Let's Sperg Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkreig - Let's try not to destroy America edition

[Strelok]

So, some of you may remember my HoI4 playthrough ending like all my other LPs did, with showstopping bugs dooming it to failure. However, this time I have something that will hopefully be both short enough to avoid them, while being engaging enough to be readable.

I'm talking about the mod that more or less saves HoI IV from being a bland pile of garbage with DLC nations. Kaiserreich.

Kaiserreich is an alt-history mod where ww1 ended in German victory due to the Kaiser blocking the resumption of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare, keeping america out of the war. Unlike most What if Germany Won WW1 wankfests however, Germany didn't win a massive resounding victory, but instead the war dragged on till 1919 technically the treaty was signed in 1921, but the ceasefire was in 19) leaving Europe as a whole in shambles. Austria-Hungary still falls apart, Western Europe falls to a forgotten breed of less totalitarian socialism called syndacalism, and the Whites prevail in the civil war.

While many nations saw their fate change as a result of the Weltkreig as WW1 is known as, the most interesting for a LP is America. America is in shambles as a result of a second term by Hoover, and the rise of socialism and Huey Long's "Totally not socialism 'share our wealth' program' that has gained popularity among the rural poor in the south as opposed to the syndacalism of the working poor of the north. The election of 1936 is coming soon, and america seems on the complete brink of collapse.

For this LP we will be keeping the mods to a minimum to maintain stability. The only mods will be Kaiserreich itself, and frontline AI mod to fix HOI IVs terrible battle AI. On the cosmetic side, a mod that makes the UI buttons different colors to stand out better, a mod that changes some flags to look better, and a music mod that you all obviously will be oblivious to.

Anyway, without further beating around the bush, let's start this shitshow. We don't actually have much to do before the election, so I'll just point out any events and our starting position.

To our north is the Dominion of Canada, where the British government in Exile is located, from which the dominions are still run.

A market liberal economy, they are perhaps the closest to a friend we have at the moment, unlike our more bothersome southern neighbor.

Zapista won the Mexican civil war in the KR timeline, and as such they are a mix of socialist idelogies, with the ever popular syndicalism winning out.

Europe meanwhile is mostly under the control of Germany's "Mittleeuropa" faction, but the Third Internationale, lead by france. They tend to be the Hitler in this mod, as their demand for the return of Alsace-Loraine tends to be the 'Danzig or War' of the KR timeline.

As you can see, the south of Italy is under the control of Syndicalists as well, but the northern side is nominally still run by the legislature, but in actuality takes orders from the Papacy.

Anyway, our starting research is geared towords infantry heavy armies, which is what we will need if things pop off. We also are mainly training National Guard, as they require only infantry equipment.

We also get our scenario flavor box.

TLDR: Hoover sucks, socialists in the north, people who pretend they aren't socialist in the south, and the economy is still as healthy as 600goingon700.

We get some economic news however in the next month, surely this will solve our economic woes!

....oh.

Well I'm sure the people of america are taking things in stride and not at all going full retard.

This was a real event, although in reality it happened a year later.

Meanwhile in Europe, the dastardly syndies are plotting, possibly against america. This is made clear by the horrible divergence from our timeline.

Britian meanwhile might brexit from itself 80 years early. This is actually odd, as usually I see Mosely and his cronies try to Stalanism the isles, with predictable results.

Another real world event greets us, the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti. However, despite giving a choice, it really doesn't change all that much. As such, they fry in my timelines. This is followed shortly thereafter by the great heat wave, which puts us in even more shit.

And now the final domino has fallen for things to go pear shaped. John Reed is now in charge of socialism in america. He has personal enmity with senator Huey Long, and will only agitate him further. In real life Reed passed away in 1920 due to being in Russia while falling ill. However in the KR timeline, Russia isn't a complete shithole at that time, and as such he is able to get adaquate medical care and not die of typhus like a chump.

Finally however, we hit the turning point. The election is rapidly approaching, and governemnt control of arious parts of the nation are rapidly breaking down. Thankfully, a true american hero, and not at all insane meglomaniac, Douglas MacArthur, volunteers to take control of America using the army, and restore order. But don't worry. He'll give power back once he's done. Pinky Swear.

So, which do we do? Hold our elections and risk civil disorder, or invite the guy who almost nuked China in real life to run our nation possibly forever as a god king.

 

[NIGGO KILLA]

Doug did nothing wrong

so let him run things for awhile

 

[CWCchange]

Douglas MacArthur, so commies get Shoah'd if they come back, and to keep the chinks in line because Yellow Peril.

 

[Transvaalan]

the main problem with this particular Alt-History, and the "Syndicalists" bit tipped me off, is there wouldn't be a Civil War like that. Not even remotely.

