Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg

I haven’t been paying much attention to KR lately, but recently gave the subreddit a look.

Please don’t tell me that the current devs changed the flag of the Union of Britain...
 
I haven’t been paying much attention to KR lately, but recently gave the subreddit a look.

Please don’t tell me that the current devs changed the flag of the Union of Britain...
The old flag was literally the most ridiculous concept imaginable, so I'm glad they changed it.
 
The old flag was literally the most ridiculous concept imaginable, so I'm glad they changed it.

Unsurprisingly, I disagree. I think it was both nicely designed (as opposed to the current version) and was an anchor point for the general perception of the mod. Still, it's a cosmetic issue and can easily be mended if people like me prefer the old version. So maybe it's just my old grognard heart hurting :)
 
Can I admit that "Old Kaiserreich" purists that feel the good old days where Kaiserreich was unrealistic and "fun" was objectively superior and whine about Kaiserreich's embrace of hard alternate history over soft alternate history are annoying as hell? I feel they don't understand that alternate history standards have changed so much and what's acceptable then are seen with more scrutiny and cries of ASB now due to more research done into those eras that changed preconceived notions.

People bring up TNO as an example of a "fun, absurd" premise done well but to be honest, the premise had to be there to justify a scenario that most of the alternate history community had given up on as plasuible despite it being the bee's knees 20 years ago with more revelation of just how fucked up Nazism was. And premise aside, TNO's presentation in the 1962-1972 years do lean closer to hard alternate history than soft alternate history on it's own. All the le woke funni gamer paths are, on top of being horrifying, either economically and socially stagnant due to the far right and racial oppression or ticking time bombs on the verge of destruction(including one in Russia that actually goes off at the end date) while the more mundane, blessed, happy or the non gamer paths tend to be sustainable.

Hell Kaiserreich, as it's a different sort of mod(less narrative based), are more charitable towards the woke horrifying funni gamer paths. The Charter totalists, Pelley and Maurras and the saner paths are seen as both having benefits for the nation they happen in.

Also even TNO is genuinely aiming for realism outside the premise, just look at their plans for Burgundy and Kovner rewrite and the hint that DSR is going to be redone or cut. Also I think the CSS submod for TNO cut out one of the le funni woke horrifying gamer paths and I suspect that has to do with CSS maybe going ascended fanon in the future and the devs taking account into some of the rules of the TNO setting to better fit it into there.

Now there are a few things I genuinely feel Kaiserreich is wrong to remove like Orwell, and their India setup had problems on it's own, but this idea that gen 1 kaiserreich was better because "fun" is rather really absurd. Their China update was genuinely agreed to be good FOR it's realism rather than in spite of it despite the people that whine about Mongolia for one. And I think their South Africa content update wasn't derided as awful and a lot of people are genuinely looking forward to their CoF update.
 
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Can I admit that "Old Kaiserreich" purists/genwunners that feel the good old days where Kaiserreich was unrealistic and "fun" and whine about Kaiserreich's embrace of hard alternate history are annoying as hell?

Well, I find the people who say the opposite annoying as hell.
 
I like some aspects of the old lore, but I've really enjoyed the Americas and China reworks. The South Africa rework is pretty great, too, a good combination of entertaining "woke demsoc South African multiracial paradise in 1940" and "Ok but you also have to develop half the country and the infrastructure of Jo'burg is not equipped to handle all the desperate black people who really want jobs right now, and you're still South Africa so you can't just go conquering half the damn planet".
 
The thing is, that both Kaiserriech and TNO basically are soft or result centric tl until the Game Start Date/at the core concepts, then piviot towards harder Alternate History once the game starts or at least core areas. So in Kaiserriech you may now have the path of South Africa being more difficult, or Germany not conquering all of China, but you still have a British Revolution because troops not firing on rioters makes the entire establishment flee to Canada, or Germany inverteening in Russia but not France etc.
Simularly in TNO you may have the economic decline of Nazism and the system falling apart with out war, but you also have a sealion TL (Some thing regarded generally as so implasible that this forum basically forces their seniors into a megathread.), or Germany getting the bomb and then giving it to Japan, or a Nazi Control Africa etc.

I don't know what the upshot of all that is.
 
The thing is, that both Kaiserriech and TNO basically are soft or result centric tl until the Game Start Date/at the core concepts, then piviot towards harder Alternate History once the game starts or at least core areas. So in Kaiserriech you may now have the path of South Africa being more difficult, or Germany not conquering all of China, but you still have a British Revolution because troops not firing on rioters makes the entire establishment flee to Canada, or Germany inverteening in Russia but not France etc.
Simularly in TNO you may have the economic decline of Nazism and the system falling apart with out war, but you also have a sealion TL (Some thing regarded generally as so implasible that this forum basically forces their seniors into a megathread.), or Germany getting the bomb and then giving it to Japan, or a Nazi Control Africa etc.

