Alternative history becoming too invasive?

[Telenil]

It just seems absurd to me to observe one outcome of history, drawn from the distribution of all possible outcomes, and state that this was the ONLY possible outcome.

Someone needs a refresher in basic probability, even if we are talking about the tails....

I gave three different ways the outcome might possibly have changed in that quote?..

You can always contrive a scenario when the German win in 1942. The Soviet command keeps making egregious mistakes, which prompts Stalin to wrongly fire its best generals, which causes a collapse in Soviet morale, so on and so forth. But at some point they just become a pipedream.

You could keep playing roulette for hundreds of games and get ever richer, but when you don't, that was predictable. Germany had to win before the massive Allied industrial superiority started kicking in. As the war dragged on, the German could beat the odds for a while, but it was predictable that they would lose somewhere at some point, be forced to go on the defensive and get slowly overwhelmed after that. There is nothing inevitable (strictly speaking) about it, it just happened to be forseeable for the likes of Churchill.

 

[The Gentleman Bastard]

The above is pretty correct IMHO. In a drawn out war between competetive powers, the one with superior production capacity is destined to win.

Germans lost when they failed to knock both the UK and the Soviets out in quick succession. There was never a chance that a simultanious war with UK, USSR and the U.S. could be won. The industrial output of the U.S. alone during WW2 is one of the greatest achievments in human history.

 

[Khevenhuller]

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.

I am sorry, but you are mistaken. There are several key areas where Germany clearly 'lost the war' or could have 'won' given a realistic appraisal of German war aims.

1) The three choices that Germany faced after the fall of France in 1940: to focus on destroying Britain directly, to focus on destroying Britain indirectly (the Mediterranean strategy) and writing Britain off as militarily irrelevant and instead going east. It is likely that the second option would have been pretty effective, or the first if the Germans built the number of U-Boats Donitz wanted. Taking Suez prior to US intervention would have brought Britain to the edge of defeat and made the Mediterranean the Italian lake Musso always wanted. You have no logistical problems at all when you can simply sail your supplies from Naples to Alex rather than drive them along the single road from Tripoli. Besides, given how HOI deals with logistics in North Africa, what are you implying..?
2) If the Germans win the battle of the Atlantic before the US enters the war, the war in the Pacific may happen but the US would hardly have been in a position to get anywhere near Europe. Why would they want to?
3) The Soviet rail system is a radial one based on the French model. The hub is Moscow. If Moscow had fallen in 1941, the ability of the USSR to get oil from south to north would have been severely constricted and crippled her war effort.
4) If Britain is out then there is no Lend Lease to the USSR: no trucks, Spam, aluminium or aviation fuel. Another dent in the Soviet war effort.
5) Of course, Britain could have gone for a negotiated peace in early summer 1940. It was discussed, and the Swedish Embassy was engaged (I think the man was Bjorn Prits) to put out feelers to the Germans. At the same time cabinet discussed peace for two days just prior to France throwing in the sponge as a result of a demarche from Paris. The idea was proposed by Chamberlain - still in cabinet but no longer PM - to entreat with still neutral Mussolini to use his influence to stop Hitler, offering Musso Gibraltar, Malta and British Somaliland as inducements (which shows how desperate things had become).
6) If Halifax rather than Churchill had succeeded Chamberlain then a compromise peace (which is what Hitler wanted and had repeatedly offered) would have been a real possibility.

There are lots more.

In other words, knock out Britain as a springboard and the US is simply going to focus on the Pacific. Germany is liberated from having to keep so many troops in the west and put so much in the way of air resources in defending Germany from terror bombing. She also has a far stronger claim that the war has become a crusade against Bolshevism.

Of course, would Japan then have done what she did? After all, under these circumstances Germany would have guaranteed the British Empire (part of Hitler's offer) and would have been far keener on having Britain as an ally than Japan. The Dutch would have been a puppet, and Vichy would have been the same but may have been in a stronger position to deny Tokyo the occupation of French Indo-China.

