https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/dev-diary-43-the-american-civil-war.1521383/
Well yeah they were worried about the economic impact of losing their slaves. Oh what you think they are actually going to work for a living?
Paradox games are in kind of a weird spot with historical accuracy. Like, in their WWII game, the Holocaust is not mentioned. It's understandable in the sense that forcing or even allowing the player to LARP genocide would be reprehensible, and the focus of the game is on warfare, but ignoring it is also strange.
Now, Victoria III is a 19th century politics simulator, so it's unavoidable. There will be some interesting options here - you could even do a weird accelerationist thing where you preserve slavery to create massive abolitionist uprisings. This game should have a lot of potential for commie roleplay in any case.
Not sure if the recent USSR rework changed this, but the base game was surprisingly pro-Stalin. It was very clear that if you didn't do the purge, he would 100% be couped by Trotsky.
The reworked USSR focus tree makes the great purge the central element of the Stalin branch.
Well of course, gomnunists bad. :dean-smile:
The purge is in because it killed off a lot of the Soviet military leadership, and the gradual replacement of officers serves as a mechanic to keep the Soviet player from stomping Germany in 1940. The game starts in 1936, so stuff like the Night of Long Knives would've already happened.Obviously the Holocaust also seriously weakened the fash economy, but a genocide is still at the top of the list for "questionable things to put in your game."
The Holocaust did have some economic benefits (for awful people and heinous reasons).
Firstly, it justified a substantial portion of looting in occupied countries. This isn't represented in game at all.
Secondly, those interred had all their valuables taken. Everything from shoes to gold fillings. This provided a lot of funds for both Nazi Germany and the Nazi party itself. This is also not represented in game (and is also a separate event to the above point, this happened after Jewish businesses and what have you were appropriated)
Thirdly, people in prison camps weren't just waiting around for death. They were often rented out to German industrial concerns as slaves. This allowed German industry to shore itself up as a lot of its working age men had gone off to the front. This was also a fairly profitable enterprise.
I can still understand why they didn't want to broach the subject in hoi, though they let you play as Nazi Germany which is somewhat whitewashed without its motivations of racial supremacy and lebensraum, so uuuuuh
My understanding was that the looting was less effective than the Nazis expected, and that the camps were still a net drain on their economy. I haven't done a ton of research into it though
I think I had vague memories of this askhistorians post . Take it as you will.
It’s understandable in the sense that forcing or even allowing the player to LARP genocide
You can LARP genocide in Stellaris though. There's literally a "purge" button for pops.
Still weird but there's a definite gap between a simulation of WWII and Ender's Game: 4X edition
No you see that's different because it's future sci-fi not reenacting actual genocide (even though that's not stopping anyone from fantasizing about past genocides while modeling their space empire after them).
They do have the literal fascist symbol as an option for your empire's flag and a sorta iron cross with a skull in the middle. Image for reference
That is just 1 category of symbols for that game. They also have a wide variety of generic geometric shapes, and also I'm pretty sure there is a hammer and sickle but that might have been from one of the many mods I used when I played
Yeah paradox themselves are definitely not nazis. Some of their fans, like the ones who say deus vult in crusader kings and play exclusively nazi germany in hearts of iron are.
None of the pops are named Ashkenazi Jew, and half of the species you can purge are theoretical concepts at best. I'll give it a pass.
I remember rome total war 2 had the options; 'occupy population', 'enslave population', 'exterminate population' whenever you took a city
I think if you take a critical look at how D&D and realy any traditional RPG tackles the concept of different races based on the Tolkien thing(orcs, elves etc) you'll see that every game is a literal genocidal war against the "monsters", most of the time as intelligent and culturally sophisticated as humans.
Realy nobody who ever played a traditional fantasy game ever gave a second of thought to what it means to endlessly kill orcs or goblins etc.
They are supposed to be the enemy so it is "ok". Sometimes you do realy explicit things too like kill entire villages/towns of these "monsters". Like as if it was ok to kill endless amounts of orcs just because they look like green buffed man with an axe.
The rabbit hole of racism in fantasy goes far deeper than a purge button in a 4x sci-fi game.
I think if you take a critical look at how D&D and realy any traditional RPG tackles the concept of different races based on the Tolkien thing(orcs, elves etc) you’ll see that every game is a literal genocidal war against the “monsters”, most of the time as intelligent and culturally sophisticated as humans.
For a bit of fun, google "nits make lice gygax"
I think at the very least there should be events for the liberation of camps.
yeah I've seen arguments about depicting or not depicting the holocaust and realistically, in the context of being able to play Germany either option is kind of fucked up when you think about it. i think it kind of points to the fact that designing a playground for players to succeed in enacting their fantasy nazi reich (or confederacy, or colonial empires) is inherently kind of problematic regardless of how much you try to represent or divorce it from its actual historical context
and yet I'll still enjoy the slop so idk
you could even do a weird accelerationist thing where you preserve slavery to create massive abolitionist uprisings
That's already a thing you can do in Victoria 2, sort of. Normally, the American civil war is unavoidable, BUT with a couple retries you can actually avoid it entirely by adding every state into the union as a slave state, pissing off the liberals enough to actually ban slavery before it's normally impossible by ~1840
Confederate leaders: We want slavery!
Confederate soldiers: We want slavery!
Union supporters: They want slavery!
Former slaves: They wanted slavery!
Conservatives, inexplicably until like 30-40 years ago: We wanted slavery!
Conservatives now: Well, actually--
I mean it did start to happen when many veterans where still alive. A lot of guys made their post-war careers on playing nice in an attempt to get the occupation of the south lifted or save their reputations. Memoirs reflect that shift with every general saying "well I wanted slavery to end sometime, but couldn't betray my state/ it was every other general who wanted to preserve it" etc.
Longstreet is kinda the ultimate embodiment of this war and rehabilitation
Decided to check:
i'm going to make radical reconstruction look like a joke, the south wont be rising again
Incredibly based.
The only place where horseshoe theory is true, is in a Paradox game forum
Where to go after? March to the sea and then across to Europe?
North burning everything in sight until he hits Washington and hangs Andrew Johnson as a quisling.
Oh I’m going to resolve this debate alright
Mr Sherman, please come to the front of the class
Response:
I personally hate this rhetoric of glorifying war crimes when Sherman himself described his own actions as cruel, if justified due to the needs of war. Evil deeds are still evil, no matter who the victim is.
:agony-turbo: evil deeds are checks notes damaging infrastructure of your slaver enemy
Wait, someone at Paradox actually read a history book? Damn, that's a surprise.
Genuinely suprised paradox is being this based and not simpering to their nazi fans.
The Victoria 3 Dev team is based? You love to see it. :che-smile:
Victoria is a fundamentally materialist franchise, which you can't say for most other paradox games.
Although Vic 2 is definitely kinda lib, with "socialism" being social democracy and "communism" being authoritarian tankie no free speech or democracy.
I remember there being some sort of interview where a paradox developer mentions that if they did that for Hearts of Iron, Germany would be literally unplayable. :stalin-pipe:
Doesn't surprise me lol. Germany in hoi4 literally gets massive buffs to industry not because of any material state of their country, but because they are Germany
While V3 definitely looks like a massive improvement in that regard, the fact that “Vanguardism” is going to be a possible government type worries me.
I mean yeah the interest groups, which are pretty central to Vic3, are pretty much just classes struggling
