Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg

Well, I must say I had a gameplay with a faction that usually people won't play, and while it was not exactly fun, I had a great game and I gonna write here my experience.

I played as all the main Chinese routes apart from guangxi, so I asked on the discord if there was something left and someone called "clan" told me thag there was sinchuan, and Sinchuan had a pataut route with the industrial corps.

I love industry, I'm almost sexually attracted to factories so I decided to try, and it was the most difficult campaign and by far the most bland, but still it had more content than a "main" campaign on vanilla hoi4.

The industrial corps are utilitarians and technocrats, they are not good people, but they are peopled that improve China maybe the most between all factions. First you have to crush regional warlords, then create one currency to replace the many in circulation, then you improve the infra, the literacy, you crush the opium trafficking, going as far to give proper care putting people on recovery hospitals and begins to expand to unify China. I really liked their concept, but the industrial corps got only THREE officers, one field marshall and two minor ones.

The campaign was the part that really "crushed" me. Usually I can unite all China by 1941, but different from the right kmt, you don't get a option to invade guangxi so I had to manually justify it, and the numerical inferiority was crushing, so I only did it by 1943 (minus tibet, ma and mongolia). There is also a lack of narrative and lore, so most of the campaign is silent...

Still, I believe that the Industrial corps is the route that would result on the most developed China, and I really think they can have a very good an entertaining gameplay if given some more love by the Devs, I can smell the burning coal from here while my industry surpass the german one by 1944. The downsides are that they are cleary repressive and they don't support a welfare state, so you would have a mega industrial china with a lot of exploration of the people by the industrial sector and a government run by a industrial-military clique. They are the perfect faction for a certain kind of player.
 
tqugynefcu941.png
Found this future compass on Reddit. The creator seems to be a Long-fan. Temperate seems to meean high chance, radical low chance. I want to write a short scennario for each field, going from temperate bad to radical good.
BAD
1. Neo-imperial nuclear gridlock

Pat-aut German Empire won WK2 against the International, Russia and Japan. Atomic bombs were helpfull in this. London, Moskau ,Tokio and finally Chicago has been nuked. The Germans italianized their former opponents and restored and expanded his colonial empire. They are not above using tactical nuke against rebellious nativey. America is since the 2ACW divided between AUS; PSA and New England.th
2. Savinkov-Totalist partion of Europe
Russia goes natpop. International goes totalist. Reds win ACW and go totalist too. Russian-International alliance crush Germany, Austria and the Entente. Germany is partioned and italianized. Soon a Cold War starts between the two blocs. China, India and Africa are battlefield of that Cold War.
3. Silver Theocracy of the Americas
The AUS wins the ACW. Pelley coups and takes over. Meanwhile the great european and asian powers are stuck in an neverending conflict, which allows Pelley to start a "Holy Crusade" to clean the Americas from the "Enemies of Christ and the white Race".
4. Mosley Savinkov Tianran 1984
Extension of scenario 2. The Natpop/Totalist-Cold War goes hot. Althought nuclear weapons are used, the Russians overrun Western Europe. Only Britan holds with american support. WK3 gives Tianran the chance to unite China and create an eastasian power bloc. All 3 bloc are stuch in an neverending war.

More later
 
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I feel like these "future political compass" memes work better when the axis is either barely comprehensible or at least not making obvious value judgements. Good end vs bad end sounds like something that starts arguments more then it entertains.
 
tqugynefcu941.png
Found this future compass on Reddit. The creator seems to be a Long-fan. Temperate seems to meean high chance, radical low chance. I want to write a short scennario for each field, going from temperate bad to radical good.
BAD
1. Neo-imperial nuclear gridlock

