Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg
- Thread starter RiverDelta
- Start date
I've working on a variation of Bolt Action (the miniature game) for Kaiserreich (well, a Kaiserreich-esque world since I don't like everything in it) incorporating a "political" phase similar to the A Song of Ice and Fire game. What kind of miniatures would work? WWII stuff could fill in well for Germans for instance, but what about everyone else? WWII US looks too modern and sleek for a bunch of militias plus national guards and a regular army that hasn't fought much since the Spanish-American War. What about the Union of Britain and the French communes?
I think if you were selective with the minis you could use British WW2 as UoB, but I would use the same style of mini for Officers as for other ranks, i.e. with steel helmets. Keep those where Berrets and ww2 style officers for Canada. For Tanks I would just make a decision as to who gets which doctrines/companies and split otl British Tanks between them (UoB and Canada), perhapse if you can giving lesser used verient like the Victor or Conventor a bit more of a showing. You could pass Sermans of as Rams. Ditto for Aircraft. You could give the British and the French some shared varients as well.
The Very British Civil War game has lots of units that are used as milita of various orgins, so you could look at that.
As for the French, you could apply a simular process to the British, but if possible National France should have models at least painted to look like they are of African orgin. Also fewer tanks and vircules as it lacks the Industrial base.
Rest of the British Empire could likely use OTL lines, but subsitute vircules as required.
The Austro-Hungrains appear to have worn German stlye Helmets during WW1, so you could use germans painted differently, maybe finding some Hungrain or Czeck produced tanks.
Italians can either use their real life equipment, or some from thier benefactor, e.g. Austrain equipment for the Rebulican Italians, Entente for the Saranidese, etc.
Vehicles are fairly easy to adapt for many factions. I've been looking at Copplestone, who have some pretty neat interwar Chinese and Russians. Their gangsters could be great militiamen (and mobsters) for any US faction too. The problem is more professional US troops.
Because the chickens, in their infinite wisdom, persuaded the Mexicans it was a bwuck! bwuck! bad idea.
The original King Kong was released on 2nd March 1933 and is regarded as the fourth greatest horror film of all time.Was King Kong made in 1933?
Well, the Shangqing Tianguo [played by me] have crushed the Left Kuomintang and are now in possession of most of southern China. What now? Invade the Qing Government right away or conquer the lands of other warlord cliques first and then turn on the Legation Cities at some point? Also whose side should I take when the Second Weltkrieg begins?
p.s: even better news ~ Shangqing now has the means to build Tanks! MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I've always liked the idea of Kaiserreich board games. An Axis and Allies version of KR (Kaisers and Communes?) or some similar world scale strategy game is something I would definitely play. The only downside is unless you want to implement a pre-war diplomatic system you'd have to copy-paste your head-canon into 1939.
chankljp
Donor
So, I have recently played a game of KR as the Federal government in the Second American Civil War, and it reminded me of a questions that I originally asked on this forum back in 2015, that I will like to hear everyone else's thoughts on:
Assuming a Federal government (That managed to remain a democracy) victory, what will be the impact that the Second American Civil War have on America's culture of gun ownership?
Going by the latest game mechanics of the civil war with the 'Raise units in [insert state here]' decisions, regardless of the side of the conflict, the vast majority of the combatants in the conflict will be done by hastily raised irregulars carrying whatever firearms they could find (The Red Guards for the CSA, the Minuteman for the AUS, and what I assumption to be citizens militias deputized into the National Guard), instead of the professional regular US military or the defectors from it.
On one side, it can be argued that the widespread availability of guns resulted in the conflict being much more violent then it would otherwise have been, with the radicals on all sides getting being able to form their own heavily armed militias before the fighting even broke out, which enable them to take over large parts of the country, and causing all he terror events independent of the authorities of their own factions. Meaning the post-war era will result in a re-examination of the Second Amendment, with the government using the shock of the Civil War to enact much more regulations when it comes to gun control, if not an outright ban on most firearms.
However, on the other hand, the civil war resulted in law and order breaking down in large parts of the country, meaning that more then a few citizens would had to defend themselves from bandits and looters during the conflict, showing the need of the citizenry having a means to protect themselves when the authorities are not around. Furthermore, gun ownership advocates might feel really vindicated in their beliefs, since an armed citizenry DID ended up rising up against domestic threats to the country, and played a key role in defending/restoring democracy and the republic. And the collective trauma of the most violent and destructive conflict in US history will end up kicking America's gun culture into overdrive, with everyone keeping a gun in their house 'in case yet another Civil War breaks out again', even many decades after the conflict, making the idea of enforcing even basic OTL levels of gun control such as requiring a criminal background check to be resisted by the public ('What if Reed of Long had become the president in the last Civil War, and they decided everyone that opposes them as criminal, hence unable to buy a gun?!').
