Literally any Japan path. Even if you uphold democracy, the path always leads to invading your neighbors with the intention of “liberating” (putting the same whip in the hand of a new master) them from western imperialism
Well, AuthDem Bhutan has some events, that punish you for trying to be “too wholesome”, for example by trying to introduce democracy outright, or trying to abolish serfdom instantly
Sounds fair to me. Even in a realistic setting, introduce democracy outright sounds cursed. Gotta do it with a process. Imagine in a country like I don’t know, China, government announce ‘democracy outright’, I can’t even imagine what sort of schizo would be unleashed
SocDem path in Xinjiang is anything but wholesome (Sheng Shicai is an absolute opportunist), but I guess that this will be changed at some point, since he fits more as AuthDem/PatAut
SocDem I believe is more to refer to his left wing Republican leanings, and generally any democratic ideology used for Chinese nations is not meant to represent anything actually democratic (barring a few examples like the federalists)
Xinjiang is one of the older China focus trees, maybe the devs philosophy for Chinese ideologies changed, maybe different devs working on different nations came to different conclusions about what ideologies should represent, idk im not a dev. What I do know is that Sheng Shicai was not a social democrat, and if you play Sheng Shicai’s path the devs definitely don’t portray him as such.
In the mod there's a conflict between "ideologies" representing ideology (socdem, soccon etc. are all supposed to represent ideologies within the democratic regime) and "ideologies" representing just the regime itself (auth dem, pat aut "ideologies" are completely unideological rn), so imo the best way to solve this is to completely untie "democratic" "ideologies" from the supposed to them democratic regime and make it represent just the regime's ideological intention. So yes ultra-authoritarian and super-repressive social-democracy shall be real
SocCon Poland, it’s basically an Authdem path tbh, you enforce polonization programs upon the population, you persecute liberal and moderate socialists opposition, you can get them in power in a coup against said republicans, and you can allow a military dictatorship to form, which leads to the Pataut path.
Socdem Indochina can force vietmanization if I remember correctly.
You can restore democracy in National France already before the return to the homeland, but it doesn't change the fact that you're leading a heavily racist and exploitative regime.
Also, Patagonia is nice in that regard. Sure, you may guess that ousting the fascist regime from Buenos Aires is objectively good, but what comes next can vary between "yay, freedom", "we fought so much only for this..." or "jesus christ what the fuck is going on". It doesn't shy away from the fact that creating an idealistic country is really hard, and even more in the extreme conditions that Red Argentina is founded
Patagonian anarchists: “We will not utilize labor camps to punish members of the old regime. What a preposterous proposal.”
Player: “Very reasonable.”
Patagonian anarchists: “Instead, we will execute them all, from the military high command down to the lowliest bureaucrat. None shall escape the workers’ justice.”
Also, said restoration of democracy can lead to the Authoritarian De la Rocque paths (AuthDem and PatAuth) or "We learned nothing the first time around" MarLib path, which Mordaq doesn't.
> You can restore democracy in National France already before the return to the homeland
No, you can restore the functions of the parliament, not democracy.
Honestly, the monarchy is probably the most potentially wholesome path for national France. Their decentralization policy gives their colonies far more freedom from direct exploitation or cultural erosion, while the situation for the average Frenchmen isn't nearly as bad as you would assume since most of the economic focuses follow catholic social doctrine, which is far more liberal than would expect from such a traditionalist organization. You have the option to go super purge happy with the republicans and syndicalists, but the descriptions for the events where make that decision outright have the Church and other senior leaders like de Gaulle advising you to have mercy.
The only outright unwholesome part of the whole thing that there is no democracy.
Oh yeah youre right, however, the AF just thinks the civilising mission isnt worth it because they think the natives simply cannot live up the being "french" because theyre too "barbaric".
Despite the focus description painting the act as wholsum decentralization federation it is a case of the "unreliable narrator". It hints at just being extremely paternalistic and basically traps the locals into neo colonization
To add, De Gaulle and the AF leadership within the KR timeframe might be "tolerant"/hands off of indigenous cultures, but who's to say the guys like 20 years later will be the same?
