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FlyingDutchie-

I think if the USA wins the Civil War, then it should get some events to help reconstruction (or at least acknowledge it). Perhaps trade deals with neutral powers and the Syndicalists to stimulate the economy (Germany's dominance of the world is falling apart at this point as well)
 
I agree the USA would need events to simulate the reconstruction of the nation. Tradedeals with the Entente or Germany would be possible, but trade with the Syndies?

I'm still working on postwar USA, but reworking Germany takes priority at the moment.
 
Why trade with someone who has ruined your economy and is probably under heavy Syndicalist blockade? I think the USA would trade and play the Entente and International off with eachother for the time being, but sooner or later it is going to either choose a side.

Here's an idea:

If the United States is a democracy after the civil war, then perhaps it should try and form it's own third party alliance against the Entente, Mittleuropa and International. It would be nice to have a genuienly democratic alliance in Kaisserreich (maybe the USA could approach La Plata, a non-Entente South Africa or perhaps even Australasia or Delhi).
 
I think the consensus was that the US shouldnt do much after the war-reconstruction should take years. Which means, even if they win by 1938, they will be sitting around rebuilding till 43...after the major war is over. Which makes it kinda boring but I suppose is realistic. The ACW is also unavoidably bad-even if Garner meets with Reeds and implements socialist reforms, that SOB still revolts!

I would be against a way to avoid the ACW, as it simply leaves the States too powerful (even more so that the winner of the ACW already is). Furthermore, the USA is basically beyond saving in Kaiserreich, being wrecked by the mother of all economic crises (worse that the real New York Stock exchange crash), a complete loss of faith in Washington and a deeply divided population, with both Reed and Long offering solutions that neither Democrats nor Republicans are willing to implement.

At the risk of sounding too much like a "USA should always be awesome!" boorish American...I've never really understood why the US is supposed to be so weak in this timeline. Yeah they get screwed by isolationism and german economic dominance but are they really weaker than say, Russia, which lost WWI and starts the scenario "barely controlling Moscow and St. Petersberg?" Austria-Hungary which can become super-danubian fed or massive centralized kingdom? British Canada or National France, which has almost 70 IC and be a group of exiles and is supposed to be able to beat the Syndies under human control?

The US didnt lose millions of people in WWI or lose the war, period. Yet the government in Washington is seen as weaker and less legitimate than a British King who doesnt have the British Isles somehow. I guess I would buy "a human player shouldnt be able to save the US" easier if a human player couldn't easily reform and dominant with just about ever other "major" including basketcases like the Qing or minors like the Alasha-order. All the majors, including Germany, have serious problems.
 
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Mr. Domino-

I defenitely agree with you. The rebel factions are wanked beyond all reason in Kaiserreich (if you'll excuse the alt history term there), while the USA is made absurdly weak. While the idea of a modern American Civil War is interesting, it's very unlikely that two historically minor factions (it's only about twenty years after the PoD guys!) could launch and sustain such a war.

A more plausiable SACW for Kaiserreich would be:

1) The USA is suffering severe economic problems and thisis leading to social instability, but although neither Long or Reed are as powerful as they are currently. Things go as currently until A Day In September.

2) This time, MacArthur will either overthrow Hoover outright or persuade him to step down and let the military take over.

3)This causes massive problems, with many in the Congress and Senate demanding MacArthur's removal. MacArthur starts arresting political opponents and Reed and Long both end up getting killed (this causes their movements to splinter apart) during the wave of violence.

4) MacArthur arrests a number of Congressmen, mainly from the west coast or Texas. The PSA and Texas revolt against MacArthur and the civil war starts.

5) Moderate Democrats and Republicans stage a coup, forcing MacArthur to flee into the Deep South. He then rallies Long's supporters to his banner and revolts against the Federal government.

Just a thought...
 
I agree with you both that the US setup is by far the least plausible one in Kaiserreich. Yet (IMO) its also both interesting to have a syndie or nationalist USA and a gameplay neccesity to nerf the USA by a long shot in order to prevent a walkover for the side the USA joins. The initial weakness isn't even that farfetched.

- The USA didn't fight in the Great War, preventing thousands of deaths, but leaving the USA isolated from the rest of the world and out of touch with military developments.
- Under Wood and Hoover, the USA chose to maintain its isolated tendencies, yet chose to persecute all things left of the political centre as syndicalist and dangerous during a massive Red Scare, leading to a radicalisation of the left.
- German and syndicalist autarkic tendencies limit the market of American goods to the States themselves, while the Entente is unable to pay of it wardebts. Both National France and the British government in exile would probably tell the US that a previous government was responsible for creating them. Both acts would ruin US economy in a way that would let the Great depression look like a small economic setback. We all know that an economic crisis gives room for demagogues and radicals to rise to prominence.

Would all of this lead to a fourway Civil War? I doubt it, yet civil wars are just good ol' fun.
 
