Plagued /r/TNOmod and the Reddit HOI4 modding community - When a subreddit for a video game mod turns to utter insanity

[Corpun]

Welcome back everyone. Nothing new on the TNO front as far as I can tell, other than the Gus Hall drama a while back.

Was this new drama or just the old posts I saw about how heckin wholesomerino a communist revolution path in America will be?

 

[UrbanZerglings]

Was this new drama or just the old posts I saw about how heckin wholesomerino a communist revolution path in America will be?

New Drama, they've reworked Hall and removed the Lavender scare. Now, at the start of his presidency, Hall will purge the FBI and the CIA with a McCarthy style conspiracy scare.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

Just a reminder to TNO devs that Gus Hall was a raging communist lunatic that in no way that if he came to power in America it would not fall to sectarian violence.

 

[Ryona420]

Was this new drama or just the old posts I saw about how heckin wholesomerino a communist revolution path in America will be?

Yeah glad to be back

https://www.reddit.com/r/TNOmod/comments/yf71ox/here_we_go_again_statement_on_gus_hall/

The post in question. This actually pissed me off. There was a post here that was ages back on this thread so fuck you not digging it up but it was about Poland. Basically it was a teaser of a nationalist, liberal, and communist Poland. The liberal guy is your standard but how they handled the commie and fascist was ass. The communist was a literal traitor who sold out Poland for the USSR and was in general a Russian bootlicker and was responsible for sending many Poles to gulalgs by accusing them of being against the government. The nationalist guy is still alive today and he's just a creationist right wing Polish politician which there's not much else controversial about him than that. However given their events and leader bios you'd think the nationalist is Polish Hitler while the commie guy was just some nice chum.

n error to describe Hall as such a chameleon that he would adore anyone in the Kremlin without any logical rhyme or reason. Hall was no grifter and no weasel; he had strong convictions and beliefs and they developed logically, with clear reasons. To fully understand the man, though, it's best to take a quick look at his life.

Hall has this problem as well and in general its just an issue with TNO trying to claim they do not have a communist or leftist bias. Its a word wall of Hall's life story and trying to explain why Hall isn't so bad b/c you need context Chud. Such things as saying he is not weasel and is "a complex political figure" despite the fact he would change opinions based on whatever Moscow said and was infamous for embezzling CPUSA funds.

I will touch briefly on some of Hall's personality, both good and (kind of hilariously) bad here. Hall's entire personality can be neatly summed up as 'Uncle Gus.' Hall was quite a warm and friendly figure, chatting endlessly with strangers about anything relevant with a Minnesotan folksy demeanor; the consensus on most sources is that Hall was a genuinely nice person in this regard. He was also domineering within the party (not to a violent extent, mind you) and considered himself the uncontested rightful leader of the American workers' movement. While he also espoused political progressivism, he certainly made many statements that are not necessarily unheard of for his times but absolutely raise eyebrows today.

To as some pointed out in the comments trying to disgustingly trying to brush it off further aside from his life story by saying he was affable to talk to and was like that racist uncle at your Thanksgiving you can't help but love (but not actually racist so its wholesome). As point out on the post TNO portrays Hall as a reckless do-gooder who just wants to give the heckin black and gayerinos rights but goes through it via dictatorial means. Hall was a tankie in the literal term. Gleefully cheering on the USSR crushing the Hungarian revolution and made it clear that he supported using a military to enact communist policies. A lot of their white washing comes from the fact the soruces they used were interviews with members of the CPUSA or when writing Hall and the CPUSA as a whole they took their platform that was from the 90s and 2000s. A time when they lost what Soviet funding they had for obvious reasons and basically admitted they could never get elected and just supported the Democrat candidate from then on.

r/TNOmod - Comment by u/lietuvis10LTU on ”Here We Go Again : Statement on Gus Hall”

773 votes and 362 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

Sadly a lot of the thread got deleted in a reddit moment but felt this link highlights my disgust of normal people pointing out how shit he is and getting mobbed for it. Honestly unironically hope they an hero for this.

