Paradox Studio Thread

[Übertroon]

The inefficiency of the Nazi economy and their theft of Jewish assets is a fact and should be modelled,

So how many Panzer IIIs do you get from a Picasso painting stuffed into a warhouse in Bad Salzungen?
What's the gold teeth to Me 109 exchange ratio?

 

[foreman 89]

So how many Panzer IIIs do you get from a Picasso painting stuffed into a warhouse in Bad Salzungen?
What's the gold teeth to Me 109 exchange ratio?

That's being disingenuous, the wealth from the sale of those assets is what allowed them to finance the build up of the military.

 

[Übertroon]

That's being disingenuous, the wealth from the sale of those assets is what allowed them to finance the build up of the military.

Nobody is ever going to give you a number on what the nazis got by selling confiscated assets because it's honestly not that much. Most of it was found hidden in mines and warhouses after the war.
Even if we presume the nazis got 100% of the wealth of every jew in Europe it's still only going to be enough to make up for a couple of days of the money printer going BRRRRR.
Besides, the main issue is that the rework makes it so Germany becomes dependent on looting as the war progresses even though the Germans ran a command economy once the war began and the looting had close to 0% effect on the war.

 

[LovisXVI]

Besides, the main issue is that the rework makes it so Germany becomes dependent on looting as the war progresses even though the Germans ran a command economy once the war began and the looting had close to 0% effect on the war.

Yeah, speaks to a certain economic brain to think that looting largely luxury goods would somehow lead to being able to acquire things like steel, oil and grain which were the actual fuel for the war effort.

 

[foreman 89]

Yeah, speaks to a certain economic brain to think that looting largely luxury goods would somehow lead to being able to acquire things like steel, oil and grain which were the actual fuel for the war effort.

Selling these luxury items allowed the Nazis to buy the other stuff.

 

[JJLiautaud]

Yeah, speaks to a certain economic brain to think that looting largely luxury goods would somehow lead to being able to acquire things like steel, oil and grain which were the actual fuel for the war effort.

This is what anti-colonialists actually think...

 

[General Emílio Médici]

No the main thing that let them do it was the assets and resources of conquered territories. Such as the Austrian gold reserves and Central Bank assets they got in the Anchluss for example.

Not disagreeing that the looting was useful, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

 

[Slap47]

Victoria 3 is adding caste to the game.

I suppose this will also be used to represent US segregation and Irish discrimination.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

The fact that there is no option for no caste system or a soft type of social ladder and instead it goes straight from "Not Enforced" to "Affirmative Action" doesn't bode well. Vic3 is not beating the marxist alegations.

Meanwhile, based Johan comes out to explain how you can offer people unpaid internship employment opportunities in EU5.

 

[Übertroon]

No the main thing that let them do it was the assets and resources of conquered territories. Such as the Austrian gold reserves and Central Bank assets they got in the Anchluss for example.

Not disagreeing that the looting was useful, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

I still don't understand how this wasn't already modeled by getting the resources and factories of territory you conquer.
Giving Germany a focus that gives them a national spirit that gives them 200% consumer goods consumption over time called "Economy of Conquest" can only come from reading a book written by the grandson of a KGB agent

 

[LovisXVI]

Selling these luxury items allowed the Nazis to buy the other stuff.

Buy from WHO exactly? Their allies who were ALSO feeling the squeeze? Or the neutral nations who were being squeezed by the Entente to NOT do that. If you mean to say their own population, then the German government just took it via nationalization or conquest. Gold reserves were nice for maintaining the value of their currency in an international sense, but not really anything else.

 

[Computer God Autism]

Yeah, speaks to a certain economic brain to think that looting largely luxury goods would somehow lead to being able to acquire things like steel, oil and grain which were the actual fuel for the war effort.

To be fair the Germans did loot those from their conquests too, but that would open the door to modelling the Soviets doing so and that's a big no-no as far as Paradox is concerned.

No the main thing that let them do it was the assets and resources of conquered territories. Such as the Austrian gold reserves and Central Bank assets they got in the Anchluss for example.

Not disagreeing that the looting was useful, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

It's honestly embarrassing at this point that HOI4 doesn't have an actual currency system when previous games did and Gold Reserves (including stealing them, vis-a-vis Spanish Republic) are mentioned in numerous focus trees. I understand Paradox are staffed by people who would only play planned economy in Victoria 2 but you can have a liquidity crisis or trade deficit while still having a decent consumer industry.

 

[JJLiautaud]

The fact that there is no option for no caste system or a soft type of social ladder and instead it goes straight from "Not Enforced" to "Affirmative Action" doesn't bode well. Vic3 is not beating the marxist alegations.

Meanwhile, based Johan comes out to explain how you can offer people unpaid internship employment opportunities in EU5.

View attachment 6554711

While a significant part of slaves were bought from other African Kingdoms that were willing to sell slaves taken from their enemies, they were also locally captured by the slavers themselves near their slaving centers

Almost zero slaves were captured that way, the kingdoms upon which the European slave factories relied upon for protection would be very upset if they did.

 

[Computer God Autism]

Almost zero slaves were captured that way, the kingdoms upon which the European slave factories relied upon for protection would be very upset if it did.

You can tell by the wording that Johan knows the line is bs but has to say it to avoid the ire of sweetyposters.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

Doing it should give the local kingdoms a casus beli to drive away your trade post with the justification of "they are raiding OUR turf"

 

[LovisXVI]

Almost zero slaves were captured that way, the kingdoms upon which the European slave factories relied upon for protection would be very upset if it did.

