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The year is 1944, the future (If you live in 1936), you may find yourself in the middle of a war against France, as the Alpine Confederation, with a beautiful flag, the sound of gunfire off in the distance
You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large army, composed of regular troops, marching through mountains and plains. You may tell yourself, This is not my Guisan, this is not my neutral and democratic Switzerland. And you may ask yourself, how did I get here?
Hey there, it’s Carlo again, to update you on the alt-history paths of the Swiss Focus Tree! Now let’s go back a bit. To the present, 1936. It all started with the focus Swiss Guiding Principles, which triggered an event for you to proclaim the overall direction of the Balance of Power for the rest of the game. Should Switzerland continue with their policy of devolved power to the Cantons? Or is the current world situation too tense to go ‘business as usual’? Picking any will not block you from going one way or the other in the BoP, but it will certainly help getting to where you want to be more easily.
By keeping the balance of power in the Cantons for enough time, you are able to complete some focuses in the historical path, giving you bonuses to militias and recruitable population, and allowing you to build up a large militia army. You might think it’s not worth the time considering you want to go alt-history, but you’ll see the reasoning later.
A bit afterwards you can go down the Federal Police Intelligence Department focus, which unlocks a series of focuses that give you bonuses for managing resistance in occupied states (And your own states if they are occupied, just in case), and more importantly, a military sub-branch, to develop your war capabilities further. This sub-branch is shared with the fascist path, but you don’t need to go fascist to access it.
A bit afterwards you can go down the Federal Police Intelligence Department focus, which unlocks a series of focuses that give you bonuses for managing resistance in occupied states (And your own states if they are occupied, just in case), and more importantly, a military sub-branch, to develop your war capabilities further. This sub-branch is shared with the fascist path, but you don’t need to go fascist to access it.
Then Allied Gold, GotthardBund and where things really start to diverge; Press for Vorarlberg.
Remember the last Switzerland Dev Diary where I stopped to give historical context? Well this is one of those. In 1919 the very rural Austrian region of Vorarlberg held a referendum to decide if they would join the Swiss Confederation, and the vote actually went towards uniting with Switzerland. Unfortunately for them, neither Austria or Switzerland wanted this to happen. Austria because, well, governments tend to prefer to keep their territory and Switzerland because, among other reasons (Including World War I), they already had a majority of their population speaking German, so they didn’t want to increase that gap further. In a Switzerland that seeks to defend their democracy by projecting power and growing in military might, this is not as important, so Vorarlberg is the first stepping stone on their quest to expand.
When you complete that focus, an ultimatum is sent to Austria (Or Germany if you let the days go by), demanding that they hand over Vorarlberg, or else. Hopefully it doesn’t get to the “or else”, and if that’s the case, congratulations, you’re the proud owner of Switzerland’s newest canton!
Remember the last Switzerland Dev Diary where I stopped to give historical context? Well this is one of those. In 1919 the very rural Austrian region of Vorarlberg held a referendum to decide if they would join the Swiss Confederation, and the vote actually went towards uniting with Switzerland. Unfortunately for them, neither Austria or Switzerland wanted this to happen. Austria because, well, governments tend to prefer to keep their territory and Switzerland because, among other reasons (Including World War I), they already had a majority of their population speaking German, so they didn’t want to increase that gap further. In a Switzerland that seeks to defend their democracy by projecting power and growing in military might, this is not as important, so Vorarlberg is the first stepping stone on their quest to expand.
When you complete that focus, an ultimatum is sent to Austria (Or Germany if you let the days go by), demanding that they hand over Vorarlberg, or else. Hopefully it doesn’t get to the “or else”, and if that’s the case, congratulations, you’re the proud owner of Switzerland’s newest canton!