Pat-aut German Empire won WK2 against the International, Russia and Japan. Atomic bombs were helpfull in this. London, Moskau ,Tokio and finally Chicago has been nuked. The Germans italianized their former opponents and restored and expanded his colonial empire. They are not above using tactical nuke against rebellious nativey. America is since the 2ACW divided between AUS; PSA and New England.th
2. Savinkov-Totalist partion of Europe
Russia goes natpop. International goes totalist. Reds win ACW and go totalist too. Russian-International alliance crush Germany, Austria and the Entente. Germany is partioned and italianized. Soon a Cold War starts between the two blocs. China, India and Africa are battlefield of that Cold War.
3. Silver Theocracy of the Americas
The AUS wins the ACW. Pelley coups and takes over. Meanwhile the great european and asian powers are stuck in an neverending conflict, which allows Pelley to start a "Holy Crusade" to clean the Americas from the "Enemies of Christ and the white Race".
4. Mosley Savinkov Tianran 1984
Extension of scenario 2. The Natpop/Totalist-Cold War goes hot. Althought nuclear weapons are used, the Russians overrun Western Europe. Only Britan holds with american support. WK3 gives Tianran the chance to unite China and create an eastasian power bloc. All 3 bloc are stuch in an neverending war.

More later

Dai Li makes more sense than Tianran tbh.
 
So, what Chinese unification path do you think would lead to the most powerful China in the long-term and why?
Depends, a lot. Arguably any united China would be a strong power thanks to the population factor alone.

Fengtian and most Zhili paths are hopelessly corrupt and disregard the general population, same goes for any National Protection Alliance unification.
Right KMT deliberately tries to replicate Chiang's regime from OTL, and while its Nanjing Decade did lead to improvement in general, we all know what it was like.
Left KMT, harboring most of the OTL Communists and presenting itself to be deliberately undemocratic (except for Soong, I guess, but she was one of the leaders of the PRC in OTL so who the heck knows), is bound to replicate the policies of the PRC in some form if they take charge - the Cultural Revolution would definitely be in their ballpark, for example.
Chen Jiongming is too soft in his approach and his Federalist policy is essentially "let's legalize warlords!"
Shangqing is, well, religious fanatics, though I disagree with it being the worst path (the Xiantiandao offshoots, including Yiguandao, were historically fairly mellow)
 
Right KMT deliberately tries to replicate Chiang's regime from OTL, and while its Nanjing Decade did lead to improvement in general, we all know what it was like.

Are both Zhu Peide's and Li Zongren's Right KMT factions equally bad?
 
I take it the ones who aren't hopelessly corrupt are the NCERA and possibly the YCP?
I mean, those aren't Zhili as Wu and Cao need to be pushing up daisies to access them. But yeah, non-Soccon Manchu Restoration provides two of the best paths for China IMO, though the YCP based on flavor events has the potential for a good deal of nastiness, especially considering what the group they're fanboying over ended up doing. I wouldn't want to be a Uighur in YCP China, let's just say.
 
Depends, a lot. Arguably any united China would be a strong power thanks to the population factor alone.

Fengtian and most Zhili paths are hopelessly corrupt and disregard the general population, same goes for any National Protection Alliance unification.
Right KMT deliberately tries to replicate Chiang's regime from OTL, and while its Nanjing Decade did lead to improvement in general, we all know what it was like.
Left KMT, harboring most of the OTL Communists and presenting itself to be deliberately undemocratic (except for Soong, I guess, but she was one of the leaders of the PRC in OTL so who the heck knows), is bound to replicate the policies of the PRC in some form if they take charge - the Cultural Revolution would definitely be in their ballpark, for example.
Chen Jiongming is too soft in his approach and his Federalist policy is essentially "let's legalize warlords!"
Shangqing is, well, religious fanatics, though I disagree with it being the worst path (the Xiantiandao offshoots, including Yiguandao, were historically fairly mellow)
Actually, playing Governor Chen, his policy is more "legalize warlords who play ball and make token reforms until we're re-united and the imperialist threat is dealt with, then force reforms and de-warlordization over years to a decade or so". It's a very hard path, but if you can get some sympathetic warlords (like Hunan for example) on-side, it's entirely plausible that Chen can force reforms.

The Left-KMT seems much less openly totalitarian and egomaniacal than Mao. Hard to see any of their paths but Dai Li pursuing Maoist insanity.

Fengtian apparently can collaborate with the Federalists and reform to some degree, but I don't know how much as I haven't played them yet. If they're at all legit, they would at least be halfway livable.

