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HoI4 Dev Diary - A Post-Colonial World: Map Changes and New Tags

Hello everyone, and welcome to yet another dev diary for the 1.6 “Ironclad” update and the Man the Guns DLC! As this diary goes live I'll be on vacation in Norway (where among other things I visited the Gneisenau's "Caesar" turret located at Austrått Fort in Ørland, close to Trondheim, Norway), so my replies in the thread below may be a bit slower than usual :). As a little bonus, some pictures and info on the gun emplacement are in the spoiler below.

20180709_142529.jpg

The Gneisenau 283mm (11-inch) cannons in their turret. After being bombed in Kiel harbor (where she had just finished repairs for previous damage), the ship was so heavily damaged (including the destruction of the forward "A" turret), and Hitler was so disillusioned in the performance of his surface fleet, that it was decided to have the ship scrapped altogether. The turrets were to be used as coastal gun emplacements, and the "Caesar" or "C" turret was moved here to defend the harbor of Trondheim. Extra armor was added, especially to the top (an extra 200 metric tons of steel). Total weight of the turret was 1,000 metric tons (compared to the 800 metric tons it would've weighed when placed on Gneisenau). Located on an elevation of about 50-60 meters, the range was 42,6km, reaching all the way out to the Atlantic, and also to the Trondheim harbor. Considering it was placed on solid ground, accuracy was also markedly improved over ship-based artillery.

20180709_151941.jpg

Some of the Gneisenau's engines were also relocated here, in the complex inside the mountain. These provided all the power to the turret and the facility. It could rotate 360 degrees (but no further, or the electrical cables would snap - on a ship, due to the superstructure, this was never a problem anyway) in 50 seconds. Alternatively, if power failed, the entire five-story turret (every level rotated as one along with the visible part of the turret) could be hand-cranked and rotated by 4 soldiers. The engines (one shown here) are the original ones, and still operate to this day.

20180709_155959.jpg

The guns could fire 9 rounds each minute (so a full salvo of 3 each 20 seconds). The 315kg (for high explosive) and 330kg (for armor piercing) shells were launched at 890-900m/s (by means of a 76kg cartridge and additional 41kg powder bag), with a gun elevation of -8 to +40 degrees. They only fired a handful of test rounds in the 1940s and early 1950s, after which population density became high enough that they could no longer test-fire the guns because doing so blew out all windows in a 3km radius. It never once fired its guns in anger at an enemy. This was the "C" turret, located at the rear of the Gneisenau. The "B" or "Bruno" turret was used as a similar emplacement near Bergen, Norway, while the barrels of the destroyed "A" or "Anton" turret received new housings and were used in fortifications in Rozenburg, near Hoek van Holland in the Netherlands, to defend Rotterdam port.


20180709_142558.jpg

The range finder. It was originally located at the command post at Lerberen, 2-2,5km away from the emplacement. The turret therefore had 2 periscope binoculars so they could double-check whether they were actually firing at enemy or friendly ships (in case the rangefinder had been overrun by enemy forces and they were feeding 'bad' info to the fort).

20180709_142949.jpg

South-facing picture of the fjord the gun emplacement overlooks (the fjords leading to the Atlantic are to the right, Trondheim harbor is far off in the distance to the left). The facility was manned by 125 soldiers, including the original turret commander and some other personnel from the Gneisenau. In addition, it sported an anti-tank wall, bunker, and 20 smaller-caliber cannon emplacements around the periphery for duty as anti-tank guns or for firing flares (one stationary Skoda 4,7cm anti-tank cannon still remains, now). After the war's end, the whole fort was taken over by the Norwegians, until the late '60s when the threat of the USSR became less, and they decided to get rid of it. It was turned into a museum in the early '90s.

P1020565.JPG

Glorious Real-Life ErrorDog approvingly observing shell fire raining down upon his enemies.

Last week we had a look at the new, reworked focus tree for the United Kingdom, including a whole new path for decolonization. Naturally, this elicited a flurry of questions that (because of this week’s dev diary) I could not answer at the time...

I notice one focus talks about a Three-Nation solution in India, does this mean we'll be seeing a tag for Burma or Sri Lanka? Will there be other new tags involved in the decolonisation tree beyond those which are already present?

Also, will Burma finally have its own tag? It was historically separated from the British Raj one year after the game begin.

@Bratyn the focus the three nation solution does mean a tag for bangledesh/east Pakistan, Burma or something else altogether?

Since there is a decolonisation path does that mean that there are more releasable nations in the colonies, like for example Malta or Ghana? Also, is the third nation in the Raj going to be Burma?

Are y'all going to make the African releasables...well...more like real African releasables?

Does the three state solution release Pakistan, India and Burma? Or India, Pakistan Bangladesh. Or India, Pakistan and a Sikh state?

-WHY ISN'T KAZAKHSTAN RELEASABLE YET???

I can now answer all these questions with a single resounding “YES!” (and in the case of the last one; a “sorry it took a while but it’s now finally in” ;) ).

As the design for the UK focus tree rework began to take shape, it was clear we needed decolonization of some sort, and all the tags and map changes that come with it. Now, we could have simply done the British Empire with the current in-game borders and be done with it, but I wanted to do things thoroughly and so chipped in a sizeable amount of my “personal development time” to create new provinces, new states, adjust existing ones, add new tags, and to not only do so for the British Empire, but also for the French, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian, Spanish, and Italian colonial empires, and even for the Soviet Union.

Due to the sheer number of modern-day countries (and especially microstates) this process is by no means complete, and I may well continue to use some of my personal time to develop things further. However, as most of this is, in the end, done in my own time, I will not be making any promises…

Before we delve into the meat of things, I do want to give ample credit where credit is due. This would not have been possible without the help of our Community for making the flags that I needed for these tags (as I could not bother artists with it). A big thank-you to everyone who chipped in! I would like to single out one of our Betas in particular (you know who you are!), as he alone did close to 95% of all 236 new flags. Another shout-out to the Modern Day 4 mod team for allowing me to use their namelists and saving me a heckuva lot of research time!

Now, let’s begin.

Asia (Central, India, and Papua New Guinea)

As some may have noticed, flags and even tag files for Kazakhstan have been present in the game folders for a while now. The reason this tag never made it in before was because of certain border changes that were required, but we never had time for before. These have now been made.

Extensive work has been done to properly represent the tangled mess that are the borders of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, and also the northern border the latter two of these countries have with Kazakhstan. Further minor changes were made to the “Orenburg”-”Magnitogorsk” borders with Kazakhstan in the northeast. This now allows us to have…

dev diary central asia borders before.PNG

Central Asia before.

dev diary central asia borders after.PNG

Central Asia after. Second picture with released nations to make the borders more visible.


