1.10 broke Vichy's historical borders

[Mousetick]

But I do believe these kinds of development decisions come at the expense of what the Hearts of Iron series was originally meant to be about: WW2.

I'm wondering if PDS doesn't find itself victim of its own success with HOI 4, having to compete with hugely popular alt-history mods, which are all free and only require the base game, while PDX needs to sell DLC to fund the ongoing development of HOI.

Let's look at some numbers:
- Estimated number of Steam users with HOI 4: between 2M and 5M as reported by SteamSpy
- Actual number of subscribers to the top 3 mods on Steam:
* Road to 56: 659,591!
* Kaiserreich: 530,363
* Old World Blues: 300,487

Obviously being a subscriber doesn't mean being an active player of the mod, but still, these numbers are impressive relative to the total user base.

Extrapolating and speculating, it's possible the population of players deeply interested in a pure WW2 game is dwindling and becoming too niche, and PDS has progressively shifted its focus to alt-history, at least in terms of content.

 

[Ironside112]

I'm wondering if PDS doesn't find itself victim of its own success with HOI 4, having to compete with hugely popular alt-history mods, which are all free and only require the base game, while PDX needs to sell DLC to fund the ongoing development of HOI.

Let's look at some numbers:
- Estimated number of Steam users with HOI 4: between 2M and 5M as reported by SteamSpy
- Actual number of subscribers to the top 3 mods on Steam:
* Road to 56: 659,591!
* Kaiserreich: 530,363
* Old World Blues: 300,487

Obviously being a subscriber doesn't mean being an active player of the mod, but still, these numbers are impressive relative to the total user base.

Extrapolating and speculating, it's possible the population of players deeply interested in a pure WW2 game is dwindling and becoming too niche, and PDS has progressively shifted its focus to alt-history, at least in terms of content.

I feel it's a bit more complex than that, in my opinion at least. I'm a massive fan of the WW2 side of the game and yeah, I would rather it have priority, but I'm also a sucker for alt-history - non-aligned Britain, democratic Germany & Japan, Entente France are some of my more favourite runs I've ever done. But in regards to states, Kaiserreich, from what I remember (I haven't played it for a long time), had states which made sense for that timeline, if that make sense? Like you couldn't make ww2 occupation borders for the allies because you shouldn't have to - it's alt history. From that I do feel like yeah, they can look at alt-history and even prioritise it, but it's such a minor change that makes no sense (in regard to the new French state) that I'm just confused as to why it was added in when it doesn't add anything bar breaking Vichy's border, a country that was reworked literally one major patch ago. Just baffling really xD

 

[Mousetick]

From that I do feel like yeah, they can look at alt-history and even prioritise it, but it's such a minor change that makes no sense (in regard to the new French state) that I'm just confused as to why it was added in when it doesn't add anything bar breaking Vichy's border, a country that was reworked literally one major patch ago. Just baffling really xD

Either we assume that Fulmen's reasoning is correct (he provided a plausible explanation for the change), or we assume the change was not intentional and is a mistake. In either case, historical accuracy has taken a backseat and, in appearance at least, doesn't get as much care as alt-history. If it is indeed an unintentional change, it'll be interesting to see if it will ever be corrected.

 

[Fulmen]

I don't know which maps you are looking at, so I'll repeat: the French Basque Country doesn't get in the territory of Vichy France. French Basque Country is so small it's not even a department itself. In HoI it's very oversized.

From Wikipedia: "The Armistice of 22 June 1940 established a German military administration in occupied France of the French Atlantic, including the French Basque Country up to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. A 20-km-wide zone interdite along the coast behind the Atlantic wall was restricted to non-resident civilians.[4]

The occupied zone ran on the German time zone.[5] The rest of the French Basque Country up to Bearn (Soule and eastern Lower Navarre) was part of Vichy France until 1942, when the "free zone" was occupied by Germany."

I already provided one map to illustrate my point, but here's a couple more to further demonstrate that, contrary to what you're claiming, a good part of French Basque Country did indeed fall within Vichy territory:

 

[Mousetick]

Zone libre — Wikipédia

fr.wikipedia.org

+

Pays basque français — Wikipédia

fr.wikipedia.org

=

 

[Mousetick]

Another view with French Basque country superimposed in green.

The Vichy France border ran along the south-north road you see represented as a red line going from the Spanish border through the towns of St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, then St-Palais, then Salies-de-Béarn and then going eastward through Orthez.

 

[Áurum]

From Wikipedia: "The Armistice of 22 June 1940 established a German military administration in occupied France of the French Atlantic, including the French Basque Country up to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. A 20-km-wide zone interdite along the coast behind the Atlantic wall was restricted to non-resident civilians.[4]

The occupied zone ran on the German time zone.[5] The rest of the French Basque Country up to Bearn (Soule and eastern Lower Navarre) was part of Vichy France until 1942, when the "free zone" was occupied by Germany."

I already provided one map to illustrate my point, but here's a couple more to further demonstrate that, contrary to what you're claiming, a good part of French Basque Country did indeed fall within Vichy territory:

View attachment 646106

View attachment 646109

Your Basque map is wrong, the shape is correct but the location is wrong. There's much less Basque Country in France and more in Spain. I'm Basque, I know where the Basque Country is and where isn't.

Zone libre — Wikipédia

fr.wikipedia.org

+

Pays basque français — Wikipédia

fr.wikipedia.org

=

View attachment 646118

This map shows that while, yes, the Vichy border included part of the Basque Country, the Basque part of Vichy is much smaller than ingame.

 

[RELee]

Okay. Options weighed and debated. Now we are repeating ourselves. Time to move on. OP can submit a suggestion or a bug report if it's deemed important enough.