Making this was quite the balancing act, I didn't want it to be too harsh or too lenient. Even rerecorded this one since the first version of this was too lenient and didn't work all too well. This topic would've featured in Hoi4 unpopular opinions if I ever got around to it, but to me this works better since I can elaborate much more with a full video.
hoi4 in general feels unbalanced, at least when it comes to single player major nations. play as Germany or USA or any other major really and you have to go out of your way to lose. win the air with fighters and cas, and have more divisions and you're basically unstoppable unless you're fighting the entire world.
My impression is that they made the tree this way to compensate the players for what they lose by going into the civil war and forfeiting the normal tree. And since the normal tree is OP, this one is as well. Which I don't like in this case because the fact that it's compensating you feels obvious and kind of insulting in a way, plus the civil war tree seems hastily made. But what I hate more is trees like the Soviet one, where you have to spend years and end up with a ruined country with no staff, so by the time you're ready to play, the game is already halfway over. I think the British tree is nice in that regard, it's not too fast but also not too slow, and you can put in an effort and get to keep the colonies (though the colony "minigame" is tedious due to the division placement).
What really annoys me in civil war trees like germany is "rebuild the nation" focus where you get repair speed boosts but by the time you finish the focus everything is built back already so it is useless
For trees that take a while to develop what they need is downtime. For Monarchist France and Poland, you have to wait a while before changing rulers, and for Poland uniting countries, but you can go down other parts of the tree which is so good. You don’t have to constantly micromanage decisions and focuses like in Russia Switzerland or god forbid turkey. To even touch the army debuffs takes around 5 focuses, and by then ww2 is in effect already
And you get cores on them, even some you normally can't get as a fascist. You can still Anchluss, and you can still core the sudetenland, AND you can form the HRE you get so many more cores as non aligned it is honestly insulting.
@@shyper17 I felt like I didnt even have iron man mode on when I was doing imperial german achievements. I had go double check and found out yeah I actually did.
Yeah I do agree that the Central Powers restoration in HOI4, and time has been kinder to this path, although I do disagree with Germany's civil war being too fast, I think Germany should still have a fast civil war if Paradox really wants to keep the "There always should be a WW2" sentiment in the German focus tree I really hope when Germany gets re-reworked, they expand their focus tree and rework a lot of things. Like the monarchists even with how unbelievably OP they are... they really still feel lacking in the foreign policy department (and stupid, we should combine both the Around magniot and western powers focuses into one, and add a war goal against the USA instead.) I feel like inviting other nations to the Central Powers should be more of a decision. Like we should be able to invite Carlist Spain by decision. (Seriously, Carlist Spain feels like it was meant to be apart of the Central Powers)
I think a fast civil war will be staying around, but it being 70 days with no state expansion or jeopardy has to go. Agree with pretty much everything else you say.
@@BubblesZest I'm fine with that, I never said I wanted it not changed. Like I feel like there should be a 35 day focus on choosing which states for the coup then another 70-105 days for it to trigger. It could be like "Hitler finds out about the plan and orders to get rid of them." It could be like Stalin forcing the civil war in the USSR. Also I would like to add that we should add some foreign policy focuses regarding Japan and China. I think Imperial Germany should support the Kuomingtang no matter what, and even gain Chiang Wei-kuo as a general, and get a war goal on Japan.
@@UlulvarCape Maybe instead, germany asks "politely" for qingdao, kinda like slovakia for danzig. Maybe an imperial germany path for asian affairs could be a route where you support manchuko independence, and eventually help them take all of china.
@@Kracc420 nah. Germany was dead set on supporting the kuomingtang and the Chinese until they threw them into the wolves for the Japanese. I have no doubts monarchist Germany would likely prefer a kuomingtang given how there's already military advisors in China during the time the Civil War happens and along with that, there's really not much point.
