Help me brainstorm ideas for a HOI 2 mod

Strategos' Risk

This is all a pipe dream, but I've been thinking about a hypothetical mod for HOI 2 or AOD.

Name: Fuhrerreich

Background: So I was reading the Kaiserpedia again, a mighty tome about Kaiserreich, the most well-written alternate history mod for the game Hearts of Iron II. It's about a Central Powers victory in World War I, U.S. doesn't get involved, Russian Civil War leads to a White win, Marxism declines but something called Syndicalism takes over Great Britain and France and Italy, the United States is on the brink of civil war between the democratic government, syndicalists, and Huey Long's populist-authoritarians.

Among its many colorful nations, you get gems such as sinister German corporate southern China, both a socialist Central American state as well as the resurrected United Provinces of Central America, the Pope ruling northern Italy, and a neo-Taiping China under an obscure real-world millenarian offshoot/sect/cult.

The beauty of this game is that it doesn't fall to many of the cliches of Central Powers victory timelines. So you laugh! Okay maybe it does, but as seen above, it has a lot of creative ideas despite having Mitteleuropa and Mittelafrika and the Entente powers getting taken over by revolutionary regimes (but non-fascist!). And it's a semi-tripartite world since the Syndicalist powers and the Kaiserreich are somewhat offset by the surviving British empire (centered in Canada) and France (sub-Saharan Africa).

Since I'm too lazy to continue the threads in my signature, why don't we try to do the same thing, except with World War II?

Premise: Germany wins WWII. A world of both cliches, but a lot of non-cliche nations as well, result. What possible The Man In the Presence of Mine Fatherland Reich-5 tropes should we keep? What analogues to Algostasien GmbH should we have?
 

DCC

Hmm. Greater Mengukuo--a Japanese puppet including Mengukuo, Mongolia, and Tannu Tuva.

Argentina as a U.S. puppet with low unity (Argentina joined the Axis and was curbstomped by the U.S. The Peronists are a popular underground movement.)

A democratic Finland with the 1939 borders--hostile to Germany. (They took back what they lost in the Winter War--and then cooperated with the Nazis only as much as they had to. Drifted away from Germany in disgust after the war)

Israel--consisting of the island of Madagascar. Hostile to Germany, naturally. (This TL's Final Solution was deportation--the worst atrocity in the TL, though not quite as bad as ours.)

Burgundy--an SS state in part of former France. Given to Himmler as a birthday present after the war (idea stolen from Moon of Ice, yes.)

North and South Australia. (NA being a Japanese puppet, SA being a U.S. ally)
 

Strategos' Risk

I think the main idea from KR is to not merely have a changed map from a World War gone different, but events to follow. KR has revolutionaries taking over Great Britain and France (and half of Italy, but who's counting?), leading to a world where the main blocs are between Mitteleuropa and the Syndicalists, with the Entente governments-in-exile a distant third.

So, any ideas as to what might happen? My idea is to stay non-standard, this Axis triumphant world shouldn't extend past the Continent. The U.K. and the Soviets shouldn't be too badly beaten. And if either of them are, it should not be the direct cause of the Axis, but some other unforeseen reason.
 

Jord839

Strategos' Risk said:
I think the main idea from KR is to not merely have a changed map from a World War gone different, but events to follow. KR has revolutionaries taking over Great Britain and France (and half of Italy, but who's counting?), leading to a world where the main blocs are between Mitteleuropa and the Syndicalists, with the Entente governments-in-exile a distant third.

So, any ideas as to what might happen? My idea is to stay non-standard, this Axis triumphant world shouldn't extend past the Continent. The U.K. and the Soviets shouldn't be too badly beaten. And if either of them are, it should not be the direct cause of the Axis, but some other unforeseen reason.
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Well, it would depend a lot on just how the war went, since you seem to have removed the Holocaust and probably some other things. Some ideas I've had though:

Nationalist Ireland takes up the whole island when Britain falls, not because of an alliance with Nazi Germany, but because of an agreement with British forces and politicians in the North who just don't want to end up in a to-be-puppetized Britain. This results in a strange alliance between formerly British citizens and forces who are now technically Irish building up the Isle not only to protect themselves from Germany and the puppet states in Great Britain but in the Nazis covertly supporting Ulster nationalists(could throw an event in there with Ian Paisley supporting the rebellion). Ireland would be a staunch US ally, possibly the only one in Europe, and hostile to Germany. (Or on the flip side, you could have a seperate fascist/communist revolution in Britain and get the same result. Ireland possibly takes some of the outer islands like the Orkneys as well if the British can keep them seperate from whatever becomes of the main island.)

