The US should be a lot more diplomatically constrained by "The Neutrality Act"

[LarsStok]

If you want an early war with Germany, you can simply guarantee one of the low countries when tension hits 75% (which it does when they declare on one of them). I'm not even that good a player and I can still curbstomp the Germans within a few months using this ploy (you can mobilize the American econ by mid 1937 which also feels weird).
It feels really cheesy - if I were doing limited intervention AND had protested German aggression at every turn, I'd maybe buy it. But I explicitly took the focus whose event text states "our boys will not be sent to foreign wars" and 2 years later I'm shipping close to a million servicemen to France? What?

 

[Poliut]

You can also go to war early when Japan sinks the Panay

 

[LarsStok]

You can also go to war early when Japan sinks the Panay

Yes, but at the very least doing so is massively destabilizing if you took the Neutrality Act focus. There's an actual congruency there. A choice, albeit a very bad one.

 

[FindFloppies]

It's one of those things that if you're playing SP, just don't do it, if you don't like that possibility. Despite all this, the US is one of the more nerfed majors. Nothing like Germany, which is the most overpowered one of all.

 

[LarsStok]

The possibility should not exist. I've nothing against buffing the US industrially, I just don't think they should be able to get a war with Germany for 25 political power. I know there are lots of wacky stuff in the game, but Neutrality Act is supposed to be "historical". So I don't think the devs would be wrong to make a war in 1939 which happens on the flimsiest of premises (the isolationist US suddenly cares about the sovereignty of Belgium) temporarily tank your stability and political power. Hell, make it cause a cabinet crisis, lord knows the current US political system is barren enough.

 

[FindFloppies]

The possibility should not exist. I've nothing against buffing the US industrially, I just don't think they should be able to get a war with Germany for 25 political power.

I understand what you're saying, but, otoh, I don't find it a high priority thing to change. If you don't like the possibility, don't use it. Seems simple to me. You can have a different opinion, of course.

 

[LarsStok]

I'm hopeful for a second look at the US focus tree. Though Japan is much more pressing, I'll grant that

 

[General Tao]

US shouldn't be able to guarantee nations if it went neutrality and isn't yet at war. Neutrality act should be a national spirit reflecting the consequences. The player could have decisions to take that would repeal this but doing so would require high senate and house approval, cost stability, and take time.

Pax Americana can be the method to prevent outside influence in the Americas, but it needs improvement to cope with territory changing hands in peace deals

 

[LarsStok]

US shouldn't be able to guarantee nations if it went neutrality and isn't yet at war. Neutrality act should be a national spirit reflecting the consequences. The player could have decisions to take that would repeal this but doing so would require high senate and house approval, cost stability, and take time.

Pax Americana can be the method to prevent outside influence in the Americas, but it needs improvement to cope with territory changing hands in peace deals

The US should be able to demand the reinstatement of any N/S America nations annexed by non-ideological allies (typically non-democracies). Forcefully enforcing Monroe if the offending nation refuses should incur a slight stab penalty for Neutrality Act USA (but nowhere near the same level as doing a war due to the Panay, I'd say 5-10%).

 

[Emoneh]

I understand what you're saying, but, otoh, I don't find it a high priority thing to change. If you don't like the possibility, don't use it. Seems simple to me. You can have a different opinion, of course.

Disagree with this because it massively undersells the actual disadvantage the US (administration) had in exerting its foreign policy in this era. Roosevelt was massively constrained by a strongly anti-war Congress & public, and had to carefully manoeuvre the US towards a confrontation with Germany & Japan. Strategically, this was at least as big of a challenge as the actual war. There's an opportunity for serious gameplay here around the cycle of escalation--Axis actions worry Congress, which allows for more actions by the US, which provokes the Axis into more aggressive actions (...). Could be the centre of a DLC focused around diplomacy & escalation.

I know it's a bit fluffier because it's political/diplomatic, but you wouldn't say this for any other country--e.g. imagine if oil/fuel didn't exist as a resource & someone said "oh, well if you want a more historical Germany, just drive your tanks around a bit less, it's simple."

 

[LarsStok]

There's an opportunity for serious gameplay here around the cycle of escalation--Axis actions worry Congress, which allows for more actions by the US, which provokes the Axis into more aggressive actions (...). Could be the centre of a DLC focused around diplomacy & escalation.

This exists in game as the barebones Limited Intervention decisions which gradually boost war support and i think culminate with actual war goals (which are again sort of superfluous given that the US can just guarantee Poland if they went with limited intervention).
But they do little to influence what Germany do in response, which feels like it does indeed need more work. Like, the Germans were not exactly rational but I think they might've thunk twice if the US had repeatedly sent telegrams stating "if you don't cut that shit out we're coming over there again".

 

[Emoneh]

This exists in game as the barebones Limited Intervention decisions which gradually boost war support and i think culminate with actual war goals (which are again sort of superfluous given that the US can just guarantee Poland if they went with limited intervention).
But they do little to influence what Germany do in response, which feels like it does indeed need more work. Like, the Germans were not exactly rational but I think they might've thunk twice if the US had repeatedly sent telegrams stating "if you don't cut that shit out we're coming over there again".

