How come alt-history mods are more historically accurate than the World War II base game?
- Thread starter LeanLeaf
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KR has its licenses to be interesting but I've been following its development and I can see that devs clearly care about the setting being as plausible and realistic as possible within those licenses.
At least KR tries to build its American civil war as good as possible, while the vanilla civil war is a mess.
There's much more content and many things that reflect those of real history better than vanilla HoI. Having many ideologies helps a lot, but look at China or the USA and you can learn more about real WW2 history and politics playing KR than playing vanilla.
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I think what you're getting at here has less to do with historical accuracy and more to do with attention to detail. Kaiserreich is total fantasy, but you're correct in pointing out how incredibly detailed it is compared to the base game. In Kaiserreich I love how nearly every leader, character, or national spirit you hover over has a blurb going into the world's lore. Major cities have unique art, and tech trees are fleshed out and beautifully well illustrated with country specific names and 2D art for everything. And recent updates seem to be trending towards greater plausibility in their alt history. Not only is the mod a history nerds dream come true it really enriches the role-play. In comparison HOI4 can feel a little shallow in places.
If the devs want to "bring the simulation to life" as Arheo mentioned in his road map then taking a few notes from Kaissereich would be a good place to start.
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KR also breaks internal consistency and game mechanics to force its history down your throat, which is ironically one of the most extreme ways to deviate from any semblance of history.
I have played that mod way less than others, and a tiny fraction of vanilla. But it's easily 2nd in using focuses to break the game/steal land w/o war from player/arbitrarily block nations due to TAG name rather than game state. Vanilla has problems with that too, but KR takes it to an extreme I've not encountered in any other popular mod.
Want independence as arbitrary tiny meme subjects? There's a focus for that. Want independence as Morocco? GET REKT SCRUB, hope Germany loses the war or you do nothing forever. Never mind that your focuses have a path requiring independence, there's nothing you can do to get it, not even the basic/slow way of gradually attaining it through lend/lease and war participation.
I have played that mod way less than others, and a tiny fraction of vanilla. But it's easily 2nd in using focuses to break the game/steal land w/o war from player/arbitrarily block nations due to TAG name rather than game state. Vanilla has problems with that too, but KR takes it to an extreme I've not encountered in any other popular mod.
Want independence as arbitrary tiny meme subjects? There's a focus for that. Want independence as Morocco? GET REKT SCRUB, hope Germany loses the war or you do nothing forever. Never mind that your focuses have a path requiring independence, there's nothing you can do to get it, not even the basic/slow way of gradually attaining it through lend/lease and war participation.
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So a lot of the points here are based on questionable assumptions.
Alt history mods like Kaiserreich have an easy time being internally consistent, since any inconsistencies can be handwaived away with changes to the timeline/points of divergence. So it’s not really a great comparator. Also, unlike devs, modders can focus a lot more on content since the mechanics are already there for them.
All your arguments about cores seem to misinterpret what a core is. Admittedly, they are an abstract concept, but they aren’t just reducible to pure ethnic or linguistic makeup. Historical control of an area, willingness of locals to accept the country’s rule, shared history, etc. all play into it. Some of your examples don’t start as cores, but can get them through focuses/gameplay (Sudetenland for instance). Others are complaints about cores for nations that don’t even exist at game start. All of them are at least arguable and are more debates of interpretation than “not historical.”
Apartheid hadn’t been implemented in South Africa yet, though there was certainly racial segregation and they were moving towards it. There’s nothing saying the player should be forced to follow this course, especially since a lot of the push for it came from Boer elements and getting rid of the modifier is locked behind pro-British focuses, representing a more English-dominated South Africa. Also, getting rid of the modifier doesn’t mean the country’s overcome racism or in perfect racial harmony. The US doesn’t have any negative modifiers for segregation for instance (though can gain modifiers by desegregating the army).
Historically Ethiopia was very much annexed as an Italian colony, so not sure what the complaint is there.
While Horthy and Antonescu both had movements in their countries that were even more pro-Nazi/fascist, there are at least pretty good arguments that both can be classified as fascist in historical and game terms. Horthy does actually start non-aligned, but iirc can become fascist depending on focus choices.
The game can always be improved, sure, but a lot of the complaints here seem rather pedantic.