It would be more likely that the KKK becomes an actual political party and takes open power, gaining ten or twenty times the recruits or more as historical, then numbering in the tens of millions of active members.

The other issue is the the NorthEast at the time, or just the North, part of America contained something like 65-70% of the population.

And literally everyone was of some level of highly racist. There were race riots that happened in this area and the Whites went completely unpunished. So any and all extremist parties that would rise and take power would have a mandate to expell the Jews, Blacks, and because this is pre-WWII silliness, possibly Irish, Italian, etc.

So basically American Proto-Nazi's. There is no Civil War worth naming, and even if there were? It ends in a few years.

 

[ICametoLurk]

CIVIL WAR

LET THE STREETS RUN RED WITH BLOOD

 

[Strelok]

the main problem with this particular Alt-History, and the "Syndicalists" bit tipped me off, is there wouldn't be a Civil War like that. Not even remotely.

It would be more likely that the KKK becomes an actual political party and takes open power, gaining ten or twenty times the recruits or more as historical, then numbering in the tens of millions of active members.

The other issue is the the NorthEast at the time, or just the North, part of America contained something like 65-70% of the population.

And literally everyone was of some level of highly racist. There were race riots that happened in this area and the Whites went completely unpunished. So any and all extremist parties that would rise and take power would have a mandate to expell the Jews, Blacks, and because this is pre-WWII silliness, possibly Irish, Italian, etc.

So basically American Proto-Nazi's. There is no Civil War worth naming, and even if there were? It ends in a few years.

The devs have more or less said that the 2nd ACW (as well as the partition of india) isn't plausible, but is more to give those nations SOMETHING to do in the greater scope of the mod, and to prevent the US from being a "this side wins" button once ww2 breaks out.

Anyway, ontpoint, on September 29, 1936, General Douglas MacArthur announced that the military has suspended elections and dissolved congress, replacing them with a combined council of military leaders and industry titans.

A month of uneasy peace passes in America, as MacArthur continues his agenda to root out the "enemies of democracy" in america. However, on the 15th of November, on the eve of when the elections would be held, he instead declares a permanent state of martial law across the entirety of the nation untill the crisis can be weathered out. This announcement, combined with mass arrests of CSA and AF sympathizers, provokes outrage across the nation.

On 23rd of October, a general strike organized by Jack Reed escelates into open fighting between his supporters and the US military. Seizing the public outcry, Reed declares the MacArthur regime illegitimate, and the CSA claims home rule in the rust belt. Macarthur angrily rebuks any attempt at diplomacy, and orders the loyalist parts of the US Army to suppress the rebellion.

Huey Long meanwhile, declares home rule in the South. The Second American Civil War is now underway.

The combatants:

Now for those wondering, there IS a way to avoid the civil war, but it's a very specific chain of events. But boiled down, it involves.

• Electing Curtis. Garnier will attempt a Buchanan style compromise that goes nowhere, while electing Reed or Long will either make the other flip their shit, or just cause Doug to go "fuck this" and overthrow the government anyway.
• Invite Reed to negotiations. You are presented with the opportunity to sit down wither either, both, or none. You need to listen to the commie because
• You then need to reassure Long that you'll be willing to listen to him later. He's somewhat more of a reasonable chap, being a career politician and all
• Then you need to give concessions to Reed. This would anger Long greatly except
• You then are approached by MacArthur, who again is being a gigantic asshole. He proposes assassinating Long.
• Do it
• With Reed placated, and Long's disparate political coalition without a leader to rally behind falls apart to infighting.

 

[ICametoLurk]

Make Every Man a King!

 

[Strelok]

Make Every Man a King!

Huey is doomed, nearly all the factories are in the rustbelt and the pitiful bit of the eastern seaboard we as MacArthur still control. Plus some in Cali. But 9/10 times we'll lose the west coast to to the horrible political ideology of "Fuck this shit, you guys have fun with that war thing, we're gonna sit this out". So it's gonna get really rough.

 

[NIGGO KILLA]

Shoulda allied with america first

 

[Transvaalan]

The devs have more or less said that the 2nd ACW (as well as the partition of india) isn't plausible, but is more to give those nations SOMETHING to do in the greater scope of the mod, and to prevent the US from being a "this side wins" button once ww2 breaks out.

Anyway, ontpoint, on September 29, 1936, General Douglas MacArthur announced that the military has suspended elections and dissolved congress, replacing them with a combined council of military leaders and industry titans.

A month of uneasy peace passes in America, as MacArthur continues his agenda to root out the "enemies of democracy" in america. However, on the 15th of November, on the eve of when the elections would be held, he instead declares a permanent state of martial law across the entirety of the nation untill the crisis can be weathered out. This announcement, combined with mass arrests of CSA and AF sympathizers, provokes outrage across the nation.

