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Bonus Diary: No Step Back Formable & New Tags

Hello Generals!

I’ve managed to escape the frontlines of Social Media to bring you this dispatch from our Comrades on the Dev Team. I bring tidings of great hope, with reinvigorated pride and national sentiment - Thats right, a full list of the new Tags and Formables!

Lets start with the tags shall we?

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Tags


Here is a full list of the Tags coming with No Step Back:
  1. DNZ Danzig
  2. SIL Silesia
  3. KSH Kashubia
  4. DON Don Republic (Through Cossack Branch for Poland)
  5. KUB Kuban Republic (Through Cossack Branch for Poland)
  6. BUK Bukhara
  7. ALT Altay
  8. KAL Kalmykia
  9. KAR Karelia
  10. CRI Crimea
  11. TAT Tatarstan
  12. CIN Chechnya Ingushetia
  13. DAG Dagestan
  14. BYA Buryatia
  15. CKK Chukotka
  16. FER Fareastern Republic
  17. YAK Yakutia
  18. VLA Vladivostok
  19. KKP Karakalpakstan
  20. YAM Yamalia
  21. TAY Taymyria
  22. OVO Ostyak Vogulia
  23. NEN Nenetsia
  24. KOM Komi
  25. ABK Abkhazia
  26. KBK Kabardino Balkaria
  27. NOA North Ossetia
  28. VGE Volga Germany
  29. BSK Bashkortostan
  30. KHI Khiva
  31. UDM Udmurtia
  32. CHU Chuvashia
  33. MEL Mariel

Pretty cool huh? Here’s a quick screenshot I grabbed releasing as many nations from the Soviet Union Republic of Turkic Peoples as possible.
20211112150543_1.jpg


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Formables


The new formable tags are as follows:
Turkestan
Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus
Transcaucasia
Siberia
Idel Ural


TagFormed by
Mountainous Republic
controls_state = Dagestan
controls_state = Chechnya-Ingushetia
controls_state = North Ossetia
controls_state = Kabardino-Balkaria
controls_state = Abkhazia
Transcaucasian Republiccontrols_state = Abkhazia
controls_state = Georgia
controls_state = Armenia
controls_state = Azerbaijan
Siberiaoriginal_tag = YYakutia
original_tag = Far Eastern Republic
original_tag = Chukotka
original_tag = Vladivostok
original_tag = Buryatia
original_tag = Taymyria
original_tag = Altai
original_tag = Yamalia
original_tag = Ostyak-Vogulia
original_tag = Tannu Tuva
Idel Ural Republicoriginal_tag = Mari EL
original_tag = Chuvashia
original_tag = Tatarstan
original_tag = Udmurtia
original_tag = Bashkortostan
Turkestan
allowed = {
OR = {
original_tag = TAN # Tannu Tuva
original_tag = KAZ # Kazakhstan
original_tag = UZB # Uzbekistan
original_tag = KYR # Kyrgyzstan
original_tag = TAJ # Tajikistan
original_tag = TMS # Turkmenistan
original_tag = SIK # Sinkiang
original_tag = BUK # Bukhara
original_tag = KHI # Khiva
original_tag = KKP # Karakalpakstan
}
}
available = {
is_subject = no
custom_trigger_tooltip = {
tooltip = form_country_kazakhstan_required_states
controls_state = 402
controls_state = 404
controls_state = 406
controls_state = 407
controls_state = 583
controls_state = 586
controls_state = 587
controls_state = 588
controls_state = 589
controls_state = 590
}
custom_trigger_tooltip = {
tooltip = form_country_uzbekistan_required_states
controls_state = 405
controls_state = 585
controls_state = 830
controls_state = 823
controls_state = 831
}
controls_state = 732 # Kyrgyzstan
controls_state = 742 # Tajikistan
controls_state = 584 # Turkmenistan
controls_state = 832 # Tashauz

I'm not a coder, I'm a social monkey so that meant diddly-squat to me - I'm hoping you in the community made sense of that.


Here is Siberia at its Max
image (5).png


Mountainous Republic:
image (6).png


Idel Ural
image (7).png


Transcaucasia
image (8).png



Furthermore theres a whole host of ways you can expand your empire further by tag switching between nations
20211112145224_1.jpg

20211112145158_1.jpg


That's all for this report, I can hear the chanting of “Release the DLC Now” from the Twitter front so I must get back to the frontlines.
 
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It has always been part of armenia in Hoi4, and south ossetia probably felt like too small of a state or fell out of favour because of time crunching.
Not the case, Naxchivan is not even in the HoI4 as an Azerbaijani city/victory point. Caucasus borders are heavily outdated and need rework. The sooner, the better.
 
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I repeat my suggestion regarding the KAR tag (see also here).

Also, a releasable Ingria would have been interesting. After all, there were Ingrians fighting for the freedom of their homeland in 1918-20 and 1941-45.

