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

[Gone Ham]

View attachment 1924498

I'm sickeningly curious about the context of why this video was made. A cockroach is nothing like a human. The dangers of smoking are already obvious. Why put a turk in the jar???

 

[Large]

I'm sickeningly curious about the context of why this video was made. A cockroach is nothing like a human. The dangers of smoking are already obvious. Why put a turk in the jar???

The context is YouTube. That should explain everything.

 

[Brigada]

France holding off the Germans is completely realistic, though, if they had a flexible defence strategy that covered the gap in the Ardennes. Bulgaria taking over the whole Balkans with little resistance is just ultranationalist fantasy. If you want to change the course of history then don't play Bulgaria.

well atleast we now know that youd be horrible in game design.

also the french even having a chance of holding the germans back when they were still using trench warfare with a completely unmotivated army is a lmao. thats the point though all these alt-history paths are supposed to be ultranationalist fantasy. the french holding out and putting a bonaparte back in charge, the germans overthrowing hitler and putting wilhelm back in charge or the big one: germany actually being able to win WW2. like i said if you want historical accuracy read a book, watch a documentary or play a railroady videogame which guarantees your loss if you play as certain nations. thing is barely anyone would play that type of game because it would be designed for autists.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

well atleast we now know that youd be horrible in game design.

also the french even having a chance of holding the germans back when they were still using trench warfare with a completely unmotivated army is a lmao. thats the point though all these alt-history paths are supposed to be ultranationalist fantasy. the french holding out and putting a bonaparte back in charge, the germans overthrowing hitler and putting wilhelm back in charge or the big one: germany actually being able to win WW2. like i said if you want historical accuracy read a book, watch a documentary or play a railroady videogame which guarantees your loss if you play as certain nations. thing is barely anyone would play that type of game because it would be designed for autists.

If France had covered the gap at Sedan and actually taken the intelligence reports of tanks moving through the Ardennes seriously they could easily have halted the Germans. Even in the case of German victory 1/3 of their tanks were destroyed. Poor leadership and lack of tank radios did them in.

Also if you think an accurate game is more autistic than one catering to the fantasies of political extremists then you haven't seen TNO.

 

[Übertroon]

Flying helicopters over the front lines of a peer conventional opponent is utterly suicidal and you'll just get massacred by MANPADS and SAMs. Paratroopers haven't been dropped into "hot" conventional battlefields since WW2, which ended very badly at Arnhem. In counter-insurgency warfare like Vietnam or Rhodesia though it is an option and could be modelled as aerial envelopment.

A trans-oceanic invasion of mainland America would just fail miserably or cause a nuclear exchange. Neither Germany nor Japan would be remotely capable of doing this and even if they tried their fleet would probably get hit by nuclear strikes.

Air assault is the term used for dropping troops behind enemy lines using helicopters or VTOLs. It's a genuine strategy, and has been employed during thr cold war numerous times.
MANPADS and SAM would make it difficult, but not impossible. North Viet Nam MANPADS had about 80 kills even though the Soviets shipped them thousands of rockets.
The US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China all have divisions ttrained to drop behind enemy lines using helicopters. Being shot down by enemy AA is a calculated risk.

As for the chance of a nuclear war from a invasion of the US, I get that realistically we might get a nuclear exchange, but that's not fun, and is an example of PinkPanzer spergness making a unfun experience.
A in lore reasoning for no nuclear exchange could be the US administration not pressing the button out of fear of nuclear annihilation, or perhaps the Germans developed a iron dome like system making it probable that a nuclear exchange would hurt the US more than Germany.
At the end of the day though I don't think "realism" should get in the way of fun, not in a game, and not in a scenario where realism is broken as much as it is in TNO

 

[Toothpaste]

Cause that's what their stated goals were. Among the primary reasons for expansion of German control was achieving autarky.

There are of course distinctions, the junkers wouldn't all be executed like they would have been in the USSR, but by 1939 they were all subservient to the state. Party membership was mandatory, and any dissenters would be put in concentration camps like Fritz Thyssen.