While we are on this topic. with the less oppressive outcomes for the CSA and the AUS, when drafting their new constitution, do you think they will include something similar to the Second Amendment on gun ownership? Since the availability of guns was what allowed their own revolutions to be successful in the first place? Or will their own experience showed them that in order to prevent the possibility of a counterrevolution, large scale gun confiscations/buybacks will have to be enacted, in order to secure their new regimes?
Would like to hear everyone else's thoughts on this, since my original thread didn't generate much discussion on the topic.
Assuming a Federal government (That managed to remain a democracy) victory, what will be the impact that the Second American Civil War have on America's culture of gun ownership?
Going by the latest game mechanics of the civil war with the 'Raise units in [insert state here]' decisions, regardless of the side of the conflict, the vast majority of the combatants in the conflict will be done by hastily raised irregulars carrying whatever firearms they could find (The Red Guards for the CSA, the Minuteman for the AUS, and what I assumption to be citizens militias deputized into the National Guard), instead of the professional regular US military or the defectors from it.
On one side, it can be argued that the widespread availability of guns resulted in the conflict being much more violent then it would otherwise have been, with the radicals on all sides getting being able to form their own heavily armed militias before the fighting even broke out, which enable them to take over large parts of the country, and causing all he terror events independent of the authorities of their own factions. Meaning the post-war era will result in a re-examination of the Second Amendment, with the government using the shock of the Civil War to enact much more regulations when it comes to gun control, if not an outright ban on most firearms.
However, on the other hand, the civil war resulted in law and order breaking down in large parts of the country, meaning that more then a few citizens would had to defend themselves from bandits and looters during the conflict, showing the need of the citizenry having a means to protect themselves when the authorities are not around. Furthermore, gun ownership advocates might feel really vindicated in their beliefs, since an armed citizenry DID ended up rising up against domestic threats to the country, and played a key role in defending/restoring democracy and the republic. And the collective trauma of the most violent and destructive conflict in US history will end up kicking America's gun culture into overdrive, with everyone keeping a gun in their house 'in case yet another Civil War breaks out again', even many decades after the conflict, making the idea of enforcing even basic OTL levels of gun control such as requiring a criminal background check to be resisted by the public ('What if Reed of Long had become the president in the last Civil War, and they decided everyone that opposes them as criminal, hence unable to buy a gun?!').
While we are on this topic. with the less oppressive outcomes for the CSA and the AUS, when drafting their new constitution, do you think they will include something similar to the Second Amendment on gun ownership? Since the availability of guns was what allowed their own revolutions to be successful in the first place? Or will their own experience showed them that in order to prevent the possibility of a counterrevolution, large scale gun confiscations/buybacks will have to be enacted, in order to secure their new regimes?
Would like to hear everyone else's thoughts on this, since my original thread didn't generate much discussion on the topic.
Man , I'm pumped for another KR update - they've really been coming out with good reworks recently that strike just the right balance between Narratives and Gameplay
chankljp
Donor
I really hope that with the Russia rework, the devs will be able to bring back the same level or details, variations, and sheer replayability that the DH version of KR Russia had. Plus, in my opinion, there is never such a thing as there being too many flavoring events, so I am hoping that they will add more of those in too.
Warning, this is rambling. Frankly I like Kaiserreich, it has some very good ideas (syndicalist yet still revanchist France and Britain, the 2nd ACW), but I can't help but think it has many flaws, especially the 2nd ACW. As it stands it's a mess and not very plausible. Home of the Brave has some good ideas, but makes it even messier with more faction bloat. Here's how I would do it, starting with the parties/factions
-The CSA has a terrible name, made for a joke that's not very funny. Socialist Party of America is a good name. I don't think people would jump into radical syndicalist as shown, even after a long depression and governments in the 20s going after organized labor (by Democrats, who as I understand it were already pretty close to many unions...). Norman Thomas, as a moderate social democrat would be by far the most popular candidate and the default leader of the Socialist Party of America. With certain wings of the mainstream political parties being increasingly hostile to labor or seemingly out of touch with the average American however, they've become a third party by the end of the 20s, making some alliances with the progressive wings of either of the two big parties to win elections at various levels. They're strong in cities like Chicago or New York (with Thomas being its mayor, in part thanks to the support of Al Smith, who was often slighted by the main branch of the Democrats in this timeline), but not dominant. People would still be drawn to syndicalism thanks to its success in Europe, but it shouldn't be the strongest faction in the party. Even in trade unions, social democracy would be the preferred ideology. Not sure on who would lead them, perhaps Reed.
