Critique of NSB and unchecked ahistoricity, case study of Poland//Shift Anastasia and Pavel to Russia//

[Fas Est]

Edit: My later post addressing most of critique.

Errata: I'm not even against Anastasia and Pavel(as Tsarist general recruited similarly to other Whites) as entities, but it is like placing them in Bolivia or Kongo and calling that a day. They have some place in Russian niche trees (like Anastasia event and figurehead wtf uprising firing after super low stability in Tsarist Russia for X time, Pavel offering his services as a General with few loyal troops) and those would work 100% better than WTFPolandia. Not mentioning they are OP compared to "sane" or "semi-sane" options.

Some fantasy can spice a game, when it is a spice, not a main ingredient.
There's also some measure of using it right - as Turan, as absurdist as it is - is a late-late-late addition and thus valid, same for Byzantium, various Empire and so on.
Whereas eg make-believe instant Kings and Queens(that itself are silly) that are LE RANDOM are a disgrace and should be removed, modifed as a sign of things to come.
Same goes for OP clearly inbalanced nations, that are railroaded towards total domination and are literally missing around half of what should otherwise be possible - looking at Germany here, with so-so-so democracy and totally missing communism.

Community many-a-time has voiced their concerns and exasperation with it, and I think enough is enough!

One can fix everything with mods, ye, but what is more telling if PDX taking the matter in their own hands to show the promising path forwards.
What happened in No Step Back was spending too much time designing Crusader Kings focuses and Baltics!!! trees to ever consider democratic Russia a thing, while foregoing any significant development of historical attempts or realism at large.
Here's al lthat sweet democratic Russia, enjoy:

Lets talk a side course of last expansion(with Russia being the main one):

Poland has numerous errors of all types possible present, from
- divisions (wrong number and type, underequipped on all accounts (despite having over 2mln basic rifles IRL and thousands upon thousands of MGs and artillery)- it is even stressed in game files it is a conscious decision)
-eternally insufficent equipment and badly trained troops (wrong, they had rigourous training routine and excelled at shooting and maneuvering)
-glaring chronology errors (looking at the achronological merry go round that is tanks)
-wrong equipment
-missing technologies and potential (tanks, fliers, ships, artillery etc)
-typos and haphazard translations (some are now fixed, like googletranslated Niech Zyje Opor)
- lacking "realistic" focuses (they were copy pasted from the old old obsolete times and thus are inadequate )
to geography (borders are horrible).

Finally a majority of tree is various shades of absurd, with literally-whos getting to be Kings or Leaders, with generals and advisors wily-nily cooperating with their hated enemies. This was a shoddy work.

I tried fixing it myself, even the simplest mistakes, but they are overwhelming for a single, not full time working programmist. Will try nonetheless.

Some of new developments, chieftly Peasant strike are a welcome addition (though [literally] silent on minorities - Turkey got the nice treatment in that regard), that are obviously well thought and designed. Others? You decide.

There's a focus for adding 1(one) regional railway in some faraway province. 1. I checked. 35 days went by. There's weird reduplication of focuses (Blitz), haphazard translations and outlandish things, as Beck(!!! a suspected Jew, not liked by opposition ) - Ribbentrop Pact in Nationalist-Falangist tree.
Okay, but why Beck! No research, and it shows in many cases. Like Koszutska (being literal nobody since mid 20s and arrested in '37) and Gomulka (and Bierut and so on and so forth) being literal nobodies for 8 more years.

Even Danzig is designed in sencond worst way possible, maneuvering outside of a no-brainer it should be.
As for the kings themselves, PDX at first "forgot" about the most legitimate one, adding it in game after fan uproar.
As for the Polish, actually fully Polish candidates, they forgot to add them at all - despite there being 2 of them (Radziwiłł and Lubomirski) - and the latter is already serving as an advisor!
As for the "batshit-but-maybe-possible things" they never added Polish-Turkish or Polish-Japanese treaties. Pavel and Anastasia (no Vladimir, despite being 1000% more valid than them, mind that) just fill the quota.

