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HoI4 Dev Diary - Poland Focus Tree Rework Part 2/2

Hello folks and welcome back to the Poland dev-diary extravaganza! This week, I am going to continue covering the changes coming to Poland in 1.11 Barbarossa and the unannounced DLC.Today we’ll be covering the DLC content.
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So, I’m going to start here with something a bunch of you predicted last week; you can indeed play as the Peasants’ Strike! A Poland with ambitions to restore democracy or embrace the communist revolution must first build an organized peasant militia from the rabble of disorganized farmers!
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No matter how many or few states join you in the strike, the rebellious state will be in a delicate balancing act between democrats and socialists. Your first step towards revolution is to sway the Front Morges to take up the peasant’s cause, the Morges being an alliance of political parties supported by a select few Polish generals including Sikorski.
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Each focus you do in this initial block will add 5 support to either communism or democracy, with a total of 50% or more being needed for one to assert dominance over the other and take control of the government.
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Similar to the Spanish Civil War, the Peasants’ Strike will be on a tight schedule, taking up to a year before the revolution happens. Poland will at first be able to add agricultural states to the strike, but by expanding the strike to factory workers, Poland will also be able to bring states from Poland’s industrial heartland into the revolution.
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Along with contesting for popular support, gaining military support will be vital for the movement. Using decisions, certain field marshals and generals will be swayed to your cause and gain the “Peasant Sympathiser” trait, ensuring that they will join your side when the war begins.
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Poland will begin with socialist politician Stanisław Mikołajczyk as country leader, but those who wish to see the return of Wincenty Witos will be able to bring him back to leadership via event.
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Once the civil war is won, Poland will be in a vulnerable state. Recuperating manpower and resources after a civil war will place Poland in a precarious position, so some concessions and outreach for foreign assistance may be needed.
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A communist Poland will have two options: they may be bold and elect an anti-Stalinist candidate as Chairman, or they may elect the Soviet-aligned Władysław Gomułka. However, aligning with the Soviets will come at the cost of ceding Eastern Poland, but will unlock a few focuses for dealing with the USSR.

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With democracy, Poland may take advantage of the Front Morges’ ambitions for closer relations with the French and create the Morges Pact, a sort-of Poland-led Little Entente. Going down this route will allow Poland access to the Between the Seas branch we talked about last week.

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Anti-Soviet communists will be able to denounce both Capitalism and Fascism, diplomatically isolating this people’s republic, but allowing for new expansion options and military bonuses against the empires of this world. In doing so, they will gain a powerful attack and defence bonus against major powers.
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Both democrats and anti-Soviet communists will also be able to declare the destruction of fascism a greater cause than the spread of socialism and align themselves with the British Empire. Doing so will allow Poland to renew her interests in colonialism and attempt to purchase colonies from Allied powers. By officially recognising the Maritime and Colonial League, Poland can purchase Madagascar, Palestine, and more. If any of your purchases are successful, Poland will have somewhere to build their forces in exile, should the front back home fail.

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No matter which option you pick, either conquering or building alliances with the Baltic States will allow you to create a new kind of Commonwealth: the Commonwealth of Socialist Republics.

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Moving on to the next branch, we have the Regency Council: Poland’s attempt to “restore” the monarchy. The Act of the Fifth of November was the promise of the Central Powers to release a Kingdom of Poland from the occupied territories of the Russian Empire, but the Regency Council of the newly formed Kingdom of Poland failed to crown a King before Józef Piłsudski declared the Second Polish Republic.

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With the Regency Council assembled, Poland will be able to choose from one of three claimants, each with their own complete political path. There were countless claimants and candidates for the Polish throne so it was impossible for me to make content for them all, so we have: The Hohenzollern, The Commonwealth Claimant, and the Cossack-King to choose from!

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The Commonwealth Claimant is perhaps the most obvious: Poland’s preferred candidate for King was Friedrich Christian. Christian was preferred due to Poland’s long connection with the houses of Saxony, and with a claimant so supported by the Poles, you are able to claim the throne of Lithuania without the need for warfare.

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Through decisions, Poland can trend monarchist sentiment up in Lithuania, and when it reaches high enough, they may either enter a civil war or peacefully take over the government. When either case has happened, Poland can annex the Lithuanian Kingdom and begin integrating the industries of their two nations and preparing for war with the Soviets and Germans: restoring the old borders of the Commonwealth and then some!

