While this might be in poor taste, I just have to say it: TNO seems to be undergoing a process of 'de-panzerization' in terms of its lore.
Not saying that it is a bad thing (I am certainly not against the idea of removing Atlantropa, as it is one of those 'first impression' things that really prevent me from introducing TNO to other people and have them take the setting serious). But as someone who have created his own TLs on this site and have a high degree of protectiveness over my own vision of the lore and setting, even if I realized some of the mistakes that I have made later on, I do understand why Panzer, whenever he occasionally shows up on the TNO subreddit with his iconically sarcastic single line comments, seems to be so bitter and irritable over all the changes to the TNO setting since he had left. In a 'seeing your own work outgrown its creator' kind of way. Especially when he has been used almost as a strawman for everyone to pin all the aspects of TNO they did not enjoy onto him ever since he left.
I really feel sorry for him, actually. He already had to make the hard decision to step back from the thing he created, and now it's moving away from his original vision.
Still, similar to all the talks about the South African War being reworked to make it less of a Vietnam War analogy (Yes, yes, I know that it was also an analogy of Korea and Iraq as well... But you cannot have a proxy conflict with anti-war protests, draft dodging, and Operation Rolling Thunder, and tell me that Vietnam was not the primary influence)
This was definitely one of the biggest pet peeves I had with TNO - the whole antiwar narrative of Vietnam does not work when the enemy are Nazis.
and make the situation in Russia less of an anarchy in which no one on the outside world knows what is going on, and more of a chaotic warlord period instead, I am 100% in support of the dev and their decision on this.
This is more of an area of inconsistency, I think. For one thing, the game never hides what is happening in Russia from the player. And it becomes clear that a few factions (Magadan and Amur in particular) have close contacts with outside powers. I'd put it as "most people don't have the patience to keep track of the latest goings-on in Russia" not "nobody knows".
What should definitely change is once the regional phase hits. At that point, Russia is no longer a collection of warlord states, but rather is divided into four proto-nations. This does run into the question of gameplay vs. narrative. From a gameplay standpoint, it makes more sense for the outside world to not get involved and let a Russia player control the outcome. But from a narrative perspective, it seems very likely that outside powers would get involved.