None of them are perfect but at least some of them are decent and legit trying to be better (Chen for example makes Liangguang an actual democratic regime, and attempts to extend that across China), which is way better than the PRC.
 
tqugynefcu941.png
Found this future compass on Reddit. The creator seems to be a Long-fan. Temperate seems to meean high chance, radical low chance. I want to write a short scennario for each field, going from temperate bad to radical good.
BAD
1. Neo-imperial nuclear gridlock

Pat-aut German Empire won WK2 against the International, Russia and Japan. Atomic bombs were helpfull in this. London, Moskau ,Tokio and finally Chicago has been nuked. The Germans italianized their former opponents and restored and expanded his colonial empire. They are not above using tactical nuke against rebellious nativey. America is since the 2ACW divided between AUS; PSA and New England.th
2. Savinkov-Totalist partion of Europe
Russia goes natpop. International goes totalist. Reds win ACW and go totalist too. Russian-International alliance crush Germany, Austria and the Entente. Germany is partioned and italianized. Soon a Cold War starts between the two blocs. China, India and Africa are battlefield of that Cold War.
3. Silver Theocracy of the Americas
The AUS wins the ACW. Pelley coups and takes over. Meanwhile the great european and asian powers are stuck in an neverending conflict, which allows Pelley to start a "Holy Crusade" to clean the Americas from the "Enemies of Christ and the white Race".
4. Mosley Savinkov Tianran 1984
Extension of scenario 2. The Natpop/Totalist-Cold War goes hot. Althought nuclear weapons are used, the Russians overrun Western Europe. Only Britan holds with american support. WK3 gives Tianran the chance to unite China and create an eastasian power bloc. All 3 bloc are stuch in an neverending war.

More later
BAD -but not so bad
5. Canada Germany Kalterkrieg

Naturally this follow the Kalterkrieg mod. Still there are some tweaks, to make the Cold War more believelbal. The UOB doesn´t get 6 years starved, bombed and nuked, but falls relative fast, so great part of Britains infrastucture falls undamaged in canadian hands. The Germans done the heavy lifting, but they are in deep trouble on the eastern front and so they have to give the Entente somewhat free hand in the West. Also Project Damocles fallls in the hands of the Entente. Germany makes a compromise peace with the Russian State and have a fall-out with the Entente. France get divided and thee Cold War starts. Becuase both sides soon get nukes and the Germans have to look after the Russian State and the Canadians after the AUS, the War doesnt go hot.

more later
 
Whats the opinion of Huey long?

Depending of the person you are asking, he could be either someone who really see authoritariarism as a way to fix America chronic problems, to a crooked politician who does not wants to deal with the opposition, to also a generic populist tyrant or a populist who really cares for the people.

And the magic is that all these visions are true on one way or another. What brings most fear however is the fact that he is the only good, or lesser evil, alternative for the south, so if he's couped the USA is screwed.
 
Depending of the person you are asking, he could be either someone who really see authoritariarism as a way to fix America chronic problems, to a crooked politician who does not wants to deal with the opposition, to also a generic populist tyrant or a populist who really cares for the people.

And the magic is that all these visions are true on one way or another. What brings most fear however is the fact that he is the only good, or lesser evil, alternative for the south, so if he's couped the USA is screwed.
I mostly think of him as a benign populist tinpot.
 
I mostly think of him as a benign populist tinpot.

My biased personal view is that he is a good intentioned person trying to make America work and to be fair, but the system is rigged to keep it as a kleptocracy so he decides to strenghen the power of the executive and lead a authoritarian democracy. I admit all his errors, he is corrupt and he cracks down on the old order and on the CSA after winning but they would do the same with him.
 
The Left-KMT seems much less openly totalitarian and egomaniacal than Mao. Hard to see any of their paths but Dai Li pursuing Maoist insanity.
And possibly a Left KMT under Wang Jingwei Thought, considering their influence from the Sorelians and how they are described in Progress Report 86.
 
Did a full Fengtian run last night, discovered that their unit model for "Medium Armour" is broken.

Chose to take it as the Japanese running from Korea in terror at the sight of weird Fengtian boxes.

Also, have to admit, Fengtian has to be the worst path for China as far as "content after 1936-39" is concerned. All you get is the constant mechanic of having the Four (Three after you turf out Japan) factions asking you to appoint ministers.

I thought at least by going down the "Co-operate with the Federalists" path I might get some sort of different politics.

Speaking of the Federalists, I do enjoy that as part of their tree you actually have to, y'know, rebuild China.
 
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