Now, imagine what a clownworld would ensure with Italy (a rumored next major redesign) getting mostly batshit crazy trees, concentrating on them (as in Poland, by their own admission), while making everything else bogged down, inefficient, weaker and just underperforming [as Italy was hehe ] and just stripped to barebones of +1 Industry, with 90% of their tree being some sillyness and, even more so, a NOT ENJOYABLE silliness. That is not a healthy balance.

Thus, I ask the PDX to fix at least the mangled Poland (as they have all the time in the world without Covid and deadlines) and prove the community that YES THEY CAN. There's no shame in admitting to it, there's only glory of trying and persevering!

As for the Community at large, I ask you for your approval as well as critique.

After all, any traffic is needed to not make it lost in the sea of forums.
As for myself, I can point all the objectively (and subjectively) bad things in NSB (in mostly Polish part) in a dedicated thread or after DMing. I am open to cooperation.

 

[jacekgk]

I'm sorry, but which of these numerous errors making Poland unplayable in Your opinion? I don't want to be sarcastic - I'm not a historical, I'm just simply man, who likes strategic games, reads something about history, but he is not a expert in any of periods, and who has enough sense of humor to appreciate imagination of people, who put Wojtek on throne Truelly, in my opinion focus trees from NSB are the best thing, which could happen for HOI4 after not the best BftB. But maybe I'm weird and I try to find fun from game, not a fully historical accurancy.

 

[Fas Est]

I'm sorry, but which of these numerous errors making Poland unplayable in Your opinion? I don't want to be sarcastic - I'm not a historical, I'm just simply man, who likes strategic games, reads something about history, but he is not a expert in any of periods, and who has enough sense of humor to appreciate imagination of people, who put Wojtek on throne Truelly, in my opinion focus trees from NSB are the best thing, which could happen for HOI4 after not the best BftB. But maybe I'm weird and I try to find fun from game, not a fully historical accurancy.

Different strokes for different folks. This is a historical game, at least aspiring to have some modicum of this label.
For starters: time
Stabilisng Poland takes too long for too little a benefit (other than averting collapising).
Game has went through several internal updates of eg focus trees. Look at Germany or Soviets or newer trees just booming through with concrete bonus or just finesse developments, yet Poland is PURPOSEFULY underequipped, underteched, underfocused etc etc. even after going through the motions of doing absolute 100%. It is, arguably, even worse now than in before-NSB. That is all despite literally being comparable in infantry departments with Germany in 1939 and in some aspects surpassing it by a wide margin.
IRL Poland was one of the top dog militaries of their time - short on money and time- but short on money IRL, where politicians squabbles through the years. Here you can barely break even with what you got at the start playing "historical"(nice Exiled Government tree, all in all) to "historical, but avoiding obvious mistakes in the hindsight".
It was a sleeping giant of industry and military might, just waking up after decade of bad planning and bad geopolitical situation.
Yet, it could perform just as well if not better than one would think.

Here, you can get about, realistically, 7 factories through focuses over 2-3 years of near constant industrial focuses and 100% civil building. And break even with infantry weapons about 2-3. Oh, but foregoing all else, artillery, tanks, fighters... All the "fluff" goes away, when you have standard no-name country trees and copypasted from day 1 dlc TERRIBLE armored branch design.

Why is this all a problem? Because you will have at least 2 concurrent emergiencies at this same time, that will take around (together) a year and some to solve. In this time you cannot do nothing else. This is cool actually, I congratulate the Peasant Strike designer(and later Civil War, same goes for RU Civil War), but you are only rewarded with prolonging your struggle and pigeonholing yourself to eg. ally yourself to France ie. capitulate.
And that's all. Maybe ally Romania and have fun capitulating 0 days later.

Alt-histories are halfcooked too, with cop-out Commies, very weak demo tree, mixed match fas/nat tree and mixed match 4+1 Kings.
That is, if you not mindlessly go fas/commie on a whim, milk the civil war and blob all countries, then ally com/fas and do a 2-3 part world conquer. That's the gist of it.

