Country Details

[Johan Elisson]

Therefore,

Standing Army-Drafted Army
|o - - - - - - - - -|

...equates to:
Gearing Bonus -10%
Unit Organisation +10%

Actually, it isn't that simple. Well, yes, Standing Army gives gearing and org -10 % and +10 % respectively but it also gives a bonus to unit experience. The political system isn't just reversed for all sliders, for some, but not for all. Hawk vs Dove is another example, Hawk gives shorter production time and lower cost, while Dove gives more money from consumer good.

/Johan

 

[Allenby]

Actually, it isn't that simple. Well, yes, Standing Army gives gearing and org -10 % and +10 % respectively but it also gives a bonus to unit experience. The political system isn't just reversed for all sliders, for some, but not for all. Hawk vs Dove is another example, Hawk gives shorter production time and lower cost, while Dove gives more money from consumer good.

/Johan

I'm aware of that but forgot to mention it.

These are the experience benefits of a standing army as opposed to a drafted army.

Standing Army-Drafted Army
               0       1       2       3       4       5       6       7       8       9       10
Experience   +20%    +15%    +10%     +5%      -       -       -       -       -       -       -

 

[StephenT]

So it's kind of like Quality v Quantity in EU2?

Standing army = Your units are better in combat.
Drafted Army = You can build new units more quickly.

Or to put it another way, Britain should start out with maximum Standing Army, but get a 'Kitchener' event after war breaks out offering them the option of moving several notches over towards Drafted Army.

 

[unmerged(30762)]

Apparently not.




I'll try to clear this up.

The manual states the following on the Standing-Drafted Army scale:



....and adds this on the 'gearing bonus':




United States in 1936, for example has:

Standing Army-Drafted Army
|- - - - - - - - - o|

This equates to:
Gearing Bonus +10%
Unit Organisation -10%

Therefore,

Standing Army-Drafted Army
|o - - - - - - - - -|

...equates to:
Gearing Bonus -10%
Unit Organisation +10%

Thanks Allenby. In that case, the stats I suggested should be good. But Im reffering to the x marks, not the 0 marks.

 

[unmerged(30762)]

So it's kind of like Quality v Quantity in EU2?

Standing army = Your units are better in combat.
Drafted Army = You can build new units more quickly.

Or to put it another way, Britain should start out with maximum Standing Army, but get a 'Kitchener' event after war breaks out offering them the option of moving several notches over towards Drafted Army.

That "offer" would have to include manpower additions as well. I believe they had appeals for 100,000, but got as many as a million volunteers. In other words, Give a huuge manpower addition with that event to simulate that. Though this may seem excessive, Britain would still have to build that army into the fighting machine it would become in 1916.

As I mentioned before, Manpower was my only issue with TGW. There should be more of it for each nation so they are able to build armies of large size like the standard WWI armies.

 

[Allenby]

So it's kind of like Quality v Quantity in EU2?

Standing army = Your units are better in combat.
Drafted Army = You can build new units more quickly.

In a way it is, but I see it more as Wartime Army v Peacetime Army.

Having a country wholly reliant on volunteers and conscripts at the Drafted end of the scale indicates a country that has the apparatus to maintain an army for small peacetime tasks or limited involvement in time of war, whilst the other end of the scale indicates to me a mass army in the process of fighting a war, whereby units' experience and organisation is enhanced over those in peacetime accordingly.

Or to put it another way, Britain should start out with maximum Standing Army, but get a 'Kitchener' event after war breaks out offering them the option of moving several notches over towards Drafted Army.

I would have thought it would be much different than that for Britain, at least by judging from what HOI II gives for her Standing-Drafted Army in 1936:

Britain 1936:

Standing Army-Drafted Army
|- - - - - o - - - -|

Some comparisons might be useful, too. It ought to be mentioned that no countries in HOI II have the Standing-Drafted Army scale set fully at the Standing Army end. The furthest is Nepal.

Nepal 1939:

Standing Army-Drafted Army
|- o - - - - - - - -|

...followed by Bolivia.

Bolivia 1939:

Standing Army-Drafted Army
|- - - o - - - - - -|

Apart from those two, all countries have the scale set either in the middle, or towards the Drafted Army end.

United States 1939:

Standing Army-Drafted Army
|- - - - - - - - - o|

Communist China 1936:

Standing Army-Drafted Army
|- - - - - - - - - o|

Germany 1939:

Standing Army-Drafted Army
|- - - - - o - - - -|

Britain 1939*:

Standing Army-Drafted Army
|- - - - - o - - - -|

*after conscription in April 1939

 

[StephenT]

OK, here's my first major contribution to the 1914 mod. I've rated every country on the Authoritarian-Democratic scale, from 1 to 10.

