Good discussion on the complex mess of No Step Back. That said, you really must hate paradox. They asked for one thing, and yet Tristan from StepBack is in the video.
@@selinakyle6941 Gamification is gonna make adapting any history a mess, so I don't think it's something to throw at Paradox's feet as long as the mistakes aren't extremely egregious.
@@alanpennie8013 Unsurprising, given your likely demographic background. I.e. some nerdy white guy who likes military history, likely in their 20s to 30s and based in a western country. Also known as generally the most ignorant demographic in the world.
One big problem with adding stuff like the holocaust would be that either it would be purely negative for your nation so no one would do it or it would be positive for your nation which would suggest that it was a good idea. Neither of these options would be good.
Except if you look at the holocaust you can see that it both helped, the looting of personal wealth from jewish and other people massively helped fund the german army and allowed the germans to not need to cut rations because they could simply kill those who were "undeserving" but also forced them ideologically to invest in said holocaust and guarantee that where ever they went someone was gunning to kill them or sabotage the war effort. That and they have no problem debuffing and hurting other nations who historically shot them self(like you know the entire stalin paranoia system) in the foot no reason the germans should get a pass.
@@andrewgreenwood9068 Horrifies acts of violence usually benefit people at the cost of others. Most of human history has been authoritarians squeezing wealth from lower classes. So, while the holocaust is unique in the scale and totality of its violence, I don't think ignoring it in your game about WW2 without some nuances is a good idea either.
I think the best way for it to be implemented would be something that happens on it's own once you invade the Soviet Union as Nazi Germany, and then you have to deal with it. Could be used to open up a path towards overthrowing Hitler mid war. Won't be implemented in game but could be a fun idea for a mod, having Hitler and his higher ups pressuring for you to spend more resources on the holocaust while you have to balance out the negatives of the holocausts with trying to keep Hitler appeased, or alternatively fully resisting Hitler and eventually couping him.
In historicity terms, NSB was wacky. In gameplay terms its by far the best Expansion the game ever had (We have historical problems with it, but holy shit the supply system and tank design was a huge change)
Supply system sucks big time, 70% of all wartime productions were into supplies alone, that includes ammunition for simplicity sake I just throw it all in there as "supply" since no Hearts of Iron game really had ammunition production but rather combined it all into "supplies" So technically at least half your mills should just go to supply production and it could been a fun strategy if Paradox had ounce of brain, sadly they do not. And supplies work strangely, its just a percentage game, you got 20% supply in this region therefore you "receive" 20% supplies????? In reality, it would just take longer for supplies to get to your troops, most divisions had supplies enough for at least a week or two after all you could not just go to wallmart and buy yourself some sausages and milk. There also no supply depot in the game which is an hilarious oversight, there just these supply nodes you build to "extend" your supply range? Again it makes no Goddamn sense, they could easily real world supply issues as they were instead we are getting a loony toon version. Produce supplies in your factories - transport them by horses, trucks, trains, ships or air - supply depots that store certain amount and then delivers it further to the troops - each divisions have a supply storage which gets consumed faster when they are in combat but gets consumed less when they stand around doing nothing - supplies can be captured when you overrun enemy divisions or capture supply depots. Seriously, its not that Goddamn hard, but Paradox are extremely inept, you know why? The studio were bleeding talented developers like crazy around 2014~ and even more around 2018 or so when they started getting extremely politically sensitive, most of their game engine developers left which is why they had so many problems that still persist today, and do not get me started on the Victoria 3 development hell, oh damn what a laugh.
@@SMGJohn i... do not disagree with you. Paradox suffers heavily from brain drain since EU4 is a thing, and all its updates and changes being nothing more than straight up gimmicks and not thought out mechanics shows. I still find the new supply system better than the old one, where it was "haha big number region".
Civilian populations are represented in state information in-game, but your only concern with the civilian population is how large it is and what percentage of it you can mobilize for military use.
@@oldyladhoi3 was an absolute joke of a game, super convoluted and brigade based combat is impossible to micromanage. darkest hour is still the better option for any game before hoi4, it's a very well made game and it recently received another update and bug fix, also it has the better version of kaiserreich lmao
The paranoia mechanic was actually called "Stalin's Paranoia" when in development, as can be seen in the dev diaries, but because of fans causing slight controversies surrounding it, it was renamed to what is now called "Political Paranoia".
might also have been renamed so that if something happen you dont suddenly have Stalin Paranoia when Stalin is not the leader but your still have to deal whit the Paranoia feature. like someone gets rid of stalin and takes over but gets hit whit the same Paranoia stalin had.
@@Zack_Wester Happens if you assassinate Stalin. Beria takes over and either you do the civil war against him, or you coup him and take over as Bukharin.
in the end this system don't make sense to be a stalin or urss/russia thing, political paranoia is a feature of every country, Churchill distrust towards colonies, Germany distrust of everyone, America distrust of immigrants from belligerents countrie. Paranoia only makes sense or justice if applied for every single country and ideologies
It's obviously a careless statisc to instill red fear. These historians don't want to pull any numbers on the deaths and displacement of black and indigenous people in western countries so they don't look as bad as the USSR. If they are just as bad their ideology does not work.
Cheka(The Extraordinary Commission for combating Counterrevolution and sabotage) - was existing 5 years, from 1917 to 1922, what fucking 1.7 millions killed, wtf. In post-soviet countries we stoped on number 700k from 1921 to 1953(Zemskov)
I dunno, I think sticking to 1.5% population loss figure for Turkey is inherently problematic, since it basically denies the Armenian genocide. There were at least a million Armenians living within Turkey before the war outside of the modern borders of Armenia (which was part of Russia) though they didn't all die, and many would have fled or been forced to abandon their identity, that 1.5% figure doesn't account for them at all.
Yeah this is true. But the sad thing is we cannot know. It was censored for years, and there were many more that moved and fled from their heritage, compared to how many starved.
Obviously not through the entire video yet, but I do feel like the Human Wave part of the tree is intended for China (which was largely due to desperation) and that the other branch is intended for the Soviet Union.
While not the most definitive argument, I think the nature of the trees as mutually exclusive gameplay-wise, and non exclusive historically, the whole thing gets a bit soupy. Combining that with the... negative connotations Human Wave carry and the tendency of its use in dehumanizing, I'd say it can apply to either, though I do agree that China is the more likely "intended candidate" here. I think if they reworded some of that branch it would be mostly fine (aside from being a bit of a "lose-more" option, of course.)
The Wiki's page for Land Doctrines also has this interesting note: "The Mass Mobilization branch [which OP and Rosencreutz refer to as the Human Wave part of the tree] is shorter than the others; this is because it's more of a series of stopgap measures for nations in dire straits than a real doctrine, and encourages nations to swap out of it when or if their military, technological and industrial situation improves."
The right branch of mass assault is explicitly intended for China, yes, but it is also citing some pretty openly racist material (referenced in the video) for its naming conventions, little more than one step removed from yellow peril rhetoric. That said, it does also invoke a certain amount of Enemy At The Gates level of history. For somebody playing the game without any real historical grounding, you could look at this and very much conjure up that image of "one man carries the rifle, if he falls, the next picks it up", and implant that idea of Soviet doctrine for them. Calling it all mass assault doesn't help avoid that.
@@miracletortoise6224 there is a problem whit HOI4 and that is in most game. that shows up well whit Soviet. early part of the war the mass doctrine had some level of truth in it, later not so much. but the problem is that having soviet start whit the mass doctrine tree and speed throught it and then just switch to another one does not work gameplay wise in HOI4. as that would mean that for a long time your losing a lot of doctrines buffs untill you catch up where you was in the mass assult tree in the other doctrine (superior fire power, mobil warfare or grand plan).
@@miracletortoise6224 It should be pointed though that modern Russia apparently do believe in Human Wave as factual source of Russian greatness. How else we can explain strategy used by Wagner or treatment of the Mobiks? And no. It is not echelon strategy. Unfortunately inhumanity is part of modern Russian political ideology (they also de facto use Tarkin Doctrine). And before someone say anything. Russians are white. It has nothing to do with race, but irredeemable anti-intellectual mafia state. Russia become.
I must note that you have at least one false premise (I watched first 15 minutes of the video so far) but overall argument is solid, so I would try to argue here. Soviet military never abandoned 'Deep Operation' either during or after the Purge and no association existed between purged theorists and doctrine itself. If you read Soviet doctrinal documents before the Purge, during the Purge and after the Purge, they remain the same and whatever can be described as 'Deep Battle/Deep Operation' remained on the books as central element of military strategy. The whole myth of 'abandoning Deep Battle' is more or less a product of post-Stalinist revisionism of the Soviet military leadership who wanted to explain failures of the initial stages of the war as 'it was not our fault'.
Yea, they didn't abandon it, it's more of a combination of "Some of the ideas of Deep Battle were not that good" and "We don't have the needed level of communication, expertise and experience to pull it off" and "Our strategy might be solid, but our tactics are severely lacking"
That makes a lot more sense, especially when you look at how quick they were to counter attack come winter using Deep Battle Tactics again despite "not having used them" since Tukhachvesky got an invititation to a poorly lit Moscow basement.
however, many of the generals who pioneered it, or utilised it were purged or put under suspicion. Tukhachevsky was a large part of Soviet doctinral innovation, and his theories worked well in Manchuria, its no doubt why the Soviets most sucessful generals like Zhukov studied directly under him. After the purge many of the generals lacked this knowledge of doctrine, and at the time German supremacy and initiative meant that there was little opportunity to adequetly practise. The moment they got the chance the Soviets used their doctrine well, its just hard when for the majority of the first year and a half the Germans were capable of greater offensives than the Soviets.