So, no, not a straightforward 'Germany was doomed to lose' at all. Most historians put the tipping point in 1942, especially in the Atlantic when victory there makes it possible for the US to deploy her vast strength in North Africa and Europe. It is sort of why accurate and decent naval game play is critical to Anglo-US strategy in a game like this.

K

 

[Dalwin]

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.

Your logic is quite flawed and ignores how victory has been handled for decades for any serious strategic WWII war game. The flaw in your logic is the assumption that the only type of victory possible is total victory. I realize this is the easiest to program since it essentially requires programming nothing that handles victory in the larger sense.

Other games have always had it so that a victory for the Axis player(s) requires doing significantly better than history rather than requiring an actual victory to the war. To say that this precludes any strategy is a self indulgent stand at best.

Paradox does not do historical WWII games. Except perhaps for the tiny percentage of us for whom HOI4 is our first foray into the serious and who also prefer historical to sandbox, there is no real ground for complaint on this topic. We knew or at least should have known what we were getting into.

That being said, the above argument about the futility of attempting a serious historical design for WWII on a strategic level is spurious and unhelpful to the current debate. It is in fact more or less irrelevant except for the source. The fact that this attitude stems from someone so high up in the project is a bit disconcerting.

 

[Telenil]

I am sorry, but you are mistaken. There are several key areas where Germany clearly 'lost the war' or could have 'won' given a realistic appraisal of German war aims.

1) The three choices that Germany faced after the fall of France in 1940: to focus on destroying Britain directly, to focus on destroying Britain indirectly (the Mediterranean strategy) and writing Britain off as militarily irrelevant and instead going east. It is likely that the second option would have been pretty effective, or the first if the Germans built the number of U-Boats Donitz wanted. Taking Suez prior to US intervention would have brought Britain to the edge of defeat and made the Mediterranean the Italian lake Musso always wanted. You have no logistical problems at all when you can simply sail your supplies from Naples to Alex rather than drive them along the single road from Tripoli. Besides, given how HOI deals with logistics in North Africa, what are you implying..?
2) If the Germans win the battle of the Atlantic before the US enters the war, the war in the Pacific may happen but the US would hardly have been in a position to get anywhere near Europe. Why would they want to?
3) The Soviet rail system is a radial one based on the French model. The hub is Moscow. If Moscow had fallen in 1941, the ability of the USSR to get oil from south to north would have been severely constricted and crippled her war effort.
4) If Britain is out then there is no Lend Lease to the USSR: no trucks, Spam, aluminium or aviation fuel. Another dent in the Soviet war effort.
5) Of course, Britain could have gone for a negotiated peace in early summer 1940. It was discussed, and the Swedish Embassy was engaged (I think the man was Bjorn Prits) to put out feelers to the Germans. At the same time cabinet discussed peace for two days just prior to France throwing in the sponge as a result of a demarche from Paris. The idea was proposed by Chamberlain - still in cabinet but no longer PM - to entreat with still neutral Mussolini to use his influence to stop Hitler, offering Musso Gibraltar, Malta and British Somaliland as inducements (which shows how desperate things had become).
6) If Halifax rather than Churchill had succeeded Chamberlain then a compromise peace (which is what Hitler wanted and had repeatedly offered) would have been a real possibility.

There are lots more.

In other words, knock out Britain as a springboard and the US is simply going to focus on the Pacific. Germany is liberated from having to keep so many troops in the west and put so much in the way of air resources in defending Germany from terror bombing. She also has a far stronger claim that the war has become a crusade against Bolshevism.

Of course, would Japan then have done what she did? After all, under these circumstances Germany would have guaranteed the British Empire (part of Hitler's offer) and would have been far keener on having Britain as an ally than Japan. The Dutch would have been a puppet, and Vichy would have been the same but may have been in a stronger position to deny Tokyo the occupation of French Indo-China.

So, no, not a straightforward 'Germany was doomed to lose' at all. Most historians put the tipping point in 1942, especially in the Atlantic when victory there makes it possible for the US to deploy her vast strength in North Africa and Europe. It is sort of why accurate and decent naval game play is critical to Anglo-US strategy in a game like this.

