The US wins the war in 1945. Midway was in no way relevant to the overall outcome of the war. The sheer industrial discrepancy between the US and Japan would allow the US to make good any loses they suffered in the battle of Midway, and the island itself does nothing for the Japanese position. This is leaving aside the question if the Japanese even could have taken the island in an opposed landing. As far as I know, the Japanese only managed to carry one opposed landing against the US during the entire war - on the second attempt, at Wake Island.
So, if we were perfectly historical, getting into a war with the US as Japan would require a reload because you just lost the game.
Germany loses. Taking Stalingrad still means they have a gigantic frontline which - in that moment - is hanging in the air in large stretches. They have to garrison an enormous amount of territory full of people who don't like them. The amount of actual production they get out of the occupied territories is appalling. The US is only going to ramp up production in virtually untouchable factories and will continue to supply the Soviet Union with ever increasing amounts of material. Taking the Suez makes the allied position in the Mediterranean untenable - for the moment. However, the Axis forces are at the absolute edge of their logistical capabilities, and taking the Suez will not fundamentally change that. It also does not fundamentally get the Allies any closer to defeat. At best, it keeps Italy in the war long term instead of exposing the weak underbelly of the continent. In many ways, an Axis victory in North Africa only prevents a defeat, not create a victory. Neither scenario allows for an Axis victory.
That is the fundamental crux of the game: the material reasons for the axis defeat are so utterly overwhelming that it would be impossible for a realistic, historic game to have any other outcome but an axis defeat. That means there is no actual strategy involved, the axis player can merely delay the inevitable, the allied player would need to make an active effort to lose the war. That is not the game we are making. Germany being able to win the war is one core pillar of the game experience, and that means it will have to be able to successfully navally invade at least Britain and occupy enough of the Soviet Union to force their surrender, both utterly ludicrous notions for anyone who actually understand the logistical requirements of those undertakings. So at its core, the game already requires us to completely abandon historical accuracy insofar as outcomes are concerned.
The reason why we have this as a core pillar of the HoI experience is because it makes the game a Grand Strategy Game. It requires both sides to use strategic decision making, because there is a real chance for victory and defeat depending on your choices and decisions. We also believe that having different strategic scenarios - with different constellations of alliances and ideally fronts in different parts of the world - dramatically increases replayability. For that, we have to sort of abandon the starting position of 1936 to present a new challenge. We still think that the historical setup is fun and a core part of the experience - can you lead your country through the chaos? - but all hard evidence shows that a large percentage of our playerbase likes the ahistoric scenarios.
It should be noted that the ahistoric scenarios are usually a lot easier to make simply because you aren't constrained by history that needs to be represented through game mechanics.
Yes, a perfect repetition of history would have the same result as the real events. I see the point you wish to go after and the message is apparent.
But, well, i actually don't share this assessment as it misses the point of what many people want to say.
To me, there is a clear and very distinct difference between just looking at raw numbers at selected points of the war and then generously judge the outcome and instead pick other events which were based on (strategic and / or operational)
decisions - which would very likely lead to different results and impact the course thereafter. Your examples might very well be correct. But there are others which allow for a very much different interpretation.
As such examples we may also look at
- Germans seriously pressing to capture 350k Allied troops at Dunkirk in '40,
- Guderians panzer group
not being sent down to Ukraine and back, not seeing any combat for several months during Barbarossa in '41,
- Germany foregoing Kursk, which was preferred by many high ranking generals of the staff, instead continuing to annihilate Soviet divisions in their senseless offensives as done before
- Axis securing the Med (your example), saving another 20 divisions which had to be rerouted from their way to the Eastern front - instead down to Italy
I could continue but my point is:
The game is supposed to allow for different events. We totally agree on this. But there are many non-sensical events we the players don't want to see after we hit the button for "historical game mode".
- Yugoslavia succeeded Hungary in being the main aggressor in the Balkans (pre 1.5). They shall stop DoWing Bulgaria in
every game.
- USSR should stop DoWing Finland twice
in every game, either puppeting or conquering the country.
- Slovakia should finally stop calling in Italy
in every game, leading to an early Italian demise as they squander away their manpower and fleet against an enemy they would normally not take on their own.
- Germany should stop DoWing Norway
in every game as long as it does not have any means to invade it.
- Germany should stop DoWing USSR in December '40 - the worst time to do this -
in almost every game (almost as an exeption to always = they utterly failed in their winter offensive '39 !!! in the west).
- Japan should come to the idea of actually invading a spot of value (economic or strategic). They just let themselves be slaughtered at sea
in every game.
I could continue... again...
As you have suspected - i am talking about decisions (scripts) of AI that destroy the historical path we seek. Balance stuff is not the main thing. Who wants to powergame, shall and will always do so - OK, to each his own. But a player trying to follow history will inevitably get upset by silly events like the ones mentioned above.
They don't make sense and they destroy immersion - at least for me.
According to the dev diary we won't get a patch until MtG. That's pretty saddening news. Could we at least get a hotfix to fix the messed script lines of the most blatant errors?