@@jam8539 Tukhachevsky was not an author of Deep Battle, nor he was a major contributor to it. And of course Zhukov never served with or under Tukhachevsky either.
At the outbreak of hostilities between the Axis powers and the Soviet Union, the USSR was the side at a numerical disadvantage, although most people wouldn't believe you if you told them that.
@@spencersmith4373 The Soviet union at the start of Barbarossa was so heavily disorganized, that while the Ussr had more troops overall and potential manpower what they had on the field was usually outnumbered by the better-organized Axis forces.
@@chianghighshrekQuotes, plural. "Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything." Not a single reliable source. "The only real power comes out of a long rifle." That's actually Mao's, if I'm not mistaken. Things like that are literally the easiest of research, a child could do it, and they still managed to fail.
@@jzrgrmm the one that may be Mao is a bit twisted as Maos quote was actually: "Every Communist must grasp the truth; "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun"" - Mao, Problems of War and Strategy Which lines up with Mao coming to the same conclusions as Clausewitz " "War is the continuation of politics." In this sense, war is politics and war itself is a political action; since ancient times there has never been a war that did not have a political character.... However, war has its own particular characteristics and in this sense, it cannot be equated with politics in general. "War is the continuation of politics by other . . . means." When politics develops to a certain stage beyond which it cannot proceed by the usual means, war breaks out to sweep the obstacles from the way.... When the obstacle is removed and our political aim attained the war will stop. Nevertheless, if the obstacle is not completely swept away, the war will have to continue until the aim is fully accomplished.... It can therefore be said that politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed." - Mao, On Protracted War
About "bad history begets bad history", I have an example I can give from the study of a teacher of mine, a historian of Medieval Europe, mostly focused on the persecutions of "heretics" by the church in Italy and Southern France, fascinating topic. She found one of her coleagues' books mentioned briefly a story about one such persecution in Italy. Now in this book, the situation was cut and dry, and cited, as a source for this, a work by a XIXth century historian whom himself seemed quite clear on his conclusions that he drew from analysis of a primary source, a parchment detailing the testimonies of a bunch of witnesses of said events. Now where it gets interesting is that due to a miriad of factors, that source is unreliable to come to any kind of cut and dry answer. The testimonies obviously don't all line up, it's a translation from italian to latin, the questions asked to the witnesses aren't known. And yet this simple poor analysis by this XIXth century historian (whom I'm not demonizing as a bad historian, it was also jsut a short part of his work) brought another historian to quote him as a factual source. It's a fascinating example on how an imperfect interpretation of a source can be echoed as a fact and a reminder that the best historians aren't infalible.
There's a semi infamous example of something similar to this that happened in the *last few years* but got caught and didn't make it to print...or, well it did, but not to shelves. There was a woman who wrote a book about the history of Queer culture in London, in the fashion of other books that have popped up in the last few years like "Gay Berlin" etc. Now, the issue was, her work was either not peer reviewed or done so by journalists and non-experts in the subfield. At the very least her editor didn't know the subject well. And so, there came to be a part of the book where she claimed that *dozens*, of men were executed in London for the crime of homosexuality in the 19th century. Her source? She read documents from the old bailey that said "sentence: executed" meaning done, accomplished, handed down, and understood it as "sentenced to execution". The book saw an entire printing before this was noticed by external review, pointed out, and then the book received more scrutiny and fell apart like a house of cards. It was so far in the publication process that I, working at a bookstore, literally saw a copy of the book in the ARCs (advance reader copy, basically a review sample so stores can talk about the thing they're selling). I heard of some stores even getting shipments of the book to be shelved, only for the publisher to recall them. I can imagine if that had made it out, unchecked, and just become a shady history rumor, that other people might have trusted she did the work right and spread it further.
@@Rosencreutzzz This form of error propagation is so common that you can track which news sites copy each other by seeing the same falsehood printed in each
This is a constant. Frankly its why the whole 'Wait, were the Cathars...actually a movement?' is now a growing religious study topic. More and more people are wondering if the Cathars...were anything different than really protestants. Or maybe were even just western Palamists.
Growing up in Canada, I've frequently heard "human wave tactics" used to describe the Somme -- in fact, the word evokes images of World War One before anything else.
Soviet human wave tatics myth was a part of post war german revision. A bunch german generals that lived through the war got to write the history of the eastern front. They blamed hitler for all thier strategic mistakes. Said the only reason rhe Soviets beat them was by human wave tatics. The US government was very supportive of these generals writing basically anti soviet propaganda as history.
@@SaltyChickenDipThe Soviets literally had more manpower and industry compared to the Germans during the later years of the war. While, they may have not used human wave tactics all the time. I’m pretty sure that some levels of human wave tactics were used and the Germans usually had a higher K/D ratio compared to the Russians. Honestly, what is more concerning is the fact that people think Russia won the war by themselves. They didn’t. Lend Lease saved them and fixed their logistics. Marshal Zhukov also acknowledges this.
@SaltyChickenDip They were outnumbered by the soviets and that is the reason the soviets won. Your knee jerk oppositional reaction to basic facts is silly. Get real
This is one of the most complex and detailed analyses I have seen of this game. I think it comes at a good time because a *LOT* of younger HOI players take the content they are consuming within the game as some level of fact, which is glossed over by most older players and paradox themselves. I think this is a bigger problem than many realize, and people like you bringing light to the problem is the best way to get it addressed in some way. I subscribed because I think the thoughts you share are well-researched and I want to know what you will make next!
I've had some discussions with friends of mine on how HOI4 has holes or odd implementations of things that highlight other things that are lacking. For example, the Bengal Famine. If the Allies struggle against Japan then the Bengal Famine can occur (I've played the UK just a couple times and I've never had it happen to me so I legit have no idea what the exact trigger conditions are) which cripples the British Raj and thus in turn hurts the entire Allied war effort. Historically this happened because the UK didn't care enough to prevent it, and obviously if the player doesn't care enough to take care of the Raj properly then it should totally happen to them as punishment for that callousness... The hole then becomes pretty clear: where is the Holocaust? I can understand PDX's not including it at all given that it's an extreme lose-lose scenario: you either write an event where performing the Holocaust gives you a buff so as to encourage the player to do it and be as horrible as they can be which is pretty obviously not the way to do this, or you write an event that only gives you penalties but still gives you the option to LARP as one of the most evil countries in history which still feels incredibly wrong and weird. The only way out of this that I can see is an event that is guaranteed to fire with only one option that gives you a massive debuff (because the Holocaust was a huge net waste of resources) and even then that feels like too little.
@@Folkmjolk It's really not a lie, it's known at this point that areas of India that weren't as badly affected or just not affected at all by the crop failures and diversion of food to the army had enough surplus food to at least mitigate the famine in Bengal. The British government in India had famine codes, legal instruments allowing them to control the food supply in order to alleviate famine, that it could have invoked in order to distribute food to Bengal and provide famine relief and chose not to do anything. The British government in the UK meanwhile knew a famine was happening and could have called up the viceroy and told him he needed to act and use the famine codes to stop it, but they didn't bother. So, given that the British could have acted and *didn't* we're forced to either conclude that they deliberately and maliciously engineered the starvation of millions of people for no godforesaken reason. Or that they simply didn't care enough to either realise the extent of the situation or act on it.
39:52 Something i would say at this point is that this isn't a declaration of belief by paradox. It is a talking point within the nation, a part of the in-game narrative drive of the point in question. For turkey to have lost 'nearly' 25% of its pop in the Great War is the fulcrum of the debate, irrespective of the validity of the claim. 'We lost 25% of our pop in the last war, how many more are we to sacrifice in this new one?' This could be a question asked by those opposed by your choice to modernise the army (if you make that choice), as they are in the camp of ensuring "that the war never reaches our borders". The statistical claim isn't the point of the text blurb. It's the framing element for the player choice. Besides, when has factual basis and clarification ever gotten in the way of a good sound bite? 😉
Yeah, I certainly considered the idea of the spirit representing how people feel more than the literal reality, but the wording sways me a bit more towards the idea that it's sloppily included/accepted as fact.
@@Rosencreutzzz Fair enough. I guess I'm just giving it more room to breath in a narrative context. To each their own i guess. Good video though, it gave me some bits to chew on.
And I appreciate that, for sure. I'd love to see someone more distinctly qualified on Turkey than I am really tear into that tree and the spirits, it's one of the more vibrant and... chaotic ones and I always wonder how well it matches with the particulars and possibilities of Turkey in '36-45
@@Rosencreutzzz my creeping suspicion is that the numbers stems from looking at the population of the ottoman empire itself, which lost 30% of its population due to territorial losses in 1919.
@@MrVentches And with different wording...it would make sense too. "In last war they lost the empire and were divided, what they will they lose in next war? Wouldnt it be better if we just stay back and let the coming storm pass?" , or something like that, similar to anti-war movements before and during ww2, like the ones in US.
To be fair though, they write their focus description and event flair text from the perspective of the nation you're playing with, emulating their rhetoric and support for their ruling ideology. Every one of the four.