 

[Moja Zemlja]

Just a reminder to TNO devs that Gus Hall was a raging communist lunatic that in no way that if he came to power in America it would not fall to sectarian violence.
View attachment 3777220

Isn't this quote made up though?

 

[Karakhalkin-Gol]

The nationalist guy is still alive today and he's just a creationist right wing Polish politician which there's not much else controversial about him than that. However given their events and leader bios you'd think the nationalist is Polish Hitler

This could have been easily handwaved by saying that if a foreign nation conquers your land, considers you subhuman, genocides your people and replaces them with their own, and destroys your culture, you'd be a fascist too.

 

[Al Coholic]

Just a reminder to TNO devs that Gus Hall was a raging communist lunatic that in no way that if he came to power in America it would not fall to sectarian violence.
View attachment 3777220

Based Hall owning the chr*stcuck MIGAtards! Hall knew what was up.

 

[Ryona420]

This could have been easily handwaved by saying that if a foreign nation conquers your land, considers you subhuman, genocides your people and replaces them with their own, and destroys your culture, you'd be a fascist too.

Its still what is blatant character assassination for someone who is still alive today albeit old. Nor does it help the other point that they made the one guy a super Polish Nazi but the actual scum bag Commie who did send people he personally did not like to camps gets painted as a well meaning patriot of his homeland.

This is not the first time this happened and not talking about Hall. The Aryan Brotherhood used to be run by an ex-Soviet soldier until they realized he had living family members today that would be upset at his depiction and went with Vagner. TNO is very obviously not "hand waving" and picking people they think are like that. That guy is a Nazi not because he is but because TNO tranny devs personally think being a creationist ultra conservative Christian makes you a Nazi while being a communist makes you misguided at worst since its just on the opposite spectrum. For what its worth the guy who pointed that out was far angrier than me at the double standard (I assume he is Polish) and explains some of the anger with Hall.

 

[EpicGamerMoment]

Its still what is blatant character assassination for someone who is still alive today albeit old. Nor does it help the other point that they made the one guy a super Polish Nazi but the actual scum bag Commie who did send people he personally did not like to camps gets painted as a well meaning patriot of his homeland.

This is not the first time this happened and not talking about Hall. The Aryan Brotherhood used to be run by an ex-Soviet soldier until they realized he had living family members today that would be upset at his depiction and went with Vagner. TNO is very obviously not "hand waving" and picking people they think are like that. That guy is a Nazi not because he is but because TNO tranny devs personally think being a creationist ultra conservative Christian makes you a Nazi while being a communist makes you misguided at worst since its just on the opposite spectrum. For what its worth the guy who pointed that out was far angrier than me at the double standard (I assume he is Polish) and explains some of the anger with Hall.

They used to at least make an effort to be impartial and make the tankie types of commies look bad (All other commies are always good tho), but now it’s Red = Wholesome

 

[Caligura]

Yeah glad to be back

https://www.reddit.com/r/TNOmod/comments/yf71ox/here_we_go_again_statement_on_gus_hall/

The post in question. This actually pissed me off. There was a post here that was ages back on this thread so fuck you not digging it up but it was about Poland. Basically it was a teaser of a nationalist, liberal, and communist Poland. The liberal guy is your standard but how they handled the commie and fascist was ass. The communist was a literal traitor who sold out Poland for the USSR and was in general a Russian bootlicker and was responsible for sending many Poles to gulalgs by accusing them of being against the government. The nationalist guy is still alive today and he's just a creationist right wing Polish politician which there's not much else controversial about him than that. However given their events and leader bios you'd think the nationalist is Polish Hitler while the commie guy was just some nice chum.



Hall has this problem as well and in general its just an issue with TNO trying to claim they do not have a communist or leftist bias. Its a word wall of Hall's life story and trying to explain why Hall isn't so bad b/c you need context Chud. Such things as saying he is not weasel and is "a complex political figure" despite the fact he would change opinions based on whatever Moscow said and was infamous for embezzling CPUSA funds.


