Can I make a suggestion about some of the naval aspects of the mod? Sorry it's a bit long, but I think this would add some more flavor to Kaiserreich.
Germany
First off, the German navy as it's presented in Kaiserreich is overgrown and obsolete. I don't really think the Germans would have kept many of their earlier classes of dreadnoughts and battlecruisers, such as the Nassau-class or Von Der Tann, since they were already relatively obsolete or under-gunned by the time the First World War began. Also, having many pre-dreadnought battleships, like the Deutschland and Braunshweig-classes, still in service makes the Germans seem very, very foolish. Pre-dreadnought battleships were obsolete 10 years before WWI, the only reason many navies still had them in WWI were to serve as reserve ships or for coastal bombardment; they very rarely joined the battlelines along more modern dreadnoughts and battlecruisers, since they were slow and only carried about a third or less of the armament of a contemporary dreadnought.
The Germans were building 2 battleships (sisters of Bayern and Baden) and 7 battlecruisers during WWI that were never completed. It would be logical, then, that they would complete all of these ships after the war. All of the capital ships that are already in Kaiserreich that were built after the war can be kept, this is only my suggestion for capital ships that are WWI hold-overs:
Early Battleships
Kaiser
Friedrich der Große
Kaiserin
König Albert
Prinzregent Luitpold
König
Großer Kurfürst
Markgraf
Kronprinz Wilhlem
Basic Battleships
Bayern
Baden
Sachsen (completed after WWI)
Württemberg (completed after WWI)
Early Battlecruisers
Derfflinger
Hindenburg
Mackensen (completed after WWI)
Prinz Eitel Friedrich (completed after WWI)
Graf Spee (completed after WWI)
Fürst Bismarck (completed after WWI)
Basic Battlecruisers
Yorck (completed after WWI)
Scharnhorst (completed after WWI)
Gneisenau (completed after WWI)
Naturally, you run into naming issues with the battlecruisers. Fürst Bismarck could be changed to Admiral Scheer (having Graf Spee and Admiral Scheer would be a nod to the pocket battleships which, in my opinion, wouldn't have been built in Kaiserreich, as they were a product of the Weimar government). Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as presented here are named for the two armored cruisers lost in the Battle of the Falklands during WWI... if the Real Life Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are built by Germany in Kaiserreich, you'd have to come up with different names... Moltke and Goeben, maybe?
Russia
Ukraine figures into this a bit. The battleship possessed by the Ukraine (Kjiv, I believe?) should not be there. In Vanilla HoI2, the USSR has three battleships, two in the Baltic and one in the Black Sea. The Black Sea ship, the Sevastopol, was still in the Baltic up until the mid-1920s, when the Soviets decided to transfer it to the Black Sea to bolster their naval presence there. The Sevastopol is a member of a class of four battleships built for service in the Baltic, one of which was sunk in the Russian Civil War (hence only three in Vanilla HoI). I don't think their names would have been changed as they currently are in Kaiserreich, since they were all named for famous Russian victories and not monarchist figures. As with Germany, the issue of Russian naval construction in WWI also comes into play, since the Russians were building a class of four powerful battlecruisers for Baltic service that were halted due to the war and never finished afterward since the Soviet government didn't have the technical know-how to complete them. I don't think the Kerensky government would have had the funding to complete all four, but let's say they manage to complete one as a matter of national pride?
Great War Battleships
Gangut
Poltava
Petropavlovsk
Sevastopol
Basic Battlecruiser
Borodino
All of these would be part of the Baltic Fleet in St. Petersburg. Now, bringing up the Ukrainian battleship again: the Russians DID complete four battleships in the Black Sea, shortly after the start of the war, that were essentially scaled-down versions of the Gangut class. So, it's certainly a plausible theory that the Ukrainians got a hold of one of the ships and put it into service as the Kjiv. Also, the backstory for those Bulgarian battlships that I have no idea how they got there
p) could be that they were also members of this class that were handed over as reparations to the Bulgarians after the war.
Japan
I don't know if you guys have gotten up to re-doing the Japanese navy yet, but if you have, just having it as basically the same fleet as Vanilla HoI is pretty bland. If Japan eyes the Germans as a threat to their expansion (much in the same way they eyed the British and the Americans in real life), I think they'd have a naval build-up to try and counter the German navy. In real life, the Japanese pursued a so-called "8-8 Program" after WWI, which called for a modern fleet of 8 battleships and 8 battlecruisers. The Nagato and Mutsu and the carriers Akagi and Kaga (originally laid down as a battlcruiser and a battleship) were the earliest ships of the program. It's widely agreed that in the early 1920s Japan did not have the industrial capability or naval infrastructure to pursue such an ambitious plan, considering that less than 10 years earlier they were still ordering ships from British shipyards. However, I think that without the limitations of the Washington Naval Agreement (which I'm assuming never happened in Kaiserreich, judging by the size of the German navy?), Japan would have pursued the program to the best of their ability. So, instead of 8-8, maybe 4-4? The ships of the 8-8 program were planned to replace all of Japan's earlier dreadnoughts, like the Fuso class and Kongo class, but I think they would have been kept if the 8-8 construction plan could not be completely carried out. With all of the older ships, it's coincidentally still 8-8
Early Battleships
Fuso
Yamashiro
Ise
Hyuga
Basic Battleships
Nagato (8-8, but built in real life)
Mutsu (8-8, but built in real life)
Kaga (8-8)
Tosa (8-8)
Early Battlecruisers
Kongo
Kirishima
Hiei
Haruna
Basic Battlecruisers
Akagi (8-8)
Amagi (8-8)
Atago (8-8)
Takao (8-8)
Akagi and Kaga would not have been completed as carriers in this scenario.
In fact, that brings up another issue: I believe that if there is no Washington Treaty, carrier development would have been stifled, since all of the first large carriers (Lexington and Saratoga for the US; Akagi and Kaga for Japan) were laid down as battleships but completed as aircraft carriers when the treaty limited the amount and size of battleships the US, Japan, and Britain could have. It would make sense, then, that naval aviation may only be in its infancy at the start of Kaiserreich, and that only early carriers may be in existence, or that most navies possess only a handful of light carriers (to represent the small carriers, like Langley and Hosho, built during the 1920s). But that's a matter for another post
Anyways, that's my $.02... well, more like $20 :rofl:
I've only made comments on countries I've played, I'll eventually play most of the other major powers and get some input on their navies as well if you guys find this post helpful. I'll need to dig up some info on aircraft carriers and heavy and light cruisers too.
I've really enjoyed playing Kaiserreich thus far, and I think the development team is doing an excellent job. Keep up the great work!
<edited for some silly grammatical errors>