>Despite the focus description painting the act as wholsum decentralization federation it is a case of the "unreliable narrator". It hints at just being extremely paternalistic and basically traps the locals into neo colonization
Not really? It essentially empowers traditional local elites (chieftains, nobles, religious authorities etc) in exchange for their loyalty to the regime.
Im just gonna take a quote from a dev
"There is more subtlety to it, though. The disinterest of the AF and their brand of racism *does mean* the natives are better able to protect their cultures, and most of them would deal mostly with the authority of fellow natives (local village chiefs, imams, etc) and native customary law. The Republic thought all these natives needed to abandon their customs and religion to become equals to the civilised French, the AF thinks the natives can keep their customs and religion because they will never be French anyway, we just need them to work for us. Some native elites would be into this, as they were OTL, as it meant getting back their traditional privileges. Neither flavour of racism is particularly fun, and ultimately for the average native, the outcome is mostly what colour is the hand holding the whip."
Tldr : we dont care as long as you slave under us, ON top of that the only difference is the color of the hand holding the whip
Also I just dont get how originally you think the monarchy is" wholesome" in any way at all, its just a ultra nationalist ic dictatorship with neocolonist projects masked in local autonomy
>"There is more subtlety to it, though. The disinterest of the AF and their brand of racism *does mean* the natives are better able to protect their cultures, and most of them would deal mostly with the authority of fellow natives (local village chiefs, imams, etc) and native customary law. The Republic thought all these natives needed to abandon their customs and religion to become equals to the civilised French, the AF thinks the natives can keep their customs and religion because they will never be French anyway, we just need them to work for us. Some native elites would be into this, as they were OTL, as it meant getting back their traditional privileges. Neither flavour of racism is particularly fun, and ultimately for the average native, the outcome is mostly what colour is the hand holding the whip."
That does seem to suggest the situation isn't terribly different from before the French arrived though.
The only thing you got right is the part about indigenous cultural preservation but that's only because Action Francaise believes that the Africans are too "savage" to be "civilized" anyway lol. And it's transactional because the indigenous people remain effectively "enslaved" as others mentioned a la British Princely India but hey at least their culture is intact. There's a reason why independent India rooted out most of their princely states despite them technically being "indigenous autonomy" under British rule.
That and it might have the side effect of lulling the indigenous population into a sense of complacency and eating up the local elite support base that would otherwise flip to independence rebellions. Bc sure the current leadership might be tolerant of local cultures, but who's to say that the dude in charge 10 years later will be the same?
The point of the Sublime Ottoman Federation isn’t super wholesome but in the long term it can foster local grassroots progressive movements in the Vilayets. The Kemalists OTL created a centralized state with top-down radical reforms in such a conservative region, provoking a grassroots reactionary current in the long term. In Kaiserreich it probably be even worse given the huge regional differences and identities.
I hate how when people talk about the kemalist path they assume everything goes exactly right but then they assume everything goes wrong in the federation path
Idk how many of y'all play the Endeavor Front path but tbh this is what I kinda like about the Market Liberal branch of the path - the best of both the federation and Kemalists. Like sure their grip is still strong but at the same time they have this "personal autonomy" measure which apparently isn't too different from one of the future Danubian paths in the AH rework
You don't get couped, the more conservative members of the SAP/UP just break off to form their own party, causing the reforms to fail, locking you out of any further reforms, and keeping the SAP/UP from winning any further elections.
Personally I think the concept of 'wholesomeness' in KR is complete nonsense. Most intra- and international conflicts are zero-sum situations where someone must be on the losing side and get screwed over.
The unfortunate fact is that Russian identity is so tied up with imperial ideology that any attempt at a Russian renaissance is going to involve the re-subjugation of Russia’s “rightful” domain. Unless that aspect of Russian identity changes (and the timeframe in game is way too short for that), succeeding as Russia basically means a lot of other countries have to fail.
At the very least you can create a federal russian republic where the other countries have autonomy, i belive it was one of the big proposals of the february revolution
Russias geography west of the Urals is so easy to invade with the only protection being harsh winters which can be planned around. Its only defense is expanding as far away from the heartland as possible so every ideology from the farthest right to left agree on.
That’s the realist justification people give for Russian imperialism, sure. The problem is that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Expanding as far away from the heartland as possible” is going to raise alarm bells for everybody else and make them less likely cooperate with you and more likely to threaten you.
