Paradox Studio Thread

[General Emílio Médici]

It indeed is. Both the communist and fascist sides are complete ass of ahistorical anachronistic garbage and they downright ignore the issues with Roosevelt and his shitty administration. There is no simulation of the actual political messes going on or the fact that the 1940 GOP Primaries was rigged by the UK so they would put forward someone whose foreign policy was the exact same as FDR as insurance. The German American Bund isn't properly simulated, the Japanese fuckery with the economic cold war that caused them to think Pearl Harbor was a good idea isn't shown. The NKVD infiltration attempts and plots have no representation.

They need a rework as badly as Italy did before theirs.

 

[Snekposter]

It indeed is. Both the communist and fascist sides are complete ass of ahistorical anachronistic garbage and they downright ignore the issues with Roosevelt and his shitty administration. There is no simulation of the actual political messes going on or the fact that the 1940 GOP Primaries was rigged by the UK so they would put forward someone whose foreign policy was the exact same as FDR as insurance. The German American Bund isn't properly simulated, the Japanese fuckery with the economic cold war that caused them to think Pearl Harbor was a good idea isn't shown. The NKVD infiltration attempts and plots have no representation.

They need a rework as badly as Italy did before theirs.

Yeah, but that would mean admitting American politics weren't as cut-and-dried as "FDR good", which is about as big as sins get among the Left these days.

Hell, if anyone deserves a balance of power bar for internal politics its the Democratic party of that time considering you've got the segregationist, good old boy wing on one side and the "progressive" proto-Commie wing on the other, with FDR in the middle as a moderate.

 

[Super Hans v2]

Tinto Talks #36, in which it's explained how you can enslave Jews (and other things related to culture.)

That culture is going to be more than a very slight bonus isn't something I expected.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

Shit is looking extremely based

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Yeah, but that would mean admitting American politics weren't as cut-and-dried as "FDR good", which is about as big as sins get among the Left these days.

Hell, if anyone deserves a balance of power bar for internal politics its the Democratic party of that time considering you've got the segregationist, good old boy wing on one side and the "progressive" proto-Commie wing on the other, with FDR in the middle as a moderate.

There’s a ton of overlap between the progressive Democrats and the Southern Democrats. Southern Democrats were a core group of supporters for FDR and controlled a lot of those Congressional committees.

Dont fall for the old Democrats = modern Republicans meme.

 

[Computer God Autism]

There’s a ton of overlap between the progressive Democrats and the Southern Democrats. Southern Democrats were a core group of supporters for FDR and controlled a lot of those Congressional committees.

Dont fall for the old Democrats = modern Republicans meme.

That had more to do with programs such as the TVA than any substantive ideological inclination.

That said I agree anything relating to party switch or real racist memes are incredibly tiring.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

Yeah they couldn't give less of a shit about progressive policies and shit it was all about that New Deal Gravy Train.

 

[Snekposter]

There’s a ton of overlap between the progressive Democrats and the Southern Democrats. Southern Democrats were a core group of supporters for FDR and controlled a lot of those Congressional committees.

Dont fall for the old Democrats = modern Republicans meme.

Sure, but while FDR certainly had a big tent not everyone was entirely on board with his plans for the New Deal. Garner resigned over it and his more amenable replacement as Veep was forced out via party politics in 1944 with the party choosing FDR's successor for him in the form of Truman. And the Hatch Act was passed against FDR's wishes and only signed at the last minute by him as the least terrible of his choices regarding it.

Yeah they couldn't give less of a shit about progressive policies and shit it was all about that New Deal Gravy Train.

Yeah, and FDR did as much as he could to avoid cutting them in, keeping things to his own personal favored persons. On reflection, it may not have been as extreme as I initially thought, but I'd still love to see something happen regarding party politics, especially since a lot of the good old boys were starting to side with the Republicans in opposition as a result of being snubbed.

That said Garner wasn't exactly a big fan of civil rights, going so far as to make extensive use of the patron system inherited from Mexico to shore up his power base, and then there were guys like Crump in Memphis who actively oppressed the blacks to the point there was a full alliance between them and the Republicans to try and get something done in politics.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

There is even a perfect little incident to show it off: FDR's Court Packing Plan.

After he was elected he passed a bunch of shit and created a bunch of garbage as part of his New Deal. A lot of it amounted to just welfare with shiny names and a bunch of them also had serious legal trouble with the rest of the US Law, Government and Constitution. So people sued and challenged it, and eventually they went to the SCOTUS and it was declared unconstitutional/illegal/unlawful. Due to how it all went down the programs were started in late 1932, and challenges began in 1933 but the real results began to show only in 1935 and later. By the time the game starts he has lost a bunch of rulings (including losing 3 cases in 9-0 rulings in a single day in 1935) and is pissed off.

