HoI 4 - Dev Diary: America Rework

[Lorehead]

Nice preview livestream. This seems like a good place to post a couple of comments on really minor stuff.

West Mid West: You could really punch up these events with more evocative names. In the Depression, another name for it was the Dust Bowl, and that might be a good bit of flavor if they’re rebelling because everything’s terrible and they’re fed up. Better known as the Great Plains.

A movement like the in-game Constitutionalists (I really like that name) might call the states from Ohio to Minnesota the Old Northwest. It calls back to the right period of history for them (and both Northwest and Northwest Territory referred to other pieces of land by then). Or the Great Lakes. If the Syndies—excuse me, Commies—make that their powerbase, maybe they call it the Steel Belt. It’s ahistorical, but has resonance for Americans today who know it as the Rust Belt.

You might also call the region that stayed with the Loyalists in the livestream the Rockies or, more poetically, the Big Sky.

MacArthur offers to take over: Again, a small nit about writing style, but it’s out of character for this game to be this naïve. A military junta doesn’t “offer” to take over the government, then go back to their jobs as if nothing had happened.

The way this would most plausibly happen is that the President invokes the Insurrection Act, sends in the Army to put down the “insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy,” and possibly also declares a national emergency as FDR historically did in 1939 and 1941. Then there is an order similar to FDR’s Executive Order 9340, in which he sent in the army to break strikes and seize the coal mines. (“I should use all the power vested in me as President and Commander in Chief to protect the national interest and to prevent further interference with the successful prosecution of the war.”) The government in the new timeline could use similar language, but go further, either because it’s more sinister or because there are more strikes and lockouts.

At that point, Douglas MacArthur (who historically was called in to break up a protest in DC between the wars, and might still be Army Chief of Staff) gets promoted to General of the Armies and is granted so much power that the elected President becomes a figurehead. Or, the President manages to retain civilian control over the military but doesn’t fire him.

Contemporaries wouldn’t describe this as MacArthur “offering to take over the government.” They might say that the War Department is losing confidence in the President, or make it a question: “Is MacArthur the Man America Needs?”

Armored Cars: Historically, armies attempted to use these for recon. Another in-game use would be military police. In-game, they might be an upgrade to cavalry that’s better in flat terrain? It’s an oversimplifcation, yes, but it makes sense that the US troops occupying captured territory or rushing in to push naval invasions back into the sea would be riding armored cars and jeeps, not horses or light tanks.

 

[Dlin369]

Nice preview livestream. This seems like a good place to post a couple of comments on really minor stuff.

West Mid West: You could really punch up these events with more evocative names. In the Depression, another name for it was the Dust Bowl, and that might be a good bit of flavor if they’re rebelling because everything’s terrible and they’re fed up. Better known as the Great Plains.

A movement like the in-game Constitutionalists (I really like that name) might call the states from Ohio to Minnesota the Old Northwest. It calls back to the right period of history for them (and both Northwest and Northwest Territory referred to other pieces of land by then). Or the Great Lakes. If the Syndies—excuse me, Commies—make that their powerbase, maybe they call it the Steel Belt. It’s ahistorical, but has resonance for Americans today who know it as the Rust Belt.

You might also call the region that stayed with the Loyalists in the livestream the Rockies or, more poetically, the Big Sky.

MacArthur offers to take over: Again, a small nit about writing style, but it’s out of character for this game to be this naïve. A military junta doesn’t “offer” to take over the government, then go back to their jobs as if nothing had happened.

The way this would most plausibly happen is that the President invokes the Insurrection Act, sends in the Army to put down the “insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy,” and possibly also declares a national emergency as FDR historically did in 1939 and 1941. Then there is an order similar to FDR’s Executive Order 9340, in which he sent in the army to break strikes and seize the coal mines. (“I should use all the power vested in me as President and Commander in Chief to protect the national interest and to prevent further interference with the successful prosecution of the war.”) The government in the new timeline could use similar language, but go further, either because it’s more sinister or because there are more strikes and lockouts.

