French ver. 1.5 at demigod with normal AI aggression. first post. to week 25 of 1940 (second game as france)
General: used the same general strategy that i outlined in my previous post (destroy roads leading into france, build fortifications and armor, no science - use money to accelerate builds, bombers to africa and fleets to med to destroy italian improvements, etc.) this strategy really seems to be the most effective.
Conclusion: the french are viable at this level as well. i never lost territory in france and was able to eventually take mainland italy. (the italians are very vulnerable to bombing/shelling - i have trashed their economy now as either british or french.)
Possible Bug: in all games played, in central africa, garrisons for some french (/ belgian?) cities are not in the cities, and cannot be moved into them.
Game Flow: germans and russians trash turkey within first 10 turns of the game. german forces kept going south - never saw an army on french border (don't know if preparation encourages AI to shy away). germans swept thru middle east and were actually down in the congo. most cities to fall were british. i made french north africa into a production area and cranked out enough tanks to provide a defense and take out a few italian cities. at this point, italians are greatly reduced and have no economy to rebuild. ussr just declared war on axis (as in my first game, just a little later). finally got a leader, which i used to build intel center. finally got a spy in japan and was able to steal my first tech level. a lot harder than i thought. still can't get one in germany. never did build any air - just used it very carefully.
if ussr had stayed out, this would be more in doubt - but now just looks like a matter of time to build critical mass of proper units for city-crunching. have seen other posts indicating that ussr may make peace later. i will try to keep this one going a little longer to see what happens.