Next up, we’ve had Pakistan for a while, but no possibility for further splitting up the Indian subcontinent. After ample adjustments to the “East Bengal” state, it’s now possible to release Bangladesh as well.

dev diary bangladesh borders before.PNG

East Bengal before.

dev diary bangladesh borders after.PNG

East Bengal after.

Total list of new tags:
  • Kazakhstan
  • Uzbekistan
  • Tajikistan
  • Kyrgyzstan
  • Turkmenistan
  • Bangladesh
  • Sri Lanka
  • Burma
  • Papua New Guinea
dev diary central asia released tags.png

All Central Asian tags released.

dev diary released tags india.png

All new tags in India.


Middle East

Though some attention has been given to this region before (with Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, and Jordan being releasable), there was more work left to be done. Here, map changes were limited to splitting up the “Abu Dhabi” state by adding the “Qatar” state.

Total list of new tags:
  • Kuwait
  • Qatar
  • United Arab Emirates
  • Cyprus

dev diary middle east borders.PNG

All old and new Middle Eastern tags released.

Americas (Caribbean)

This region did not see any map changes. However, I added a total of 9 tags to the region:
  • Belize
  • Jamaica
  • Bahamas
  • Puerto Rico
  • Guadeloupe
  • Trinidad & Tobago (for convenience also including the British windward & leeward islands)
  • Guyana
  • Suriname
  • Curacao

dev diary released tags americas.png

All new American tags released.

Africa

Oh boy… Where to start. Clockwise? Let’s do this!

First, to make Sudanese-Egyptian borders possible, I split the “Western Desert” state in two, with the Sudanese part called “North Darfur”.

Next, the “Rhodesia” state in southern Africa was huge, encompassing three countries. It was split up into three parts, making it possible to separate Malawi and Zambia from Zimbabwe. In addition, cores were redistributed so that Kenya no longer controls all of Uganda and Tanganyika (which are now represented by their own tags).

In addition, Belgian Congo was not without its flaws either, and so new one-province states were split off from “Stanleyville” state to make Rwanda and Burundi possible.

dev diary southeast africa borders before.PNG

South-east Africa before.

dev diary southeast africa borders after.PNG

South-east Africa after. Both pictures with released tags so the changes are actually visible.

If “Rhodesia” was bad, basically all of French Africa was enough to give me a headache… In possibly the most sweeping map changes, the borders of the “Gabon”, “Equatorial Africa”, and even the impassible “Southern Sahara” states were heavily redrawn, provinces were moved between the states, and the states themselves were heavily balkanized. This resulted in the addition of 4 all-new states: “Middle Congo”, “Cameroon”, “Chad”, and the “B.E.T.” (Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti region). In addition, “Cameroon” state’s border was adjusted slightly at the expense of “Nigeria”.

dev diary central africa borders before.PNG

Central Africa before.

dev diary central africa borders after.PNG

Central Africa after.

The next set deals with the extremely low-effort “French West Africa” state. 6 (!) new states were introduced: “Guinea”, “Ivory Coast”, “Upper Volta”, “Niger”, “Togo”, and “Dahomey”. The state itself was renamed to “Mali”, and lost an additional province to the impassible “Mauretania” state. The border with “Mauretania” was then ‘flattened’, and “Tombouctou” state was split off from the “Mauretania” state (and their borders redrawn) to enable proper Malian borders.

dev diary west africa borders before.PNG

West Africa before.

dev diary west africa borders after.PNG

West Africa after.

Finally, the remaining minor changes include splitting the single “Gambia” state’s province into two, as well as splitting off the Sidi Ifni enclave from “Rio de Oro”, turning it into its own state.

In addition, (1 point) victory points have been added throughout the continent so that every releasable African nation now has at least one VP. (EDIT: Since the writing of this Dev Diary I have added 1-point VPs to all other releasable tags as well, so that each tag has at least one VP.)

Mauretania, as it is fully impassible in the game, unfortunately did not make it in as a tag.

Total list of new tags:
  • Morocco
  • Algeria
  • Tunisia
  • Sudan
  • Eritrea
  • Djibouti
  • Somalia
  • Uganda
  • Rwanda
  • Burundi
  • Tanzania
  • Malawi
  • Zambia
  • Republic of Congo
  • Gabon
  • Equatorial Guinea
  • Cameroon
  • Central African Republic
  • Chad
  • Nigeria
  • Niger
  • Dahomey
  • Togo
  • Upper Volta
  • Ghana
  • Côte d'Ivoire
  • Mali
  • Sierra Leone
  • Guinea
  • Guinea-Bissau
  • Senegal
  • The Gambia

dev diary all african tags released.png

"Family Portrait" of all African tags.

Europe

“Bessarabia”’s borders were the victim here, as to make modern-day borders possible it had to be split up into two. A new state “Southern Bessarabia” was added, with cores of both the Ukraine and Moldova.

dev diary bessarabia borders before.PNG

Bessarabia before.

dev diary bessarabia borders after.PNG

Bessarabia after.

Next, Poland. Yes, again. Some of you may remember that I adjusted the states and provinces in Eastern Germany to allow for the Oder-Neisse line for the 1.5.2 update. I now decided to do the same for Poland’s northern and western borders. A new state, “Königsberg” was split off from “Ostpreussen”, along a roughly east-west border. Virtually all Polish states in the East had provinces redrawn and moved between states, now enabling true modern-day borders for Poland in all directions.

Furthermore, I split up “Wilno” state, renaming it to “East Wilno” and adding a new state “West Wilno”, the division between which follows modern-day Lithuanian borders. In addition, there’s a little secret for those players who lead Lithuania to victory against whoever controls “West Wilno”, and wrest control of the state from them…

dev diary polish lithuanian borders before.PNG

Poland before.

dev diary polish lithuanian borders after.PNG

Poland after.

And finally, after the dev diary showcasing the Oder-neisse line border changes there were some requests from the community to adjust the “Vojvodina” state borders so that there wouldn’t be an ugly ‘jab’ of the “Serbia” state protruding into Austria-Hungary’s borders. At the time, I quickly hacked this in by making the “Vojvodina” state gobble up the provinces in question from the “Serbia” state, but this then upset people because it made historical occupation zones impossible to recreate. I now put in some time to fix that, as well. A new state was split off from “Vojvodina” called “West Banat”, representing the territory that previously was a part of the “Serbia” state. In addition, province 11580 was moved from “Vojvodina” to “Croatia”. This now makes it possible to have both historical occupation zones and ‘clean’ Austria-Hungarian borders. :)

dev diary vojvodina borders before.PNG

Vojvodina before.

dev diary vojvodina borders after.PNG

Vojvodina after.