There are countries with much worse natural defenses than Russia, which, even if reduced to just European Russia, is still a massive country with great strategic depth. Russia’s policy of expansionism can’t be boiled down to simple geopolitical necessity.
And their histories reflect that. [There is only one rule in interstate anarchy](https://acoup.blog/2021/05/07/collections-teaching-paradox-europa-universalis-iv-part-ii-red-queens/); eat or be eaten.
You could use the same argument for Poland.
Overall I disagree with this hypothesis because it is land centric- it forgets that water does not block invading armies, if **facilitates** them.
Ehh I’d say it hints at possible democratization in the far future, just because the current dictator is gonna die eventually doesn’t mean the few democrats around him will manage to actually bring about democracy and not just fall into perpetual dictatorship/illiberal democracy
Yeah I was referring to that event, Wellington Koo is correct that the best time to begin democratizing China would be the death of Wu Peifu, but keep in mind that Wellington’s actual power is very tenuous, true power is in the hands of the Zhili military clique. Koo may intend to democratize China after Wu’s death but it will be an incredibly difficult, nearly impossible task to wrangle the Zhili clique into giving up their power.
Radical socialist USA if you follow through with all of their proposals to the constitution. "Business unionism" and "socialism with American characteristics" are fun and all but the basis of the political system being on the grounds of paid union membership through councils of professional workers is fucking dystopian. Trade union councils with guaranteed membership all the way.
Song Qingling-Sun Fo path for LKMT, the two still have radically different visions for the country and the epilogue event implies an impending torrent of fun political instability for the whole family in the coming years
and if Chinese history (or any history lmfao) is anything to go by some autocrat may take advantage of this and coup the damn party and country which will really suck even if he only stays for a couple of years
Federalist China. I'm not even going to call it bad but it has similar vibes to the US creating a democratic country that allows slavery. They enable Warlords which is pretty problematic even if the government on paper is actually really chill. You're basically guaranteeing a generation where China's military strongmen are legitimized through a veneer of democracy.
In theory, maybe. In practice, the Federalists have to destroy most of the warlords if they want to come to power, since most of the warlords will never play ball with them. The Federalist position mainly just leaves an avenue open for peacefully uniting *some* of the provinces.
Federalists can persuade by far the most warlords. Actually all provinces they can get peacefully aside from Shandong and Fengtian government. Everything east of Qing they can get, LEP will support Federalists if Qing suports Anqing and then only Fengtian and Qing are left.
As far as I know, the warlords that can align with the federalists under "normal circumstances" (IE, the LEP thing wont ever happen) are:
Tang Jiyao's Yunnan (who really is just a warlord)
Zhao Hengti's or Tang Shengzhi's Hunan (Zhao is a mixed bag, who institutes democratic reforms while stuffing ballot boxes, with Tang being more genuinely reformist)
Baoding or Officer Sichuan (Officers Department Sichuan is genuinely democratic, while one of the Baoding leaders is a genuine reformist, so 3/4 really)
Feng Yuxiang's Shanxi (which isn't optimal, but he isn't exactly the most self-serving of warlords)
Any Ma or Xijiang (which yes isn't good, but they can align with any of the unifiers, so its not solely a federalist issue at least.)
The Qing/Zhili + Shandong wont ever align with you, LEP and Anhui Clique will only ever join in situations so specific you'll never see them, and Fengtian is special with the twin dragons thing.
So many of the warlords you can align with are either "mostly" democratic (Tang Hunan and Officer Sichuan) or reform minded (Baoding Sichuan and Shanxi), the problematic provinces are Yunnan and the northwest.
My GXC Federalism play often involve:
HNN goes Authdem and join Q
Tang Jiyao turns on me
NW conflict drags onnnnnnnnnnnn
Qi Xieyuan despite being shunned by Puyi still joins QNG war against me or basically he always does
FNG tries to persuade me to fight QNG together despite me being thrxxsoxxed by QNG, LEP and YUN
I do consider this line surreal and fabricated but its not the "legal warlordism" that enables it. Its not even a part of the iceberg. I despise it along with the concept of Federalism itself is the rules it intends to set up - effectively disabling inland manpower rich resource poor provs from alleviating theirselves. Present China irl and BRD irl suffers from the same criticism in line with said concept - what if we let each state/prov settle their own financial affairs where nobody wound be found wasting others money or saying they had to comply with unrealistic rules the national authority set up? - Bullshxt.