Technical errors are numerous, with mismatched tank variants, outlandish advisors (traits sometimes assigned at random, like Prince of Terror Kwiatkowski in previous iteration ), butchered language (where it is added for flavour) and logical errors (like Marxists-Commies swearing to God). All in all, Poland's development was half-assed and an obvious low-hanging cash grab.

"Anastasia" and Pavel are so out of the loop, that I cannot event begin to describe that in others terms than: why tho, if Vladimir exists and literally does the same, but in Russia. So many opportunities wasted.

I'm not even against Anastasia and Pavel(as Tsarist general recruited similarly to other Whites) as entities, but it is like placing them in Bolivia or Kongo and being proud of yourself. They have some place in Russian niche trees (like Anastasia event and figurehead wtf uprising firing after super low stability in Tsarist Russia for X time) and those would work 100% better than WTFPolandia.

 

[Arheo]

Some people (yourself clearly included) don't get as much value out of ahistorical or 'fantasy' paths. That's ok, and the game doesn't force you to engage with them. Many people do like these, and writing a call to arms here isn't really going to achieve anything. You can have opinions without being hyperbolic - on our side it is a lot easier to engage when feedback is given without an activist sentiment assuming the worst ('cash grab', 'half assed' - the tree was none of these things).

On the topic of 'historical errors' - HoI4 is not a historically accurate simulation. It doesn't aspire to be. It is a sandbox, and one that ideally plays out, if left alone, along relatively historical lines up to a point. We don't simulate every aspect of the war, or every small thing that went into the reasons that, say, Poland's relatively adept military was no match for the German Reich in 1939. As such, you will never see a scenario in which every detail is carefully manicured to be a 1:1 representation of how things actually went. The simulation engine doesn't go deep enough to allow it, and really never can.

If you have clear examples of bugs (and here, I mean mechanically non-functional examples), the bug report forum is the place for them - they will be seen.

 

[Fas Est]

Some people (yourself clearly included) don't get as much value out of ahistorical or 'fantasy' paths. That's ok, and the game doesn't force you to engage with them. Many people do like these, and writing a call to arms here isn't really going to achieve anything. You can have opinions without being hyperbolic - on our side it is a lot easier to engage when feedback is given without an activist sentiment assuming the worst ('cash grab', 'half assed' - the tree was none of these things).

On the topic of 'historical errors' - HoI4 is not a historically accurate simulation. It doesn't aspire to be. It is a sandbox, and one that ideally plays out, if left alone, along relatively historical lines up to a point. We don't simulate every aspect of the war, or every small thing that went into the reasons that, say, Poland's relatively adept military was no match for the German Reich in 1939. As such, you will never see a scenario in which every detail is carefully manicured to be a 1:1 representation of how things actually went. The simulation engine doesn't go deep enough to allow it, and really never can.

If you have clear examples of bugs (and here, I mean mechanically non-functional examples), the bug report forum is the place for them - they will be seen.

I'm sorry, but I am literally forced to play ahistorical, same as everyone else. I don't want (yet can, with Exile branch - it is again, a positive thing).
You cannot "win" as historical Poland, same as you cannot "win" as histroical France nor Germany.
What bothers me:
You cannot win as super-diligent Poland doing everything right by the book. [most of IRL Polish shortcomings were due to lack of time or politicians squabbling]
You cannot reach a stalemate with historical Poland - that would be a win in my book - without abusing game mechanics way over reasonable.
You even cannot get historical tanks in 1939 scenario, as they are not researched nor produced. Even 1939 troops dont have 100% equipment nor there are enough of them.

Only thing that is always historical is that allies dont come, in any path, historical or otherwise

You can win by Fascist and Commie Poland or OP Monarchist ones or milking the game.
But where's fun with playing it 1 way, with slightly tinted colors and juggled queue of taking things?

Again, I AM NOT AGAINST AHISTORICAL GAMING. Just against missing equilibrium that is, clearly tipped towards not playing by the books.

 

[LastButterfly]

You cannot win as historical Poland.

Having conquered most of Europe (at least) with every polish path barring Pavel, I'm gonna object to that.

Also, friendly reminder :

Community many-a-time has voiced their concerns and exasperation with it, and I think enough is enough!