His reaction, much like that of Democrats of today when the court rules based on law and constitution instead of "common good" was to throw a bitch fit and announce a plan to restructure the entire thing to make SCOTUS do as he wanted. Not just to add new justices, oh no, he was gonna do some real bulshit like adding one new judge for every 10 years a supreme judge was in power once they turned 70 and didn't retire and adding a whole new lower court. He went to his propaganda broadcast Fireside Chat to shill this and present it as a new and better way to do things of course.

Tl;Dr it failed, and likely cost the dems the 1938 midterms as a lot of his own party Good Old Boys were quite against such plans.

The fact this isn't shown in the game at all despite how tense it could have gone if the cripple hadn't backed down is a disservice to HoI4.

 

[Übertroon]

The alternate US history path in hoi4 is 100% a result of non Americans likely having made the path and the fact that Trump had won against hillary.
It makes no sense for the fascists to get in power through Alf Landon.
Why does a fascist uprising divide the country exactly by the north-south divide?
Why do the good ol boys from arkansas and lousiana rally behind a northerner like William Pelley?
Why do they call themselves the CSA?

If you were going to make a axis path for the US it should start with Charles Coughlin being more directly supported by Joseph Kennedy. Both hated Jews and disliked Britain.
With Coughlin's support Joseph Kennedy can challenge Roosevelt in a primary. Vice versa Joseph Kennedy can prevent the government from taking Coughlin off the air.

It makes more sense for the Irish, German, and Italian Americans to form a anti British, anti jewish, anti Soviet, and pro axis alliance, fighting against the WASPs and the liberals rather than THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN, HEIL MACARTHUR!

 

[Snekposter]

The alternate US history path in hoi4 is 100% a result of non Americans likely having made the path and the fact that Trump had won against hillary.
It makes no sense for the fascists to get in power through Alf Landon.
Why does a fascist uprising divide the country exactly by the north-south divide?
Why do the good ol boys from arkansas and lousiana rally behind a northerner like William Pelley?
Why do they call themselves the CSA?

If you were going to make a axis path for the US it should start with Charles Coughlin being more directly supported by Joseph Kennedy. Both hated Jews and disliked Britain.
With Coughlin's support Joseph Kennedy can challenge Roosevelt in a primary. Vice versa Joseph Kennedy can prevent the government from taking Coughlin off the air.

It makes more sense for the Irish, German, and Italian Americans to form a anti British, anti jewish, anti Soviet, and pro axis alliance, fighting against the WASPs and the liberals rather than THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN, HEIL MACARTHUR!

I legitimately don't even know what a fascist uprising would have looked like considering all of the different competing groups running around in the USA at the time. And the pro-Axis ones like the German-American Bund were quite frankly, laughing stocks. The GAB topped out at maybe 30k people, had its leader arrested for embezzlement and tax evasion, and his successor fled to Mexico when war broke out, only for the Mexicans to round him up and send him back. Even without all of that, the Bund ultimately turned people against Germany due to the sheer levels of screeching hyperbole about the Jews and absurd levels of gobbling of German cocks, no different from /pol/ sucking off anti-American dictators just because they kill off the gays.

"Hey hey, did you know that George Washington was akshually a fascist?" is not the sort of argument that wins converts.

That isn't getting into the fact that even if said uprising took place you'd have the hilarity of open street violence between them and the KKK as a precursor to that, and the cognitive dissonance of the KKK beating up fascists in the streets would probably cause heads to explode over in Sweden just thinking about it, never mind writing any event or focus texts about it.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

The alternate US history path in hoi4 is 100% a result of non Americans likely having made the path and the fact that Trump had won against hillary.
It makes no sense for the fascists to get in power through Alf Landon.
Why does a fascist uprising divide the country exactly by the north-south divide?
Why do the good ol boys from arkansas and lousiana rally behind a northerner like William Pelley?
Why do they call themselves the CSA?

If you were going to make a axis path for the US it should start with Charles Coughlin being more directly supported by Joseph Kennedy. Both hated Jews and disliked Britain.
With Coughlin's support Joseph Kennedy can challenge Roosevelt in a primary. Vice versa Joseph Kennedy can prevent the government from taking Coughlin off the air.

It makes more sense for the Irish, German, and Italian Americans to form a anti British, anti jewish, anti Soviet, and pro axis alliance, fighting against the WASPs and the liberals rather than THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN, HEIL MACARTHUR!