To as some pointed out in the comments trying to disgustingly trying to brush it off further aside from his life story by saying he was affable to talk to and was like that racist uncle at your Thanksgiving you can't help but love (but not actually racist so its wholesome). As point out on the post TNO portrays Hall as a reckless do-gooder who just wants to give the heckin black and gayerinos rights but goes through it via dictatorial means. Hall was a tankie in the literal term. Gleefully cheering on the USSR crushing the Hungarian revolution and made it clear that he supported using a military to enact communist policies. A lot of their white washing comes from the fact the soruces they used were interviews with members of the CPUSA or when writing Hall and the CPUSA as a whole they took their platform that was from the 90s and 2000s. A time when they lost what Soviet funding they had for obvious reasons and basically admitted they could never get elected and just supported the Democrat candidate from then on.

r/TNOmod - Comment by u/lietuvis10LTU on ”Here We Go Again : Statement on Gus Hall”

773 votes and 362 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

Sadly a lot of the thread got deleted in a reddit moment but felt this link highlights my disgust of normal people pointing out how shit he is and getting mobbed for it. Honestly unironically hope they an hero for this.

Regarding the right-wing Polish resistance guy in TNO, they tried to damage control this stuff by saying that his ideology in-game is Despotist (which is usually for generic right-wing dictatorships) and kept specifically wording "well, he merely takes inspiration from Franco and Mussolini, he's BASICALLY just a Prussian Nationalist but Polish, also like the holocaust basically RADICALIZED him" but I guess we'll see in like Fall of 2026 when the skeleton content for that drops. I don't really know what they entail by that though, seems an odd choice to specifically pick a leader like that (who was barely an adult during the 60s) to represent the right-wing Polish resistance when there's probably dozens that you can find, hell his flag is even based on a IRL right-wing Polish resistance group in WW2. But then again its probably because the dev responsible lost a lot of braincells after attempting to blow their brains out with a .22 lr and is essentially retarded right now.

 

[OMCK]

The real treasure is in the comment section of the Hall announcement, bros. Here are some highlights:

I can't shake the feeling, that some people desperately wanted Hall to be a bad guy in order to feel vindicated in their personal political opinion of "cOmMuNiSm bAd". The idea of a Marxist-Leninist politician doing something moral and just is irreconcilable with their perception of history/politics.

TNO is filled to the brim with all blends of communists, socialists and anarchists being moral. Even the more questionable options in warlord Russia (Suslov, Yagoda) end up building rather viable, defensible governments. In the UK, you get a wholesome commonwealth of free love and fair taxes. TNO has too many politicians on this side being rather palatable when their causes have historically been riddled with systemic violence and grueling neglect for pluralism, justice and dignity.

And it's clear that you are approaching this topic from a position of actually looking into who the man was, and not just viewing him as a generic boogeyman to slap every red scare stereotype onto. Would he actually be a good President? Probably best discussed in a separate dumpster fire.

There is no reasonable scenario where someone like Gus Hall, a radicalized Marxist-Leninist devoted to orthodoxy, would be a "good President" by the standards the American constitution and political culture observe. He stood against early critics of Stalinism in the CPUSA. He shut down any criticism of Soviet institutions and even military policy. He was, in fact, bent on shutting down any criticism that read against the party line he wanted to preserve for decades on end.

These are the basics of a sectarian mindset. Constitutional liberal democracies and radical, idealistic sectarians mix terribly. It's not the "no one wins" scenario the devs seem to imagine. It's evidently a "someone ruins it for everybody from the top to the bottom" scenario.

We don't see too many 'well intended extremists' stories in TNO to my knowledge and it'll be cool to see just what he has in store for America.

I swear these people only see good intentions when it's talk about liberty or equality, values of liberal and socialist traditions. You have ambiguous despots, right-wingl extremists and military cliques with the "best intentions". If you don't agree with them, I don't see why I should understand Hall to be any more well meaning. The only way they can sell us this shit is by filling Hall with events about dreams and rainbows that will clash with on-going events but ultimately prove he just has a good, Bolshevik heart.

