So, now I have Hearts of Iron II...

Ofaloaf

Realized that the Test Scenario, while good for, you know, testing things, made crap-all sense from a story point of view. Decided to start over with some kind of actual timeline in mind this time.

So yeah, earlier French/Entente victory in WWI thanks to a modified Plan XVII drawn up by Victor Michel. Michel's Plan XVII would've strained Franco-British relations, as it called for the French Army to invade Belgium without permission at the first sign of trouble with Germany (WHEN SCHLIEFFEN PLANS COLLIDE!). With the French invasion, Britain refuses to directly intervene in the war, though they still deliver supplies, and through arm-waving ripples the Ottomans don't get involved either. France, Russia & Serbia versus Germany & Austria-Hungary, basically. Maybe the Italians join in later, since I gave them Dalmatia in this scenario. I dunno. Through the magic of making things happen outside the realm of the game so I don't have to explain it, the French win, take the Saar, Austria-Hungary collapses slightly differently, Danzig has a bit more autonomy, and the Weimar Republic is somehow more stable despite losing even more territory than OTL.

Yeah.


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I delayed the Austrian Civil War a bit... IOTL, it occurred in 1934. Here, I replaced the Spanish Civil War events with it. It ends pretty quickly here, too.

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Lord Insane

Lord Insane

I see the Weimar Republic still fell...
Hm. I've a feeling Germany would be very keen, very keen indeed to take advantage of the Austrian Civil War.
 

Dr. Strangelove

Banned
I never liked HOI too much, it seemed too scripted and too number-crunching for my taste; but I reinstalled it the other day and I think I'm finally getting the hang of it:

The US fleet commanded by Nimitz and with Enterprise and Wasp as flagships dukes it out with the Kriegsmarine in front of Bergen. I lost a couple of battleships, but sank the Bismarck and reinforcements were able to land and continue the liberation of Norway:

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After the germans broke through in France I evacuated my expeditionary forces to North Africa and stopped the italian advance on Tunis. Emboldened, the french refused to give up and continued the fight (it's the first time I see France rejecting the Vichy event!). Patton's drive from Tunis to Tripoli in October 1940 has earned him the nickname "The Desert Fox":
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No cheats (besides playing on Easy; hey, I hadn't played in years). I got several random events that drove me towards Interventionism to the point where I was able to join the Allies in 1938. Japan already defeated China in 1939; I think I will concentrate in defeating Germany and leave the japanese alone for the time being. I also gave unholy amounts of supplies and oil to Republican Spain so they could defeat the Nationals in a few months and avoid becoming Leninist.
 

Ofaloaf

Okay, so, non-modded HOI2 ARMA question.

Playing as Allied-Stooge-Gamey Italy. Assumed control of the French army, made small inroads into (ex-)Austria and western Germany while Fritz was off doing his thing in Poland. It's now the autumn of 1941 and AI Germany has yet to declare war on the Low Countries, so I assume they never will at this point. With that in mind, how does the below plan and attached visual aid seem to you?


  1. Declare war on Luxembourg, now that it has no guarantees of independence or non-aggression pacts with anybody. Invade.
  2. From Luxembourg and with significant assistance from French troops occupying Saarbruecken, make an attack on Cologne. Win, occupy Cologne.
  3. From Saarbruecken and with significant assistance from Cologne, make an attempt to cross the Rhine and take Dortmund. Cut off Germany's Rhineland troops, gut their industry, win game.
Yes? No? Stupid?

brilliantscheme.PNG
 

Mark Lord

Hope I'm not duplicating a previous discussion, but has anyone here played HOI 3 with or without its update pack Semper Fi. I'd be interested to know how robust it is as a simulation.
 

Ofaloaf

So it turns out there were several movements seeking to establish a Romani homeland in the 1930s-- some place in Italian East Africa ("between Abyssinia and Somalia"), part of South Africa(!), and along the banks of the River Ganges were all advocated locations, to which I also added Oltenia and parts of Bulgaria as another potential choice. Because it was so hard to pin down one place, I decided to create a Romani state with cores on all of these areas. If and when a Romani state is released via event in any one of these spots, another event triggers which removes their cores in the other regions. It's a neat trick, and it works.

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Trickiest part was ministers-- most of them ended up being OTL musicians and entertainers, since there appears to be an absolute dearth of fearsome Romani generals dating back to the Interwar era. At least I had enough variation to make each version of the "Romani Union" (Eritrea, Ganges, Oltenia, Bechuanaland) slighty different from each other:

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charl

I agree (and I can't believe I missed that post before). You must have done a lot or research to find all those people. And I like how each of the alternatives are a bit different in ideology as well. Adds flavour, and makes the choices that much more interesting to make.
 