I agree with you both that the US setup is by far the least plausible one in Kaiserreich. Yet (IMO) its also both interesting to have a syndie or nationalist USA and a gameplay neccesity to nerf the USA by a long shot in order to prevent a walkover for the side the USA joins. The initial weakness isn't even that farfetched.

I agree that the Reed & Long have no chance if the US is even allowed the vanilla 1936 IC penalty. But it does seem to me that
the scenario does its best to ensure that the democratic US has no chance unless it has a human player. I have played the
US without the IC and dissent hits, just to have the CW be a minor road bump (and yes I got a good deal of evil satisfaction
in that). More seriously, I think one thing that could be done with the democratic US that would give it a better chance under
the AI would be to replicate what happened in our actual Civil War. In that case, when the Southern states started seceding,
there was a good deal of doubt and division in the North as to what to do (modeled in game by dissent). However, once Fort
Sumter was fired upon, all argument ceased, and the North was totally committed to fight. In terms of KR, this would mean
that once Reed and/or Long declared war, US dissent would be set to zero. Other possibilities : If Curtis agrees to all
of Reed's demands, Reed does not secede. If Garner takes a hard line stance against Reed, California does not secede.

BTW, I think the most unrealistic thing of all regarding the US in this scenario is Canada siezing New England, Alaska, and Colon.
It would be sheer idiocy on their part to make it more difficult for the US to defeat the Syndies (whom the Canadians hate). I also find the PSA siezure of Alaska bogus. Since they're at war with the US, they should damed well have to take it by invasion.
 
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In terms of KR, this would mean
that once Reed and/or Long declared war, US dissent would be set to zero. Other possibilities : If Curtis agrees to all
of Reed's demands, Reed does not secede. If Garner takes a hard line stance against Reed, California does not secede.

The rebel factions are wanked beyond all reason in Kaiserreich (if you'll excuse the alt history term there), while the USA is made absurdly weak. While the idea of a modern American Civil War is interesting, it's very unlikely that two historically minor factions (it's only about twenty years after the PoD guys!) could launch and sustain such a war.

Obviously, I agree with people who agree with me. But let me play devils advocate for a second.

The "problem" with earlier versions of the ACW was it was "unbalanced." You'll notice now, that once the PSA secedes and New England is seized, all the factions actually have 40-60 IC and a few units. To me, this is weird-a legitimate Curtis presidency should not be roughly equivalent to a radical socialist uprising. Civil wars, including the Spanish one as it exists, are rarely well balance (I never see the Carlists win.) Even the original canon had the CSA centralized in the rustbelt and the AUS centralized only in part of the South-Dem/Rep should control the midwest, California, and even New York and Virginia. The PSA didn't even exist originally. See "predicted outcome of election" http://editthis.info/kaiserreich/United_States

Obviously that makes it very hard for a human to play as a 30 IC small revolter against 200 IC USA. So now its balanced better so humans have a shot with any faction. But it also means that horrifically complicated ACW event chain is kinda pointless-no matter how you negotiate with Reed he still revolts and takes New York with him. Before, you could bring him into the government and only fight the AUS-that means you could avoid most of the civil war and its easy. But as it stands now no matter what choices you make you end up with 4 factions of 40-60 IC-even if you elect Reed he ends up couped and revolting with 60 IC.

The current set up is the product of a lot of work and there are other areas of the game that need more work so I don't think they will change it to the old version anytime soon. But allow me to voice my own small opinion-I don't really care about gamebalance in Kaisserreich. Its impossible. In a Germany nightmare game, Japan could decide to attack you, Russia could morph into the USSR, syndies could rise in Australasia, US, Ukraine, and Spain and they all join the internationale ect. Your gonna lose then. OTOH Russia and Japan could both go isolationist and the Ottomans can easily join Mittleuropa and you just end up facing CoF that chose a horrible land doctrine. The downside of "any country can change into anything" is the sides are incredibly fluid and hard to balance. But that doesn't really bother me personally. Furthermore-the very idea of "Germany wins WW1 and is awesome" then means its very hard to balance while being realistic-why should weakened France and the British Isles without the Commonwealth be able to defeat Super-Germany considering how close it was IRL?

IMO-if people want to play the CSA/AUS they should elect Reed or Long president or make MacArthur rise and be a SOB. Then they should get some bonuses when the CSA/AUS appears. If they want to play as some radical fringe group that is revolting against someone else who is elected they should be ready for a challenge. I realize vanilla USA is not really fun or in keeping with KR atmosphere-so hit them with large isolation moves after the civil war so they focus on reconstruction and only get involved in the war if the Monroe Doctrine is really violated and say, syndies are landing in Canada and about to create a puppet there. YMMV.
 
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This is actually very interesting: I see various people having very different experiences about the different civil wars. Myself, I see the Carlists win every time, and the USA can always take on all 3 rebelling factions combined - considering they have less IC than all others most of the time and sometimes can even bounce back from having only 3 provinces and loads of cutoff provinces in the west.
 