-AFP also gets a name change, it makes little sense as since interventionism isn't a big deal in this timeline and it was probably a reference to the fact that OTL's AFP was full of fascists and "pseudo-fascists". Let's call it the Union Party for now. It would have started as a faction of the Democratic party, later gaining support from other parties, and it broke with the party very recently. Long leads it, supported by Western progressives (Lemke, Wheeler) and various others with "left-wing" ideas on the economy but who wouldn't fit in with Thomas (Coughlin) and a couple of outsiders (Lindbergh as a futurist nationalist, Joseph Kennedy as the main financial backer since the "mainstream" democrats don't like him ITTL). The common point is that they're patriotic, perhaps even nationalistic and want to reform capitalism in a different way than the social democrats.
-John Nance Garner succeeded to Hoover in 1932, but was relatively ineffective and was largely unable to keep the progressives and conservatives happy in the party, leading to its splintering. Moderate Democrats still exist in the North and the West, but are pretty weak and lost much support in favor of the socialist and Union competition. In the South, Long attracts some poor whites but the establishment doesn't like him, which lead him to make his own party in the first place. They have ties to some big business and the Klan, which is still a force ITTL even in the North.
-Republicans don't have strong tensions in the party and still have support in the West and parts of the North. They have progressive and conservative wings, and many democrats defected to them. Not many ideas for them sadly, but they're essentially the most moderate, "vanilla" faction.
How the election goes massively influences the war, different areas may be under the elected government or rebel depending on who is in charge and what they do in their first days in the White House. Whoever wins won't have Congress behind them, and will have to negotiate with various parties to pass their bills, but it will cause some unrest and rebellion, no matter what they do:
-If Thomas is elected president, he can negotiate with most of the factions: only the "conservative" democrats are guaranteed to rebel, but Long may too if not placated somehow.
-The more radical syndicalists can't win in 1936, but they can "softly" coup Thomas, leading to more rebellions. If they are elected starting in 1940 and try to enact their most radical ideas, expect massive backlash, up to a MacArthur coup.
-If Long wins, he can either placate the socialists (but some syndicalist communes will still appear), but the Southern democrats rebel. Alternatively, he can negotiate with them, but cause stronger syndicalist communes and the socialists creating a separate government, plus maybe rebellions in California. If he becomes dictatorial on either path, MacArthur coups.
-The "conservative" democrats winning leads to the establishment of an alternative socialist government in the North, and Long may rebel as well. It's an uphill battle, but the Klan and other nationalists in the North and West will support you.
-The Republicans can negotiate with both the Union and Socialist parties, but will face socialist/syndicalist communes and the South rising again.
-No PSA, no New England separatists and all that, unless shit really hits the fan (really long war, dictator president of various stripes)
The civil war in itself will be relatively low intensity unless it drags on, as the rebel factions wouldn't form super strong and well-organized governments on day 1 of the civil war, but will have to count on state governments and the national guards of states where they are powerful. This isn't like the ACW, where the Confederacy was able to create an alternative government quickly since they had years to prepare for secession if they didn't like the president's policies. Sure, there are syndicalist militias, patriotic para-military organizations, the large Klan and just armed citizens ready to defend their side, but they're not professionals. Conscription would be massively unpopular for most factions, but there will be volunteers joining. The legitimate, elected president can count on the army (unless they act dictatorially/enact radical syndicalist reforms), but while it has modern equipment, it's very small and hasn't fought a serious war in decades.
This probably doesn't work well for a game like Hearts of Iron though, which is essentially a WWII game, and this is a very different kind of war, not even comparable to the Spanish Civil War, which is the closest analog but much simpler.
-The CSA has a terrible name, made for a joke that's not very funny. Socialist Party of America is a good name. I don't think people would jump into radical syndicalist as shown, even after a long depression and governments in the 20s going after organized labor (by Democrats, who as I understand it were already pretty close to many unions...). Norman Thomas, as a moderate social democrat would be by far the most popular candidate and the default leader of the Socialist Party of America. With certain wings of the mainstream political parties being increasingly hostile to labor or seemingly out of touch with the average American however, they've become a third party by the end of the 20s, making some alliances with the progressive wings of either of the two big parties to win elections at various levels. They're strong in cities like Chicago or New York (with Thomas being its mayor, in part thanks to the support of Al Smith, who was often slighted by the main branch of the Democrats in this timeline), but not dominant. People would still be drawn to syndicalism thanks to its success in Europe, but it shouldn't be the strongest faction in the party. Even in trade unions, social democracy would be the preferred ideology. Not sure on who would lead them, perhaps Reed.
-AFP also gets a name change, it makes little sense as since interventionism isn't a big deal in this timeline and it was probably a reference to the fact that OTL's AFP was full of fascists and "pseudo-fascists". Let's call it the Union Party for now. It would have started as a faction of the Democratic party, later gaining support from other parties, and it broke with the party very recently. Long leads it, supported by Western progressives (Lemke, Wheeler) and various others with "left-wing" ideas on the economy but who wouldn't fit in with Thomas (Coughlin) and a couple of outsiders (Lindbergh as a futurist nationalist, Joseph Kennedy as the main financial backer since the "mainstream" democrats don't like him ITTL). The common point is that they're patriotic, perhaps even nationalistic and want to reform capitalism in a different way than the social democrats.
