WWW Poland - no Soviet invasion with "historical" 1939 start setting?

[tom_jones]

They don't have the Soviet Union invade, because then the Soviet Union would be stuck in a war with the Allies (Poland is part of the Allies, after all). This outcome is far worse for the "historical" path than letting the Soviet Union grab land after Poland surrenders.

I agree this is the most likely reason, however to me this indicates a limitation in the guarantee/alliance system that, if addressed, would allow for more nuanced and historically accurate gameplay. And that it wasn't addressed, even though the devs were aware from the start of its existence (as it's not their first HOI game) is disappointing.

(a very basic solution would be enhancement to current alliance system -- a (scriptable) switch controlling whether a member of alliance who refuses to join a war against another member of that alliance... gets ejected from the alliance as result, or not. That way you could easily have what actually happened -- Great Britain and France refusing to join the war against Soviet Union, but still remaining members of the Allies, while the war in the East remained limited to Poland/Soviet Union, and could be resolved as such)

For what it's worth if I recall the previous streams right the territory of Poland gets divided between Germany and Soviet Union *after* Poland loses the war with Germany, by simple event that fires and flicks who is the new owner of eastern provinces. But that's far from satisfactory.

 

[tom_jones]

It's not possible to do that unless you break the sandbox.

Per info we got in that WWW stream the historical mode already "breaks the sandbox" to some extent -- countries have scripted lists of targets they should attack, and work their way down these lists where possible, overwriting what their AI could pick otherwise. As such, I don't see making an exception here as something that has to be rejected, especially since it's about opening event in a rigidly setup situation, one that doesn't leave the player any real room/time to change these starting events.

 

[Lionace]

It's going to be the same it was for previous HoI games, with Germany fighting the war alone and giving eastern Poland to USSR after annexation.

Which is a shame, as it was a very interesting event historically and I feel that the current representation helps in spreading misinformation about it. If it was introduced with care, it could perhaps even give more options as to how the war progresses (like UK player declaring war on USSR).

 

[ArcandSpark]

If you gave the option of the U.K. being able to declare war (with a 0.5% chance for AI in a historical game) then that would work well. I don't understand why they would not do it and you are right about it spreading misinformation.

 

[mackintosh]

If we're going for historical accuracy then it is worthwhile to point out that Sikorski wasn't the PM in August 1939, Sławoj-Składkowski was. Sikorski only took over after the fall as the Prime Minister in exile.

 

[Bridger15]

In historical mode I would expect things to play out fairly close to history with a few things guaranteed to happen like The Anschluss, Italy joining the axis, and the Soviet Union joining with Germany to beat Poland just to name a few.

Then you will likely be disappointed. "Historical" mode means only 1 thing: The AI will try to choose national focuses in an order which resembles the historical context. This will strongly push it in a historical direction, but is not guaranteed to follow the historical path. There are no other changes/events in "historical" mode that force it onto rails, for which I am entirely grateful. There's no point in playing a grand strategy game if everything always happens the same way.

 

[potski]

Per info we got in that WWW stream the historical mode already "breaks the sandbox" to some extent -- countries have scripted lists of targets they should attack, and work their way down these lists where possible, overwriting what their AI could pick otherwise. As such, I don't see making an exception here as something that has to be rejected, especially since it's about opening event in a rigidly setup situation, one that doesn't leave the player any real room/time to change these starting events.

That's not how the historical mode works. There are a list of preferred National Focuses, so the Germany AI in the 1936 game won't go Communist and should take the NF for sub warfare, rather than the one for Plan Z. That's all.

The MR Pact NF is taken and the events cause the Soviet AI to DoW Poland, a Soviet player would get the choice. But the events don't control what happens then. And talk about the guarantee being only against Germany are irrelevant. Poland is a full-blown member of the Allies by mid-Sept. You saw Daniel join in WWW within a day of the DoW by Germany. The Poland AI will do exactly the same.

Any offensive war against one member of a faction is automatically a war with them all.

If you hardcode some logic into the faction defence process to ignore a DoW against a faction member if the faction is the Allies, the member is Poland and the attacker is the Soviet Union, then you have broken the sandbox, and started railroading.

