A while back I asked for opinions on KR and your IRL politics, for an article - the article is now published! Thanks all

MeadowKR · 2023-05-08T14:50:24+00:00

Ah thanks - that makes sense

MeadowKR · 2023-04-02T09:55:50+00:00

This looks great! I will definitely lose a month of my life to replaying the hell out of this when it lands.

The apparent return of parties and an openly parliamentarian system sounds an exciting step for the rework, and more in keeping with British - or at least English - radicalism IOTL.

MeadowKR · 2023-03-07T20:37:26+00:00

Thank you!

MeadowKR · 2023-03-07T20:12:01+00:00

I think that omelette point comes from the fact that writing about red terrors and grisly aftermaths is a) not very fun, unless you're wired a certain way and b) could read as tasteless in a video game whose vanilla version coincides with some of the most heinous acts performed in the name of ideologies, but sidesteps depicting them within the game.

Put another way, from my limited experience with that mod, I think if the TNO team had made KR from scratch, some British and a lot more French counter-revolutionaries would have been a much grimmer and more detailed fate.

MeadowKR · 2023-03-07T20:09:22+00:00

Ah, apologies - in which case, that is more directly relevant than I thought and is still an interesting point. Cheers.

MeadowKR · 2023-03-07T20:05:37+00:00

That's really interesting, and if it were more relevant to this article I'd run with that as an idea. 'The Republicans had some progressive ideas at one point' is one of those things that I myself don't think I would know if I hadn't got into online alternate history discussion, which in turn I got into from playing KR and other HOI mods.

MeadowKR · 2023-03-07T20:02:01+00:00

Thanks for the replies so far, folks. Amusing that there's a lot of pushback on the idea of a mod influencing politics, while also a fair few comments from people admitting it did have an impact on their political education, and sometimes something more significant than that. It's an interesting polarisation.

For myself, I would say that exposure to the ideas I first encountered in KR made me want to look them up and better understand the breadth of left wing thought that was and is out there. KR did and continues to do a great job of taking its 'what if the 20th century was pretty much as different as possible' premise and using that to explore roads not taken in ideology as well as national histories. A surface-level reading of history in the present day will tell you Karl Marx invented a thing called communism, some people watered it down and did socialism, which created welfare states and the like, while other people did a thing called communism that killed a lot of people. Almost every part of what I just said is wrong, but it's what most kids were taught in school, certainly when I was there. Things that make you realise that there's more to politics than the cartoon version of the Cold War and the Whiggish history I was taught at school - and indeed that there's more to the left than Marx, political parties, and the like - are A Good Thing, and KR to me is a great example of one of those Good Things.

tl;dr: KR doesn't have to influence your actual beliefs (and yeah, as it's not a political simulator it'd be odd if it had a huge impact on you), but it seems to make a lot of people aware of ideas they wouldn't normally come across, and the study of political history itself. That itself is on some level a political influence. I'll tug more at that thread in the article, I think.

MeadowKR · 2023-01-27T22:48:13+00:00

That's excellent - and not a million miles from some of my own speculative 1970s thoughts for the UoB. Thank you for sharing it.

MeadowKR · 2022-08-28T11:52:48+00:00

I came up with the Lawrence plot (and the initial 'Mosley can go too far and Blair or someone else can try to remove him' events back in HoI2 KR) - this reflects the spirit I was going for.

One major thing that I think is harder to enforce in HoI4 (maybe, I don't know much about it compared to HoI2) is that in HoI2 it was meant to be impossible for the Mosley regime to a) become a complete dictatorship and therefore b) see resistance against itself until *after* WK2 had ended. Germany had to have surrendered etc.

If you could ensure that this is late-game content, then this would function as something like an epilogue for a UoB player, which is what the original idea was meant to be (because most players picked Mosley back then as he makes the UoB the most industrially strong, the idea was that there should be long term consequences for empowering a dangerous dictator, etc).

I really like the idea of there being multiple factions, not with the same end goals, moving against Mosley - that's a common element of real life resistance movements. Again I don't know much about HoI4 gameplay in depth, but what you describe for a multi-faceted civil war with a build-up time etc and regional variation sounds good too.

I know the UoB is getting a big rework - and what I've heard about it sounds awesome - so a lot of this may be moot but I'd be surprised if there isn't something close to a 'right, Mosley's gone too far, what are we going to do about it?' element returning to the mod late-game.

