IMO: Instead of trying to be Kaiserreich and add tons of weird alt history stuff, the devs should have focused more on real/near-historic stuff.

[Spy01]

I love watching WW2 documentaries and reading books about it, and one thing that always fascinates me is how much stuff did or *almost* did happen or was considered. Unfortunately a ton of this isn't at all represented in the game. Instead we now got the possibility of an American Civil War 2, Japan going communist, Spain with 30 flavors of left wing infighting (that doesn't matter since Spain never does anything after the civil war) and so on. Kaiserreich does this much better, I think anyone who has played the mod would agree with me. Instead I feel like the devs in whatever DLC is coming next should focus more on stuff that almost happened. Mark my words: The next DLC will have the Soviet Union with a new focus tree that allows them to restore the Czar.

Some ideas for real/near-history stuff that could have happened:

* Hitler actually sent Britain a peace offer, why not have that in the game?

* If Germany hadn't broken through France's defenses the nation would have been starved from being embargoed. Right now Germany just gets more and more units and planes until it can attack France. Instead it should have consequences if Germany doesn't take France.

* The fall of the League of Nations. The league feel after it failed to respond to aggressions in Ethiopia and China. How about allowing the player to actually do something? Let you sanction Italy and Japan, or even come to the aid of the defenders.

Additionally, here's some stuff that isn't modeled in the game at all but were very important:

* The US lend leasing Britain and USSR. Right now you only get lend lease offers if you have negative stock and if they have extra. Instead there should be some way to actually ensure that the US lend leases these nations properly. This would also make Germany's Uboat fleet more important. Right now there isn't much reason to build it unless you want to intercept US troops on their way to Britain in 1942.

* Again, League of Nations.

I don't want to make an even longer wall of text. The point and TLDR is that there is a ton of real and near historical stuff that isn't in the game, and I would far prefer that to seeing the USSR or Italy get a focus tree where most of it is about restoring the monarchy or something like that.

 

[STABBY5]

I love watching WW2 documentaries and reading books about it, and one thing that always fascinates me is how much stuff did or *almost* did happen or was considered. Unfortunately a ton of this isn't at all represented in the game. Instead we now got the possibility of an American Civil War 2, Japan going communist, Spain with 30 flavors of left wing infighting (that doesn't matter since Spain never does anything after the civil war) and so on. Kaiserreich does this much better, I think anyone who has played the mod would agree with me. Instead I feel like the devs in whatever DLC is coming next should focus more on stuff that almost happened. Mark my words: The next DLC will have the Soviet Union with a new focus tree that allows them to restore the Czar.

Some ideas for real/near-history stuff that could have happened:

* Hitler actually sent Britain a peace offer, why not have that in the game?

* If Germany hadn't broken through France's defenses the nation would have been starved from being embargoed. Right now Germany just gets more and more units and planes until it can attack France. Instead it should have consequences if Germany doesn't take France.

* The fall of the League of Nations. The league feel after it failed to respond to aggressions in Ethiopia and China. How about allowing the player to actually do something? Let you sanction Italy and Japan, or even come to the aid of the defenders.

Additionally, here's some stuff that isn't modeled in the game at all but were very important:

* The US lend leasing Britain and USSR. Right now you only get lend lease offers if you have negative stock and if they have extra. Instead there should be some way to actually ensure that the US lend leases these nations properly. This would also make Germany's Uboat fleet more important. Right now there isn't much reason to build it unless you want to intercept US troops on their way to Britain in 1942.

* Again, League of Nations.

I don't want to make an even longer wall of text. The point and TLDR is that there is a ton of real and near historical stuff that isn't in the game, and I would far prefer that to seeing the USSR or Italy get a focus tree where most of it is about restoring the monarchy or something like that.

I agree with the general sentiment that a lot of very realistic alt-history things were sadly ignored. The 2nd American Civil war just doesn't make any sense with the themes or how they decided to split up the country. Frankly a historical France would be my favorite avenue they ignored. I do want to address your points though.

1. It's a war game, if there's no war then there's no game. There does need to be a system of non-total war peace though.
2.They weren't expecting a quick victory. Predicted losses were at a million men trying to win in France. Not winning in a week shouldn't hurt anything out or the ordinary.
3. The League of Nations had no teeth and thus failed. It's 16 years old in game and you can't really change its history.
4. This is solely a problem of the AI's willingness to Lendlease. Expert AI helps this a lot.
5. Needs a non isolationist USA and frankly 5 out of the 7 major nations are belligerent during this period so not really realistic. "Don't invade China says local USSR while invading Poland."

 

[Goshawk]

The alt history stuff was fun at the begining. But now devs've shifted so much focus on to alt history in national focus, it is no longer novel. I think devs can do a good job on historical stuff, the national spirits and focus trees before Man the Gun are all fascinating to me.

I actually hope devs will buff the general industry capabilities across the borad. Most nations can't produce anything else than guns and artilleries for most of the games. And even for major nations, you can hardly find spare factories to produce SPG and Tank destroyers. On that note, I would also like to see tanks variants like tank destroyers play a bigger role on the battlefield such as buffinng its defense value or giving it a huge bonnus against armour/motorised division.

 

[FindFloppies]

There's tons of very historically focused mods out there if you want that. Some very good ones. So good, that I wish I liked the historically-restricted stuff more than I do.

However, I would be sad if they restricted the game to 'just the historic stuff'. I've studied WWII as a hobby for 40 years, and I don't have any real need to replay the same exact historical war 500 times. Maybe 5 times or 10 times, but after that, I need the sandbox available where I can play what-if.

 

[Metz]

The game should allow for consumer goods to play a bigger role. This would pressure countries to act faster or else they will collapse in the long run.

Civilian factors should be assigned to produce consumer goals. The minimum needed would be based on mobilization law but also army size to simulate non-materiel troops would need in the front.

Consumer goods and trade goods should also be able to be stockpiled like fuel is.

Additionally, playing as France there is a penalty for full unemployment. In theory, the game should have this across the board. The balance between working in factories and being in the manpower pool should be more interconnected and have a larger presence in terms of gameplay beyond that of just being affected by the recruitment law.