What paths do you think Italy and the Soviet Union will or won't have in their focus trees?

[DystopianAlphaOmega]

Almost definitely they will both have all four ideologies as focus trees, and probably one alternate main ideology tree. Even America has the non-aligned McArthur Junta. Germany will probably get a communist tree when Soviet update happens. How fleshed out each of these ideology trees are Is another story Entirely.

 

[brantodb01]

Personally for Russia I'd like an Easter egg chain like the HRE one to get 'Anastasia' on the throne, even if for gameplay purposes it keeps them communist

 

[C.N.]

For the Soviets I would expect a Stalin path, an Army path, a Bukharin path, and a Beria path. Maybe a Trotsky path, and a two army paths?

 

[opsircrocodile]

For Italy what I hope for are the following:


Fascist: the historical one + an alternate fascist one that shares the same subbranch as the historical one but at the beginning you can do some kind of "purge" like the soviets to get rid of the ones that might overthrow you later during the war, the branches should be somewhat similar to the french one where you can choose whether you want to go conservative or socialist democratic, the same should be for Italy where you choose wheter you want to go monarchist fascist (historical) or make a republic, each will have their advantages and disadvantages I also want to see mini subbranches for the fascist path with 3 to 5 focuses for each alliance of other nation's alternate paths the italians can join (Pact of Rome, Stressa front, Latin Entente, Anglo-Italian alliance) much like the Netherlands has that tiny communist path that can make them join the french if they go communist, they can either go with the germans or make their own alliance and satellite/ally the balkans and iberlian nations as they wanted, pic related:

Communist: much like any other nations they should have the option to join the comintern or make their own faction
Monarchist: would like to see one that shares some focuses with the historical fascist path and can either choose to join the allies or make your own faction
Democratic: standard, join the allies.

I would also like a colonial branch where you can make some kind of government like the germans have the Reichkomissariats in the horn of Afrika, Egypt(+Sudan), to core Libya, pic related:

Also the focus "claims on France" should give decisions to demand each territory from Vichy France indivdually (Savoy, Corsica, Tunisia, Djibouti)


Edit: forgot to say that would LOVE to see a civil war in Italy under some circumstances (loosing Africa + the allies invading Sicily + low stability/war support if that "purge" focus is not taken, the 2 sides having their own small focus tree's much like Vichy and Free France.

 

[brantodb01]

For Italy what I hope for are the following:


Fascist: the historical one + an alternate fascist one that shares the same subbranch as the historical one but at the beginning you can do some kind of "purge" like the soviets to get rid of the ones that might overthrow you later during the war, the branches should be somewhat similar to the french one where you can choose whether you want to go conservative or socialist democratic, the same should be for Italy where you choose wheter you want to go monarchist fascist (historical) or make a republic, each will have their advantages and disadvantages I also want to see mini subbranches for the fascist path with 3 to 5 focuses for each alliance of other nation's alternate paths the italians can join (Pact of Rome, Stressa front, Latin Entente, Anglo-Italian alliance) much like the Netherlands has that tiny communist path that can make them join the french if they go communist, they can either go with the germans or make their own alliance and satellite/ally the balkans and iberlian nations as they wanted, pic related:View attachment 610993
Communist: much like any other nations they should have the option to join the comintern or make their own faction
Monarchist: would like to see one that shares some focuses with the historical fascist path and can either choose to join the allies or make your own faction
Democratic: standard, join the allies.

I would also like a colonial branch where you can make some kind of government like the germans have the Reichkomissariats in the horn of Afrika, Egypt(+Sudan), to core Libya, pic related:
View attachment 610994

Also the focus "claims on France" should give decisions to demand each territory from Vichy France indivdually (Savoy, Corsica, Tunisia, Djibouti)

so would you say they should get cores on the dark blue territory?

 

[opsircrocodile]

so would you say they should get cores on the dark blue territory?

the Italians considered Libya a part of Italy itself much like the French considered Algeria a part of the French Republic, some decisions should appear after a focus that allows you to core Libya for some political power and stability giving the libyans full citizenship or something.

edit: Egypt (light green) and Italian East Africa (neon green) should be able to be created as integrated parts (much like RK's) after a focus and some decisions with half the compliance needed for a collaborationist government.

 

[Longshanks51]

Personally for Russia I'd like an Easter egg chain like the HRE one to get 'Anastasia' on the throne, even if for gameplay purposes it keeps them communist

Well if Trotsky can survive and become leader of Mexico, then having Anastasia as tsarina of Russia can be possible.