Yeah, kind of as you say, the problem with this is that it is purely solitaire, and that you get war goals. The aim of such a system should be to make a Japan player rationally choose to go to war with the US. The key element is organising the oil embargo, which did ultimately put Japan in the position of having a choice between attacking the US & capitulating to all US demands (though there are a lot of other elements that could be included as well).

For Germany, there's stuff about lend lease & Atlantic shipping, I imagine. The main thing is the pact with Japan--honouring it could give e.g. a war support buff (In reality, I think Hitler, as a dictator, overestimated the level of political control Roosevelt had over Washington and assumed war was a foregone conclusion). The US had contingency plans to get Germany into the war if they didn't join willingly:

It was agreed that if war was initiated by Japan, Germany would be brought in by offensive action against her by the United States.
[…]
It was felt in the Navy Department, that there might be a possibility of war with Japan without the involvement of Germany, but at some length and over a considerable period, this matter was discussed and it was determined that in such a case the United States would, if possible, initiate efforts to bring Germany into the war against us in order that we would be enabled to give strong support to the United Kingdom in Europe.
-- Admiral Richmond K. Turner, Pearl Harbor Hearings, Part XXVI, p.265
https://archive.org/details/pearlharborattac26unit/page/264/

Haven't looked up the plans myself but that should provide some more inspiration for this kind of thing (assuming they're now public).

 

[Poliut]

I'm hopeful for a second look at the US focus tree. Though Japan is much more pressing, I'll grant that

I'd also like to see them give the non-historical 1944 US elections another look at the very least. FDR isn't running as a challenger in that election.

 

[Lamartine]

I'd also like to see them give the non-historical 1944 US elections another look at the very least. FDR isn't running as a challenger in that election.

I really enjoyed the Kaiserreich branching tree of presidential election candidates depending on who wins each election in what order. I'd love something similar in the base game.

 

[LarsStok]

Alternatively, certain focuses could just be unavailable if the "right" president isn't there. F.ex, currently reestablishing the gold standard is impossible under FDR (though imo reestablishment is pretty stupid regardless of who is president)

 

[Terracos]

In general the US should have a way way higher power ceiling by having more industry potential (building slots) but a historical US should be way more restrained to actually unlock that by having massive stability penalties for higher mobilisation laws and war economy as well as a constant debuff regarding Consumer Goods due to the balancing of isolationalist interests and interventionalist. They never got fully resolved they just shifted and needed carefull balance.

In a non-historical setting if you go an extreme path the potential should be unlockable though.

 

[coffeelingfine]

There needs to be a good reason to choose limited intervention over neutrality act

 

[LarsStok]

There needs to be a good reason to choose limited intervention over neutrality act

If you went with the union rep act but still want to remain democratic after the second civil war, Neutrality Act is much harder to do. It's the one concrete example I can give apart from roleplay where LI is easier/better than NA. As it stands right now LI is bad because NA fails to accomplish its intended purpose ingame.

 

[Anony1200]

For the record, the reason this wasn't historically a problem is that the Monroe Doctrine before ToA was simulated as the US guaranteeing every country in the New World, which made your Guarantee Independence PP cost an astronomical sum that you were sacrificing something to use. Still probably at least somewhat exploitable, but at least you had to work at it.

The boring but practical and (probably) relatively easy solution would be that, since guarantees have scope on them anyway, modify one of America's starting traits ("Home of the Free") to make it so that unless either Limited Intervention or some quite late-game NF tree goal is passed, the US can only guarantee countries in the Americas and the Pacific. Guarantees can be scoped, so that would hopefully be viable.

The more fun option would be to keep exploits that let you into an early war but give you massively disastrous events for joining a war too early without being personally attacked, especially with an Isolationist economy. Worse versions of the existing Low War Support events (Strikes, Mutinies, Draft Dodgers), events where companies refuse to support the war effort (temporary factory loss), etc.

After all, it would be difficult to overstate how opposed the American public was to involvement in the war before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and what would be seen as "shaky" justification (e.g. the guarantee on the Netherlands in this scenario) would just make that a lot worse for at least a few years.

 

[LarsStok]

The more fun option would be to keep exploits that let you into an early war but give you massively disastrous events for joining a war too early without being personally attacked, especially with an Isolationist economy. Worse versions of the existing Low War Support events (Strikes, Mutinies, Draft Dodgers), events where companies refuse to support the war effort (temporary factory loss), etc.

After all, it would be difficult to overstate how opposed the American public was to involvement in the war before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and what would be seen as "shaky" justification (e.g. the guarantee on the Netherlands in this scenario) would just make that a lot worse for at least a few years.

Let the record show that I favor this approach. The severity of the events should be inversely proportional to War Support. If you did LI and protested Germany, did War Propaganda etc.etc. the US public is primed for conflict and fewer view the war as unnecessary. If you did NI AND have low war support AND get into a non-American hemisphere war in late 1939, your political legitimacy implodes.