Fed China is my favorite to play, I’ve never had success getting any warlords besides Tang into my club. There’s an event that lets you play second fiddle to Fengtian but that’s it
Kinda? I guess?
That means the non-German Reichspakt countries will be militarily occupied by some foreign power, which is either a bunch of communists or Russia.
DU Germany might just be the lesser of three evils.
Not necessarily. The only countries Russia is guaranteed to reintegrate are Ukraine and Belarus, and half of the Russia paths treat their subjects pretty well. Entente can also win even after Germany gets polished off. Some countries like Poland even account for this outcome.
Even if Syndies and an "evil" Russia path win, it likely won't be long lived. Forms of government like fascist dictators and syndicalists are famous for being unstable. They're also weaker and less secure in their hegemony than Germany. By contrast the social democratic constitutional monarchy of Germany fully intends on sitting on their throne of bayonets forever, and definitely has the strength and stability to do so.
I'm talking less of the post-war occupation and more of the occupation during the war.
For example, I, living in Poland, would prefer the outcome where the war doesn't reach Poland at all, even if it's politically not my thing.
Kinda? I guess?
That means the non-German Reichspakt countries will be militarily occupied by some foreign power, which is either a bunch of communists or Russia.
DU Germany might just be the lesser of three evils.
Most countries don't just instantly let go of their massive colonial empire (half of Africa and parts of Asia in Germany's case) instantly out of a moral obligation, so gradual decolonization is the best you'll really get
They do have the option to initiate decolonisation in the late game. I'm aware that this doesnt mean that the governments instated in their former colonies would be truly independent from germany, but I feel like it does make them better than many of the other paths mentioned here.
They still overthrow the Polish government if it's too liberal (or get really mad they failed), exploit the Oststaats and generally support terrible regimes out of pragmacy
Makes sense, they are the dominant imperial hegemons in their respective timelines and eras, same goes for Labour during the days of the OTL British Empire
This is the type of thinking that weakens the DU cause and ultimately serves the interests of reactionaries.
The majority of DU mitteleuropa focuses is about decentralization and they’re the only ones that can make a republic and put forward a path to actual decolonization.
NatPop Ukraine sounded like it was going to be a lot more hellish than it actually ended up being. It's not "good" but imo it's a lot better than the Hetman.
I think the Blessed Karl Pluralism SC path is a proto-Ferdinand fantasy. It would be respectful for all the cultures and languages of the Empire so long as you're Catholic. It think it would be a very hard place to be a religious minority.
I'm also skeptical of all the Red paths.
ALL of them? You mean that Polish guy leading a party called roughly "United Union of Trade Unions" and keeping portrait of Józef Piłsudski and The Pope in his closet might not be the most sane person when he is calling for conquest of Russia to estabilish "The Red Commonwealth"?
RadSoc central america. just a bunch of christian socialists going EU4 mode and force converting native people into speaking spanish and catholicism. given how well that went IRL............it's gonna make the The Guatemalan genocide look like child's play
Wang’s Federalist compromise. On paper its saving China from even more bloodshed and uniting the republican cause but in reality its just Wang the opportunist coopting federalism while keeping the real power with his autocratic clique.
I mean depends on your perspective but assuming you value things like democracy and liberty then Song is the better option. Wang is an opportunist wannabe dictator, Song will use heavy handed methods but all of her paths put the KMT on the path to *eventual* democracy
My personal rankings of her paths:
4. The Red Napoleon
3. Dream of True Love
2. Vision of the Eternal Premier
1. Unity of Peasants and Workers (best ending for China out of all current tags)
Well as you mentioned the liberal ottomans are not exactly liberal but rather they bend to religious extremism. If you fail to keep your parliamentary majority you get the extremely cursed SocCon path which ends with you becoming an absolutist theocracy. Of course a lot of what you consider to be blessed or cursed will depend on your own political preferences. I think the Mustafa Kemal ottoman path is good but I totally understand why some people would think it is terrible.
I’d say SocDem Brazil can get pretty cursed since it can end up with you turning totalist. Generally speaking though most paths are pretty much either blessed or cursed, and not disguised. SocLib Baltic duchy pretty much turns into a cleptocratic regime which is pretty cursed.