K

Not saying that you are wrong, but most of those require peace with Britain (or at least Britain being beaten) before attacking the Soviet. In that case, it's not really WW2 as most people imagine it, more like an other alt-history scenario.

Other games have always had it so that a victory for the Axis player(s) requires doing significantly better than history rather than requiring an actual victory to the war.

True, but as he said, it's not the game they are making.

 

[kettyo]

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.

That's right. I also think that a base vanilla handsoff game should tend towards a stalemate, sometimes resulting in Allied and sometimes in Axis victory depending on random factors for a gameplay perspective.

I'm not against a superhistorical gameplay mode though where the game balance is historical for a real Axis challenge But this is not so important to me.

 

[Robosoldier1]

I am sorry, but you are mistaken. There are several key areas where Germany clearly 'lost the war' or could have 'won' given a realistic appraisal of German war aims.

1) The three choices that Germany faced after the fall of France in 1940: to focus on destroying Britain directly, to focus on destroying Britain indirectly (the Mediterranean strategy) and writing Britain off as militarily irrelevant and instead going east. It is likely that the second option would have been pretty effective, or the first if the Germans built the number of U-Boats Donitz wanted. Taking Suez prior to US intervention would have brought Britain to the edge of defeat and made the Mediterranean the Italian lake Musso always wanted. You have no logistical problems at all when you can simply sail your supplies from Naples to Alex rather than drive them along the single road from Tripoli. Besides, given how HOI deals with logistics in North Africa, what are you implying..?
2) If the Germans win the battle of the Atlantic before the US enters the war, the war in the Pacific may happen but the US would hardly have been in a position to get anywhere near Europe. Why would they want to?
3) The Soviet rail system is a radial one based on the French model. The hub is Moscow. If Moscow had fallen in 1941, the ability of the USSR to get oil from south to north would have been severely constricted and crippled her war effort.
4) If Britain is out then there is no Lend Lease to the USSR: no trucks, Spam, aluminium or aviation fuel. Another dent in the Soviet war effort.
5) Of course, Britain could have gone for a negotiated peace in early summer 1940. It was discussed, and the Swedish Embassy was engaged (I think the man was Bjorn Prits) to put out feelers to the Germans. At the same time cabinet discussed peace for two days just prior to France throwing in the sponge as a result of a demarche from Paris. The idea was proposed by Chamberlain - still in cabinet but no longer PM - to entreat with still neutral Mussolini to use his influence to stop Hitler, offering Musso Gibraltar, Malta and British Somaliland as inducements (which shows how desperate things had become).
6) If Halifax rather than Churchill had succeeded Chamberlain then a compromise peace (which is what Hitler wanted and had repeatedly offered) would have been a real possibility.

There are lots more.

In other words, knock out Britain as a springboard and the US is simply going to focus on the Pacific. Germany is liberated from having to keep so many troops in the west and put so much in the way of air resources in defending Germany from terror bombing. She also has a far stronger claim that the war has become a crusade against Bolshevism.

Of course, would Japan then have done what she did? After all, under these circumstances Germany would have guaranteed the British Empire (part of Hitler's offer) and would have been far keener on having Britain as an ally than Japan. The Dutch would have been a puppet, and Vichy would have been the same but may have been in a stronger position to deny Tokyo the occupation of French Indo-China.

So, no, not a straightforward 'Germany was doomed to lose' at all. Most historians put the tipping point in 1942, especially in the Atlantic when victory there makes it possible for the US to deploy her vast strength in North Africa and Europe. It is sort of why accurate and decent naval game play is critical to Anglo-US strategy in a game like this.

K

well said. Even if I disagree on the part where you said "we knew what we were getting into." Overall good points, seems this is an issue of philosophy at the heads of the design team and I hope that this forum is showing that while maybe they are meeting the expectations of a certain crowd there not meeting the expectations and desires to simulate WW2 in a grand strategy sense. Which is troublesome and is something they can surely do better on addressing in the future.

 

[Dalwin]

True, but as he said, it's not the game they are making.

Which is why I acknowledged that Paradox does not do Historical WWII and never has. By now we should all have known what we were getting into with a Hearts of Iron game.

