I don't usually play games, but I used to like to play Civ. This game appears to be on sale, and I was curious about thoughts on it. Can I make stalin liberate the world?
i like it a bunch, although i admit its not for everyone. you definitely can make stalin liberate the world, the soviets are like the best guys
Also Check out Red World, where the Soviets won the Cold War. Fun Nations include Anarcho-Syndicalist Chomsky-Land on the US east coast and Angela Davis ML land on the West coast. I recommend the former. Take the Bernie Sanders DemSoc path, you will not regret it.
The American People's Commonwealth is the work of Noam Chomsky and Bernie Sanders. Initially the movement in the now-APC wasn't unified. Sanders called on Chomsky to unite the country, which he did. By 1990 the "revolution" was complete. Sanders brought moderates together with the far left. Which is where the Old Guard comes from. They were former supporters of Bernie. When the Central Committee gained more power and Chomsky had failed to implement his promised reforms, Bernie backed down from national politics. He retired to Vermont, only to become Governor later on. Appointed by his predecessor and loyal to the state trade councils. This was long after the murder of his family.
The APC branches are amazing.
One of the harder to get but less spoilery paths ends up with a Bonapartist Quebec/New England run by the guy who plays Odo on Star Trek (who is in fact in line to the Imperial throne).
Got between 1500 and 2000 hours, I stopped counting a long time ago.
The base game is a pile of steaming shit, but the mods make the game so fucking worth it. Two favourites : TNOmod (The New Order), and Kaiserreich. Complete these with some utilities (toolpack, player-made conferences, and unlimited XP),, and you're good to go. Honorable mention for Old World Blues (+Enclave Reborn) if you're a fallout nerd. Also, be warned, you'll suck very, very hard if you refuse to understand some of its esotheric mechanics, watching some videos can help alleviate the cluelessness and get a sense of what you're doing. Multi is pure cancer, unless it's coop, so avoid it if possible.
In terms of DLC : waking the tiger, La résistance, and man the guns are the only ones I'd recommend.. If you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer them.
Depends on your experience/skill level, and in the case of TNO, what you're looking for.
For Kaiserreich, the Commune of France is the best one to start with. The mechanics are simple, extremely straight forward, and YOU dictate where you're doing, which revolutions you're going to support, your plan to destroy the germans and so on. Russia/Soviet Union have a very similar gameplay and is also good for learning, although it can be hard to manage it for a first playthrough (horrible industry at the start, and the debuffs). The CSA is extremely fun, but it's best kept for more seasoned players, considering how hard the 2ACW is if you don't know what you're doing. The Union of Britain has a similar gameplay to France, but with less agency, since France will always declare war on Germany in 39; also you have to deal with the Internationale's navy, and manage the FUCKING FUEL THAT KEEPS RUNNING OUT. Learning naval mechanics is excellent on the UOB, but as I said, for a brand new player, France is the best. The last update also reworked the Ottomans, but they're a bit finnicky to handle imo.
For TNO, it's less about gameplay, and more about the narrative. I personally played a few presidents for the USA, Heydrich and Speer, left-wing italy, democratic Iberia, China, """Free China""", and a few socialist russian warlords. And Burgundy. Besides the last one that made me die inside, I found all of these extremely enjoyable to play, considering most of them (bar heydrich and Burgundy) are "good" playthrough, where you take a nation, and unfuck it. Iberia is relatively chill for a new player, but you'll run into problems dealing with terrorism later on. Italy is probably the best starting nation for new players, the UI isn't hard to grasp, you have an economy, a good army, a few puppets and some wars. On the reverse, the US playthroughs are the hardest, bar none. The election mechanics are so cancerous I resorted to cheating to enable all decisions so I could get the electoral outcome I want. If you decide to power through the RNG-based electoral system, know that you'll definitely feel the entirety of the American Bourgeoisie breathing down your neck, no matter what you do to help the common man and end segregation. (Or you can go the other way, and do some gamer stuff in the US to permanently destroy it).
