English Essay: What are your views on alternate history content?

[Thrawn000000]

The title says it all, what do you think about the alt-hist stuff? Like it? Don't? What are the reasons? I'm fortunate enough that my teacher's letting me write about our game community's debates!

I know this is (or at least was) a controversial topic, but please keep it civil

Thanks!

 

[LastButterfly]

Are... are we supposed to do the whole dialectic thing ? Thesis antithesis synthesis ? Something like that ? My english vocabulary might run dry if I tryied to achieve such a thing...

I personally think alt-history in its general sense is unavoidable. First because a game is an approximate representation of reality, and thus simplifications are in order - although that's likely not what you're referring to when saying "alt-history". But most importantly, by merely playing the game, you will deviate from what actually happened in history ; even if you're trying to achieve the same thing, your means will be different. And that's a good thing : a game to be played in one exact way is not a game, it's a movie and you're not playing it. There's a domino effect from here : if you take France and decide to "survive the German assault", you're already alt-history because you're aware a German assault will take place, and your focus on defense will have to be answered appropriately by Germany, which will then behave differently. In short, a WWII simulator is by nature meant to be ahistorical to some degree.

But there are shades in alt-history. Each of us rate the probability of a certain choice and some tend to dislike the more improbable ones. France reforming its military before the war to be ready for conflict ? Somewhat likely. The japanese peasants overthrowing Hirohito to install a communist regime ?... probably slightly less plausible.
Thus, regarding more "hard" alt-history, I would say that they personally do not bother me. On the contrary, no matter how fantastic a choice is, it only brings variety to the game, and variety is the spice of fun. Makes fun spicy. i'm a bit of an odd public for the game in that regard I believe : I care less for "what" is offered and more for "how much". The more options I have, regardless of their plausibility, the happier I am. Sticking to historical or "light" ahistorical limits the options, and thus i'm open for more choices and more fun.

It could be argued that some would be looking for a more realistic WWII strategy game. And it's most likely true, but a game has to choose its public. A close-to-history gameplay will not please the fans like me. As such, there is probably no wrong or right in deciding what type of content to add to the game. It's just a choice of target audience in the end. HoI4 even makes an effort of having a "historical" mode which voluntarily curtails the variety of things the game offers the player. Said like that, it sounds like a very bad idea - who in their right mind would implement a button that removes content from the game ? But this is a testament to how HoI4 is trying to cater a very wide audience by offering both kind of people options to play the way they prefer. Whether this choice is a good or bad thing, I'll leave for commercial experts to discuss...

 

[Iskulya]

The thread title mentions the word essay, but the original post is extremely brief.

I feel lied to.

 

[Orlunu]

The fundamental bounds are set by the genre. WW2 strategy game - for it to be a strategy game, one must be able to change the strategic situation, for it to be a WW2 game it must be true to setting. Of course, WW2 is a relatively fixed history, it isn't at all divergent, so these two requirements are in antagonism. Where each person sits on that is variable, but, fundamentally I reckon... "authenticity" is probably the right word for what should be aimed for. Alt history is fundamentally necessary, but plausibility is one of the main criteria for judging it.

 

[LastButterfly]

I am mildly upset by the fact that @Orlunu said in 4 lines what I tryied to convey in a badgillion.

 

[AP Erebus]

Of course, WW2 is a relatively fixed history

I would argue that WW2 is very fixed history (as most history is)

 

[goodcigar]

I don't dislike it but I don't like the limited resources of the Devs being diverted towards it.

 

[AlextheSwift]

The title says it all, what do you think about the alt-hist stuff? Like it? Don't? What are the reasons? I'm fortunate enough that my teacher's letting me write about our game community's debates!

I know this is (or at least was) a controversial topic, but please keep it civil

Thanks!

Here is a summary of my view of Hearts of Iron 4's alt-history:

- Hitler can go for Yugoslavia instead of Czechoslovakia, great!
- Trosky can come to power if Stalin doesn't take the purge, great!
- France can focus on the Little Entente instead, great!
- England can stop their appeasement policy early, great!
- We have a democractic & monarchy path for Germany, great!
- We have a communist, fascist and monarchy path for France, great!
- We have a communist, fascist and non-aligned path for England, great!