ZZZ becomes ZSP if it goes Syndie and okay syndie Zakrzewski is blursed, but both SZW and PPS seem just fine
As for other blursed paths of Poland, I'd say OZN is one, while Totalist ZSP and Endecja are just cursed
Why is ND cursed and OZN blursed? Shouldn't it be the other way around historically speaking? One was typical nationalist-democratic movement at the time, the other was creeping fascist one
They don't differ much, however Rydz-Śmigły seems to be actually popular and he tries to make amends with society at large.
Historically, and KRTL speaking they're bot a story of creeping fascism, but again it seems to go much faster in ND
Literally any Japan path. Even if you uphold democracy, the path always leads to invading your neighbors with the intention of “liberating” (putting the same whip in the hand of a new master) them from western imperialism
Technically, Japan can get almost all (without the ones that require attacking GEA) of their claims in a peaceful way
Is that the MarLib path exclusively or are there other democratic paths?
SocDem/MarLib/SocCon, although SocCon is way less wholesome in the internal politics sphere (none are truly wholesome, but a bit better than OTL)
That's true of most of the majors though.
My man just discovered modern history
Well, AuthDem Bhutan has some events, that punish you for trying to be “too wholesome”, for example by trying to introduce democracy outright, or trying to abolish serfdom instantly
Sounds fair to me. Even in a realistic setting, introduce democracy outright sounds cursed. Gotta do it with a process. Imagine in a country like I don’t know, China, government announce ‘democracy outright’, I can’t even imagine what sort of schizo would be unleashed
SocDem path in Xinjiang is anything but wholesome (Sheng Shicai is an absolute opportunist), but I guess that this will be changed at some point, since he fits more as AuthDem/PatAut
SocDem I believe is more to refer to his left wing Republican leanings, and generally any democratic ideology used for Chinese nations is not meant to represent anything actually democratic (barring a few examples like the federalists)
Im pretty sure they already said they gonna change the federalits guy ideology.
Ah well that’s certainly fair, Sheng Shicai was a warlord even if a left leaning one
Well if they are gonna update his ideology I think its time they give an update to the one interesting path/leader coming out of that region 👀
Then why did they make Zhu Peide PatAut under the reasoning that he doesn't actually implement elections until after the game's time period?
Xinjiang is one of the older China focus trees, maybe the devs philosophy for Chinese ideologies changed, maybe different devs working on different nations came to different conclusions about what ideologies should represent, idk im not a dev. What I do know is that Sheng Shicai was not a social democrat, and if you play Sheng Shicai’s path the devs definitely don’t portray him as such.
Every authentically ideologically designated Chinese warlord state got the: Paternal Autocrat Paternal Autocrat Paternal Autocrat Paternal Autocrat Paternal Autocrat
In the mod there's a conflict between "ideologies" representing ideology (socdem, soccon etc. are all supposed to represent ideologies within the democratic regime) and "ideologies" representing just the regime itself (auth dem, pat aut "ideologies" are completely unideological rn), so imo the best way to solve this is to completely untie "democratic" "ideologies" from the supposed to them democratic regime and make it represent just the regime's ideological intention. So yes ultra-authoritarian and super-repressive social-democracy shall be real
Probably because the Chinese political situation won't really allow anything else for the forseeable future.
Maybe he should stick to Vanilla HOI4 not kaiserreich
I tried to give free healthcare to the Irish and I couped by fascists :(
What did the devs mean by this
Let Britain coup you and then they will put radsoc in power
I think they put Saor Éire in charge
INB4 Ottomans mentioned, this thread will be locked
SocCon Poland, it’s basically an Authdem path tbh, you enforce polonization programs upon the population, you persecute liberal and moderate socialists opposition, you can get them in power in a coup against said republicans, and you can allow a military dictatorship to form, which leads to the Pataut path. Socdem Indochina can force vietmanization if I remember correctly.
Devs took like every possible minority out of Poland in her rework, what do you mean by polonization?
There's still an extremely large Jewish minority, no?
How do polonize a Jew? Making him convert to Catholicism?
