Italy or Soviets, which do you think is coming first?

[agonistes]

Yes, socialist is an old term, a very very old term. As the term communist came into use the two were regarded as synonymous. Right up until Lenin and Stalin.

Also sorry, but the whole "Hitler wasn't a socialist" thing doesn't hold, just something modern marxist sympathizers have proposed in an effort to disassociate from one of the most murderous men to ever live. Sort of like how modern Marxists disengenously say "comminism has never been tried", conveniently not mentioning that in marxist theory there is always a transitional state, a state lenin declared to be socialism.

Pointing out Hitler was against other "left wingers" or socialists doesn't mean he wasn't a socialist. Stalin and Trotsky are both socialists. Hitler's position on auturky comes from Marx proposal that trade is a slowly losing relationship. His goal of invading the ussr to take Ukraine and Azerbaijan was specifically because of this.

He crippled the german economy in the 1930s by trying to reduce imports by as much as possible. All because when he read Marx he believed him. He was anti capitalist because when he read Marx saying capitalism will eventually crumble under its own weight he believed him.

What so many marxist socialists do to try to obfuscate and claim they aren't ideologically related is that Hitler's actions were intended to prevent the societal collapse Marx predicted. Hitler was obsessed with this racist idea that only Arians can make civilization and that if the marxist revolution came this would thin the Arian blood through mixing to the point civilization would end.

The derangement came from believing that both capitalism and communism were part of a singular Jewish plot to end civilization. He felt Jewish people couldn't act in a collective manner and were trying to end collective cooperation everywhere. Note that key point. He felt the key to german strength was collectivization, unified actions and thoughts. He was in fact a socialist. Just because he didn't achieve all of his socialist ambitions doesn't mean he didn't have them. And of course he was vague with his socialism, so are all socialists. "Its impossible to know what the utopia will be like because we haven't seen it yet, keep working comrades! To utopia" essentially....

And that brings it to the USSR, while a great many could fairly have felt that it had no goals of anarchy that doesn't mean that you can write that off entirely. The theory is that the marxist revolution had to become WORLD WIDE first. Basically governments are too good at focusing power so the only way to achieve anarchy is to force it upon everyone all at once. Its like you can't safely throw away your weapons and army till your neighbors do as well. This is the supposed schism between Trotsky and Stalin, how exactly to do that. Subversion by agitating revolutions everywhere or build up the ussr into a mighty unstoppable juggernaut....

Most days I feel socialism really only exists to dupe people into giving stalin absolute power. Then i consider that stalin had 28,000 tanks alone when the germans invaded. He built up a mind numbing stockpile of weapons and Stalin was a genius. He wouldn't have done that without a reason, so maybe he did intend to conquer the world in the end, to force anarchy down everyone's throat at once...

(I say supposed schism between Trotsky and Stalin based on the belief that the real conflict between the two is that there were two of them and there could only be one tyrannical evil dictator. If you wonder as I do if the actual intend of socialism is just to empower one tyrant as much as possible this makes sense. Socialism going back to its roots in the french revolution always has had a dictator. It always seems to be more about power and not actually about helping anyone.)

Not sure how you can consider Stalin a socialist. And probably that right there is where your reasoning fails.

 

[Col.Klink]

First, thanks for answering my question. You gave me a new view about the period.

You made some good points that i would like to discuss. First about the "purge" that the US and USSR did. I think the primary differency between them is that while Stalin literally killed a lot of people, the US just send them to retirement. These people in retirement could be convoked at any time, be consulted, and even work to the army as civilians with a certain degree of influence inside the army. The same can't be said about USSR. So, we can argued that one of the biggest effects of the 'Great Purge' was the lost of brains, that alone could be the cause of secondary and tertiary problems inside the military.

About the collaboration goverment idea. It really make sense, but that to look plausible, would need something like what happened in Yugoslavia in the 50s when soviets tanks drove down the street and was made the announced that the 'situation in Yugoslasvia was normalized'. To turn a coup in a puppet state, the country interested should need to exert a huge degree of influence (principally military) inside this country.

Well, when Marshal fired these people he did so with the express intent of purging their old ideas from the military establishment. First and foremost his objection to them is that they were old guards and therefore weren't going to be fresh enough, creative enough to adapt to the new situation. There is a fair amount of justification for this. The USA in the war of 1812 had the choice to take the chance on new officers or keep the ancient revolutionary war fuddy duddies. They took the fuddy duddies and as a result in spite of having a vastly superior army the USA just got TROUNCED in that war by both Canada and the UK.