I don't know what the upshot of all that is.
For what it's worth, the lore for the British Revolution and the end to the WK is pretty radically different from how it used to be. I think there's a solid rationale for Germany's non-intervention in France, and the flow of the revolution in Britain is much more plausible than it was. Probably the weakest parts of our lore are the Qing restoration (though I think that's as plausible as it can be, given the circumstances), and the American Civil War (even though technically that isn't lore anyway). I suppose there's also legacy India, but that should be fixed eventually.

I'm biased here of course, being a member of the development team, but I think there's a lot of misinformation that floats around about what is or isn't plausible in our timeline because people haven't kept up with it.
 
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Viola

Banned
hard alternate history
lolwut?

Aside from hard alternate history being a contradiction in terms, I'm fairly open to Kaiserreich's redesigns as long as they keep the spirit of the original while improving the relative plausibility of the mod (emphasis on relative, Kaiserreich is still a timeline where Britain has a radical leftist revolution and America has a second civil war).
In the China rework the AOG and the Mad Baron are still there, they're just handled in a more realistic manner with the AOG being strong German economic influence in the Qing Empire and the League of Eight Provinces and Ungern not being a literal god of war who's followed blindly by the natives, but the iconic elements of the mod are still fundamentally there. Same thing with the India rework at least in my opinion, since Azad Hind basically takes the place of the Commune, the Raj has just changed position and the Princely Federation has turned into several smaller semi-independent statelets that still have an important influence, the idea of an India divided between revolutionaries, princes and British leftover forces is still there even if a lot has changed.

Hopefully they can keep their reworks working like this.
 
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since Azad Hind basically takes the place of the Commune, the Raj has just changed position and the Princely Federation has turned into several smaller semi-independent statelets that still have an important influence, the idea of an India divided between revolutionaries, princes and British leftover forces is still there even if a lot has changed.
To my understanding, Azad Hind is more a fusion of the Bharatiya Commune and the Princely Federation in the Indian rework. Azad Hind doesn't start as with a Syndicalist regime and it has a wide variety of political routes it can go. The only common point everything has in Azad Hind was that they needed to get rid of British yoke.

The smaller semi-independent statelets you see in the Indian rework are more there to give a bit more depth and believability to the Raj. The Raj proper that you play is essentially what's left directly in control of the British administration in India after the Revolution, while the smaller statelets that are allied to it are basically princely states that remained loyal to the Raj but have a certain autonomy. It's been done to reflect how Britain administrated India: some parts were directly administrated by the Brits themselves while in others they relied on prince that were judged loyal to the crown (though probably still kept on a close watch).
In-terms of how the game evolves if you play the Raj, you essentially have to take into account the internal politics of the smaller princely states while you're trying to rebuld the Raj. If you crack down on them too much or if you let them too much autonomy, you can lose control of them and be forced in a war to stabilize the situation. Not to mention the dealing these princely states have with Azad Hind. Essentially, they've made the Raj into a more believable position: a colonial administration that still has a powerbase but has been significantly weakened and must play its cards right if it wants to survive.
 
To my understanding, Azad Hind is more a fusion of the Bharatiya Commune and the Princely Federation in the Indian rework. Azad Hind doesn't start as with a Syndicalist regime and it has a wide variety of political routes it can go. The only common point everything has in Azad Hind was that they needed to get rid of British yoke.
Azadi Hind would be more likely to go national populist with Hindu nationalism than Syndicalist.

If there is an alt syndicalist inspired muslim brotherhood of which there would be a good chance muslim parts of India would go Syndicalist.
 

Viola

Banned
To my understanding, Azad Hind is more a fusion of the Bharatiya Commune and the Princely Federation in the Indian rework. Azad Hind doesn't start as with a Syndicalist regime and it has a wide variety of political routes it can go. The only common point everything has in Azad Hind was that they needed to get rid of British yoke.
As far as I know the Indian princes kinda abandoned Azad Hind en masse when some revolutionaries started targeting their properties even if the Indian Congress never wanted it nor ordered it.

I think of Azad Hind as a continuation/evolution in spirit of the Bharatiya Commune because they've been described in the dev diary as starting off Social Democratic and leaning toward the internationale diplomatically, but eventually being open to go down several political routes from sticking to the Indian Congress in its leftist or rightist variants, going down more explicitly leftist routes or going natpop nationalism (which is the big change). Also, they got Gandhi like Bharatiya used to have, even though he's not a proper political leader anymore, and their capital is still Calcutta.
 
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