What specifically makes Kaiserreich more dystopian than OTL?

[xie323]

I've heard about this statement on the Paradox fourms, the idea that Kaiserreich is more dystopian than OTL. However I fail to see how this is the case and I've played this game dozens of times.

And the only governments that start off legitimatly nasty are Iron Guard Romania, Turkestan, Georgia, Mongolia and arguably the neo-taiping rebels. And most of them are regional threats over posing the same sort of threat Hitler did OTL.

Of course the player can intervene in each case to make it a real dystopia by making fascist national populists take over and totalists also take over in every country, but the game randomizes everything. Some countries like Italy can go all ways and so could Russia, which could choose between Fascism/"Wrangelism", Syndicalism, democracy and monarchy(constitutional and absolute).

So can anyone explain how Kaiserreich is more dystopian than OTL?

 

[tus3]

The only thing I can come up with is the ridiculous number of civil wars, in America, Spain, Romania, Ethiopia, Russia, the AOG, National France and even Brazil and South-Africa (though then it are just a few partisan units trying to reach the capital).

 

[HIM Dogson]

It can go either way. You can have Constitutional Monarchist Germany and her allies uniting Europe under democracy (and going against less radical Marxists, so less death), you can have democratic Japan avoid the horrors of military rule, you can have Marxism develop into something actually not horrific, you can have Russia fight for democracy. You can also have Totalists conquer the world, National Populists conquer the world, mega ISIS in the form of Turkestan conquer the Middle East, the Klan take over America, Christian Chinese ISIS take over all of China, Mosely making 1984 come true, etc. Kaiserreich isn't more dystopian than OTL, but it has the potential to be so.

 

[Mr.J]

I think it's two things. First off, unlike IOTL, WWII isn't (mostly) confined to Europe and East Asia. There's wars all over the globe, almost no country is safe.

Second, people see the countries that are worse off (The US with a 4-way civil war, most of Africa ruled by Goering, the Commune of France, etc.) more clearly than the countries that are better off (Germany, Russia with most event chains, etc.)

 

[xie323]

I think it's two things. First off, unlike IOTL, WWII isn't (mostly) confined to Europe and East Asia. There's wars all over the globe, almost no country is safe.

Second, people see the countries that are worse off (The US with a 4-way civil war, most of Africa ruled by Goering, the Commune of France, etc.) more clearly than the countries that are better off (Germany, Russia with most event chains, etc.)

Commune of France doesn't always go Totalist through....and while the 1930s are more dangerous and unstable there is potential for rebuilding in all civil wars that does not revolve around repression.

Africa is messed up through with Goering being able to get away Congo Free State 2.0 and very rare for Kaiser to stop him, and also National France picks the most discriminatory laws or segregationist laws against colonized population even if it takes democratic reforms or become a constitutional monarch.

I think the countries that start off as excessively brutal either do not have events to reform into something more moderate(Georgia, both the Chinese and Turkstani theocracies) or could but very rarely pick that option(Goering rarely is stopped by Kaiser, Romanian civil war against Wrangalists/NatPops never usually happen, and Sternburg rarely gets over his head and forcibly removed.)

 

[Faeelin]

The us has an insane civil war where s bunch of losers set up work camps.

 

[Lord Insane]

The only thing I can come up with is the ridiculous number of civil wars, in America, Spain, Romania, Ethiopia, Russia, the AOG, National France and even Brazil and South-Africa (though then it are just a few partisan units trying to reach the capital).

It looks like South Africa is going to be more likely to end up with a civil war - a proper two (actually three) tag one - in 1.8 or 1.9. The AOG things will at some point be so radically reshaped that while fighting will always happen in the region, well, it's not exactly an AOG civil war - of course, it could be called a Chinese civil war, but then our 30s had those too.

 

[chankljp]

Really glad to see another Ksiserreich post here on this forum! I really like the game mod and it deserves a lot more attention.

Well, in one of my earliest thread on this board, I kind of discussed the idea of that liberal democracy as we understand it in OTL will be utterly discredited in the Ksiserreich's timeline.