Part of Marshal's success were what he wanted. He wanted A: Young. B: Energetic and uplifting, a positive attitude that would infect the men. This was important because Marshal correctly predicted the USA being behind the curve would lose a lot initially. C: A team player. Victory is a team effort, this isn't a career opportunity. D: Is dedicated to doing better than "good enough" or "achieving victory." Winning a battle alone isn't good enough, we must strive for astounding victories. Lol you can see how that last one could go wrong, so the team player thing really is needed to temper it. With these guidelines he was able to expand the officer corps exponentially because the key was finding creative, energetic, dynamic team players not people who understand existing military doctrine.

We see from the American example that the fabled loss of knowledge and experience isn't the real problem. I think we all stumble into this fallacy because we believe older experienced officers are better, but the truth is that even though they may have more experience or know doctrines better all that might just set them on a path of intellectual rigidity with non effective maxims and strategies.

And this makes me wonder. What was the point of the great purge? I highly recommend looking up Stephen Kotkin on youtube (or buying his books.) He studied Stalin his whole life and he finds it an enigma too. There was no threat to Stalin, no risk of a conspiracy. His power had been absolute for years now. So why? One answer Kotkin gives is to essentially assert final control over his inner circle, but they already were in his bag. They argued with him but *ALWAYS* obeyed him. Another option I posit is Stalin was getting rid of all the old fuddy duddy officers who lost ww1 to free up space for the Georgy Zhukov's of the world. That's the argument I find compelling and interesting.

The question is, was the Soviet environment a good one to build up new officers in? Zhukov did become great, but was he the exception or the norm?

I actually begin to think that the Soviet Union fought better than we give credit. Germany lost roughly 4.4 million men on the eastern front according to a quick google search. Suppose we say that the USSR was literally materially unprepared for war as I had posited before. So in 1941 Russia lost 5,000,000 to the Axis 1,000,000. But what about the rest of the war where the Axis continued to outnumber the USSR forces (at the front) and continued to be on the offensive for two more years? Well the rest of the war Germany would lose another 3.4 million men and the Soviets would lose 3.8 million men. That's in spite of being outnumbered (at the front) and knocked around for a few years. It seems to me that the Soviets actually were good at fighting. This idea of the crappily led Soviet Army might not be true.

added: completely forgot about the puppet government through a coup thing!

I originally thought about this after becoming upset with my results staging a coup in Romania as the USSR. My plan was to use a coup to force Romania into my sphere, be able to control it's ability to go to war and keep it out of the war with Germany thereby shrinking the front line I have to defend. A front that TBH is pretty open....

Anyway I got the coup going, then because the coup forces weren't that great I immediately joined their side in the civil war and narrowly managed to save them before they got crushed. A quick war ensued and the new communist government of Romania was established but even though they were grateful for me installing them into power they were *NOT* my puppet and my objectives therefore hadn't been fulfilled. If I invited these fools to my faction to gain their victory points for the end of the game then they'd join the war with Germany, get annihilated and then I'm back with the original problem. The coup proved to be a poor plan due to game mechanics.

Then I got thinking. My army of 400,000 or something was occupying Romania. The established government had like 30,000 men and largely existed because I said it existed. Why couldn't I have made them my puppet like the USSR did to all of eastern Europe post war? This mechanic would actually make coups worthwhile because now tbh I don't find that I have any use for them.

Not sure how you can consider Stalin a socialist. And probably that right there is where your reasoning fails.

Yes, yes "true communism has never been tried." In other words "If I were dictator this next time it would work out right."

This video literally is propaganda. In fact, many of its "cited" claims are explicitly based on citing Nazi propaganda as a truthful or accurate source, without reference to the actual policies of the Nazi regieme. I mean, I'm not sitting through 5 hours of this drek, but I watched enough of it to spot what's going on here.

It's not hard, for example, to disprove the idea that Hitler was a free market capitalist, but it's just as easy to disprove that Hitler was a Marxist socialist.

This really jabs at the heart of the argument and why we are even having it. First, in order to understand nazi ideology we must analyze what they say their ideology is. Just like I have been doing so with the Soviet Union. Only after that do we start asking "is what they say they believe actually what they believe?" In the case of states like the Soviet Union I ask if the promises of Marxism are ever the goal of Marxism or if Marxism in actuality only exists to give a man like Stalin absolute power. But first we must know what the stated ideology is which you have just stated that you aren't interested in learning. I don't care about the 5 hour video (it's excessively long I completely understand man) but you just literally denounced even hearing the nazi argument. With such a stance you cannot even know what we are arguing about.

And that is the real problem here, you just don't seem to actually understand what we are arguing over. This argument cannot have any kind of a resolution, nobody involved can walk out having learned more if we don't even know what this is all about and understand our terms. NOWHERE did I claim that nazism is marxist socialism, nor did I even claim nazsim is in fact fascism (they are two different ideologies sorry.) In fact just above I said:

" That's what makes marxism so clever is that it's a method of subversion and domination and while fascism and nazism are not marxism they are outgrowths of marxism and use marxist methodologies to achieve power" -me

This is what I was jabbing at with the French revolution part. You don't even have a grasp of the fundamental terminology. IE "socialism." I explained carefully that Marxism came to define socialism, not that Marxism created socialism. By the time Marxism came around socialism had existed for decades and was utterly destroyed in intellectual debate. Marxism was a revolutionary transformation of socialism and after it all socialist movements would borrow in one way or another from it. Socialist movements like nazism, which isn't Marxism but is still collectivist and socialist borrowed heavily from Marxism.