Well, hey, looks like I got in on the ground floor for this one! Love your work. Edited to add: have you ever read a biography of Trotsky? They're pretty much all either hagiographies or condemnations. I read one that suggested he didn't need glasses, and was just obsessed enough with self-image that he started wearing them as an affectation. Wild stuff.
Oh boy have I. All the way back in High school I stumbled upon one that blindsided me halfway in with his erotic letters to his wife. The book was by Bertrand Patenaude , a fellow at the Hoover Institute, who, as far as I can tell was writing well outside his actual subject of education and focus, IR and ethics. I tend to stay away from biographies generally, and not just cause they contain weird sexy letters. Trotsky, as interesting a figure as he is, is someone I kind of expect to never get a properly neutral shake. He's too bait-y, for better or worse.
@@jasonhaven7170 Trotskyists will always put him on a pedestal, while every other leftist ideology will shit on him for reasons other than the fact he was even more mental than Stalin.
@@jasonhaven7170 Bait-y (yes, it's a distinction). Trotsky attracts two kinds of people: the ones who lionize him, and the ones who demonize him. And both do it by doing their own flavors of Bad History about him. I wanted to know more about him but all I found was propaganda-- for and against. Oh, and then there's a third group of "allegedly neutral skeptics" that also ruin the "well I'll look for an unbiased account" approach, because they all want to be the ones with a TRUE FACTUAL AND NEUTRAL APPROACH and just. Ughhhhhh. Combine that with how the contemporary sources themselves have glaring obvious bias, so you can't really rely on them to fact check except for playing "spot which source propaganda this is from". Hot mess, overall. Fascinating hot mess, but it takes a LOT of work to get something worthwhile about Trotsky from it, instead of a cultural insight or ten.
"Human wave" may be used pejoratively by people who want to dehumanize the Soviets or the Chinese but it doesn't need to be - it's very accurate to call many attacks by all sides in WW1 human waves, for instance. Indeed, I think the fact "human wave" isn't a "real" tactic is mostly for optical purposes, since such a label implies a willingness to sacrifice troops en masse to succeed. It doesn't mean human wave tactics are not used - in fact, large infantry forces without proper fire support MUST use human wave tactics when they are attacking, there is no other option. The Chinese, both Communist and not, used human wave tactics for most of the 20th century because they had almost no armaments industry and thus no fire support to destroy enemy forces from afar. Thus, they were forced to storm enemy positions by concentrating large numbers of troops against a small section of the enemy frontline to overwhelm them before reserves could be deployed to stop them. The Soviets had the firepower to not need human wave tactics but due to a variety of factors - poor training, poor leadership, strict timetables and orders, etc - they often ended up performing them anyway even when they weren't necessary. It would also be accurate to describe any opposed amphibious landing as a human wave attack if it is sufficiently unmechanized (ie lacks amphibious assault vehicles, ie pretty much any landing prior to 1944) since the open nature of water and beaches is such that there's no way to avoid it.
The Chinese also preferred to do these kind of attacks under the cover of the night or weather so it was not reckless attacking for the sake of attacking.
@@onion599 So tired most of other forces. But it also means that attackers are also suffering from said conditions, so only very well organised attack would work. (even one company confusion may cause entire cover to fall off, or even set up self-destructive chain reaction) And it will be mostly with no support, just man on man.
I feel like this is a noble attempt to reclaim the term from the "barbarous asiatic horde" camp that is ultimately doomed to failure because you'll just be legitimising their language and giving them a cover story.
@@futhington I don't know if they were "asiatic", but the soviets certainly were barbarous. Forcing illiterate peasants (very often non-white" to die for a regime that had been starving them and erasing their culture for decades, under pain of being muredered with a PPSh, is not something civilized people would do.
Well, so what's bad in Stalin shooting a hundred million people? They anyway lived in bruh cringe state with no market and no democracy, so they didn't really want to live
Conquest's admission that the methods he used are required because he studies an "alien culture" is plenty enough to see what kind of an "academic" he was.
@@alanpennie8013 an alien culture is also a byproduct of the Soviet Union being seen through aspects of a mythologized Orient - the notion of totalitarianism as a concept is indebted to the notion of oriental despotism. There is a broader cultural sphere that predates and surrounds the lack of information being analyzed here
@@alanpennie8013 this is precisely why history and historiography in politically rife topics is dead in the water without sociological dialogue - because without it you can genuinely believe that an authors belief in his ability to interpret historical evidence essentially based on truisms of a supposedly alien culture is an artifact of a specific Soviet policy and not the entire cultural and social milieu in which the author wrote
@@PasteurizedLettuce Conquest was perfectly aware of the "granularity" of Soviet culture. You (and to a lesser extent the maker of this video) are attacking a straw man.
The numbers conversation make me love being a medievalist. I feel like we are trained to literally read numbers as "I want to say this is or isn't noteworthy". Sometimes it seems like modern historians or 'historians' lean on fighting over numbers to argue over correctness/power in debates. Not to say that we aren't prone to our own stupid arguments over characterizing events/ideas, it seems like we are maybe more fundamentally curious versus fundamentally try to win minded.
@@RandoFromMars I wasn't super clear there. Two things were somewhat unique about Medieval European record keeping/ history recounting. First, the degree of decentralization of society relative to both before and after the time period created a situation where recording keeping was poor leading to wild discrepancies in numbers from battles and other record keeping. Second, unlike the modern era, where history is recorded with the idea of making an accurate record of events... Medieval history was generally written almost like a fiction inspired by true events.
I never liked the implications of mass assault doctrine in HoI4. It felt more fitting for China, and very un-generous, even then. Of all the doctrine trees, it felt like it had the least identity, but of what identity it *did* have, it seems to be about cramming the most infantry possible into a front and hoping that's enough, which... Yeah. It doesn't do much to reflect the fact that the Soviet Union was fighting the supposedly massively armoured German forces in huge tank battles, with sweeping movements of motorised rifles of their own. Blitzkrieg has its own "not doctrine but actual German panic measures", but at least they're at the end, as an avoidable choice. With mass assault, you're tied into this weird mix of desperate defense and rapid deployment measures alongside the later ability to get *some* benefits towards those sweeping armoured and motorised offensives. Which is fine, I guess, if HoI4 is meant to be some purely simulationist experience that tries to represent the historical Barbarossa campaign, but it really falls apart the moment the Soviets get an early upper hand. Or if the two sides don't fight at all, or take long enough that the Soviets have completely overcome the purges, if they ever happened, and have cultivated their doctrines fully. It's such a weird take that in order to develop your doctrine of massive combined arms offensives, you have to start by deciding you want to pump out untrained troops and stuff them into situations where you expect them to get encircled. This all feels so much weirder when you reflect on how, over the game's life cycle, the recreation of a vaguely historical WWII has become something of a footnote to the host of ahistorical options given to the player in focus trees - custom country paths, if you will. But when it comes to the way they actually approach the war, that's locked down in chains. Mass Assault doctrine is about getting beaten up a lot before getting your sh*t together and turning it around, as per Barbarossa. I do feel that if they want that kind of desperate defense doctrine, they should really separate it out, and focus on more maneuver and logistics right from the start with mass assault, and create a separate doctrine tree that really is all about having resilient and quick-to-deploy infantry. They've had two opportunities to reflect on such a possible change, in my opinion, first with Waking The Tiger and the Chinese focus trees, and then again with No Step Back and the *revised* Soviet focus tree. You could still follow a historical path in this scenario as the Soviets by first taking up a few steps in the more defensive, infantry oriented tree, before pivoting and filling out the mass assault tree. As an aside. Am I the only one who finds it incredibly weird that Germany is like, *overwhelmingly* the most played country? I know the broader paradox community is basically split between trans cat girls and people who wish Germany won WWII, but even so, I don't entirely understand who's playing their 50th single player Germany game.
To the first two paragraphs, yeah it's something I can't think of a great solution to, but, as per the video, it's a bit odd that the doctrine implies a historical course rather than a literal doctrine. I found in my time with it that NSB did some fantastic stuff, and I think the MA tree is good now with the stuff about supply, but it's still in this kinda...gameplay pit? It is the way it is because otherwise the Soviets would double down on Combined Arms. The airforce is deeply debuffed because otherwise the Soviets would be in too great a defensive position for the game to properly simulate the war without player intervention etc. To the latter paragraph... yeah it's an odd one. And part of it, I think, is the gameplay pit. Germany is very very much the main character of HoI, or at least, by nature of history (and no fault to pdox for this) they're absolutely the center of agency, the axis (ha) upon which the game revolves. That's why the tree, even in the Oppose route is designed to kick off WW2. And connected to your statements about a WW2 sim, it's definitely a relic of that era of the design philosophy, where it was mostly a WW2 sim and not a WW2 era sandbox of possibility (though I would say they've done well to kind of tap into a best of both frameworks). I barely ever play Germany for the twofold reason of not really liking Majors in paradox games and... just kinda I guess, feeling attached to the world of the game when I'm playing it, and how it's hard to reconcile Literal Hitler into that. (and meme aside, I do think there's more than wehraboos and catgirls among the players, but community, and those who form communities around these games, the question shifts a bit.)
