This DLC has been disappointing.

[ThaHoward]

Honestly, I just roll my eyes and ignoring the historical crowd. They pretty much want the game to turn into an Allies Win simulator where Germany loses every time at on May 8th 1945 and Japan on August 15th. No deviation from this path, just straight WW2 without any sort of replayability because it all ends the exact same way. They ignore any criticism of this and just continue bashing anyone who enjoys alt-history.



.....

Germany.... is in a difficult spot... if going nonaligned...

Say -what- now? Germany going non aligned is onie of the most POWERFUL alt-history paths. Both Non-aligned paths are extremely powerful and you can become a world power easily by 1939. Its even easier when you do the Focus On The True Enemy....


and you say Germany is in a more difficult situation? It looks like you've not even tried the Turkey path nor the German path before you posted this.

1) I think the German path is too easy (it should be a harsher civil war, perhaps foreign entanglements). 2) It is less OP than Nazi Germany. It is not less OP than Ottoman Empire, but then we are comparing apples to Oranges. Germany is highly industrualized, a people that is unified in their revanchism. Turkey has barely begun to industrialize and is fractured internally. They are more like a 20s Germany without industry, and ethnic and religious conflicts on top of politics and the fear of military coup.

If it was 100% historical, then Turkey would need to wait until mid 40s or even 50s to build up (heck, they had to join NATO/USA as they naturally could not handle USSR's power projection). Turkey is in a state of nationbuilding, Germany is not. It is that simple.

 

[Aeroclub]

If you actually think that Hungary doing the AH focuses automatically makes him as powerful as Hungary, you have -not- played either country. Just because Hungary grabs the land of Austria and Czech, and parts of Romania, doesn't mean a -thing- against Germany who has WAY more manpower and factories than you do. You main strategy of Austria-Hungary is to flip facist and join Germany just to avoid having to give up the Sudentlands, because Hungary cannot compete with germany at that stage. There is no minor in the game in the current state of the game that 'clicks' a button to become 'uber germany'.

Portgual does not do it.
Netherlands does not do it.
Hungary does not do it.
Greece does not do it.

There is no minor nation that becomes Germany level power. EVERY minor despite their formable nation has to go uphill against Germany.

Well now you're just getting personal for no good reason. Of course I have played them: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...w-many-people-are-there-in-this-club.1398532/

And yes, while you do still lack industry to be on par with Germany, you can still hold on your ground in Sudeten quite effectively against them. Which yes, is incredibly OP for a minor like Hungary. To me, that's a very bad game design.

Now, going back to your original question on how were you supposed to compete with Germany as Turkey. You're not supposed to, that's the whole point! Turkey winning a war against Germany should be a near impossible miracle, anything else is just bad, unbalanced, ahistorical and no fun.

 

[Mr_Dimento]

I think these focus trees are some of the highest quality work done by PDX. Compare Hungary’s focus tree to Bulgaria. Bulgaria’s is 50x more intricate and in depth in comparison. These two are relatively similar in nature, small pro-axis who sought to recover lost lands. Not only are the art, focus tree narrative designs, and play style more fun and in depth, but the quality of the experience as a whole as been improved.

 

[praftd]

For me this is the only DLC I genuinely regret buying. PDX is getting better at making interesting trees, but that is completely counter-acted by their obsession with 70-day focuses and "fluff" focuses. 70 days for a few useless forts in 1942. Wow! Awesome! /s

It doesn't matter how interesting or detailed a tree is, when half of it is entirely useless, it is a bad tree. It is always the same story. You are forced to spend years going down the paths to get rid of malus's and grab territory, and then by the time you can actually go down the routes that give you other goodies, they are either useless or the game is over.

iSorrowproductions said it right.

 

[Nawolith]

I for one love his dlc and the decision stuff for turkey. But I mev r try to get any bonuses for technology, since yes the focuses take too long and I have other things to do. But besides that I have no complaints. Ottoman being late game is something I think worked out for me well enough multiple times, that I can be happy.with it and the challenge it actually is to pull off.

I do agree with ThaHoward, that the German civil war and flip.is too easily.done, turkey is a better model of doing it. If the game had a larger time scope.things would go better yes, but for now it works.