If Britain really fell, you could have it be divided, with a Scotland ruled by a Nazified SNP(what? It's fun.:p) that pushes Scots as the proper language due to its Germanic origins rather than Gaelic. Not sure about England. There's the usual cliche of Mosley run Britain, but I would guess it's also heavily demilitarized and I'm unsure how the Nazis.

Switzerland is probably either getting really damn paranoid or has been invaded/puppetized by the Reich. Maybe dismembered between the Reich, Italy, and the puppet in Burgundy?

Integralist Brazil as a German ally spreading its own version of fascism in SA as radical leftists eat at the edges. Apartheid South Africa is neutral and can either live up to its old commitments to the Commonwealth or get in bed with Germany to deal with native rebels more harshly.

A more out there idea is that the Pope oversteps his bounds and dares to question Mussolini's regime and ends up exiled from Italy to some other Catholic country. Fully theocratic Spain? Or maybe he goes to somewhere in Latin America and the Papacy ends up heavily changed due to a Liberation Theology-esque movement creating a Communistic theocracy hostile to the fascist nations?

That's all I got.

That's all I've got right now.
 
Lord Insane

Lord Insane

Strategos' Risk said:
the Entente powers getting taken over by revolutionary regimes (but non-fascist!
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Questionable. Yes, mainland France is Syndicalist, but National France (the France in Africa - not in sub-Saharan, but trans-Saharan, its centre being Algiers - for those not having played the mod) is Paternal Autocrat, which in the mod's new ideology-naming scheme is the new fascist, and then there is Australasia, who wasn't kicked from its homeland and is outright National Populist at start (IE, National Socialist analogue).

Swedish-Finnish Union, to unite the two independent democratic Nordic countries left into a state capable of giving the Germans at least a little pause.

Under no circumstances contemplate a Qing Empire of any form but the Manchurian State. Actually, reading it again, you say 'German', not Axis victory... now, we shouldn't go all Fatherland here, but what if one of the PODs for the German victory was a significantly stronger Republic of China that ended up the Germans' preferred ally between them and Japan (if nothing else, it'd likely delay a US entry into the War, and might, in combination with other alterations, outright keep them out)? In other words, a Far East (and Central Asia!) dominated not by Japan, but by China.
Hm, though that might be incompatible with the Soviet Union not being too beaten up qualifier, but China could have breaken off from the Axis and gone its one way in the years between the Victory over the Soviets and the now of the mod, and have become the leader of a Third Alliance...
This would disallow China being used as ground for interesting little countries, but there is that subcontinent just over the Himalayas...
 

Strategos' Risk

Hahaha, I had a similar idea about Sino-German cooperation for my Smoke and Daggers timeline, though in that one it was prompted by the U.K. dislodging Japan from the Axis through deals to stave off a Pacific war.

Excellent ideas in this thread! Still not quite different and exotic as KR nations/events could be, but this is getting us places! Any ideas as to what should the fate of the U.S. be? The natural course would be that America stayed out of the war in splendid isolation... leading to a crack-up between numerous colorful and fanatical factions in the '50s. That might be too KR-like, but does present the opportunity for action in North America.

We probably should explore the possibility of a Sinarquista Mexico, as well as the second-stringers of South American fascism: Bolivia, Chile, and Paraguay.
 

Nekromans

For some reason I'm thinking "British monarchy in exile rules Newfoundland, Canada is a Market Liberal republic, with Quebec seething for independence".
 

imperialaquila

Somehow, get a Nationalist China, Communist China, and Manchukuo all existing at the same time.

Maybe the Nationalists in the south up to Shanghai, and the Communists get the space between Manchukuo and Nationalist China.

Maybe a Far Eastern Republic and Tibet, to spice things up.

Maybe an independent Philippines?

Also, maybe the POD could be no Barbarossa, so you could have a Soviet Union as well.
 

Strategos' Risk

So, could there be a way so that the post-Großer Krieg mk. II world is not a Cold War-type place where large-scale war between blocs are still possible because nukes are not a factor? I'm trying to mirror KR in that aspect.
 

Strategos' Risk

I can't help but to think that it's harder to create a radically non-cliche "Nazi Germany/Axis wins" world than a non-cliche "Central Powers wins" world.
 