If we want to earnestly look at what in a counterfactual word a keen Marxist would do in the United States, it doesn't make sense to look to an "American Stalin", because the conditions that we see in the United States versus the Russian empire and later the Soviet Union are entirely different....
...This isn't a defense of Hall, but rather the refutation of the idea that Marxism is synonymous with terror a la the Jacobins or Russian Civil war era Reds or Whites.

There's some truth to this, as it seems the poster knows one thing or two about the actual foundations of Marxist thought. But Gus Hall is coincidentally the Gus Hall that rejected eurocommunism and "national roads to communism" precisely on the basis that it was too divergent and heterodox. Orthodoxy is the tradition of Marx, Engels and Lenin. I have no clue why Gus would, with all this appreciation and defense of the revolution and its justified violence, suddenly opt to be a very moderate, careful politician when it comes to liberty, welfare and dissent.

This comment got a reply from the modteam OP, who said "all the actions of his party contradict this". It may contradict that Hall would've been an American Stalin, but not that he would be the swashbuckling red zealot you get in various shapes and sizes, none of which bode well with liberal institutions. Some are even suggesting he'd somehow tone it down, despite the TNO world seems ripe for the radicalization, not the soothing, of socialist sentiments.

With all due respect, if we are looking at presidents who endorsed “the use of violence to crush dissent,” then every single US leader must similarly be dismissed as a monster. Yet, I rarely see much discussion of Nixon’s role in Cambodia, of JFK and LBJ’s actions of Vietnam, of the long shadow the United States casts over Latin America.

TNO bro really believes U.S. foreign policy is not under scrutiny. They may even believe it isn't in a game where Nixon gets ousted, the U.S. goes on grueling wars in South Africa and Asia, intervenes in Latin America like it did in real life, and has to deal with domestic opposition to boot. Also, I absolutely would prefer to live under any, absolutely any, American president from 1945 to 1991 than under the opaque, unappealable will of a one-party state with complete control of police, military, freedom and truth.

 

[Ryona420]

TNO has too many politicians on this side being rather palatable when their causes have historically been riddled with systemic violence and grueling neglect for pluralism, justice and dignity.

Its like a friend of mine once said that you'd be forgiven if you did not know the Axis won WW2 in this mod about that. As put here else where socialism should by and large be discredited given how the USSR fucked up so badly. I can forgive a few communist or socialist paths just for the fun and sandbox factor but TNO has way too many. USA, England, Italy, and should the USSR come back due to a Russian warlord it can potentially make a communist faction bigger than the IRL one. I feel its the same issue with KR. Where unironic commies start to infect a mod and make half the paths of the major nations communist wanks.

Comes with the territory of the cope that if the a communist revolution took place in a western nation it would be a wholesome democratic federation of sorts. Or in the case of Russia if they retried the revoltuon they'd get socialism right.

TNO bro really believes U.S. foreign policy is not under scrutiny.

Fav quote in that thread is the one guy saying "Not to do whataboutism" and then does whataboutism. The issue the international community had with the Hungarian Revolution put down was that it specifically targeted the civilian population and it wasn't something like Korea or Nam which could be argued for as typical invasions of conflicts for spheres of power, but a violent put down of a nation that wanted to move to the non-aligned sphere.

I don't really know what they entail by that though, seems an odd choice to specifically pick a leader like that (who was barely an adult during the 60s) to represent the right-wing Polish resistance when there's probably dozens that you can find

Bolesław Piasecki - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Not hard to find them either. Guy woulda been pretty good for a right wing but anti-German leader given he was autistically anti-German IRL. I can't help but feel the dude they picked they did so since he is so obscure they can basically write him as a fictional character and strawman as a talking point. Plus the bonus points of being "unique"

 

[whothefuck]

i looked on the subreddit: so many posts about hall lol. also nice to be back on da farms

 

[Slightly Apathetic Mario]

i looked on the subreddit: so many posts about hall lol. also nice to be back on da farms

what have I missed the past few weeks with TNO? are they actually getting Hall and Yockey some content? I'll take a wild guess and say that Hall is being whitewashed to an extreme to the delight of reddit.