Some of the more obscure countries are guesses, and for others I've simply taken the TGW "Authoritarianism" alignment coordinate and converted it. Any corrections and comments are welcome.

I suggest that the same rating can also be used for the "Open/Closed Society" classification, unless there are any specific countries which should be exceptions.


Authoritarian 1

Afghanistan
Ahaggar
Aïr
Asir
Bhutan
Darfur
Ethiopia
Fengtien Clique
Hejaz
Jebel Shammar
Nejd
Nepal
Oman
Ottoman Empire
Persia
Sanusia
Tibet
Yemen
Xinjiang
Syria
Yunnan
Kuomintang Clique
(Other Chinese Warlords)
AnFu Clique
Russian Whites


Authoritarian 2

Russia


Authoritarian 3

Austria-Hungary
China
Costa Rica
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Greece
Guatemala
Haiti
Honduras
Mexico
Mongolia
Montenegro
Nicaragua
Panama
Siam

Authoritarian 4

Albania
Germany
Romania
Serbia
Ukraine
Soviet Russia
Korea


Authoritarian 5

Brazil
Bulgaria
Colombia
Ecuador
Peru
Venezuela
Byelorussia
Georgia
Armenia
Azerbaijan


Democratic 6

Liberia
Portugal
Spain
Latvia
Lithuania
Poland
India
Egypt
Hungary


Democratic 7

Argentina
Bolivia
Chile
Cuba
Italy
Japan
Paraguay
Uruguay
Finland
Estonia
South Africa


Democratic 8

Luxemburg
Ulster
Austria
Czechoslovakia


Democratic 9

Belgium
Denmark
Netherlands
Norway
Sweden
British Empire
Ireland
Russian Federation


Democratic 10

France
Switzerland
USA
Revolutionary Mexico
Makhnovshchina
Australia
New Zealand
Canada



(I've assumed that the scale is indeed 1-10. If it's 0-10, then subtract 1 from every country's score. )

 

[Allenby]

Looks fine, on the whole!

You evidently rate constitutional monarchies as slightly less democratic than republics or anarchic polities - personally, I don't see the difference. I think it would be fair to say that King George V's influence in political affairs was minimal to the extent that Britain was virtually no less democratic than France and the United States. At least, to put Britain in 1914 at the same level of democratic progress as Sweden would seem inappropriate, especially when one considers that in the latter case, wrangling took place between Gustav V and parliament in the years preceding 1914.

I have a suggestion - perhaps all countries listed under Democratic 9 and 10 (except New Zealand) should be placed into Democratic 9? That final step could then be interpreted as a move towards universal suffrage, a path which several states took before 1924.

By the way, as New Zealand doesn't start the game, her 'release' will result in her taking on the same characteristics as the British Empire, as far as I know, not those specified in the .inc file. Nevertheless, it's worth specifying her details in the .inc files should that not be the case.

 

[StephenT]

I was partly thinking in terms of attitude and ideology. France wasn't just a republic - it was THE republic. The country that had not only executed its lawful monarch, but continued to glory in the fact. The Americans had similar attitudes to their own democracy. Australians had nothing but contempt for the bowing and scraping towards the nobility that their cousins back Home still engaged in.

The British, on the other hand, still loved a Lord, and thought that monarchy was a guarantee of stability. They didn't quite trust the ordinary people* to manage their own affairs. Hence, I put them one level lower than France, USA and the revolter (non-Afrikaner) Dominions.

*Ordinary people who happened to be male householders, at that.

Do you think Sweden should be a 7 or 8 instead of 9?

 

[Johan Elisson]

Do you think Sweden should be a 7 or 8 instead of 9?

I'd say we at least didn't deserve an 9 back in the days.

/Johan

 

[ptan54]

I think Germany shouldn't be that close to free markets.

Compared to Britain, where the government encouraged competition, the German government encouraged state backed cartels, anti competitive measures, and ran the whole country like a factory. The fact that many major companies were state owned (or the state having a heavy stake) and that Germany was the first modern welfare state points to heavy market interventionism and collectivisation of resources through taxation to realise Bismarck's socialist programs.

I would rate Germany 2 notches closer to central planning, as competition is a tenet of free market economies and German industrialisation certainly gave a huge role to the state which led the way in many matters.