But we can't even really have a discussion about this because you are woefully unprepared to even understand what is being discussed:

The French revolution predates socialism as a concept by decades. The ideological motivation for the French revolution is the same as that of the American revolution, meaning its the radical Enlightenment. It's the idea, again, that society should be organised on rational principles in order to maximise liberty. It was a bourgeois revolution organised and lead primarily by the wealthy middle class, and its economic effects were extremely pro-capitalist.

This statement shows you just don't understand any of the history of Socialism or even what socialism is (or what the French Revolution was for that matter, a period of darkness so terrible that Napoleon's rule which btw was the force that allowed capitalism to begin forming in France was gracious in comparison.) That's ok, socialism is a really twisty complicated snooty, intellectual concept and in the case of Marxism and Marxists intentionally obfuscated and left vague (watch modern Marxists debate, they only attack their only defense is obfuscation. Marxism works by undermining the legitimacy often moral legitimacy of institutions not by defending it's own ideas.)

Yes, the French Revolution was led by bourgeois intellectuals, the same thing is is Marxism as well. It's an snobby intellectual movement that abuses poor working people. This ties into the part of listening to what their argument is but then AFTER listening to their argument actually dissecting if they are bsing you. Such as the case of socialists always saying "we are for the working poor" when they have never done anything to help the working poor. Some brief overview:

History of socialism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Remember when I explained enough Marxism ultimately always comes down to "the enlightened few" fixing the stupid brains of the general public? Think about that, it's a bourgeoisie intellectual tradition. A tradition of snooty educated people crapping on the uneducated working people. Well this jabs to the home of what socialism really is (and dark truth is Stalin really was an exemplar of that. I don't think any other head of state within the past 200 years was his intellectual equal.) It's easy to say "socialism is collectivism" that's true, but what is the real heart of socialism? I finally understood this year funnily enough debating firearms laws.

The enlightenment occurred because of a conceptual shift in the western man's view of the world. The concept of divine will, not free will was the preconceived nature of society. This was used to legitimize absolute monarchs as an example. He is the king and you are the peasant because that's god's will and so on. But when society shifted to think man has free will that carried with it a multitude of implications. If man has free will then god cannot be behind everything, therefore the king is not where he is because of god. Further, god won't be constantly jiggering with the laws of reality around me to make things happen so it is actually worthwhile to study the natural world for it's laws are actually concrete. The fascinating thing is that you can see the Muslim world, which invented the scientific method under its neo platonic days go the opposite direction and never come back....

Anyway, so now you believe man has free will. Now what? What does that mean? Well you have two paths from there. You have "man has free will and that is a good thing." The end result is the anglo tradition, the USA being the exemplar of that. The opposite direction is "Man has free will and that is a curse for he is by and large too stupid and weak. He will only use his free will to hurt himself." *THAT* is the intellectual tradition behind the French Revolution, the terror of the "national razor" and the roots of what socialism is. Men are unworthy of their free will and so the enlightened few will take ABSOLUTE control over all society, even control over people's thoughts to protect the idiots from themselves. Society must be collectivized because the opposite is free will and people use free will only to hurt themselves. Sure marxism promises anarchy in the end, but there is always that talk in the middle about fixing the idiots who let themselves be enslaved in the first place. All of these traditions have the same root. From there it begins to become easier to understand socialism.

"Rousseau's Social Contract argued that each person was born with rights, and they would come together to form a government that would then protect those rights. Under the social contract, the government was required to act for the general will, which represented the interests of everyone rather than a few factions.[12] Drawing from the idea of a general will, Robespierre felt that the French Revolution could result in a Republic built for the general will but only once those who fought this ideal were expelled.[13][14] Those who resisted the government were deemed "tyrants" fighting against the virtue and honor of the general will. The leaders felt their ideal version of government was threatened from the inside and outside of France, and terror was the only way to preserve the dignity of the Republic created from French Revolution "
AKA "Robespierre felt that he *was* the will of the people, and that anyone against him, or anyone who did not want to go along with the herd was against the "will of the people" and therefore terror was necessary to protect the people from such evil. Terror kept men honest, it kept society virtuous. That my friend is a socialist society. Source: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilien_Robespierre)

I look forward to discussing the rest with you (maybe you can prove me wrong and Hitler secretly didn't believe in collectivism, or absolute control over his people to protect them from themselves) but that's for a future time when you actually even understand what is being discussed.