@@UlulvarCape Yes, I know that Sussy Germany supported the kumontaing until Japan attacked, But monarchist germany could want to spread monarchy elsewhere. Kinda how you can coup italy and make them monarchist even though they werent friends during ww1. The manchuko part mightve been bias from me bc im a kaiserriech mod fan xd.
Prepare for the next blockade should give a strong production bonus for refineries and penalty to consumer goods pre war. Then, when you go to war with a major it changes to provide a temporary reduction in the resource penalty and fuel usage reduction. Would simulate importing extra resources pre war to be used during
You forgot that if you and austria are on the same alliance even if the kaiser returned germany would soon get an event to unify with austria, you gain cores and their whole army and generals
i kinda wish that the rhineland branch was not connected to the main politics branch, in the old rt56 german focus tree it was like that and you could do things like anschluss and demand sudetanland
I guess they just want to make Germany to gain the same effect of MEFO bills. But it is quite balanced, tbh. What i dont like about in that is Kaiserin path. 20% decrese in naval output is no joke. You cannot do naval invade to uk in most cases with current naval supermacy rebalance.
Is this not the point of that focus tree branch? Agreeing not to compete with the Royal Navy is the price of Britain allying. This was one of Britain's primary issues in the run up to WWI was German naval expansion. I think Germany being able to naval invade Britain at all is pretty ahistorical. The dumb AI lets you sneak over when the fleet is damaged... IRL even if the Germans could have snuck a few divisions ashore they couldn't have got enough supplies over to them to avoid defeat. The Royal Navy was so large it could easily take the attrition from whatever the Germans could throw at it by air or sea. Historically the allies really struggled in the first month or so following D-Day even with complete air and naval superiority.
the kaiserin has the option to core all austria, form the hre and be into an alliance with the british so who cares about not being able to invade? Also that's not totally true since you can just steal other nation's ships when you win a war against them so you can basically get a giant navy without building any ship+land or a puppet
What i would found cool is if some states would break away if the civil war takes too long, or if you give them consessions for support. I could imagine a communist bavaria or kingdom of bavaria breaking away so that you can get some extra guns or militias. Also other nations could get a ability to interfere, like france restoring the dmz or poland fighting a borderconflict for silesia. There could also be something the soviets could do or the bri'ish. This would make it way more interesting and add an insentive to actually focus on the civil war and not just battle plan it.
My first ahistorical game as Germany was insane, I went for Victoria and reviving the HRE and here's how it went: uk returned to full monarchy, France for some reason declared on UK, I joined and puppeted the entirety of France for free, got the lower countries, did the anti Soviet pack that put me at war with them when they went for finland, puppeted the soviets, went to war with US and puppeted them as well, I think I puppeted a bunch of China as well, finally turned against UK, puppeted them and the entirety of Europe, killed every Nation that was left, waited a lot to gain pp so I can annex everything and did my first world conquest as the HRE.
That focus is deep as hell in the Italian focus tree, and if it's an MP scenario, very detrimental for the Italy player to have to go all the way down there.
you can actually get 0 consumer goods forever what you need is 100 stability do a focus prepare for the next blockade and while the civil War is still going you take total mobilization
Clue's in the name there, historical. It happened, the a-historical tree shouldn't just be a clone of the historical tree with a monarchist coat of paint.
@BubblesZest The German Empire ends up fighting the same enemies as historical and if it didn't have the same level of power as historical it would break balance. You have to also look at it if the player isn't Germany, USA and Soveits with a player easy stomp any AI Germany.
AI alliance members usually though suck (at least with No step back and logistics). That's balancing the effect, kinda. But yeh the Alt-history focus even allow anchluss (I think you can even get Austria-Hungary if you do it right lol)
I'd say that's barely even a balancing effort. If there are good players, they can easily have just as big of an army as you and know what to focus on.