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Poland and Romania enjoyed close relations at the start of HoI’s timeframe, and with the throne of Poland empty, Poland may throw herself into the complex mess of Romanian politics by electing a Romanian King.

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With King Michael on the throne of Poland, the Kingdoms will be able to unite under the right circumstances. Either by Polish interference or by Romania completing “King Michael’s Coup”, Romania and Poland will be united, bringing their armies together and becoming a powerful wall between the Axis and the Comintern.

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This Intermarium nation may seek Balkan Domination and a restoration of Poland-Hungary, or (as with the Commonwealth) it may seek to maintain its alignment with the Allies.

Finally, we have the most unlikely candidate for the throne: Pavel Bermondt-Avalov.
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A warlord, a cossack, and a Georgian Prince, Pavel led an interesting life of conquest and warfare. In the interwar period, Pavel and his Bermontian host invaded Lithuania and Latvia for reasons historians are still unsure of, but his ambition for Baltic domination makes him the ideal candidate for militarizing the Polish state into action and dominating the Baltics and Czechoslovakia.
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When done conquering the Baltics, Pavel will be able to either turn his militarized Polish Kingdom against the Germans and asser Poland’s claims in Silesia and Pomerania or, as a National Socialist, Pavel may wish to seek alignment with the Germans, which brings us on to the fascist branch.
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Poland was home to a multitude of fascist and nationalist movements: the most notable of which are the Endecja (or National Democracy) and the Falanga. The Sanation historically made dealings with both of these groups, and as such, if you want either Endecja or Falanga to take control, you must collaborate with the Sanation until you are able to supplant them.

When either Endecja or Falanga have taken over the government, they will have a choice to either stand firm with Polish nationalism or make concessions to the Germans and attempt to seek an alliance.
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Aligning with the Germans will not place you on equal grounds, and it is not as easy as it once was. Germany will refuse to ally with Poland unless Danzig and Poznan are surrendered and Poland becomes a German subject. Unlike Czechoslovakia though, the Poles will be able to break their shackles and tear the Reich apart from within.

With either Pavel, Piasecki, or Dmowski in control, Poland will be presented with a ladder of focuses enabling them to either gain powerful bonuses from the Germans or plot with the Underground State to overthrow their current masters.
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Going for independence will allow Poland to switch sides and stab Germany in the back, whereas remaining loyal will enable Poland to gain some cores in the USSR in a sort-of reverse Yalta Conference.
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However, a Falanga or Endecja that does not bow to the Germans will be able to lean into the Polish Catholic identity and form the Falangist International: a faction devoted to the perseverance of Falangist ideals.
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Once the Spanish Civil War is done with, if either the Carlists, Nationalists, or Falangists come out on top, Poland will be able to bring them into their own faction and from there, they will be able to expand that faction to other nations where Falangism was present such as: Mexico, the Netherlands, and much of Latin America.

They will have access to decisions to boost fascism in those nations, and with a certain percentage achieved, those nations will be invited to join the Falangist International. These focuses invite multiple nations at once, so the faction can grow very large very quickly.
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Similar to the Sanation path, the Polish fascists must choose between allying with Lithuania or attempting to reclaim the legacy of the Commonwealth, but choose wisely. Without allying Lithuania, this Poland will be unable to progress down the Between the Seas path, severely limiting their faction’s ability to expand.

That’s about it for the political paths, so I’ll wrap this one up by talking about a feature we haven’t touched in quite some time: Governments in Exile.
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Unlike France and the Netherlands, Poland does not by default have a vast colonial empire to which they may retreat when things fall apart back home, so Poland will be entirely reliant on the support and goodwill of their allies and the network of resistance fighters in the Polish Underground State.
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In exile, the Polish government went through a number of Prime Ministers and Presidents before landing on something the Allies were satisfied with. If Poland is following a historical route and is exiled in a Democratic nation like Britain or France, they will demand the resignation of the Sanation leaders, and from there, Poland may pick from one of three new leaders, each with a unique personality enabling them to gain manpower while in exile.

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On top of that, they will gain access to Irena Anders as a political adviser, granting more legitimacy, stability, and exiled manpower.