 

[Ketchup & friends]

Unfortunately, I don't think people will be happy no matter which way you slice it. They could never touch the broken older focus trees again and neither of us would be happy.

Do you want people to be forced to pay twice in order to get a fixed product?

Devs already said that once all majors got an updated focus tree they will overhaul all focus trees in order to make them work together better. While some would require just a few minor tweaks, the bad ones should get a bigger overhaul in that patch.

 

[sonofliber]

After reading this post, its gonna be:
Massive update for Siam and new focus trees for belgium, norway, mongolia and brazil

 

[Harin]

After reading this post, its gonna be:
Massive update for Siam and new focus trees for belgium, norway, mongolia and brazil

You left out the Tibet focus on reaching the moon and establishing a temple on the highest peak above earth.

 

[derphalo]

It's kinda interesting how this thread went from talking about a DLC, to debating communism and national socialism.

 

[MobiusTwo]

Do you want people to be forced to pay twice in order to get a fixed product?

Devs already said that once all majors got an updated focus tree they will overhaul all focus trees in order to make them work together better. While some would require just a few minor tweaks, the bad ones should get a bigger overhaul in that patch.

No, I do not want people to pay twice to get a fixed product. For some people, paying $20 once or twice a year is a drop in the bucket, but it's absolutely not fair to have people pay twice for something that should have been good the first time around. However, it's definitely nice to hear that they plan on fixing all focus trees once they've done all the majors. I definitely agree that the bad ones like South Africa and India need more love than the ones that are already pretty good.

After reading this post, its gonna be:
Massive update for Siam and new focus trees for belgium, norway, mongolia and brazil

You jest, but honestly I wouldn't even be mad. I was disappointed that Mongolia got nothing from Waking the Tiger, and again when Belgium got shafted in La Resistance. The other three countries you named all have great potential for interesting focus trees.

It's kinda interesting how this thread went from talking about a DLC, to debating communism and national socialism.

Yeah, and I wish people would stop derailing the thread with that debate.

 

[Ffire]

I actually begin to think that the Soviet Union fought better than we give credit. Germany lost roughly 4.4 million men on the eastern front according to a quick google search. Suppose we say that the USSR was literally materially unprepared for war as I had posited before. So in 1941 Russia lost 5,000,000 to the Axis 1,000,000. But what about the rest of the war where the Axis continued to outnumber the USSR forces (at the front) and continued to be on the offensive for two more years? Well the rest of the war Germany would lose another 3.4 million men and the Soviets would lose 3.8 million men. That's in spite of being outnumbered (at the front) and knocked around for a few years. It seems to me that the Soviets actually were good at fighting. This idea of the crappily led Soviet Army might not be true.

True and wrong here

The german never outnumbered the soviet army. They were competent enough (and the soviet weren't during the first 2-3 years) to get superiority where it matters, achieving in critical points ration greater than 10 to 1. That's in term of manpower, but in majors materials like tanks and even planes, soviet had greater numbers too. But they were often not able to sustain high operationnal availbaility for those equipments (aka the ratio between the raw number of tanks vs the number of tanks in condition to fight), due to lack of organisation and logistics/maintenance support.
Soviet didn't fight well during the first criticals weeks (they believe in offensive way too much, as the french believed in defensive, and counter attacked hastily and inefficiently) and lose the best part of their army, the best trained man and the most experienced officers (who where already in insufficient numbers).
The fact they suffered huges losses after that (fielding rookies with minimal training and unexperienced officers) was quite predictable.

And yes, Red Army gather so much experience fighting and killing 80% of german losses they were probably much more than a match for any army in 1945. Just to illustrate that, during June 1944 while the western allies struggle with 1million troops with total logistical and aerial superiority vs 200K germans (with a good terrain to defend in Normandy), the Red army eliminated 30 divisions in onlyl 1 month during Bagration operation (and bagration tooked place in the swamps close to Orcha, which are not a good terrain too), followed by an 400km advance in an area without good infrastructures.

German really started to suffer high casualties on the est front at that moment, and even more after, with casualties often reaching more than 100k/month (before that, they suffered on average 30k/months, with the exception of winter 42-43 due to Stalingrad defeat). That's because they weren't able to replace their loss since winter 41. The ratio between the german and red army slowly declined after winter 41. After Koursk and Sicily, Hitler ordered the reinforcement flow to be directed to the west front, anticipating D-day. That permitted to build some defense in the west, but accelerated strongly the declining of the german east army. The number of german soldiers in Russia fell down to 2.2millions (vs more than 5 millions of soviets). The quality of new recruits and training also started to decline at that moment. That, and the experienced gathered by the Red army, allowed it to obtain local superiority on key points at 10 to 1, sometimes even more. They managed to put the wechmacht in the very same situation they were in 41.

