess. In this case, an extremely powerful Germany would have forced the ring of alliances regardless of how repugnant the Western Powers found Socialism.

Another choice, of course, is to just try and replicate the exact historical situation. Except, of course, we have to assume that's already been done by the game designer in his basic scenarios.

[Edwin P.]

It would be interesting if SC2 had a random alternative history scenario selector;

a. You would select Alternative History (or Random Scenario) when the game starts.

b. The game randomly selects a scenario.

c. You see a pop-up with a summary of the historical background to the scenario. (perhaps a seperate pop-up related to which side you select)

Example:

In 1918 Imperial Germany accepted the Anglo-French peace proposal and withdrew from Northern France/Belgium in exchange for recognition of it's gains in Eastern Europe and Russia.

Now, in 1939 the USSR has launched a surprise attack to retake the lands it ceded two decades earlier.

In 1915 the Whites won the Russian Civil war and the Czar was restored to power. Russia has not experienced the famine, gulags and purges that would have decimated its middle class and officer corps during the 1920s and 1930s under communist rule.

Today, in 1939 the Russia Empire and its Czar face their most serious threat since Napolean's invasion of Russia, an Axis alliance bent on world domination.

d. The game begins with the player having to react to the situation at hand be it the traditional Fall Weiss scenario or JerseyJohn's Brest-Litovsk Aftermath or his Z-Plan scenario.

[ December 13, 2005, 02:25 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]