Alt history mods like Kaiserreich have an easy time being internally consistent, since any inconsistencies can be handwaived away with changes to the timeline/points of divergence. So it’s not really a great comparator. Also, unlike devs, modders can focus a lot more on content since the mechanics are already there for them.
All your arguments about cores seem to misinterpret what a core is. Admittedly, they are an abstract concept, but they aren’t just reducible to pure ethnic or linguistic makeup. Historical control of an area, willingness of locals to accept the country’s rule, shared history, etc. all play into it. Some of your examples don’t start as cores, but can get them through focuses/gameplay (Sudetenland for instance). Others are complaints about cores for nations that don’t even exist at game start. All of them are at least arguable and are more debates of interpretation than “not historical.”
Apartheid hadn’t been implemented in South Africa yet, though there was certainly racial segregation and they were moving towards it. There’s nothing saying the player should be forced to follow this course, especially since a lot of the push for it came from Boer elements and getting rid of the modifier is locked behind pro-British focuses, representing a more English-dominated South Africa. Also, getting rid of the modifier doesn’t mean the country’s overcome racism or in perfect racial harmony. The US doesn’t have any negative modifiers for segregation for instance (though can gain modifiers by desegregating the army).
Historically Ethiopia was very much annexed as an Italian colony, so not sure what the complaint is there.
While Horthy and Antonescu both had movements in their countries that were even more pro-Nazi/fascist, there are at least pretty good arguments that both can be classified as fascist in historical and game terms. Horthy does actually start non-aligned, but iirc can become fascist depending on focus choices.
The game can always be improved, sure, but a lot of the complaints here seem rather pedantic.
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Kaiserreich is worse than vanilla in terms of internal consistency, because it breaks mechanical rules to make things happen more frequently.
I have had Russia take land from me as DKU without war. I have defeated an entire faction as faction-less Ireland, taken the land in the peace deal, only for KR to then give it to Canada (supposedly this was later fixed). I have had war target change factions mid-war and call multiple factions against me in a single war (this can happen in vanilla w/o historical focuses, too, but it's more rare).
I have even conquered Japan with those legation cities, questioned why this particular tag can't get more than 3 tech slots despite being a major, and one of the devs just told me they're not intended to be played that way and accused me of cheating to get that situation.
Multiple tags are trapped in gimped state regardless of how successful they are, despite that numerous small or even micro-states can remove those same limitations while accomplishing less. Morocco can't get independence with its own agency...but Mysore not only can do that, but can get 5 tech slots.
KR has nice story telling, but calling it internally consistent is flatly not true. At least, not in the gameplay sense. And as a reminder, KR *is* a mod for a game.
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@TheMeInTeam One of the weaknesses of Kaiserreich is indeed that it's less sandboxy than the original game. This can be somewhat fixed by having focus tree paths for every ideology & major faction but requires a lot of work.
However, I think Hearts of Iron 4's freedom is much of an illusion in itself. The game is not as scripted as Kaiserreich, but because of the focus tree, 95% of players are going to follow the "focus tree" path.
Not making a case for which is better or worse, they are different design philosophies, but this limiting factor is why some people made topics arguing that focus trees should be removed and replaced with a more in-depth diplomatic & political system for more flexibility and sandbox in the game, kind of like CK3 or EU4.
Personally, I think I'd like a game where the focus trees efects are replaced with actual diplomacy options, military options or internal politics options, while the AI has a predefined path on historical, it will indeed make the game much more flexible, but I think it's way too late to request such a thing in Hearts of Iron 4 now, as the focuses are the core of the game. Also, I'm not fully sold on the non-focuses idea either, because focus trees give people direction, it gives them a mission.
@DystopianAlphaOmega Yes, I see where you are coming from. Good point that 1917 historical accuracy start date is not the same as 1936 historical accuracy start date. Especially when between 1917-1936 you can make up whatever you want in Kaiserreich. However, I think this is counter-balanced by the fact Kaiserreich has a lot more content than vanilla Hearts of Iron 4. As such, a lot more true to 1917 lore it needs to keep up with.
Beside, some of the mistakes in Hearts of Iron 4 could be fully fledged mistakes in Kaiserreich as well. Unless there would be a lore reason (newspapper explaining the difference or something) for how the situation changed between 1917 and 1936, if Kaiserreich would have Ukrainian cores on Southern Bessarabia it would be equally historically inaccurate.