Btw nice post about french revolution. As a french, it's always nice to read well informed writing about that key period. Saint-Simon is also one of the key players imho if you want to understand early form of socialism

 

[Crecer13]

True and wrong here

The german never outnumbered the soviet army. They were competent enough (and the soviet weren't during the first 2-3 years) to get superiority where it matters, achieving in critical points ration greater than 10 to 1. That's in term of manpower, but in majors materials like tanks and even planes, soviet had greater numbers too. But they were often not able to sustain high operationnal availbaility for those equipments (aka the ratio between the raw number of tanks vs the number of tanks in condition to fight), due to lack of organisation and logistics/maintenance support.
Soviet didn't fight well during the first criticals weeks (they believe in offensive way too much, as the french believed in defensive, and counter attacked hastily and inefficiently) and lose the best part of their army, the best trained man and the most experienced officers (who where already in insufficient numbers).
The fact they suffered huges losses after that (fielding rookies with minimal training and unexperienced officers) was quite predictable.

And yes, Red Army gather so much experience fighting and killing 80% of german losses they were probably much more than a match for any army in 1945. Just to illustrate that, during June 1944 while the western allies struggle with 1million troops with total logistical and aerial superiority vs 200K germans (with a good terrain to defend in Normandy), the Red army eliminated 30 divisions in onlyl 1 month during Bagration operation (and bagration tooked place in the swamps close to Orcha, which are not a good terrain too), followed by an 400km advance in an area without good infrastructures.

German really started to suffer high casualties on the est front at that moment, and even more after, with casualties often reaching more than 100k/month (before that, they suffered on average 30k/months, with the exception of winter 42-43 due to Stalingrad defeat). That's because they weren't able to replace their loss since winter 41. The ratio between the german and red army slowly declined after winter 41. After Koursk and Sicily, Hitler ordered the reinforcement flow to be directed to the west front, anticipating D-day. That permitted to build some defense in the west, but accelerated strongly the declining of the german east army. The number of german soldiers in Russia fell down to 2.2millions (vs more than 5 millions of soviets). The quality of new recruits and training also started to decline at that moment. That, and the experienced gathered by the Red army, allowed it to obtain local superiority on key points at 10 to 1, sometimes even more. They managed to put the wechmacht in the very same situation they were in 41.

Btw nice post about french revolution. As a french, it's always nice to read well informed writing about that key period. Saint-Simon is also one of the key players imho if you want to understand early form of socialism

But the Soviets lost on the number of troops to the Germans all the way until 1943. Yes, the USSR had a large army at the beginning of the war. But because of the sudden attack, the Germans were numerically superior at that time. Soviet troops were divided into three echelons. The first is on the border, the second is on the way to the border and the third has just started moving towards the border. The Germans found the USSR without pants, when only part of the troops was on the border and the rest was on the move. It inflicted crushing losses and the whole of 1941 and 1942 the Soviets were in a numerical minority, only by 1943 the USSR received a numerical superiority.

 

[Ffire]

But the Soviets lost on the number of troops to the Germans all the way until 1943. Yes, the USSR had a large army at the beginning of the war. But because of the sudden attack, the Germans were numerically superior at that time. Soviet troops were divided into three echelons. The first is on the border, the second is on the way to the border and the third has just started moving towards the border. The Germans found the USSR without pants, when only part of the troops was on the border and the rest was on the move. It inflicted crushing losses and the whole of 1941 and 1942 the Soviets were in a numerical minority, only by 1943 the USSR received a numerical superiority.

That's not what I call being outnumbered, that's what is called a bad use of superior forces. Need to check but in 1942, the Soviets fielded a bit more troops than Germany (who suffer 1M casualties in 1941, with 300K being definitives) and her allies

 

[marcelo r. r.]

Italy = signal a bore, lazy, cheap DLC.
Soviet Union = signals that they have rolled up their sleeves and are going to do something really big.

 

[MobiusTwo]

Italy = signal a bore, lazy, cheap DLC.
Soviet Union = signals that they have rolled up their sleeves and are going to do something really big.

Why would prioritizing one country over the other signify that?

 

[Harin]

Why would prioritizing one country over the other signify that?

In my opinion of course, if the developers choose the Soviet Union, then they are most likely going to tackle land combat, logistics, and some AI behaviors that have been reported for a long time now. That is on top of the normal stuff that they do in a DLC, like new focus tree and some interesting new features.

If all that happens, that will be a lot more work compared to a standard DLC that makes the new content work with the current mechanics.

*Edit
Oh, and a company can be lazy, but that does not mean the employees are. Frankly, it is when a company is at its laziest that the employees have to work their hardest. For example, Paradox should give the HOI4 team more people. At a minimum, they should have a bug removal team assigned to clear up over one hundred bugs that @Bitmod has identified. They do not even have to look for them. He has them clearly described. It would not be to hard at all for the team to be given one more person just to add more faces, icons, and other standard art the game is lacking for such a successful game. Instead the HOI4 team has a lot on its plate and does not get the support it deserves for the success it has generated.

