To be perfectly honest, a communist path seems to be most likely quite close to the historical path, not the "traditional" aggressive-alt -history one
On one side, communism in swissbois is quite close to impossible to appear: mostly rural country, with hard terrain, no large cities with large impoverished working class, etc. Has really no way to start a revolution or even have revolutionary mass-movements to gain momentum.
On the other hand...
The historical swissboi path with the extreme local autonomy, hardcore self-defence and local democracy are about as close to the anarchist ideas of the "red group" as you can be within the "blue group". To radicalize from there towards anarchism seems to be the most likely communist path, and also one possible quite short:
By joining the global anarchist movement, you would try to support similar stuff as the og anarchist spain, without particular focus on countries: focus for decisions to try to create anarchist uprisings, etc. Keeping the militia army would be also 10/10 authentic too. You could even have the tree appear as the result of the anarchist rising in spain. But keeping in faith with the self-defence rhetoric, no wargoals on other countries, just purely the easy ability to aid or even ally with civil war-anarchists.
So, cantonize the world, anyone?
So it's not only about plausibility, it's more like plausibility vs how interesting I think I can make it within the time we have and compared to the other branches. Yes, the Alpine Empire stuff is not as plausible as a communist path, but it was easier to branch from another section, as an extreme of it, so it's not that much work; it fills a gap in the content, jumping into militarism relatively quickly; and it's a fun part of a larger narrative of what we're willing to do for defense. Unfortunately, other than using Rote Drei and the Lucy Spy ring to become communist, I didn't see any way of making it interesting without sacrificing other things. I did incorporate some of it into the Secret Path section, and that made more sense with the theme of Switzerland using its geographical location and neutrality to help the allies, which is something that is actually pretty historical, Switzerland did shoot down a lot of allied planes, and they never supported them openly, but they also covertly helped them whenever it was possible, because they knew Nazi Germany was bad news for them.
I feel quite bad that Switzerland had no communist route, but by the other hand, i'm glad, because of one thing: It's current commie flag, it represents anything but Switzerland (a red flag with a huge white star? Come on! I know there is anything better than that).
Anyway, i'm looking forward to lay my hands of Switzerland and leave neutrality!
I wonder what will be for Ethiopia and what routes there will be.
I hope in the next-next-next DLC, Austria gets it's national focus (I said next-next-next DLC, because i have a feeling that the one following Blood Alone will have a focus in Scandinavian countries).
I wasn't there when it was chosen, but I can see the logic behind the original Swiss Communist flag. If regular Switzerland is a minimal flag with just a white cross, it's natural to assume a communist Switzerland would be a red field with a white star. I'm actually pretty disappointed myself because I really liked the flags for it. They will still be in the game though, if someone wants to use it or cheat their way to communism.
Would it be possible to add more focuses under join the axis for the fascist branch? It seems kind of strange that the fascist subbranch just ends after joining the axis.
Well it doesn't have to end there, you can do the military branch after for example, but I see your point. The idea is that if you want to join Germany quickly it'll cost your independence, but joining the axis as a partner will take more effort, so it's the reward.
Love the Talking Heads tributes, lol.
I might actually try Swiss World Conquest.
Finally someone with good taste in music!
Is the "in most cases the leader of the biggest democratic faction" simply a reference to the Allies usually being the biggest democratic faction and the UK usually being the leader of it? I was holding out hope for a moment that it might be more flexible and finally allow for the Central European Alliance to potentially get some recognition outside the German tree (considering the Central Powers have gotten it more than once...).
Similar to the way it looks for a fascist neighbor, it looks for the closest most appropriate Democratic faction leader. It checks if the UK is a democratic faction leader first, and then goes France and so on.
Not really related to Switzerland, but with the addition of impassable terrain in the Alps, why don't you guys consider adding more of these throughout the map? There are plenty of mountains, deserts and rainforests that could have this trait without actually limiting player choices.
The reason we added this was because we were looking at the area and it made sense with the Swiss content. If that happens again in the countries we work on next, we'll also revisit those areas.
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