@@Rosencreutzzz Yeah, I appreciate the notion of Germany having a lot more agency, but I think since the many and various dlcs have landed to expand options for majors, I'd have thought that might fade. Pretty much any major now can undertake a sequence of events that makes the game interesting, but people still seem stuck on Germany. Maybe I'm just underestimating inertia, or how many people don't have DLCs, but regardless, I feel like I'm missing the complete picture of what it is that drives people to keep revisiting the same or similar games over and over, specifically, Germany. I, too, am an itinerant player of minors in paradox games. The historicity quickly takes a backseat to my desire to make the most minute and non-influential entities into regional and world powers. But also, I like situating myself in a scenario that I myself built. Nothing is more anathema to me than playing a game as the United Kingdom, and having to remind myself of Singapore and Hong Kong and Newfoundland and Gibraltar and Malta and Cyprus and Egypt and... So on, and having to decide what the hecc I'm doing with my 28 fleets. At a core level, I don't enjoy the feeling of starting my game with fifteen minutes of admin.
To your aside, I'd say it's because Germany is kind of the most vanilla and flexible country to play gameplay wise. You have lots of industry and PP so you can afford to interact with all the mechanics, you get early gameplay if you choose to engage in the Spanish Civil War, and fairly early conquests which is more gameplay and satisfying. Even ignoring the alt-hist trees you're very strong, and being fascist from the start is basically the most sandbox position in the game since you can attack anyone or support anyone else in their own wars.
Germany is probably the simplest country to play and has pretty early wars (Spain, China, Italy, Ethiopia and Japan are the only ones who fight earlier but those nations are a lot more complicated) so it’s definitely the best country to start as a beginner.
The left path of the Mass Assault tree feels very accurate to how the Soviet military doctrine evolved and it bring substantial bonuses to armor and mechanized formations. With the changes in NSB and later BBA getting army xp is much quicker and thus a Soviet player can quite easily max it out making his armored formations be as useful as they where historically. The Mobile Warfare tree gives huge early bonuses but quickly runs out of steam arguably making Germany weaker the further the game progresses just like what happened historically.
I do find it odd that, to my knowledge, the Soviet Union is the only country in HOI4 to have any sort of atrocities/political persecution modeled in the game and that as a general trend the Allies are the only nations which have any weaknesses (in regards to ideology and national spirits) in the game. The game seems to paint an oddly good/clean image of fascism and the Axis unintentionally which is part of the reason I believe that there is a concerningly large amount of far-right players of HOI4. For gameplay balance the developers seem to have given the Axis every advantage they can while they handicap the Allies as much as possible (through ideology, national spirits, etc.), this naturally plays into the false perception of history many people sympathetic to these past regimes hold while the average player either ignores it or accepts it as a necessary concession for the game to be more interesting (i.e making it possible for the Axis to win). This also goes for the absence of any acknowledgement of Axis atrocities or political issues, even ones that absolutely should be included as they would have a significant gameplay impact such as the interservice rivalry between the IJA and IJN. The failure of HOI4 to truly grapple with the failings of the Axis militarily for the sake of balanced gameplay and completely avoiding any sort commentary of fascist ideology and the governments which practiced it gives the large far-right part of the community a game to live out their wet dream of a world where Germany is able to win WWII and not have to face the horrible reality that it would in fact be while the average player who doesn't know any better will passively absorb this bad history sometimes giving birth to wehraboos (and all other denominations of that type of fetishization) all while the informed player will see these as necessary concessions. Then they depict the Soviets as harshly as possible, (assumedly) unintentionally supporting the all too common idea that the Soviet Union was somehow worse than Germany (not to say the Stalinist USSR was good). HOI4 generally seems to operate with the same sort of historical understanding as the conservative history teachers I had in high school did who portrayed the Nazi's as an unstoppable war machine and the Soviets as "arguably worse" (implying that they're worse), unintentionally crafting the exact narrative needed for wehraboos to exist and spreading the exact understanding of WWII the Nazi's themselves wanted us to have. HOI4 similarly more or less presents the history of WWII just as the Nazi's wanted (I would recommend Potential History's video on the subject, "History Is Not Written By The Victors"). ...That's my two cents at least, I hope anyone reading this thesis can parse an understanding of what I mean to say. anyways, keep up the good content, I haven't seen many people talk about how video games present history in earnest and I think it is an important topic to look into given how large gaming has become and how often games use historical settings. Edit: What I mean to say, in short, is that HOI4 operates off of pop-history and that the pop-history of WW2 was shaped by the Nazi's and that has evident effects on how HOI4 portray's history.
@@Oppen1945 There is a rivalry mechanic between the SS and Wehrmacht but it is an optional mechanic (locked behind a focus) that has no impact unless you want it to since it is so easy to control.
The Axis needs that early game and the focus tree system allows allied powers to remove their negative buffs mid and late game, or else the USA would flood France, which would be as strong as Germany, with Troops and the allied Navies would utterly shatter the Axis powers in 1937 when the rhineland thing happened
More of a political concept argument, rather than Historical, is my pet peeve about the "Stage Coup" mechanic. It's not a coup. It's a civil war. The very antithesis of a coup - a quick blow against the state. AAAARRGGGGGHHHHH!
in the modern day mod millennium dawn, there’s an option to stage a coup that, if it fails, can potentially lead to a civil war. i like this representation better, as it shows a clean change of power for your interests as being the best outcome and a civil war as being almost as suboptimal as a pure failure
I think the “Stage Coup” button was replaced by a spy operation to bloodlessly coup a government if the support for that ideology is high enough. Also, I don’t know if you were talking about this specifically, but Bukharin’s “Launch the Coup” focus can be bloodless (if you ally the NKVD with you).
Iirc it was originally properly a coup, like you’d just take over as the new government. I think it changed, could be misremembering but it wasn’t an issue back in the day, I think they changed it for gameplay reasons, to like make it harder than getting elected or something
But a coup can end with a civil war? And can lead to a civil war? They aren't the same but both can cause each other, and civil war is also a larger version of a rebellion, and that can be caused also by coups. Maybe I just don't know what both means too.
I mean, a coup d'état doesn't mean you've seized absolute control of all parts of the country, just that you've managed to stake a claim that you and your cronies are the new, rightful leaders of the political structure. The State, per se, is not a thing that exists, after all, but a part of the social contract that's been mutually delegated with authority. Just because you chased the incumbent out of the presidential palace with a gun and claim this makes you the new president, it doesn't mean anyone will necessarily accept you as having the authority given to that role. It's perfectly reasonable that, after staking your claim by kidnapping/killing incumbent authority figures, you'd have to back that claim up with force against those who do not recognize your claim as valid.
Thank you for your efforts. As I've gotten more into Soviet and Cold War history, it has been harder to enjoy games like HOI4 because of its almost cartoonish depiction of the Soviet Union, its function and its figures.
I have to say I feel like you guys are taking this a little too seriously. The game is not meant to be an in-depth historical sim. It uses WW2 as a vehicle for the two funny mustache man make fast tank go brrrrr r/HOI4 rate my encirclement experience.
Reading about decossackization, the great Purge, population transfers, and the 1930s famines, seems to me the Soviets did more than anybody to worsen their own image
I'd love to see the Elder Scrolls video because I've myself come to recognize that Bethesda has done and oddly good job of creating a world with a real history including the kind of mistakes and misinformation real historical sources have. They just never really display that in their games seemingly.
Play Morrowind. It has a bunch of that Elder Scrolls politics actually put into the quests and it's awesome. Religious persecution, slavery and corruption in faction leadership are all explored themes.
@@richardarriaga6271 Bethesda applying this writing style to Fallout is exactly why they're so shit at making Fallout games. It works really well for a pre-modern setting where history works exactly like this and single events are really important. But it doesn't work for Fallout which is trying to tell a story about broader system while not really caring all that much about the individual events. Basically in ES the question of why did the Dwemer disappear and what happened to them is hugely important for the world and the story of the games. Therefore leaving around scattered clues to it and having the characters care about it makes sense from a story telling perspective. In Fallout however the question of why did the great war happen and who started it is of no importance whatsoever. In general the past is not important and the non-bethesda games tell you this directly repeatedly. The important thing was that the great war was inevitable with the systems that were in place, ie. capitalism and the insane jingoism in the US. The Fallout games are thematically always concerned with the future, what do we do now that the old world is gone? ie. what systems should we build since the old ones failed. Bethesda failed to understand this however and started obsessing over the past and that's why their Fallout games are so hollow. Like they wrote in a whole conspiracy theory level explanation about Vault-tec somehow being the mastermind behind the nuclear war instead of seeing the greater picture. The writing style works in pre-modern fantasy settings exactly because in those the past actually matters and the lack of clear sources often makes it hard to figure out what exactly happened. But in a modern setting the sheer abundance of written sources in the form of mass media means that we rarely lack sources, the problem is interpreting overall trends. Singular events generally just matter less because societies are so much larger and generally more robust. Whereas in pre-modern societies a natural disaster could change the course of history.
I was listening to this while playing a game on the side. Worst good idea I've had in a while; now I'm going to have to rewatch this later because it was so good but so hard to keep up with. On a different note- Nuts to you for making me actually playing HoI4. That was a hell I've actively tried to not condemn myself to.