-John Nance Garner succeeded to Hoover in 1932, but was relatively ineffective and was largely unable to keep the progressives and conservatives happy in the party, leading to its splintering. Moderate Democrats still exist in the North and the West, but are pretty weak and lost much support in favor of the socialist and Union competition. In the South, Long attracts some poor whites but the establishment doesn't like him, which lead him to make his own party in the first place. They have ties to some big business and the Klan, which is still a force ITTL even in the North.
-Republicans don't have strong tensions in the party and still have support in the West and parts of the North. They have progressive and conservative wings, and many democrats defected to them. Not many ideas for them sadly, but they're essentially the most moderate, "vanilla" faction.
How the election goes massively influences the war, different areas may be under the elected government or rebel depending on who is in charge and what they do in their first days in the White House. Whoever wins won't have Congress behind them, and will have to negotiate with various parties to pass their bills, but it will cause some unrest and rebellion, no matter what they do:
-If Thomas is elected president, he can negotiate with most of the factions: only the "conservative" democrats are guaranteed to rebel, but Long may too if not placated somehow.
-The more radical syndicalists can't win in 1936, but they can "softly" coup Thomas, leading to more rebellions. If they are elected starting in 1940 and try to enact their most radical ideas, expect massive backlash, up to a MacArthur coup.
-If Long wins, he can either placate the socialists (but some syndicalist communes will still appear), but the Southern democrats rebel. Alternatively, he can negotiate with them, but cause stronger syndicalist communes and the socialists creating a separate government, plus maybe rebellions in California. If he becomes dictatorial on either path, MacArthur coups.
-The "conservative" democrats winning leads to the establishment of an alternative socialist government in the North, and Long may rebel as well. It's an uphill battle, but the Klan and other nationalists in the North and West will support you.
-The Republicans can negotiate with both the Union and Socialist parties, but will face socialist/syndicalist communes and the South rising again.
-No PSA, no New England separatists and all that, unless shit really hits the fan (really long war, dictator president of various stripes)
The civil war in itself will be relatively low intensity unless it drags on, as the rebel factions wouldn't form super strong and well-organized governments on day 1 of the civil war, but will have to count on state governments and the national guards of states where they are powerful. This isn't like the ACW, where the Confederacy was able to create an alternative government quickly since they had years to prepare for secession if they didn't like the president's policies. Sure, there are syndicalist militias, patriotic para-military organizations, the large Klan and just armed citizens ready to defend their side, but they're not professionals. Conscription would be massively unpopular for most factions, but there will be volunteers joining. The legitimate, elected president can count on the army (unless they act dictatorially/enact radical syndicalist reforms), but while it has modern equipment, it's very small and hasn't fought a serious war in decades.
This probably doesn't work well for a game like Hearts of Iron though, which is essentially a WWII game, and this is a very different kind of war, not even comparable to the Spanish Civil War, which is the closest analog but much simpler.
I wanted to make a Kaiserreich-esque 2nd ACW game with some of the ideas I posted here (https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/creating-a-boardgame-wargame.492833/#post-21095857), but it stalled as I wasn't sure how to handle the political aspect of the game and was on how to divide the map. If I had to make a global Kaiserreich game close to the actual lore, I would make it start in 1936 and with the three main factions: Entente, Internationale and Central Powers. If you headcanon your favorite winners in 1939 it won't be popular. The big problem is that so many countries are extremely divided and on the brink of civil wars with 3+ sizes, and you'd have trouble to make a good map with the dozens of small countries in Europe. Axis and Allies is already grossly simplified, but how do you handle Italy and central-eastern Europe here? How do you handle Russia and the US? This is just the top of the iceberg. It's a great idea, but it's not easy to handle.
Be careful about saying it's coming soon, one of the devs said it's gonna still be a while, the coding for the update is only about 40% complete
chankljp
Donor
Oh gosh... THIS. Absolutely this! The entire syndicalist faction in the Second American Civil War being named the CSA was originally done by the HOI2 devs as a joke because they just wanted a CSA in the north fighting against a 'Union' in the south. Out of all the things that the new HOI4 devs have reworked for the sake of 'realism', CSA is one of the things that I really want to see them change.
It's also a coding reference. In DH, like in HoI4, countries are assigned tags, but new tags couldn't be added at the time (that happened later). So, instead, Kaiserreich used the CSA tag, which was, in vanilla, the Confederate States of America (releasable by anyone occupying the USA).
The other releasable countries were TEX (Texas) and CAL (California), which became the other two factions of the Civil War.