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In the exile focus tree, Poland can gain a number of offmap factories and dockyards, and bonuses to their ace generation and an increase in special forces cap. Poland will never muster a major army while exiled, but with these bonuses, Poland will still be able to keep fighting on with a small but specialised force.

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Owners of La Resistance will gain access to a slew of agency bonuses including an increase to their spy capacity, free agency upgrades via focus, and the new Warsaw Uprising operation.

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Completing the operation will trigger the Warsaw Uprising sooner than the game mechanics usually allow. With 50% resistance or higher in Polish states, the uprising can be started, but time this well as you can only complete this operation once. A well-timed uprising can shatter the German army and leave them short on supply as they attempt Operation Barbarossa.

Poland was also vital to assisting in decrypting the enigma machine, so they also gain access to the Mastermind Codebreaker advisor: Marian Rejewski.

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The old Cyclometer and Bombe focuses have been moved into the espionage branch, but I noted that without any territory left, a bonus to atomic research was fairly useless to Poland. So, when the Atomic Research focus is done, Poland gains an offmap nuclear reactor that will give roughly one nuke per year... Try not to think too hard about it.

There were a lot of interesting alternate-history scenarios for Poland to explore and new possibilities came up during my research and implementation. Though I didn’t represent everything in game (such as the proposed Japan-Polish alliance), Poland is a treasure-trove of alternate history scenarios if only you can find a way to survive.

That’s all for this week, and that wraps up the two week Poland extravaganza!
 
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Looks awesome, I hope Finland gets some love, they deserve their own focus tree!

Playing as the Government-In-Exile, will there be focuses/decisions you can use to raise resistance in states?
Now THESE are some things that I can get totally behind!

Finland did play a significant role on the Eastern Front.
And why not expand roleplaying (more realistically/historically so) as government in exile?
 
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I need to add that Gomułka was even in this period sceptical and even antistalinist, so putting him on charge of soviet Poland makes no sense. The man who were loyal to Moscow was Bierut, who became president irl after the war.
 
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I suppose alt history sells. However, I may not buy this DLC nor any more going forward. I think my time and money is better spent modding a MP game, cutting out these alt history paths so they do not interfere with the game.

Of course I cannot fix the blatant things that are broken in the game and I wish PDX would spend more time fixing what is broken rather than creating off the wall alt histories. Of course these sell so I am resigned to seeing more of them. However, I won't be buying them.

A list of blatant broken things in HOI IV? Just go to the HOI IV- Bug Reports forum and peruse.
 
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I don`t get the complaints about the alt history paths.
Last week had historical and mild alt history, this week is the wild paths.

Can`t the game have room for people who want historical purity and fun alt history?
You dont have to do these paths, why are you complaining?
Let me answer this way - since it is a game based on history, can't we have history represented more accurately first before going astray?

Not hating your post, not hating alt-history - but you literally cannot have an alternative history without history first.
Also, I think most comments are meant to be understood as constructive criticism. I am not complaining, some decisions are just hard to understand.

Anyhow, it is Paradox's game and they can do what they want - just as we can buy it or not.
 
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We'll be taking a look at the colors, but the ranks in the game are not real world ranks. We often need to take liberties here to map stuff to the game
Let me help you, because I'm really afraid you'll mess it if you still at this point can't simply write "we've mistaken colours, we'll fix 'em", but instead this one above;
  • Grey Uniform - only for Legionary Oficers' uniforms (Legionary uniform can be recognised by round-top hat so-called "Maciejówka". The only officer who wears legionary uniform shown so far in your Diaries is Wieniawa-Długoszewski, and only on this one particular photo. By the time of II WW he was much older, and this photo you've chosen is from WW I period. Therefore this one even have to remain grey).
  • Polish Khaki Uniform - all of the standardized interwar period polish uniforms. Can be recognized by thing in polish called "wężyki" (which can be translated as "wavy-patterns", or directly as "snakes")(nie bijcie mnie za te węże xd), and by the high standing collar. These uniforms were only in different variants of so called "polish khaki", and they were never grey. The only one who ever had interwar grey uniform was Marschall Piłsudski himself, and noone else more.
  • Polish Army in Exile uniform - these ones were dyed in colours of foreign armies sorts, mainly they were in colour so-called "british khaki". These ones can be recognised by turn-down collar. For example old Sikorski's picture, and new Sosabowski's picture. They are in uniforms of Polish Army in Exile.​
And now, a few technical details.
  • in pre-war polish army the only branch, who had uniforms with turn-down collars was the Air Force. But their uniforms were blue-grey.
  • things pointed with the red arrow are mentioned above earlier, and called in polish "wężyki". To simplify the matter there were two types of "wężyki":
    1. "wężyki oficerskie" (officers' wavy-patterns) - these were silver
    2. "wężyki szeregowych" (privates' wavy-patterns) - these were grey
BUT NEVER GOLD, DAMMIT