What I am commenting on is not that they chose to design it this way, that the argument that it would have been futile to attempt to do it any other way is wrong. Sandbox is a design decision not an inevitability.

 

[Fulmen]

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.

Perhaps @Theodorian should've instead used more convincing examples, like what if Germany never gave the halt order and the BEF was captured in France. Would Churchill have remained in power or would've the peace-inclined Halifax replaced him?

Or what if Hitler didn't split Army Group Centre in the fall of 1941, and Moscow, the centre of all Russian railroads, supply lines and communication networks, would've been taken before winter?

In any case, material isn't everything. Just look at Finland in 1939-44. And while I do agree that Japan could've never won against USA, and that post-41 the Axis were quite doomed, I do think that certain aspects of warfare are highly underrated or even entirely unrepresented in HoI4. Leadership, experience, certain technologies and aspects of warfare (e.g. altitude, to name one for the air war), etc.

But I do understand having meme content like Byzantium and Rome in a WW2 game generates more €€€ than representing several important aspects of the actual Second World War. Or even actually somewhat plausible alternate history content.

I certainly hope no-one has any delusions about the fact that generating money is after all the #1 priority and purpose of Paradox Interactive.

 

[kettyo]

Other games have always had it so that a victory for the Axis player(s) requires doing significantly better than history rather than requiring an actual victory to the war. To say that this precludes any strategy is a self indulgent stand at best.

That's true but in HOI it won't work because of the sandbox nature. You can't say like Axis wins if they lose the war after '46 like in same other games since as Germany you are free to even abandon the Axis faction whatsoever

 

[Dalwin]

That's true but in HOI it won't work because of the sandbox nature. You can't say like Axis wins if they lose the war after '46 like in same other games since as Germany you are free to even abandon the Axis faction whatsoever

Scroll up a bit and see my previous response. I am not saying that this must be how a sandbox game handles victory. What I am saying is that sandbox is a design choice and not an inevitability. The Dev who posted basically said it was futile to even attempt a non-sandbox approach to WWII because the ultimate result was inevitable. He is wrong.

Now, I know HOI is a sandbox game and always has been. That does not mean, however, that a more historic approach to a WWII game is impossible, just ask Gary Grigsby.

 

[Frozen Yakman]

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.

So much THIS!

World War 2 was in no way shape or form a "close" war. The only conceivable win scenario for Germany was calling for peace after the fall of France.World War 3 would have shortly followed with the invasion of the Soviets by Germany. That would have been a much more balanced war.

 

[Robosoldier1]

Perhaps @Theodorian should've instead used more convincing examples, like what if Germany never gave the halt order and the BEF was captured in France. Would Churchill have remained in power or would've the peace-inclined Halifax replaced him?

Or what if Hitler didn't split Army Group Centre in the fall of 1941, and Moscow, the centre of all Russian railroads, supply lines and communication networks, would've been taken before winter?

In any case, material isn't everything. Just look at Finland in 1939-44. And while I do agree that Japan could've never won against USA, and that post-41 the Axis were quite doomed, I do think that certain aspects of warfare are highly underrated or even entirely unrepresented in HoI4. Leadership, experience, certain technologies and aspects of warfare (e.g. altitude, to name one for the air war), etc.

But I do understand having meme content like Byzantium and Rome in a WW2 game generates more €€€ than representing several important aspects of the actual Second World War. Or even actually somewhat plausible alternate history content.

I certainly hope no-one has any delusions about the fact that generating money is after all the #1 priority and purpose of Paradox Interactive.

Which is fine. However when they clearly make one of the main reasons for not representing the game as much as it could and choosing stuff that is economically less strenuous (as the dev has admitted to), I as the consumer have every right to complain about it. Because it shows there limiting the capability of this game when it comes to delving more into history. Despite having plenty and continuously support form the community for more content. Its simply a slap to the face because again there setting up the stance that they won't delve more into the historical attributes of the game because there not willing to do so, when they have every capability of it. They just announced at paradox con that they sold a million copies of the game, and yet they make it out like there still rubbing sticks together? Like common.