I agree with you both that the US setup is by far the least plausible one in Kaiserreich. Yet (IMO) its also both interesting to have a syndie or nationalist USA and a gameplay neccesity to nerf the USA by a long shot in order to prevent a walkover for the side the USA joins. The initial weakness isn't even that farfetched.

- The USA didn't fight in the Great War, preventing thousands of deaths, but leaving the USA isolated from the rest of the world and out of touch with military developments.
- Under Wood and Hoover, the USA chose to maintain its isolated tendencies, yet chose to persecute all things left of the political centre as syndicalist and dangerous during a massive Red Scare, leading to a radicalisation of the left.
- German and syndicalist autarkic tendencies limit the market of American goods to the States themselves, while the Entente is unable to pay of it wardebts. Both National France and the British government in exile would probably tell the US that a previous government was responsible for creating them. Both acts would ruin US economy in a way that would let the Great depression look like a small economic setback. We all know that an economic crisis gives room for demagogues and radicals to rise to prominence.

Would all of this lead to a fourway Civil War? I doubt it, yet civil wars are just good ol' fun.

I feel that there should be support for avoiding the civil war since as you say it is not particularly realistic, the problem of the U.S. then being too strong can be minimized by say having an event about the disintegration of the CSA which ups dissent by 50% in late '37 (I do not think that they could hold power without a civil war erupting, and since there is little point for developing a bunch of fancy civil war event chains in the unlikely event that they win in '40 we can nullify them as a serious candidate for the presidency by having it fall apart, with radicals deciding to overthrow the government by force, and with moderates striking etc. so the movement will cause of a few revolts and the like but will probably not trigger a civil war) also since the Republican and America First parties would be fairly isolationist and extremely unlikely to concern themselves with events outside the Western Hemisphere they would not seriously unbalance the game (the Democrats might be a little more inclined to support the Entente).

Additional about British war debt, I do not think that they would say that a "previous government was responsible" but rather (like Germany after the Second World War) that they would not pay their debts until after the Empire was reunited. Perhaps after the the reconquest of Britain there could be an event where Britain can decide to resume payments (which would no doubt be good for Anglo-American relations).
 
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If it where up to me, the loopholes about avoiding the ACW would be closed as this event is desperately needed for gameplay balance. Otherwise the US would basically crush absolutely anything without too much trouble. But since plenty of players like to use the loopholes once in a while, we decided to keep these little gaps into the game. Yet I feel we shouldn't reward players for exploiting loopholes.

About the wardebts: National France is officially called the Fourth French Republic and could easily dismiss any responibility for debts the Third Republic made. The British government-in-exile lacks any form of income, while Canada could point to that very government-in-exile to pay off the debts the Empire made.
 
As to the U.S. I think that any non Combined Syndicates government would be fairly isolationist, so I do not see why it would seriously unbalance the game (it could perhaps provide a late game challenge for those wanting to do a world conquest though) to have them avoid a civil war. I think that I already stated that I do not think that the CSA should be able to avoid a civil war so it should not really unbalance the game.

About the wardebts: that is why I said that the repayment of British war debts would be after the defeat of the Union of Britain. They could say that they would not pay them until after England had been liberated (like Germany did after the Second World War, where I believe they said that they would not repay their debts until Germany was reunited which was essentially considered a default), does that sound like a reasonable idea to you? It could be useful for bringing about closer relations with the U.S. as well as good for Britain's prestige. I agree that the Fourth Republic of France would not honour the Third Republic's debts (much as that may anger the creditors).
 
If it where up to me, the loopholes about avoiding the ACW would be closed as this event is desperately needed for gameplay balance. Otherwise the US would basically crush absolutely anything without too much trouble.

How does the US crush even a fly when it has an 82% IC penalty in peacetime, no initial army or air force to speak of,
and slider settings that mean it's impossible to declare war before at least 1940 (IIRC)? By the time the US can get its
isolation slider far enough to the left to get into war, the other powers will have left it well behind in everything except
possibly navy.
 
Just to throw this out there...

Why does there have to be a war at all? Don't get me wrong, I truly enjoy the acw. I occasionally start a KR game just to play through it...

But... the country is wracked by debt, their is a weak leader, no military. Additionally, the US has never fought Syndi's or Socialists and thus don't have the hangups of the brit royals or the african frenchies... So... why not have an event chain that simply allows for the dissolution of the united states in a nearly bloodless manner.

Sure, there would eventually be wars between the factions...

Maybe the CSA takes on Canada on behalf of Britain. The US isn't really a friend of Canada, so why bother helping them. Just a few decades before the English and French were considering jumping on the US if the original CSA in the first ACW made a good show. So national france and england could screw off.

Anyway, just an idea. I dont expect it to get taken seriously.
 
Look guys, the ACW is an important and integral part of Kaiserreich. The setup for the US doesn't allow for the ACW to just not happen. The two party system has clearly been busted by 1936, Long and Reed both will not accept defeat. I'm sorry but this is not going to be changed since so much content is dependent upon it and as I said, it's integral. :)