 

[Allenby]

I was partly thinking in terms of attitude and ideology. France wasn't just a republic - it was THE republic. The country that had not only executed its lawful monarch, but continued to glory in the fact. The Americans had similar attitudes to their own democracy. Australians had nothing but contempt for the bowing and scraping towards the nobility that their cousins back Home still engaged in.

The British, on the other hand, still loved a Lord, and thought that monarchy was a guarantee of stability. They didn't quite trust the ordinary people* to manage their own affairs. Hence, I put them one level lower than France, USA and the revolter (non-Afrikaner) Dominions.

*Ordinary people who happened to be male householders, at that.

Do you think Sweden should be a 7 or 8 instead of 9?

I think a more empirical approach is needed. Just because some relatively weak hereditary institutions are held in reverence does not automatically mean that the country in question is less democratic. A country ought to be judged on whether it possesses a constitution, if it holds elections on a wide suffrage, has a democratically elected parliament that is much more powerful than the head of state, if it respects the rule of law and whether it assures certain freedoms.

As for the attitudes of people living under the system of constitutional monarchy, I would not say that their commitment to freedom, the rule of law and voting in a democratic election is less than in a republic - furthermore, I question how suspicious attitudes to the monarchy really were in the white dominions. The Governor-General of Australia, Lord Northcote in 1903 remarked how astounded he was that the people of Australia could hold a King they had never seen before in such high regard...

Does my suggestion for having no countries at Democratic level 10 have any backers? Certain countries were more democratic in 1924 than they were in 1914.

 

[StephenT]

I think a more empirical approach is needed. Just because some relatively weak hereditary institutions are held in reverence does not automatically mean that the country in question is less democratic.

Not just 'in reverence', but actually having some (vestigial) power. If we were talking about Britain after the Abdication Crisis and the 1946[?] Parliament Act (the one the fox-hunters now say is unconstitutional) I'd agree that they should get the highest score on a par with the USA and France. In 1914, I still think they're one level less.

In practical terms, Britain would be more likely to support setting up a monarchy in a newly-independent country than France would; conversely an absolute monarchy would be happier allying with the British Crown than with Republican France. (Assuming Britain was willing to drop its policy of splendid isolation).

A country ought to be judged on whether it possesses a constitution, if it holds elections on a wide suffrage, has a democratically elected parliament that is much more powerful than the head of state,

...and that hereditary or non-democratic elements have no power, either formal political power or unofficial influence behind the scenes.

if it respects the rule of law and whether it assures certain freedoms.

I'd count these under 'Open/Closed Society' rather than 'Authoritarian/Democratic'. And, incidentally, I'd give Germanyand Austria-Hungary +3 or so towards the Open Society side, if we do use the A/D score as the basis for the OS/CS score as well.

As for the attitudes of people living under the system of constitutional monarchy, I would not say that their commitment to freedom, the rule of law and voting in a democratic election is less than in a republic - furthermore, I question how suspicious attitudes to the monarchy really were in the white dominions.

I'm only talking about 1 notch on the scale, not 5 or 6.

Does my suggestion for having no countries at Democratic level 10 have any backers? Certain countries were more democratic in 1924 than they were in 1914.

I've got no problem with it, although my preference would be to move the '6' countries to '5', '7' to '6', '8' to '7' and '9' to '8' as well, rather than just lump all the '10's (except NZ and probably Makhnovschina) in with the '9's.

 

[unmerged(11633)]

I have a suggestion - perhaps all countries listed under Democratic 9 and 10 (except New Zealand) should be placed into Democratic 9? That final step could then be interpreted as a move towards universal suffrage, a path which several states took before 1924.

A minor point, but Australia granted universal suffrage shortly after Federation, completing a trend already seen in several states (although there were still restrictions on whether aborignes could vote). Australia didn;t introduce conscription in WWI either, although there was a large debate on the subject.

(We still sang God Save the Queen though, and loyally offered up our sons to the Imperial cause).

 

[Allenby]

Not just 'in reverence', but actually having some (vestigial) power. If we were talking about Britain after the Abdication Crisis and the 1946[?] Parliament Act (the one the fox-hunters now say is unconstitutional) I'd agree that they should get the highest score on a par with the USA and France. In 1914, I still think they're one level less.