Total list of new tags:
  • Malta
  • Moldova
  • Scotland
  • Wales
dev diary europe released tags.png

Showcasing new releasable tags and new Polish borders.

The final tally of all additions world-wide is thus (so far):
  • 8 new provinces
  • 22 new states
  • 59 new releasable tags
  • A lot of province and state border changes
dev diary all tags released.png

Drool-worthy picture of a balkanized world (ironically not the balkans (yet) :( ).

All this will be included in the free 1.6 “Ironclad" update. In addition, because of the sheer number of new tags added, we are looking at possible ways to prevent people who go down the Empire path to manually release tags and get the ‘best of both worlds’, with an unstoppable zerg rush of small nations who use their generic trees to build up industry. To this end, decolonizing via the British decolonization tree currently only keeps 20% of all decolonized nations - the other 80% will leave the faction when they become independent. Naturally, this number is subject to change - we want decolonization to be attractive, but not the automatic go-to way to play the game as UK. In addition, I saw multiple people wondering if we'll be representing semi-autonomous regions as puppets rather than integrated colony territories. This is something that hasn't been decided yet.

That’s it for now! There’s always more map changes to be made, but I’m quite happy with where we’ve come so far. This also marks the last dev diary of July, as the rest of the team is following (or, like myself, has already followed) Dan’s lead and heading off on vacations (a true leader leads from the front, after all! ;) ). This results in a two-week Dev Diary hiatus. You can expect the regular Dev Diary schedule to resume on the first of August, when we’ll talk about a little something we’ve stolen from a certain other PDS game, and which we think will have incredible potential for HoI4... Have a great summer vacation, everyone! :)

Rejected Titles:

Putting that Sausage Factory in Tanzania Tanganyika on the map

dev diary small sausage factory.PNG

Colonialism... Not even once...

Implementation of these map changes was accompanied by regular exasperated cursing in despair

We now have the ability to put country_name_here on the map

We now have the ability to wipe country_name_here off the map

Rated R for bordergore

The Bratyn giveth and the Bratyn taketh away

Trinidad and Tobago World Conquest when?

"Screw this war, I'm off to do my own thing in the Bahamas!" is now an actual thing you can do

I don't envy whoever has to update the "Anti-Colonialist Crusade"... Oh wait, that's probably me :(

"Hello, and welcome to the 59th episode of 'Beta Presents: Fun with Flags'!"

A beautiful tapestry of Ruina Imperii

If I stop responding it's because the team finally got sick of me breaking their savegames

New resource to replace oil: potassium
 
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I’ve clocked over 750 hours on this game and I have to say, it really is great how the game is progressing. However, I have a few ideas on new additions to the game which would greatly enhance the quality of gameplay.

Generals: I believe that major nations should have wayyy more generals than they currently do. For example, there are many famous German Generals that are not available, such as FM Schöner (I know you can hire him), Reichnau, Balck, Brauchitsch, Busch, Lindemann, Friessner.. I think all 4 star generals (generalobersts) should be added. Personally, I prefer to have many generals to choose from with each having different characteristics.

Another thing about the Generals are their skill levels. How is Manstein, Rommel, Guderian lvl 4s? There are way worse Generals which are lvl 5s. The Heer was known for tactical ingenuity, so they should have superior generals. Please fix this...

A small section of the hoi3 OOB was brought back, but I would still like to see the corp level reintroduced. Armies with 24 divisions are also way too large. Perhaps do something about making armies more realistic and historically accurate in size.

Thanks’
 
Perhaps you could add a 'Home Guard' aspect to the UK national focus once they go to war with Germany? They were established around the time France fell, but since Operation Sea Lion didn't go into action, they never saw any action. Maybe putting the Home Guard into the game could bolster the British Army if a German invasion force lands.
 
Not until Europe and Middle East are properly expanded and finished which all had bigger roles than anyone in South America did.

Was the Middle East more important than South America in World War II?

South America had much more importance compared to the Middle East, which was limited to the invasion of Ira to establish a port for supplies to the USSR to the south,

If it is to focus on something that is not South America that is abandoned with generic trees ... focus on something like North Africa, make an economy system in the game to make the game more difficult and change for example the system political of the Game, which is also limited between the democratic, authoritarian and communist / fascist ...
 
South America had much more importance compared to the Middle East, which was limited to the invasion of Ira to establish a port for supplies to the USSR to the south,
You forgot the fascist takeover attempt in Iraq, the invasion of Vichy French Syria and Lebanon and the ongoing diplomatic tussles to keep Turkey out of the war (which the Turkish government was inclined towards, anyway, but it was facing pressure from the Axis powers to the north and west).
 
Was the Middle East more important than South America in World War II?
Yes. Although many South American nations were openly hostile to the axis from a diplomatic standpoint, Only Brazil ever officially sent troops to fight in the conflict, and in fairly limited numbers. By contrast, the near east was a major point of contention during the war, with Iraq even undergoing a pro-axis coup as perpetrated by the Golden Square. Large quantities of allied manpower and resources were dedicated to securing this region at a time when both of those things were desperately needed elsewhere. This is not to say that South America does not deserve some focus at some point, but merely that some regions are higher priority than others due to their proximity and strategic importance to the conflict.
 
You forgot the fascist takeover attempt in Iraq, the invasion of Vichy French Syria and Lebanon and the ongoing diplomatic tussles to keep Turkey out of the war (which the Turkish government was inclined towards, anyway, but it was facing pressure from the Axis powers to the north and west).

Or the importance of Iranian oil to the British war effort :). Totally agree though - the Middle East was quite important during the war, and sensibly so.
 
As a creator of a mod that basically does this on a larger scale, Im actually happy theyre being implemented into the base game. Partly since there will be less work for me to update (except to v1.6 initially..), but also because my mod was designed as "vanilla-style", and would fit into the base game very well (with some polish).

But theres still some differences to our implementations. I did include Mauritania, by having a small passable state in the south, while still blocking the western coast from being passable to Morocco. I also didnt change any province borders, due to added work that I dont have time for, so thanks for that ^^ The Caribbean seems almost an afterthought (see French West Africa), but I understand your time is also limited. And that area is mostly insignificant without alt history.

I also dont expect quite as many options to be given in vanilla than in my mod, but its also not just for state changes and new tags.
 