BTW you would also be breaking the logic for when/how a country can DoW. I'm pretty sure that outside of MR Pact (which is a German NF) the Soviet AI could not suddenly DoW Poland - they have no claim. And you have to put yourself in the position of a Poland player who does not know the exact history of what the Soviets did. It would be a super rage quit moment if you spent four years preparing for war with Germany only to find the Soviets DoW'ed you out of the blue. One I think players could legitimately say the AI cheated by not fabricating a claim first, nor spending any PP.

For what purpose? To make a political point that the Soviets were as bad as Germany? Sorry, this is a game. Go elsewhere if you want to re-run the arguments at Nuremberg.

 

[Tus3]

Alternatively the Soviets could only invade Poland if it has already lost around half it's territory to Germany (or atleast thats was what I deduced happened IRL out of these maps).
I don't how realistically this would be, though it would prevent critism of historically revisionism whilst avoiding making Poland unplayable.

 

[ArcandSpark]

This isn't about who was the "bad guy". It's about what happened and the issue is where they draw the line for historical accuracy. I would argue that it is as important as the Anschluss of Austria, remilitarization of the Rhineland, or Italy joining the axis. It should be there because it happened and was an important part and the Soviet Union did want to expand westwards into and through Poland.

You could work it into the game that the Soviet Union can only DoW Poland if Germany has and if the MR pact was signed. You could do this through a NF for both countries if you wanted to go that route.

 

[mackintosh]

For all intents and purposes, Poland should be unplayable. We had no chance to survive what happened to us in 1939. The whole idea of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact was, amongst others, the partition of Poland. If anything, as far as HOI4 is concerned, Poland should only exist as an exercise in prolonging the inevitable in the 1939 setting. The 1936 setting on the other hand does leave some wiggle room, and is perfect for an alternate history scenario.

 

[Mamluke]

They don't have the Soviet Union invade, because then the Soviet Union would be stuck in a war with the Allies (Poland is part of the Allies, after all). This outcome is far worse for the "historical" path than letting the Soviet Union grab land after Poland surrenders.

are we really going to assume that Paradox can't even do ONE single (important) work around!?

I trust paradox, I trust that they are competent enough to create the historical or semi historical immersion that this game deserves, for its a fact that the Soviets did invade eastern Poland to make sure they got their part of the deal.

with the UK and Frances guaranties on Poland, the Allies declared war on Germany after its aggression, but when the Soviet Union did the same? the allies went with the only pragmatic and logical course of action.

" ok, we are NOT fighting 2 giants at the same time! we need the Soviets at our side"

like a piece of paper and vocal promises were going to make then do otherwise....

WHAT I suggest, is that when the Soviets declare war (by means of event, if it can't be done the normal way) the UK gets a event where they simple decide to, tolerate Soviet aggression and look the other way, or stand by Poland territorial rights (for what was left) and declare war on the Soviets (later on, this can also introduce interesting gameplay for the Soviets.) HOWEVER, the AI should have a 0% chance for the last option, if most thing go historical, (players should be allowed to be crazy XD).

I mean, why are most of you guys assuming paradox to be incompetent to not be able to do even this?

 

[ArcandSpark]

are we really going to assume that Paradox can't even do ONE single (important) work around!?

I trust paradox, I trust that they are competent enough to create the historical or semi historical immersion that this game deserves, for its a fact that the Soviets did invade eastern Poland to make sure they got their part of the deal.

with the UK and Frances guaranties on Poland, the Allies declared war on Germany after its aggression, but when the Soviet Union did the same? the allies went with the only pragmatic and logical course of action.

" ok, we are NOT fighting 2 giants at the same time! we need the Soviets at our side"

like a piece of paper and vocal promises were going to make then do otherwise....

WHAT I suggest, is that when the Soviets declare war (by means of event, if it can't be done the normal way) the UK gets a event where they simple decide to, tolerate Soviet aggression and look the other way, or stand by Poland territorial rights (for what was left) and declare war on the Soviets (later on, this can also introduce interesting gameplay for the Soviets.) HOWEVER, the AI should have a 0% chance for the last option, if most thing go historical, (players should be allowed to be crazy XD).