About cores.
As I asked Tulev, how would you define cores then? how would you make a rule for what core is/isn't in order to make cores consistent?
Based on gameplay mechanics, I concluded that cores are a territory having a population that is supportive to your rule. Which not always, but in 9/10 cases is reducible to pure ethnic or linguistic makeup.
It all makes sense given the cores' modifiers. If we look at the way cores function in game, giving you - full industry, full population, no resistance; that can only mean the population living there is supportive of your rule. On the other hand, if: the population hates you (no manpower), many workers from the factories may be suddenly unwilling to work (no full industry), or willing to sabotage it (ressistance) that is exactly how a colony state works in game.
Historical control of an area, shared history, mean nothing without a population that is supportive to your rule. To give a real life example, in Northern Transylvania, despite being previously part of Hungary, Hungary used the military to keep the Romanian population in check. Acting more like a colony state as it's represented in the game, with military police, than a core state. And there was resistance from the local population which led to atrocities.
Core, in its purest essence, is willingness of locals to accept the country’s rule.
If we follow the historical, USSR should have Eastern Poland and Finland as cores. If we follow what is considered an integral part of the country, Germany should have all of Europe as cores.
I don't believe my cores examples are at least arguable and are more debates of interpretation than “not historical”. As I made the case in the previous paragraph, Northern Transylvania in real life was treated like the equivalent of an in-game colony, this is something that actually happened. If what happened in real life is not enough evidence that that region should be a colony rather than a core, I don't know what is enough evidence.
Even using your definition in mind "Historical control of an area, willingness of locals to accept the country’s rule, shared history, etc." the vast majority of my cores examples are still objecitvely not historical. Unless you count Maceodnia belonging to Bulgaria in the 12th century as a basis for having a core now, while Ukraine never previously owned South Bessarabia.
If you have a better explaination for cores, please, I'm open to constructive criticism. But so far I haven't seen a better definition that makes sense gameplay-wise and isn't "this vague concept of which land should beong to a country" because that is subjective.
Historically Ethiopia was split into multiple governorates and would function relatively independent from the mainland, this is not perfectly represented by 1 puppet state but it's a far more historically accurate simplification than having it annexed.
Yes, there were movements in their countries, but they themselves were not the leaders or a follower of those movements. This is not whitewashing them, but saying they weren't ideologically fascists, you don't have to be fascist to carry out genocide.
Well, yes, it is pedantic, it's meant to be, the game got the big things right, but the issue is that these pedantic things add up.
However, I think Hearts of Iron 4's freedom is much of an illusion in itself. The game is not as scripted as Kaiserreich, but because of the focus tree, 95% of players are going to follow the "focus tree" path.
Not making a case for which is better or worse, they are different design philosophies, but this limiting factor is why some people made topics arguing that focus trees should be removed and replaced with a more in-depth diplomatic & political system for more flexibility and sandbox in the game, kind of like CK3 or EU4.
Personally, I think I'd like a game where the focus trees efects are replaced with actual diplomacy options, military options or internal politics options, while the AI has a predefined path on historical, it will indeed make the game much more flexible, but I think it's way too late to request such a thing in Hearts of Iron 4 now, as the focuses are the core of the game. Also, I'm not fully sold on the non-focuses idea either, because focus trees give people direction, it gives them a mission.
@DystopianAlphaOmega Yes, I see where you are coming from. Good point that 1917 historical accuracy start date is not the same as 1936 historical accuracy start date. Especially when between 1917-1936 you can make up whatever you want in Kaiserreich. However, I think this is counter-balanced by the fact Kaiserreich has a lot more content than vanilla Hearts of Iron 4. As such, a lot more true to 1917 lore it needs to keep up with.
Beside, some of the mistakes in Hearts of Iron 4 could be fully fledged mistakes in Kaiserreich as well. Unless there would be a lore reason (newspapper explaining the difference or something) for how the situation changed between 1917 and 1936, if Kaiserreich would have Ukrainian cores on Southern Bessarabia it would be equally historically inaccurate.
About cores.
As I asked Tulev, how would you define cores then? how would you make a rule for what core is/isn't in order to make cores consistent?
