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

[Serbian Peacekeepers]

This will upset the Finnish internet nationalist and the "Wehraboo"(the kind of kids who listen to Sabaton and watch Simple History) crowd, whose objections will be swiftly and ruthlessly silenced by the devs when they point out that the SS was the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party and they did war crimes, after which the devs can once again claim moral superiority.

Expecting HOI4 mod devs to get anything right is a lost cause, which is a shame since Lauri is a really interesting guy who could make for a interesting leader for finland, a man who has ties to the Nazis but doesn't care at all about their racial policies, shame he'll be wasted as a throw away Fascist/Pro Nazi leader that will do his legacy nothing but harm.

 

[glue eater]

Apperantly Lauri Törni, Larry Thorne, the soldier of three armies etc. is not only in TNO but also a potential leader of Finland!

The wholesome chungus communist leader of Finland, Aimo Aaltonen kept a portrait of Lavrentiy Beria in his work room. He was literally like "fuck yeah gulags and NKVD rock".

Expecting HOI4 mod devs to get anything right is a lost cause, which is a shame since Lauri is a really interesting guy who could make for a interesting leader for finland, a man who has ties to the Nazis but doesn't care at all about their racial policies, shame he'll be wasted as a throw away Fascist/Pro Nazi leader that will do his legacy nothing but harm.

Even Wikipedia that is anything but impartial admits:

1,408 Finns were recruited into the Waffen-SS and,[30] although recruitment had initially focused on the Swedish-speaking population of Finland,[23] only about 12% of the volunteers were Swedish-speaking.[18] On average, the recruits were 21 years old,[7] and held a collective ideology of Finnish nationalism, revanchism, and a Finnish form of Lutheran revivalism.[31][32] The recruits' motives included a desire for German training, which belied possible economic advancement immediately through the SS and in the future through the Finnish Army, and pro-German, anti-Russian sentiment.[33][34] In a report for the National Archives of Finland, Finnish historian Lars Westerlund found that antisemitism was not among the primary motives for the Finnish volunteers.[35]

As the goal of the Finnish government with regard to the volunteer unit was to confirm Finland's alliance with Germany and create a group of Finnish soldiers with German training rather than confirm Finnish allegiance to Germany or to Nazism,[7][21][27] the Finnish government supervised recruitment. Helsinki and Riekki, seeking to diminish the influence of Finnish far-right groups in the unit and Finnish politics,[21] recruited in all areas of Finland and carried out background checks on all applicants. Communists and members of far-right groups were excluded,[36] and Riekki broke up attempts by far-right Finnish groups such as the Organisation of National Socialists and Front Soldier League to interfere in recruitment[21]

Most of the SS men didnt belong to any far-right group, but belonged to National Coalition or Agrarian League. When Lapland War broke out the former SS men fought against Germans in Finnish Army. Granted, a small amount defected to Germans and continued fighting until 1945. But there is no indication Törni belonged to IKL or any nazi group despite of extensive research. Most likely Törni joined SS because his hometown was annexed by USSR and his dad had been held hostage by the communists so he was ideologically very anti-communist and wanted to fight after Finland signed peace agreement with USSR. Finnish nationalists had fought side by side with Germans in WW1 and Finnish civil war, so the SS was seen as continuation of this tradition.

 

[Moja Zemlja]

Something I never understand about Torni being in TNO is that surely in TNO he isn't relevant? He's known because of his excellent service in WWII and being the "three armies" guy but in TNO Barborosa was a success and Torni would've never had the chance to make a name for himself like he in OTL and wouldn't have to defect to Germany or flee to America.

 

[glue eater]

Something I never understand about Torni being in TNO is that surely in TNO he isn't relevant? He's known because of his excellent service in WWII and being the "three armies" guy but in TNO Barborosa was a success and Torni would've never had the chance to make a name for himself like he in OTL and wouldn't have to defect to Germany or flee to America.

Törni was a knight of the Mannerheim Cross for his accomplishments in Continuation War/Operation Barbarossa, in Finland he's still a war hero for his exploits in the 40s. His unit for example fought two days straight in Seesjärvi and destroyed two entire enemy regiments with only 30 casualties. He was the only Finnish commander to have a Soviet bounty of some millions of marks for his head. He would definitely still be a hero in Finland, I think, even without serving in the US army or his latter stint in the SS.