Hello everyone, and welcome to yet another dev diary for the 1.6 “Ironclad” update and the Man the Guns DLC! As this diary goes live I'll be on vacation in Norway (where among other things I visited the Gneisenau's "Caesar" turret located at Austrått Fort in Ørland, close to Trondheim, Norway), so my replies in the thread below may be a bit slower than usual :). As a little bonus, some pictures and info on the gun emplacement are in the spoiler below.

View attachment 387689
The Gneisenau 283mm (11-inch) cannons in their turret. After being bombed in Kiel harbor (where she had just finished repairs for previous damage), the ship was so heavily damaged (including the destruction of the forward "A" turret), and Hitler was so disillusioned in the performance of his surface fleet, that it was decided to have the ship scrapped altogether. The turrets were to be used as coastal gun emplacements, and the "Caesar" or "C" turret was moved here to defend the harbor of Trondheim. Extra armor was added, especially to the top (an extra 200 metric tons of steel). Total weight of the turret was 1,000 metric tons (compared to the 800 metric tons it would've weighed when placed on Gneisenau). Located on an elevation of about 50-60 meters, the range was 42,6km, reaching all the way out to the Atlantic, and also to the Trondheim harbor. Considering it was placed on solid ground, accuracy was also markedly improved over ship-based artillery.

View attachment 387690
Some of the Gneisenau's engines were also relocated here, in the complex inside the mountain. These provided all the power to the turret and the facility. It could rotate 360 degrees (but no further, or the electrical cables would snap - on a ship, due to the superstructure, this was never a problem anyway) in 50 seconds. Alternatively, if power failed, the entire five-story turret (every level rotated as one along with the visible part of the turret) could be hand-cranked and rotated by 4 soldiers. The engines (one shown here) are the original ones, and still operate to this day.

View attachment 387691
The guns could fire 9 rounds each minute (so a full salvo of 3 each 20 seconds). The 315kg (for high explosive) and 330kg (for armor piercing) shells were launched at 890-900m/s (by means of a 76kg cartridge and additional 41kg powder bag), with a gun elevation of -8 to +40 degrees. They only fired a handful of test rounds in the 1940s and early 1950s, after which population density became high enough that they could no longer test-fire the guns because doing so blew out all windows in a 3km radius. It never once fired its guns in anger at an enemy. This was the "C" turret, located at the rear of the Gneisenau. The "B" or "Bruno" turret was used as a similar emplacement near Bergen, Norway, while the barrels of the destroyed "A" or "Anton" turret received new housings and were used in fortifications in Rozenburg, near Hoek van Holland in the Netherlands, to defend Rotterdam port.


View attachment 387688
The range finder. It was originally located at the command post at Lerberen, 2-2,5km away from the emplacement. The turret therefore had 2 periscope binoculars so they could double-check whether they were actually firing at enemy or friendly ships (in case the rangefinder had been overrun by enemy forces and they were feeding 'bad' info to the fort).

View attachment 387687
South-facing picture of the fjord the gun emplacement overlooks (the fjords leading to the Atlantic are to the right, Trondheim harbor is far off in the distance to the left). The facility was manned by 125 soldiers, including the original turret commander and some other personnel from the Gneisenau. In addition, it sported an anti-tank wall, bunker, and 20 smaller-caliber cannon emplacements around the periphery for duty as anti-tank guns or for firing flares (one stationary Skoda 4,7cm anti-tank cannon still remains, now). After the war's end, the whole fort was taken over by the Norwegians, until the late '60s when the threat of the USSR became less, and they decided to get rid of it. It was turned into a museum in the early '90s.

View attachment 387686
Glorious Real-Life ErrorDog approvingly observing shell fire raining down upon his enemies.

Last week we had a look at the new, reworked focus tree for the United Kingdom, including a whole new path for decolonization. Naturally, this elicited a flurry of questions that (because of this week’s dev diary) I could not answer at the time...















I can now answer all these questions with a single resounding “YES!” (and in the case of the last one; a “sorry it took a while but it’s now finally in” ;) ).

As the design for the UK focus tree rework began to take shape, it was clear we needed decolonization of some sort, and all the tags and map changes that come with it. Now, we could have simply done the British Empire with the current in-game borders and be done with it, but I wanted to do things thoroughly and so chipped in a sizeable amount of my “personal development time” to create new provinces, new states, adjust existing ones, add new tags, and to not only do so for the British Empire, but also for the French, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian, Spanish, and Italian colonial empires, and even for the Soviet Union.

Due to the sheer number of modern-day countries (and especially microstates) this process is by no means complete, and I may well continue to use some of my personal time to develop things further. However, as most of this is, in the end, done in my own time, I will not be making any promises…

Before we delve into the meat of things, I do want to give ample credit where credit is due. This would not have been possible without the help of our Community for making the flags that I needed for these tags (as I could not bother artists with it). A big thank-you to everyone who chipped in! I would like to single out one of our Betas in particular (you know who you are!), as he alone did close to 95% of all 236 new flags. Another shout-out to the Modern Day 4 mod team for allowing me to use their namelists and saving me a heckuva lot of research time!

Now, let’s begin.

Asia (Central, India, and Papua New Guinea)

As some may have noticed, flags and even tag files for Kazakhstan have been present in the game folders for a while now. The reason this tag never made it in before was because of certain border changes that were required, but we never had time for before. These have now been made.

Extensive work has been done to properly represent the tangled mess that are the borders of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, and also the northern border the latter two of these countries have with Kazakhstan. Further minor changes were made to the “Orenburg”-”Magnitogorsk” borders with Kazakhstan in the northeast. This now allows us to have…

View attachment 386494
Central Asia before.

View attachment 386496
Central Asia after. Second picture with released nations to make the borders more visible.


Next up, we’ve had Pakistan for a while, but no possibility for further splitting up the Indian subcontinent. After ample adjustments to the “East Bengal” state, it’s now possible to release Bangladesh as well.

View attachment 386490
East Bengal before.

View attachment 386492
East Bengal after.

Total list of new tags:
  • Kazakhstan
  • Uzbekistan
  • Tajikistan
  • Kyrgyzstan
  • Turkmenistan
  • Bangladesh
  • Sri Lanka
  • Burma
  • Papua New Guinea
View attachment 386505
All Central Asian tags released.

View attachment 386503
All new tags in India.


Middle East

Though some attention has been given to this region before (with Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, and Jordan being releasable), there was more work left to be done. Here, map changes were limited to splitting up the “Abu Dhabi” state by adding the “Qatar” state.

Total list of new tags:
  • Kuwait
  • Qatar
  • United Arab Emirates
  • Cyprus

View attachment 386497
All old and new Middle Eastern tags released.