So what exactly did change between 1914 and the 1949 Parliament Act? Nothing much as far as I can tell. If anything, the Abdication Crisis demonstrated the weakness of the position of head of state - not that the King was able to affect government policy. The 1949 Parliament Act was only a relatively minor change to the 1911 Parliament Act - the major shift in the constitutional balance was made by the 1911 Act, not the one passed in 1949. I do not believe that Asquith had less influence over George V in 1914 than Attlee had over George VI in 1950 - the powers of the monarchy and the House of Lords were massively curtailed by 1914, with little changing by 1949.

...and that hereditary or non-democratic elements have no power, either formal political power or unofficial influence behind the scenes.

Then by those terms, Britain is not even fully democratic today because the Queen can at least be said to have 'unofficial influence behind the scenes' if not the formal right to veto legislation. My argument is that the matter is irrelevant - the monarch does not veto legislation and a government can eventually put legislation into law with a majority in the House Commons. That was the case in 1914 and thus, Britain was as democratic as France.

 

[ptan54]

The debate over nobility might be a societal issue - open/closed society. The respect for Lords and nobility might indicate a few more notches towards closed.

If we consider the separation of power, then there is no doubt the US has a more separated Constitution vis a vis Britain's unwritten one, which effectively has a fused legislature and executive (PM, Cabinet part of both) and to some extent executive and judiciary (Lord Chancellor, his legislative role is limited but he is a cabinet member).

I don't know enough about France to comment, but from the above I'd say USA should be just a bit more democratic than Britain. In the game the difference would be negligible anyway. In terms of open/closed, perhaps the USA should be more closed than Britain - take the US south for instance, with Jim Crow laws and so on.

 

[Zuckergußgebäck]

I'd say we at least didn't deserve an 9 back in the days.

/Johan

As Sweden was late in introducing suffrage for women and that the king still held influence and was able to affect public opinion (borggårdskrisen), I think we can safely put her one step down.

 

[Lum__]

Here's the country tags I was looking at creating for a Russian Civil War scenario, along with (to keep this reply somwhat relevant) some stabs at political values for them.


Soviet Russia (SOV)
Dem/Auth 1 Left/Right 8 Open/Closed 1 Free/Central 1
Standing/Draft 1 Hawk/Dove 10 Interv/Isol 8

(Free/Central - "War Communism" was the most extreme Communist economy possible, which even threatened to make money obsolete. Standing/Draft of 1 represents the Soviet's tendency to rely on draftees and NCOs; officers tended to either rise from the ranks or be hostages to the Cheka. The standing/draft score would migrate slowly towards 5 through events; Trotsky's reforms of the Red Army and the nationalist effects of the Polish invasion.)

White army factions:

Volunteer Army (VOA) (Denikin and later Wrangel's armies, based in South Russia)
Dem/Auth 3 Left/Right 2 Open/Closed 8 Free/Central 7
Standing/Draft 10 Hawk/Dove 10 Interv/Isol 8

Denikin's faction was "Old Russia" personified. The extreme standing/draft score represents the top heavy nature of the Volunteer Army; in many cases fighting units were ALL ex-Tsarist officers down to "private".

Komuch (KOM) (Kolchak's armies, based in Siberia)
Dem/Auth Variable Left/Right Variable Open/Closed Variable Free/Central 7
Standing/Draft 8 Hawk/Dove 10 Interv/Isol 8

The variable nature of Komuch's scores are because in the middle of the Civil War Kolchak was installed as supreme ruler in a right-wing coup. Prior to that the Komuch was the closest thing to Russia's "legitimate" government in Western eyes and composed mainly of Mensheviks and SRs, which roughly are equivalent to democratic socialists.

Iudenich (IUD) (Army of Iudenich, based in Estonia)
Dem/Auth 3 Left/Right 2 Open/Closed 8 Free/Central 7
Standing/Draft 10 Hawk/Dove 10 Interv/Isol 8

Using the VOA values here, since in reality Iudenich's army didn't last long enough to install a viable government.

Successor states: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia as per HOI2. Hungary could potentially suffer a Communist revolt through an event and join Soviets (the Bela Kun government of 1919). The Czech Legion of course will have to be portrayed somehow. Poland invades Ukraine in 1920 and the Russians later end up outside of Warsaw before forming the WW2 era boundaries; this was a full-fledged war that was fought as the Civil War was still ongoing.

Ukraine (UKR)
Ukraine's values would be all over the map since they suffered governmental changes at an almost monthly rate, and also were the main battleground between the VOA and the Soviets.

Georgia (GEO)
Dem/Auth 8 Left/Right 6 Open/Closed 8 Free/Central 5
Standing/Draft 5 Hawk/Dove 2 Interv/Isol 1

The Menshevik government of interwar Georgia, basically isolationist.