It would be better if it is was a more generic sort of Trade Office but just for slaves, that didn't commit one way or the other if they have to not acknowledge that Africans sold their enemies and criminals to Europeans for horses and guns.

 

[thefreshmaker]

No the main thing that let them do it was the assets and resources of conquered territories. Such as the Austrian gold reserves and Central Bank assets they got in the Anchluss for example.

Not disagreeing that the looting was useful, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

Correct, I feel like everyone else here has only "read" Tooze insofar as they heard a YouTube video while playing Call of Duty through a muffled speaker.

The capture of Austria and Czechia helped cool the rampant hidden inflation of rearmament and delay the economic collapse caused by the balance of payments crisis with additional gold reserves. The conquests captured raw materials, food, oil, and slaves which fueled the economy. The slaves allowed extensions of conscription and the changing of the Wehrmacht from a seasonal army to a permanently mobilized force in the Winter of 41/42. The rape of civilian goods and luxury items drove the machine of corruption that kept so many complicit and provided bad incentives for those in charge of the economy.

It wasn't gold teeth that produced Panzers, and nowhere does Tooze make that argument.

For anyone who thinks the Nazi economy was "efficient" you need only compare the factories of the major belligerents and see the Germans producing artisanal weapons and vehicles by stage and station rather serial production.

What makes Tooze so compelling is how everything has the leadership themselves describing the economic situation, from memoirs and diaries to speeches, all discussing the shortages and crises and how things were going poorly in the economy.

 

[Übertroon]

Correct, I feel like everyone else here has only "read" Tooze insofar as they heard a YouTube video while playing Call of Duty through a muffled speaker.

The capture of Austria and Czechia helped cool the rampant hidden inflation of rearmament and delay the economic collapse caused by the balance of payments crisis with additional gold reserves. The conquests captured raw materials, food, oil, and slaves which fueled the economy. The slaves allowed extensions of conscription and the changing of the Wehrmacht from a seasonal army to a permanently mobilized force in the Winter of 41/42. The rape of civilian goods and luxury items drove the machine of corruption that kept so many complicit and provided bad incentives for those in charge of the economy.

It wasn't gold teeth that produced Panzers, and nowhere does Tooze make that argument.

For anyone who thinks the Nazi economy was "efficient" you need only compare the factories of the major belligerents and see the Germans producing artisanal weapons and vehicles by stage and station rather serial production.

What makes Tooze so compelling is how everything has the leadership themselves describing the economic situation, from memoirs and diaries to speeches, all discussing the shortages and crises and how things were going poorly in the economy.

Here's the problem, Tooze concludes that Germany HAD to start Operation Barbarossa because pre war rearmament wasn't sustainable, which gets the priorities of the German leadership wrong and doesn't account for how the economy changed once the war began.
Germany wasn't bankrupting themselves and thereby putting themselves on a path of war, they were purposefully seizing what they saw as a diminishing window of opportunity to go to war, which wasn't sustainable, but which the leadership knew could be supported by going into a command economy once the war began. Operation Barbarossa had to happen as well when it did. The soviets were expanding their forces too, and every year spent waiting simply meant fighting a more prepared Soviet Union.

There was never any danger of the economy collapsing because the leadership knew exactly where they were taking things. For example the MEFO bills? The equivalent of taking massive loans if you know you're going to be fleeing the country or you're terminally ill. Once the war began nobody was going to try to demand their loans back from the German government.

The seizing of resources and materials from occupied territories? Every army does this. having the game hyperfocus on Germany using foreign industry to prop up their own is silly when every nation in WW2 occupying territory did this. Do people think the British and the Soviets got nothing out of occupying Iraq and Iran?

Tooze especially shows his colors when he starts writing about the Soviets once Germany invades. For example he constantly downplays the effect of lend lease, which you only see Soviet apologists do. He constantly gets things wrong about miltiary equipment and the strategic situation, for example writing that the Battle of Britain was decided because the Spitfire was superior to the Bf 109. That's dumb. Germany wasn't able to defeat Britain in the skies in 1940 because they were flying across the channel and had to fight the RAF above their territory, that takes more fuel, you need planes that can travel longer distances, you lose pilots that bail out when shot down, the enemy can choose when and where to engage you. He does that armchair general stuff where he writes that the allies should have kept focusing on the italian front rather than focusing on France, which is obviously dumb for anyone who knows how going through the Winter Line and Gothic Line went for the allies.

Every memoir of every leader in WW2 speaks of shortages. Millions perished in famines in allied and Soviet held lands because food was scarce. Thanks to the US the allies had it better when it came to raw materials and industrial production capacity, but they're the exception in the war in all regards.

 

[LovisXVI]

Never going to beat the communist allegations.

Fucking lol, lmao even, they spout off the narrative that caste was a mean imposition by the British rather than the taking advantage of the preexisting systems. They even essentially admit as such almost immediately after, but in a backhanded fashion. Apparently codifying a common system to be legally entrenched in a universal legal system is "colonial creation". Indian leftists are the worst.

 

[God of Nothing]

Fucking lol, lmao even, they spout off the narrative that caste was a mean imposition by the British rather than the taking advantage of the preexisting systems. They even essentially admit as such almost immediately after, but in a backhanded fashion. Apparently codifying a common system to be legally entrenched in a universal legal system is "colonial creation". Indian leftists are the worst.

didn't they even have the caste system in ck2?