Yes, I played Burgundy again, probably for the last time. Third time doing so, second time "completing" a run, and first time without ending the world through nuclear hellfire. For added fun I used my "For All Time" ruleset which, in most cases, made countries go down as horrific or as poor a path as possible. I don't think I really need to elaborate on that part, as I could list my personal headcanon to "harshest dystopia just short of nuclear war" somewhere else. (I did so on Reddit at one time, but that was before I deleted my account back in June.) Anyway, Burgundy is perhaps one of the countries that are playable in TNO.
The campaign boils down as follows, with little to no room for deviance unless you fuck up somewhere somehow.
1. Attempt to kill Hitler and fail.
2. Test a nuclear weapon, and begin building an atomic arsenal.
3. Send Oswald Pohl to his death because economics is Judeo-Bolshevik bullshit, that's why
4. Investigate Degrelle to no avail as he disappears and presumably pulls a Dai Li.
5. Try and help Heydrich's fool's errand to no avail.
6. Build up Industriebezirk Rodomo and Brutalist cities across Burgundy by sending hundreds of thousands of people to be worked to death during your campaign.
7. Enforce Burgundian "culture" across the new territories by burning down French schools, and failing that, just gunning a lot of people down.
8. Handle a seemingly nonexistant but potentially harsh food crisis by tearing down the cities you just built, which I didn't.
9. Produce or import oil before the Oil Crisis in a rare moment of foresight by Himmler of all people.
10a. Eradicate the French and Walloon SS Legions if you actually did the investigation mechanic, which I did.
10b. Eradicate the Red Poppy Movement and the third to last internal hope for a liberated Burgundy if you actually did the investigation mechanic, which I did. Which makes me an utter bastard.
11. Celebrate your triumph by brutalizing more poor sods and sending Klaus Barbie to butcher a bunch of people-- wait why's the power out? You're telling me the whole system failed?!
12. Restore order following a large-scale slave revolt and purge most of the SS, with Adolf Eichmann becoming second-in-command.
13. Realize that maybe the economy is actually important and how that's part of why the whole Orwellian nightmare is but a paper tiger in the grand scheme of things.
Mechanically speaking it's actually playable now and makes some semblance of sense instead of the mess it was at release, and lorewise is more straightforward now, despite having been partially skeletonized in the process. Himmler's "Bond villain" tendencies as a certain someone once put it have been watered down greatly for reasons of plausibility and how it's actually pretty fucking difficult to influence stuff when you're trying to keep a dystopian nightmare from imploding on itself. There is no way to "win" as Burgundy. The Order State is doomed to fall, the question is a matter of when and not if. Regardless, as we're all aware severe damage is done to the land and to the tens of millions within Burgundy's borders that it will undoubtedly take decades to bring back what the rest of the world would consider "normalcy". The events are well-written as most events are in this mod, but the content for the country is definitely showing its age in comparison to everything released since Toolbox Theory 3. My verdict? Play it if you must for curiosity's sake or if you feel up to being an heartless monster building hell on earth for its own twisted sake, but don't expect anything fulfilling from this campaign.
I've heard rumor to the effect that Burgundy is getting removed in a future update. And if it's true, then all the better. TNO survived the removal of Atlantropa and Glenn!, it'll survive this.
Apologies if I came across as a but harsh in writing this.