 

[Cobannos]

ahistorical and no fun.

No one forces you to go the alt history route. Just set your settings to historical focuses on and prevent the ai from going "unbalanced Ottoman". That's why it's there. Not being able to do anything before the war is in full swing is actually unbalanced at the current state of the game. Even with Bulgaria I was able to conquer a good chunk of the balkans and core it before I was stacked against the axis and could hold my position to some degree.
If they don't implement some serious changes to the overall AI and gameplay mechanics Ottoman path is pretty much useless.

My suggestion would be either shortening the length of some focuses where reasonable, or as mentioned rearranging the expansion options. The transition from Republic (completion of Civil War focus) to reinstating the Sultanate for example takes 5 foci, that's 350 days IIRC. The foci could either be shortened or bundled into fewer ones, maybe 3. With that alone a reasonable time frame for early expansion could be established. That should be around the time WW2 kicks off. That's reasonable IMO and in balance. For comparison: When I finish the war goal on Greece Italy usually declares on them and gobbles them up in front of my eyes. And that's with straight rushing for the Ottoman path. No army reforms or other stuff, the shortest way possible.

 

[TalyonUngol]

Well now you're just getting personal for no good reason. Of course I have played them: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...w-many-people-are-there-in-this-club.1398532/

And yes, while you do still lack industry to be on par with Germany, you can still hold on your ground in Sudeten quite effectively against them. Which yes, is incredibly OP for a minor like Hungary. To me, that's a very bad game design.

Now, going back to your original question on how were you supposed to compete with Germany as Turkey. You're not supposed to, that's the whole point! Turkey winning a war against Germany should be a near impossible miracle, anything else is just bad, unbalanced, ahistorical and no fun.

So if its A-historical its bad, unbalanced and no fun.... okay cool. So since you are of that mindset, lets go ahead and nerf Germany, Italy and Japan to oblivion, buff the UK and USA up ten notches and have them win every time at the exact date that they lost in real life, with no room for changes or anything. You cant change the out come of the war, as thats ahistorical and unfun and we might as well recall Hearts of Iron 4 the Allies Win simulator.

Seriously? Ahistorical does not affect you. It will -never- affect you unless you let it. You are just trying to keep people from enjoying what they enjoy and only YOU can have your fun even though our fun doesn't affect you.

 

[Darrenb209]

Alright, now that I've completed at least one run as each country. For a certain definition of completed, to be fair and the Bulgaria one wasn't in ironman I've got my most complete set of thoughts on this DLC that I'm going to have.

On the focus tree front, Greece and Bulgaria are the right mix of time invested to reward as well as decently balanced on the Historicity/Fun/Game Balance map. The Ottoman path is a complete failure of time invested to reward and is heavily unbalanced towards historicity over fun and game balance. The Ottoman path could use some less historicity and some more fun, because unless the Central Powers forms you can't really do much.

As for the tech front, I'm incredibly disappointed at how much of the tech tree remained generic. No unique Artillery, AA, Rocket Artillery or AT, most of the planes are generic as well.

I've noticed several serious bugs, the one I mentioned earlier when I was playing as Greece is one, but another is that the Kemalist/Fundamentalist thing failed to stop being a thing in the decisions after the civil war ended on my non-ironman run.

I've had some issues with Greece and it's debt system as well.

In short, I would not say that this DLC has been worth the price paid and as such I would say that at least for now, it was disappointing overall.

 

[TalyonUngol]

After about six games as Greece Iron Man. I finally did it. I got the Byzantine Empire.

And four Achievments to go with it! Woot!


But the game is buggy so I just lost land to Bulgaria who got it for free. Weee! lol

 

[Aeroclub]

So if its A-historical its bad, unbalanced and no fun.... okay cool. So since you are of that mindset, lets go ahead and nerf Germany, Italy and Japan to oblivion, buff the UK and USA up ten notches and have them win every time at the exact date that they lost in real life, with no room for changes or anything. You cant change the out come of the war, as thats ahistorical and unfun and we might as well recall Hearts of Iron 4 the Allies Win simulator.