On 23rd of October, a general strike organized by Jack Reed escelates into open fighting between his supporters and the US military. Seizing the public outcry, Reed declares the MacArthur regime illegitimate, and the CSA claims home rule in the rust belt. Macarthur angrily rebuks any attempt at diplomacy, and orders the loyalist parts of the US Army to suppress the rebellion.

Huey Long meanwhile, declares home rule in the South. The Second American Civil War is now underway.

The combatants:

Now for those wondering, there IS a way to avoid the civil war, but it's a very specific chain of events. But boiled down, it involves.

• Electing Curtis. Garnier will attempt a Buchanan style compromise that goes nowhere, while electing Reed or Long will either make the other flip their shit, or just cause Doug to go "fuck this" and overthrow the government anyway.
• Invite Reed to negotiations. You are presented with the opportunity to sit down wither either, both, or none. You need to listen to the commie because
• You then need to reassure Long that you'll be willing to listen to him later. He's somewhat more of a reasonable chap, being a career politician and all
• Then you need to give concessions to Reed. This would anger Long greatly except
• You then are approached by MacArthur, who again is being a gigantic asshole. He proposes assassinating Long.
• Do it
• With Reed placated, and Long's disparate political coalition without a leader to rally behind falls apart to infighting.

There being only one winning path, and catering to a Commie, means this is just another shitty fanfic.

Especially presuming the Bolsheviks Jews would even be able to gather that much support. America isn't Czarist Russia. So very very different.

 

[millais]

Since there's no generale HOI thread, I thought I may as well ask here. Is there any mods that are good at making AI competent at amphibious landings/naval campaigns? Usually I don't care since I didn't have much interest in theatres involving the typical big naval powers, but I am going to give it a go some time.

 

[Strelok]

One more update for the day, which we can call, Jesus Christ Edward VIII can suck my dick.

This fucker.

Fuck you.

Fuck you.

FUCK YOU.

Kaiser save me.

But seriously, my plan is going to be to pacify California and Long into an alliance and crush the commies, and then once thats done turn on them and kill them with all the factories I just took. The Canada issue will probably solve itself when they do something stupid because the HoI IV ai doesn't actually consider the context of their focus trees or event choices beyond a weighted percentage, so they'll probably take the idiotic choice to try to retake the UK despite the AI sucking ass at naval invasions (sorry @millais aint no mods for that), or got forbid team up with the kaiser and get sucked into a reverse ww2, meaning they now have THREE (Japan isn't aligned with any europeans, but tends to take alt-ww2 as an excuse to do the same shit they did in real life, namely murder China and steal colonial islands) naval invasions they need to pull off.

 

[Strelok]

Edit: Well, New England didn't happen apparently, the CSA made them back off I guess or i forgot to save and the AI didnt pick the same choices this time, so instead it's being rolled over by communists because all our military is in the other part of america.

We start off with more bad news though, as the south joins the rest of the south. We also have issues in the Appalachians which we deal with by force.

Thankfully our politicking pays off, as the Pacific States throw their armies behind us against the commies.

However, Long rejects any attempt at negotiation, declaring that he will not abandon the american people in their time of need.

Our order of battle is quite simple as well.

Omar Bradley has been tasked with planning the recapture of Chicago, one of our nations key cities. Eisenhower will be given the task of simply holding the line against the Union States to the south. Meanwhile, Douglas MacArthur HERO OF AMERICA will lead the assault on the communist heartland itself.

You'll notice by the flags that various european nations have thrown token amounts of volunteers over. We also have frontage issues against the south we will need to wrap up quickly. The biggest threat to us however is these fuckers.

Mexico tends to decide to steal land from America in the ACW, usually supported by the French bastards using them as a cudgel.

Also semi related to us, with the US in a civil war, the whole "you fuckers play nice or we're gonna burn your entire country down" thing isn't taken so seriously in central and south america anymore. The least important war in the entire game kicks off as a result.

Yeah you guys have fun with that. We do strike upon something VERY fortunate however. I figured out how to solve our frontage issue with a feature that I don't remember existing, or maybe I never used becuase normally it's suicide.

Instantly raise divisions. See, as long as we have the material, we can shove week old recruits into combat without any semblance of basic training. So 207,000 men are given draft slips and given under the command of the esteemed general George Marshall, and deployed to the west border of Long's America.

Unfair? Maybe. An Exploit? Probably. Don't care. He will need to work fast though. It's Janurary '37 and we're already starting to lose ground in our east coast.