I have an interesting perspective. I just got into HOI4 this year. When I started, I loved playing minor nations. Majors felt overwhelming and there was too much to manage. Eventually after I learned the game better, I started tackling majors. I like SOME majors, but definitely not all. I was SUPER disappointed with Germany. After playing minors for so long, I expected Germany to be fun since I get to set the pace of the game. I steamrolled everyone as historical Germany and I was so upset about it. The UK was so easy to naval invade. USSR was a joke. You can do so many early wars. I honestly think Germany is SOOOO boring because of all this. There's no real challenge. You're insanely strong no matter what path you're going, as long as you're not a new player. Germany is one of the least fun majors to play in my opinion.
Alright, I can agree with balance issues on this one, but the idea is to choose an alt path and get what you want quickly, mainly to not be bogged down in civil conflict and rebuilding still in the 1940s. Personally, as far as civil wars go, I prefer this cheating method where you cant lose it, where-as I chose a focus tree path that I want to go down, and the civil war is a mere inconvenience side-plot, not the main event of the campaign. In this light, I prefer pre-la resistance Spanish Civil War, not the artificial slow-down debuffs we have now to drag it out. When I tinker around with Russian civil wars and the different branches, I try to find ways to cheese and end it quickly, because like I said, I hate still dealing with it after several years. If a German Civil war rework is coming, I would want it to be just as fast as the current version. Also in all likely-hood, if the German Army couped in '36 against Hitler, there most likely would not of been a civil war as the SS had only been around for about 10 years and had minimal combat experience.
If you go Rhineland you avoid a 3~4 month civil war and don't lose half your army / airforce (you can cheese lend lease to avoid this, but for balance should we ignore that sort of exploit?) and get Austria and Czechoslovakia for free, and better as Austria is cores, plus their army. Italy, Hungary and Romania are all Axis powers without trying much. So... pound for pound the only really significant difference feels like - and I'm more than happy to accept its significant - the -20% consumer goods for 1 year. It would be interesting to see if you did a test which actually resulted in a stronger Germany by mid-39 as the loss of equipment in '36 and reduced capacity during the civil war was offset by the greater building potential from that bonus. It feels like it would be close. Germany is very powerful and more than capable of "winning". Making it slightly easier doesn't make much of a difference to me at least.
We're not focusing the historical tree here, that has to be that way cause it actually happened, it's op. But justifiably so. Just because that tree is op doesn't mean the a-historical should be too, if anything it's missed opportunity to make them different from each other, rn as I realised reading your text they're practically the same. (Free Allies, no work for bonuses, etc) Just with a monarchist flair.
@@BubblesZest If Germany down the historical path is at a certain level then it feels to me that should the default for any comparison of balance be against that historical path. I get you point about other civil wars being later and potentially more impactful, but when we start comparing different countries (instead of the branches for a given country) it always makes it harder to determine how balanced something is. If the monarchist Germany was much weaker than the historical branch I'm sure we'd have many louder, and IMO, justified, complaints.
@@BubblesZest I agree the trees end up giving very similar benefits which is a shame, they should be more different, but if the tree wasnt roughly as strong as historical tree the game simply wont play right. Ww2 will be incredibly late or itll be way too easy for ussr/allies. I think the way the game is meant to be is similar to the real war, it started off with germany being the strongest in the world and as the war dragged on they get less and less powerful comparatively.
The one thing I hate about alt-hist Germany is the lack of left-wing/pro-bolshevik/straight out bolshevik paths, it'd have been pretty cool to have a soviet aligned democracy, under the spd or maybe a communist path that's kinda like the Soviets under the kpd, balancing out different internal factions with the opportunity to have some form of supreme soviet at the end like like the soviets or some worker's council. Not to mention the possible mid world war anti-nazi groups like antifa or just anti-hitler factions like some whermact or SS coup. My long and rambling point is that I feel that paradox have really missed out on a lot of interesting scenarios with how they are currently handling Germany and always playing the generic and honestly boring "bad guy" eventually stops being fun.