 

[kettyo]

Scroll up a bit and see my previous response

Actually i read from bottom up so have read your answer late

So yeah Grigsby has great historic games and exactly the thing that makes HOI special is the highly sandbox nature. I'm still against the politically implausible stuff like Habsburg restoration or communist Japan but those can be modded out.

 

[Shaka of Carthage]

It is simply that the military part of winning a world war (officers quality and training, theoretical doctrine and its application, planning, communication delay, fog of war, military intelligence, logistics etc) is not really represented.

Not sure how you can say that. Almost everything you mentioned is in HoI4. You may not agree with the way they represent it, but it is there.

So if material reasons make you win, how did the German win the Battle for France ? Considering that the Allies held the material superiority ?

Because of the soft factors you mentioned above.

 

[Khevenhuller]

So much THIS!

World War 2 was in no way shape or form a "close" war. The only conceivable win scenario for Germany was calling for peace after the fall of France.World War 3 would have shortly followed with the invasion of the Soviets by Germany. That would have been a much more balanced war.

Hitler did make several attempts to come to terms with Britain after the Fall of France, and it was Britain's refusal that meant the continuation of the European war. Why the British turned him down is something more complex than can be expressed here.

K

 

[kettyo]

Hitler did make several attempts to come to terms with Britain after the Fall of France, and it was Britain's refusal that meant the continuation of the European war. Why the British turned him down is something more complex than can be expressed here.

K

It is not so complex. You don't make peace with someone who consistently breaks treaties and promises. It just makes no sense.

 

[Duke_Dave]

Alt-history gives this game publicity, which results in more sales.
Also there is quite a number of players who enjoy them and buy DLC for that reason. So actually alt-history helps the game become more historical because it brings in the necessary resources.
A lot of complaints here are really down to bugfixing, which is a different issue. We had three DLC's a fourth is in the making we need a pure bug-fixing patch, no new features in it, that might mess up things but a big solid patch that fixes stuff that has accumulated.

 

[Robosoldier1]

Alt-history gives this game publicity, which results in more sales.
Also there is quite a number of players who enjoy them and buy DLC for that reason. So actually alt-history helps the game become more historical because it brings in the necessary resources.
A lot of complaints here are really down to bugfixing, which is a different issue. We had three DLC's a fourth is in the making we need a pure bug-fixing patch, no new features in it, that might mess up things but a big solid patch that fixes stuff that has accumulated.

Well clearly not if we take this discussion as an account for it. Obviously this doesn't represent the entirety of the community but out of 133 people 78 of those agreed that the current implication of alternative history content recently presented by paradox is more invasive then it is adding to the game. Mainly because of implausibility of the scenarios and just the severity the scenarios bring to disjoint the game from the 2nd world war. in essence nearly 60 percent of the people that has participated in this discussion view it in the manner that is becoming too overbearing for those that wish for more effort in directing the aim for historic play. Paradox choose to take on the challenge of emulating what involves the 2nd world war and they are the company that takes pride in going into great detail in regards to strategy and choice. As you can see alot of people don't feel that they are fulling that obigation at the moment and I only hope to god that Paradox gets the message.

Although the way the content designer laid it out he didn't either seem to grasp the request or is reflecting Paradox's thoughts in that they are entirely dedicated to not fullfill or attempt the request. Mainly because its cheaper and easier to make alternative history fantasy then the plausible historic scenarios and events both for the focus tree and in game events/decisions. Which to me is disappointing.

 

[Sidetrack Nick]

I do believe there should be 3 game modes.

1. Historical: forces you to go down the focus tree as historical.

2. God mode ahistorical: forces the AI to go down the focus tree as historical unless the players do something different (what we have now).

3. Complete ahistorical: Every nation works toward expansion, merging, and alliances determined by nationalism and self-preservation. Every nation has a national focus tree that allows for this to happen. There is no Axis, Allies, or Comintern at the start, and there are no hard-coded historical events/road to war (so no Anschluss, Pearl Harbor, Zog submits, etc..., but a political tree that allows for all nations to be aggressive or ally with other nations as logical rather than due to political alignment). A real sandbox.