Based on gameplay mechanics, I concluded that cores are a territory having a population that is supportive to your rule. Which not always, but in 9/10 cases is reducible to pure ethnic or linguistic makeup.
It all makes sense given the cores' modifiers. If we look at the way cores function in game, giving you - full industry, full population, no resistance; that can only mean the population living there is supportive of your rule. On the other hand, if: the population hates you (no manpower), many workers from the factories may be suddenly unwilling to work (no full industry), or willing to sabotage it (ressistance) that is exactly how a colony state works in game.
Historical control of an area, shared history, mean nothing without a population that is supportive to your rule. To give a real life example, in Northern Transylvania, despite being previously part of Hungary, Hungary used the military to keep the Romanian population in check. Acting more like a colony state as it's represented in the game, with military police, than a core state. And there was resistance from the local population which led to atrocities.
Core, in its purest essence, is willingness of locals to accept the country’s rule.
If we follow the historical, USSR should have Eastern Poland and Finland as cores. If we follow what is considered an integral part of the country, Germany should have all of Europe as cores.
I don't believe my cores examples are at least arguable and are more debates of interpretation than “not historical”. As I made the case in the previous paragraph, Northern Transylvania in real life was treated like the equivalent of an in-game colony, this is something that actually happened. If what happened in real life is not enough evidence that that region should be a colony rather than a core, I don't know what is enough evidence.
Even using your definition in mind "Historical control of an area, willingness of locals to accept the country’s rule, shared history, etc." the vast majority of my cores examples are still objecitvely not historical. Unless you count Maceodnia belonging to Bulgaria in the 12th century as a basis for having a core now, while Ukraine never previously owned South Bessarabia.
If you have a better explaination for cores, please, I'm open to constructive criticism. But so far I haven't seen a better definition that makes sense gameplay-wise and isn't "this vague concept of which land should beong to a country" because that is subjective.
Historically Ethiopia was split into multiple governorates and would function relatively independent from the mainland, this is not perfectly represented by 1 puppet state but it's a far more historically accurate simplification than having it annexed.
Yes, there were movements in their countries, but they themselves were not the leaders or a follower of those movements. This is not whitewashing them, but saying they weren't ideologically fascists, you don't have to be fascist to carry out genocide.
Well, yes, it is pedantic, it's meant to be, the game got the big things right, but the issue is that these pedantic things add up.
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Core/non-core status is used in a number of different things - how much you can build in a state is one such thing.
Another one is how much the soldiers are willing to fight for that piece of land. There are modifiers for attacking/defending on core territory. So you can interpret that as being that the soldiers are more willing to fight for certain pieces of land than others.
Core/non-core also affects if a country would want to annex an area in a post-war peace deal.
There are also several defines that control how an AI country would deploy its armies & air forces - they're a lot more likely to garrison and protect cores than non-core territories.
Core/non-core does correlate quite well with population ethnicity, but it's not quite as straightforward as that.
Another one is how much the soldiers are willing to fight for that piece of land. There are modifiers for attacking/defending on core territory. So you can interpret that as being that the soldiers are more willing to fight for certain pieces of land than others.
Core/non-core also affects if a country would want to annex an area in a post-war peace deal.
There are also several defines that control how an AI country would deploy its armies & air forces - they're a lot more likely to garrison and protect cores than non-core territories.
Core/non-core does correlate quite well with population ethnicity, but it's not quite as straightforward as that.
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The core (heh) of this issue is that what OP wants HoI4 to be and what the developers want HoI4 to be, are different things.
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Yeah, well, ahistorical things kinda need to happen to set up ahistorical timelines. You'll notice it also features a world where the Central Powers won the Great War.
So about about as unrealistic as the real historical timeline, where a Germany led by a failed painter handily defeats Poland because the Allies just sit there instead of steamrolling Germany while most of its army is in Poland, and then seize France by outmaneuvering the French and British armies by taking a shortcut through a forest? And Germany getting away with that, too, because mon dieu!, we were supposed to keep forces in reserve, weren't we, how silly we've all been, now the German tanks can just drive into Paris! The one where Hitler thinks it can defeat the Western Allies and the Soviet Union and the United States?