People who are fine with things typically don't post "I'm fine with it", hence why complaints and negativity appear to be the most frequent reaction. But history has shown times and times again how the noisiest group is rarely in the majority.
Sorry, but a lot of people like the ahistorical options, no matter how "fantasy" they seem.

 

[Sultan Suleiman]

What an unpleasant thread.

 

[pheonicia]

It's possible to win as poland even in the 1939 start date. Sounds like a skill issue.

 

[Ashantai]

Let's keep this thread on topic and productive please.

 

[Leyland159]

What an unpleasant thread.

The way he's worded it is unpleasant, but the gist of the argument is reasonable. I much preferred Hearts of Iron III's approach at simulating World War II as closely as possible - even if it means, yes, that playing as a minor or regional power means you're barely able to influence the course of the war at all, rather than restoring your country's medieval empire in the 1940s. I do like many of IV's features, and the overall presentation is of course better, but that more arcade-like experience ensures that I keep going back to III.


It goes without saying, of course, that both sides of the fence represent a preference - neither is inherently superior to the other.

 

[onboardbasil]

Stabilisng Poland takes too long for too little a benefit (other than averting collapising).
Game has went through several internal updates of eg focus trees. Look at Germany or Soviets or newer trees just booming through with concrete bonus or just finesse developments, yet Poland is PURPOSEFULY underequipped, underteched, underfocused etc etc. even after going through the motions of doing absolute 100%. It is, arguably, even worse now than in before-NSB. That is all despite literally being comparable in infantry departments with Germany in 1939 and in some aspects surpassing it by a wide margin.

Wait doesn't Poland now have tons of focuses that give major bonuses before major wars? You seem to think Poland was cheated in this update
- Four Year Plan: +10% construction speed for 4 years
- National Defense Fund: -15% consumer goods for 2 years
- Central Defense of Poland: -5% infantry equipment cost and +25% fort construct speed for 2 years
- Plan West/Plan East: +30% fort build speed for 1.5 years (stacks with central defense of Poland), defensive plan bonuses and free divs

Even if they are exiled they get tons of bonuses to intelligence agencies and offmap factories
-Prepare for the Inevitable: +700 weekly exile manpower, +10k guns and +100 convoys, 3 offmap civs and 2 offmap mils
-Foreign Naval Support: 5 offmap dockyards
-Exile Industries: 3 offmap mils and civs
-W imieniu Polski Podziemnej: Can launch Warsaw Uprising

I didn't even mention all of them

 

[=XIII=Wedge]

On the topic of 'historical errors' - HoI4 is not a historically accurate simulation. It doesn't aspire to be. It is a sandbox, and one that ideally plays out, if left alone, along relatively historical lines up to a point

I’m perfectly comfortable with this approach. For me I would like an approximation of playing along historical lines, but do appreciate the alternative options

@Arheo Could you share your thoughts on the what the point refers to? Is it a specific event like the end of the first major war, a point in time or is it in terms of depth.

A common example is the motivation of Japan to declare war on the USA, how Japan starts the war and how Japan might succeed in its historical aims of forcing the US into a white peace.

All of these scenarios for me are interesting and could be provided within the current game mechanics and improvements to the AI.

For me this isn’t having the game on historical rails, but providing the tools, motivation and context for interacting with the sandbox and the sandbox (AI) acting and re-acting.

 

[Darth Howard]

I'm sorry, but I am literally forced to play ahistorical. You cannot win as historical Poland.

You want historical accuracy and complain you can't win as historical Poland. Boy do I have bad news for you.

 

[Fas Est]

You want historical accuracy and complain you can't win as historical Poland. Boy do I have bad news for you.

Let me quote a more detailed and not cherry picked quote of mine, as it gives a general sentiment:

"IRL Poland was one of the top dog militaries of their time - short on money and time- but short on money IRL, where politicians squabbles through the years. Here you can barely break even with what you got at the start playing "historical"(nice Exiled Government tree, all in all) to "historical, but avoiding obvious mistakes in the hindsight"."

In this game, by definition, you don't play "historical" as in 1:1, as you'd play as Germany to lose from 41 onwards, capitulate as France and take a backseat for entire war with no real resistance work.
Historical in that context means "based on best possible reality of probable what ifs", guided by handicapped Providence of Player's hand.