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Photo of Sikorski wearing interwar polish uniform for attention. Maybe you'll implement this one into game?

No offence given. I just want to help. I already paid you around 100$ for this game, and I'm kinda frustrated I have to explain such matters -_-
 
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Not sure I like the idea of a poor nation becoming a super power by 39. This seems way to unrealistic. This is just an arcade game now
Now...? Where have you been the last half decade? The game has always been like this from the day it launched. Absolutely nothing has changed in this respect.

Tbh I can kind of sympathize with the devs a little bit. Even here on the forum, the attitude is extremely schizophrenic. Today, we see this kind of reaction, but just as often, we see the opposite one.

Right after the launch of BFTB about half a year ago, the forum was practically rioting exactly because it was extremely difficult for Turkey to become a superpower by 1939. People were incredibly angry you couldn't annex all your neighbors in 1937. No matter what they do, people will be yelling at the top of their lungs about it, which isn't to say that neither is right. I lean more towards more restricted minors.

Those who really think that there should be more of a realistic emphasis to focus trees and alternate history I think need to stick around and make their voices heard in these situations. I can already anticipate there will be visceral hysterics if the Soviet Union DOESN'T get a monarchist path.. the opposite of the sentiment displayed here.

We, the fanbase, need to make up our minds already and start providing consistent feedback, otherwise we can expect more of the same. I think in this thread we are mostly seeing a vocal minority, even by the standards of the forum itself. We see this time and time and time again in these forums. Stellaris fans were basically rioting last year over the lack of progress on the AI, but now everyone is satisfied and positive again despite nothing changing. This is unfortunate because I think a lot of the concerns and criticisms about the need for a bit more plausibility are entirely correct.


On a different note, I think it is also worth recognizing that in some respects, things have definitely improved content wise. Plausibility issues aside, this is actually looking like the biggest and most substantial rework of a major we've ever gotten. I would like to remind people about the French rework and how inadequate it was in so many ways.

View attachment 707561

Take the French monarchist focuses. The Orleanist pick gives you a unique leader with a portrait, but the rest of it is pure filler. No real structure or goals. I've played a few games as Orleanist France. An exercise in boredom. The Legitimist pick gives you a different leader, and if you're lucky or quick, you can annex Spain. Beyond that, absolutely no long term goals or guidance. Also an exercise in boredom as soon as you have annexed Spain, which can be done before 1939. As for the Bonapartist pick, it actually is not very impressive either. It just gives you wargoals almost anything and everything with very little actual structure, no scripted events, no real long term goals beyond just annexing everything. The one exception to this is the German partition, but that aside, it is all in all extremely uninspired and boring.

In comparison, each and every political branch for Poland seems to have a structure and long term goal to it. Even the communist focuses, a traditional weak point in almost all focus trees, look to be potentially promising. The communist content from the British rework is a good example of what not to do. You lose the Empire, setting you significantly back economically, and are not given any real goal to work towards that compensates you for this without cheesing and doing the Imperial Conference which the communist branch is designed to heavily punish. I think it's fine that in the short and medium term something like a communist revolution would weaken you, that is logical, but without any kind of long term goal that would consummate that sacrifice, it just becomes an exercise in tedium and frustration. Commie Japan is an even bigger example. Again, Poland seems to have solved this issues with this rework, but only the final implementation will tell.

On the other hand, I think some of this new content, especially with the Romanian King, leans too heavily in the direction of power gaming. annexing and coring Romania at the push of a button seems all too easy. It wasn't even that simple for Brazil-Portugal unification in the Portuguese focus tree. Add to that the possibility of potentially also diploannexing Hungary and Slovkia? If this isn't power gaming, I don't know what is. I think it's a bit much. If a Polish-Romanian unification is to be possible without war, it shouldn't be easy. It's like the monarchist focus tree for Hungary but two, three, or four times more powerful. The power creep is definitely real.