 

[Hoi Neuling]

Hard to say, belongs what they are doing next. If the Devs rework the Army first, then the East-Block and Scandinavia.

If the Devs are rework the Airforce first (which they wanna refit a 3rd!!! Time) and some Navy-Things fixing again then Italy and the missing Mediteranen.

They haven´t announced anything the last time, so it´s a surprise for all of us what will come next.

 

[Black Canary Jnr]

Hopefully it’s Russia/ Finland + 1-2 minors. Right now soviets are the most disappointing and underwhelming nation to play; very small focus tree artificially stretched out to stop it being completed on ‘39.

Content of Russian tree could be a Stalinist / Trotsky split with a divide on international socialism versus Stalins USSR take on it, obvious tsar reformation route as well. Not too sure how well a facist route could be implemented and tbh not too bothered if it didn’t get added if the Trotsky/ Stalin/ tsar routes were implemented with enough flavour.
There’s lots of flavour to add for the military tree like sniper schools, civilians building he fortifications around moscow etc. It’d be good to have a tree locked off for Barbarossa and you have to remove purge/ military debuffs by doing that, imagine being able to boost resistance or scorch earth by focuses to buy time, that sort of stuff could make the soviets more unique.

Finland would just be cool to have in general, at the moment it doesn’t really exist but give it some nice core defence modifiers and implement the winter war well so that Finland can survive without losing everything, lots of potential.

Main feature that people seem to want is a revamp of the land warfare aspect and logistics.
Personally i’d like the supply system to be tweaked so you can specifically resupply pockets of men as this was a big thing mostly on the eastern front (buff to transport planes with this) and the ability to manually alter your logistics ports would be nice.

My take on revamping the land war is to rework the way tank research works into the way as it does with the navy. Right now the biggest issue with tanks is that you can rush your 44 tanks in 40-41 and spend your army exp to be unstoppable, there is also a bizarre case where you can get SPAA without researching any AA upgrades. By splitting tanks down into modules (hull, main gun, engine, armor, small arms/ aux arms) and attaching relevant research to these you get a constant development as you get better AA, arty, AT, small arms, heck even rocket arty caliopes, etc. The idea being to replicate the development that went into tanks throughout the war better than he current system which is research light and trivial to dump army experience in to get the best units in the game.

As a minor addition i’d copy what Rt56 does and take the army exp dump mechanic and use it on small arms, arty, AA, AT, etc. so your minor nations can improve and possibly be able to stand up to super tanks with upgrades AT.

That’s what I want to see from the next DLC anyways.

 

[CrazyZombie]

obvious tsar reformation route as well

No way it is "obvious" or "plausible" in any way. It is just as realistic as monarchist coup in USA.

Content of Russian tree could be a Stalinist / Trotsky split with a divide on international socialism versus Stalins USSR take on it, obvious tsar reformation route as well. Not too sure how well a facist route could be implemented and tbh not too bothered if it didn’t get added if the Trotsky/ Stalin/ tsar routes were implemented with enough flavour.

"Fascist route" is impossible too. Maybe (just MAYBE) there can be diplomatic path of joining Axis in some form, but staying communist anyway. As for internal politics focuses, there can be "third path" of military junta, based on Tukhachevsky plot case, where some ideological variables can be altered, while general rhetoric of revolutionary communist state remains.

 

[Harin]

My take on revamping the land war is to rework the way tank research works into the way as it does with the navy. Right now the biggest issue with tanks is that you can rush your 44 tanks in 40-41 and spend your army exp to be unstoppable, there is also a bizarre case where you can get SPAA without researching any AA upgrades. By splitting tanks down into modules (hull, main gun, engine, armor, small arms/ aux arms) and attaching relevant research to these you get a constant development as you get better AA, arty, AT, small arms, heck even rocket arty caliopes, etc. The idea being to replicate the development that went into tanks throughout the war better than he current system which is research light and trivial to dump army experience in to get the best units in the game.

As a minor addition i’d copy what Rt56 does and take the army exp dump mechanic and use it on small arms, arty, AA, AT, etc. so your minor nations can improve and possibly be able to stand up to super tanks with upgrades AT.

Good points about the tanks. I saw in the Suggestions section where a developer wrote that he started thinking about a tank designer after the ship designer was finished. Hopefully, he has a large enough voice on the team to get it added.

 

[Col.Klink]

In my opinion of course, if the developers choose the Soviet Union, then they are most likely going to tackle land combat, logistics, and some AI behaviors that have been reported for a long time now. That is on top of the normal stuff that they do in a DLC, like new focus tree and some interesting new features.

