Generic Focus Tree: Fascist vs. Communist is WAY out of balance

[ForsakenSoldier]

Greetings.

So, when playing as a generic minor, you get the generic focus tree... I know the communist side is for wanting to join up with the soviet union basically, but other than actually flipping communist (which you can do without the focuses) the communist side offers virtually nothing useful while the Fascist side gives you a SEVEN PERCENT INCREASE IN RECRUITABLE MANPOWER. SEVEN PERCENT.

That is MASSIVE. Any minor that goes fascist basically never needs to go higher than limited conscription, if even that. Most times i can stay on volunteer only. Fascism also gets 10% faster training time and less harsh partisans.

I started a game as Yugoslavia with the full intent of going communist (since it makes sense to me, with all those little nations inside of it, its like a mini USSR).. But when i got down the focus tree i was like "hmm, well, if i want this to actually be FUN im much better off choosing Fascism."

It's just such a no-brainer, i wish it wasn't. It needs to be more balanced, communist side needs some RP too, at least like 4%... Or maybe faster construction/production speeds. SOMETHING. Right now the generic communism side is basically "flavor only" and even then, the flavor is vanilla.

 

[spartansociety]

SP, going communist is for role playing. You don't need to manpower bonus to win, it just helps. I wouldnt mind them removing the bonus for the fascist tree though.

 

[Dalwin]

The manpower for fascist minors is way out of balance, so much so that it distorts things even when one is not playing any of the minors. Hungary produces a far larger army than it should because it is always in position to take advantage.

In my opinion the designers did that intentionally saying effectively that you can play any country and by going fascist build an empire. As such I do not think they are at all sympathetic to seeing this imbalance corrected since, as far as I can recall, they have made not a single comment to such an effect.

 

[Lord Dakier]

The game has seen fascism far overpowered from the get go. Effectively all the fascist factions are about rapid expansion in the early game and fighting it out at the mid to late game.

I find the current mechanics of Commies, Democrats, Imperialists/Non-Aligned pretty far-fetch and unrealistic.

 

[Nobody987]

Same here, I agree with op. Besides roleplay reason there is no much sense in going through communist tree. It look like in multiplayer there can be some sense, but even that is doubtful. As mentioned all fascist bonuses are really neat.
In my opinion both trees shoild be nerfed, where f. Tree should have smaller bonuses and c. Tree should be bumped a bit.

Edit: while at the topic of ideology trees, staying neutral should have some nice bonuses regarding manpower, so that it stay relevant option to choose. Basically playing with minor nations you always struggle with manpower and i see that as main reason for going fascist

 

[cat013]

Communist tree needs serious bonuses for subversive activities. At least comparable to what Trotsky's USSR gets.

 

[Solaxe]

7% sounds laughably small

 

[Dalwin]

7% sounds laughably small

That is a clear sign that you are not very familiar with the game mechanics. Going from volunteer to limited conscription is an increase from 1.5% to 2.5 or a gain of 1%. It is a further 2.5 % to go to extensive conscription. This one path in the fascist branch of the generic focus tree is worth roughly twice as much as two levels of conscription law. While at the same time democratic, communist and unaligned get nothing significant.

None of the custom NF trees for the various majors or the Commonwealth minors in TFV has anything at all comparable to this huge 7% block of recruitable manpower.

 

[pedrito_elcabra]

Communist could use some recruitable pop bonus, especially considering that USSR actually was one of the few countries which sent women to the front.

 

[Dalwin]

Communist could use some recruitable pop bonus, especially considering that USSR actually was one of the few countries which sent women to the front.

That argument is not really pertinent, IMO, since Russia uses a custom tree and not the generic one. I suppose your premise is that communism in other more industrialized nations would take a similar form to that in Russia, but I think this is more an issue of culture than of government ideology.

The communist branch should get a slight boost strictly for the sake of balance since they also are capable of unprovoked aggression within the HOI4 political rules. Similarly fascism should see a reduction and the other two should get a manpower increase that is dependent on them being in a defensive war.