One definite issue here regarding the game's design that I think contributes to this is this Manichean binary with territorial expansion. Even though I don't think allowing the player to diplomatically annex all that territory is right, I can still see why they opted for that from a design perspective. Why? Because even the most limited expansion in this game beyond the first year or two can only be accomplished with a total war that takes you the rest of the game. It seems they opted for a design where you can achieve more expansion early on, diplomatically, and then focus on the world war without worrying about coring, integrating, etc your desired target for expansion.

The issue here goes deeper than with just focus trees and goes more into the limitations of the game's implementation of diplomacy, politics, and the much dreaded peace conference. When the peace conference mechanic is so unsatisfactory and virtually guaranteed to not give you what you want without cheesing the system, it becomes more explicable why this focus tree is basically handing the player easy wins with territorial expansion. I think it's a band-aid solution, at best, however.

Realistically, I don't think there can be a satisfactory solution to it until a proper sequel. Even if we do(and we should) get a rework of peace conferences, the issue of total war over small gains still might remain. True, one could argue that it is realistic, but it is also not satisfying from the perspective of gameplay. I think Kaiserreich here, love it or hate it, really best exemplifies the 'gameplay feedback loop' for minor countries. You're able to have minor wars and achieve modest goals during the earlier part of the game or in the early stages of the world-war, and then your emphasis switches to the World War itself. Winning the world war becomes its own goal since your more immediate territorial ambitions will already be fulfilled before it starts or early on in it in contrast to vanilla where you must occupy three fourths of the planet to annex a tiny strip in Europe. This is only achieved with extremely labor intensive scripts which makes this kind of solution not very practical for vanilla.

Again, it is likely the case that this limitation of the game is what made the team opt for this kind of "press button, annex and core neighbor' approach that we see in a lot of branches in this focus tree. The alternative is a total war that will take the entire duration of the game at the end of which you achieve your short term goal, only to be unable to enjoy it because the game is already over at that point. I think a lot of people criticizing this approach aren't really understanding why it's being taken in the first place. This is not to say that it is necessarily good, but it seems abundantly clear to me that this paradigm of fighting a total war for the entire duration of your campaign for a small or modest territorial gain, while realistic, is not something that appeals to the vast majority of people that play this game as evidenced by the fact that basically every single major mod aside from ones emphasizing historical-accuracy take this same approach.
 
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And one more thing.

  • Thing pointed by blue arrow is called "łapka" ("tab" in english I think), and for generals it was ALWAYS in navy blue colour. The one you used here was reserved for army medical service and vet service xdddddd
  • Thing pointed with crimson arrow is called "wypustka" ("inset" probably in english) and this portrait lack it completely. For generals it was always crimson.
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Full Polish Interwar Generals' Uniform collar-tab below:


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Shouldn't the German Reich have the option of taking Gdańsk for itself during the Polish Civil War in order to "protect the German population"?
 
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Now...? Where have you been the last half decade? The game has always been like this from the day it launched. Absolutely nothing has changed in this respect.

Tbh I can kind of sympathize with the devs a little bit. Even here on the forum, the attitude is extremely schizophrenic. Today, we see this kind of reaction, but just as often, we see the opposite one.

Right after the launch of BFTB about half a year ago, the forum was practically rioting exactly because it was extremely difficult for Turkey to become a superpower by 1939. People were incredibly angry you couldn't annex all your neighbors in 1937. No matter what they do, people will be yelling at the top of their lungs about it, which isn't to say that neither is right. I lean more towards more restricted minors.

Those who really think that there should be more of a realistic emphasis to focus trees and alternate history I think need to stick around and make their voices heard in these situations. I can already anticipate there will be visceral hysterics if the Soviet Union DOESN'T get a monarchist path.. the opposite of the sentiment displayed here.