Americas (Caribbean)

This region did not see any map changes. However, I added a total of 9 tags to the region:
  • Belize
  • Jamaica
  • Bahamas
  • Puerto Rico
  • Guadeloupe
  • Trinidad & Tobago (for convenience also including the British windward & leeward islands)
  • Guyana
  • Suriname
  • Curacao

View attachment 386500
All new American tags released.

Africa

Oh boy… Where to start. Clockwise? Let’s do this!

First, to make Sudanese-Egyptian borders possible, I split the “Western Desert” state in two, with the Sudanese part called “North Darfur”.

Next, the “Rhodesia” state in southern Africa was huge, encompassing three countries. It was split up into three parts, making it possible to separate Malawi and Zambia from Zimbabwe. In addition, cores were redistributed so that Kenya no longer controls all of Uganda and Tanganyika (which are now represented by their own tags).

In addition, Belgian Congo was not without its flaws either, and so new one-province states were split off from “Stanleyville” state to make Rwanda and Burundi possible.

View attachment 386509
South-east Africa before.

View attachment 386504
South-east Africa after. Both pictures with released tags so the changes are actually visible.

If “Rhodesia” was bad, basically all of French Africa was enough to give me a headache… In possibly the most sweeping map changes, the borders of the “Gabon”, “Equatorial Africa”, and even the impassible “Southern Sahara” states were heavily redrawn, provinces were moved between the states, and the states themselves were heavily balkanized. This resulted in the addition of 4 all-new states: “Middle Congo”, “Cameroon”, “Chad”, and the “B.E.T.” (Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti region). In addition, “Cameroon” state’s border was adjusted slightly at the expense of “Nigeria”.

View attachment 386499
Central Africa before.

View attachment 386495
Central Africa after.

The next set deals with the extremely low-effort “French West Africa” state. 6 (!) new states were introduced: “Guinea”, “Ivory Coast”, “Upper Volta”, “Niger”, “Togo”, and “Dahomey”. The state itself was renamed to “Mali”, and lost an additional province to the impassible “Mauretania” state. The border with “Mauretania” was then ‘flattened’, and “Tombouctou” state was split off from the “Mauretania” state (and their borders redrawn) to enable proper Malian borders.

View attachment 386510
West Africa before.

View attachment 386507
West Africa after.

Finally, the remaining minor changes include splitting the single “Gambia” state’s province into two, as well as splitting off the Sidi Ifni enclave from “Rio de Oro”, turning it into its own state.

In addition, (1 point) victory points have been added throughout the continent so that every releasable African nation now has at least one VP. (EDIT: Since the writing of this Dev Diary I have added 1-point VPs to all other releasable tags as well, so that each tag has at least one VP.)

Mauretania, as it is fully impassible in the game, unfortunately did not make it in as a tag.

Total list of new tags:
  • Morocco
  • Algeria
  • Tunisia
  • Sudan
  • Eritrea
  • Djibouti
  • Somalia
  • Uganda
  • Rwanda
  • Burundi
  • Tanzania
  • Malawi
  • Zambia
  • Republic of Congo
  • Gabon
  • Equatorial Guinea
  • Cameroon
  • Central African Republic
  • Chad
  • Nigeria
  • Niger
  • Dahomey
  • Togo
  • Upper Volta
  • Ghana
  • Côte d'Ivoire
  • Mali
  • Sierra Leone
  • Guinea
  • Guinea-Bissau
  • Senegal
  • The Gambia

View attachment 386489
"Family Portrait" of all African tags.

Europe

“Bessarabia”’s borders were the victim here, as to make modern-day borders possible it had to be split up into two. A new state “Southern Bessarabia” was added, with cores of both the Ukraine and Moldova.

View attachment 386491
Bessarabia before.

View attachment 386506
Bessarabia after.

Next, Poland. Yes, again. Some of you may remember that I adjusted the states and provinces in Eastern Germany to allow for the Oder-Neisse line for the 1.5.2 update. I now decided to do the same for Poland’s northern and western borders. A new state, “Königsberg” was split off from “Ostpreussen”, along a roughly east-west border. Virtually all Polish states in the East had provinces redrawn and moved between states, now enabling true modern-day borders for Poland in all directions.

Furthermore, I split up “Wilno” state, renaming it to “East Wilno” and adding a new state “West Wilno”, the division between which follows modern-day Lithuanian borders. In addition, there’s a little secret for those players who lead Lithuania to victory against whoever controls “West Wilno”, and wrest control of the state from them…

View attachment 386502
Poland before.

View attachment 386498
Poland after.

And finally, after the dev diary showcasing the Oder-neisse line border changes there were some requests from the community to adjust the “Vojvodina” state borders so that there wouldn’t be an ugly ‘jab’ of the “Serbia” state protruding into Austria-Hungary’s borders. At the time, I quickly hacked this in by making the “Vojvodina” state gobble up the provinces in question from the “Serbia” state, but this then upset people because it made historical occupation zones impossible to recreate. I now put in some time to fix that, as well. A new state was split off from “Vojvodina” called “West Banat”, representing the territory that previously was a part of the “Serbia” state. In addition, province 11580 was moved from “Vojvodina” to “Croatia”. This now makes it possible to have both historical occupation zones and ‘clean’ Austria-Hungarian borders. :)

View attachment 386508
Vojvodina before.

View attachment 386512
Vojvodina after.

Total list of new tags:
  • Malta
  • Moldova
  • Scotland
  • Wales
View attachment 386511
Showcasing new releasable tags and new Polish borders.

The final tally of all additions world-wide is thus (so far):
  • 8 new provinces
  • 22 new states
  • 59 new releasable tags
  • A lot of province and state border changes
View attachment 386493
Drool-worthy picture of a balkanized world (ironically not the balkans (yet) :( ).

All this will be included in the free 1.6 “Ironclad" update. In addition, because of the sheer number of new tags added, we are looking at possible ways to prevent people who go down the Empire path to manually release tags and get the ‘best of both worlds’, with an unstoppable zerg rush of small nations who use their generic trees to build up industry. To this end, decolonizing via the British decolonization tree currently only keeps 20% of all decolonized nations - the other 80% will leave the faction when they become independent. Naturally, this number is subject to change - we want decolonization to be attractive, but not the automatic go-to way to play the game as UK. In addition, I saw multiple people wondering if we'll be representing semi-autonomous regions as puppets rather than integrated colony territories. This is something that hasn't been decided yet.