Historians and scholars disagreeing with each other: “that’s why your shoes raggedy.” “That’s why your mama dead” “wait, so what were we talking about” “idk, but f you”
On the totalitarian vs not debate, particularly with the famine in Ukraine (and Kazakhstan), I think many people (including academics) miss the mark. For example, the Nazi State wasn't nearly as totalitarian as we often portray it. There was a competing mess of modern feudal interests where Hitler often gave vague or even contradictory orders and let them sort it out in a sort of Darwinian manner. You see some truly absurd things like Himmler promising the Baltic States quasi-independence if they provide manpower for the SS in 1944 and making many of them honorary Germans. This infuriated Hitler, but at the same time it was essential to help the Germans sustain their war effort as manpower was bleeding out fast. Does Hitler's lack of total control, of subordinates sometimes defying him make the Holocaust any less intentional? Of course it doesn't. Intentionality on Stalin and the Politburo's part is not dependent upon totalitarian control. We know Ukraine and Kazakhstan suffered massive disproportionate deaths. We know the famine didn't cross the border into Poland. We know the USSR continue to export grain. We know their quotas were unattainable and that this was obvious to those involved. We know the areas where famine was harshest were of racial minorities and that the depopulated areas were ethnically cleansed as Russians were moved in (which has created problems to this day). By any reasonable measure, the sum of those facts would reveal intentionality to kill. At best, it would reflect a measuring of the lives of millions of ethnic minorities as less than the value of the machinery they can import should their grain be exported. In my experience, the people most vocal on the idea that the famine wasn't intentional tend to be trying to deflect criticism of the USSR for political and ideological reasons. It is an attempt to sanitize the USSR and its crimes by portraying the millions of deaths as just unfortunate consequences of a bad system (often with the implicit claim that the system could be done right). The idea that socialist/communist ideals could lead to such willful atrocities is too much for them to handle. It's almost axiomatic to them, that socialists/communists would never do these things. Not that this applies to all who say it wasn't intentional, but I find it incredibly rare in the modern day for someone to say that it is not intentional and also not be fond of true socialist ideals.
Everybody can read what reds were doing to the population and soldiers of the republics they were conquering in 1917-1922. Those who whitewashing ussr are just the same people who will willingly do it again and again. Don’t be naive as Ukrainian leftie in 1915.
Great. Now all that's left is to prove that the famine was deliberate, that there were millions of victims, and that there really was some kind of ethnic cleansing. As a rule, all this was invented after the collapse of the USSR , to portray Russia as a terrorist country, and the USSR as a totalitarian Mordor, what is killing people for fun and without any reason.
I think the game tries to put you into the mind of the leader. The nazi path contains language like "Austria is undeniably german" (im paraphrasing, i cant recall off of the back of my mind). Obviously it isnt, yet youre supposed to understand the thinking of the leadership (NOT SUPPORT, just understand but some people Fall into that hole). Thats why the game contains 1st person and patriotic language.
You can't use "Give or take X number of millions of people" until you breach the margins presented by "billions of people". Estimates make greater sense given scale, but when it comes to describing human lives lost, you can't just "oops, forgot a zero".
Communists beaurocrats in particular were very fond of lying in official statistics, up to declaring crop yields over 10 times the possible outcome of cultivated lands. Which often meant 90 % of crops were sold for dollars, been seen as excess. So yes, you could have a missing zero in Soviet and they would hide it, or bury your body, often both.
I never realized there was so much overlap in the personality types of historians and gamers, just with historians being a lot more eloquent in going about their shitposting As for games, HoI4 is the one modern PDX game I'm still unable to penetrate. Part of that might be preferential, I favor more sandboxy map game experiences than HoI's development trees; but even after multiple guides I'm no closer to getting my head around making combat work, or managing supply access, or just everything really.
It's always fascinating to me when people say that they can't wrap their around hoi4 but can play eu4 because I had the opposide experience. hoi4 is manageable, eu4 simply has way too many buttons and mechanics to even begin figuring out what to do.
@@ernest48914 the thing is that EU 4 has a greater timelapse, even if you lost a war you can continue to play, HOI4 if you lose you lose and have to start another game
Everything in hoi4 is super simple if u know how to play eu4. Combat just works, supply just works (supply depo things are so expensive u might as well pretend u can't build them), economy doesnt exist, u just build civs until u r satisfied, then build a crap ton of mils, after which tank/plane designs just work by slapping as much stats into 1 unit as possible
Sovietology is neoliberal idelogical assesment of 'all things soviet' Proper historians deal w/ the full set of knowledge available after the archives from the east were open.
On the atrocity modeling in game, I personally don't have too many qualms. It's basically a lose lose situation. Either you don't include it and some deniers like that, or you do include that and some nazis will want to have that to essentially reenact the holocaust they find "justified." In my opinion, since denialism isn't rampant, then they should just leave it out since modeling it would be difficult as is (you probably can't have a genocide button, and so it would have to fire on its own. But the fact is that the Nazi ideology explicitly called for the genocide because they were losing the war, and so maybe it should activate based off of capitulation progress? Its a lot of effort to model a genocide.) However, I would say that there is another axis crime that should be noted. That being the rape of nanking/nanjing. The event for a Japanese capture of the city is the same as any other capture event. It is treated like the fall of Paris. It is a simple rewrite of the event that would at least help combat the "clean IJA" myth that is spouted by loads of people. Both in Japan itself and in other nations, most notably the US, Imperial Japan is treated the same way as the British Empire essentially. (I'm not saying the British Empire was good either, but the public perception of the British compared to the Nazis is what I'm getting at). There were other atrocities, such as unit 731, but this one is, in my opinion, really egregious while at the same time being a relatively easy change to make.
I think it would make more sense for the Rape Of Nanking event to pop up as a news bulletin for the US China (with a effect attached for China anyway) and other allied nations in the pacific as it makes more sense for democracies to report on the events rather than the fascist dictatorship it also serves as important gameplay warning to the Allie’s in the pacific saying something along the lines of “get your shit together wars coming soon” in the gameplay sense.
I think this whole idea of claiming that having representation of Nazi imagery, and crimes in a game where you can play as WW2 Germany will allow Neo-Nazis and deniers to live out some fantasy is just plain stupid. The Soviets committed far more genocide than the Nazis, but they're perfectly okay to be represented, and it's perfectly okay to feel prideful playing as them. There's clearly more going on than meets the eye, but that's not what I'm concerned about. The problem with HOI4, or any strategy game representing WW2 for that matter has, is that not including the genocides, and war crimes also erases a large part of why Germany lost the war; food and supply. HOI4's representation of supply is atrocious. The reality of WW2 is Germany, because of its policy of Autarky had to fight the Soviets, and gain that land to the east, because they weren't trading for desperately needed resources. What most people don't realize about the holocaust is it didn't happen out of nowhere/without reason. In the long term, would the Nazis have likely massacred the Jews? Yeah, probably, but prior to 1942 they weren't. They were kept in the camps, and imprisoned, yes, and the conditions certainly weren't pleasant, but it wasn't until 1942 when Germany's surplus of food and supply was gone that the genocide was carried out in full force. The Holocaust, like the declaration of war against the Soviets, had to be done when it was (from the Nazi perspective). My point with all this, is that Hearts of Iron presents the war in a purely strategic sense, ignoring the core reasons for why certain nations acted as they did, particularly Germany, and why those nations performed at the level they did. Because in all honesty, the fact Germany made it to Stalingrad, and were winning the battle for its duration until the encirclement, and that they even got to Moscow, was nothing short of a miracle. A competent player in HOI4 makes invading the Soviet Union trivial, as a competent player doesn't have to contend with atrocious supply, and inability to move units where they need to go. Having tanks that can't be deployed because you don't have fuel, or ammo to give them. All these faucets of the history of WW2 are interconnected, and play into each other, ignoring them completely changes the conflict, hence why in HOI4, Germany usually wins; the allies have to contend with their weaknesses, the Soviets have to deal with Stalin and the debuffs associated with their early game, but the Germans don't have to deal with the prolonged effects of Autarky, the famines, the shortage of fuel, and terrible supply lines. And of course there's also the issue of certain technologies being completely unused because you have to pick and choose due to limited research slots. HOI4 really is a game where you can fetishize some alternate history path you're craving to see, like a monarchist Germany or Russia, a Fascist/Communist America, or Britain, but it has absolutely no ground to stand on for presenting an accurate WW2 scenario with or without the alternate paths countries can go through.
@@TheGamingKiller242 "The soviets committed far more genocide than the nazis" Moving past that, yes HOI4 isn't great at modelling every aspect of world war 2. However, you also have to remember that this is a game, a game that needs to balance representation and emulation. Firstly I would like to point out that paradox recently updated the supply and resource systems to add in embargoes and make supply a much more in depth thing. Obviously its not everything but its better than what it was. Along with this...the soviets aren't represented in terms of their atrocities, real or otherwise, either. No mentions of katyn, or of the famines and other things. The reason people believe you can be more prideful when playing them is because the actual goal of communism isn't genocide, whether it turned out like that or not. If youre a prideful soviet player then you want to defeat fascism and capitalism. If you are a prideful German player youre saying youre prideful about making genocide inevitable and subjugating ethnic minorities. Another thing I want to add again is, as you point out, the complexity of modeling the holocaust. Is it some button you press? Is it based off of capitulation percentage? Lastly, I want to note that you make it seem like Hitler started the holocaust and invaded the soviets mostly for strategic reasons. Obviously these decisions were partially strategic, but I have to point out that they were ideological too. Hitler wished to cleanse eastern europe the same way Spain, England America and France cleansed the native Americans. Along with this, jews and other people deemed racially inferior were seen as why Germany lost the first world war, and as such the holocaust started in part because the germans believed that they were losing the war because of those people.