If all that happens, that will be a lot more work compared to a standard DLC that makes the new content work with the current mechanics.

*Edit
Oh, and a company can be lazy, but that does not mean the employees are. Frankly, it is when a company is at its laziest that the employees have to work their hardest. For example, Paradox should give the HOI4 team more people. At a minimum, they should have a bug removal team assigned to clear up over one hundred bugs that @Bitmod has identified. They do not even have to look for them. He has them clearly described. It would not be to hard at all for the team to be given one more person just to add more faces, icons, and other standard art the game is lacking for such a successful game. Instead the HOI4 team has a lot on its plate and does not get the support it deserves for the success it has generated.

TBH the base game itself was good and I'm honest about the incentives in the game industry. "episodic game play" is now the norm, the most lucrative route. With the risks that are in the gaming industry you can't expect investors to stand by while a company intentionally leaves money on the table. From now on more and more games will be like this one. Developers will release a base game with more chapters purchasable later. Or expansions of gameplay features. It's incredibly lucrative if the product is good so it will never go away.

That's not what I call being outnumbered, that's what is called a bad use of superior forces. Need to check but in 1942, the Soviets fielded a bit more troops than Germany (who suffer 1M casualties in 1941, with 300K being definitives) and her allies

There is a reason why I used the phrasing again and again "at the front" lol. Because absolutely they had more men. But not more men at once fighting.

There are two theories involving that. The first one is that russia was inept and couldn't get them to the front. Ok its plausible. Theory 2 is that Stalin was a madman with a plan. That he INTENTIONALLY set armies in successive waves instead of just pouring them all on the front.

This second theory is based upon the idea that the Russians were so lacking in quality equipment, ie anti tank guns, anti aircraft, and radios that no volume of men on the front could have stopped the German armored spearheads. So instead of losing his entire army all in one titanic encirclement Stalin forced the German army to encircle army after army after army after army of his successively. Each encirclement of course not crumbling right away creating problems in the flow of supplies to the German spearhead. The successive encirclement battles exhausting the Germans and inflicting far more casualties than they would have if Stalin threw everything into the first encirclement that the Germans had made.

And while I have a personal loathing of communism that puts it on the moral equivalent of the nazis the more I learn of Stalin the more I am inclined to believe he was brilliant and he had a plan that apparently worked.

Like the battle of Moscow. The German supply situation was so bad that their coats were still in Poland. Don't let the excuse of "well they thought the ussr would have surrendered by then" fool you, Germany would have had to still occupy Russia in the winter and actually control it. They needed those coats but their supply chain was garbage. Anyway, in the middle of one of the worst winters like ever Stalin throws a mountain of men at the exhausted entrenched Germans. They began to encircle the Germans and even though for both sides the overwhelming majority of the casualties were due to the cold the German high command was beginning to order a full retreat to prevent being encircled and over run, until Hitler overrode them and ordered them to stand fast.

Now what would have happened to the over a million strong German army group if they were forced out of their shelter into the open to retreat with no winter clothing through one of the worst winters and winter storms ever? Yeah... if Hitler hadn't overridden his general's orders in 1941 to retreat Stalin would have won the war right there.... so it seems to me that Stalin was in fact quite smart. Not just smart but surprisingly good at leading a war, which makes me think that the paced out reinforcements to the front were intentional.

Btw nice post about french revolution. As a french, it's always nice to read well informed writing about that key period. Saint-Simon is also one of the key players imho if you want to understand early form of socialism

I'm going to have to check out Saint-Simon! There is almost always more to learn and funnily enough this is the first I've learned of it! And TBH I've been getting more and more into the importance of French history, especially as far as the USA is concerned. On the 4th of July I like to remind my fellow Americans that the French empire, against all reasonable advice decided to join our war admittedly for reasons of their own. Eventually they gathered a coalition of nations who had their own bones to pick with the British which ultimately made the war so expensive that the British decided peace was the preferable option. In the end the French got nothing, but paid a terrible price. The French revolution was the cost, 90 years of famine, starvation, civil war, the terror of socialism. Napoleon, the war with every neighboring power, and tyrant after tyrant thrust upon them. Nearly a hundred years of horror and continual collapse until the third republic finally was formed. And what happened then? We the Americans were sent the statue of liberty, I think the gift had meaning for the French too. "The price of liberty was worth it." An important sentiment for Americans remember on the day of our independence, liberty is so great that even a century of horror is worth it.