For TNO these are the SocDem/socialist paths and their respective flavors:
- The US can go RFK in 1964 who epitomizes the "SocDem hawk" American archetype. I believe only the difficult "very radical LBJ Great Society" has more robust and comprehensive reforms than a two-term RFK. However it can be relatively easy to get RFK assassinated if you don't know the trap paths. An RFK opening means you can pursue several other neat paths - assassinate RFK before 1968, you can elect Michael Harrington (OTL founder of the DSA) in that election; an RFK opening is practically a requirement to elect L-NPP in 1972; if you want a more centrist but interesting alternative you can elect John Glenn in 1968 and go to Mars
- Electing Gus Hall and L-NPP in 1972 is very difficult and requires a specific set of actions along the way to polarize American society to extreme strain. You'll need to deliberately sabotage things to push up L-NPP support above 20% in order to make them eligible for nomination in 1972. This is considered the second-worst outcome for the USA because you've effectively pushed American society to the brink and then installed a President who's going to try and impose communism from the top down.
- In Britain if you win as the resistance you can elect Harold Wilson (the OTL 70s Labour PM who the military seriously considered couping) and the SLP, abolish the monarchy, and build a comprehensive welfare state. Theres also a Hardliner path that's less pleasant and unfinished as yet.
- The other communist paths are all in the Russian warlord states. The most straightforward is the WRRF, the direct continuation of the Red Army resistance to the Nazis. These guys are a great starter nation for a newbie, as their mini-game is straightforward, they have their backs to a coast, have a slow and gradual reunification tree that won't get them swarmed prematurely, and they get strong military bonuses as a handicap. They have two paths - Zhukov and Tukhachevsky. Zhukov is a reformer who can be succeeded by either a military-first guy, an orthodox centrist, or the SocDem Yakovlev. Tukhachevsky thoroughly militarizes Soviet society in preparation for world revolutionary War - i hear hes one of the bleaker paths. Zhukov WRRF is the Canon Russian unifier for the future 1972 bookmark.
- Also in Western Russia is Komi, which is basically the "clusterfuck paramilitary Weimar Republic". It can go every ideology except one. The three communists are Mikhail Suslov, Andrei Zhdanov, and Svetlana Bukharina. Suslov's is pretty boring - if you're a fan of OTL Brezhnev-era orthodoxy, he's your guy. Zhdanov is the "Ultravisionary", meaning he wants to do Space Communism and pursues a lot of insane (and often unethical) weird science projects that are REALLY GOOD IDEAS. Bukharina is basically "Libertarian Soviet Democracy communism but not always nice and clean" and is probably the most realistic LibSoc path in the game.
- If you want to do one of the "funni" paths (there are many in Komi) you can do Ivan Serov, who starts as a communist but goes off the deep end to literally become NazBol with his "Ordosocialist" ideology. He apparently can get some insane military bonuses versus the Germans
- In Western Siberia you have Kaganovich, who pursues collectivization and mass industrialization like OTL Stalin. His path is actually pretty neat. If you go down the industry tree for him you can get a truly insane number of factories; if you go down the agriculture tree he does mandatory government-issued gfs. Kaganovich can later get couped by Cornlord Khrushchev if you want to do revisionism. The other west Siberian unifiers are Rokossovsky's military junta which can stay a military junta or do Yeltsin liberalism (cursed); and Omsk, which is one of the most horrifically bleak paths in the game if you're up for "funni" shit.
- Central Siberia has a lot of options. Tomsk is a liberal republic centered around artists and intellectuals, you can elect SocDems there. Vasilevsky is a splinter unit of the Red Army occupying western Mongolia that recently got content. Then there's the Siberia Black Army that does libertarian anarchism, but has to carefully balance this idealism with security concerns to avoid becoming a military dictatorship. I've yet to play them but hear they're wholesome, they can literally crowdsource nukes which IMO sounds like a Really Good Idea. Finally there's Kemerovo, where another former Soviet general has gone mad and declared himself King Rurik II as a throwback to Kievan Rus aesthetic. If you go with his son as a successor you can do socialistic monarchy with strong labor unions and democratic institutions.
- Finally in the Far East you have a few more options. First there is Sablin, who is basically "wot if Gorbachev but the underdog". He has basically become a meme because the path where he stays true to his ideals is wholesome to the point of being diabetic. He can also get corrupted to an extent if you compromise on those ideals too much in the name of security and short-term gains. Sablin can be tricky for a newbie because he starts the game at war with Yagoda with inferior troops, so you have to do tricksy maneuvering to win.