That’s it for now! There’s always more map changes to be made, but I’m quite happy with where we’ve come so far. This also marks the last dev diary of July, as the rest of the team is following (or, like myself, has already followed) Dan’s lead and heading off on vacations (a true leader leads from the front, after all! ;) ). This results in a two-week Dev Diary hiatus. You can expect the regular Dev Diary schedule to resume on the first of August, when we’ll talk about a little something we’ve stolen from a certain other PDS game, and which we think will have incredible potential for HoI4... Have a great summer vacation, everyone! :)

Rejected Titles:

Putting that Sausage Factory in Tanzania Tanganyika on the map

View attachment 386619

Colonialism... Not even once...

Implementation of these map changes was accompanied by regular exasperated cursing in despair

We now have the ability to put country_name_here on the map

We now have the ability to wipe country_name_here off the map

Rated R for bordergore

The Bratyn giveth and the Bratyn taketh away

Trinidad and Tobago World Conquest when?

"Screw this war, I'm off to do my own thing in the Bahamas!" is now an actual thing you can do

I don't envy whoever has to update the "Anti-Colonialist Crusade"... Oh wait, that's probably me :(

"Hello, and welcome to the 59th episode of 'Beta Presents: Fun with Flags'!"

A beautiful tapestry of Ruina Imperii

If I stop responding it's because the team finally got sick of me breaking their savegames

New resource to replace oil: potassium


Still no focus tree for Finland damnit!
 
Hi, I love your message - it's very well-written and looks to be quite informed. I'm a university student with a focus on British fascism and Sir Oswald Mosley's pre-war/post-war political and economic endeavours and I wanted to clear a few misconceptions with what you've written, as well as offer my own thoughts on the subject and your proposals.



There is, unfortunately, no actual way for Hearts of Iron IV to model Mosley's ambitious and, quite frankly, inspired economic reforms - though you will note in the focus tree that there is a focus called the 'Mosley Manifesto', which was the name of Mosley's economic plan offered to Ramsay Macdonald's Labour Government. To fairly accurately model Mosley's suggested reforms in Hearts of Iron IV, I would suggest this list of changes:
A national spirit boosting infrastructure building speed, to model Mosley's major public works scheme designed to drastically lower unemployment.
A change in export/import law from Export Focus to Export Only, to model Mosley's plans of a self-sustaining British Empire and insular trading block.
A change of economy law to War Economy, to model Mosley's calls for the national housing crisis to be treated as though it were a theatre of war.
The instant construction of military factories like in the German tree, to model Mosley's calls for rapid rearmament.
The instant construction of civilian factories, to model Mosley's calls for increased production of consumer goods.

Of course there could be more, like a political power debuff to match Mosley's suggestions for an oligarchic technocracy with a buff to research speed, but as there is no real way to completely mimic Mosley's proposals there isn't much point in trying to tackle every facet of his manifesto. If you're interested in reading more from the source himself, I recommend Revolution by Reason (his 'Manifesto' before being altered so it could be presented to government), the Mosley Manifesto itself, and The Greater Britain or Tomorrow We Live for Mosley's adjusted economic plans after his turn to fascism (which is where ideas like the technocracy exist). If you're interested in Mosley's career as a member of parliament, I cannot more highly recommend both Mosley and British Politics 1918-1932 by David Howell and Politicians and the Slump: The Labour Government of 1929-1931 by Robert Skidelsky.



This is a very complicated facet of Mosley's movement and a contentious topic amongst academics studying British fascism. Just how pro-German was the British fascist movement? How far would the British fascists go to keep Britain out of a war with Germany? I cannot speak for all in the British fascist movement, save for British Nazis like William Joyce and Arnold Leese whose stance on the matter became very clear, but Mosley's efforts did have a breaking point. The necessary background information is that Mosley was avidly anti-war after having fought in World War I, and was of the staunch belief that Britain should mind Britain's own business and safeguard her own interests. It was not in the interest of the British people to go die for Poland when Mosley and the British government knew that Britain could not defend Poland. This permissiveness had limits - should Hitler have driven west into France then Britain and the European peace would all be threatened, and a Mosleyite Britain would likely side with France as Britain did historically - we can theorise as much because Mosley suggested as such in some of his writings (without explicitly saying so). You can also infer as much from his political record and his reasons for leaving the conservative party over the issue of Ireland.

Taking this all back to the context of Hearts of Iron IV, it is inevitable that Nazi Germany will drive west into the Benelux and into France. Yes, inevitable. That is simply how the German focus tree works. A warmongering Germany and a peace-obsessed fascist Britain could not be friends - and it would be inevitable that Britain would be drawn into the war one way or another. Mosley understood and accepted the Germans feeling that they needed to expand east, and Mosley did not seek to hinder the Germans in doing so (at least through force), but even that war he sought to prevent by offering an alternative (we'll return to this shortly). Looking at the focuses, you are offered what I believe to be the perfect spread of choices. "Prevent a Continental Hegemony" is exactly what Mosley and Mussolini would seek to do if they were aligned together. Just as Trotskyists and Stalinists had their split - in this alt-history scenario, fascism and national socialism have their split. However, if you want to play with a British-German alliance you are still able to with the Nazi-aligned Edward VIII under the King's Party branch. The truth is, under a British monarch is the only way the British people could be persuaded into Germany's offensive wars. Mosley, even as prime minister with his suggested governmental reforms, could not persuade the British people that marching into the cold wintery hell of Russia just so that Germany could expand its borders would be worth it - especially after 20 years of demanding nothing but peace. More accurately, a Mosleyite Britain could be what America was to Britain and the Soviet Union during World War II before they joined the war themselves - an arsenal of fascism.

The 'Brotherhood of Europe' I'd like to address in a second as well as the idea of "knocking out" communism, but I just have two points to share on your last sentence, which I won't belabour. Ironically, feeding the hungry of the world was exactly one of the things that Mosley wanted to do. I was looking for a quote to back this up but I don't believe I have the correct literature on me, so if I recall correctly such a plan was raised in the third or fourth edition of Tomorrow We Live and further expanded on in Mosley's Broadsheets. Also, I'm not sure what your definition of 'impossible equality' is, but Mosley (at least in the years following World War II) expounded a political philosophy that could be summarised by the phrase 'separate but equal'. If you refer to the sexes then I highly suggest you read Julie Gottlieb's Feminine Fascism: Women in Britain's Fascism Movement because as you'll learn Mosley's fascist movement was one of the most progressive in British politics at that time, and fielded more female candidates running for regional seats at one point than all the other British parties combined.