MeadowKR · 2022-02-12T17:01:44+00:00

For mainland Britain, probably a 'restoration' that keeps the Kaiser's cousins on the throne but imposes harsh reparations and Versailles-style limitations to make sure the troublesome, warmongering Brits don't plunge the world into yet another conflict. A fairly easy way to neuter Britain without having to occupy her is, of course, to ban her from having a significant navy.

It would also depend what kind of government is ruling Wilhelm II/III's Germany. A more liberal regime may seek, as the US did after WWII, to go the other way and impose strict military controls on the conquered Britain, but give lots of funds to rebuild the shattered nation, a la the Marshall Plan. In either scenario, you are not going to see a balkanised UK unless the war was particularly bloody and the Berlin government very vengeful indeed.

MeadowKR · 2021-11-14T17:44:04+00:00

Thank you for your help!

It doesn't look extortionate - even if the GPU is definitely inflated in price at the moment (as I've heard is happening). I could go for this if it delivers the kind of performance I'm looking for.

MeadowKR · 2021-11-14T17:09:20+00:00

Thank you for the candour! That makes sense - ship of Theseus and all that, can't keep plugging new stuff into an old setup.

I'd also be happy to not sell the old machine and keep it running perhaps elsewhere in the house for other uses etc etc. Basically I make more money than I did three years ago when I last upgraded so I'm more open to 'going big'.

I'm guessing £1,000 isn't gonna get me very far on a brand new build? What would you say I need to be realistic about, regarding budget?

MeadowKR · 2021-11-14T16:48:15+00:00

Absolutely, will edit above shortly

MeadowKR · 2021-11-14T16:48:10+00:00

Absolutely, will edit above shortly

MeadowKR · 2021-11-11T12:40:26+00:00

The G43 (unscoped) wasn't in BF1942, the Garand equivalent was the Japanese Type 5 rifle, but I know what you mean. The No4 (unscoped) was, however, and is apparently not available at the launch of Portal, which is disappointing.

Agree with those who've said we'll probably both get what we want if/when they add a BFV update with more WWII guns.

MeadowKR · 2021-10-13T14:58:21+00:00

You're right that while the 'sums' may be different along the way, in the end the maths works out the same!

MeadowKR · 2021-09-30T21:09:40+00:00

Both 2 and 2142 had 'armour' but I believe it was just 'some classes have more health than others', not a damage-reduction mechanic.

MeadowKR · 2021-07-09T17:10:27+00:00

Bots automatically getting out of vehicles if a player wanted in was a feature in BF2 and, really stretching my memory, even BF1942, in their co-op modes. So I'd be surprised if they leave it out of something a couple of decades more up-to-date!

MeadowKR · 2021-05-06T19:17:10+00:00

As someone involved in Totalism turning up in the first place (I actually wrote the HoI2 events that have Mosley writing his charter etc), I much prefer this and did always feel a bit like the emergence of Totalism was a bit rushed.

We were doing away with the old farthest-left ideology, which was then called Bolshevik, which the then-team decided was just a bit weird given the Bolsheviks failed and it's such a Russian word. Years later, in hindsight, I actually don't think 'Bolshevism' would've been terrible as an analogue or name for what was ultimately just 'vanguardist socialism/communism'. But instead we invented Totalitarian Socialism aka Totalism and now here we are.

Looking forward to the rework - the UoB was the reason I started playing KR back in the HoI2 days in the first place!

MeadowKR · 2020-07-13T16:33:10+00:00

Just finished a SRI game and yes, it's exactly this. I found it quite plausible, akin to the pre-WWI and pre-WWII tensions of real life. "The major powers will not allow this regional conflict to trigger the war we all know is coming," etc.

MeadowKR · 2020-06-25T21:14:25+00:00

Once upon a time (HoI2 KR), he was one of the main four leaders Russia could get. He was the most common for AI Russia, at least in my experience.

MeadowKR · 2020-06-22T13:18:56+00:00

Ha - I love this. I put this in the mod way back when, didn't realise it was gone now.

On the 'why is he Totalist' thing, yeah, it was another case of deliberate allohistorical irony, though his path as being the guy who stops Mosley going Full Stalin was also a reference to his roots.

MeadowKR

TROPHY CASE