I mean, why are most of you guys assuming paradox to be incompetent to not be able to do even this?

Exactly. How can you even argue against that logic? Poland should be Unwinnable in the 1939 scenario and just be able to delay and maybe but not likely survive 1936 against both the soviets and Germany.

 

[Wimpola]

It's not an event. Under the Soviet Dev diary (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...development-diary-14th-of-august-2015.876361/) the focus tree gives the Soviets claims on Poland and then they can invade.

 

[ArcandSpark]

It's not an event. Under the Soviet Dev diary (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...development-diary-14th-of-august-2015.876361/) the focus tree gives the Soviets claims on Poland and then they can invade.

Hmm... So there is something for it. Well now it's even easier to fix the issue.

 

[tom_jones]

If you hardcode some logic into the faction defence process to ignore a DoW against a faction member if the faction is the Allies, the member is Poland and the attacker is the Soviet Union, then you have broken the sandbox, and started railroading.

(TBH I don't see what exactly would be so outrageous about railroading the outbreak of the very thing this game is supposed to portray, especially in supposed "historical" mode. But that's a discussion for another day)

But accepting for the moment that yes, 'breaking the sandbox' is universally a Bad Thing here, pretty obvious alternative would be to enhance the sandbox systems, by allowing AI alliance members to be more flexible about whether they respond to attacks on their allies, and what happens if they don't. After all, historically Great Britain and France did decide not to DoW Soviet Union in 1939, and they did it for logical reasons, not some magical "railroading script". If the HOI4 sandbox doesn't allow its AI to decide the same, then it's a sign the simulation in this area is lacking and could use improvements. This limitation is especially silly when you consider their other 'historical sandbox' that is EU4 already does allow the AI to decide that nope, given state of things they'd rather take relations and prestige hit, than get involved in a war they don't fancy, any prior alliance pacts be damned.

 

[adil3tr]

German forces Poland to surrender and then takes everything. Then an event fires to give eastern Poland to the Russians. If they threw in an actual conflict it would have the Soviets at war with the allies. It's my understanding that the Soviets moved in after the polish surrendered anyway.

 

[Oriflamme]

It's my understanding that the Soviets moved in after the polish surrendered anyway.

No, that's not true. Have you even read any of the previous posts?

 

[mackintosh]

It's my understanding that the Soviets moved in after the polish surrendered anyway.

As per the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, the Soviets invaded Poland on September 17th, 1939, effectively ending any chance of Poland making a stand. While the fall of Poland was inevitable, we would most certainly have not have collapsed in a month. This would have also given our allies more time to respond.

As a side note - unlike some other nations, we have never formally surrendered. The government and remnant forces evacuated and continued in exile.

 

[George Parr]

German forces Poland to surrender and then takes everything. Then an event fires to give eastern Poland to the Russians. If they threw in an actual conflict it would have the Soviets at war with the allies. It's my understanding that the Soviets moved in after the polish surrendered anyway.

You could easily get around any declaration of war by the Allies, some HoI 3 mods do it just fine. Just have all members of the Allies but Poland drop out of the war with the Soviets and give them a non-aggression treaty to prevent Poland from calling them to arms.

Beyond that, having an event in which the Allies could declare war on the Soviets over Poland, with a miniscule chance of that happening, falls right in line with similar approaches for Austria or Czechoslovakia, which in the past always could declare war instead of accepting the historical outcome.

 

[Number 7]

Historically the poles ignored the soviet-polish border too. The border guards were ordered to just surrender, and the entire real army was fighting the germans

gameplay wise its incredibly hard to put the soviet secondary invasion of poland in. It would work if you do something event based with railroading, but what happens when HOI4 which has much more sandbox style goes off those rails?

I don't think it matters too much, Poland already is far weaker in the HOI series than it was in real life for gameplay purposes (1 month 5 days for poland to fall which includes soviet invasion which was the point that poland surrendered because all hope was lost vs France only held out 6 weeks. Poland did very well for its size)