 

[Grave Ghost]

I could get the supposed removal of the Yockster if they added a civil war or rebellion or something to get Fascist America, but apparently that's too "unrealistic" even though it would be in the interests of the Nazis to at the very least have America too focused on internal strife to oppose them or even get a new ally if the rebels succeed. It's a damn shame too, that earlier Yockey leak where you essentially go Emperor Palpatine mode and subvert the American system seemeded really intriguing.

 

[Slightly Apathetic Mario]

Just saying, but I'm getting sick of fucking tired of my YouTube feed being full of faggot ass "custom super events", 99% of them are just retarded political LARPers trying to fantasy about their "ideal world" whether they're right or left wing "guys hecking based wholesome Socialist insert country/leader here" or "le based insert failed SS like dictatorship that will own le libtards", Infact just saying that 90% of all Alt History shit in general nowadays has a political bias from it's author/creator, from books to movies to games/mods, all of it shitted up by faggots wanting to LARP. Fuck right wing and left wing LARPers both of them, they ruined alt history shit for me.
Orwell was right about this type of shit.

 

[OMCK]

Atlantropa (it harmed the ability of the Mediterranean nation writers to craft a strong narrative)

Never did I buy this shit. Forgive the rant, but I will say this in full now that the topic of the content guillotine is on again. It may also give some perspective to people coming in, or coming back, just lately. The problem with Atlantropa was created after, and not as a result of, Atlantropa itself. When they began to worry about presumably lost realism and heavy eccentricity, one of the trademark features of the mod became a target of creative harrassment. This was roughly argued in two ways:

1. That Atlantropa was physically impossible and that,
2. In being so, it removed the ability of the devs to bring in better stories and backdrops.

The issue with the first point is that fiction levels the ground swiftly when it comes to disbelief about reality, whether it concerns particle physics or monetary economics. As long as stories, in line with their own tone and concept, stay consistent within themselves and make sensible use of their content, there is little demand for them to make much "external sense." TNO never intended to flex knowledge, actual or speculative, about damming the Mediterranean. It was a sign of German ultranationalistic overambition and a visible way to show Europe as permanently scarred.

That this was unrealistic or downright stupid in terms of civil engineering doesn't seem to me more laughable than Russia becoming a superpower without holding Western Russia over 10 years from the standpoint of macroeconomics or political history. The Iberian Union exists as anything other than a mutual defense project. Italy has any ability to hold influence in the Mediterranean. Heydrich of all people enters into some Marvel movie plot against Himmler. Should this not suffice, Israel comes into being as a national Jewish state in a scenario where the Holocaust must've been more barbaric, Germany more powerful, and Zionism delegitimized all because Italy, somehow, sponsors and enacts it. And these are only the more involved criticisms. Why won't the fact that Russia can be unified by political illiterates ring any alarms anywhere? If one can justify all of this nonsense as "Russia is that traumatized," "Portugal and Spain were so scared"... I do not know why I should, in a work of fiction that is furthermore primarily political, military, social or historical, lose it over environmental engineering.

And yet I very much like that Israel can occur this way. I very much like delusional unifiers. I very much liked Atlantropa. All of these points had an immense ability to carry a good story. Some already had done so. They did not remove Atlantropa because it was a clear threat to the mod. They removed it because it became a problem to their loose intentions to overhaul it. I do believe Atlantropa may have made some ideas less plausible. That this was apparently bankrupting the whole team of writers is either an exaggeration or a testament to their amateurishness. Atlantropa became a problem only in the sect within a sect that those channels for directors, leads and writers must be. When the discussion was brought up, in the devlogs and the subreddit threads, they were already convinced enough that no talk could get them to flinch.

So many more things are on the chopping block. If the NPP gets cut, and I say this as someone who has never enjoyed the US in TNO or any of its designs, I'm not counting on them to redeem that loss. Like Atlantropa, the NPP is simply distinctive and tasteful. I do not know if the devs understand that, when they take from what is given and accepted, they better give back doubly. That is why I have faith in new content, and not revisions.​

 

[EpicGamerMoment]

Just saying, but I'm getting sick of fucking tired of my YouTube feed being full of faggot ass "custom super events", 99% of them are just retarded political LARPers trying to fantasy about their "ideal world" whether they're right or left wing "guys hecking based wholesome Socialist insert country/leader here" or "le based insert failed SS like dictatorship that will own le libtards", Infact just saying that 90% of all Alt History shit in general nowadays has a political bias from it's author/creator, from books to movies to games/mods, all of it shitted up by faggots wanting to LARP. Fuck right wing and left wing LARPers both of them, they ruined alt history shit for me.
Orwell was right about this type of shit.