At that point, Douglas MacArthur (who historically was called in to break up a protest in DC between the wars, and might still be Army Chief of Staff) gets promoted to General of the Armies and is granted so much power that the elected President becomes a figurehead. Or, the President manages to retain civilian control over the military but doesn’t fire him.

Contemporaries wouldn’t describe this as MacArthur “offering to take over the government.” They might say that the War Department is losing confidence in the President, or make it a question: “Is MacArthur the Man America Needs?”

Armored Cars: Historically, armies attempted to use these for recon. Another in-game use would be military police. In-game, they might be an upgrade to cavalry that’s better in flat terrain? It’s an oversimplifcation, yes, but it makes sense that the US troops occupying captured territory or rushing in to push naval invasions back into the sea would be riding armored cars and jeeps, not horses or light tanks.

In-lore the events describe the army as defecting to the Constitutionalists (along with basically all the best generals), so I think they made MacArthur's offer more of a personal thing as he's basically an opportunist at this point

 

[Lorehead]

Oh, and the famous ace pilot who (while not a fascist) might plausibly have been willing to join a fascist-aligned faction? Charles Lindbergh.

 

[Lorehead]

In-lore the events describe the army as defecting to the Constitutionalists (along with basically all the best generals), so I think they made MacArthur's offer more of a personal thing as he's basically an opportunist at this point

I can’t tell you what exactly Douglas MacArthur would have done in various Second Civil War scenarios. The way he handled the Bonus March in 1932, especially (and ironically, considering how his career ended) the way he disobeyed an order from the President and the Secretary of War by pursuing the protesters over the Potomac river, makes this kind of extrapolation plausible. He saw them, against all the evidence, as a Communist plot to overthrow the government and felt the need to crush them.

My point is more that there’s history we can draw on to flesh the flavor text. For example, look at what both FDR and Truman did in this time period when they thought strikes in the coal mines were endangering national security, and then imagine that there are a lot more strikes in critical industries across the country. Look at how MacArthur would later run the military occupation of Japan. Or look at martial law in Rebel territory during and after the U.S. Civil War.

“MacArthur offers to take over the government” just doesn’t make as much sense or seem as interesting as, say, MacArthur disobeying an order by the President and crossing the Ohio River, daring the President to fire him.

Maybe he forms a junta and says, “I have no idea how a bunch of commies and fascists managed to get elected and wreck the most powerful nation in the history of the world, but I’m going to stop it..” He would not be wrong! But that doesn’t end with American Fascists winning a civil war, and is also a retread of Kaiserreich.

Keeping in mind that this is a game where, if Nazi Germany invades New York City, a stray artillery shell decapitates the Statue of Liberty.

 

[James Hale]

Oh, and the famous ace pilot who (while not a fascist) might plausibly have been willing to join a fascist-aligned faction? Charles Lindbergh.

Lindbergh was... well, certainly borderline fascist, if not a card-carrying one. I mean the guy was into eugenics and admired the Nazi regime.

Also...

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...am-thoughts-on-america.1122344/#post-24737350

 

[LAF1994]

There was no need to turn to the memory of the CSA for support for racism during this period though - the entire USA was structured around a racist white consensus at the time. Fascists in the US were looking to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy abroad and the 2nd KKK at home (which you'll note also didn't call for a restoration of the CSA) for inspirations, not a failed rebellion restricted to the South from before they were born.

I'll also be the second person here to point out that the only fascist coup that was actually seriously plotted and which we know about in the 1930s was the Business Plot, which was based in New England and again had no intention of restoring the CSA.

It should be noted that racist =/= anti-democratic or fascist. The Confederates themselves weren't anti-democracy as such (the system of government the CSA had was basically a duplicate of the USA's government structure, which is unsurprising). Conversely, the Brazilian Integralists were fascist, but AFAIK generally emphasized religious identity (i.e. Catholicism) rather than racial.

 

[James Hale]

Agree with @Lorehead about MacArthur. He should definitely go rogue.

 

[Lorehead]

It should be noted that racist =/= anti-democratic or fascist.

White supremacy in the form it took in the South during the Jim Crow era definitely was anti-democratic, since it held on to power by preventing black people from voting. This is even more true of the Confederate States, which never actually held a competitive national election, and where some states at the time of secession actually had a black majority. (Sorry to get a bit off-topic.)

