Balkans need a province rework

[MobiusTwo]

Over the last few years, I have noticed many people complain about the way the borders of the Balkan provinces are constructed in this game. As it happens, it is impossible to either create historically-accurate national borders for the WWII-era, as well as it being impossible to create accurate modern-day borders.

My plan here addresses some of the problems. I know it is not perfect, but it would be better than what we have now. So, what do I have to suggest to the developers?

-Split the Trieste province in half. The AI just loves to puppet Slovenia out of this one in pretty much every Allies-victory peace deal, don't they? Either way, this change allows for more accurate modern-day Slovenian and Croatian borders.
-Split the easternmost tip of Croatia into Bačka/Srem. This allows for more accurate modern-day Croatian and Serb borders.
-Split Kosovo from Serbia. This is a controversial political issue in our day, but the issue also existed during WWII. I envision that either Italy or Albania (once it gets a focus tree) will be able to pursue Albanian irredentism via new/updated focus trees, and Albania will have the opportunity to core the province. Kosovo could also be a new releasable nation.
-Split Southern Pomoravlje from Serbia. As it stands in the current build of the game, Bulgaria cannot form an accurate Greater Bulgaria. Making this territory a separate province would allow Bulgaria to potentially do so.
-Split Eastern Macedonia from Central Macedonia. This is the least “necessary” of these proposed changes, but like the last suggestion, it would allow Bulgaria to have more accurate wartime borders.

It is my hope that these changes will one day be implemented into the game. It seems hard to believe that they would not, given that it would make the game more historically accurate. These are the only reasons I can think why the developers have not created more accurate Balkans provinces yet:

1. Ignorance/poor initial design – it’s possible the developers just don’t know that the current borders don’t work very well, or that these borders haven’t been adjusted because the game has some wonky borders in various parts of the world that were probably an oversight in the initial development.
2. Stubbornness – perhaps the developers are satisfied with the current borders and refuse to change them even though they are visually unappealing (especially if the Independent State of Croatia comes into existence!) and make it impossible for the player to create accurate Allied victory scenarios, Axis victory scenarios, or simply make the modern-day borders.
3. Game balance – maybe the developers feel that giving Yugoslavia or Greece extra potential building slots would be overpowered. I would argue that given the poor production output of either of these nations, neither country would be able to utilize the theoretical extra building slots until pretty late in the game, given that they even survive to that stage.
4. Currently in development – we have reason to believe that an Italy rework is in the works. When it launches, it is very possible we get an Albanian, Bulgarian, and/or Greek focus trees, and maybe even a mini focus tree for the Independent State of Croatia (similar to the Free France/Vichy France focus trees). They could also rework Yugoslavia’s focus tree, which would be desperately needed, but so far the developers have not really gone back to significantly adjust focus trees we already had DLC for.

I have attached an image of my proposed changes to the bottom of this post. I hope the developers will listen to this suggestion! What are your thoughts on this issue?

 

[fallgelb22061940]

This will be needed, but without Kosovo. No, I am not a Serbian nationalist, but I would point out that Kosovo during ww2 was not in same borders. It had much more territory, some parts of I think that pre-mtg map was much better, mostly because you could split Yugoslavia on historical borders. Also, there is no reason to have Bosnia emerge from Croatia because even today Bosnia is made out of 3 nations. Perhaps if someone splits Bosnia in 3 it could be better. Also, Macedonians didn't have their own national identity before SFRJ. Montenegro should have Serbian core because when Montenegro existed it was Serb nation. I do not want to argue with some Kosovo was Albania always and some Montenegro was never Serb, we have 32 letters, this is just my idea for improvements in that region.

 

[Emren]

Well you could easily do these splits without increasing the building slots. Say you split 6-slot City Istria (Trieste) into a 4-slot Town, and add a 2-slot Rural state. In that process, you would not increase the total starting building slot count, but you would increase the total cost to raise infrastructure, and also increase the possible air bases, radars, etc. More 2000 plane airbases possible means less tactical importance for each airbase/state, and I think this might be the biggest problem.