 

[--Yigito123--]

Well if Trotsky can survive and become leader of Mexico, then having Anastasia as tsarina of Russia can be possible.

I mean, at least Trotsky is confirmed to be alive for a few years in the game's timeframe.

 

[Voigt]

With all this talk about Romanov and using Anastasia or not, which was killed..

why not just use a legitmate claim of a far of family member who lived in exile either way?
When I googled current pretender to the Russian throne there was Maria Vladimirovna who has the most support of the current nobles, but her claim is weakend by the fact, that some people say her father married morganic, making his children, including Maria ineglibleable to the throne.

But her father was still alive in WW2, so he has a legitmate claim, and would need to invest some political power to let people recognize his marriage and daughter as legitimate.

Also he looks passabel for a HoI IV portrait.

 

[Longshanks51]

With all this talk about Romanov and using Anastasia or not, which was killed..

why not just use a legitmate claim of a far of family member who lived in exile either way?
When I googled current pretender to the Russian throne there was Maria Vladimirovna who has the most support of the current nobles, but her claim is weakend by the fact, that some people say her father married morganic, making his children, including Maria to eglibleable to the throne.

But her father was still alive in WW2, so he has a legitmate claim, and would need to invest some political power to let people recognize his marriage and daughter as legitimate.

Also he looks passabel for a HoI IV portrait.

That Portrait is of Kirill Vladimirovich, he's the grandfather of Maria Vladimirovna. Also he died in 1938.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duke_Kirill_Vladimirovich_of_Russia

But he had two daughters and a son. All of them lived through WW2.
His son Vladimir Kirillovich became head of the imperial family afterwards.

Although like with spain maybe there can be an event where you choose which of his children becomes the new ruler.
Each of them could have different traits to make the choice more interesting.

 

[Iskulya]

I think it will be a waste if they do anything other than communist options. There is a lot of content to be had there.

Plus there's another issue: If Paradox is going to do something silly like a monarchist path, they better be prepared to handle every edge case where something like this would break a lot of content in the game in communist focus trees. Their track record on adjusting other country's focus trees to handle new deviations isn't exactly good. Most countries' communist focus tree branches are somewhat dependent on the Soviet Union, and in the case of Spain, extremely dependent on it.

The way I see it, a monarchist branch of the focus tree wouldn't actually add anything interesting gameplay wise(you'd still go to war with all of europe, just like a communist Soviet Union would), while at the same time breaking a lot of things in the game. I'd rather paradox focus on a pure communist focus tree which would allow less time for breaking all the things that would be broken by a monarchist Russia and put that time to fleshing out content and polish instead.

The Soviet Union is kind of unique for the era because it had a truly global political reach and influence. Going monarchist, ignoring how silly it is, is only going to be a downgrade of Russia to a regional power and really restricts the kind of fun things that are possible.

With communism, the Soviet Union has all kinds of options. The historical option, an anti-imperialist crusade against the colonial powers, a crusade to create a world socialist republic, etc. An imperial Russia wouldn't have any opportunities on a global level at all and would be restricted to dealing with its immediate geographic neighbors. You already get this to some extent with a historical Stalinist route, so I don't see how it adds anything gameplay wise.

In several years here, I have never seen even a single person make a compelling case as to how non-communist focuses for the Soviet Union could translate into a fun gameplay experience that is in any way distinct from the ordinary stalinist historical option. It seems the only argument people have is that they like the roleplay value of it. Paradox's focus trees have worked best in my opinion when they have a coherent alternative gameplay model to work with, as the democratic Germany focuses on making a European alliance against fascism and communism and makes a distinctly different game from a historical Germany run. An imperial Russia would just conquer Finland and its european neighbors working in parallel with the Western allies to defeat the Axis. It's basically identical to a historical Stalin game except you have the portrait of a different person on the politics screen. I see that as a waste of dev efforts, and nobody has really made a good case to the contrary yet.

 

[opsircrocodile]

I think it will be a waste if they do anything other than communist options. There is a lot of content to be had there.

Plus there's another issue: If Paradox is going to do something silly like a monarchist path, they better be prepared to handle every edge case where something like this would break a lot of content in the game in communist focus trees. Their track record on adjusting other country's focus trees to handle new deviations isn't exactly good. Most countries' communist focus tree branches are somewhat dependent on the Soviet Union, and in the case of Spain, extremely dependent on it.

The way I see it, a monarchist branch of the focus tree wouldn't actually add anything interesting gameplay wise(you'd still go to war with all of europe, just like a communist Soviet Union would), while at the same time breaking a lot of things in the game. I'd rather paradox focus on a pure communist focus tree which would allow less time for breaking all the things that would be broken by a monarchist Russia and put that time to fleshing out content and polish instead.