On Feburary 3rd, 1937, the US Army finally undertakes it's first offensive, the Louisanna Campaign, looking to take Huey Long's home state to demoralize the Union States. Over a month of heavy fighting sees the Army advance only as far as the river, but on 16th March, Omar Bradley begins his campaign to retake Chicago.

But disaster strikes on the 6th of Paril. The Commies and Fascists finally join their lines in Misourri, cutting our armies off from each other. They are technically in a state or war with each other however, so maybe this will help us?

So, any suggestions from here? Do we keep going with the plan to push west to east and just hope the east coast armies can hold their ground for a year? Or cancel our attacks and redeploy to rescue our trapped armies?

 

[Jan_Hus]

Man the Kaiserreich mod for Vicky II puts the US in a much more pleasant situation... this is just grim...

 

[Organic Fapcup]

Is the CSA still absurdly unbalanced? One time I did the Civil War they took more losses than the AUS and the Federal Government combined. Nowadays I just periodically dismiss all of their armies to simulate the problems of a starvation-based economic system.

As for advice, chances are you're going to lose Washington. You might want to deal with Huey first, and then focus on Reed.

There being only one winning path, and catering to a Commie, means this is just another shitty fanfic.

Especially presuming the Bolsheviks Jews would even be able to gather that much support. America isn't Czarist Russia. So very very different.

It's more like the CSA wins because they have far larger industry and population compared to the other factions in the war.

 

[BadGoy1488]

so....uh not to try and necro here, but can we talk about how phenomenal Kaiserreich is? with all the new updates since who have you kiwis been playing as? have you guys seen the sick ass merch they have for Kaiserreich now? (which all supports the devs). i have not tried the Scandinavians since they have been added. America has become actually fun to play now, and the Commi...i mean Syndicalists have been pretty fleshed out too. although i still think its bull shit its nect to impossible to add the soviet rebellion into your faction.

Is the CSA still absurdly unbalanced? One time I did the Civil War they took more losses than the AUS and the Federal Government combined. Nowadays I just periodically dismiss all of their armies to simulate the problems of a starvation-based economic system.

As for advice, chances are you're going to lose Washington. You might want to deal with Huey first, and then focus on Reed.



It's more like the CSA wins because they have far larger industry and population compared to the other factions in the war.

they are not as bad now. they can get a shit load of troops really quick compared to their united states counterparts. but it seems like mexico attacking the PSA is much more rare, and the AUS and PSA team up with the "Deal with the Devil" political decision fairly often. its certainly more of a crap shoot to see if CSA wins out now. which i prefer because imo the whole "luck of the draw" aspect with each playthough keeps me coming back as much as it pisses me off

 

[Organic Fapcup]

they are not as bad now. they can get a shit load of troops really quick compared to their united states counterparts. but it seems like mexico attacking the PSA is much more rare, and the AUS and PSA team up with the "Deal with the Devil" political decision fairly often. its certainly more of a crap shoot to see if CSA wins out now. which i prefer because imo the whole "luck of the draw" aspect with each playthough keeps me coming back as much as it pisses me off

Yeah, the Civil War's a lot more balanced now thanks to recent updates. The CSA still gets the most troops and industry but that's balanced out by them being weak militias and having worse generals. Mexico doesn't do anything until the Weltkrieg anymore unless the National Populists take over, in which case they'll eat up Central America and sometimes try to get their American territory.
Speaking of National Populists, NatPop Italy's gotten a lot better with the new Country Paths update, since you can actually force Austria to go to war with Hungary and complete your focus tree without getting killed immediately.

 

[BadGoy1488]

Yeah, the Civil War's a lot more balanced now thanks to recent updates. The CSA still gets the most troops and industry but that's balanced out by them being weak militias and having worse generals. Mexico doesn't do anything until the Weltkrieg anymore unless the National Populists take over, in which case they'll eat up Central America and sometimes try to get their American territory.
Speaking of National Populists, NatPop Italy's gotten a lot better with the new Country Paths update, since you can actually force Austria to go to war with Hungary and complete your focus tree without getting killed immediately.

I have not tried Italy in some time I do need to go try them out again. I like the changes they made to Canada as well, more wiggle room to figure out which England you are gonna try and take back. I started a union of Britain game yesterday after work which has been good so far. Its different since half the game you just send volunteers all over the damn world.

 

[Slap47]

Anybody play the original Darkest Hour version? Never played Hoi4 but the thought of the AI controlling my armies is sounds kinda lame. It also just seems kinda easy...

 

[Saint Kelly]

Anybody play the original Darkest Hour version? Never played Hoi4 but the thought of the AI controlling my armies is sounds kinda lame. It also just seems kinda easy...

I played it quite a bit back before KR blew up in HOI4 and the fanbase became mega autistic. Do they still update it for Darkest Hour?