"Grub first, then ethics", if your pops are better of than for example in the democracys that are bordering you why should they revolt? Does it not seem extremely stupid to overthrow the monarchy that probably did a better job than the nearby democracy? And you should not forget that unlike the nobility back then who of course would rather keep more of the money for themselves the player can choose to just hand out social reforms like candy (and hopefully this can be done without having to cheese the system like in vicky 2 where "losing" a few wars was required to get social reforms a bit early).
It shouldn't be that simple, I feel.
I'm really hoping they've come up with a replacement for "time for the annual Anarcho-Liberal rebellion" of Victoria II, which was neither fun nor challenging for the player (although the AI regularly had at least one major country turn bourgeois dictatorship every game).
Hey guys you remember that revolution in france were the part above the shoulder was removed from many (or most?) nobles? Yeah continue trying to block the reform and lets see how the masses like that...
Why should they though? Please name a few specific reasons where liberal democracies have a (big) advantage over authoritarian dictarships from a gameplay perspective? You have less control, but what do you gain in exchange? Better social reforms? At the very end of the timeframe nazigermany existed and the nazis did implement social welfare (only for germans of course) and in Vicky 2 if the fascists are the ruling party they automatically support ANY change in either direction. And long before that Bismarck implemented social reforms in germany as well (and i think for the time those were great?).
I guess the advantages appear in the long run. People in general and educated people in particular like you more, so you will get the benefits of emigration, high literacy and research rate.
Nazi germany was not a democracy and I don't see why they should have a worse research rate than France on the contrary.
A pretty good modern counterexample of a (still...) functioning dictatorship would be china (i hate the lack of freedom of speech and that you constantly have to praise the CCP for example), but the system were they influence their economy into focusing at important technologies for the future and generally seem to have a strong focus on nature science as most asian nations is working really well and there are no signs of (a large enough) rebellion within the content population. Though the one child policy will cause massive problems in the future, when there are to many old people and to few young. Generally speaking a strong leader can influence his nation more, BUT this can both go into a good or bad direction.
Nazi Germany only existed for 12 years. Its "success" was very short-lived (another disadvantage of a militaristic dictatorship - everyone hates you and gangs up on you). What scientific success they had was because of people who were born and educated under the previous regimes, and they screwed up big time by oppressing intellectual elites (imagine if Einstein was not forced to emigrate?). "Nazi science" like V2 rockets, jet planes, Tiger 2, late submarines had a terrible cost/effect ratio, and their nuclear program was not even close to the Allied one.
Oh come on dude, what about meiji Japan? That modernized and defeated Russia? Is that a democracy also? Or what about modern day China that will soon surpass the US in every scientific field possible?
Lack of recourses (tungsten and oil for the jets for example) was a huge issue for germany, while the allies had everything in abundance. And the fact that declaring war on far to many nations at the same time is not a brilliant idea, maybe did also contribute a little bit to the downfall...
Modern China is pretty unique, but it lags massively in fundamental research compared to the US and Europe. There is a reason many Chinese go to the western universities, but almost no one goes to study in China except linguilsics students who study Chinese.
Ah yes, Russia, the shining democracy. And I don't say authoritarian states can't be successful, just that they are in the long run not as successful as liberal democracies.
I already wrote that aging is indeed a problem, but aside from that and maybe the trouble their environmental polution will still cause them. They absolutely are on the path of surpassing the US as the greatest economic power and dont forget that due to their massive size they can just throw billions at whatever research problem were they are still behind the "west" or just buy the leading company if corrupt/stupid politicians are unwilling to block the purchase as happened in the case of "KUKA" a former german robotics company that because of its ties to china is currently having trouble (most big companies are not dumb enough to do business ties that would involve giving secret info to KUKA). But the knowledge is certainly now in chinese hands...
The key thing is "being massive". They have 1.4 billion educated citizens, mostly urban. That's what causes any success China has, not its authoritarianism. And throwing billions to buy something other people invented is not a systemic solution to the lack of fundamental research.
Sorry but you don't understand the basics of power, if the elites of a country and its population are more or less supporting you (like what is the case now for China) then your country will outperform democracies. Now look at Tunisia a young democracy in North Africa that still struggles with economic matters and had essentially no growth in the 10 years after the downfall of their dictator because their political elites are too fragmented to enact the reforms needed so much so that Tunisia is today at the brink of bankruptcy. So yeah democracies are better for the people but not always, if you have a too fragmented political field things come to a stand still and everyone loses because none of the political parties wants to make concessions or even worse these political parties are conspiring with outside powers to gain the upper hand domestically etc. Authoritarian regimes are generally worse for the people but not always, an authoritarian regime that builds factories and uplifts people from abject poverty is better than a fragmented democracy than blocks every project just for political gain.
