Country leaders: arbitrary choices

[Vityviktor]

I've always thought there are some weird things related to how characters show in the game as leaders. We have kings and presidents of republics (heads of state) and prime ministers (heads of government).

For example, most UK leaders are PMs or monarchs (following non aligned alt. history focus branch); US leaders are presidents; German leaders are chancellors (or Führers) or Kaisers; Spanish leaders are presidents of the Republic (so democratic Republican Spain stays with Azaña as the only leader), kings or dictators;.... And Japan leaders are 'fascist' emperor Hirohito, ... 'non-aligned' emperor Hirohito, the democratic PM and the communist leader.

I think these kind of choices are quite arbitrary and a little incoherent. This is particularly worrelsome for Spain and Japan. For Spain, having Azaña as the sole democratic republican leader during the civil war ignores how important the different PMs and their political stances were, like Largo Caballero or Negrín. For Japan is specially problematic, knowing how the real power was in the hands of the militar factions (with military PMs) and the later unified totalitarian party "Imperial Rule Assistance Association", and thus, having the emperor as the only leader for both the fascist and non-aligned paths feels quite "lazy" and inaccurate.

Maybe more leaders should be introduced, or maybe some kind of proper government structure mechanics, but this would require a lot of work, specially considering the already problematic interaction between region focused expansions.

 

[Fulmen]

The problem here boils down to PDX's choice to favour flashy graphics over historical accuracy, or in other words, PDX-made portraits over actual photographs.

Veterans of the series will remember how in past HoIs we had literally thousands of generals and ministers in the game, including separate heads of state and government for each country, each with their own historical photos (barring a few errors, most of which AoD corrected, but this fix remained unique to AoD, as neither PDX or the DH team took note of this work in their sequels to HoI2).

Many will also remember how at release the majority of country leaders in HoI4 didn't have a unique portrait. This is because creating portraits for HoI4 takes time and effort, and of course money. Comparatively speaking it'd be a snap of the fingers to use the existing database of photos from the earlier games, but I digress.

I can see how fitting black and white photographs into HoI4's art style would be problematic, but perhaps the art style is wrong then. Personally I do condemn the massive loss of historical flavour from this design choice. Without it, we could easily represent all the different PMs of the time, and for a large part even their cabinets, like the past HoIs did.

 

[DystopianAlphaOmega]

Nominally, it’s supposed to represent who is most in charge, regardless of formal designations like head of state vs. head of government, which aren’t relevant for all countries. So in a constitutional monarchy like UK or democratic Germany, it’s the Prime Minister, but in a more authoritarian monarchy like non-aligned UK or Germany the leader is the monarch. Similar for figurehead monarch as national spirit for fascist Italy/default Romania, but non-aligned Italy and royal dictatorship Romania have monarch as leader.

Republican Spain is difficult due to the many factions in the movement, but having Azaña is fair enough for the broad tent (and the game doesn’t go into sufficient detail for things like the many changes in cabinet/leadership of Republican Spain or pre-war Japan for instance).

 

[Ketchup & friends]

This IS a design flaw that resulted in a limited number of leaders. But that will probably never get fixed in HoI4. Perhaps HoI5 will used historical Photos once again?

However splitting country leadership between Head of State and Head of Government like in HoI3 should be possible. If internal politics ever get reworked this should be implemented.

The Italy-themed DLC would offer a good opportunity to do it. The relationship between the King and Mussolini was a very important factor of Italian politics.

 

[kimidf]

The problem here boils down to PDX's choice to favour flashy graphics over historical accuracy, or in other words, PDX-made portraits over actual photographs.

Veterans of the series will remember how in past HoIs we had literally thousands of generals and ministers in the game, including separate heads of state and government for each country, each with their own historical photos (barring a few errors, most of which AoD corrected, but this fix remained unique to AoD, as neither PDX or the DH team took note of this work in their sequels to HoI2).

Many will also remember how at release the majority of country leaders in HoI4 didn't have a unique portrait. This is because creating portraits for HoI4 takes time and effort, and of course money. Comparatively speaking it'd be a snap of the fingers to use the existing database of photos from the earlier games, but I digress.

I can see how fitting black and white photographs into HoI4's art style would be problematic, but perhaps the art style is wrong then. Personally I do condemn the massive loss of historical flavour from this design choice. Without it, we could easily represent all the different PMs of the time, and for a large part even their cabinets, like the past HoIs did.

Another solution as I once said would be hiring people has somehow made mods for specific tasks like this.
That they have done magnificent work, more and even better portraits than the vanilla game.
or asking permission to the authors of the mods to use their portraits, I do not think that these put many problems to use their work

 

[kimidf]

Nominally, it’s supposed to represent who is most in charge, regardless of formal designations like head of state vs. head of government, which aren’t relevant for all countries. So in a constitutional monarchy like UK or democratic Germany, it’s the Prime Minister, but in a more authoritarian monarchy like non-aligned UK or Germany the leader is the monarch. Similar for figurehead monarch as national spirit for fascist Italy/default Romania, but non-aligned Italy and royal dictatorship Romania have monarch as leader.

Republican Spain is difficult due to the many factions in the movement, but having Azaña is fair enough for the broad tent (and the game doesn’t go into sufficient detail for things like the many changes in cabinet/leadership of Republican Spain or pre-war Japan for instance).

nor does it reflect the fall of Blum and the entry of Daladier and Reynaud as head of the French executive something if it happens in most mods something if it should have been in the French reworked