Pre-War Chaotic Warstart Option?

[danoh]

Over Spring Break I've been re-reading Shirer's excellent "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," and one thing that struck me was how fearful many European leaders including Hitler were of war breaking out before Sept. 1939. In 1934 Germany was stirring up trouble in Austria but had to back off because this was too soon for its military to be ready. In May of 1938 there was a Czech crisis which could have led to war that month. Hitler had a lot of concern before 1938 that Mussolini would back the Allies over Austria.

I'm hoping the game will have both a historical pattern of events which will almost certainly occur if a player follows the standard German moves, but also some kind of Variable Warstart Option which could cause war to start more randomly, especially if players make aggressive moves earlier. Was this sort of thing ever modded for HoI III?

 

[Sun_Killer]

as far as i know there where modifers in the base game that increased the chance if you had to few units, that the annex of Czech would fail and a war with the allies would start

 

[Khelder]

In Hoi III the Czech event was point where things could go sideways and war start too early. I have had it happen couple of times and it is always as annoying cause it usually doesn´t happen and you don´t think about it too much. When it happened to me first time I had no troops what so ever on Czech border to fend them of and it turned bit chaotic and definitely slowed down my war plans.
As it was in HOi III I think they have the chance also in Hoi IV that the Czechs don´t surrender and you have to start warring earlier than expected. It will most likely be that when you take that focus and the event fires there is chance of war.

And not to forget the world tension if that goes to 100% the allies could declare war on you at their will.

 

[Kolaris]

I'm listening to "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" as well, it's given me a new appreciation for how many times a seemingly small matter influenced the course of the war. I'd learned that the Munich Agreement simply delayed things, but I'd never known how it may have saved Hitler from disaster trying to assault the Czech forts in the mountains before he was truly ready.

So I was disappointed to see how things played out in the WWW. The Munich Agreement triggering is entirely up the German player, despite someone playing the British not two feet away. The occupation of the Sudetenland is treated as a matter of course rather than the shocking change of fortune it really was.

There were several events like this that gave me the impression the early years 1936-1939 are "on rails" so to speak, designed to ensure a historical outbreak of the war. I'm not very excited about this possibility, and from what I know of the Ahistorical mode it won't do much to change things.