Keep going down ludicrous paths like that and next we'll see something like Putin nonsensically invading Ukraine, only to have his armoured vehicles stolen by Ukrainian farmers.
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I don't think everything needs to be unique. KR allows you to justify and declare wars like vanilla for example (in fact, it is more forgiving in that one way, no ideology is as gimped as Democracy in vanilla). There should generally be some kind of baseline requirement for each thing you want to do, with focus trees either adding to that, rewarding you for particular choices, or making hitting your goals harder/easier.
What does not work is Liberia owning all of Africa and being strong because of Kaiserreich mechanics, while stronger nations at the start which take more, higher-industry land and gain compliance on it cannot match Liberia no matter what they do. If the ostensible reason for the latter is "KR lore", we can then not justify Liberia's ability to do so with "KR lore", because both game states happen after unpausing.
Similarly, even in vanilla backwaters with 2 research slots can improve that, if they get enough industry. Not so in KR...you can get capped at 3 research slots even as random minors get 5.
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An aside wrt cores: in vanilla, you can annex puppets, while in KR you can't. This drastically changes how much having cores matters, because the only thing you can get from cores that you can't from a few collaboration government investments is manpower. In vanilla, you are therefore making a tradeoff between manpower and industry when deciding to hold non-core land directly.
In KR, puppets are forever unless you lose a war. This not only warps manpower availability, it also further breaks balance between ideology (fascist puppets are better at puppet status, but arguably regular puppets are more useful if you lower autonomy once). Also, by gutting the autonomy mechanic, KR allows usage of 80 resource trading and subject templates with abandon, because they can't change autonomy level...
Unless, of course, you use a focus to do it. Then you get free no problem. But generic puppet? Nope, completely impossible. Whatever reason we made up for that last nation, magically now doesn't apply
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This is why I will always argue that if Canada and the UK can get cores on the entire US, the US should be able to get cores on Canada.
I want historical accuracy, the devs want historical accuracy.
At this point, the reason for many people's disagreement is just inertia from the original post. Mob mentality.
I have yet to see 1 reply of why those listed historical inaccuracies are actually not historical inaccuracies.
And only had 2 replies attempting to explain the cores away in a different way, to which when explained even using their definition those cores are just plain historically wrong (some with actual real life evidence), got no further reply on it. Now 3 replies.
When you want to follow the peer pressure, you can find reasons for everything.
All these specfic things were taken into account when I made my original "what should/shouldn't be core" list.
It's not always because of population ethnicity, but in 9/10 cases is. Based on game mechanics & bonuses, core is always the is willingness of locals to accept the country’s rule.
What core isn't is historical control of an area, shared history. They don't all come into it.
Historical control of an area, shared history -> USSR doesn't have cores on Finland or on Eastern Poland. And if it would it would probably be very weird.
Historical control of an area, shared history has 0% impact if the locals aren't willing to accept the country’s rule.
Real life example: North Transylvania -> Formerly part of Hungary, shared history with Transylvanian Romanians. But in spite of all of that, the population was unwilling to cooperate with the Hungarians -> Hungary used the military to keep the Romanian population in check. Acting more like a colony state as it's represented in the game, with military police, than a core state. And there was resistance from the local population which led to atrocities. Northern Transylvania in real life was treated like the equivalent of an in-game colony, this is something that actually happened.
From Wikipedia:
"The establishment of Hungarian rule met with insurgency on part of the non-Hungarian population in some places and retaliation of the Hungarian forces was labelled war crimes such as Ip and Treznea massacres in Northern Transylvania (directed against Romanians) or Bačka, where Hungarian military between 1941 and 1944 deported or killed 19,573 civilians,[21] mainly Serbs and Jews, but also Hungarians who did not collaborate with the new authorities. About 56,000 people were also expelled from Bačka.[20]"
Does this sound like Hungary was occupying a core territory where they would get full industry, full manpower, no resistance? It had historical control of an area and shared history but no willingness of locals to accept the country’s rule.
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No, it does not.
My point was mostly that there are some good mechanical reasons why some areas aren't cores. The Sudetenland was the first example that came to mind.
Another one that I am aware of, was before No Step Back, where because the Soviet union had a claim on one of Finland's territories, the AI would create it's own war goals, they weren't from the focus tree directly. (And because the claim wasn't properly cleared in the winter war event, the USSR kept doing it until they had occupied Finland completely )
The territory you mention, doesn't sound like it should be a Hungarian core. Sounds like it should be a Romanian one perhaps.