I'll address the European fascist situation altogether, but first I'd like to look at your ideas of what fascist Britain should be focused on in terms of adversaries. Luckily, there's not much to say - I agree! Japan represents a strategic threat to the British Empire (Mosley was sure he'd be able to settle the situation with Japan peacefully, though we know in hindsight that this was very unlikely), the Soviet Union represents the ideological threat, and the United States represents both a strategic, economic, and ideological threat. So first we should address realism and next we'll talk about the game. Historically this is a no-brainer really, Mosley was completely and utterly opposed to war and expansion of the British Empire and so I would certainly wager that Mosley would not declare any offensive wars against any of these nations. Japan and Britain were headed for a collision as their aims in the Pacific were bound to end in conflict, so Mosley whips Britain into a fervour with his spectacular oratory after a surprise attack by the Japanese on Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaya and then war begins. Mosley didn't want war with the Soviet Union, but he was very clear in his message that the communists in Moscow were no friends of Britain or Europe. His policy towards the Soviet Union should be summarised in his own words, "We seek war and strife with no nation, but to Russia we say: 'Hands off Europe and back to the East where you belong!" Now, the USA wasn't targetted directly by many of Mosley's speeches or writings but one of his favourite targets to rail against as an enemy of Britain were the 'fat cats of Wall Street'. Globalist capitalism was a staunch enemy of Mosley's pre-war and post-war movements because he believed that capitalists would always undercut the British labourer by exploiting the underprivileged peoples of the world by forcing them into sweatshops and paying them lower wages than a Briton would ever accept. Did this mean war? Of course not, but that's no fun so let's move away from history and onto Hearts of Iron IV now.

In Hearts of Iron IV, there is no need for a lengthy discussion because we're both getting what we want, as can be seen in the focus tree. 'Pre-Empt the Strategic Threat' targets Japan, 'Pre-Empt the Ideological Threat' targets the Soviet Union, and Bratyn confirmed here in this thread that 'Unite the Anglosphere' targets the USA - all three foci can be accessed by imperial and fascist Britain from the looks of it. Italy gets targetted in the Edward VIII imperialist tree, and Germany gets targetted in the Mosleyite fascist tree - which sounds to me like everybody gets roughly what they would want out of a British fascist game.





Alright, where to begin? Let's begin with your assertion that the European fascists were opposed to 'European Union'. In short: you're right and you're wrong. First, seeing as the bulk of your contribution was focussed on British fascism it seems only right that we begin there. Now let's start with a simple question, was Oswald Mosley opposed to 'European Union'?

Let me elaborate: in 1936, Oswald Mosley published in the political 'academic' journal Fascist Quarterly an article called Towards a Fascist Europe where he called for a united European economic and political front - he even used the exact words 'European union'. Mosley does not write in a concise fashion, so I shall speak for him until I deem a phrase or sentence of his worth repeating in whole. Now, Mosley recognised that there were a number of factors keeping European countries from living harmoniously and joining in economic and political unity - and he goes onto detail about why Germany and Britain were at current (in 1936) heading for a collision. In his words: "[...] the only policy which can logically produce another explosion on the Western frontiers of Germany is the denial of expansion [...] but the solution here suggested is not the partition of Russia, not merely because it is the first interest of Europe and should be the first objective of British policy to keep the peace, but also because the solution of the European problems in terms both economic and political is possible on the lines already indicated without any offensive action against Russia." Mosley argued that Europe's political and economic struggles could all be solved by a "Four Power Bloc of Fascist nations", by which he presumably meant the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, and France. Mosley wanted to combine the military might of a United Europe with the resources provided through the British Empire to create a new world order hell-bent on countering the Soviet Union while maintaining global peace - presumably countering Japanese ambitions in China as well. Best to summarise Mosley's beliefs on the merits of a United Europe with his own final words on the subject: "Great is the responsibility that high fate imposes on us. We fight not only for the salvation of the land we love; we fight also for the Peace of Mankind."

Let's now very quickly address the aims of continental fascism historically, starting with Italy. Mussolini and the Italian Fascists very early on came to the decision that they believed they were cheated out of territory that they deserved after World War I. Their answer was to take what they felt they were owed - and then some. Mussolini's dream of 'Mare Nostrum' is no secret today. That means Italy had designs on Egypt, Cyprus, Malta, Tunisia, and likely large swaths of the Middle East. The Italians greatly overestimated their ability to wage war, and while they may have been content to play the long game like Japan I think we know from history that they were not. So Italy was placed on a collision course with either Britain or France because they had irreconcilable colonial ambitions. German fascism meant expansion into large swaths of already occupied territory - namely that of Russia, the Baltics, Ukraine, Poland, Czechia, Belarus, and all the territory up to the Urals. War, for Germany, was inevitable - not only because of their ambitions but also because of their time-bomb of an economy. French fascism was exceptionally ultranationalistic - and what French ultranationalist dreams of friendship with the Germans? French fascism inherently was staunchly anti-German and while both of their movements could reconcile in their anti-semitism there would be little more that they could agree on. British fascism has been covered extensively enough already - very against expansion, but would certainly defend the borders of its empire. TLDR: Italian fascism meant expansion south and inevitably war, French fascism meant countering German continental hegemony and inevitably war, German fascism meant expansion east and possibly north and west and inevitably war, British fascism meant isolation and peace through almost any means and probably inevitably war.

Please do not mistake my verbose explanations as a repudiation, as I do very much like your suggestion and you have clearly put much thought into it. I would suggest you make a mod for it! Unfortunately for France, your suggestion for how this fascist military bloc forms initially is the most likely. France is forced into cooperation with Italy and Germany - and loses some of its core territories to both powers, with much of their empire carved up and given to Italy in the process. This does not create a willing partner though, and just as Bismarck predicted that Germany seizing Alsace-Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian War would result in revanchism you can bet your ass that this puppeted France is going to be facing much more popular and much more powerful civil wars. However, this hypothetical war alone may be enough to repulse Mosley from any sort of military alliance with Italy or Germany. I suppose the kinks would be left to you or any other prospective modder to work out.

Hopefully you have found all this information interesting, and are at least somewhat swayed as to why a British-German alliance under Mosley would be impossible with the current status of the German focus tree. Oswald Mosley was many things, but he was never a warmonger - and only the most ignorant of his enemies ever accused him as such! Hitler on the other hand... well we're all very familiar with how his "foreign policy" turned out. If anyone is interested in learning more about British fascism or Oswald Mosley and wants some book recommendations then feel free to PM me :)





Hello good sir! I appreciate the lengthy post and the input. A lot of things you pointed out hit it right on the head. However, I think I need to clarify some things. Let me show you where I'm coming from per say.