TBH I've been dreaming of doing a couple war movies one day. All Americans see when they see ww2 films anymore is D-Day Normandy and Stalingrad.... But when I read about Philip Petain's betrayal.... The hero of France, the savior of Verdun siding with the invaders because he felt democracy had utterly failed the French.... (or maybe he just wanted power?) The story of the French who refused to surrender, whose families Petain threatened to kill if he ever discovered the identities of those who refused to surrender becomes so much more compelling... Frenchman fighting French at the battle of Damascus with the fate of Iraq in the balance, the Free Frenchmen victorious and the Vichy French returning home as the heroes not the other way around.... It was such a compelling story to me that I think a series like "band of brother" or a film should be made titled "Traitors." Americans would even love the sentiment. Liberty is, honor and pride is worth it, it's worth the risk of continual resistance.

And there's something poetic about it too. The Free French working to unite the peoples of the empire with the dream of returning home one day and saving the imperial core.... It changes my perspective too considering how many of the non ethnic French in the empire volunteered to serve and fight.

Anyway, I really got into actually learning the underpinning philosophy of movements because debating firearms laws showed me that *NOBODY* actually cares what the statistics are, what the effectiveness of legislation is, what have you (and believe me I have studied and debated it for a decade.) The debate is entirely one of philosophy. It's a debate about whether or not you feel that you can trust your fellow man, whether or not you think a society where power is diffused among the public is safe or reasonable. It's such a deep debate that I realized how shallow the actual discussion surrounding the issue is. There's a reason why speech regulation and firearms restrictions always seem to occur within the same country, after all speech is power which includes the power to do harm.

 

[Basileus2]

So? Not everyone has to enjoy the entirety of WW2 to enjoy teh game. I also didn't care much about the Eastern Front when I did learn about WW2 in my World History Class. I preferred the Pacific Front as well as learning about the weapons and vehicles of the war, mainly the Germans. I had little knowledge of the Eastern Front except Hitler made a boo-boo in attacking Russia.

Oh man...the Eastern Front is so much more than that. Go get an introductory book on the subject: Ostfront or Russia's War or something. Dan Carlin also had a good 4 part series called 'Ghosts of the Ostfront' which is a great intro.

On the Eastern Front you had absolutely titanic battles that outsized everything else in the war. 90% of German casualties were on the Eastern Front. The tactics used by both sides were extremely innovative (Soviet Deep Battle Doctrine in Operation Bagration, Defense in Depth at Kursk, German Blitzkrieg at its finest in Barbarossa and the first half of Case Blue). Biggest tank battles, huge air battles, massive conflicts in the cities, the plains, the forests, the swamps, in the mud, in the blistering summer heat or the frigid winter chill. There were massive routes, desperate defenses, colossal offensives, human stories galore, all driven by two evil mad men. It was the greatest experiment in collective, national human endurance in the modern era. Many of the best generals of the war, hell perhaps the top 10 all time list, were competing on this front on the German and Soviet sides. Patton, Eisenhower, Montgomery, Bradley, etc. are not even in the same playing field as the Soviet generals on the Eastern Front like Zhukov, Rokossovsky, Chuikov, Koenev, etc. Similarly, in the west we're taught about the 'Genius' Rommel who held up the Allies so long. Rommel was nothing compared to Manstein, Guderian, Hoth, Kleist, etc, all of were concentrated most of the time on the Eastern front. The Eastern Front was the Thrilla in Manila, Joe Frazier vs Mohammad Ali - the undisputed heavy weight champions of the time going toe for toe in a life or death struggle.

Its a crying shame the Eastern Front is so poorly taught in the West and rest of the world.

 

[Harin]

Oh man...the Eastern Front is so much more than that. Go get an introductory book on the subject: Ostfront or Russia's War or something. Dan Carlin also had a good 4 part series called 'Ghosts of the Ostfront' which is a great intro.

On the Eastern Front you had absolutely titanic battles that outsized everything else in the war. 90% of German casualties were on the Eastern Front. The tactics used by both sides were extremely innovative (Soviet Deep Battle Doctrine in Operation Bagration, Defense in Depth at Kursk, German Blitzkrieg at its finest in Barbarossa and the first half of Case Blue). Biggest tank battles, huge air battles, massive conflicts in the cities, the plains, the forests, the swamps, in the mud, in the blistering summer heat or the frigid winter chill. There were massive routes, desperate defenses, colossal offensives, human stories galore, all driven by two evil mad men. It was the greatest experiment in collective, national human endurance in the modern era. Many of the best generals of the war, hell perhaps the top 10 all time list, were Soviets. The Eastern Front was the Thrilla in Manila, Joe Frazier vs Mohammad Ali - the undisputed heavy weight champions of the time going toe for toe in a life or death struggle.

Its a crying shame the Eastern Front is so poorly taught in the West and rest of the world.

I believe that if the East and West had not become ideological competitors so soon after the end of WW2 the world would have celebrated the sacrifices and successes of the Russian people. It is a compelling story, the very story American then (and now) love to read. A story of the underdog getting sucker punched, falls, but finds the strength not to just get up, but win.

Unfortunately, the East nor the West could endorse a lot of good stories about an ally that was now a competitor.