I've always hated the way the CSA is portrayed in the game.
The real fascist/communist path for the USA that would make sense is the Ku Klux Klan gets out of hand/Blair Mountain gets out of hand, but that requires a start date back in the 1920s. Which is the real problem: most of HOI's alternate history requires a decade or more to make sense.

But, as it goes, I think the CSA should be the non-aligned path. Non-aligned has turned into "stupid meme history path" with things like the Ottomans and Hohenzollerns, and so it would be way more fitting for it to be there.

 

[Midwit]

Non-aligned has turned into "stupid meme history path" with things like the Ottomans and Hohenzollerns, and so it would be way more fitting for it to be there.

If the game covered WW1 Non-Aligned would be the one where Roosevelt beat Taft & Wilson and enacted laws for human perfection, though imho the path were Taft gets elected and gets another piece of that excellent apple pie is much better.

 

[Übertroon]

legitimately don't even know what a fascist uprising would have looked like considering all of the different competing groups running around in the USA at the time.

Far right uprising still makes more sense considering Lemke got 800k votes while Earl Browder and his communist party got 80k votes in the 1936 election.

Personally I think it makes the most logical sense for the fascist path to start with Roosevelt dying of health related issues or being incapacitated, and Joseph Kennedy coming ahead in the struggle for leadership.

Kennedy can then unite the different anti semitic factions within the US, promote individuals like Coughlin, which would also promote a anti Soviet sentiment while also promoting socialist economic policies within the US.

It would make more sense for Kennedy then to peacefully subvert the democratic party into becoming a staunch isolationist and anti jewish and anti Soviet party. But the playerbase would probably demand a 2nd civil war scenario. Would then have to be Kennedy's democratic party loyalists having to fight off a coalition of democrat and Republican liberals, Wall Street, Soviet sympathisers, and blacks.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I agree that a fascist/communist takeover in the 1930s looks like a US govt sliding into despotism, not a civil war/revolution.
Because the game starts in 1936 (again, too early for most of this stuff to make sense), it can't use Huey Long or the Business Plot (bullshit, but at least something to work with)

 

[General Emílio Médici]

ISP Preview of the DLC as Historical Germany,

 

[Snekposter]

I agree that a fascist/communist takeover in the 1930s looks like a US govt sliding into despotism, not a civil war/revolution.
Because the game starts in 1936 (again, too early for most of this stuff to make sense), it can't use Huey Long or the Business Plot (bullshit, but at least something to work with)

Why not roll with FDR and the court packing, followed by him doubling-down on rule by administrative agency? Shit like the National Recovery Administration was little different from Hitler's "reforms".

Would be easy to have the USA start sliding into a professionally-controlled, progressive-aimed, technocratic totalitarianism.

There is no choice presented to American business between intelligently planned and uncontrolled industrial operations and a return to the gold-plated anarchy that masqueraded as "rugged individualism."... Unless industry is sufficiently socialized by its private owners and managers so that great essential industries are operated under public obligation appropriate to the public interest in them, the advance of political control over private industry is inevitable.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

As he said, the entire thing is peak "Euros writing America without understanding fuck all about the USA". It needs a rework badly, but the problem is that such a rework might end up being more controversial that touching up the trees of literal fascist/nazist nations because of the baggage from 80+ years of the FDR myth.

 

[Old English Roast Beef]

Why not roll with FDR and the court packing, followed by him doubling-down on rule by administrative agency? Shit like the National Recovery Administration was little different from Hitler's "reforms".
View attachment 6636816
Would be easy to have the USA start sliding into a professionally-controlled, progressive-aimed, technocratic totalitarianism.

There seems to be some conceptual problem at Paradox with the same leaders taking different approaches. Another example would be Nationalist China, where both democratic and fascist paths should logically be under Chiang Kai-Shek. Part of it is that "ideology" started as a kludge to get countries to join the right factions so it didn't really matter, and now people see it as a core part of the game even though it still has no depth to it beyond modifier stacking.

 

[Snekposter]

There seems to be some conceptual problem at Paradox with the same leaders taking different approaches. Another example would be Nationalist China, where both democratic and fascist paths should logically be under Chiang Kai-Shek. Part of it is that "ideology" started as a kludge to get countries to join the right factions so it didn't really matter, and now people see it as a core part of the game even though it still has no depth to it beyond modifier stacking.

I wouldn't know about democratic for Chiang given his ah... issues relinquishing power, especially considering the reign of terror he established after being forced to flee to Taiwan. While you can argue that he laid the groundwork, that was only after he was forced to retreat and confront his prior fuckups in how he ruled, and after that you would need a successful Taiwanese conquest of the mainland to remove Communism from the picture given his paranoia of Communist agents under everyone's beds.