After this you’re confronted with another fork in the road. You can go the fully autocratic way, and Pre-empt Anschluss, allowing you to annex the rest of Austria; or you can go slightly more democratic, with The New Eidgenossenschaft. They both allow Switzerland to expand. With the Preempt Anschluss path, you’ll be able to core all of the alps, finally becoming the Alpine Empire of your dreams, and if that’s not enough for you and you’re ready for a real challenge, you can bring the fight to Germany, Italy and France, in the name of Democracy and peace of course. After all, how dare these psychos keep fighting amongst themselves for centuries, someone ought to bring a stop to that.
Now it’s not all fun and empires on this side of Vorarlberg, when you go for The New Eidgenossenschaft you find a more civilized form of conquest, with Expand the Federation. It’ll unlock decisions to spread democracy in your future cantons neighboring states, and claim them afterwards. If their current owner decides to let you take them peacefully will depend on your military might and how many other states of theirs you’ve influenced. Unfortunately, this time, France wasn’t very keen on you bringing democracy to Rhone, so that’s how you find yourself with no other choice than to declare war on them.
Before going further let’s briefly talk about the military branch they share. The focus Switzerland on the Offense, right under GotthardBund, will surely come in handy: It’s one of the focuses that allows Switzerland to train regular troops, edit templates, and notably, it’ll turn all the militias into regular troops, including all their upgrades. Suddenly, your citizens become full time soldiers, just doing their part
This is why it can be beneficial to beef up your militias before going fully alt-history, you can train cheap troops, with a template you upgrade without spending Army XP, with a large manpower pool that comes with no downsides most of the time, and then they can become regular infantry. It’s mutually exclusive with The Neutral Entente focus, which allows you to invite other Neutral and Non-Aligned countries to your faction. Under those two, you get to upgrade your military and even prepare Switzerland for a real navy!
After Expand the Confederation and completing some very necessary military focuses, you go Empower the Council, putting the Balance of Power squarely on the council, and getting rid of the Cantons vs Council struggle, this gives you more War Support, Political Power among other things.
Now that the council has consolidated power, it’s time to use it and make the president of the council the true leader of the Swiss government, granting some bonuses but more importantly, making the president of the Council Switzerland’s Country Leader forever! (These portraits are not ready so not showing it yet)
You can continue your war as you are, in either the Eidgenossenschaft or Anschluss branch, but there’s a man that’s not happy with where Switzerland is at the moment, and that’s our guy Henri Guisan. As far as I can tell he was not that much of a radical democrat, after all he was a professional soldier, and those tend to favor rigid hierarchies, but despite that he was also a Swiss patriot who praised the Swiss tradition of Armed Neutrality and Independence, so he would definitely not be happy with a Swiss-led empire, regardless of name. This is why on this timeline, you can nudge him towards a coup, and with his popularity both in the Military and civilian populations, resistance to him is very limited. Of course, as much as he is committed to traditional Swiss values, he is a soldier, and he will finish the fight with his military bonuses as a Country Leader and General, like a Cincinnatus once in a lifetime kind of thing.
And that’s how we got where we are. The rest is up to you; you can take the war to other countries, or simply finish the war and then complete the focus Return to the Old Switzerland which allows Switzerland to neutrality and democracy. Same as it ever was.
Before giving you a taste of the other alt-history paths, I think it’s important to take a look at the full focus tree (Please note it’s a work in progress and a lot can change. Also, still waiting on some icons, as you can see).
You can continue your war as you are, in either the Eidgenossenschaft or Anschluss branch, but there’s a man that’s not happy with where Switzerland is at the moment, and that’s our guy Henri Guisan. As far as I can tell he was not that much of a radical democrat, after all he was a professional soldier, and those tend to favor rigid hierarchies, but despite that he was also a Swiss patriot who praised the Swiss tradition of Armed Neutrality and Independence, so he would definitely not be happy with a Swiss-led empire, regardless of name. This is why on this timeline, you can nudge him towards a coup, and with his popularity both in the Military and civilian populations, resistance to him is very limited. Of course, as much as he is committed to traditional Swiss values, he is a soldier, and he will finish the fight with his military bonuses as a Country Leader and General, like a Cincinnatus once in a lifetime kind of thing.