The Soviet Union is kind of unique for the era because it had a truly global political reach and influence. Going monarchist, ignoring how silly it is, is only going to be a downgrade of Russia to a regional power and really restricts the kind of fun things that are possible.

With communism, the Soviet Union has all kinds of options. The historical option, an anti-imperialist crusade against the colonial powers, a crusade to create a world socialist republic, etc. An imperial Russia wouldn't have any opportunities on a global level at all and would be restricted to dealing with its immediate geographic neighbors. You already get this to some extent with a historical Stalinist route, so I don't see how it adds anything gameplay wise.

In several years here, I have never seen even a single person make a compelling case as to how non-communist focuses for the Soviet Union could translate into a fun gameplay experience that is in any way distinct from the ordinary stalinist historical option. It seems the only argument people have is that they like the roleplay value of it. Paradox's focus trees have worked best in my opinion when they have a coherent alternative gameplay model to work with, as the democratic Germany focuses on making a European alliance against fascism and communism and makes a distinctly different game from a historical Germany run. An imperial Russia would just conquer Finland and its european neighbors working in parallel with the Western allies to defeat the Axis. It's basically identical to a historical Stalin game except you have the portrait of a different person on the politics screen. I see that as a waste of dev efforts, and nobody has really made a good case to the contrary yet.

I agree with you, I am annoyed by everyone requesting monarchies for every country, at this point it became a meme, however I would like to see a fascist and democratic one, besides the 2 branches of communism (the newly added trotskyte one and the reworked stalinist one), the fascist one being a NazBol one that would share focuses with the stalinist one ( who knows maybe Stalin would be the leader even then) and which will allow USSR to initiate the Berlin-Moskow axis, and the democratic one being the Democratic Socialist one which would allow USSR to directly join the allies and no Molotov-Ribentrop to ever take place.

 

[klopkr]

I just want to be able to make the AI bring back trotsky through options for my alternate soviet games.

I want the soviets to have more options to be balkanized during war. Some kind of event to have Stalin fight from beyond the Urals if the japanese never attack. Is there anyone left at this point that can even be used to bring back the tzar to russia at this point in history?

Also since the USA can annex all of the soviet union for no reason might as well let the soviet union annex all the USA if they go republic

 

[DystopianAlphaOmega]

I think it will be a waste if they do anything other than communist options. There is a lot of content to be had there.

Plus there's another issue: If Paradox is going to do something silly like a monarchist path, they better be prepared to handle every edge case where something like this would break a lot of content in the game in communist focus trees. Their track record on adjusting other country's focus trees to handle new deviations isn't exactly good. Most countries' communist focus tree branches are somewhat dependent on the Soviet Union, and in the case of Spain, extremely dependent on it.

The way I see it, a monarchist branch of the focus tree wouldn't actually add anything interesting gameplay wise(you'd still go to war with all of europe, just like a communist Soviet Union would), while at the same time breaking a lot of things in the game. I'd rather paradox focus on a pure communist focus tree which would allow less time for breaking all the things that would be broken by a monarchist Russia and put that time to fleshing out content and polish instead.

The Soviet Union is kind of unique for the era because it had a truly global political reach and influence. Going monarchist, ignoring how silly it is, is only going to be a downgrade of Russia to a regional power and really restricts the kind of fun things that are possible.

With communism, the Soviet Union has all kinds of options. The historical option, an anti-imperialist crusade against the colonial powers, a crusade to create a world socialist republic, etc. An imperial Russia wouldn't have any opportunities on a global level at all and would be restricted to dealing with its immediate geographic neighbors. You already get this to some extent with a historical Stalinist route, so I don't see how it adds anything gameplay wise.

In several years here, I have never seen even a single person make a compelling case as to how non-communist focuses for the Soviet Union could translate into a fun gameplay experience that is in any way distinct from the ordinary stalinist historical option. It seems the only argument people have is that they like the roleplay value of it. Paradox's focus trees have worked best in my opinion when they have a coherent alternative gameplay model to work with, as the democratic Germany focuses on making a European alliance against fascism and communism and makes a distinctly different game from a historical Germany run. An imperial Russia would just conquer Finland and its european neighbors working in parallel with the Western allies to defeat the Axis. It's basically identical to a historical Stalin game except you have the portrait of a different person on the politics screen. I see that as a waste of dev efforts, and nobody has really made a good case to the contrary yet.

