The alt-history scenarios in this game are fantasy scenarios, where is the actual alt-history

[valentin4]

Yes, some kind of Czech and Polish autonomy would be a must but Germany would not accept after an unexpected triumph of Fall Gelb.

Much different situation though if Fall Gelb fails and the Western front turns into a stalemate. I see much better chances for a negotiation in that case.

Look at this point Britain has already failed Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway and to some degree France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. If they quit at this point they lose so much international prestige that they cease to be a major player anymore and the empire itself might be shaken. Don't forget Britain has owned a huge empire at this time and any show of weakness or defeat might compromise the whole thing. And Germany was in too good a position to consider any proposal which would have been acceptable for Britain like reinstalling Czechoslovakia and Poland to some degree and abandoning Denmark and Norway.

What's ironic is that after winning the war... The UK ended up losing its empire almost immediatly and ceased to be a great power. Also Poland was not liberated

 

[kettyo]

What's ironic is that after winning the war... The UK ended up losing its empire almost immediatly and ceased to be a great power. Also Poland was not liberated

Yes for essentially the very reason i said, it was ultimately perceived weakened, lost it's superpower status to the USA and USSR so everyone started to align with those two and the empire has disintegrated. But it happened even much faster in case Britain was defeated by Germany and she accepted an unfavourable treaty.

 

[Darksworthyone]

Here we have someone who clearly studied warfare way more than all of the Wehrmacht officials and has more experience in WW2-style warfare than even the most prestigeous Field Marshals in the Reich

Just watch the YouTube channel TIK he clearly explains how the Germans had no chance of winning the war. and how they drastically underestimated the Russian war machine

 

[Fulmen]

1. Chamberlain did not support Halifax's proposal for peace, and eventually supported Churchill instead. Anyway, both Churchill and Cabinet wanted to fight on so there was no chance of negotiating peace.
2. The 200k troops had to literally abandon all of their guns, weapons, and heavy equipment at Dunkirk. And yet the Axis was not able to exploit their advantage. It was logistically impossible for the Nazis to annihilate the British at Dunkirk, troops were totally exhausted and low on supplies. It was a miracle they managed to encircle the Allies in the first place.
3. Mussolini wasn't super popular in the government, in hindsight it was a terrible mistake to appoint loyal yet incompetent generals. But at the time, it was the only politically feasible option, from Mussolini's point of view. In any case, Mussolini wanted to demonstrate that Italy was not reliant on Germany, so greater Italo-German cooperation simply is not possible. It is exactly what Mussolini didn't want.
4. Vichy France held North Africa, which was strategically irrelevant in 1941. The Axis couldn't have won the North African campaign due to British naval superiority. They wouldn't have been able to protect their supply transports from Allied naval and air attacks.
5. "What if there was no coup" is such a ridiculous premise, joining the Axis was deeply unpopular among Yugoslavian military. Prince Paul signed the Tripartite pact anyway, of course there was going to be a coup.
6. Japan actually committing to a major invasion of the Soviet Union is completely nonsensical. It totally goes against the "Southern Plan", Japan's entire strategy for the war. Anyway, Japan was under a fuel embargo by the Allies at the time, any invasion of Siberia would have failed due to logistical difficulties and lack of fuel.
7. US would've lend-leased more fuel to the USSR. Also, the Germans planned to take the Baku oil fields intact. If they destroyed the oil fields, but won Stalingrad, it wouldn't have mattered in the long run because Germany would still run out of fuel.

I agree on all these points, except for #2 (that successfully pocketing and destroying the Allied forces in French Flanders was impossible); I'm not entirely on board with that one.

 

[valentin4]

Just watch the YouTube channel TIK he clearly explains how the Germans had no chance of winning the war. and how they drastically underestimated the Russian war machine

Actually his point of view is that the Germans still had a chance to make peace until stalingrad. I wouldn't take TIK has an authority though, while his videos about operations are great, his understanding of the strategic level is hilariously bad and his politics are cringe

 

[Fulmen]

Just watch the YouTube channel TIK he clearly explains how the Germans had no chance of winning the war. and how they drastically underestimated the Russian war machine

I suggest you read Nigel Askey's volumes on Operation Barbarossa and forget the YouTube channels, or at least take them with a giant grain of salt. TIK in particular is a highly problematic and controversial one. I myself have seen him make plenty of errors in his videos.