- Then there's Yagoda, who has constructed a horribly repressive NKVD police state. He also has the most legitimate claim to being the successor government of the USSR as he oversees the rump Presidium that fled to the east. He can build a personal dictatorship that does Dengism or potentially get couped for a slightly less repressive orthodoxy.
- Finally there's Alexander Men, who is not around at the start and only consolidates the backwater Siberian villages around 1964 (you'll be prompted to switch to him if you want to). He does "Christian anarchism" and while not explicitly socialist is a pretty nice guy all around.
Another interesting path in general thats emphatically not socialist is doing a Speer-Gang of Four run in Nazi Germany. In this path Speer is basically Nazi Deng and comprehensively reforms the economy, most prominently by trust-busting and giving the slaves slightly better lives. But if you let the Gang of Four (who are the real reformers and are represented by three OTL West German chancellors and a Wehrmacht general who OTL was part of the July 20 plot) get the upper hand by the end they can turn Speer into a puppet figurehead, make peace with a massive slave revolt in Eastern Europe, and effectively dismantle the Nazi dictatorship and reintroduce a semblance of democracy.
In TNO, Tyumen, led by Kaganovich is the successor to stalin and Sablin in Buryatia for the idealistic leninist revolutionary. For kaiserreich, the Commune of France and Combined Syndicates of America are the most fun leftist countries.
There's plenty of variation aside from Kaganovich and Sablin as far as socialist Russian leaders go. Tukhachevsky, Yagoda, Suslov, Krushchev, Bessonov, Zhukov-> Ryzhkov (I'd say Yakovlev but he's a lib), Siberian Black Army -> Siberian Soviet, and Bukharina in order of how idealistic and optimistic you want to be. Also Humanists in Tomsk but they're more Utopian Socialists. This isn't even getting into the insanity of Russo-Juche Rurik II.
Yes, I play this mod too much and just want an excuse to talk about it. How could you tell?
Damn, thanks. Yeah, I was gonna get just the base. This might be too much of a time sink for me.
if you are completely new to Paradox games, I would recommend Crusader Kings or Europa Universalis
I started with vic2. mistake.
It definitely has a learning curve, but it is very fun. There’s a lot of challenges you can challenge yourself to, such as my personal favourite, creating the people’s republic of China (you can sort my submitted posts by top of all time to see it up there). You can absolutely make Stalin liberate the world, or Mao, or Tito, or Ho Chi Minh, or Kim il sung, or hoxha. The difficulty of that challenge is dependant on the country, and in this case I listed the easiest countries to the hardest.
I recommend learning the game and trying a Mao Zedong run if you get the “waking the tiger” dlc. It’s tricky, but if you get the PRC off the ground, you are pretty much the most powerful nation on earth as Mao is an excellent leader and China can have like 10 million manpower with 2.5% conscription laws. Industry galore and you won’t be at war with anyone. Of course it’s a tough road to get there but a great challenge,
The MLP mod is interesting because it adds a lot more flavor, mechanics, and unpredictable geopolitical outcomes to avoid the "sameness" between countries a lot of other mods have where the player is working with similar tools to overcome similar conditions each playthrough.
If you try it, Kasa Free State is fun, it's pony-haiti.
Once you've liberated the surrounding countries, you can comfortably industrialize while maintaining a few elite volunteer units to turn the tide in the communist revolutions/slow counter-revolution invasions until you have a big enough alliance to smash the fascists and monarchists and lead a global revolution.
I realize I confused Kasa and another state, all 4 of Kasa's leaders are harmony.
Is there one that makes Kexa and Yrmthu's paths communist? Altu Kexa oppressing the bourgeois at every opportunity, invading another state to liberate the slaves, then sending the slave owners to the guillotine seems more communist than lib.
Yrmthu can straight up try to abolish the state.
It's a bit of a bummer for a successful slave rebellion actively trying liberate all oppressed people to end up in a faction with all the states that were cool with slavery for the last millenium, and possibly even at war with the communist bloc.
just know that like all paradox games, the fans are mostly fash and awful. other people have mentioned mods--imo the best one there is Old World Blues, if you like Fallout it's a super faithful and full-conversion to that universe.