Whatever the limitations of non-communist Russian trees, it’s very hard to say they would be more restrictive than requiring all Russian options needing to be communist.

Potential alignments with Balkan monarchies, a greater push to fully restore Imperial borders (eg. Finland and Poland), more active meddling in Manchuria, a greater impetus to secure Constantinople, etc. are all some potential foreign policy options for monarchist Russia just off the top of my head which wouldn’t fit as well with a slightly different flavoured communism.

Fascist and democratic paths offer similar interesting alternate opportunities.

Look at how popular Kaiserreich Germany is for instance, despite being fairly similarly located geo-strategically as fascist Germany.

It also just inherently adds more dynamic options through sandbox features (like custom factions for instance) to have access to the different ideologies.

Also since the USA can annex all of the soviet union for no reason might as well let the soviet union annex all the USA if they go republic

This is more like the shotgun marriage desperate option for when they are heavily losing a war. Think of it like the Anglo-French Union.

 

[klopkr]

This is more like the shotgun marriage desperate option for when they are heavily losing a war. Think of it like the Anglo-French Union.

Except if you're not at war with germany you can just end the war and take the whole thing lol. The Anglo-French Union is less buggy.

 

[Timmysoboy]

Maybe a republic somehow? There are no ways in which that would make sense but...

They could do something deep in the war when Stalin set up the 'patriotic war' concept, which was otherwise taboo in communism.

Honestly, it would be kind of unique and cool if SU got a bunch of different branches, but all of them communism, just in different ways (maybe an anarchist branch, just for funsies).

 

[Vlad123]

the thing I really hope for is a dynamic foreign policy for Italy. They tried that for Romania, with mixed results, but I hope Italy’s foreign policy is a set of decisions unlocked by focuses that you can activate as the situation

a idea for save monarchist Russia are a decision for germany is controll moscow creating a special reichkommissariat for al russian territori (like a civilwar) historically the Tsar not help Hitler because not know how the war do well. If Moscow falls is possibile reinstall the Czar as puppet, making a "restauration under fascist principe" this government respect other RK have teorically much "leggitimacy" than other RK and after URSS collapse they can only send help to germany (volunteer etc) but not have a war diretcly because after the "liberation" the Russia are destroyed

 

[Mackus]

The Soviet Union is kind of unique for the era because it had a truly global political reach and influence. Going monarchist, ignoring how silly it is, is only going to be a downgrade of Russia to a regional power and really restricts the kind of fun things that are possible.

Same thing could be said for Wehrmacht overthrowing Hitler, Germany not being Nazi butterflies away a lot of stuff. It then turned out to be one of most popular alternate history paths.
Dilemma of reconciling the two valid points was neatly solved by setting AI to almost never go monarchist unless explicitly told to.

 

[FoxtrotCharlie]

I don't know about the Soviet Union, but Italy should for sure have alt-fascist, democratic and monarchist.
A communist path would be a bit more complicated to implement in a realistic way due to communist Italy being a bit more far-fetched than the previous alternatives. This being said, Italy had the strongest communist party in western europe following WW2, so it could be plausible to have a socialist/communist Italy form before the conflict, maybe following a disastrous defeat in Ethiopia and picking generals from the italian communist partisans (which were a big part of Italy's partisans).

I posted a thread sometime ago specifically talking about plausible Italy Alt-History paths. If you have 10/15 minutes I would kindly ask you to read it as it could provide some interesting ideas (End of self-sponsoring ).
link: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...t-for-plausible-political-focus-tree.1397122/

 

[Robb92]

Italy I imagine will have a bunch of fascist paths since it’s the homeland of the ideology

1.) historic fascist path
2.) aggressive Mussolini path (fascist)
3.) British aligned fascist path under balbo

shared between some of the paths will be
1.) fight Anschluss (2 and 3)
2.) deal with Yugoslavia and the Balkans (1 and 2)
3.) negotiate with the British (1 and 3)

Also a
4.) monarchist-Catholic church diarchy path (nonaligned)
5.) monarchist-Democratic path
6.) maybe a communist path somehow, though I suspect it’ll be connected to the Italian-Soviet alliance

Monarchist-catholic is senseless in Italy. Crown and church in many countries got along but in Italy they could not stand one another, a pair of kings were even excommunicated for the "crime" of occupying rome which the pope thought his own. VE III was profoundly secular and even a little anticlerical...
During the monarchy referendum, the Chistian Democratic leader De Gasperi actually asked the pope: "Wait, as conservatives aren't we supposed to like traditional things like the monarchy?!" and the pope answered: "Yeah... but no. Not the Savoy monarchy."