Thus Germany goes Moscow, kills Dunkirk salient, abandons wunderwaffes and denies Strategic Bombers. Eurasian Domination by 41-42. Voila.
Thus France player anticipates Belgium go-around or just fullfills HISTORICAL bonds of Attacking those 12 divisions in the East of Germany in '39. War over by end of 39, voila.
Poland is nerfed (as France is) by very design to be curbstomped by Germany and it is my beef with that.
Poland can choose set focuses)and AI does in 1939 scenario, that didnt work IRL because they couldnt work.
Polish player (and French one) must thus struggle with that handicap.
French ones obviously have it easier with their tree or divisions or tech, that is not as badly designed as Poland is.

To those saying that this cannot be avoided - it can be - as Poland in 1939 has artificially bypassed Peasant Strike crisis (thus giving themselves extra 70 days ) , never build addional factories nor missing equipment (as army is as equipmentless at it was in 1936) - and never event went fully with historical political focuses - it is 140days short of them, despite shortcuts.
Same goes for many tech or construction focuses or even fumbled lead-nowhere historical focuses - they are not researched - they COULD (in those 1000 days, but they arent). Thus Poland is weaker than it should be, artificially.
So yes, all in all, Poland is bogged down and nerfed.

Poland is almost 1:1, at its core, the very Poland that started HoI 4 day one. Thus it is rigged to curbstomped without some extreme maneuvering and impossible foils like (there are many, but all of them are not fair and square imho) Civil-Waring in 1936 and going with Axis or milking the land construction (foregoing anything else, going well above AI limit really, just doing it and only it @onboardbasil) or AIs inability to pierce divisions or AI's inability to do paratroopers (nor defend effectively).

Land fort overdose I never critiqued per se, it is a new development for the good, actually. Even despite it's milky character described above.

Now tell me about Industry:
Poland (with developed post-German industry in the West and North) starts as industrialised (26+embargo) as mostly rural Romania (20), Yugos (18). Czechs with their 25 industry are comparable with about 2/3 of what should be in Poland - around 37, downsized to 35 vs French 50, German 70 or British 63.
One can compare raw numbers and get bogged down further.

IRL, weakened Poland's 4 year plan cost this poor country 240mln of zlotys (or 48million in 1939 US Dollar or 900millions US Dollars now),. Compare that to a price of contemporary Mauser rifle -170zl.
Going solely for industry, not doing anything else, but doing industry(researching and building only factories with factory-advisors) one can go to 40-42 factories over 3 years.
Thus, Poland is "robbed" out of 3-4 critical years due to design, achieving what Poland should have in 1936 by 1939/40. Thats a lot.

At the same time no other research, no other focuses, no other building nor even equipment is produced in sufficient numbers to arm EXISTING Polish army (which is too big in 1936 - should be 1/3 of those 40 divisions).
Manpower shortages are inexplicable,same goes for "voluntary recruitment". Poland had 2 milion guys ready to serve at moments notice.

Other countries dont even break a swet with 3-4 focuses achieving all that. Either they are too strong and Poland too weak as a victim of power creep, or Poland is too weak by design. Given that no updates were recieved to its starting setup, i suspect it is another.

Poland, despite being a Minor is something inbetween. Thus it should be treated differently, as an ascending power of sorts. It is treated as such in some regards - Miedzymorze being a stellar point - but it simply is too weak mechanically to pull off. Numbers just fall short of expectations - everything takes too long even in best-case-scenario - that even historical AI Poland cannot catch up to it's projected IRL performance, politics, tech etc etc.

After all, Focuses and starting positions are copy pasted from pre-NSB Poland with obsolescent setup (pre modernisation of eg Germany or Soviets).

What about my other points?

No democracy tree in Russia, No communism tree in Germany? Honk-honk focuses instead of real concrete developments? You guys are silent about it.
I'm not against ahistorical play, i underline it again. I am against filling the game with this wild scenarios to the detritement to the core of game or not solving the obvious shortcoming or artifacts from earlier updates.