 

[Zeprion]

This will be needed, but without Kosovo. No, I am not a Serbian nationalist, but I would point out that Kosovo during ww2 was not in same borders. It had much more territory, some parts of I think that pre-mtg map was much better, mostly because you could split Yugoslavia on historical borders. Also, there is no reason to have Bosnia emerge from Croatia because even today Bosnia is made out of 3 nations. Perhaps if someone splits Bosnia in 3 it could be better. Also, Macedonians didn't have their own national identity before SFRJ. Montenegro should have Serbian core because when Montenegro existed it was Serb nation. I do not want to argue with some Kosovo was Albania always and some Montenegro was never Serb, we have 32 letters, this is just my idea for improvements in that region.

I agree, historical accuracy is more important than nationalist debates.

I would also suggest:
- Giving the Epirus province between North Macedonia, Epirus and South Macedonia to South Macedonia to make the borders look better in case Bulgaria takes all of Macedonia.
- To split Muntenia in Muntenia and North Dobruja based on the Danube.
- To split Alford on west and east based on the Tisza river.

 

[MobiusTwo]

Well you could easily do these splits without increasing the building slots. Say you split 6-slot City Istria (Trieste) into a 4-slot Town, and add a 2-slot Rural state. In that process, you would not increase the total starting building slot count, but you would increase the total cost to raise infrastructure, and also increase the possible air bases, radars, etc. More 2000 plane airbases possible means less tactical importance for each airbase/state, and I think this might be the biggest problem.

I guess the question here is how often does Yugoslavia get the opportunity to build 2000-aircraft airports across the entire country, let alone amass that much aircraft to begin with? You are correct that with each 2000 airport, they lose tactical importance, but wouldn't that be pretty late in the game?

 

[Emren]

I guess the question here is how often does Yugoslavia get the opportunity to build 2000-aircraft airports across the entire country, let alone amass that much aircraft to begin with? You are correct that with each 2000 airport, they lose tactical importance, but wouldn't that be pretty late in the game?

I’m thinking more of whoever takes over Yugoslavia...

 

[MobiusTwo]

I’m thinking more of whoever takes over Yugoslavia...

Even then, we would have a situation where most likely, mid-late game Italy or Germany controls Yugoslavia. When any country is in a position where they can afford to spam 2000-airports all over the map, I would argue that their victory is most likely inevitable anyway.

Idk, I am assuming your concerns are mostly related to multiplayer, right? In a single player game, this issue doesn't really come up.

 

[Zeprion]

Even then, we would have a situation where most likely, mid-late game Italy or Germany controls Yugoslavia. When any country is in a position where they can afford to spam 2000-airports all over the map, I would argue that their victory is most likely inevitable anyway.

Idk, I am assuming your concerns are mostly related to multiplayer, right? In a single player game, this issue doesn't really come up.

Yes, for singleplayer it doesn't hold up, but in multiplayer when you have 10k planes it could be abused. But then again, most of the time the German - Soviet conflict isn't in the Balkans, and when it is the Soviets are already won anyway.

And in the case of Greece early game, in an usual game it almost always falls to Nazi Germany anyway.

 

[Riekopo]

Yeah when I was playing Italy I realized how messed up the Balkan borders and occupation is. The borders are wrong and the only way to get a historically accurate occupation is to use the command console.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/independent-state-of-croatias-cores.1350314/

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/add-dual-puppets.1350190/

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/non-ferrous-metals-in-serbia.1350172/

Why do the Balkans look like this in my historical game?

The Balkans looks like this in my historical game. I don't know why but it's really dumb. It's September 1940. I'm playing as Japan. https://imgur.com/a/AOZhKlM

forum.paradoxplaza.com

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/hoi-4-balkan-weirdness-romania-not-abdicating-king-carol-ii.1347754/

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/hoi-4-italy-doing-wrong-focuses-not-attacking-greece.1348753/