EDIT: To clarify, in HoI4-terms:

Here's East Karelia in its traditional borders:

View attachment 773201

Here's the Karelian ASSR with its 1938-1940 borders before it was elevated to an SSR:

View attachment 773204

Here's the Karelo-Finnish SSR when it was founded in 1940:

View attachment 773196

This is what the Karelo-Finnish SSR would have looked like if Stalin was successful in conquering Finland in the Winter War. It is quite possible that in this scenario the name would have simply been the Finnish SSR. The capital would also have been Helsinki:

View attachment 773197

This is the Karelian Republic today:

View attachment 773195

I propose that KAR should start with the cores of the first and second image, receive cores on Finnish territory annexed by SOV up to the fourth image, depending on what kind of peace is signed. Specifically KAR, not SOV. This adding of cores is relevant in the case that the SSRs pop up as tags on the map, or perhaps become independent. If Finland is annexed, then the name of the Karelo-Finnish SSR should change to the Finnish SSR, and just Finland if the SSR then becomes independent. In the latter case the flag should obviously change to the Finnish flag as well. Coding-wise it might be easiest to just let KAR form FIN at that point.

In HoI4-terms, this is what an independent Ingria would look like:

View attachment 773206

Of course I know these proposals will not make it to NSB's release, and that they are not all feasible in an exact historical configuration border-wise, because it would mean the creation of several very small states, but it would be interesting if they would be implemented at some point even in a somewhat crude fashion.

Ingria is problematic when it comes to Leningrad, because there's no way a multi-million Russian city would be a willing participant (i.e. a core) in an ethnic Finnish Ingrian state, and their population would greatly outnumber the surrounding Ingrian Finns. But then again, the game has crazier cores... Another option would be to split the city of Leningrad off into its own one-province-state and have it not be a core of Ingria. But again, a state that size is not great for gameplay.
To go with this, please change the Estonia-Belarus SSR to the Estonia-Ingria SSR. Lithuania-Belarus was historical, Latvia-Belarus is excusable, Estonia-Belarus makes no sense what so ever. Estonia-Ingria works way better for Estonia as Ingria is next to Estonia and the Estonians and the Izhorians are culturally similar (both being Finno-Uralic).
 
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Please god no, I swear I'll pay 60$ for DLC and never wait for them to go on sale, just please stop giving England more releasables to vomit over them map.
 
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Hi, thanks for this preview of formables (for which i'm excited for)
Got a question thouh, i've looked upon the picture of releasables in the Soviet Exiles Dev Diary and it seems some are missing here :
1636818461619.png

(spot it vibes btw)
Did they got removed?
 
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Why we are still allowed to balkanize Germany only through Napoleon focus but no one else?
Do people who ask for more releasable tags never try to play historical games? I'm not being sarcastic here, I actually don't understand it and would appreciate an explanation. In my opinion releasable tags on core territory are among the worst things in HoI4, because democratic AIs are rigged to release as many tags as possible which automatically turns every "historical" peace conference into messy border gore and splinter states. The Allies didn't split off Occitania in real life for a reason (it was French territory, so why would they not return it to France?) but in HoI4 it happens every single time with no exceptions unless the player manages to stop the AI. If everyone was able to balkanize Germany, the AI would delete Germany from the map every time.

That's why personally I'm incredibly happy that a balkanized Germany is reserved for Napoleon runs and I wish it was the same for other "meme tags" such as Occitania, until the AI learns how to handle them properly. Africa is a lost cause at this point, at least Europe should stay "tidy" after a peace conference.
 
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crossing my fingers but the flags don't look too bad so far

except for commie siberia but is there really a good basegame non-historical commie flag? (and you can't answer USA, that's cheating)

Hi, thanks for this preview of formables (for which i'm excited for)
Got a question thouh, i've looked upon the picture of releasables in the Soviet Exiles Dev Diary and it seems some are missing here :
View attachment 773293
(spot it vibes btw)
Did they got removed?
i doubt it, looks like they just forgot them

from the top of my head they look like transnistria (near romania), abkhazia (near georgia, weird there's no south ossetia though), vladivostok, and chukotka
 
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Do people who ask for more releasable tags never try to play historical games? I'm not being sarcastic here, I actually don't understand it and would appreciate an explanation. In my opinion releasable tags on core territory are among the worst things in HoI4, because democratic AIs are rigged to release as many tags as possible which automatically turns every "historical" peace conference into messy border gore and splinter states. The Allies didn't split off Occitania in real life for a reason (it was French territory, so why would they not return it to France?) but in HoI4 it happens every single time with no exceptions unless the player manages to stop the AI. If everyone was able to balkanize Germany, the AI would delete Germany from the map every time.

That's why personally I'm incredibly happy that a balkanized Germany is reserved for Napoleon runs and I wish it was the same for other "meme tags" such as Occitania, until the AI learns how to handle them properly. Africa is a lost cause at this point, at least Europe should stay "tidy" after a peace conference.
I play with player-led conferences. AI behavior is a reason to fix AI, not a reason not include tags
 
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You will need all of those territories to form Siberia? I did a playthrough on the current patch to simulate getting the achievement, that's a bit more land than I expected :p
Will be a fun achievement to get.
 