Indeed an overwhelming majority of alt history is trash. Being into alt history for over a decade has made me come to this conclusion. It's even worse now with almost every alt history scenario being a circlejerk about the author's political ideology.

And yet I very much like that Israel can occur this way. I very much like delusional unifiers. I very much liked Atlantropa. All of these points had an immense ability to carry a good story. Some already had done so. They did not remove Atlantropa because it was a clear threat to the mod. They removed it because it became a problem to their loose intentions to overhaul it. I do believe Atlantropa may have made some ideas less plausible. That this was apparently bankrupting the whole team of writers is either an exaggeration or a testament to their amateurishness. Atlantropa became a problem only in the sect within a sect that those channels for directors, leads and writers must be. When the discussion was brought up, in the devlogs and the subreddit threads, they were already convinced enough that no talk could get them to flinch.

So many more things are on the chopping block. If the NPP gets cut, and I say this as someone who has never enjoyed the US in TNO or any of its designs, I'm not counting on them to redeem that loss. Like Atlantropa, the NPP is simply distinctive and tasteful. I do not know if the devs understand that, when they take from what is given and accepted, they better give back doubly. That is why I have faith in new content, and not revisions.

My theory is that they removed atlantropa because it prevented them from making parallels to IRL. Same reason why they would remove the NPP as it would prevent parallels with real life American politics of the 60s and 70s. Since the TNO writing team loves nothing more than importing real life historical events and trends and giving it an Axis victory paint job. I have a feeling they won't release any new content until all of TNO is reworked top to bottom. They must REALLY hate Panzer.

 

[OMCK]

Indeed an overwhelming majority of alt history is trash. Being into alt history for over a decade has made me come to this conclusion. It's even worse now with almost every alt history scenario being a circlejerk about the author's political ideology.

My theory is that they removed atlantropa because it prevented them from making parallels to IRL. Same reason why they would remove the NPP as it would prevent parallels with real life American politics of the 60s and 70s. Since the TNO writing team loves nothing more than importing real life historical events and trends and giving it an Axis victory paint job. I have a feeling they won't release any new content until all of TNO is reworked top to bottom. They must REALLY hate Panzer.

The worst part about this is how it makes the mod formulaic. When 20th-century events aren't merely cues but in fact the actual substance of the narrative, you can basically deduce most of the content's direction and value from that referential fact. This won't only make it easy to anticipate, but it will also highlight and worsen whatever parts of it are coarse-grained and poorly put to analogy. Finally, because the TNO timeline simply demands unprecedented developments, some of these analogies will simply be underwhelming or hardly new in style. Basically, things will be predictable, mismatching and creatively weak.

No case exemplifies this more than the South African War. The insistence on a Vietnam parallel completely trashes it as a central event: you can guess it will be a rough war of varying interventionism between superpowers which will mean a military issue for the Germans* and a hard matter of public opinion for the Americans (predictability), you will see immediately how the parallel falls short in that the South African War would have far more credibility and moral zeal than the Vietnam War for the Americans as it would be war against scorned fascism and genocide (mismatch), and finally you can see how it becomes unsatisfying that the war doesn't do more for the world and for its originality other than hammering in the themes that are already mastered by anti-war literature and film that took Vietnam as their angle (creative weakness).

So there you have it. This whole "making parallels" shit bankrupts the referenced event, the mod, and the role of that event in the mod all at once. Not to say TNO wouldn't do well to perform references. The SAW is actually filled with materials for a completely original take that is at most reminiscent of Vietnam, in fact. It's been a gamble so far whether the mod manages to stay original and tasteful while sometimes downright copying historical timelines, and I have no idea why the developers would think such a hit-or-miss technique is worthy of being the usual go-to, if they do.

*Technically Speer, and I think Bormann as well, get a laughably simple minigame to "manage" public opinion and escalation in the SAW, but this might as well not exist considering how deep the US has to go into it.