And that’s how we got where we are. The rest is up to you; you can take the war to other countries, or simply finish the war and then complete the focus Return to the Old Switzerland which allows Switzerland to neutrality and democracy. Same as it ever was.
Before giving you a taste of the other alt-history paths, I think it’s important to take a look at the full focus tree (Please note it’s a work in progress and a lot can change. Also, still waiting on some icons, as you can see).
Now that’s not the only alt-history path for Switzerland. You also have the option of taking a stance to help the Allies win their war against the fascist powers of Europe. After you complete Closer Democratic Ties you have 3 different ways of joining the war as an ally:
First one is through Join France, which makes Switzerland into a French Puppet and later, into the Second Helvetic Republic, a successor of the Napoleonic Republic I was talking about in the olden days of the first Swiss Dev Diary. The advantage of this path is that Alpine Aspirations allows you to core some alpine states, handy for the peace conference at the end of the war.
The middle one, Join the Allies, as it says in the name, allows you to join the United Kingdom as an ally. It’s a relatively pain-free way of joining the war, but it also doesn’t offer additional rewards.
The last one is through the Secret Pact with the Allies focus. You get to this one from a different part of the tree, by completing some focuses on the Buero Ha branch and three focuses directed at supporting the Allies’ espionage efforts: Support Allied Espionage unlocks a decision that allows Switzerland to give itself and their secret ally (In most cases the leader of the biggest democratic faction) a timed National Spirit with bonuses for espionage. Expand Spy Network gives Switzerland an extra Operative Slot, and increased Intel Network Gain. Share Spy Network unlocks a decision to send an event to your secret ally, and they can choose to get either a Swiss-German, Swiss-Italian or Swiss-French operative, the best part is that you get one too! Then in Secret Pact with the Allies itself, you unlock a decision to support your secret ally, giving them a percentage of your military and civilian production in exchange for Command Power, Army, Air and Navy experience.
The middle one, Join the Allies, as it says in the name, allows you to join the United Kingdom as an ally. It’s a relatively pain-free way of joining the war, but it also doesn’t offer additional rewards.
The last one is through the Secret Pact with the Allies focus. You get to this one from a different part of the tree, by completing some focuses on the Buero Ha branch and three focuses directed at supporting the Allies’ espionage efforts: Support Allied Espionage unlocks a decision that allows Switzerland to give itself and their secret ally (In most cases the leader of the biggest democratic faction) a timed National Spirit with bonuses for espionage. Expand Spy Network gives Switzerland an extra Operative Slot, and increased Intel Network Gain. Share Spy Network unlocks a decision to send an event to your secret ally, and they can choose to get either a Swiss-German, Swiss-Italian or Swiss-French operative, the best part is that you get one too! Then in Secret Pact with the Allies itself, you unlock a decision to support your secret ally, giving them a percentage of your military and civilian production in exchange for Command Power, Army, Air and Navy experience.
After that you still have more to unlock, and eventually you can choose when to complete Jump into Action and join the war at the most opportune moment.
All of these paths have a shared industrial and military branch to get you ready, ending on Weapons of Democracy. Aaaand these are the Democratic-ish paths for Switzerland! Hope you at least enjoyed reading about them.
The left-side paths are the ones I thought plausible for Switzerland keeping their democracy (At least for a little bit) while still joining the war. They’re about Switzerland using its past and tradition to justify joining the war, either against fascism, or as a preemptive defense. While Switzerland in this period did have a fascist movement, it was always very small and on the fringes, for example, there was only one member of parliament elected under a Fascist party; Robert Tobler. This small minority quickly faded once it was obvious to them where it would lead, and especially so after Anschluss. This is why the right side of the focus mountain is not as much a story of Swiss Fascism rising to take over the government, but a scenario where Switzerland sees the power of Fascism rising in Europe and is slowly coerced into reluctantly joining it.