AI behavior is a reason to fix AI, not a reason not include tags
But we aren't getting any AI fixes from what we've been told in the dev diaries, so adding more tags that will cause the AI to run wild in peace conferences shouldn't be the obvious choice. It just makes peace conferences even more of a mess whenever someone capitulates the Soviet Union, which will happen a lot more often than a player releasing those tags for whatever reason.

I play with player-led conferences.
Me too, but it's still a band-aid mod made by the community. If you try to get achievements or don't want to use "cheats" (even if you try to use the mod responsibly, it's still effectively a cheat), you are stuck with vanilla peace conferences.
If new "balkanizing tags" are being added, at least make the AI unable to release them when historical AI is enabled. I am fairly sure these tags are being added as flavor or for the memes, not to give the AI more things to abuse.

Edit: The Soviet Union already has a lot of releasable tags, so since AI behavior likely won't change with NSB it probably won't even matter that much for peace conferences if we get these new tags or not. Still, it would at least limit the "damage" the AI can do.
 
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But we aren't getting any AI fixes from what we've been told in the dev diaries, so adding more tags that will cause the AI to run wild in peace conferences shouldn't be self-explanatory. It just makes peace conferences even more of a mess whenever someone capitulates the Soviet Union, which will happen a lot more often than a player releasing those tags for whatever reason.
We aren't getting those tags I asked for in this patch either, so? Next update we might get both

Me too, but it's still a band-aid mod made by the community. If you try to get achievements or don't want to use "cheats" (even if you try to use the mod responsibly, it's still effectively a cheat), you are stuck with vanilla peace conferences.
Weird balkanization happens mostly when Allies defeat Axis (because they are democratic). If you do achievements and don't care for clean borders just because of visuals, those many tags don't prevent you from doing anything, just keep conquering
 
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Any particular reason for why Don and Kuban arent releasables at start? Feels very unnecessary to limit them behind a single path instead of allowing for everyone to have them as puppets.
 
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Estonia-Ingria works way better for Estonia as Ingria is next to Estonia and the Estonians and the Izhorians are culturally similar (both being Finno-Uralic).

Just a small comment on that: By the game's time frame the Izhorians (and Votes) were a small minority even among the Finnic peoples of Ingria. The overwhelming majority (in the 90% range) of the Finnic peoples in the region were Ingrian Finns.
 
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Cheers for the Bonus DD Midgeman, and good luck over in the Twitterverse as release day approaches :) I know almost nothing about these tags and formables, but very much appreciate the work of the devs to put them in, and your effort to show us :)

To say thanks, he's a picture of river monitor Perekop (hopefully) on the Dneiper (which is in at least one of the tags that are released - a naval-themed pic for this bonus DD is a bit of a stretch!)

Perekop.jpg
 
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Can we get a releasable Sapmi, too? Just so we don't have a little piece of Russia to the north of Karelia?
I think Estonia gets a core on Kola and all that, but only if it goes down the Neo-pagan route I think? So yeah, I hope for this too. Mostly because Russia is probably gonna look...

...weird after the Allies have had their way with it unless they do.

Also, what is all this gonna look like under different ideologies? And what about the fragmentation game-rules, how will they be changed? Germany hasn't gotten one yet, and the Soviet will need at least an update, right?
 
Suggestion: Flag some of the "weirder" tags that the AI generally shouldn't release in peace conferences (such as most of these new ones, Occitania, Brittany, the various Chinese warlords, Vichy France, the Spains, the Conferderacy and all similar Civil War tags, and probably some others), and tell the AI not to release those in peace conferences.
Yes, please. I totally support this. I like having many tags but the AI doesn't understand how to release them without creating a mess.
 
Hey, suggestions are always welcome, and I can definitely pass stuff on!
Great! I have another suggestion, if you can pass it on: let players somehow release as puppets formable nations. It's a pity that tags like the Mountain Republic, Transcaucasia, Siberia, Greater Netherlands, Austria-Hungary or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth exist but that I can't release them as puppets and that they can only appear if played by the player.
 
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While I do appreciate this Diary, I'm afraid of how this will impact peace deals, it is already painful enough to see the Allies dismembering France after a war just because of Vichy, and all these new formables might worsen this problem, but with the Soviet Union. Of course, the french example isn't the only one aswell, but I don't think it's necessary for me to quote more as it has already been acknowledged by the community and devs alike, still, I'm going to say that besides France, countries like Spain and the african colonies also get some of that Allied bordergore.
While I agree, I do see the reason to bring in this aspect, as Germany initiated several Brandenburg special operations in some of these areas, although not very successfully.
Would Germany have formed some protectorates like these areas? That remains speculation, because history took a different course.
Interesting nevertheless.
 
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