You can go total mob and get the 5% mob during the civil war which is pretty op just have to keep combat casualties down so your war support doesnt go below 80 which it will hover around 81-82%
@@austria-hungary7680 He means the law economy of total mobilization+extensive conscription for amazing bonuses, you just lose some manpower that you can recover later by lowering into war economy again tbh
If you saved PP you could have gone to Total Mobalisation during the civil war. Also 56 Civ's by early 38 is not OP, normal fascist Germany is much, much stronger. Even communist Gemany is stronger.
By 1937? The Soviet Civil War starts by late 1936 at best, and the 2ACW is even further than that. I not only think it should take longer, but it should also be harder.
i wouldnt say russia is balanced. All the alt history paths are very underpowered and underwealming. if you attempt any of them in a historical game alot of the time nazi germany declares on the remaining soviet union before they capitulate to the civil war. Id say reword germany to have more flavour/content and buff the alt history routes for the soviet union.
The only difference is Germany takes on the entire world on its own whereas the soviets are fighting a late defensive war allied to all majors but Japan and Italy who both are worthless in this game.
And now Germany's minus -20% consumer goods is - 50% consumer goods (Not sure if they just changed that with arms against tyranny or if they had changed that for a while). On the upside Germany going monarchist doesn't means Hungary goes for Austria-Hungary, in the past those two would be linked so AI Germany didn't even had to create Austria-Hungary. Also the Austrian AI can reject an AI Hungary, while Czechoslovakia still always accept AI Hungary.
It's because of the change to the statistics, AAT introduced the new Consumer Goods Factories FACTOR, which is separate from just Consumer Goods Factories. IIRC, the -50% is now FACTOR, instead of just straight up reducing consumer goods factories, it reduces the percentage of mils/civs that are used as consumer goods factories, so if say 20% of your factories were being used as consumer factories, now only 10% will be used.
If I'm playing ironman ahistorical, I'll just restart if Germany goes for the civil war. Things like auto-couping Italy and magically taking away any of your puppets in austria/hungary/czechoslovakia and realigning them to Germany are absolutely busted run-killers. It's obvious the pathway was only designed to work from a Germany player's perspective, rather than the player playing any other nation. Which makes it all the more annoying that they changed ahistorical to have Germany go civil war way more often now.
I find it weird that the Allies on historical don't block the Kaisers return 100% of the time, ive never had it happen to me but i know they can which make's sense. They would never have allowed that to happen especially France.
In my opinion they should make the civil war a four way event, wherein the military junta fights German commies, a strasserite faction, as well as the Hitlerites. As someone who really likes Germany in the New Ways mod, just integrate that into the main game, along with a rework for Japan and Hungary’s Communist paths and give Romania a way to choose which iron guard leader it wants (there’s three leaders for Legionary Romania, but at present the focus tree railroads you into playing with ion antonescu as leader of Legionary Romania, in the game files there’s also Octavian Goga and Corneliu Zelea Codreanu.
The downside to the civil war is losing MEFO bills. It is actually pretty broken if you are doing late war, but like Kaiser Germany is almost always gonna be weaker just cause of the lack of construction bonuses. Against AI or crappy players its good but if you are playing against good players the hist paths are almost always the most powerful
They're both unbalanced, thing is the fascist tree is historical, it happened. So it has to be that way, but the a-historical tree doesn't have to follow these rules.
I understand your points but half the fun of doing the kaiser runs in hoi4 is because it's kind of busted. It doesn't have to be balanced. Also, the main complaint about the German focus tree should be they need a communist route. Also, Germany should have the capacity to be a main character because if you remember after the roaring twenties Germany was on the way to becoming a resurgent nation again.
Yeah yeah. Playing HoI4 is just referring to german events instead of years. This is a bit frustrating. Whole game revolves around the consecutive "Rhineland>Anschluss>Fate of CzS>Second award>Ribbentrop>France>Soviets" timeline.