Granted, this can most certainly be averted, with major countries such as Russia, China, India, Japan, etc either picking up the touch of the democratic ideal. However, realistically speaking, the fall of the Britain and France to radical socialism, while the much more autocratic Imperial Germany was able to thrive, will give the entire world an impression that representative democracies is simply impractical as a form of government in the era of the syndicalist threats.

To quote another user who commented on my thread, the 'default setting' of any new regime established (such as those freeing themselves from colonial rule) is to be authoritarian, as they are most likely establish by a hierarchical military or conspiratorial organisation headed by a charismatic leader. In OTL, we live in a world that is dominated by a powerful capitalist representative democracy, the United States. As such, newly emerging countries will be influenced to at lease put up a pretense of democracy and republicanism. But in the world of Ksiserreich? After looking at all the civil wars and leftist revolutions, any government that is more right-wing then the radical socialist might conclude that going democratic is suicidal at worst, or a a roll of a dice at best. And see it as much more beneficial to be authoritarian.

 

[Lord Insane]

The obvious counter is that you need to insert 'fully' before representative democracies and democratic - the Kaiserreich is not a full-on representative democracy and is indeed authoritarian, but neither is it an autocratic regime without a genuinely democratic governmental organ with actual influence. Indeed, Germany as presented in Kaiserreich can itself move towards the democratic ideal.

 

[chankljp]

The only thing I can come up with is the ridiculous number of civil wars, in America, Spain, Romania, Ethiopia, Russia, the AOG, National France and even Brazil and South-Africa (though then it are just a few partisan units trying to reach the capital).

I think it's two things. First off, unlike IOTL, WWII isn't (mostly) confined to Europe and East Asia. There's wars all over the globe, almost no country is safe.

Yes, this is a very important factor too. Even IF representative democracy endures in the event of the Syndicalist Internationale being defeated in WK2 by a relatively democratic Germany, the rise of Republican Russian/China, the Entente remnant retaking their homeland without going full authoritarian, the rise of a liberal Japan acting as 'Asian NATO', etc.... The world will still end up being significantly more right-wing compared to OTL.

With the exception of China and Japan, ALL of the potential torchbearers for democracy mentioned above had at lease one violent, bloody, nation wrecking military confrontation against the the forces of radical left-wing socialism.

Think denazification in Germany, and how the Nazi were perceived by the rest of the world even today. It's going to be drastically worse for any leftist in the Kaiserreich timeline for at least a couple of decades, maybe up until the the early 21st century (similar to how many extreme nationalist ideas are making a comeback in the form of the alt-right after more then 60 years since the end of WW2 in OTL).

No matter how much one might be a true believer in the ideals of democracy and the freedom of speech. One does not win a war against a bitterly ideologically opposed opponent and then allow said opponent to take power peacefully through the ballot-box, or even openly spread their 'ideological contaminant' in classrooms and newspapers afterwards.

If any capitalist faction won their war against the syndicalist, it would be highly implausible for them to allowed even moderate socialist parties and trade unions to continue to operate without any significant violent harassment against their members, voter intimidation, campaigns of deceitful propaganda by state, etc. Anything that is even remotely socialist is going to be political and social suicide to a degree far exceeding OTL.

For example, think the Civil Rights Movement in the US. In the event that Reed becomes president in the 1936 Election, he will be the only American faction that have the option to take on African Americans as government ministers. During the Second American Civil War, even if the CSA takes on Norman Thomas' social democratic ideas as their own and doesn't go full totalist, when the 'Private Bank Accounts' (In which the bank savings of wealthy individuals gets nationalized by the CSA government) and 'The Law of the Land' (in which leftist militia seize control of private properties belonging to religious organization and the rich and redistributing them) events get triggered , there is a 90% and 75% chance of the CSA saying 'Yes' to both of them.

Imagine a child from a white, upper middle class family say... living in New York. He will have vivid memories of his family's hard earned savings in the bank wiped out by the CSA overnight, followed by left-wing militias (most likely with quite a few members from the low-income African American communities) kicking them out of their apartment, if not outright shooting his father for being a 'class enemy'. Even if the US Federal government wins the civil war and restore democracy, you will still end up with an entire generation of society's upper crust becoming radicalized due to their terrible experiences during the CSA uprisings. When the 1950-60s come around and the ATL version of Martin Luther King Jr. emerges, will they jump into 'fight or flight' mode, and immediately associate any form of black empowerment with Reed and the CSA?