The banks were nationalized, the industry concerns were all put under state supervision.

In truth the soviet economic system is based on the war socialism of Imperial Germany, a system the nazis would return to as the nazi party solidified their power.

If the Reich is serious about completing Himmler's master plan of colonizing the eastern regions with German chicken farmers, (who's main produce is superior, blonde, Aryan offspring with 20/20 vision, like Himmler himself), Germany would probably not follow the Soviet system to a T. Instead of forming large collective farms of colonists, they would most likely have granted veterans and and colonists plots of land to develop in a manner similar to what Rome did to it's provinces.

Also, German industry was largely controlled by the DAF, that all laborers had to, de facto, be members of. This sort of control over the economy through an all encompassing, state controlled, union is different to both Soviet socialism and the WW1 -era "War Socialism".

 

[Übertroon]

If the Reich is serious about completing Himmler's master plan of colonizing the eastern regions with German chicken farmers, (who's main produce is superior, blonde, Aryan offspring with 20/20 vision, like Himmler himself), Germany would probably not follow the Soviet system to a T. Instead of forming large collective farms of colonists, they would most likely have granted veterans and and colonists plots of land to develop in a manner similar to what Rome did to it's provinces.

Also, German industry was largely controlled by the DAF, that all laborers had to, de facto, be members of. This sort of control over the economy through an all encompassing, state controlled, union is different to both Soviet socialism and the WW1 -era "War Socialism".

There's a limit though to how many eastern "colonials" you could have. In truth not many Germans had many wishes to move too far east, and most examples of supposed Generalplan Ost never detail any further expansion than the former territories of Imperial Germany.
And even so, a lot of farmers doesn't make the system somehow more market controlled. The Warsaw Pact was in fact mostly populated by agrarian farmers. The east has always been primarily a agrarian society with industry in its major population centers.

As for the DAF, just another example of how the Third Reich wasn't a traditional western market system beholden to western market rules. In fact both the nazis and the soviets would not allow factionalism, and while the Soviets had multiple labor unions, they were robbed of any actual power. In practice the Soviet system and the German one were almost the exact same, the nazis were just more honest about the way things worked.

 

[NynchLiggers]

"oho
Look at this dudee"

I hope this is trolling, considering the tranny profile pick i really hope it's someone trying to farm julay

 

[Brigada]

Also if you think an accurate game is more autistic than one catering to the fantasies of political extremists then you haven't seen TNO.

a game that basically forces you to lose or gives you an unwinnable scenario for the sake of historical accuracy is infinitely more autistic than TNO and its forced grimdark/life lesson mixing shit because in the end it still has to be a videogame first and foremost. at least there is some entertainment value in the latter, where there is zero in the former.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

Air assault is the term used for dropping troops behind enemy lines using helicopters or VTOLs. It's a genuine strategy, and has been employed during thr cold war numerous times.
MANPADS and SAM would make it difficult, but not impossible. North Viet Nam MANPADS had about 80 kills even though the Soviets shipped them thousands of rockets.
The US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China all have divisions ttrained to drop behind enemy lines using helicopters. Being shot down by enemy AA is a calculated risk.

As for the chance of a nuclear war from a invasion of the US, I get that realistically we might get a nuclear exchange, but that's not fun, and is an example of PinkPanzer spergness making a unfun experience.
A in lore reasoning for no nuclear exchange could be the US administration not pressing the button out of fear of nuclear annihilation, or perhaps the Germans developed a iron dome like system making it probable that a nuclear exchange would hurt the US more than Germany.
At the end of the day though I don't think "realism" should get in the way of fun, not in a game, and not in a scenario where realism is broken as much as it is in TNO

Iron dome is both way after the end of the game's timeline (the 1970s) and intended to stop small, outdated rockets fired by Hezbollah and Hamas. Even 2021 Israel couldn't stop a full-blown nuclear missile strike, let alone 1970s Germany, and cold war era battle plans would absolutely go nuclear at that point. The point of a cold war game isn't to go storming into your opponent's capital anyway, so it's beside the point whether it's fun because that's not a proper strategy to start with. It's like complaining cavalry charges don't work in a modern wargame.

a game that basically forces you to lose or gives you an unwinnable scenario for the sake of historical accuracy is infinitely more autistic than TNO and its forced grimdark/life lesson mixing shit because in the end it still has to be a videogame first and foremost. at least there is some entertainment value in the latter, where there is zero in the former.