The fans are split. there's a lot of fash and a lot of comrades, though they mostly play Red World and Kaiserreich.
If you have time/attention span, yes. Not something you (or at least I) can pick up for an hour and then save and be done. Totally messes with my flow.
I think it would be a lot better if the player had a lot less freedom. Like everybody uses the same division templates and also the same tank/plane/ship models. Like for example naval power is mostly carriers so every nation including germany and italy go for carriers, if they really want to rule the seas.
I would completly remove that from the game. No research, new techs come become active when they are due, same for models and division templates. HOI sucks as war game because every nation plays the same as there is one universal min/max approach.
Mods fix this.
Some countries in some mods can't make divisions until certain requirements are met, have negligible numbers of factories + stockpiles of specific equipment limiting their options, special units, modifiers on units, slow research+bonuses to certain techs via focus tree, limited MP or resources, or other nations whose units, terrain, economy, and geopolitical status favor different tactics.
I would recommend Civ VI over HOI4. HOI4 is real big on giving you the illusion of choice, but in fact the choices are limited to your "focus trees'", national projects that substantively change your country. I wanted to love HOI4 like I did HOI2, but honestly HOI4 is an exercise in frustration, and you really need to watch a bunch of videos to gain a decent understanding of how to make the game work.
Thanks for the info. It seems like there might be too much of an investment in time required for me.
Civ 6 was the worst though. Your choices are build granary or build barracks. +1 food or +1 soldier exp. Wait 20 turns to finish.
HOI4 has some amazing mods like Kaiserreich and TNO, which offer very satisfying simulations.
Completely disagree on Civ VI. It's far better than V, and almost as good as IV. HOI4 has some good mods, but they're still stuck with the same flawed base game.
Sure!
Civ VI does require you to adjust your thinking a bit from what long time players are used to. The district system really is brand new to the series, and you have to plan ahead far more than in previous games. Like, not only what bonuses are already there, but what bonuses will be there after you've built your districts, particularly if your Civ has specific adjacency bonuses. Wonders are now much more "nice to have" rather than "throw everything at wonders" (although there are exceptions, Petra being the most swingy in the early/mid game). The AI is ok, better than V, I'd say. If you're struggling with VI, try Maori. They're the equivalent of Civ V Venice, I'd say, where their mechanic is fundamentally different than any other Civ. They feel like a kind of sub-game to the main game, and are lots of fun.
In addition, the game now has a lot of functions built in to the base game that would traditionally have been mods. Randomized tech trees, secret societies, alternate game modes (Pirates! being the most recent), disasters, etc. are all just a checkmark away.
Civ IV was the purest iteration of the original civilization series, with doomstacks, OP wonders, etc. Civ VI has better combat than V, although I prefer air units from IV, and in general has a lot lower power level than IV (which is a good thing). More victory conditions are available (although the religious one is an exercise in frustration the more civs there are), and all are pretty attainable. IV was a very granular game, V was very much not, and VI feels like a nice balance, with the granularity moved to district location and worker action pools.
Now, there are things I'm not a huge fan of in VI, with Great People being probably my least favorite portion. Not sure who was begging for that system, that really has some distinct winners & losers plus the silliness of the military ones generally only affecting units from a certain era. Generic great people were good enough.
I really, really dislike how the game clearly wants you to micromanage and hyper-specialize everything by giving you a lot of flexibility in some areas (change cards whenever you want), but also arbitrarily forcing you to commit some of your most powerful resources forever (districts are permanent). Playing tall basically isn't viable, when it was reasonably strong in Civ V. It does a lot of things new, and interesting and right (workers, districts writ large, combat), but fundamentally it's a tough row to hoe when you want to do anything but paint the map.
I've never been a build it tall fan, but yes, if you are, VI has nothing for you, not even a Civ that tries to go tall.
I would say yes if you're into strategy games and have the patience to learn how to play, it's certainly not for everyone though. A lot of people are mentioning the good mods, one I didn't see mentioned yet was Cold War: Iron Curtain. It starts off in 1949 and currently has content until about the 70's I believe. Perfect if you wanna have Stalin directly intervene in the Korean War to ensure the DPRK's victory or make NATO abandon Berlin. TNO plays more like a visual novel with grand strategy elements though, just a heads up.