But then you run into the possibility of the AI generating their own war goals spontaneously.
Which is not necessarily what you want to happen. Not in historical mode anyway.
A lot of the inaccuracies you mention could be addressed in those countries focus trees, if they aren't already. Especially in alt-historical focus tree branches.
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To compare Hearts of Iron 4 with Kaiserreich's historical accuracy is a joke, and the reason you have antagonized so many people in the first place. You can't compare The Cold War with The Man in the High Castle. What the The Man in the High Castle did with Japan & Germany occupying mainland USA is utterly impossible and yet realistic in the The Man in the High Castle context because an alt-history scenario can do whatever it wants to do and will still make sense in its own universe. So the bar isn't equal for Hearts of Iron 4 with Kaiserreich.
Which is a shame you started out that was because you antagonized a lot of people and as far as your Hearts of Iron 4 historical inaccuracies go, you are not wrong. They are minor things, but you are not wrong.
In function, Italian Ethiopia worked more like a puppet state, it wasn't a direct part of the Italian state apparatus. Ecuador-Peru War should be in the game. Vichy France no longer a puppet of Germany yes unrealisitc but as the dev replied it's for gameplay purposes.
On the Little Entente & Balkan Pact, there is a great topic about them:
forum.paradoxplaza.com
While not all of it should be necessarily added, at least this should be changed:
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South Africa solves Apartheid, it wansn't Apartheid but it was worse than what US had. No black person served in the South African army. Whether this should be fixed or not is debateable but I see where you are coming from. Hungary and Romania's Horthy/Antonescu regime being fascist. Good point. This hinders us from having an actual fascist route with Hungary/Romania, the Iron Cross/Iron Guard. Yugoslavia, yes it's bad as it is right now. The region borders of Transnistria are indeed wrong.
And the cores. You again, are correct with all of them while also antagonizing a lot of people. What is core? Core is this abstract concept where the people you rule don't hate you. Because if they hate you, you don't get manpower for the army, you don't get workers for the factories and you get ressistance from partisans. It's the reason colonialism failed, people don't like being under foreign occupation. Core kind of is a representation of population. People don't care whether you ruled their land 100 years ago or not, if they hate you, they hate you.
My guess is that if you would have started the topic with your 4th reply of what you see as historically inaccurate in Hearts of Iron 4 rather than the OP where you compare Hearts of Iron 4 with Kaiserriech, people would be more a lot more open towards you.
Which is a shame you started out that was because you antagonized a lot of people and as far as your Hearts of Iron 4 historical inaccuracies go, you are not wrong. They are minor things, but you are not wrong.
In function, Italian Ethiopia worked more like a puppet state, it wasn't a direct part of the Italian state apparatus. Ecuador-Peru War should be in the game. Vichy France no longer a puppet of Germany yes unrealisitc but as the dev replied it's for gameplay purposes.
On the Little Entente & Balkan Pact, there is a great topic about them:
How to make the Little Entente & Balkan Pact Alliances more fun
During the interwar era: - Little Entente (1921 - 1938) was a defensive alliance between: Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia. - Balkan Pact (1934 - 1941) was a defensive alliance between: Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey. Notice that...
While not all of it should be necessarily added, at least this should be changed:
To this:
South Africa solves Apartheid, it wansn't Apartheid but it was worse than what US had. No black person served in the South African army. Whether this should be fixed or not is debateable but I see where you are coming from. Hungary and Romania's Horthy/Antonescu regime being fascist. Good point. This hinders us from having an actual fascist route with Hungary/Romania, the Iron Cross/Iron Guard. Yugoslavia, yes it's bad as it is right now. The region borders of Transnistria are indeed wrong.
And the cores. You again, are correct with all of them while also antagonizing a lot of people. What is core? Core is this abstract concept where the people you rule don't hate you. Because if they hate you, you don't get manpower for the army, you don't get workers for the factories and you get ressistance from partisans. It's the reason colonialism failed, people don't like being under foreign occupation. Core kind of is a representation of population. People don't care whether you ruled their land 100 years ago or not, if they hate you, they hate you.