TNO does this too though with the Burgundy-France war which is supposed to be an automatic loss for France. This mod is guilty of exactly what you claim and it's also completely unrealistic too.

 

[Übertroon]

Iron dome is both way after the end of the game's timeline (the 1970s) and intended to stop small, outdated rockets fired by Hezbollah and Hamas. Even 2021 Israel couldn't stop a full-blown nuclear missile strike, let alone 1970s Germany, and cold war era battle plans would absolutely go nuclear at that point. The point of a cold war game isn't to go storming into your opponent's capital anyway, so it's beside the point whether it's fun because that's not a proper strategy to start with. It's like complaining cavalry charges don't work in a modern wargame.


TNO does this too though with the Burgundy-France war which is supposed to be an automatic loss for France. This mod is guilty of exactly what you claim and it's also completely unrealistic too.

Iron dome was just an example of a missile shield. You could also use the actual anti nuclear missile shield the US is maintaining as an example. The feasibility of building one in the late 70s kinda goes out the window in the game where Germany has the capability to start mass producing nukes.
Also if you were going to make a actual cold war game you wouldn't do it in HOI4. This is about giving options.. The best thing in games is to add options. So you could have a boring Cold War scenario where the US and Germany just try to outlast each other, or you can choose a different path and go full cowboy. Removing the freedom from the player to go guns blazing is TNO dev team autism.

 

[Toothpaste]

There's a limit though to how many eastern "colonials" you could have. In truth not many Germans had many wishes to move too far east, and most examples of supposed Generalplan Ost never detail any further expansion than the former territories of Imperial Germany.
And even so, a lot of farmers doesn't make the system somehow more market controlled. The Warsaw Pact was in fact mostly populated by agrarian farmers. The east has always been primarily a agrarian society with industry in its major population centers.

As for the DAF, just another example of how the Third Reich wasn't a traditional western market system beholden to western market rules. In fact both the nazis and the soviets would not allow factionalism, and while the Soviets had multiple labor unions, they were robbed of any actual power. In practice the Soviet system and the German one were almost the exact same, the nazis were just more honest about the way things worked.

I'm still not convinced on agriculture. The Soviets had to forcefully collectivize the peasants in order to prevent market capitalism from emerging. Anyone with a few cows or a few more acres of land to their name than their neighbor was labled a "kulak", a "petty bourgeoisie", and was lucky to escape being hung from the nearest tree while his property was being appropriated into the new kolkhoz.

While it is true that there would most likely not be enough colonists to develop all the available land, I do not see the Germans being willing, or even able, to impose this level of control over their colonist populations. The German economy seemed much more interested in controlling the industry, not agriculture. The national mythos that the Nazis sought to indoctrinate their population with puts a major emphasis on rural life in a way that is not really in line with collectivization.

Although, the whole economy of the 3rd Reich would be so screwed that there really in no way of saying what will happen.

I don't really see the continuance of slave labor to the 60s as a realistic option. Especially as the slaves were prohibited from procreating as they were being worked to death.

 

[Brigada]

TNO does this too though with the Burgundy-France war which is supposed to be an automatic loss for France. This mod is guilty of exactly what you claim and it's also completely unrealistic too.

i mustve missed when the France-Himmlers Burgundy war was a historical event. im honestly impressed how hard you missed the point. its not an automatic loss for France either you can win it if you play as France.

 

[Übertroon]

I'm still not convinced on agriculture. The Soviets had to forcefully collectivize the peasants in order to prevent market capitalism from emerging. Anyone with a few cows or a few more acres of land to their name than their neighbor was labled a "kulak", a "petty bourgeoisie", and was lucky to escape being hung from the nearest tree while his property was being appropriated into the new kolkhoz.