An idea I have is that the reformation of Austria-Hungary through the German focus tree causes a diplomatic crisis in which Austria and Hungary agree to reform the empire while Czechoslovakia resists forcing Germany and Austria-Hungary to go to war with Czechoslovakia
The democratic path is pretty boring. It would have been much cooler to have a longer tree which diverts into two with one unifying Europe as European Union(an no requirements for countries to join the union so you don't need attack them) The historic fascist tree also seems to straight foward and to short. Perhaps a path to get diffrent leaders. For example the SS/ generals could overthrow A.H. Non aligned path also needs rework with different parties. Besides a monarchy a military junta could take power or they could add the Oster conspiracy where the military high command didn't want to go to war and tried to assasin A.H (Oster conspiracy could also be in alt fascist path) They could also add the new balance mechanic like in italy and Switzerland but then with A.H and his generals or a 3 way with the SS and the NSDAP extremist And then we get to the communist path. This path should be the hardest with an civil war where you get more debuffs and really have to work to victory much like soviet non aligned and facist paths. It also shouldn't come to fast where you'd get diffrent ideology or feel no effects within the same year
I really don't get your opinion... How many of youtubers game start with Soviet Union invade a few country in the beginning? Commies are strong from 1936. Unaligned countries has a disadvantage in this game, if you would like start a war, what is the main aspect of this game.
I'm not a great player, but IMO you have to work hard for the true alt-history path with Victoria III...your navy will be crippled for years, and in order to un-cripple it, you will have to fight the best navy on the planet...and preferably before they link up with the greatest industrial nation on the planet (USA). No order 66 or using mutually exclusive focus trees anymore either - Still, I suppose you should have to work hard to land the ultimate Totenkopf waifu...
I just want a communist path, creating a commie EU, decolonization crusade, just something apart from a single advisor, come on Paradox, you know you can do it if you want.
Personally compared to the historical fascist tree, its underpowered. You get a weaker germany (no cores on austria, or Sudetenland) and when you're playing singleplayer, factories and manpower for yourself is always better than factories and manpower for allies. They needed to give Germany the ability to do all of this, simply to make this path at all playable. Germany is the linchpin of the game, and if they are weak, then prepare for a boring game. As for AI, if you set the ai to go down the Kaiser path, they never do anything, I've seen them go until 42 without forming the central powers.
It could be that this focus tree was never supposed to be balanced. Maybe the Paradox company leader really likes fascism, so much that he is willing to lead a DLC design process to a point where fascist seem like the strong, cool guys. Think about that ...
Here are some of my suggestions about focus trees like Germany's that need a rework. Completely abandon the democratic tree and go for a communist one, that has no join the Soviets path, Just German communism Also we need a mechanic were if Germany turns commie the Soviets have a civil war or something to balance out the game
This is balanced because when going for monarchist Germany you basically have to disband your whole army so that Netherlands deny you the Kaiser. And this is mandatory, because this is the only way to get the one and only ultimate waifu Victoria and restore HRE.
I know you made this a bit ago but I just wanted to point out how stupid it is that only like three generals join the Nazis in the civil war. Felix Steiner for example, was a literally SS general and you keep him. Honestly I get that it wouldn’t be fun if the vast majority of generals joined the Nazis (also might upset a certain part of the community) but it is ridiculous how it is now.
No, fuck no! Germany should NOT be nerfed. You’re supposed to get all those for free just to make up an Axis equivalent. You need that faction to go to war with the world again.
Germany already has plenty of bonuses, not to mention the ai and country debuffs so Germany even has a chance. Their focus tree gives em wargoals anyway, they don't deserve a free big faction.
not even historical germany starts with a big faction at the start of the game or even during the start if ww2, and honestly, getting italy in your faction for free always made no sense to me. Monarchist germany needs a nerf. Not too much of one, but theres too much that makes it broken for an alt history scenario.
Paradox will probably never nerf Germany. It’s the noob country that new players pick cause it’s OP and Wehraboos will buy the DLCs to have more German content and stomp easily.