 

[Yankee1863]

White supremacy in the form it took in the South during the Jim Crow era definitely was anti-democratic, since it held on to power by preventing black people from voting. This is even more true of the Confederate States, which never actually held a competitive national election, and where some states at the time of secession actually had a black majority. (Sorry to get a bit off-topic.)

Black suffrage was very limited in the Union, only a few states had it - the 14th amendment only made it through with the support of reintegrated Southern states where black suffrage was imposed by occupation. If full suffrage for all adults is a prerequisite to count as a democracy, then very few countries would qualify before 1945.

 

[Lemont Elwood]

White supremacy in the form it took in the South during the Jim Crow era definitely was anti-democratic, since it held on to power by preventing black people from voting. This is even more true of the Confederate States, which never actually held a competitive national election, and where some states at the time of secession actually had a black majority. (Sorry to get a bit off-topic.)

That's not anti-democratic, that's just anti-Black. The White supremacists had no issue with White people voting, either ideologically or in practice.

An anti-democratic system would have been something more like a military dictatorship.

 

[James Hale]

Black suffrage was very limited in the Union, only a few states had it - the 14th amendment only made it through with the support of reintegrated Southern states where black suffrage was imposed by occupation. If full suffrage for all adults is a prerequisite to count as a democracy, then very few countries would qualify before 1945.

Women couldn't vote in France until 1945, and - IIRC, in Switzerland until after 1970.

 

[Lorehead]

Sure, to some degree, everybody was doing it. One of the best ideas in Kaiserreich is that it really puts the colonialism of Western European democracies front and center by reducing them to nothing but their colonial empires. Another clever riff was turning Belgium, where I was born, into Flanders-Wallonia because the Realpolitik that created it had changed.

I’m going to try to avoid a semantic debate about what counts as “fascist” or “undemocratic,” but the game labels the Apartheid policies of South Africa “fascist,” and D. F. Malan the leader of their “fascist” faction. (And the expansion of the South African focus tree also has a path to go on an anti-colonial and liberate the Belgian Congo, along with other colonies in Africa.) Which I think is reasonable. And the analogy to Jim Crow is very direct. The South should not, of course, be unfairly singled out when there was plenty of racial discrimination in the rest of the U.S. (One of the events that historically made the Japanese government mad at the U.S. was when the state of Oregon, where I live now, made it illegal for Japanese-Americans to own property.)

To stick to the US focus tree in HOI4, this shows up in decisions such as the US desegregating its armed forces.

 

[Lorehead]

A separate topic that brought to mind. The expansion is adding “reverse migration” events. Maybe it could add a couple more about the historical Great Migration, predominantly of African-Americans, from the South to cities in the North. For example, a new city, Vanport, was constructed in August 1942 between Portland, Oregon, and the Columbia river, and the 40,000 people who lived there (40% of them black) primarily worked in the shipyards along the river. One of these, the Oregon Shipbuilding Yards, built 455 ships, and set a record by constructing a Victory Ship in just ten days.

The shipyards closed after the war, and Vanport was destroyed by a flood on 4:05 p.m. on May 30, 1948. (There’s now a park and a racetrack there. Portland still has fewer black people today than any other city its size in America. After seventy years of environmental clean-up, the shipyards are being turned into riverfront condos.) This history—and several others—would make great-game events.

ETA: I’m not sure whether the demi-mod warning about discussions of “genocide” was based on skimming this, but if it wasn’t clear, the Vanport flood was a natural disaster that destroyed a lot of people’s homes and forced them to move elsewhere.

 

[LAF1994]

White supremacy in the form it took in the South during the Jim Crow era definitely was anti-democratic, since it held on to power by preventing black people from voting. This is even more true of the Confederate States, which never actually held a competitive national election, and where some states at the time of secession actually had a black majority. (Sorry to get a bit off-topic.)