 

[EpicGamerMoment]

No case exemplifies this more than the South African War. The insistence on a Vietnam parallel completely trashes it as a central event: you can guess it will be a rough war of varying interventionism between superpowers which will mean a military issue for the Germans* and a hard matter of public opinion for the Americans (predictability), you will see immediately how the parallel falls short in that the South African War would have far more credibility and moral zeal than the Vietnam War for the Americans as it would be war against scorned fascism and genocide (mismatch), and finally you can see how it becomes unsatisfying that the war doesn't do more for the world and for its originality other than hammering in the themes that are already mastered by anti-war literature and film that took Vietnam as their angle (creative weakness).

The SAW-Vietnam paralell is the worst one. One of them was a foreign civil war where the US committed warcrimes and lost tens of thousands of troops. The other is a war of annhilation against the last democracy in Africa by a genocidal regime. Also it doesn't really count as a "proxy war" when Germany spends most of it undergoing a civil war.

I could get the supposed removal of the Yockster if they added a civil war or rebellion or something to get Fascist America, but apparently that's too "unrealistic" even though it would be in the interests of the Nazis to at the very least have America too focused on internal strife to oppose them or even get a new ally if the rebels succeed. It's a damn shame too, that earlier Yockey leak where you essentially go Emperor Palpatine mode and subvert the American system seemeded really intriguing.

If there's going to be an American Nazi president it should've been Rockwell or Koehl or someone actually involved with the American Nazis IRL . I don't see any reason why Rockwell was removed in favor of Yockey besides Panzer flexing about his knowledge of obscure Neo-Fascists.

 

[Moja Zemlja]

Törni was a knight of the Mannerheim Cross for his accomplishments in Continuation War/Operation Barbarossa, in Finland he's still a war hero for his exploits in the 40s. His unit for example fought two days straight in Seesjärvi and destroyed two entire enemy regiments with only 30 casualties. He was the only Finnish commander to have a Soviet bounty of some millions of marks for his head. He would definitely still be a hero in Finland, I think, even without serving in the US army or his latter stint in the SS.

I'm aware of this but in TNO the Soviets surrendered at the start of 1942, all the notable stuff in his career happened after that. It seems to me they chose Torni not because he's a recognisable name and they either didn't know or care enough about Finland to actually put the effort in choosing more realistic people.

 

[Skookum Jim]

Holy shit this thread is wild. I play a fair amount of HOI4 and while I knew that TNO had undergone some difficulties in regards to management, I didn't know it was this fucking bad. Never played it after the first release on account of it being eye cancer, buggy as fuck, and 0 fun outside of russian warlords. My question is how did a mod created by a former stormfront user to stealthily promote nazi apologism (forgive me if i'm off base the timeline is fucking confusing) turn into a mod run by dumbass commies for dumbass commies? Are there any mods left that aren't shit? I used to love Kaiserreich before the devs went on a simultaneous Realism and Leftism wank streak and basically ruined everything fun about it, Millenium dawn went from an easy way to kill a few hours map painting to a bloated economics simulator tacked onto a grand strategy game, since the guy who made red world died the fan fork has done basically fuck all to actually make good on his memory, my last hope is Pax Brittanica, but that one is so early in it's lifespan that it's impossible to tell how it'll go.

 

[Bloudwulf]

It seems to me they chose Torni not because he's a recognisable name and they either didn't know or care enough about Finland to actually put the effort in choosing more realistic people.

Or they did it purely to smear him.

 

[whothefuck]

I used to love Kaiserreich before the devs went on a simultaneous Realism and Leftism wank streak and basically ruined everything fun about it.

I havent played KR in ages, what have they changed? I remember them doing something with Romania but I can't remember exactly.

 

[Moja Zemlja]

I havent played KR in ages, what have they changed? I remember them doing something with Romania but I can't remember exactly.

Germany no longer owns the Suez or has Mediterranean possessions, Italy is now split four ways not two, China basically got completely reworked, Serbia got a rework to be republican at the start, Poland just had it's rework with one of Wilhelm II's sons in power, there is a Russia rework in the pipeline where Savinkov is already the Vozhd, and there's a Ukraine rework where Skoropadsky rules.

There's certainly stuff I've missed too.

 

[whothefuck]

Germany no longer owns the Suez or has Mediterranean possessions, Italy is now split four ways not two, China basically got completely reworked, Serbia got a rework to be republican at the start, Poland just had it's rework with one of Wilhelm II's sons in power, there is a Russia rework in the pipeline where Savinkov is already the Vozhd, and there's a Ukraine rework where Skoropadsky rules.

There's certainly stuff I've missed too.