I believe I know which of TIK's videos you are referring to, and Askey actually made a small essay in response to it, which can be found here. The link to the essay itself is at the bottom. In it he goes over the many problematic sources TIK uses in his video (Krivosheev, Overmans, Glantz's When Titans Clashed from 1995 (technically the updated 2010 version, but that is mostly the same as the '95 version, but with a chapter on Operation Mars) which is outdated and highly problematic as a source for numbers as it relies on the Krivosheev study, and so on).

 

[pheonicia]

It's quite simple why paradox makes this "fantasy" content. People ask for it, people pay for it, and people play it. Their internal statistics that have been shared with us show as much.

 

[fuser312]

You're right. "fascist Italy puppet of Communist USSR" wasn't a problem in HoI3. It was simply impossible for the Soviets to puppet Italy as the Yalta conference event meant that the war would end in the "historical" borders regardless of the performance of the Soviets or the Allies. You would have an Allies that didn't occupy a single Italian or German province get West Germany and Italy after the war because that's "what's historically happened". You would even get an American puppet West Germany when the US wasn't even in the war (Not sure if this happens in the latest HoI3 version). The player had no means of influencing any wars that had pre-coded endings, and ahistorical wars declared always ended with full annexation. The words "The Bitter Peace" still make me instinctively sigh and reach for the tilde key.

I never played it, but from what I have heard I have no reason to believe HoI2 was any better in this regard other than maybe more stone-set peace events the player still has no agency in regardless.

What is HoI4 doing wrong here compared to it's predecessors?

Wasn't there a war goal system in HOI3. My memory is shaky but ok let's agree that peace system was not good enough but what about teleporting planes, ridiculously large number of divisions in HOI4. I don't remember them being an issue and why they should be in this game after almost 5 years.

And my major point stands, for hoi they don't build upon the successes of previous games like EU or CK.

 

[Ksyr]

Germany conquering Paris in five weeks was pure fantasy to everyone in 1939.

I am sure you are aware that the game goes beyond 1939.

 

[Ksyr]

While yeah, it is, this is also a game first and foremost, not an outright strict simulation of the 1940s. It being deliberately slanted in the favour of the Axis isn't necesarilly a bad thing for such a purpose.

I agree. What I am saying is that the game is ahistorical to begin with. As it has to be.

 

[Ksyr]

Fantasy that's neccessary for the game to work. Unlike things like the US going communist overnight.

I agree. The game has to be ahistorical to be useful as a game, but there are different opinions on how far it can go down the fantasy track before it becomes too much. Which is why I can use the game settings to allow or disallow ahistorical stuff. If the fantasy setting sells more and keeps the game in development and I can choose to ignore the parts I don't like I see no reason PDX shouldn't do it.

 

[qer]

Let's be real, Hoi4 DlC are not designed for an historical game experience, but for offering an array of alternatives to the countries they focus. However what I find more irritating is the absolute lack of creative expression in the focus trees that are introduced. You need a way to become one of the four ideologies, an industry tree and the armed forces research bonuses and that's it. Also historical plausibility be dammed, doesn't matter that at 1936 things were already going to be railroaded. Even in the best "trees" historical reality is throw out the window: For example in Spain case the carlist movement would realistically have zero chances to get into power, and even if they did they probably would have remain neutral or an increased intervention from the USSR wouldn't have ended with a puppet government. Honestly I cringe a little everytime paradox claim that their games required a lot of historical research when they are willing to place trotsky in charge of Mexico or resurrect the Napoleonic empire in 1936.

 

[fuser312]

The point about ignoring these fantasy scenario is that the actual WW2 stuff is not fully fleshed out even after 4 years and to my mind one of the reasons is that paradox had paid too much attention to these fantasies at the expense of actual WW2 gameplay.

 

[sekelsenmat]

There was a series of interferences from Hitler that simply delayed the takeover of Moscow, the great Achilles' heel of Germany was Hitler.

In North Africa Romel didn't receive enough divisions, Hitler didn't give him the necessary divisions, so I don't know what the result would be if Romel had all the resources he needed. Even with few resources he was brilliant in saving the Italians from a certain defeat in the first half of that battle.

I think you are not aware of the extreme difficulty that the Italians had to supply the troops in North Africa, due to british superiority in Naval warfare. More divisions would mean even more supplies are needed, so a total non-starter.

The right thing to do for the Axis would be evacuating North Africa as soon as the USA joined the war and putting all troops in "Fortress Italy / Sicily"

 

[sekelsenmat]

• United Kingdom: The democratic alt-history is actually pretty good here. The communist and straight fascist paths have no place here, but the non-aligned path is good because we have no idea what would have really happened if Edward VIII had refused to abdicate.