Ofaloaf

Thanks! :eek: It's honestly not too much work... just a matter of finding an article like the Mountainous Republic of the North Caucusus, scanning it for any names, googling those names, and if said figures look like they wouldn't already be 80 years old at the beginning of the game, I slap 'em into a minister list. If, after all that, I still have holes in the lists, I resort to fictional characters and try to disguise them a bit-- the Cossack head of military intelligence is basically Alec Trevelyan, except I changed his name to the Russian word for "nobody". His portrait is still a photo of Sean Bean, though.

I've also gotten anal about minister portaits, but I can't always find a photograph for every single figure I come across-- I've begun raiding the Prokudin-Gorskii collection for pictures of anonymous steppe nomads I can slap names on.


Check it out, I cheated a little in each of these rosters to some degree:
 

Strategos' Risk

The true test is creating alternate cabinets of each different ideological stance for obscure alternate/short-lived states. Especially extremist ministers of either direction.

Actually, the main fun is creating communist/fascist versions of said states' flags.
 

Ofaloaf

Strategos' Risk said:
The true test is creating alternate cabinets of each different ideological stance for obscure alternate/short-lived states. Especially extremist ministers of either direction.

Actually, the main fun is creating communist/fascist versions of said states' flags.
Click to expand...
I've just started putting in Lovecraftian cultists for Nationalist Socialist ministers whenever I'm drawing a blank. H.P. Lovecraft himself is a NS Head of State for (a releasable) New England in my modded version.
 

Nietzsche

Banned
Ofaloaf said:
I've just started putting in Lovecraftian cultists for Nationalist Socialist ministers whenever I'm drawing a blank. H.P. Lovecraft himself is a NS Head of State for (a releasable) New England in my modded version.
Click to expand...

I think you should change the name from "Riley Island" to "Raleigh Island". Sounds more...well, like R'lyeh.
 

Ofaloaf

Strategos' Risk said:
Fits in with the thesis of this essay:

www.johnreilly.info/hpl.htm
Click to expand...
I had originally planned for the United States to start off the scenario as an SL democracy under Cordell Hull and in alliance with France to spite the common isolationist America that pops up everywhere, but I've been having trouble working out an "Axis" for this game (Mostly-Communist Britain takes up the mantle of the Comintern here) and currently had Japan taking up that leadership role. But ooh, I could easily make a batshit Lovecraftian America take control of the Axis instead.

Quick! What's a good ideological name to replace "National Socialist" which pays homage to the Outer Gods without sounding too out of place? I was thinking "Esoteric Nationalist".
 

charl

Ofaloaf said:
I had originally planned for the United States to start off the scenario as an SL democracy under Cordell Hull and in alliance with France to spite the common isolationist America that pops up everywhere, but I've been having trouble working out an "Axis" for this game (Mostly-Communist Britain takes up the mantle of the Comintern here) and currently had Japan taking up that leadership role. But ooh, I could easily make a batshit Lovecraftian America take control of the Axis instead.

Quick! What's a good ideological name to replace "National Socialist" which pays homage to the Outer Gods without sounding too out of place? I was thinking "Esoteric Nationalist".
Click to expand...

National-Republicanist maybe?
 

Ofaloaf

charl said:
National-Republicanist maybe?
Click to expand...
Eh... I'm more looking for an name which sounds Lovecraftian, but not out of place in HOI2. "National-Republican" fits the latter, but not the former. Lovecraft had this thing for ornate and/or obscure words like "esoteric", "eldritch", "squamous", "scoriac", "icthyic", etc.

Aha! Using the Elder Sign, I've made a simple-enough modified US flag for Lovecraftian America:

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Ofaloaf

Finally! Completed modding Europe at the start of the game:

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Of note:
  • The Armenian-Azerbaijani state in tan-brown is the Centrocaspian Dictatorship (here simply called "Centrocaspiy").
  • Just north of Centrocaspiy is the Mountain Republic, in white.
  • Wedged in-between Russia (Green) and the Soviet holdout in the Urals (Red) is the Idel-Ural State on steroids.
  • Independent Crimea! Probably about to be shafted by either/both the Cossacks to the east (Dark Blue) or Ukraine to the northwest (Dark Green).
  • The Baltic Germans (French Blue) have managed to maintain control of a unified government up where Latvia and Estonia normally are. Their flag is based off the design of the Baltische Landeswehr.
  • FREIE STADT DANZIG
  • Independent Syria at war with/in rebellion against what remains of the Ottoman Empire. Syria has 9 IC, the Ottomans 27. The Ottomans win in a matter of months every time.
  • Hedjaz and Nejd are still separate.
  • Russia imploded, which is why Centrocaspiy, Byelorussia, Cossacks, etc. are still independent. I've whittled them down to 57 IC, and that's with its remaining Siberian territories, which is the next thing I'm going to take away and give to Kolchack's Siberian government.
Maybe I should give Gilbraltar to Spain. Bah.
 
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