I remember the china update at least, i enjoyed that. But jesus they're changing a lot- how many paths have been lost already?

 

[Skookum Jim]

I havent played KR in ages, what have they changed? I remember them doing something with Romania but I can't remember exactly.

• Removed the mad baron from mongolia
• made nearly all countries with leftie paths be your bog standard ass Social Democracy or full on communism, even though communism was discredited in this timeline by the failure of the russian revolution and syndicalism rising to take it's place (my theory is that there aren't very many real life syndicalists that the devs can insert, so they just default to the real life options for lack of creativity, even though it's an alternate history mod and it's perfectly fine to change people's ideologies, or just make people up, but what do I know)
• Dev work get's done on small countries fairly regularly, but germany still has a vanilla-tier shit focus tree that prevents it from interacting with the world in any meaningful way, German East Asia has more content than Germany right now, and it's main conflict is a not-vietnam war that means precisely fuck and all in the grand scheme of things.
• In general removed a lot of the wackier alt-history stuff from the mod in the service of realism, even though the entire fucking point of the mod was that anyone and everyone got a shot to be important.
• A continued insistence to keep the cabinet system even though it massively slows down the game for no discernible benefit. Most countries don't even let you pick your own cabinet, if that was the case I could defend keeping it for the sake of autism, but as it stands its a nearly useless system that provably creates performance issues.
• A general lack of focus. It's not clear how the new content they've been adding is supposed to align with the central conflict of the mod. The second weltkrieg is supposed to be a world war, which is either 3 way or with the Entente and the Reichspakt teaming up to fuck on the syndies, but with all the new content, it doens't really allow the countries to actually participate in the second weltkrieg, so that war ends up being more of a regional war with inflated self importance, when in older versions (and i'm sure in the original creator's design vision), you could have a resurgent bharatiya commune doing naval landings on the coast of china, contested by the Ostasien Gesselshcaft and Australian navy, while canada uses a reichspakt aligned ireland as a staging ground to retake the home island, and the low countries become the battleground for the mobile armies of Germany and France, not so anymore.

 

[Clanner Scum]

The turbofucking of Italy is my biggest gripe. "Inntizer launches a new Crusade against Mussolini's Totalist RSI" was kino. Now it's just "basic bitch republic, succdems, rump Papal state, angry monarchists". Same as every other balkanized state in the game.

 

[EpicGamerMoment]

My question is how did a mod created by a former stormfront user to stealthily promote nazi apologism (forgive me if i'm off base the timeline is fucking confusing) turn into a mod run by dumbass commies for dumbass commies? Are there any mods left that aren't shit?

Panzer is a reformed former Nazi so I'm not sure if he started making the mod with that intent (It was for Victoria II and started development in 2014 before switching to Hoi4 in 2016/2017). Panzer's intent with the mod was to hammer in the message that extremism is bad and that both left and right wing extremism lead to ruin. And that Nazism wouldn't work and is fundamentally evil. Which is why the team was full of leftists. After Panzer left the team started De-Panzerification which I was optimistic about as it would mean the removal of some retarded stuff (Like some paths being doomed to fail a la Bormann Germany). But it basically resulted in the mod slowly but surely becoming a commie wank. Some examples since Panzer left:

-There being twice as much communist and socialist subideologies than fascist and nazi ones. Despite 2/3 of the earth being ruled by Nazis and Fascists in some way. (Some of them are straight up retarded like "Maoism" and "Mao Zedong Thought" being two different ideologies lmao)
-The Italy rework which would include only 4 Fascist paths but like a billion commie ones. And Italian commies existing AT ALL despite 4 decades of Fascist dominance
-Gus Hall being reworked to be more "complex" even though the guy was a hardline Marxist-Leninist and was originally touted as the second worst American president after the literal Nazi. One of the devs made a cope post trying to justify the change and writing paragraphs about how Gus Hall was just a wholesome chummy commie and a fun guy to hang out with.

Some leakers suggest these are done at the urging of the commie infested Italian dev team who are the most powerful "Faction" within the TNO devspace but it's not confirmed.

As for mods that aren't shit I'm currently looking at Der Bruderkrieg and Mittelmachte. They are both alt history mods set in the 1930s. DBK already released, it's pretty fun. Reminds me of the good old days where gameplay and player choice mattered more than "narrative".

 

[Homoturk]

Atleast the dumbass superevents made me find some banger music.