The only way that I see this being averted will be for the Second Russian Civil War to breakout, but have the Left SR-Mensheviks in power at the time fighting against the Bakunin's Bolsheviks, or for Nationalist France to reclaim at lease part of their homeland from the Communards while under a government led by the Republican-Socialist Party. This way, their will clear dissociate between Social Democracy and Syndicalism, with the former playing a key role in taking down the latter.

 

[Lord Insane]

Well, Germany does have a similar path path to what you propose for the second Russian Civil War that could allow self-professed socialism (moderate, to be sure, but still socialist) to hold their own against such campaigns - by helping lead Germany during the fight against the Syndintern (harder to brush the SPD with the syndicalist brush if the Reichskanzler during WKII was himself an SPD man, backed by a strong SPD presence in the Reichstag!). Another potential long-term democratic torchbearer that can have leftists lead the fight: Delhi/India under Jinnah.

It would probably help the global situation for the moderate left if the USA doesn't have a civil war (after all, the path to avoiding that involves cracking down on Long and his followers but compromising with Reed's socialists).

 

[Kome]

Having just ran a quick game I would say maybe democracy is the actual dystopia in this game.

Dat Dissentreich tho.

But no seriously, looking at it from a mathematical perspective, we're basically balancing six million Jews against the death tolls from more spread out wars (particularly America). With the addition that the death toll from China is a lot lower as I have never, ever seen Japan fully invade China.

On a whole, I think KR either comes out on top to OTL or that 'the suck' is spread out a lot more evenly worldwide instead of being concentrated specifically on the activities of the Axis.

 

[New Cleo Genesis]

But no seriously, looking at it from a mathematical perspective, we're basically balancing six million Jews against the death tolls from more spread out wars (particularly America).

I find your exclusion of the other 45 to 50 million other deaths from OTL WWII quite strange.

 

[Faeelin]

China is basically run by magic and fu Manchu, so.

 

[Faeelin]

I would find the timeline a lot more fun and plausible if the USA had a better backstory. A crippled president, restoring a crippled nation to greatness, putting its thumb on the scale of the Entente, checking Germany's weltpolitik.

 

[Lord Insane]

I would find the timeline a lot more fun and plausible if the USA had a better backstory. A crippled president, restoring a crippled nation to greatness, putting its thumb on the scale of the Entente, checking Germany's weltpolitik.

I don't think 'better backstory' really means 'only one path' in the context of a game like this - especially not when that one path is as close to OTL as possible.

 

[Faeelin]

I don't think 'better backstory' really means 'only one path' in the context of a game like this - especially not when that one path is as close to OTL as possible.

There is a reason the United States did not, in the 1930s, have a strong California secessionist movement, or a weird fascist movement in the American South, or a strong Syndicalist movement, all of whom decided the only solution was to have a civil war.

I get that plausibility isn't a big thing for Kaiserreich but one wonders.

 

[Lord Insane]

There is a reason the United States did not, in the 1930s, have a strong California secessionist movement, or a weird fascist movement in the American South, or a strong Syndicalist movement, all of whom decided the only solution was to have a civil war.

I am not saying Kaiserreich's USA is in any way plausible, but I am saying that having the USA be led by the same president as OTL and always acting as if the Entente are the western Allies and Mitteleuropa is the Axis is neither as fun as you argue nor in keeping with the rest of the setting.

The Syndicalists are a general Kaiserreich thing, anyway - and as you might have noted from comments above, the current Kaiserreich stance is that they haven't decided that the only solution was to have a civil war, with the Syndicalists being quite satisfied with gaining some reforms and the Californian secessionists never starting anything without things going south in the east.

 

[Petike]

Has this spinoff suffered from players taking its backstory too seriously and claiming it's completely plausible ?

 

[Kome]

I find your exclusion of the other 45 to 50 million other deaths from OTL WWII quite strange.

Oh no, those deaths are still totally going to happen. Kaiserriech is after all a war game.