I am not sure how much effort is going to be put into making ahistorical options like this. It is something that they have implied they intend to make, but it really seems to be too much ground to cover. If only a single major event is altered in some way, it changes everything that follows. How will all of this work?
I'm not sure how much effort will be put into ahistorical options, either.
But I am pointing out that the Danzig Crisis is a very complicated issue. It is complicated beyond "Would Hitler have made additional demands on Poland or annexed her outright if he got his way with Danzig?" Some folks see German claims on Danzig as a two body problem (Germany versus Allies). Some people see it as a three body problem (Poland-Germany-Allies). Some people think about it as a four body problem (Germany-Poland-France-Britain). Some people even see it as a five body problem (Germany-Poland-France-Britain-Italy). But it is, in fact, as 246 body problem (Germany-Poland-France-Britain-Italy-Japan-Soviet Union...) The climate of Europe in 1937-1940 was so volatile that we see tons of ultimatums and politicking in the instability Germany created, some of them having Polish participation. After all, Poland got a small territorial award in First Vienna Award (a historical event I first learned about in HOI3 when I saw Poland unexpectedly expand the first time I ran First Vienna Award) and issued an ultimatum to Lithuania in 1938 to which Lithuania acquiesced, things that wouldn't have been possible if Europe had been more stable. And that's just Poland. You start looking at things from the Soviet side of the equation, and Stalin has tons of options to expand Soviet power and influence, even if the M-R Pact never happens. British and French actions in the lead up to Danzig were historically watched very closely by Stalin, and I can imagine even slight changes in their policy throughout 36-39 having a substantial impact on Soviet policy.
In other words, the ultimatum over Danzig doesn't take place in a vacuum. German behavior and Soviet behavior make it possible that the same historical event occurs (Germany issues an ultimatum to Poland), but the geo-political landscape of Europe is different enough to make the choices available to Poland, Britain, and France very different.
And HOI3 does kind of model this. In older versions, the Allies never cared about Soviet threat, and the Soviets could annex or puppet anyone without consequences. Then the AI was changed; Britain would attack the Soviets if they were not already at war with Germany and if Soviet threat was too high. This was great, because not only closed an exploit, but it also gave the AI a historical reaction to ahistorical actions taken by a player. But the catch is that if First Vienna Award had already fired, Britain will ally with Poland, no matter what wars or crises are happening with the Soviets. So, WWII kind of starts on autopilot even if the Soviets have changed the equation.
I know the game can't come close to simulating everything, but I do hope that seminal events like Danzig or Munich are handled in a slightly less binary way, especially now that Paradox's game technology and design has advanced since HOI3 originally came out.
And it is kind of sad that some people consider Hitler a pragmatic politician. I mean starting a world war was only his second largest crime and his second most irrational decision.
I consider Hitler and Bismark to be the exact opposites of each other in terms of how they run politics and diplomacy. Bismark was no doubt spinning in his grave during the 30s.