DCC

Just as Kaiserreich starts when everything is falling apart, Fuhrerreich would start with everything falling apart.

Possible event chain: the Tyrol Crisis. Germany finally demands Tyrol from Italy. No matter what happens, German-Italian relations plummit. Possibly even war between Germany and Italy.

The Australian War, too--based heavily on OTL's Korean War. The dictator of North Australia, with Japanese permission, attempts to reunify the continent.

At about the same time, Peronist revolt in Argentina, with Brazil looming menacingly in the background.

And every puppet state made from former Yugoslavia declares war on all the rest. You got to have a Balkans clusterf--- somehow, after all.
 

Strategos' Risk

Excellent ideas! We could base Fuhrerreich partly on the concept of an analogue to decolonization in a brutal Axis-victory world- and this time, decolonization doesn't just include third world inhabitants, but Russians and Free Frenchmen and so forth.

Any ideas for the U.S.? I think some possible options are:

1. Intact because of isolation so no intervention in WWII- about to flex its muscles, take over world order, but has not yet begun to rearm.

2. Lost WWII, but territorially intact.

3. Lost WWII but carved up like in The Man in the High Castle.

4. Balkanized during the Great Depression.

There's a balance between making a fun and interesting gameplay (not that Fuhrerreich will ever be an actual mod), and history. Think how KR balances it (or not), and suggest!
 

Ofaloaf

Adam said:
Can we say... Vietnamese Canada fighting against Japanese remnants there/Alaska and Swedish invaders?:cool:
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Jord839 said:
Troops still on the front lines/occupied territories get caught up in the chaos and start establishing their own warlorddoms?
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The Ostland Clique, the Kaukasus Clique, Gotenland Clique, &c. all start off as puppets of Grossdeutschland, but quickly break away either to assert isolationist independence movements (i.e. General Ego wanting Berlin to stop meddling and let him rule Ukraine the way he damn well pleases) or attempt a takeover of the whole empire (Ostlanders woo over the Moskau reichskommissariat, declare war on Berlin).

The Balkans could have at it again as Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania still persist in claiming territories of each other as their own.

Put the Soviets in the position of HOI2's Nat. China in 1936-- they've been reduced to basically the largest of Russia's cliques. There's a Siberian-Troskyist clique that blames everything on Stalin, a Pacific slightly-democratic clique that's on good terms with Japan but isn't part of their sphere, and a couple of warlords in the Urals and Central Asia tossed in for good measure.

Japan should have established their sphere in East Asia and the Pacific, but their rhetoric has turned against them. Former colonial states riding high on the fumes of nationalism are turning against Tokyo now that the French, Dutch, and British have been kicked out and Japanese troops remain, and the Japanese-backed government in China is having difficulty staying in power. India (OTL India + Pakistan + maybe Afghanistan?) is beginning to tear itself apart-- it can't decide if it wants to help Japan, Germany, or Canada, and ethnic/religious divisions are ripping everything to bits.

No British-monarchy-in-Canada stuff, KR already did that very well and doing it again would seem like a copycat thing to do. Just have the blackshirts seize power and be done with it, either mimicking the arrangement in prewar Italy or having the monarchy outright overthrown.

The three major alliances should be led by Germany, Japan, and maybe some kind of hyper-industrialized Canada (to replace America's usual role as an industrial powerhouse).
Strategos' Risk said:
4. Balkanized during the Great Depression.
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CRIMSON SKIES. DO IT. DIVVY UP THE USA JUST LIKE IN CRIMSON SKIES.

If you must, conglomerate some of them and call them the [region name] League or whatever.
 
LNSS

LNSS

Africa divided into large confederations (i.e. French West Africa into Confédération du Afrique Occidentale, most under influence of Germany)

Have one of the blocs being a consolidated East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Have a German Civil War that makes the whole Nazi empire crumble, with various puppets going lose, and some going rogue and attacking Germany.

Have communism survive as the third bloc in Latin America, with many of the former soviet officials fleeing there and forming a new Communist confederation there.
 

Ofaloaf

Arcvalons said:
Have communism survive as the third bloc in Latin America, with many of the former soviet officials fleeing there and forming a new Communist confederation there.
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A Red Mexico that absorbs much of Central America as a means of giving it more IC in the scenario and kind of not-really paralleling the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states?
 
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