Seriously? Ahistorical does not affect you. It will -never- affect you unless you let it. You are just trying to keep people from enjoying what they enjoy and only YOU can have your fun even though our fun doesn't affect you.

Historical is not about repeating history as it happened. Historical is about creating scenarios that would be historically feasible and could reasonably have happened. That's what alt history is about.

Turkey beating Germany, Tunisia winning independence and recreating Al-Andalus, or Liberia world conquest is not alternative history, it's bonkers immersion-breaking fantasy.

 

[Dlin369]

I feel like this is one of those cases where we need to decide if gameplay or plausibility should take precedence - Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria are all minors and each have been saddled historically by a host of economic, military and political problems. The challenge then is to represent these issues while also making them fun to play.

I personally believe that minors (besides the really big ones like China and India, who might amount to more) should mostly play a supporting role to the historical majors. At best they should be able to project influence in their sphere of influence - for BtfB nations, the lower Balkans - but not much more than that without the majors on their side

 

[LastButterfly]

it's bonkers immersion-breaking fantasy.

However you wanna call it, it's something many people enjoy - are they allowed to have their fun ? no ? - and it's also how this game has been for a while. You don't have to play these things. Just keep the "historical focus" box ticked and you're all set.

 

[TalyonUngol]

Historical is not about repeating history as it happened. Historical is about creating scenarios that would be historically feasible and could reasonably have happened. That's what alt history is about.

Turkey beating Germany, Tunisia winning independence and recreating Al-Andalus, or Liberia world conquest is not alternative history, it's bonkers immersion-breaking fantasy.

And 'feasible' scenarios are all opinionated. Germany could not have won WW2. USA would have entered the war one way or another as the government WANTED to enter the war. Soviet Union would not have surrendered. Italy was a failure and was always going to be a detriment to the Axis. Yet, here we have it in this game that it happens. You pick and choose wants feasible, but this entire game is alternate history because quite frankly, history games is boring after a couple matches.

Hitler also always wanted the war with the Soviets. He would have never have been peaceful.

 

[Adrianuse]

Well, I haven't played much in Turkey yet, but if you can actually return to the Ottoman Empire in just 1715 days then wow. Normally this should take much, much longer.


Jokes aside. Personally, I am happy if minor has a lot of problems and cannot join the war quickly, it seems like a fun challenge and is a bit more historic (which is important to me even if he prefers althist in the game).

I would also like to add that I don't like the idea of large amount of 35-day focus, on the contrary, I would see more, e.g. 140 days, but with e.g. some decisions (and maybe additional costs) in the process. Despite the problems, I even like the Megali Ideas focus, because well... something is going on.

Overall, I like the focus tree idea very much, but I have a feeling that some things happen too quickly.

Of course, there are some small actions that could easily work as a focus of 35 days or less, but that shouldn't be a very common situation.


However, I am totally into even big fantasies in this game, why not, as long as their level would be extremely difficult.

 

[Tsavong]

I personally believe that minors (besides the really big ones like China and India, who might amount to more) should mostly play a supporting role to the historical majors. At best they should be able to project influence in their sphere of influence - for BtfB nations, the lower Balkans - but not much more than that without the majors on their side

If you want these countries to be played in a supporting role, playing a supporting role should be fun in singeplayer too. Most people play singleplayer.
I recently tried to do that as "historical" hungary and the ai screwed this plan completly: Always flooding my parts of the frontline so much with divisions that i could not do anything anymore. On top of that germany started to move all its divisions up and down the frontline. I made a post here about that.

 

[Aeroclub]

However you wanna call it, it's something many people enjoy - are they allowed to have their fun ? no ? - and it's also how this game has been for a while. You don't have to play these things. Just keep the "historical focus" box ticked and you're all set.

And 'feasible' scenarios are all opinionated. Germany could not have won WW2. USA would have entered the war one way or another as the government WANTED to enter the war. Soviet Union would not have surrendered. Italy was a failure and was always going to be a detriment to the Axis. Yet, here we have it in this game that it happens. You pick and choose wants feasible, but this entire game is alternate history because quite frankly, history games is boring after a couple matches.

Hitler also always wanted the war with the Soviets. He would have never have been peaceful.