Man I love the way Paradox does alt-history, sure Japan's focus tree is kind of plain but I love that each country has all 4 ideologies to choose from as well as alternative paths within the chosen ideology, really adds to replyability and immersion, it also makes you feel like you can choose, you have decisisons.

- Hungary can form Austria-Hungary, wasn't Austria supposed to do that? While the Hungarians would go for Greater Hungary instead? The Hungarians tried to get rid of the Austrians for years. Anyway, a bit wrong but it's nice to have Austria-Hungary in the game.
- Yugoslavia can split itself into puppet pieces and then put itself back together, can also puppet Transylvania who has core on West Banat for some reason. Wtf? Who came up with this? I refuse to believe someone at the Paradox studio said "guys, I have a great idea what to do with Yugoslavia" he presented this trash and they all agreed.
- Italy can form the Roman Empire, gaining cores on all the old regions of the Roman Empire, guys, seriously, please stop. Leave that to modders. You were supposed to make a World War II game.
- Greece can form the Byzantine Empire. Bulgaria can form the Third Bulgarian Empire. Germany can form the European Union.... oh my god. Look how they massacred my boy.
- Turkey can form the Ottoman Empire, okay, finally a formable nation that actually makes sense within this context. Like a breath of fresh air in a sea of pollution.

My views on older patches' alt-history was: amazing.

My views on newer patches' alt history is:

 

[anbeck]

For me, WW2 alt-history was always about "what if Italy had taken Gibraltar" or what if scenarios relating to the outcomes of Dunkirk, Stalingrad or maybe even the Spanish Civil War. I was never interested in "what if the Romanov's had somehow (???) come back" or "what if there had been a Portuguese Empire that conquered all of China and Japan". So I lean towards the sandbox side of things (start with the historical parameters and see how different decisions lead to different outcomes) rather than the radical alt-history paths (change the historical parameters to see how that affects the outcome).

That being said, that is purely a personal preference, so I don't mind there being alternate paths in the game - especially, if the new NSB feature that those focus tree sub-branches that are blocked are removed from the tree.

I have no idea how much resources the development of alt-history paths gobbles up, but I would think that rather than the actual research towards these trees, it is the balancing that is a resource-intensive issue. Still, I would think that most of the resources are spent on balancing historical games, so I again do not mind.

That being said, I've never ever played a single alt-history focus tree branch of any major in the game.

 

[Miganto]

The thread title mentions the word essay, but the original post is extremely brief.

I feel lied to.

We are writing his essay / homework for him.

 

[Reman]

All reasonable people accept that some amount of alt history should be present, the question merely becomes where to draw the line on how much there should be. Furthermore, the fact that there's a "historical" options ensures that people don't have to play with it if they choose not to. At that point it's merely an issue of dev priorities; crazy ahistorical focus trees will never be actively harmful to anyone's enjoyment, it'll simply be a consideration of opportunity cost, of what could have been developed instead, e.g. "Did Finland deserve a historical focus tree before we got Anarchist Spain". Those sorts of things.

I'm strongly in favor of alt history as a way to spice up the game. I think it's especially necessary for single player, as new focuses can both act as a second difficulty slider (e.g. Monarchist Germany is basically just a slightly harder regular Germany game), and they can gave a reason to play in new theaters. As mechanics have gotten more realistic like resistance/compliance and supplies, weaker countries have needed more and more to keep pace. It's possible to play any nation with typical cheese openers like rush Fascist --> join Axis --> early cap Netherlands to get started, but I think it's a lot more fun if things happen more organically, like what they've recently done with Lithuania's focus tree with how you build up early in the Baltics and Poland before a major fight with the Soviets in 1940.

It basically comes down to whether you want HoI4 to be a World War 2 simulation, or a sandbox game set in the World War 2 era. The latter is much more interesting in the long term.

 

[Jays298]

It's nice to have but the problem is the game is either 100% on the rails historical, or 100% off the rails, totally bonkers, random nonsensical wars with random alliances.

I think once I saw France and Romania in the same war defending Romania against Italy and Austria but France and Romania weren't in a faction together.