While it is true that there would most likely not be enough colonists to develop all the available land, I do not see the Germans being willing, or even able, to impose this level of control over their colonist populations. The German economy seemed much more interested in controlling the industry, not agriculture. The national mythos that the Nazis sought to indoctrinate their population with puts a major emphasis on rural life in a way that is not really in line with collectivization.

Although, the whole economy of the 3rd Reich would be so screwed that there really in no way of saying what will happen.

I don't really see the continuance of slave labor to the 60s as a realistic option. Especially as the slaves were prohibited from procreating as they were being worked to death.

You don't need to collectivize farms though to control the farmers. That was just soviet love for a inefficient concept. At the end of the day the Third Reich would still control the banks, set prices, demand production quotas, etc. You would be given the privilege of being a private farmer, but at the end of the day the state could lawfully seize everything you owned on behalf of the state. Just as the national socialists allowed you to own a factory, but they demanded party loyalty, and would execute you if you disobeyed or did anything to endanger the state. As an example look at how China controls its private business owners.

The Third Reich also had no specific plans to continue mass forced labor post war. That was primarily a measure taken as they had a lot of spare manpower because of all their prisoners, and there was work that was needed to be done. If the amount of slaves decreased the Germans were not forced to get more slaves. I know TNO is married to the idea of the slave state Third Reich, but for the actual nazis forced labor was just a pragmatic choice just as it had been for the Soviets and their gulags. The usage of soviet and maoist forced labor camps doesn't translate into the two states being slave based economies and slave states.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

Iron dome was just an example of a missile shield. You could also use the actual anti nuclear missile shield the US is maintaining as an example. The feasibility of building one in the late 70s kinda goes out the window in the game where Germany has the capability to start mass producing nukes.
Also if you were going to make a actual cold war game you wouldn't do it in HOI4. This is about giving options.. The best thing in games is to add options. So you could have a boring Cold War scenario where the US and Germany just try to outlast each other, or you can choose a different path and go full cowboy. Removing the freedom from the player to go guns blazing is TNO dev team autism.

Was the cold war boring though? An enormous amount happened despite the USA and USSR never launching ludicrous conventional naval invasions of each other. Going the other way and pandering to extremist (in this case ancom) fantasy is what the TNO team did with stuff like Sablin and the Siberian black army and it's awful, whereas the stuff that more resembles actual cold war content like crises between the superpowers and intelligence operations is more tolerable. And yet we have people here arguing that the real autism is removing the ability for extremists to project their irredentist power fantasies onto the game, when that's what makes the HOI4 community so dreadful in the first place.

 

[KiwiJoe]

Iron dome was just an example of a missile shield. You could also use the actual anti nuclear missile shield the US is maintaining as an example. The feasibility of building one in the late 70s kinda goes out the window in the game where Germany has the capability to start mass producing nukes.
Also if you were going to make a actual cold war game you wouldn't do it in HOI4. This is about giving options.. The best thing in games is to add options. So you could have a boring Cold War scenario where the US and Germany just try to outlast each other, or you can choose a different path and go full cowboy. Removing the freedom from the player to go guns blazing is TNO dev team autism.

Also the fact that it seems like in TNO's timeline, the Moon Landing happened much sooner in Germany, in 1962, as opposed to OTL's USA doing it in 1969.

Or you know, the fucking Mars Mission by the 1970s.

Alongside Atlantropa, it seems like technology in TNO's timeline is advanced by at least a decade or two compared to OTL. Wonder why. Hyperborean Magic.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

Also the fact that it seems like in TNO's timeline, the Moon Landing happened much sooner in Germany, in 1962, as opposed to OTL's USA doing it in 1969.

Or you know, the fucking Mars Mission by the 1970s.

So technology in TNO's timeline is no real excuse in my opinion.

The solution to that is just to rewrite the story so no one goes to Mars in the 1970s or the moon before the late 1960s (and certainly not Germany, which would be much poorer than the USA). Even today no country could actually make a missile shield to stop a strategic strike by a superpower, and this is over half a century later. The American missile shield projects could only stop an attack by a weak country like North Korea or Iran.