Guys we're digressing from the original question here. For sure, everyone has a right to play the game they want to play it.

But the OP was about how difficult it is to beat Germany with Turkey. Well, duh! Of course it's supposed to be difficult and nearly impossible. And so far, I haven't seen anyone give a reason why it shouldn't be, except that it's too difficult and they wanted it to be easier...but by that logic, we should start by buffing Liberia, Bhuran, Nepal and Panama.

 

[Dlin369]

If you want these countries to be played in a supporting role, playing a supporting role should be fun in singeplayer too. Most people play singleplayer.
I recently tried to do that as "historical" hungary and the ai screwed this plan completly: Always flooding my parts of the frontline so much with divisions that i could not do anything anymore. On top of that germany started to move all its divisions up and down the frontline. I made a post here about that.

Yeah and that's a big AI problem in general with priorities - they are supposed to be scripted to understand when "you can handle it", but the threshold in which they calculate it in my experience is pretty wonky, especially on the Eastern front. Sometimes my frontline is being overwhelmed and the AI refuse to help, while other times my frontline is fine and the AI floods it anyway. Allowing the player to communicate objectives to the AI is integral for singleplayer games imo and something I hope they improve upon

 

[TalyonUngol]

Well, I haven't played much in Turkey yet, but if you can actually return to the Ottoman Empire in just 1715 days then wow. Normally this should take much, much longer.


Jokes aside. Personally, I am happy if minor has a lot of problems and cannot join the war quickly, it seems like a fun challenge and is a bit more historic (which is important to me even if he prefers althist in the game).

I would also like to add that I don't like the idea of large amount of 35-day focus, on the contrary, I would see more, e.g. 140 days, but with e.g. some decisions (and maybe additional costs) in the process. Despite the problems, I even like the Megali Ideas focus, because well... something is going on.

Overall, I like the focus tree idea very much, but I have a feeling that some things happen too quickly.

Of course, there are some small actions that could easily work as a focus of 35 days or less, but that shouldn't be a very common situation.


However, I am totally into even big fantasies in this game, why not, as long as their level would be extremely difficult.

If this game -supported- the long game then sure but it doesn't. You really think you can play Hungary and wait until 1940 to finally decide...

"Hey... I want Austria. Let me go just.... Oh. It's... part of Germany? Whelp... I only have twelve divisions... 100k manpower in reserve.... CHARGE!"

"Sir! We forgot that Italy is a part of the axis and with Germany!"

"What do you mean! We only want Austria! CHARGE!"

One day later. Hungary has been capitulated and annexed by the combined forces of germany and Italy who didn't even have to take much off their attacks of the soviets and Africa.


This game does not and will never support a minor country taking until 1940/1 to actually -start- getting war goals and going to war.. And keep in mind, this is the bare MINIMUM of time for Turkey as this is completely ignoring their military focuses in order to remove that debuff. It will not work in Multiplayer and if you have to CHEESE the game in order to do something. It's bad design. Turkey having an earlier ottoman empire DOES NOT AFFECT YOU if you are a historical buff. Click the historical AI focus and let everyone else enjoy their fun.

I repeat. It does not affect you. Someone else having their cake does not stop you from having your cake. You are trying to deny someone else their cake because you think you're the only one who deserves cake.

 

[TalyonUngol]

Guys we're digressing from the original question here. For sure, everyone has a right to play the game they want to play it.

But the OP was about how difficult it is to beat Germany with Turkey. Well, duh! Of course it's supposed to be difficult and nearly impossible. And so far, I haven't seen anyone give a reason why it shouldn't be, except that it's too difficult and they wanted it to be easier...but by that logic, we should start by buffing Liberia, Bhuran, Nepal and Panama.

WHY should it be possible?
WHY should it be extremely difficult?
WHY should it take until 1940 to actually start goign to war.

What is YOUR strategy then as Turkey then?

If -you- are so confident and cocky in yourself that you think that Turkey can still do this, then how about you and I try it out in a MP. Me as Germany and you as Turkey. Since I must be terrible at this game, surely you can defeat me right?