We, the fanbase, need to make up our minds already and start providing consistent feedback, otherwise we can expect more of the same. I think in this thread we are mostly seeing a vocal minority, even by the standards of the forum itself. We see this time and time and time again in these forums. Stellaris fans were basically rioting last year over the lack of progress on the AI, but now everyone is satisfied and positive again despite nothing changing. This is unfortunate because I think a lot of the concerns and criticisms about the need for a bit more plausibility are entirely correct.
I think it's more that it's not the same people complaining about different things. For example, some people want to be able to do an easy world conquest with minors, and other people want the game to not have any possibility of a world conquest. The angriest voices are always the loudest, and the happy voices often stay silent. I believe that's why the forum seems angry about every change, no matter which direction it is in.

Edit: That being said, I went back and checked the reaction score on the original Dev Diary post - 10 minutes after it was posted when I read it the first time, the reaction was overwhelmingly positive, but now it's the opposite. I think there might be a bit of a bandwagon issue here as well.
 
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Shouldn't the German Reich have the option of taking Gdańsk for itself during the Polish Civil War in order to "protect the German population"?
I think both Soviet Union and The Reich should have the option to intervene during Polish Civil War. Reich should have option to annex whole ex-Kaiserreich area, and the Soviet Union maybe even should have option to install comunism in whole country (or at least to take Eastern Borderlands). The fear of such development of situation was the main reason why civil war haven't broken up during may coup in 1926.
 
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I find it funny how communist Poland has options to get colonies in Africa, but communist Britain is the exact opposite and prefers to de-colonize.
I thought it funny to, at first, but in the game it might make sense. Where else can a communist Poland pick up a few colonies, except from their friendly communist Brits who want to get rid of theirs?
 
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I am so impressed by the this focus tree! You guys are really putting a step in your trees with this new DLC and the last. I love the bigger trees, that have a lot to do, or add interesting decisions. I am so excited to see Russia! I am quite pleased by the historical effort you guys have put into it too. It might not be the most accurate but it's a good way and you can really go down that route. I really hope the historical aspect for Russia is big like Poland is.

Ignore all the haters, they just mad they can't create good stuff like you guys can!
 
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This is pretty unimpressive. I'm more interested in paying for actual mechanics rather than poorly-researched content for whatever country is getting the meme makeover this patch.
 
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Edit: That being said, I went back and checked the reaction score on the original Dev Diary post - 10 minutes after it was posted when I read it the first time, the reaction was overwhelmingly positive, but now it's the opposite. I think there might be a bit of a bandwagon issue here as well.
I really think you are right. I read every single post and it was exhausting reading people piling on the negative stuff.

Yes, we have things we do not like, but to pound on people, because the wrong person or name or color was chosen to represent a game part or function is burning the forest down to kill a few sick trees.

This is all about a focus tree for a minor country that heroically fought the nazis, but in the end did very little in the time frame the game represents. Besides losing, everything is going to be alt-history. Poland has one of the largest what-if potential of most any nation during the war. There are so many things that could have happened that a game company cannot be expected to spend the time and resources on exploring it in detail. We expect them to spend their time and resources on many other things, too.

If you remove the names and just look at the options a player now has when playing Poland, we may see something really good here. I know I am going to have to play at least one game as Poland in exile, just to see what new things we can do now.

As someone who has always thought that Poland could have changed the course of history by surviving longer, I want this new focus tree to succeed. I do not want to see good criticism slowly turn acidic as more and more pile on and try to out do each other in voicing the same concern. Please, look at the actual options themselves and try to measure how they effect the game. The developers need to know more about that than anything else. The names and colors can be changed later.
 
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Why am I not surprised by this reaction, disappointed, but not surprised. I just don't understand why people get so worked up about alt-history, which by it's very nature MUST be fantasy and made up.

And to those who say alt-history must be plausible... would a Donald Trump presidency seemed plausible alt-history if you were making a game set in the 2000's? I seriously doubt it.

Frankly, I'm really excited for these gameplay possibilities. Some really fun scenario's seem possible, with some really wacky results.

Great job @Meka66! can't wait to play it!
 
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I really think you are right. I read every single post and it was exhausting reading people piling on the negative stuff.

Yes, we have things we do not like, but to pound on people, because the wrong person or name or color was chosen to represent a game part or function is burning the forest down to kill a few sick trees.

This is all about a focus tree for a minor country that heroically fought the nazis, but in the end did very little in the time frame the game represents. Besides losing, everything is going to be alt-history. Poland has one of the largest what-if potential of most any nation during the war.
Poland was never going to develop nuclear weapons.
 
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