How to get plausible alt history without heavy modifications

[Ffire]

Atm HOI4 offers very unrealistic scenarios, sided with much more credible alt-choices.

I will use Japan as example. With Japan, you have 4 exclusive political choices.

1. democratic path
2. communist path
3. oppose Kodoha faction (war against allies)
4. support Kodoha faction (war against US)

N°1 and 2 are totally unplausible, but they can be really fun if you don't mind. N°3 depict what happend historically, while n°4 is alt historical and plausible, but already impactful on ww2 (no war in China, less war support for USA, opening a second front against SU)

Atm the game offers you 3 choices (assuming you're not playing Japan yourself).
- Play without any setup : the AI will choice randomly between the 4 options, leading sometimes to unplausible and unbalanced things.
- Manually setup a choice before the game.
- or go for historical (and garantee to have choice n°3 with the historical focus order)

The problem is that it's not possible to have some unpredictability for the AI strategic's choice, without having those totally unrealistic scenarios. There's now many countries and the probability at least one them do something stupid is very high. Those ahistorical focus are challenges for a player against the AI, but having something like polish AI forming Miedzymore is just suicide for the AI itself.

But there's a really simple way to fix that :

Rather than choosing before the start one path the AI will follow, the player should be able to forbid some of them.

This way, you could have non historical games with only plausibles scenarios (with Japan, you just need to forbid choices 1 and 2), avoid those that the AI can't handle, while keeping your options opened if sometimes you really want to play alternate scenarios like communist USA, reforming AH or Qing's empire.

I do not think that's very hard to code. That would add another layer of replaybility to the game

 

[KV5_Radio_Operator]

thats just custom games but with more steps

 

[Jays298]

You've hit the nail on the head.

Plus I find that with historical focus turned off, everything is totally random or seems like it. The one time I tried it as Germany I got an early war when I demanded Austria and another early war when I demanded the Suedatenland.

So the game either runs on rails with historical focus on, or half the world is communist and wacky things are happening. And if France joins the cominterm then to me the game has been ruined. Even worse if they go to Communist, no elections in 1944.

And the rails don't always work right either. As the US I spent half a year defending Norway from German invasions. Like 24 US divs vs like 12 Invaders. This went on for a while and I decided to abandon Norway for the simple reason that this might continue forever. I really think the AI is that stupid.

German AI did successfully invade Ireland. So I give them credit for that.

Then Germany and Soviet Union had war goals against the other but did nothing until late 1943. SU took over the middle East. Which was refreshing actually. They usually declare war on UK before establishing a foothold in the middle East which makes no sense to me.

I had a 39 start game where nationalist Spain joined the Axis shortly after the fall of France. That was supposed to be historical focus. But again seems highly ahistorical (would have been blocked I think from the 36 scenario). They joined right after US invaded Normandy.

 

[PARAfel]

Atm HOI4 offers very unrealistic scenarios, sided with much more credible alt-choices.

I will use Japan as example. With Japan, you have 4 exclusive political choices.

1. democratic path
2. communist path
3. oppose Kodoha faction (war agains allies)
4. support Kodoha faction (war againt US)

N°1 and 2 are totally unplausible, but they can be really fun if you don't mind. N°3 depict what happend historically, while n°4 is alt historical and plausible, but already impactful on ww2 (opening a second front against SU)

Atm the game offers you 3 choices (assuming you're not playing Japan).
Play without any setup : the AI will choice randomly between the 4 options, leading to some unplausible and unbalanced things.
Manually setup a choice before the game.
or go for historical (and garantee to have choice n°3)

The problem is that it's not possible to have some unpredictability for the AI strategic's choice, without having those totally unrealistic scenarios. Those are ok for a player against the AI, but having something like Poland forming Miedzymore is just suicide for the AI itself.

But there's a really simple way to fix that :

Rather than choosing before the start one path the AI will follow, the player should be able to forbid some of them.

This way, you could have non historical games with only plausibles scenarios (with Japan, you just need to forbid choices 1 and 2), avoid those that the AI can't handle, while keeping your options opened if sometimes you really want to play alternate scenarios like communist USA, reforming AH or Qing's empire.

I do not think that option is very hard to code. That would add another layer of replaybility to the game

idk what you want to mean writing this. For me this option already exists in the game and is custom game rules.

 

[MobiusTwo]

You've hit the nail on the head.

Plus I find that with historical focus turned off, everything is totally random or seems like it. The one time I tried it as Germany I got an early war when I demanded Austria and another early war when I demanded the Suedatenland.

So the game either runs on rails with historical focus on, or half the world is communist and wacky things are happening. And if France joins the cominterm then to me the game has been ruined. Even worse if they go to Communist, no elections in 1944.

And the rails don't always work right either. As the US I spent half a year defending Norway from German invasions. Like 24 US divs vs like 12 Invaders. This went on for a while and I decided to abandon Norway for the simple reason that this might continue forever. I really think the AI is that stupid.

German AI did successfully invade Ireland. So I give them credit for that.

Then Germany and Soviet Union had war goals against the other but did nothing until late 1943. SU took over the middle East. Which was refreshing actually. They usually declare war on UK before establishing a foothold in the middle East which makes no sense to me.

I had a 39 start game where nationalist Spain joined the Axis shortly after the fall of France. That was supposed to be historical focus. But again seems highly ahistorical (would have been blocked I think from the 36 scenario). They joined right after US invaded Normandy.

You're right about a lot of this. My biggest gripe is the UK decolonizing or switching ideology. When that happens, the game has already been won by the Axis one or two focuses into the game.

Although from my many games' worth of observations, there are only a select few countries that actually do anything substantially different from that they do in historical games. These are:

• Communist China, which sometimes goes to war with China or switches Mao out for another leader
• France, which I've seen do everything except go fascist
• Japan. which seems to do everything possible in its focus tree
• Manchukuo, which rebels against Japan maybe 25% of the time
• Portugal. which fails to retake Brazil in the monarchist path and then usually loses a fascist civil war
• Spain, which picks fairly equally between its many available options with maybe a slight preference for the Francoist path
• United Kingdom, which likes to throw the game by switching ideologies or decolonizing
• Yugoslavia. which occasionally goes communist

The British dominions very occasionally switch ideology but it seldom affects their allegiance, but I have gotten screwed over by a rebellious South Africa and Raj before after conquering the UK and puppeting those countries for myself. I have also seen monarchist Hungary, albeit very rarely since MtG came out, a particularly assertive Romania once or twice, and fascist Australia which formed an alliance with Japan just one time. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that non-historical should be more random. Instead, you're basically playing historical with one or two tweaks.

 

[Ffire]

idk what you want to mean writing this. For me this option already exists in the game and is custom game rules.

I'll try to explain that again :
Atm custom games allow you to set one path for any nation.
So you've got to choose between no random factor (when you set a custom rule) or setting no rules but you'll see unbalanced and unplausible choices.

Rather than allowing the player to force any nation to a specific focus path through custom rules, it would be better to forbid some them.

 

[Edungeon]

If you have such specific tastes about what should or shouldn't happen, use custom games rule to set the paths yourself. Throw a dice if you want some randomness between 2 options and then pick it idk

 

[Ffire]

If you have such specific tastes about what should or shouldn't happen, use custom games rule to set the paths yourself. Throw a dice if you want some randomness between 2 options and then pick it idk

Yes but I will know from the start what everybody's gonna do...