Britain's goal in WWI was to prevent a European continental hegemony. She achieved that when Germany's trade, colonial, and economic policies were destroyed. Everything beyond that was harmful to Britain. From 1919 to 1936/37, France had achieved a level of continental supremacy not seen by that country since the time of Napoleon. Romania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, much of the Baltics, and others were under total influence of the French. The very thing Britain had been trying to prevent in WWI, happened. Britain and France were quite alienated with each other for some time and, even when they fought side by side in WWI, there was often much conflict between the two. As time went on in the 20's and early to mid thirties, Britain drifted away from France and saw herself in an increasingly isolated state. This will become important later

Before I continue, I should mention a few things of importance so you can see where’s I am coming from. I am from Flanders. I have been blessed (and my family cursed) to have much involvement in both wars. I had many volunteers in the Waffen SS in my family with many others fighting for the allies in the Witte Brigade, the battle of the Atlantic, North Africa, the Paratroopers in Toulon, the battle of Antwerp, and more. I have had the fortunate opportunity to speak to many of them and hear their experiences and perspective on the war. My family is still heavily divided to this day on the war, allowing me to see a perspective most unfortunately do not have the opportunity to observe.

German Expansionism: How far did it go?

After the invasion of Poland, the British high command with the French drew up a plan called R4 to violate Norwegian and Swedish neutrality in order to deprive Germany of the vital iron and tungsten needed for Germany to continue her war effort. A similar plan was drawn up for the BeNeLux to end the glorious phony war and push into the Rhine. The most mobile French troops were lined up along the Belgian border and would act almost like a hinge from the Maginot to Dunkirk swinging into the Rhine. Meanwhile, dozens upon dozens of peace offers were made by the supposedly warmongering and expansionist Hitler at the time. The BeNeLux campaign was more of a pre-emptive strike than anything. The neutrality that was so desperately desired by the BeNeLux governments was, from the moment Maginot was finished, doomed. When france fell, the only attacks on Britain was basic strategic bombing. It wasn’t Churchill who obliterated 1/3rd of the worker’s housing in Berlin before the blitz happened.


Ah the great “let’s pretend that germany wanted to annex all the land up to the urals and genocide everyone living there but at the same time create legions of those very people we are trying to exterminate to fight with us” mindfuck. This ignores the fact the the germans attack the Soviet Union with the Soviet troop in their forward positions - i.e. poised to attack. If the germans has waited 3 weeks longer, the Soviets would have steam rolled across that contenent. This is why Hitler wanted peace because he know the M-R pact was a very fragile document. Stalin was waiting for the west to fight themselves dry. Germany was intent on expanding in the east, that is a fact. But to the extent that today’s “academics” claim it to be is propostous. The land gained by Prussia and Silesia in the partitions of Poland was certainly in the picture, as well as renforcing a strong and dominent german minority in the Baltics. But in reality, beyond that the only real german settlement that would’ve happened would be the likes similar to the Tsarist german settlement policies under Cathryn the Great. Even then, this was more or less a pipe dream. The goal was a crusade against Bolshevism. Land gain was much an afterthought. This is the reason why when the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS went from village to village they were often welcomed as guests, or even liberators. My grandfather’s cousin who fought in the Walloon division wrote a book on his experiences. It is exactly what I am saying here.

For those interested, the book is “We will not go to Tuapse” by Fernand Kaisergruber.



As for the British Fascist movement, they nor the common Briton at the time had any alliegence to France, especially with the incredible amount of communist influence in the government. Even after the party was banned. Not to mention the various wedges driven between the two powers throughout the two decades before the war. Again, this would also assume that France would be right back willing to stand alone in backing Poland. Do remember that France did have a massive pasifist movement.

For Mosley’s fairly liberal policy towards women, this does not contradict what I said with impossible equality. When I said “impossible equality” I meant it in the context that Churchill wrote in 1920 in the London Herold “Zionism vs Bolshevism”. The cliche of feeding the hungry for Mosley was not the same as what it means today. A responsible end of hunger means ending hunger but also preventing population explosion, something that Mosley advocated for, but not what modern “charities” do.



On a “Union of Europe” (or Brotherhood of Europe)

When I mentioned that Mosley and others were opposed to an EU, I explicitly said that they were opposed to a Union outined in Count Kalergi’s Pan-European manifesto. Not some sort of European cooperation. Alfred Rosenberg says practically exactly the same thing in “The Myth of the 20th Century” (he explicitly mentions Pan-Europa). Either that was a miscommunication, or you may have skipped over that.



French, Italian, and British fascism and German National Socialism


There is a quite an interesting take here on the goals of various groups that you have mentioned. Let me address a few. La Callauge was one of the most well known “fascist” groups in France at the time, however, they were more chavanists than anything. France, after gaining A-L back, had nothing much left to hate against germany except petty rivialry. There were forces, like those of which who morphed into the PPF, who were very much wishing to work together with Germany against Bolshevism and other threats. In Italy, there was definitely a irredentist component to Mussolini’s Italy. They sought Austria as a satalite state and some even proposed annexing northern Tyrol. Italy and Germany even almost went to war after an attempted coup in Austria in 34 I think. However, as history has shown us, some things can be satisfied and not every claim must be fulfilled. A free hand in establishing a sphere of influence in the Balkans was what italy desired most. Dalmatia, Albania, Montenegro, and a Greek partner/satalite with maybe a Bulgarian partner.


I enjoyed your post thoroughly. I am looking into modding but I am waiting for a part for my new gaming PC to arrive.
 
Meanwhile, dozens upon dozens of peace offers were made by the supposedly warmongering and expansionist Hitler at the time.

Some fairly adventurous points in your post (including some stuff I'm not going near with a ten-foot pole, because addressing it appropriately would mean breaking forum rules hard) - but this one stands out. Sure, Hitler made peace offers (he made peace offers after France fell as well - although like his earlier offers ones that were comfortably in Germany's favour). The Allies did as well - just withdraw from Poland and all's good. Hitler had a "White Peace" option, and clearly didn't take it. A "hey, I'm really peaceful and not expansionist, just misunderstood" Hitler had an out and the supposedly warmongering Allies (those same Allies who had delayed rearmament to the point they were woefully underprepared for war when it did break out - against a Germany that despite being comprehensively disarmed had rebuilt itself in less than a decade to be the premier armed force in Europe!) were never, ever given an option by Hitler to hit the "reset" button (ie, return to pre-war situation). At the end of the day, as best I understand them (and I do make mistakes, this might be one of them but I'm fairly confident in these points) the facts are pretty cut and dried here.
 
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