All of these paths have a shared industrial and military branch to get you ready, ending on Weapons of Democracy. Aaaand these are the Democratic-ish paths for Switzerland! Hope you at least enjoyed reading about them.
The left-side paths are the ones I thought plausible for Switzerland keeping their democracy (At least for a little bit) while still joining the war. They’re about Switzerland using its past and tradition to justify joining the war, either against fascism, or as a preemptive defense. While Switzerland in this period did have a fascist movement, it was always very small and on the fringes, for example, there was only one member of parliament elected under a Fascist party; Robert Tobler. This small minority quickly faded once it was obvious to them where it would lead, and especially so after Anschluss. This is why the right side of the focus mountain is not as much a story of Swiss Fascism rising to take over the government, but a scenario where Switzerland sees the power of Fascism rising in Europe and is slowly coerced into reluctantly joining it.
The start of the fascist side is populated by focuses about events that actually happened, but often did not end up going further, or were historically rejected. Purchase German Planes, Ban the Swiss Communist Party, Withdraw from the League Of Nations, Limited Censorship of the Press, The National Front, and The Petition of the 200 are based on real events, policies or organizations in Switzerland at the time that ended up not affecting the Democratic system of Switzerland enough to topple it, but because this is a fascist path, in this timeline they will have repercussions, and will tighten the grip of fascism over Switzerland.
Unlike the alt-democratic branch, this one’s not as focused on espionage, but instead, focuses on becoming closer to Germany and developing the military industry. After Abandon Neutrality, which does exactly what you think it does, you have a choice between 2 leaders: Robert Tobler and Rolf Henne.
They were both leaders of The National Front at different points, and while they were both Fascists, they diverged in key ways. Rolf Henne was closer to the German Nazi party and more openly wanted for Switzerland to join Germany, while Robert Tobler wanted Switzerland to have its own form of fascism, achieved by working with the government and slowly changing it, without burning down the house. Despite this, they were both directly or indirectly supported by the German Reich.
Tobler’s path will lead to a slower and more stable transition to fascism, until you centralize Switzerland and join the Nazis. Henne’s path on the other hand allows you to become a German Puppet almost immediately, but with the advantage that you can ask Germany for territory, including Vorarlberg and Austria, and if you’re lucky enough, the alps in France and Italy.
Both of them have access to the Professionalize Militias focus, which is another one of those that convert your militias into professional soldiers, very handy for the conquest of Europe. Besides this, there’s a military branch that is shared with the Federal Police Intelligence Department branch, which allows you on one side to mechanize your army, and in the other to improve special forces, planes and ultimately, give you Mountaineer Paratroopers, which give Swiss paratroopers bonuses in mountains.
Lastly, there’s an elephant in the Dev Diary I would like to address. Many countries in Hearts of Iron feature civil wars when they change political parties, and that’s a very cool mechanic because it allows you to have a combat snack before the main course. In Switzerland, that’s not the case, when the government changes, it does so progressively but peacefully. The main reasons are:
- Switzerland is mostly mountains and forests, leading to a slow and grinding war.
- A lot of the content centers around building fortifications, and improving defense, because that was Switzerland’s focus at the time, and even before that. It would’ve led to an even slower and grindier war.
- I felt the territory was way too small to have any sort of interesting war in it.
Those were the reasons we decided not to have government changes through civil war.
Oh, and one more thing, I felt like Brandy the St Bernard wouldn’t stay for the fascist path, after all Brandy is a good doggo, so we managed to find an evil timeline version, doubt it will make the cut, seeing as my photoshop skills are not up to par.
Oh, and one more thing, I felt like Brandy the St Bernard wouldn’t stay for the fascist path, after all Brandy is a good doggo, so we managed to find an evil timeline version, doubt it will make the cut, seeing as my photoshop skills are not up to par.
Ok I’ll end this Dev Diary now before I stop making sense. Come back next time for the Ethiopian Alt-history Dev Diary! I think you’re in for a treat.
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