So going to war with countries you can't access, with allies who don't have access, tons of different factions that won't work well together.

 

[FlinzP]

Alternative choices as they are relevant to actual ww2 is good way to do it. There should be different plans how to execute your approach towards your ultimate goals. Adds replay values and gives feel of choice. Germany is again good example. You can have different annex plans towards your neighbours or you might puppet some of them. You choose the order and methods. Great. There could be more choices but is generally fine.

While I don't really oppose those alternative form of nation things, I don't like them that much either. Why? Time period is way too short for it. We are almost at the war and seats are set for it. There were unstable times after the great war but at year 1936 it is way too late for major changes. At this time alt history build up should only be option for the South American and Middle Eastern nations. Any European instability would just cause interventions and total collapses that other nations would try to benefit on. We can use Poland as example here. Any major problems there would probably mean USSR or Germany putting their spoons in.

Not to mention any nation surviving a larger change of power would cause years of rebuilding. Not something you would do. Game kinda sees most of civil wars with conflict between military units but it would devastate most nations. We can see Spain as example here. It stayed out of the major events of the war.

I believe game gives too much "power" to some of the alt history paths. Rebuilding actual monarchies would put any nation far behind with resources and military power. There were reasons why Monarchies did struggle. I can understand it for balance reasons as they wouldn't make sense to play that much but wouldn't that be the challenge of playing them? Summoning things from nothing seems to be there fix time issues.

 

[Herr B.]

We are writing his essay / homework for him.

We are giving him the arguments for the homework. Not the homework itself.

For me personally, alt-hist branches should be slightly more confined than they currently are.

Examples:
GB: The historic, intervetionist (early Churchill) and non-aligned (King's party) path are fine and somewhat plausible, but I would personally remove both the fashist and the communist path.

GER: All path are fine, but the civil war needs to be harder and more complex, including outside intervention.

SOV: The alt-communist branches are fine, but I personally would remove the anti-communist branches.

FRA: Democratic and communist are fine, but I would remove the fashist and monarchist path.

ITA: Italy is probably the most confined one, but only because there focus tree never got an update. The alt-hist branches are all fine, there could even be more (a non-aligned path and a democratic one, probably. Hopefully not a communist one.)

JAP: The communist branch is a disgrace. I would probably also delete the democratic one, only keeping fashist (historical) and non-aligned.

USA: Delete everything outside democratic. This is so stupid.

For the minor, similar stuff applies.

That's my take. Keep plausible alt-history, but remove all the meme branches.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Had alternative paths kept semblance of balance, I would be fine with them. But the moment you take "historical focuses" setting off, every AI starts doing its own thing, disregarding world situation and their own well-being (which is what they always do, but at least historical path make them react to geopolitical situation in a reasonable manner). Sure, you might get a lot of localized meme conflicts, but any chance of getting WW2 magnitude conflict in that game is pretty much ruined. And what is the purpose of the WW2-themed game with no WW2? There are other PDS games that focus on sandboxy stuff, and are much better at it.

 

[DominusNovus]

Plausible alternate history: good
ASB alternate history: blech

 

[xtfoster]

We are writing his essay / homework for him.

My impression is that his homework/essay is about the discussion he wants us to have.

 

[Herr B.]

It basically comes down to whether you want HoI4 to be a World War 2 simulation, or a sandbox game set in the World War 2 era. The latter is much more interesting in the long term.

There is a very important difference between HOI4 and all other PDX games, that is unfortunatly often overlooked: This timespan.

All other grand history games span at least 100 years (VIC), most span more (up to 600 years in CK3). During these timespans, pretty much everything was up for grabs, minor nations rose to superpowers, while empires crumbled. During all of these timespans, the economic and technological development altered the world in a way, that made it unrecognizable.

In constrast to that, HOI4 has a stricly limited timespan of ~10 years ('36 to '46, even though most games end before that). Historically, in this time frame excatly ONE major war happend. Technology or economy did not advance significantly, and society was certainly not shaken in a serious way.

In conclusion, to expect the same amount of variety/sandbox is silly, if you also want to account for (some) realism. As the saying goes, "Rome was not build in a day", but in HOI4 only one (metaphorical) day passes.