@@king_simp2715 You're both blowing it too much. HOI4 is a war game and your pop is based off your manpower for fighting men. There's no real way to show the holocaust in a game like HOI4 like in say Vic2 which shows you the pops of each province of religion and race. Which some people added a genocide mechanic to Vic2.
the stuff about the soviet union being talked about as completely alien is so real and nice to hear esp from a non russian, im a russian american and the way a lot of people talk about russia or react to me talking about russia is so strange. ppl here talk about russia and the soviet union more as ideas than as real places that real humans lived and continue to live in.
Honestly it's just pure orientalism (and they always want to paint Russia)SU as asian and oppositional to "The West"). I am still shocked that it's common in both history and daily life because it seems very much like a 19th century "unknowable mysterious arabs etc" stuff
It’s hard to say he did that, the bengal famine was a culmination of disasters, no one chose to starve 3 million people, the British colonization/occupation of India was brutal and unjustifiable, everyone knows that, but ww2 itself and the bengal famine made the empire really stretched, Churchill did not want to starve Indians, everyone had biggers problems, the Japanese invaded Burma and were at bengal’s doorstep, it was a sequence of hard choices, in the end, it was a disaster, but you can’t fault Churchill for it, he was fighting against the biggest threat our would has ever seen and stood alone for a time, and he won.
@@Curry_Communist “has been quoted” yes, he has, does not mean he actually intended to do it, if you understand the actual context and situation of the event, you will see that the idea of genocide or intentional murder makes absolutely no sense
@@Curry_Communist well I guess you’re right, but Churchill wasn’t really evil for that, these choices were made in desperate times and the consequences were sometimes understood as irrelevant
Working on my PhD at the moment (unrelated to Sovietology), and I absolutely get imposter syndrome when I'm referencing an intro/preface to a book, and it was weird hearing someone else say it lol
You could make a video about Poland's many paths in hoi4. A lot of people that play Poland focus on monarchist paths for free cores, but I've found both Sanationist and Falangist paths more exciting, especially with the first one and it's need of balance between three sides of inner conflict.
@@alg7115 Poland has 2 fascist paths as well: falangism and (for some reason) national democracy. It's even possible to ally Spain. How did you think Sanation was Spanish?
@@alg7115 The ideas of Falangism also existed in Poland. It's actually a sheer coincidence than anything else from the looks of things en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Radical_Camp
I like the way the game phrases foci from the perspective of the ruler. It's a game, and I enjoy how silly some parts are. Especially the Ottoman empire focus writing, where they are angry at everyone XD
The doctrines are one imprecise aspect of the game that I, a person who has been in the military before and has some understanding of doctrines and military organization, really hates Naval and Air doctrines are the worst in this aspect, because all of them spin around one specific ship/plane type I like the way the mod Black Ice did it, you have ww1 army doctrine with small specific trees for infantry, mobile forces and tanks, artillery, support, etc, then you have the ww2 which are mutually exclusive and require all ww1 doctrine and you have the option between 6 types of offensive doctrines (mobile warfare, superior firepower, methodical battle, mass assault, assault operations and assymetrical warfare), and 5 types of defensive doctrines, the likes of defense in depth, elastic defense, etc In naval doctrines you have specific doctrines for each ship, you have the destroyer doctrines, the battleship doctrines, the carrier doctrines, the submarine doctrines and so on
True. They are EXTREMELY limited, you simply cant have a doctrine for your nation, instead you have a doctrine for few units you will spam at enemy. Same even with special forces (more then 1 tree at least ffs).
Hoi4 being incurious about "culture" or people is something I have noticed before myself, in contrast to say Eu4 even. Me noticing it started with a deep dive into place names (one thing I had previously done in contribution for one of the large Eu4 overhaul mods).
one thing: by the end of the video it is said that there is a renewed interest in Ukrainian history in the west and I would put an asterisk for that - there are renewed interest in both the Ukrainian & Russian perspectives, however I have noticed a shocking (but unsurprising) disinterest in the history of any of the other groups (neither Russian nor Ukrainian) which live or lived partially or entirely in the area Ukraine claims to own at this moment.
The renewed interest isn't coming from a genuine place, for the most part. It's intrinsically tied to the war to "explaining" or "expanding upon" "ethnic tensions" trying to make some eternal truth out of the conflict in "The east" the same way that many Americans tried to justify invading Iraq with the whole idea of "these are groups that have been blood feuding for generations," because any other approach would require self-reflection on the nature of oppression or on the nature of Empire. We're, for example. unlikely to see a rumination on the history of Moldovans/Romanians in Ukraine (unless Transnistria makes itself more relevant or becomes part of the war directly), come out of the west.
@@Argacyan "disinterest in the history of any of the other groups (neither Russian nor Ukrainian) which live or lived partially or entirely in the area Ukraine claims to own at this moment" and what groups would that be? Most of the ethnic minority groups are too small to have any sort of relevant impact on current events, save for the crimean tatars, but their issues just tie into the same issue of russia. And what do you mean by "claims to own at this moment"? You either own territory or you don't lol. Very strange phrasing on your part.
You need to talk about class politics if you're going to make a video about this subject. It's pretty much integral to any discussion about the Soviet Union that's actually useful, as opposed to these incredibly uninformed academics.
16:11 in other words, Sovietology is like the study of North Korea today - it's built on the foundation that the subject is mysterious, exclusive, "otherly" and unreachable. as such, you can see a lot of parallels with Sovietological studies and information on the DPRK today! 😅
One of the problems I find with both Sovietology as well as the general western discussion around the Soviets is that so few voices from the region itself are included. I understand that for the period of the Iron Curtain existence but post the fall of the curtain we've had a lot of different people engage with their nations local histories that do get sidelined. Some of this is a translation issue as these histories do not penetrate the Anglo sphere. This isn't to say that foreign historians are inherently always bad at doing history of the region rather that compared to some of the things I've read from the locals in the Baltics or the Ukraine whose writings pick up on certain nuaces that those that never lived within the system do now know. I think a part of me is just often annoyed at how simple the binary of approuch on both sides of the debate in Sovietology is which then leaves a lot on the table historically.
I'd say we hear a good deal from historians in post-soviet countries (like Eastern Europe). The problem with historians from totalitarian dictatorships that evolve into regular dictatorships is that information, speech and debate isn't free in any meaningful way. So we'd be foolish to rely on them anyway
@@rebornstillbornthis. We don’t trust “official” polling from authoritarian countries for good reason, why would we trust the “official” history as written by public historians
@@rebornstillbornem, what? I am pretty sure that any Russian (or just fluent Russian speaking) historian will always have access to more information than non speaking historian no matter where they live. Do you think internet doesn’t work in Russia or something?
and more often than not, russian and post-soviet historians' works just don't suit the western narrative enough, even if they're anti-communist and extremely critical of everything soviet, so they can't be used, since Russia is still a geopolitical enemy of "the West", and if you admit that there's any nuance to your enemies, you might even begin to humanize them, which is, of course, terrible.
I think analysing paradox games seriously especially hoi4, is almost pointless because they're so heavily influenced by meme culture. Hence why we have 1936 imperial federation, Douglas macarthur taking over during an American civil war, kaiser wilhelm II getting restored etc.
You're not totally wrong, but between all the wacky alternate history paths, Paradox outlines certain paths as "historical," and it can be worth examining what those paths are and what historical understanding they may be based on. Not only that, but the question was a good way for the video creator to segue into a discussion on Sovietology independent of its influence on HOI4.
On the doctrine tree discussion: It should be noted that previously doctrines were unlocked trough research instead of army xp. Perhaps the mass assault was intended for china due to their limited research slots and that mass assault side is significantly shorter tree, saving china thoose precious research days. Another thing would like to ask: Whats your take on the historical credebility of the world war 2/time ghost army documentary series on youtube?
Calling the kulaks pesents is a choise by capitalist revisionists. Portraying the kulaks as poor and oppressed. When its the kulaks who opressed the real pesents.
Yep, kulaks were creditors in rural society, so many pesans were in debt to them. And creditor always has a demand for brute force to beat out debts, so they usually were owners of small gangs. It was very criminogenic institution, so it can't stay in a civilized society. But if something makes harm to russians, west will paint it as holy and innocent. And it wasn't only russian problem. In the same time in Japan giving in debt was a capital crime. Significant part of feudal Europe in time of Crusades banned debt organization, but crusaders were exception, and got significant money from it. So significant, French monarchy destroyed Templars when they had too much debt to them.
Yeah I find it frustrating/funny how liberals adore/paint kulaks as innocent small farmers attacked by the evil Stalin when that is not at all what they are and what happened.
The sovietology part really left a bitter taste. Why is everyone trying to minimize the communist atrocities ? Why isn't the same due process and analysis brought on the crimes of nazi Germany or Legionary Romania ? Why is the Holodomor not as sacred as the Holocaust in the eyes of modern historians ?
Because the holodomor is literally just a famine bro. Way more Russians died than Ukranians. And way more Ukranians were burning grain and killing livestock to drive up prices.