 

[whothefuck]

they added Hart and i think they got rid of the lavender scare for hall, and people on the reddit are making essays either defending him or crying foul

 

[EpicGamerMoment]

I’m gonna make a submod with the TNO name where every commie path is a failstate and every Nazi path gives you incredibly high bonuses

 

[OMCK]

USA, England, Italy, and should the USSR come back due to a Russian warlord it can potentially make a communist faction bigger than the IRL one. I feel its the same issue with KR.

At least with KX you know it will happen because pretty much any country with enough content will have most ideologies available. If Mongolian social democracy has content, I won't complain about other countries having every color at their disposal. But with KR, and especially TNO, the devs have been pushing this veneer of realism that doesn't go with this level of wanking.

In the case of TNO, they come up with particular justifications for individual states. In every instance it can be reasoned that some socialism might happen. The issue is losing the broader picture. All of a sudden, a world where the Nazis won can have more socialist influence and success than one where the very headquarters of the revolution won the most important war in human history.

You might say we should just return to suspension of disbelief. I disagree. We got here through rational belief in "realism". Why the fuck do TNO devs and autists feel like they can "suspend disbelief" when their serious attempt at belief doesn't work?

 

[EpicGamerMoment]

At least with KX you know it will happen because pretty much any country with enough content will have most ideologies available. If Mongolian social democracy has content, I won't complain about other countries having every color at their disposal. But with KR, and especially TNO, the devs have been pushing this veneer of realism that doesn't go with this level of wanking.

If they said “Yeah we’re adding all these socialist paths for fun and player choice even if it doesn’t make sense” I would actually be fine with it and respect them. But no they claim it’s %100 realistic and plausible. They want to have their cake and eat it.

 

[Moja Zemlja]

At least with KX you know it will happen because pretty much any country with enough content will have most ideologies available. If Mongolian social democracy has content, I won't complain about other countries having every color at their disposal. But with KR, and especially TNO, the devs have been pushing this veneer of realism that doesn't go with this level of wanking.

In the case of TNO, they come up with particular justifications for individual states. In every instance it can be reasoned that some socialism might happen. The issue is losing the broader picture. All of a sudden, a world where the Nazis won can have more socialist influence and success than one where the very headquarters of the revolution won the most important war in human history.

You might say we should just return to suspension of disbelief. I disagree. We got here through rational belief in "realism". Why the fuck do TNO devs and autists feel like they can "suspend disbelief" when their serious attempt at belief doesn't work?

Its weird because on the one hand TNO presents a world where outside of Europe/Asia you could argue that socialism would have a better time of it than OTL since there was no stigmatisation of socialism due to it's association with the Soviet Union during the cold war, but you then have major players in Europe able to bring about socialist or even communism governments. Communism should be almost completely dead in TNO apart from Russian warlords or extremist tankies, the USSR not only was an even bigger mess than OTL but was beaten in the field twice.

 

[Ryona420]

A minor nitpick compared to everything else about this shit show is for a game that likes to punish player choice especially if you were unwholesome in their eyes, America does not really have this. Like say you get Wallace or Thurmond as presidents. You get a mini focus tree you can complete in like a few months that removes their racism essentially. Having looked into TNO's files before and found this in Thurmond's focus tree.

# Abandon Hope All Who Enter Here.
#I apologize to anyone who is offended by this tree. If it makes you feel better, it made me actually nauseous coding this in, so you're not alone. Please, please do not glorify the things that happen in this tree or meme them or be edgy about it, but actually use it as an example of why segregationists should never, ever be given power in America.
# I'm done preaching, figured I just had to say this.
# - Your friendly neighborhood DocOverbuild3

Which was a note one of the devs left for other devs who might come into it. I can't help but feel they did it since they can't stand the idea of their side losing, even in a fictional story they themselves wrote. Aside from them the only other presidents that have response trees are RFK and Bennet. Basically I'd rather have the U.S have to deal with the fact that Wallace or Thurmond had cemented segregation in America then having the mod try to "fix" it. As it kinda takes away even from the shitty story if the racism man's racism doesn't matter if even his own party can just magic away the racism.