 

[Gefallener_Held]

that being said, that is purely a personal preference,

I agreed with you up until this "purely a personal preference" bit.

We are giving him the arguments for the homework. Not the homework itself.

For me personally, alt-hist branches should be slightly more confined than they currently are.

Examples:
GB: The historic, intervetionist (early Churchill) and non-aligned (King's party) path are fine and somewhat plausible, but I would personally remove both the fashist and the communist path.

GER: All path are fine, but the civil war needs to be harder and more complex, including outside intervention.

SOV: The alt-communist branches are fine, but I personally would remove the anti-communist branches.

FRA: Democratic and communist are fine, but I would remove the fashist and monarchist path.

ITA: Italy is probably the most confined one, but only because there focus tree never got an update. The alt-hist branches are all fine, there could even be more (a non-aligned path and a democratic one, probably. Hopefully not a communist one.)

JAP: The communist branch is a disgrace. I would probably also delete the democratic one, only keeping fashist (historical) and non-aligned.

USA: Delete everything outside democratic. This is so stupid.

For the minor, similar stuff applies.

That's my take. Keep plausible alt-history, but remove all the meme branches.

This is mostly the correct take, but I think fascism might be plausible in the UK, as communism did have appeal in the US in the 30s. German civl war has problems with the details, eg like von Mackensen leading it. Could have had General Beck or more likely figures.

As others have stated, alt-history should only allow for things that are plausible or that have the color of plausibility. This has been discussed before. I suggest the term, color of plausibility, for lack of a better of term, to address those who assert (I believe wrongly) that the World War 2 was a foregone conclusion, and was lost on Sept 1 1939, or that Germany could never have defeated the USSR, so on and so forth. Unlike Monarchsit USA or other silly nonsesne, there are the subejcts that continue to be debated and discussed seventy years on, so it is fair game. Outcomes that any historical player either sought to achieve or under the color of plausibility sought to achieve (excepting of course aspects off limits from paradox rules) are an important barometer. So even though most agree Sea Lion was implausible and unworkable, the fact that it was considered both by the Germans and anticipated by the British means it should be in the game.

As Herr B articulates, things that do not belong in the game include things like Monarchist USA or Communist Japan, etc.

People on here who dislike the ridiculous, meme alt-history usually seem to have a "live let and let live," whatever floats your boat attitude. I do not agree with that. Resources used for this stuff should have been applied to proper game development. I am not at all convinced that multiplying the number of possible scenarios does not break ai scripting. I am not expert but prior threads on this have featured persuasive commentaries on how this is so.

In the past couple of days alone, there are two threads lamenting state of battle planner. Resources and attention devoted to monarchist USA should have fixed that, for starters.

I submit that a finished, polished WW2 strategy game in the framework of HOI4 is a most ambitious one, perhaps ambitious one. Overwhelmed by the things that actually mater, Paradox just threw these things out to distract people. And that it seems to have worked to some degree is precisely the problem.

 

[Reman]

There is a very important difference between HOI4 and all other PDX games, that is unfortunatly often overlooked: This timespan.

All other grand history games span at least 100 years (VIC), most span more (up to 600 years in CK3). During these timespans, pretty much everything was up for grabs, minor nations rose to superpowers, while empires crumbled. During all of these timespans, the economic and technological development altered the world in a way, that made it unrecognizable.

In constrast to that, HOI4 has a stricly limited timespan of ~10 years ('36 to '46, even though most games end before that). Historically, in this time frame excatly ONE major war happend. Technology or economy did not advance significantly, and society was certainly not shaken in a serious way.

In conclusion, to expect the same amount of variety/sandbox is silly, if you also want to account for (some) realism. As the saying goes, "Rome was not build in a day", but in HOI4 only one (metaphorical) day passes.

Counterpoint: Gameplay > Realism. If we accept that small powers shouldn't be able to do much because the timespan makes it "implausible", then we're throwing away 90% of starting positions and the game becomes a 1v1 of Germany vs Soviets, where everything else is vastly unimportant by comparison. Tons of interesting scenarios would thrown in the garbage because of an arbitrary appeal to realism.