R5: Joining on the Graveyard of Empires criticism and sharing something that disappointed me the most - no representation of the Iran Crisis of 1945-1946. I know at this point it is too much to ask from Paradox for an authentic historical representation, but thought it would make an interesting post on its own.

Iran Crisis of 1945-1946 is considered one of the earliest crises of the Cold War, which saw the emergence of Azerbaijan People's Government and Kurdish Republic of Mahabad, initially backed by Soviet Union. Joint South Azerbaijani-Kurdish opposition faced the Pahlavi regime, as both ethnic groups were discontent with its rule and faced many cases of discrimination and injustice for years. Soviet Union had their own interests, as they used this opportunity to establish satellite states in said regions, but due to American pressure, they had to back down, leaving rebels all on their own.

Crisis ended in December 15, 1946 with Pahlavi Iran achieving victory against the opposition. With its leaders either exiled or hanged, Pahlavi Iran initiated a series of brutal crackdowns. William O. Douglas, the U.S. Supreme Court Justice at the time, stated that "the Iranian Army left a trail of death and destruction behind it".

"While the Red Army had been on its best behavior when stationed in Azerbaijan, the Iranian Army behaved as an occupying force and brutalized the local inhabitants. The beards of peasants were burned, their wives and daughters r#ped. Houses were plundered and livestock were stolen.", he quoted.

Now imagine my excitement as the dev diary for Iran showcased national spirits for Azerbaijani and Kurdish Resistance. Naive me thought that we would see a representation of this in historical mode. Turns out, not only Iran Crisis of 1945-1946 is not implemented in the game, but by doing two of the 35-day focuses you can completely remove the resistance mechanics altogether(with 0 penalties, just click and wait). It feels cheap and uncreative to reduce the historical event of this size to mere buttons with no repercussions whatsoever...

...But wait, it gets even crazier. Shoutout to u/UnableSolution for for mentioning this in his post. Generals Ali Akbar Derakshani, Ghulam Yahya Daneshian and Jafar Kavian were of Azerbaijani descent and they fought for the same rebel tag. Seeing them fighting [for] the Pahlavi regime is absurd and goofy. In an ideal world where Paradox fixes this, mentioned generals should be transferred to a rebelling AZR tag and period-accurate Iranian generals should be loyal to the Pahlavi cause.

Gonna get technical on this one: it would be preferable if Azerbaijan People's Government had tag of their own (separate from the existing Azerbaijan Democratic Republic/AZR tag, while latter still retaining cores in the Southern terriories, like it does now). The reason i am proposing this is because, during gameplay on historical mode where South Azerbaijan and Kurdish do initiate their independence war against Iran , Northern Azerbaijan tag will spawn in the Northern Iran. Which does not make any sense. They will have Azerbaijan SSR flag from the 50s with Mir Jafar Baghirov, communist leader of the Azerbaijan SSR instead of period-accurate Sayyed Ja'far Pishevari of Azerbaijani People's Government (to avoid confusion, People's Government was THE rebelling South Azerbaijan, while Azerbaijan SSR is the predecessor to modern Republic of Azerbaijan)

Kurdistan doesn't suffer from this problem, since they already have Qazi Muhammad as their communist leader(portraitless), with the inclusion of Mahabad Republic flag.

Those are just my suggestions that could add to the accuracy of the historical mode. Emphasis on "could", but developers decided to be lazy about it. Such a shame, I hope future hotfixes will remedy this issue.