 

[Übertroon]

Was the cold war boring though? An enormous amount happened despite the USA and USSR never launching ludicrous conventional naval invasions of each other. Going the other way and pandering to extremist (in this case ancom) fantasy is what the TNO team did with stuff like Sablin and the Siberian black army and it's awful, whereas the stuff that more resembles actual cold war content like crises between the superpowers and intelligence operations is more tolerable. And yet we have people here arguing that the real autism is removing the ability for extremists to project their irredentist power fantasies onto the game, when that's what makes the HOI4 community so dreadful in the first place.

What's boring is only having the option of a traditional cold war. Like do you think the developers of Red Alert, World in Conflict, or Modern Warfare hated themselves for making a story where the Russians land in America without a nuclear annihilation? The thing about Sablin and the Siberian black army is that the power fantasy only goes one way. The US and Germany all turn into cluster fucks while the anarchists defy all logic. And even so it still remains a visual novel. Sablin would probably be easier to defend if the player had more options available to them when playing as other world powers.
Nobody complained about the more out there paths in HOI4, the reason why TNO is being shit on is because the in lore justifications are ludicrous and you're robbed of all player agency. I do not mind HOI4 being used as a political power fantasy, the problem has more to do with current year politics rather than how the game works. Victoria 2 never saw the current day shitfest even while letting you dominate the world as Sweden.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

What's boring is only having the option of a traditional cold war. Like do you think the developers of Red Alert, World in Conflict, or Modern Warfare hated themselves for making a story where the Russians land in America without a nuclear annihilation? The thing about Sablin and the Siberian black army is that the power fantasy only goes one way. The US and Germany all turn into cluster fucks while the anarchists defy all logic. And even so it still remains a visual novel. Sablin would probably be easier to defend if the player had more options available to them when playing as other world powers.
Nobody complained about the more out there paths in HOI4, the reason why TNO is being shit on is because the in lore justifications are ludicrous and you're robbed of all player agency. I do not mind HOI4 being used as a political power fantasy, the problem has more to do with current year politics rather than how the game works. Victoria 2 never saw the current day shitfest even while letting you dominate the world as Sweden.

I complained about some of the outlandish focus trees which were released in the base game, especially since these were at the expense of AI improvements, adding food as a resource, POW/slavery mechanics, accurately balancing factories, adding any sort of parliamentary or senate system, or market economies for non-totalitarian nations. All of these things would actually affect the major powers most people probably want to play rather than giving ludicrous fantasy paths for Bulgaria or Turkey or other countries which made little to no impact on the war. Victoria 2 did some of these things to some extent and also had a 100 year timescale in which it's a bit more understandable that a small country could get big (see Prussia 1836 to German Empire 1871, over a few decades). Great power Sweden might even have been possible over a century, though absolutely not world conquest. I'm concerned that in the years since Victoria 2 Paradox seems to have got worse, not better.

 

[Übertroon]

I complained about some of the outlandish focus trees which were released in the base game, especially since these were at the expense of AI improvements, adding food as a resource, POW/slavery mechanics, accurately balancing factories, adding any sort of parliamentary or senate system, or market economies for non-totalitarian nations. All of these things would actually affect the major powers most people probably want to play rather than giving ludicrous fantasy paths for Bulgaria or Turkey or other countries which made little to no impact on the war. Victoria 2 did some of these things to some extent and also had a 100 year timescale in which it's a bit more understandable that a small country could get big (see Prussia 1836 to German Empire 1871, over a few decades). Great power Sweden might even have been possible over a century, though absolutely not world conquest. I'm concerned that in the years since Victoria 2 Paradox seems to have got worse, not better.

The outlandish focus trees have likely very little to do with the underlying issues of HOI4 not being fixed. A focus tree takes minimal effort, the reason they haven't fixed the AI is for the same reason that they got no idea how Victoria 2 actually works anymore. And I still don't think paradox not fixing their shit is an excuse to remove player agency. The worst part about TNO is the railroading, the trap paths, and the nagging if you don't go wholesome 100 chungus