How to make alt-history more lively

[La Espiga]

I've been thinking how could alt history scenarios be more balance and fun, not in the way of realistic alt history scenarios (that's another debate) , but rather taking into account the possibilities, direction and existing focus trees in hoi4.

I don't know if this annoys you, but I hate when the outcome of unchecking historical becomes hightly unreasonable or one sided, specialy if my side gets too much power and we just steamroll the world.

I think that the way france reacts to germany, or manchukuo to japan, can be a good starting point.

The idea would be to create different categories of countries and let them choose a path in response to the ones that the countries above them have chosen before.

These categories could be:

Big four: Germany, USSR (ATM not much, but choices will come) , USA and UK (due to their impact in the world)

These are the true major powers, so they will get to choose first their respective path. They need to keep balance between them, and the countries below should maintain this balance.

Rest of majors: France, Italy, Japan.

This powers will react to the path chosen so the game keeps balance while exploiting the new scenarios. Some of them may chose to go their way, taking advantge of the situation while keeping everything tie together.

They could become leaders of new factions (for example, France with little entende if UK goes with a Change in Course) and if this happens, the countries below them should react in many cases to support them (again, no more France gone by 1940).

Big minors : China, maybe Spain or Romania, and Hungary

These ones could have a big impact, and they should choose their path next.

Hungary deserves this spot due to them being able to create great distortions (specially if the choose to restore the empire o create the Pact of Rome with Italy). Romania has the same issue if she goes full Balkan Dominance. Spain enjoys a great strategic position in the world, and China... Well, it can becomen an absolute juggernaut, specialy if Japan does not attack it and unites under one banner.

Rest of the minors: these should be used to balance the scenario, so no side gets too poweefull until the real war starts.

Obviously you can micro every path prior to the game, bit I prefer some sort of orgabic development.

What do you think? How would you improve alt-history scenarios? Which countries will you add to these categories?

 

[Vlad123]

i think if the UK become fascist, germany as more interest to make a four party deal (Rome,Berlin,Tokyo,London) insthead Ally with Uk and italy and Axis with other. If USA become fascist they want kick down the Soviet and enter in the axis. If France make Fascist they can negotiate a deal with germany for a revenge angaist UK. If Spain in a fascist scenario, become communist or Anarchist, they want kick down before URSS. And Viceversa, if UK become commie they can joint in the comitern meanwhile the puppets, for reaction can reamain democratic(with USA) or enter in the axis!

 

[Algarde]

The best way to play an ALT history game is to use extensively the custom game rules, at least for majors or for 2/3 of them, to create the desired game or at least direct it by leaving the rest on "history focus" and default (or random) setting. Playing a full Atl history, without using the game rules and and without selecting the history focus leads to create games often absurd and unplayable in the long term.

 

[Iskulya]

Even using the custom game rules doesn't create a compelling game.

This is in part because even when you choose what path the AI is to go down, they usually botch it or do it in an untimely manner. I have seen Great Britain not flip communist until mid 1944 for example. This kind of defeats the point of it. There is also an issue of wars being declared by some countries "prematurely" resulting in a nonsensical mish-mash of alliances where diametrically opposed ideologies end up together in a faction fairly regularly. This compounds the problem by messing up the rails of many countries' alternate history paths.

I have a love-hate relationship with HoI 4. As it exists, I don't think the current situation is satisfactory to anyone. We can say there are two broad categories of players: those who prefer ONLY historically rooted content, and those who like even the whackier alternate history content. Currently neither are really satisfied. There is a distinct lack of historical content, which is not to the satisfaction of the former category of player; while simultaneously the alternate history content that does exist doesn't result in a compelling game the vast majority of the time, to the dissatisfaction of players who do like alternate history.

This has a lot to do with the fact that HoI 4 was not designed to cater to alternate history. When the game launched, alternate history was mostly an afterthought. After seeing how popular it was, future content was designed to cater more to the alternate history angle. But even here, Paradox's approach was incoherent. At first they experimented with a pure sandbox approach, in which country content was designed that let a country do anything, go any ideology. This isn't very fun however, so then content going forward in the third DLC tended towards more to a set of alternate history rails(Germany can't go communist for example). Prior content was never reworked so that across the game's content t here is an inconsistent design philosophy which creates a messy game that isn't fun when historical is disabled.

I think there is little question that given the popularity of alternate history content, future content and an eventual sequel will feature it heavily. This is a foregone conclusion in my mind so there is little point in debating whether it's a good thing or not. The question is to how to make it better. I think Kaiserreich provides something close to the gold standard here. There are plenty of things to find issue with in Kaiserreich, but one thing that the mod unquestionably does well is in creating compelling war scenarios, almost each and every time while simultaneously having a ton of potential alternate history.

How does it do this? By operating on a set of given constraints. In Kaiserreich, there is always a communist International with Britain and France, is always opposed to Germany. Germany always seeks continental hegemony, meaning it is always opposed to the communist International and to Russia. Then there is the Entente, made up of Canada and French Africa, which is always in opposition to the International. By having a series of fixed points which are invariable, the designers created a coherent framework around which alternate history for the minor countries could pivot.

They further built upon this by having a similar system of constraints and variation on a more local, regional level. For example, Argentina and Brazil will always oppose one another, but each has the possibility of aligning with a different global alliance(Germany or a local Latin American faction for Argentina, and the International or the Entente for Brazil).

The design just works in creating dynamic scenarios that are almost universally fun to play, but have a large degree of unpredictability. There is just enough that remains constant to ensure that a good war emerges, but enough variation and change that the particulars always vary extensively. Paradox's own content for HoI 4 fails utterly in this regard.

At this point in HoI 4's development this is not going to change. There would have to be a cohesive framework for alternate history kept in mind from the very outset of the game's development. We've seen the piecemeal approach doesn't actually work because unless new content is designed as part of a broader, coherent whole, then it just results in one sided wars and nonsensical alliances, neither of which are actually fun.

Since it's too late to change course, it's inevitable that we're just going to keep getting piecemeal alternate history content for the rest of the game's life cycle, almost all of which will not actually work well in practice.

For a future HoI 5, I think for alternate history to work it would have to be designed around a similar set of fixed points that Kaiserreich operates on. As a few examples of what I think works well: Germany should never go communist and always seek a continental hegemony. Britain should never align with Germany and seek to prevent Germany's conintental dominance. The Soviet Union should always be the leader of world communism, with the potential for the formation of a competing communist bloc in opposition to the Soviet official brand of communism, whether it is Stalinist, Trotskyist, etc. China and Japan should always be in opposition to one another.

The devs have had some of these ideas in passing, but prior content was never reworked to accommodate it and this approach was not consistent across all new content either. For instance, Paradox decided(correctly in my opinion) that Germany should not have communist content because this would never result in a fun and compelling campaign.

I think a compelling and balanced historical campaign should always be the number one focus for Hearts of Iron, but since there inevitably going to be a significant component for alternate history, I think the pure sandbox approach should be thrown in the garbage can. A more constrained approach as exists in Kaiserreich I think has proven to be much superior.

 

[Vlad123]

Quite right, I have seen many games (I don't say the name to advertise, also because many are famous and I think you know them too) where a field course in progress ... is often a failure. If your initial idea is "pure but historically accurate sanbox" continue with that, no matter if you have players like the alternative story more, we have seen useless countries receiving a beautiful focus three while useful countries, unnecessary focus three, crooked or mischievous. I'm sorry but Paradox has been hitting quite often lately (it hit rock bottom with Imperator: Rome and I hope there isn't something lower)