My guess is that if you would have started the topic with your 4th reply of what you see as historically inaccurate in Hearts of Iron 4 rather than the OP where you compare Hearts of Iron 4 with Kaiserriech, people would be more a lot more open towards you.
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I find that you quote the dev particularly ironic, considering that immediately after the part that you quoted, they said...
Whether or not they are inaccuracies is besides the point. I found the core of the original question to be, 'why is the game wrong?'. You 'expect'/want the game to be more historically accurate, and the devs by virtue of not having done that (and having 6+ years to make it the way they want it to be), don't have the same priority list as you do.
When it comes to a persons vision of what the game 'should' be, you are certainly free to offer your suggestions but you should realize you don't have any real authority to dictate the direction of the game. And while as someone who supposedly knows something about history such as yourself might feel like this or that aspect of the game is 'wrong' which makes the game less enjoyable for you, the game is acting more or less how the people who developed it want it to act. There no doubt appears to be some sort of issue with your interactions with the game, and since the game is working correctly that suggests that the 'problem' is on your end.
That is to say, what you want the game to be and what the devs want the game to be, are different things. Which is fine, I don't think I've ever encountered a game that was truly 100% to my particular tastes and wished that this or that part of it was however much different. I've taken to forums and such to say my piece (like you have), hope I recieve any response from the devs (which you have, you're doing better than most people in this regard), and then I ultimately have to decide whether I want to continue to involve myself in the game. If my grievances were as extreme as yours seem to be and after having gotten an answer from the devs about why things be like they do, I probably would have just stopped playing the game. and maybe checked back in a year or two.
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As an aside, most Pdox devs I've seen comment on the subject at all say that gameplay > historical realism, even though the games try to use models that give a nod to the latter.
I have not seen all HOI 4 devs comment on this subject, but if we believe quoted, we would predict some very different things from what we observe in HOI 4.
The concept of "core province" in EU 4/HOI 4 does not track to reality well. Devs have to draw the line somewhere for whether a province/state gives full value, and no matter where they draw it, it will be oversimplified/fail to capture nuance of reality. But HOI 4 is about the preparation and execution of combat in WW2 setting, not about discerning the cutoff points for how effectively countries administered their populations. Heck, ideologies are nearly identical that way in HOI, which should tell you all you need to know about how important that's considered to be.
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@Corpse Fool The irony is lost on me, given that when saying:
I am aware that I don't have any real authority to dictate the direction of the game. I was highlighting the lack of historical accuracy in certain areas of the game but whether the devs decide or not to implement for example a realistic Little Entente is their choice. But the fact remain that those parts of the game are historically inaccurate, not because I say so but because history says so. What the devs / fanbase want to do with that information it's their choice, I have done my part in calling it out.
I agree with your sentiment that the game is acting more or less how the people who developed it want it to act, however, it could be the case that those historical inaccuracies are not intentional but simply what the devs knew at the moment. World War II is very vast, and I doubt many people would know that Zara was populated by Italians for example. You can't expect someone to know everything there is to know about World War II, in this sense, not all developers' historical inaccuracies might be by design.
They have said in the original response here that they do care about historical accuracy but some things such as Vichy France puppet of Germany weren't done for technical reasons.
What I don't understand is the ressistance from the community. What is wrong with more historical accuracy? I get being indifferent to it, but they were outright hostile to it. Perhaps it's as AlextheSwift said that I started off on the wrong foot due to my Hoi4 - Kaiserreich comparison and that translated to people being hostile to my other suggestions as well.
@TheMeInTeam While there are cases where you have to pick between gameplay <-> historical realism, not every decision is like that.
Form my list of original suggestions:
But I see your point that it's a war game with some history rather than a historical game with war.
They were explaining why they didn't make Vichy France a puppet of Germany. Despite it being historically accurate for Vichy France to be a puppet of Germany.
I am aware that I don't have any real authority to dictate the direction of the game. I was highlighting the lack of historical accuracy in certain areas of the game but whether the devs decide or not to implement for example a realistic Little Entente is their choice. But the fact remain that those parts of the game are historically inaccurate, not because I say so but because history says so. What the devs / fanbase want to do with that information it's their choice, I have done my part in calling it out.