Anastasia and Pavel (and others) are more or less personal choice: I strongly believe they represent something wacky, instead of something less wacky and unecessarily contrived - like Vladimir III of Russia (or Wlodzimierz I of Poland) or Commies going wild Neo-Global Revolution instead of Wanda Wasilewska (a compromise and "evolving" Leader of stalinism OR marxism(west-aligned or independent) choosing being Cuba (ideological marxist doing "wild" things like supporting Angola) or being a puppet (for sizeable and concrete bonuses from Daddy Stalin).

I might sound bellicose and sort of am, due to watching this "lack of balance" happening at least since around or even before La Resistance and cries of numerous peoples falling upon deaf ears.
At the same time I deeply believe that PDX can change, remove or modify things, as they listen to the community - most recently as adding a Habsburg candidate JUST BECAUSE people pointed his abscence (even noted in game files TY for that ) or believably (at least to me) explaining lack of Finland or some options in Poland.
I like majority of NSB thus my critique might sound harsh, as I target only those areas I find lacking. Somehow people ignore my open praise of Exile Branch (could be even developed further, given that 100% historical poland goes that way and tied with La Resistance further and one has to do something those 4-6 years), Peasant Strike or Russian Branches (except lack of Democracy) with brilliantly developed system of On-Map decisions or "finesse" options, like rights or after-war conditions.
Given that PDX can do those in harsh Covid conditions they could do so much more now that they have time and no restrictions. Interesting developments, like revamped Conferences and Event Cnferences, fixing the Danzig corridor (maybe adding "state infrastructure/right of way rights" ? to the game) or doing small fixes to adjust GER-SOV relations acordingly- Anti-SOVComintern event still fires despite Tsarists existing, same for Ribbentropp-Molotov and so on and so forth.

 

[safe-keeper]

I'm of two minds about accuracy. I mean, I joke about the more ahistorical scenarios in the game like everyone else, but as was said, we choose ourselves if we want to interact with them. I think what's most important to me is that plausible ahistorical scenarios, the ones that quite easily could have happened, or which a lot of people ponder, are included. What if Britain had declared war before the invasion of Poland? What if Norway shut off iron ore shipments to Narvik, or decided to intervene in the Altmark case? So what's the most important to me is that the more absurd ahistorical paths (US going communist overnight, for example) don't come at the expense of exploring the more reasonable scenarios.

As I've said before, I think HoI4's biggest issue is that all focus trees have to have a democratic, communist, facist, and monarchist path, no matter how shoehorned they have to be. I think that if the devs include some kind of focus trees in HoI5, I hope they leave them more open-ended. By all means throw in the occasional joke path and black swan -- the real history certainly has a lot of near-impossible things happening, too, but focus on the more plausible ahistorical paths.

 

[tract]

I honestly don't care about the fantasy foci because I can just ignore them.

I just want the undocumented, mandatory minigames out of the game.


There was a reddit thread the other day touching the thread's subject: The powercreep with each DLC

 

[Darth Howard]

I'm of two minds about accuracy. I mean, I joke about the more ahistorical scenarios in the game like everyone else, but as was said, we choose ourselves if we want to interact with them. I think what's most important to me is that plausible ahistorical scenarios, the ones that quite easily could have happened, or which a lot of people ponder, are included. What if Britain had declared war before the invasion of Poland? What if Norway shut off iron ore shipments to Narvik, or decided to intervene in the Altmark case? So what's the most important to me is that the more absurd ahistorical paths (US going communist overnight, for example) don't come at the expense of exploring the more reasonable scenarios.

As I've said before, I think HoI4's biggest issue is that all focus trees have to have a democratic, communist, facist, and monarchist path, no matter how shoehorned they have to be. I think that if the devs include some kind of focus trees in HoI5, I hope they leave them more open-ended. By all means throw in the occasional joke path and black swan -- the real history certainly has a lot of near-impossible things happening, too, but focus on the more plausible ahistorical paths.