Allow me to just skip what's going to happen for you so you don't have to waste many hours in a MP match.

I will have defeated UK and France and annexed all their land. I will have either taken on Italy or the USA and removed one or the other from the game. I will have well over 200 civilian factories and military factories around that time while you will be stuck with a quarter of what I have. I will have well over 2 or 3 million manpower in reserve while you will be stuck with lets be generous and say 500,000. You will only have about three armies of 7-2 infantry and im being generous as I dont think you'll have that. I will have five armies of 40W infantry and a full army of mediums and light tanks to smash your lines. I will naval invade you throughout yoru lands, from the black sea and from the med. You will last a while for sure, but eventually, I will breakthrough with my tanks and overrun you. I give it a year. I could even just starve you of your guns and equipment. I wouldn't care that I am taking more losses as I have plenty in reserve just to defeat you.

 

[Iskulya]

It's really amazing how inconsistent a lot of the complaining about the focus trees are on this forum.

February: "These focus trees are terrible! You just click button, magically flip ideology, and go to war! Awful!"

October: "These focus trees are terrible! You have to spend time going through a transition rather than just magically flipping ideology overnight and going to war! Awful!"

Get your stories straight, you cannot have it both ways.

This game does not and will never support a minor country taking until 1940/1 to actually -start- getting war goals and going to war.. And keep in mind, this is the bare MINIMUM of time for Turkey as this is completely ignoring their military focuses in order to remove that debuff. It will not work in Multiplayer and if you have to CHEESE the game in order to do something. It's bad design. Turkey having an earlier ottoman empire DOES NOT AFFECT YOU if you are a historical buff. Click the historical AI focus and let everyone else enjoy their fun.

I repeat. It does not affect you. Someone else having their cake does not stop you from having your cake. You are trying to deny someone else their cake because you think you're the only one who deserves cake.

That has nothing to do with it.

This is a LTP issue.

A good example of this is how you and others have cited ISP as "proof" that it is too hard. I like ISP and I like his content, but let's be real. ISP draws a line with infantry, draws an offensive line, and hits execute. He lets the game play itself for him to a large degree, and that's what's part of what's funny, that the game is so easy oftentimes you don't even have to have much real involvement with it to even succeed.

A situation that requires more than just spamming infantry and letting the game play itself for you? Say it ain't so, hoss, say it ain't so!

I have honestly never encountered a situation where the AI could break through my lines while having six 20w infantry per frontline tile. The issue isn't that Turkey can't beat Germany, it can. You have for all intents and purposes infinite chromium, I was able to get 60+ oil within my own borders by the end of 1940, Turkey's amount of steel has gone through the roof, and I was able to get 14 military factories and 21 infrastructure from one 70 day focus. If that isn't the most powerful industrial focus in the game, I don't know what is.

Make divisions with motorized or mechanized and heavy self propelled artillery. The AI is utterly helpless against those. When you stack soft attack like that, they have no counter. The AI doesn't know how to use their own armor, and the only hard counter to something like that is divisions with tank destroyers, which even if the AI actually did make, it couldn't use properly.

If you can't beat Germany as Turkey, that's a LTP issue. Doesn't really matter whether you're going Ottoman or not, it seems like non-Ottoman turkey is stronger with its access to tons of free industry, but Ottomans can get more cores in the short term.

If you want an easier Turkey game, you can set the game rule to have German restore the Kaiserreich and Hungary to form AH. It's not a problem with the game, it's a problem with your choices and ability to play the game.

The complaint about peace conferences is entirely valid. That's a long standing issue with the game and we should keep pressing on it until some changes are made with war goals, claims, and cores being respected where it doesn't conflict with another co-belligerents CB/claims/cores barring serious incongruencies in occupation and participation.

A bit of history for others: when the resistance mechanics were announced, TalyonUngol spammed the forum endlessly with posts complaining that this would make a world conquest as Italy impossible. He continually spammed the forum with this until the moderators did something about it.

And as it turned out, it was an entirely baseless complaint. The new resistance and compliance system made it easier to do world conquests, not harder. After the release of LR, he went totally silent and has never mentioned how his over-the-top ranting on the subject was totally wrong. This is just more of the same.