Holodomor was different. The holodomor was a famine in which many died, but it wasn’t what the holacaust was. The hilacaust was an attempt to wipe an entire race of the face of the earth. It was planned, facilities were built, etc etc.
Many reasons. One of them is general over push back against Mccarthyism and coldwar us propaganda. As for holodomor as horrible it is, it is literally "as most historians put it" not cultural or ethnic genocide. It is most commonly tied to economic status and mismanagement.
EXCELLENTLY researched video! As someone interested in Soviet history I’ve long had my issues with the way HOI presents things, this really helps clear it up for people who are less familiar with the material. (Also Stan Getty)
@@KatM711 If you mean the landed. rich peasants who burned grain and slaughtered masses of cattle in response to the extreme measures undertaken by Stalinist goons in the countryside, I mean, yeah, they kind of do share a small amount of the blame. The thing is though, even though they're culpable for those actions, they were still in response to the completely horrific measures of Stalinist collectivization and were even predictable to an extent. So, the ultimate blame lies with those responsible for setting off the chain of events, but one can't act like those rich peasants were innocent.
Find your discussions about about bias and the framing of a field of study and what it's objectives are to be interesting and useful. But does get me thinking about what your lens is. This sounds a bit unfair but I feel you and other RU-vid history content creators try to cultivate an air of neutrality and distance around yourselves and your topic. It's a respectable approach but with politically charged topics I feel you should be willing to lay bare your own views. At least when it is relevant since you are our lens into the topic. Though I know you can't bog down your work too much with that. But for example I know you are on the "Left" politically but not all Leftists view the Soviet Union with the same lens. I have doubts that you were going to change your entire process just to satisfy one random commenter but I hope this commentary was somewhat useful.
Yes, many (even communist/socialist) view soviet union completely different, from a daring (and somewhat successful) experiment, to an ugly abomination that didnt achieved anything, personal bias, huge differences between periods and just lack of reliable information doesnt make it any easier (especially early soviet union, like 1910-20`s early, its almost atrocious).
Just so we're clear, the highest level of binding court opinion is that a pardon does NOT require admission of guilt (tenth circuit court of appeals). Burdick's view of pardoning was dictum, not binding precedent.
So, I am making a (really rather extensive) mod for the Second World War strategy game Blitzkrieg. Now, part of it is sorting out tables of organisation and equipment, and of course an explanation of the events of the time (for example, most people won't be aware how Manchukuo or Bulgaria came into the conflict, or even who they are in some cases) Naturally, Germany and the Soviet Union were tricky, both from a cold hard data standpoint (some German tables are lost forever, and Soviet ones are often best case/intended scenarios even more so than other nations. No 1940 Infantry Schtat, every Soviet Rifleman does not have an SVT-38. Also insert two anti-tank rifle models predating the PTRD that the sources for both deny the existence of the other and neither may have existed at all) and from a sensitivity standpoint, because I didn't want to fall into the exact sort of traps seen here. I don't want to be a Conquest, but frankly nor do I want to be a Getty. "oh it was all an unfortunate accident, oops". I try and keep an even keel there, especially as there is another mod out there very VERY vigourously pushing the "mother russia is amazing, stalin did nothing wrong" viewpoint. My work is intended to be as apolitical as possible. Its lower level than HoI considerably, only going up to maybe Regimental sized. (representing individual men and machines) so, there is absolutely no need for it. I saw a LOT of criticism from Russian players especially over the No Step Back expansion for HoI precisely because it dared, dared to suggest any wrong doing, paranoia or incorrect decision making by Stalin. They have a real problem over there at the moment, unfortunately. Not a new problem but i've seen it grow from a few hardline nutters to seemingly an accepted standpoint. Anyways. I am glad to see that taking a middle line is still appreciated. I was a little apprehensive clicking this video in case you were on one extreme or the other ("NSB sucks because it makes Stalin seem human" or "NSB sucks because it dares to question anything Stalin did") I'll definitely be watching more of your videos :)
oh I also wanted to add that, you're entirely 100% correct that the Human wave thing is rubbish. Anyone even casually looking at Soviet doctrines, strategy and tactics from the 1930s to 1950s, along with the Schtat tables, can see it was never ever official policy. Lazy implementation and research by Paradox.
16:30 Amusingly enough, the song Moskau eventually became a staple of Russian New Year's celebrations. I've seen it performed many times in the big New Year's shows on national TV. Hope I'm not misremembering something.
I really greatly enjoy all of your work. Thanks for sharing. Also fun idea I’d love of letters between authors and reviewers were made printed on later editions so we can all enjoy “that” discourse.
about the Romanov thing,, i do get why it was added but by that logic, why isnt there a anarchist tree for the ussr? that would make far more sense (not much mind you but more) than mcfucking Romanovs. i want a Ukrainian black army attempt 2 tree dammit.
45:08 Yeah...hate to bring it to you but even such a blataaant admission on the cover would not have helped. The GULAG archipelago has just such admission telling that this book is a work of fiction. Does not stop hordes of "researchers" from using it as a source...
What I've always enjoyed about focus trees is how every tree justifies itself. A fascist tree, for example, would give reasons to delve into fascism "for the good of the nation," whereas a socialist one might go into "for the good of the revolution," and so on.
I made it about 16min into this video but I'm done now. Most of the content is common knowledge even for high schoolers or simply redundant. These 16 minutes could have been summarized in 2-3 minutes. Just adding more words to the script doesnt give it more depth. Watching this is a chore
I would deeply love if you talked more about Paradox's games. Like how in this game the Nazis don't do the Holocaust and how that can draw the wrong people to the game. Or how in Europa Universalis 4 the native americans are woefully underrepresented and how colonization in general is pretty much completely misinterpreted in it's entirety for the sake of fun gameplay.
@@chadthundercock4806 It's lose lose really, since as it is now the wrong people play the game to live out their holocaust denial fantasies anyway. Still I think a more in depth analysis about the problem would be cool.
ah, good ol' montiefiore! you know, according to eye witnesses, Ghislaine Maxwell, partner of epstein, attended his book release of Court of the Red Tsar!
Not knowing much about Robert Conquest, I was definately expecting more of a reasoned debate and certainly not that he would immediately jump to Godwin's Law.
one small gripe I have with the video is that it doesn't introduce conquests' connections to british propagandists first and foremost, because doing so would've made the jump to godwin's law a lot more expected
I would LOVE a discussion on the depiction of the holocaust in Hoi4, whether it's good to totally ignore it or whether it should be depicted or atleast acknowledging the events in some ways...
It's sort of in the works and on my mind, but I think it's best saved for a broader video on how games as a medium chose to explore or avoid atrocity and the good and bad elements of that.
@@Rosencreutzzz by the way There is no such thing as Tankie denialism, there are books (nobody reads) which deny it. But the famine did occur, it wasn't an atrocity as that would mean everything famine has been a genocide/atrocity. All Irish famines would have Killed more than 10 times than that of the famines under the USSR in Ukraine
@@mariano98ify okay let's play nice, 8 million Irish people----1.5-3 million die and another 2 million end up leaving (more than 50%) . Ukraine "Holodomor" 30~million people and 4 million die (10-15 percent)
Well Lysenko was propped up by Stalin. If Stalin had wanted to kill him or remove him from power he very easily could've done so. To be fair he was propped up by other prominent soviets as well such as Kruchev but that's beside the point
@@lukatomas9465 I don't like the way this video is so hostile to Conquest but it should be said that Getty behaved more graciously in this academic cat fight.
My favorite is the hoi players who think their barebones knowledge that is slightly more in depth is enough to say that this game is accurate. It’s not in so, so many ways
No serious person denies the 1930's famine. The "tankie" boogeyman (ironic considering that the term was originally coined to supporters of Khruschev...) exists only in the minds of twitter users. The "debate" centres on the causes of the famine with the majority position being against the "famine-genocide". Also Tukhachevsky's version of the "deep battle" was impractical at best and he is now eulogized as a genius by describing every use of combined arms tactics by the soviets as "deep battle" with an attempt to pin it on Tukhachevsky lol.
No one denies that a famine happened, tankies just like to take responsability away from Stalin in this famine and many other issues. The word tankie doesn't mean much today but I like to define it was people who took the Soviet kool aid a bit too much. These are the people who deny that the Katyn massacre was done by the Soviets, that the holodomor was a man made famine, that say the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was very good, etc. One particularly annoying "academic" from this area is Grover Furr, a person who's sanity I question a lot.
This video is quite odd. Your use of this tirade between two people to frame two entire groups of historians is less than ideal. The fact you only go into one of their biases is also problematic. If I had to guess as with all “revisionist” narratives you are likely taking the naming and framing of all historians involved into these two groups from the revisionists pov. It’s just odd to me that you would choose a childish debate from clearly one of the most biased people as a framework to dismiss Stalins roll in the famines. Using NKVD numbers to justify low balling deaths is also a bit yikes. I generally agree with your conclusion in terms of sourcing but the vague notions about intention can only lead the average viewer to assume this video believes in dramatically lessening Stalins roll. Even though I don’t think that was your intention. I do look forward to your next video on the famines as when you put them as the focus of the video I’m sure it will be clearer than trying to use them as a framing device for discussion of bad history. Thank you
I guess the reason only two people are used is because they represent fairly archetypal positions for the groups, and giving both groups their due time and discussion would result in this video being 60 hours long when its intention is solely to act as a rough overview to the methods of and issues with assessing soviet history
tl;dr Hoi4 is just simply a game with many what-if scenario. So just play and enjoy it, don't bother question the logic or historical accuracy. Now if you excuse me, I need to start my Fascist America playthrough.