I am leaning heavily into the historical aspect of the game ("og", introduced to hoi with HoI2 and HoI3), and would like pdx to go full into that. However I recognize that alt. Hist sell, and I really do not play most of them (those I don't like), but I do enjoy some!, and would rather have the alternate focus trees be like the older ones, i.e what if Germany did this instead of that within their own idoelogy. And what I want would really put most off (but glad some of them got introduced such as fuel and railways!), but I don't see how an Anastasia easter egg ruin for historical Poland. I only see this as a blatant attempt to buff default Poland even further behind the veil of "historical accuracy".

I actually see it through another lense, newly reworked countries such as Turkey, USSR, and Poland get extreme buffs to their countries and leaders that leave older nations like Germany and Japan in an awkward position. That being said I enjoy many of the new internal mechanics and hope they will introduce them in other nations.

 

[Fas Est]

So what's the most important to me is that the more absurd ahistorical paths (US going communist overnight, for example) don't come at the expense of exploring the more reasonable scenarios.

There was a reddit thread the other day touching the thread's subject:

https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/utpcdi

You two have voiced tldr my opinion way better that I had and I am thankfull for these. Especially the first one, but power creep is real.
In that case, it avoided Poland, in my opinion, when the rest went along.
In certain places I would surely nerf 1936 Poland, like amount of Divisions reduced to 1/3.

 

[Fas Est]

(...) I don't see how an Anastasia easter egg ruin for historical Poland. I only see this as a blatant attempt to buff default Poland even further behind the veil of "historical accuracy".

I actually see it through another lense, newly reworked countries such as Turkey, USSR, and Poland get extreme buffs to their countries and leaders that leave older nations like Germany and Japan in an awkward position. That being said I enjoy many of the new internal mechanics and hope they will introduce them in other nations.

Again, I must concede that I cannot explain things well initially, maybe in general, without addendums here and there.
Full half of my beef with monarichist ones, especially Anastasia and Pavel, is their OP nature vs regular and semi-regular (NAT/COMMIE/DEMO) approaches, that I subsequently *tried* to voice, but I think it wasnt clear enough.
The rest it is its sheer randomness, beyond the scope of black swan events imho. Viable alternatives (like Włodzimierz I ) or still-swanny-but-probable (Anastasia does a Civil War INSIDE Civil Warrying or low stability Established Tsarists, Pavel serving as a general)
I'd certainly want to see some additional mechanics that would nerf them, for some more, than for others, with flat - stability loss and mounting stability decrease during interregnum (the longer it takes, for Anastasia, it is around 9 months?). I was surprised that Sejmik Regencyjny doesnt have any traits to that tune.
Pretender mechanism is an example of finesse I like, so I am surprised those issues are not addressed.

 

[Thrawn000000]

Okay, so

1) What do you mean by "VOTE NOW"? I mean, unless you're the 50% shareholder of PDX, you probably can't just vote for a significant change to a highly successful game. The devs will of course read the forums, but they see plenty of people who like the changes. If there really is a big problem, the devs will change things (e.g. Habsburg Poland)

2) Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Byzantine path can be done pretty quickly, so I don't understand how that and Turan are in any way related (but thanks for agreeing that the Byzantine path can be a fun game) (perhaps we need more like that if you enjoy it). Similarly, how would a Communist Germany after 1936 be in any way plausible? In 1933, the KPD was effectively banned, and members were arrested. Don't get me wrong, I think a Communist GER path would be good, but I acknowledge that it's wildly implausible

3) "Community many-a-time has voiced their concerns and exasperation with it" The "Community" you're talking about is far from united on the issue (like, look at this or any other thread on the topic, and see the amount of debate). In addition, I'd guess that far from all Hoi4 players are active on the forums or other places, and you're writing out these players entirely.

4) "What happened in No Step Back was spending too much time designing Crusader Kings focuses and Baltics!!! trees" Uhh, what do you have against trees for the Baltics?

5) Problems with Polish equipment are likely for balance; it wouldn't do well for the Germans to fail to take Poland

6) I've said this too many times on the forum, but what is the problem with ahistorical things if you don't have to play them?

7) (From the post above this one) wait, wait, wait, in what universe is it probable for there to be a double civil war led by Anastasia? That's ludicrous