Well, there was a guy named Mosley. I don't see why it would be impossible for him to take power. Extremely unlikely, but I think it is valid alt-history. Not in 36, but the 36 immediate ideology changes are an abstraction of something which obviously would have taken at least 10 years before to form.

What I don't like is that the "King's party" path creates a military alliance with Germany. I thought the monarchist guys were advocating not entering the war, but full alliance??? It is also bad game-play wise. The AI never chooses non-aggression pact with Germany (I tried to return to earlier save and after many tries it never chose it, despite in the code it looks like it could) and this leads to an unbeatable UK+Germany steam rolling the world.

Also which democratic alt-history? Giving up on the empire for free? I'd say that's even less likely something that the Conservative Party would do then Mosley taking power....

 

[sekelsenmat]

For example in Spain case the carlist movement would realistically have zero chances to get into power, and even if they did they probably would have remain neutral or an increased intervention from the USSR wouldn't have ended with a puppet government.

The "Requetés" were Carlist militias. At the war start they were more numerous then fascists. I don't see why they couldn't take power if they had a good charismatic military leader. If Franco was Carlist that would have sufficed probably. They would make the fascists junior partners. In reality the opposite happened. Carlists were on the winning side as junior partners without decision power.

 

[Duke_Dave]

A lot had to do with formables. They pandered to what they perceived to be our expectations. The other constraint is the regidity of the focus trees is one problem leading to rail-roading. I see your concern OP and a sytsem that lets us go off the historical rails here and there and adapts as we go along would be really cool. A self-aware system could do this competently. I find the general lack of innovation in this area in the gaming industry quite disappointing. The costs are just to great and a lot of what is being pushed today is pretty gimmicky, the ai might be able to write a fairly coherent text or produce a really realistic cat picture but it doeasn't know what it's doing.
The best choice outside of a self-aware system is to give players really distinct choices that will necessarily seem absurd when compared to what actually happened.

Here is an example. I conquer Italy as the Soviets and puppet them, however the puppet has chosen the fascist path and still behaves like fascist Italy. The focus trees would need to accommodate for scenarios like that by being self-correcting.

I have been arguing for a while that puppeting should reset the political part of the tree and put it on the path corresponding to its ideology.

 

[kettyo]

What I don't like is that the "King's party" path creates a military alliance with Germany. I thought the monarchist guys were advocating not entering the war, but full alliance??? It is also bad game-play wise. The AI never chooses non-aggression pact with Germany (I tried to return to earlier save and after many tries it never chose it, despite in the code it looks like it could) and this leads to an unbeatable UK+Germany steam rolling the world.

It should be an 50:50 chance for alliance vs non-aggression pact. Did you tag switch to Britain and stop their previous focus? The seeds are now fixed so reloading will provide the same result unless you restart focuses to change the completion dates.

But anyway i think there should be an added logic that Britain should not ally with Germany in case the democratic party popularity is more than something like 40% as it will cripple stability too much. If they go edwardist by focus there will still be a high democracy support. If they go edwardist by marriage crisis democracy support will diminish by the time Edward takes power so is free to ally with Germany.

Also even with non-aggression Britain might end up in an alliance with Germany as they also have a focus to attack the USSR.

 

[valentin4]

I am sure you are aware that the game goes beyond 1939.

And everything was railroaded after 1940 to a certain axis defeat ?

My point is that the german victory over France in 1940 was not certain by any means and it was the result of a specific chain of events. (Most importantly, the changes made to the german plan, and the allies falling into the trap). This uncertainty of outcome is also true for several other key tuns of WW2 that could potentially alter the outcome of the war, probably up until Stalingrad. I have listed a few .

I would add :

what if the german torpedoes are not bugged in the early war and the HMS Nelson carrying Churchill is sunk by the U-56 firing torpedoes at point blank on the 30 October 1939 ?

what if the franco-british carried Operation Pike ?

 

[sekelsenmat]

It should be an 50:50 chance for alliance vs non-aggression pact. Did you tag switch to Britain and stop their previous focus? The seeds are now fixed so reloading will provide the same result unless you restart focuses to change the completion dates.

I was in ironman reloading older saves. If there are seeds stored in the save file, they don't apply all the time. I've seen USSR/Romania/Yugoslavia/Hungary switch focuses when reloading older saves.

I regularly use this so that the UK doesn't choose decolonization in ahistorical so that it doesn't slow the game too much and always worked. But I have no idea why, sometimes (like in this UK alliance with Germany), it would simply refuse to choose a different focus, no idea why. It also happened in other cases.