In general, democracies only allow citizens to vote, and slaves are by definition not citizens. If the CSA was undemocratic because there was a large non-citizen/slave population, then you'd have to make the same statement about Athens or any other 'democratic' state of antiquity (or, for that matter, virtually any other purportedly democratic country prior to the mid-20th century or so).
The CSA only lasted 4 years and was under a 'provisional' wartime government for that entire period, so there was never any point where an election was possible anyway. It'd be the same as arguing that the USA during the American War of Independence was undemocratic because a national election was not held.

 

[Lorehead]

In general, democracies only allow citizens to vote, and slaves are by definition not citizens. If the CSA was undemocratic because there was a large non-citizen/slave population, then you'd have to make the same statement about Athens or any other 'democratic' state [...]

Sure, I agree that a society based on slavery is not really democratic. Many other democracies had abolished slavery by then.

The CSA only lasted 4 years and was under a 'provisional' wartime government for that entire period, so there was never any point where an election was possible anyway. It'd be the same as arguing that the USA during the American War of Independence was undemocratic because a national election was not held.

The United States did hold a free and fair election in 1864, even though there was a strong possibility that Lincoln might lose. Since a conversation about the 1860s is drifting a little off-topic, though, back to the 1930s and ’40s as represented in the game.

If true democracies as you would define them didn’t exist because everybody’s a hypocrite, then I guess that makes the word useless to describe countries in the time period of Paradox games. I don’t think that semantic debate is worth arguing about.

We can still talk about democratic and undemocratic features of the system, and we can still say that some countries were more or less democratic than others. White-supremacist one-party rule would be a trait that the Jim Crow system has in common with other parties that the game labels fascist.

 

[LAF1994]

Sure, I agree that a society based on slavery is not really demoratic. Many other democracies had abolished slavery by then.

The problem is that would imply that Athens wasn't democratic.

The United States did hold a free and fair election in 1864, even though there was a strong possibility that Lincoln might lose.

That wasn't in the middle of trying to become independent though. A more accurate analogy would be if they'd held an election in the middle of the War of Independence.

We can still talk about democratic and undemocratic features of the system, and we can still say that some countries were more or less democratic than others. White supremacy would be a feature that the Jim Crow system has in common with other parties that the game labels fascist.

Not really- 'white supremacy' as an ideological concept was largely meaningless outside the specific context of the USA and other ex-colonies. Ethnocentrism in a more general sense was a consistent feature of fascist governments- but it was also a pretty common factor in other governments as well.

 

[imvdm]

The problem is that would imply that Athens wasn't democratic.

A bit off topic, but Athens really doesn’t count as a true democracy, at least in the modern sense of the term. It’s very much still a tyranny of the few, just that the few are titled as citizens rather than nobles.

 

[Secret Master]

This is a reminder that discussion certain topics, like genocide, is against forum rules. Posts discussing these things will be deleted until we get the point.

 

[Lorehead]

This is a reminder that discussion certain topics, like genocide, is against forum rules. Posts discussing these things will be deleted until we get the point.

If this is directed at me, pardon. I didn’t think I was breaking any rule, but I’m new to this particular sub-forum.

 

[Lorehead]

Anyway, since we got a mod warning, wrapping this up and sticking to topics I’m pretty sure are allowed.

On the one hand, it’s a good point that most “democracies” are imperfectly democratic. Yeah, it’s strange to say that the system the word “democracy” was originally coined to describe is “undemocratic.” Or that the original “scientists” were by modern standards unscientific, or that the Acropolis has a low elevation compared to Mount Everest and is not really a city.

On the other, the game tries to give every country at least a quasi-historical “Democratic.” “Communist,” “Fascist” and “Non-aligned” path, which are more about the alliances in the game than whether a political party is exactly like the Bolsheviks or the Nazis. And some of the leaders it labels “fascist” did hold elections that meant something. In particular, I think there are a lot of similarities between the elections South Africa held in the ’50s when D. F. Malan was in power and elections under the contemporary Jim Crow system.

The relevance to the game is, I think Paradox should go ahead and label Segregation “fascist” if they want. It makes sense and won’t offend anybody because the political debate has moved on. They presumably are going to stick to their policy of not describing what bad things might have happened to imaginary people in a game about moving army counters around a map.