I agree with your sentiment that the game is acting more or less how the people who developed it want it to act, however, it could be the case that those historical inaccuracies are not intentional but simply what the devs knew at the moment. World War II is very vast, and I doubt many people would know that Zara was populated by Italians for example. You can't expect someone to know everything there is to know about World War II, in this sense, not all developers' historical inaccuracies might be by design.
Not necessarily. It's entierly possible that my issue with the interactions with the game, may simply be due to a more vast historical knowledge of World War II, you can't be bothered that it "breaks immersion" by something you don't know. A case could be made that the game (a) works as intended or (b) works as the devs knew at the moment to make it works, as far as historical accuracy is concerned. They wouldn't be the first or the last company to make a historical game and get some things wrong.
They have said in the original response here that they do care about historical accuracy but some things such as Vichy France puppet of Germany weren't done for technical reasons.
What I don't understand is the ressistance from the community. What is wrong with more historical accuracy? I get being indifferent to it, but they were outright hostile to it. Perhaps it's as AlextheSwift said that I started off on the wrong foot due to my Hoi4 - Kaiserreich comparison and that translated to people being hostile to my other suggestions as well.
@TheMeInTeam While there are cases where you have to pick between gameplay <-> historical realism, not every decision is like that.
Form my list of original suggestions:
I can only see Vichy France and German core on Sudetenland, to have an unwanted impact on the gameplay thus leading to a gameplay > historical realsim decision. The other can be implemented without any downside on the gameplay part.
But I see your point that it's a war game with some history rather than a historical game with war.
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The main problem with "historical accuracy", or the supposed lack of it, is that that is exactly what the game is trying to accomplish - it is NOT a simulator, is NOT suppose to be "history" AT ALL - it is your chance to CHANGE history.
Watch documentaries if you want history, or, better yet, actually read a book that is history. HOI IV is not designed to be, or intended to be, a historical simulator, it's a GAME, and the second after you start the game, it moves away from history. Think of the game as a made-for-TV movie "based" on history, nothing more.
Watch documentaries if you want history, or, better yet, actually read a book that is history. HOI IV is not designed to be, or intended to be, a historical simulator, it's a GAME, and the second after you start the game, it moves away from history. Think of the game as a made-for-TV movie "based" on history, nothing more.
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No, they were explaining why functional gameplay trumps the nitty-gritty of historical accuracy and gave an example.
If this was your concern and you just wanted to double check with the devs about whether or not they knew about X, Y, or Z... your opening post here has absolutely nothing to do with that.
The root of that issue is, still, that what the game is, is different than what you want/expected the game to be. You want/expected to get more detailed/correct history, and you aren't getting it.
You absolutely started this off on the wrong foot. Not so much because of the comparison, but because of the opening statement appearing to be little more than whinging, quickly followed by whinging about being downvoted. You open by asking how the devs could get history so wrong. You accuse them of having a lack of knowledge and claim that they don't care about it, and try to point out that the community does care about it. You claim to understand that is video game and of course certain things are going to be simplified... and then proceed to completely disregard that 'understanding' and rant about the finer details of this or that. It isn't until the fourth post that you actually provide actionable info.
I would argue that 'what is wrong with more historical accuracy', is that historicity and bugfixes/features are competing for the limited pool of dev resources. You do mention that you could have 'historical accuracy' without sacrificing 'gameplay', but to do so would involve a lot more effort/resources on part of the devs than what they have ultimately decided to implement. Even if X change would be objectively good, a positive change to the game in every regard. If it would consume the same amount of dev resources that they could have implemented A, B, C, D, and E changes instead that maybe had some downsides but over all had a much greater total impact on the game... a project manager is absolutely going to learn towards getting 5 things done rather than one thing.
You shouldn't be trying to argue based on 'should we' or 'do we want to' do this thing. Of course there is some combination of want/should. The question is 'can' we do this thing, and what would doing it cost? What are the other things we could be doing instead? How do these costs balance out with the respective returns on that investment?
I personally would rather see a (growing) list of bugs fixed and features implemented rather than tweaking some of the historical aspects, though some of those historical things are on my list of things I'd like to see. They just aren't anywhere near the top.
If you do want to see changes in the game that the devs don't seem to be entirely willing (for whatever reason) to implement themselves, you could always take the BftB approach and do it yourself.
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