11:48 also, the results in the spanish civil war (specifically in the Madrid Battle, idk about deep battle operation in the rest of that war) were not so good and generals blamed Tukachevsky because he was the purged guy and that was what Stalin wanted to hear. Then in 1941, they said "Well, maybe he was right"
Also, things like the Holodomor and Holocaust are for quite clear reasons not implemented as something that can "be made to happen" or really influenced in the game, due to the questionability of players of for example Germany deciding to commit the horrible atrocities, as to not make it for example a button to press, to geocide civilians. (Which I think is probably a good thing to avoid, especially seeing as there are a lot of right-wing role-players in the hoi community, and the workshop constantly has to be patrolled so that mods that do things such as this can be removed.)
Suppress buttons, occupation laws etc. they literally allow you to commit those things in the game. They even have actual practical usage, such as exploiting forced slave labor for improved natural resource output. All the things you outlined are already in HOI4.
It's quite clear they won't implement such mechanics, but their refusal to do so really messes up the economic simulation and creates the biggest weakness in the franchise. The reality is that the USSR couldn't have industrialized without stripping the rural regions of their capital in the form of forced food shipments to bootstrap the growth of cities, nor could Germany have sustained their economy as long as they did without the employing slave labor on a massive scale. To compensate for not having these mechanics, they had to make the game far more deterministic and less of a 'sandbox', by giving focus trees such a huge influence on the development of a nation. But, if they did include these mechanics, even though players wouldn't be forced to do the horrible things done historically, they would be heavily incentivized to do so and the reality is players would probably be even worse than historical countries because there were real advantages to the war economy to be gained by employing these methods.
@@logoncal3001 going to say this I would like a POW mechanic (even if it will be a bit to room clean for historian taste). because now in HOI4 when your army boops another army everyone there dies. Now sure what one would do whit all the POW maybe have the game auto trade them 1 to 1 whit there home nation and they would return as forced civilian. meaning for the drip feed of soldier per month from civ pop yes but not them self be recrutable think of it as none dead casualties that return home but are to wounded to fight.
"What PDx does to find sources and framing." It is pretty clear they just read the Wikipedia page and call it a day. How else can you explain things like Mao's 1936 portrait being one from the 70s (It was fixed eventually but there was no reason for the error to begin with) or 4 year old Pol Pot leading communist Cambodia or whole countries in Africa during Vicky 3 being in the wrong spot.
The descriptions of things (such as Turkey's 25%) can be difficult because they are often written from the perspective of the country. Even if 25% is false, it's not false to the people in the country itself. See also Germany's "Stabbed in the Back" spirit which speaks of it from how it was viewed, not from the truth behind it.
So, I was recommended your bannerlord video (which was baffling to me) but I checked out your channel anyways because I thought that there must have been some reason and I saw this video and knew this was kinda for me. I don't play HoI (I am a Stellaris person) but Soviet history and it's distorted nature and the post-soviet states are a field of personal fascination (currently writing my master thesis on stuff concerning Hungary, Poland, and Bulgaria). I always like the idea of using video games as a starting of point to teach or talk about history and I thing this was done well here. I am looking forward to going through your catalogue.
8:09 0K dronie, name one author that says that no one ever starved in the URSS. Because thats what you seem to imply here with your "communism = no food" piss poor logic.
funny, but "communism = no food" would suit ussr even without mass starvation, because food shortage was always present as much as lack of other consumer goods.
An interesting point about Robert Conquest is that, after Soviet archives were opened and no evidence of deliberate starving of Ukrainians was found, he did quietly recant several of his core arguments and move to an argument that it was criminal incompetence rather than deliberate genocide. Unfortunately, as the Rosencruetz suggests, there is a new wave of latter-day cold warriors whose rehashing of these discredited themes have been picked up in light of (understandable) sympathy with Ukraine today. The ridiculous Timothy Snyder is a clear case. It is tragic to see fascist apologia having such a rising star, as if it is the only alternative to Russian imperialism. But, in part, I supect that the Soviet Union, and not modern Russia, is the true target of that mob. They somehow feel it wasn't beaten *enough*.
I think one of the great things about HOI4 that nobody has noticed is so great about it is the ability for players to feed in to and exaggerate propaganda narratives and inaccurate stereotypes about specific militaries. I'm pretty sure most HOI players have done a run as the USSR in which they make a massive amount of low quality units, a run as Germany in which they produce the most expensive army possible, or a run as France where they fortify every single border they have. It's such an underappreciated way of playing the game, and it's unfortunate that the game only encourages it so much with the USSR.
I kinda wish the game would address the absolute horror of the crimes against humanity committed during the war. There doesn't need to be a genoicde or war crime mechanic but something adressing the deeply immoral things every power during the war, especially the Axis, engaging in would add a layer of depth and complexity to your actions.
having to be like “oh shit, we just put all the japanese people on the west coast in internment camps” would be a powerful reminder that no one kept clean hands
Not related to the video but to another comment, NSB and BFB seem to be following the trend that EUIV took first to put history on the back burner to the sandbox. HoI defintely feels way more “wacky” than it did after the first couple of DLCs and I’m not sure if it can even be considered a Historical Simulator anymore.
One thing not mentioned in this video was how paradox displays their view of the Soviet Union was how it’s not really seen as a connection of states. Maybe for gameplay purposes ect but their is no Ukraine ssr, Georgia ssr or anything along those lines. Even though they could be considered to have their own focuses and history. They see it as a blob of states with no real autonomy outside of Russia. Even Mongolia doesn’t get a focus tree to show its history during the time.
@@sto1238 Its due to playability, finlands focus tree might be updated, but currently anyone who wishes to experience a Uralic twist on Hoi4s gameplay plays estonia, the devs have to figure out how to balance countries between being absolutely always anihilated or being steamrollers. Estonia has more time to build up and flexibility in gameplay due to exploits in its decisions and fucus tree, with Estonia being able to east up Latvia and Lithuania, nearing a romania/spain in size and strength, regional power. Finland however is sandwiched between the Soviet Union and Finland, which forces you gameplay wise to completely focus on the defensive.
@@BrorealeK Dumb Russo phobic oversimplification, the partys' power base was in the cities, that includes Kiev, Minsk, Karkov, and others, they derived power from the factory workers not farmers, which is why Ukraine and Russias' rural communities were treated so poorly.
Oh yeah, Robert Conquest... agent of MI6 and collaborator with the CIA, the "rumors and hearsay are legitimate historical sources" guy 😂 Reading him is like reading a KGB agents opinion of the USA 😅
This is something that often really really bothers me. As Ukrainian Diaspora who lost family in the Great War, probably the famines, and WW2 both, so much so after an investigation shortly before the (current genocidal war against my people) I think the more important question to ask is: Why do Ukrainians think that the famines were at least partially genocidal in nature? Because yes, frankly, incompetence and language divisions and biases of people definitely played a role. You could explain holodomor without intention behind it and I think that makes it difficult. but the reason why is very, very clear. It was not singular. De-Ukrainification and cultural genocide began in the 19th century, and peaked with NIcholas the second who upped it to straight up genocide shortly after his 'solution' to the pale of settlement. There's a reason the very, very struggle-against genocide narrative song that is now the Ukrainian national anthem is from the mid 19th century. This is not new. The Tsar increased this to language bans, arrests of musicians, destruction of books, etc. Poles had their own share of unsavory actions and should not be left out of it. Bandera's anti-Polish sentiment didn't come from nowhere. But after a brief partial reprieve during Lenin's rule, it redoubled even harsher under Stalin. While so many of the stories are apocryphal, there's enough facts we have to wonder about them. Did the mass execution of invited Ukrainian kobzars (blind bardic class) at a 'celebration of heritage' actually happen? Who knows. But we know that hte Kobzars were eliminated and Ukrainian musicians and music was obliterated from everywhere not Polish and not in Canada and the US. My family alone has history in this because we literally got invited by Zelensky to teach pysanky techniques to Ukrainian cultural studies that were destroyed during the USSR's De-Ukrainification and (never ending) destruction of Ukrainian Catholic regions especially as tehy were especially anti-Russian. (And this may never happen as hahaha my cousin was supposed to go a few weeks prior to invasion.) Like, even if Holodomor didn't occur as deliberate genocide. It was surrounded by very deliberate direct and cultural genocidal efforts. Language extermination, music extermination, the destruction of an entire class of bards. The obliteration of the Ukrainian Catholics, the forced conformity of the Orthodox church to the patriarchate. The forced resettlement of Ukrainian speakers in 'Russian' territory to isolate parts of Siberia, the encouraged migration with direct desire to supplant and replace Ukrainian language in eastern Ukraine, the de-Tatarization and de-ukrainification of Crimea. Frankly, its frustrating because you could remove Holodomor from the narrative entirely and come to similar conclusion. But you can't because its such a massive, horrific loss of life that led to a cultural replacement frankly unheard of even in the Americas, whereupon before 1920 a majority of people as far east as Novgorod were deemed 'Ukrainian speakers first' outside of the cities, soon, as far west as Donbass, Ukrainian speakers were a suppressed minority within twenty years.