 

[Slimmins]

Yea the fascist bonus is pretty great, its a shame that this makes going the neutrality tree pretty damn useless. Also makes a bunch of minors way more powerful than their democratic counterparts that should still be within the realm of reason.

The communist tree needs some comparable manpower increase, seeing as the Commintern really only gets one major power to rely on as minors. Where as the allies Get USA, Britain, France, India down the road and so on

 

[Zwirbaum]

To be honest I would change that fascist manpower boost applies only to core provinces, and maybe lower it slightly, while give communism boost to non-core manpower. Generic democracies, could lower the industry penalty from non-core.

 

[ForsakenSoldier]

The manpower for fascist minors is way out of balance, so much so that it distorts things even when one is not playing any of the minors. Hungary produces a far larger army than it should because it is always in position to take advantage.

In my opinion the designers did that intentionally saying effectively that you can play any country and by going fascist build an empire. As such I do not think they are at all sympathetic to seeing this imbalance corrected since, as far as I can recall, they have made not a single comment to such an effect.

Well, here is this thread, and it's on the front page. Hopefully one will decide to humor us with a comment.

 

[cuendillar]

Well, judging from the other complaint about balance (Germany doing far too poorly) I don't think further weakening the Axis in Europe would be all that prudent. Sure, it's an imbalance when deciding to play as a minor, but maybe the timing of such a change could be better later on.

 

[Thorvi]

In my opinion every generic ideology sub-tree should get equal manpower boost like 7%(or 4% for balance purposes), and not only fascist.
Just because it is not fun to play as a not fascist country with generic focus tree.

 

[paulatreides0]

Then again though, fascists are also the ones who are far more often than not going to be outnumbered. This being a WWII game, it almost inevitably ends up with the fascist faction up against the democratic Allied faction and the communist Commintern faction simultaneously - both of which have sizable manpower and production pools in excess of the fascist faction. So I do think that it makes sense balance-wise that the fascists need to extract more manpower from their branch.

Further, I feel like this is primarily a problem because there are still some big nations without dedicated focus trees. However, as we get away from that then the problem should decrease substantially. TBH, the idea kind of makes sense balance wise for small nations which are already manpower starved - otherwise they wouldn't be fun to play since you'd only get to field a handful of divisions in a huge conflict. The problem becomes when you suddenly get China, which has quite a lot of, people flipping - or something else along those lines. As we add in more and more dedicated trees to big nations, though, that should become an increasingly small issue.

That being said it can be rather powerful in the hands of a player even for a relatively small country...but then again, if we were going by that logic we wouldn't allow players to build anything but LARM, Mot, and Foot-Mobiles for land warfare.

 

[ForsakenSoldier]

7% sounds laughably small

Start a game as a minor, go fascist. Peep your RP before you run the focuses, then peep afterwards. Tell me it was a small increase, lol.

 

[Slimmins]

The generic tree that is for minors should give manpower boosts, yea the fascists are outnumbered. But this is not really manpower related as far as a concerned. Perhaps not to the same degree as fascism, but communism certainly needs a boost.

The more manpower in this regard, the more allotment for alternate history

 

[Nevrion]

Hm, ok ... 7 % can be a lot, depending which minor state you have. Lets say Peru (fore example) has about 350.000 manpower: 7% are 24.500 additional manpower. Compared with USA or Germany it's nothing, but it could make a difference. Because you can combine it with "limited conscription" for your recruitable people and add even more with some of the land doctrines. Probably it would be the best to give a equal bonus to other ideologies.

 

[cuendillar]

It would probably be more interesting if all ideology trees didn't get the same bonuses. The fascists already have manpower, democrats have a strong defence (via the deterrence path) so maybe the communists should get some production efficiency bonuses to compensate ('Empower the Workers', maybe). Democracy should probably get some more boosts too, like faster infrastructure and civilian factories.