Azerbaijan (AZE)
Armenia (ARM)
Siberia (SIB)

Nothing really for these yet, as they existed only nominally (and "independent" Siberia was primarily a Japanese excuse for occupation)

Lots of central Asian states existed briefly as well, but there's no real reason to include those.

Bandit states:

Nestor Makhno (MAK) Anarchist who controlled hefty chunks of the Ukraine
Dem/Auth 10 Left/Right 10 Open/Closed 10 Free/Central 2
Standing/Draft 1 Hawk/Dove 10 Interv/Isol 10
The Dem/Auth score - well, they WERE anarchists Realistically, there never really was a "Makhno" government as Makhno's group were more partisans than nation-builders.

Ataman Semenov (SEM) Siberian cossack bandit, Japanese puppet nation
Ataman Kalmykov (KAL) Siberian cossack bandit, Japanese puppet nation
Dem/Auth 1 Left/Right 1 Open/Closed 1 Free/Central 10
Standing/Draft 5 Hawk/Dove 10 Interv/Isol 1

Both of these states existed solely to enrich the pockets of their leaders. Kalmykov was also literally insane.

Anyway, hope that is helpful. This may well be too many tags to reserve for this, which is why I was planning on having this be a self-contained scenario.

 

[StephenT]

Wire2k - most of the countries you list are already in TGW and so will presumably be copied straight over to 1914. The tags we used were:

SOV - Soviet Russia, same as you.
U15 - 'Russian Whites'. This covers the Volunteer Army in the south, but also lumps in various smaller factions such as the various Cossack hordes.
SIB - 'Russian Federation' - we used this to cover Komuch and Kolchak.
U17 - 'Makhnovschina'

Yudenitch isn't currently covered - I'd thought of making him Estonian for simplicity. All the minor states - FIN, LAT, EST, LIT, POL, BLR, UKR, AZB, GEO and ARM - are also covered.

I think you've got the Dem/Auth scores for Denikin and the Soviets the wrong way around. Denikin (and Kolchak) were military dictators who ruled through martial law; any pretence at representational government they offered was, IMO, purely a figleaf to impress the Allies. The Soviets, at least at first, believed in popular self-government and were willing to hold relatively-free elections. The fact that they gradually moved further towards authoritarian should, I believe, be shown through events. ["Elections for the constituent assembly have produced an SR majority. Do you: a. suppress the assembly (+2 to Auth) b. accept the will of the people (+2 to Dem)"]

Similarly on the open/closed society level: Lenin went through periods of allowing his political opponents to organise and publish their newspapers freely, then getting cold feet and banning them, then changing his mind again. Get on Kolchak's bad side and you were likely to meet a cossack death squad one dark night.

While your draft/standing army characterisation of the factions works to some extent, bear in mind that the Red Army did also incorporate a huge number of ex-Tsarist officers, including General Brusilov himself. Also, the White factions tended to replenish their losses by forcibly recruiting peasants from the nearest village and handing them rifles, with even less training (or political indoctrination) than the Red Army provided to its conscriptees.

 

[Lum__]

I used the same scale as the posters above, so a 1 on Dem/Auth indicates authoritarian. There were very few democrats in this war

As for the Soviets, they were never democratic, ever. The "Constituent Assembly" which was the result of the one election held was broken up after one day (the survivors formed the Komuch). As for in-game effects, the Dem/Auth scale really determines how well captured provinces are assimilated - i.e. terror. And if you want to argue that the Whites terrorized areas and the Reds didn't... um, OK. Most would disagree, including Lenin and Dzerzhinsky. Really the differention between the two sides would be in the Left/Right scale, they were both pretty authoritarian in nature (aside from the short lived Komuch regime).

As far as open/closed scores for the Sovs, there was a short period of relative freedom (the "New Economic Policy") which took place after the Civil War. During the war there wasn't much tolerance for opposing points of view save within the Party itself; and Lenin quickly quashed intra-party dissension as well. In any event, the nature of the Bolshevik regime is obviously still a subject of some debate even today.

I don't think lumping in all the White armies on the same tag would work too well, as there was no coordination at all between them. Kolchak could probably be made SIB without too much trouble (although there was also a puppet "Siberian Republic" set up by Japan - Siberia was split about 5 different ways), but making Iudenich Estonia means that the Soviets basically get a free excuse to invade/annex Estonia, which is ahistorical.