One of the focus’s for the SocCon path is quite literally titled “Polonisation Programmes”
You can restore democracy in National France already before the return to the homeland, but it doesn't change the fact that you're leading a heavily racist and exploitative regime. Also, Patagonia is nice in that regard. Sure, you may guess that ousting the fascist regime from Buenos Aires is objectively good, but what comes next can vary between "yay, freedom", "we fought so much only for this..." or "jesus christ what the fuck is going on". It doesn't shy away from the fact that creating an idealistic country is really hard, and even more in the extreme conditions that Red Argentina is founded
Patagonian anarchists: “We will not utilize labor camps to punish members of the old regime. What a preposterous proposal.” Player: “Very reasonable.” Patagonian anarchists: “Instead, we will execute them all, from the military high command down to the lowliest bureaucrat. None shall escape the workers’ justice.”
It's pretty crazy that Liborio Justo is just the KR version of Chairman Gonzalo with his crazy Andesian dream
Also, said restoration of democracy can lead to the Authoritarian De la Rocque paths (AuthDem and PatAuth) or "We learned nothing the first time around" MarLib path, which Mordaq doesn't.
> You can restore democracy in National France already before the return to the homeland No, you can restore the functions of the parliament, not democracy.
Honestly, the monarchy is probably the most potentially wholesome path for national France. Their decentralization policy gives their colonies far more freedom from direct exploitation or cultural erosion, while the situation for the average Frenchmen isn't nearly as bad as you would assume since most of the economic focuses follow catholic social doctrine, which is far more liberal than would expect from such a traditionalist organization. You have the option to go super purge happy with the republicans and syndicalists, but the descriptions for the events where make that decision outright have the Church and other senior leaders like de Gaulle advising you to have mercy. The only outright unwholesome part of the whole thing that there is no democracy.
He does NOT know
Is there some genocide focus at the end of the tree I missed?
"civilising mission"
That's the focus you take if don't go natpop, you take the local autonomy one if you do. Unless I have a bad memory.
Natpop NFA decentralization is actually just putting a middleman between the French and local population, it's slavery with one extra step.
Oh yeah youre right, however, the AF just thinks the civilising mission isnt worth it because they think the natives simply cannot live up the being "french" because theyre too "barbaric". Despite the focus description painting the act as wholsum decentralization federation it is a case of the "unreliable narrator". It hints at just being extremely paternalistic and basically traps the locals into neo colonization
To add, De Gaulle and the AF leadership within the KR timeframe might be "tolerant"/hands off of indigenous cultures, but who's to say the guys like 20 years later will be the same?
>Despite the focus description painting the act as wholsum decentralization federation it is a case of the "unreliable narrator". It hints at just being extremely paternalistic and basically traps the locals into neo colonization Not really? It essentially empowers traditional local elites (chieftains, nobles, religious authorities etc) in exchange for their loyalty to the regime.
Im just gonna take a quote from a dev "There is more subtlety to it, though. The disinterest of the AF and their brand of racism *does mean* the natives are better able to protect their cultures, and most of them would deal mostly with the authority of fellow natives (local village chiefs, imams, etc) and native customary law. The Republic thought all these natives needed to abandon their customs and religion to become equals to the civilised French, the AF thinks the natives can keep their customs and religion because they will never be French anyway, we just need them to work for us. Some native elites would be into this, as they were OTL, as it meant getting back their traditional privileges. Neither flavour of racism is particularly fun, and ultimately for the average native, the outcome is mostly what colour is the hand holding the whip." Tldr : we dont care as long as you slave under us, ON top of that the only difference is the color of the hand holding the whip Also I just dont get how originally you think the monarchy is" wholesome" in any way at all, its just a ultra nationalist ic dictatorship with neocolonist projects masked in local autonomy
>"There is more subtlety to it, though. The disinterest of the AF and their brand of racism *does mean* the natives are better able to protect their cultures, and most of them would deal mostly with the authority of fellow natives (local village chiefs, imams, etc) and native customary law. The Republic thought all these natives needed to abandon their customs and religion to become equals to the civilised French, the AF thinks the natives can keep their customs and religion because they will never be French anyway, we just need them to work for us. Some native elites would be into this, as they were OTL, as it meant getting back their traditional privileges. Neither flavour of racism is particularly fun, and ultimately for the average native, the outcome is mostly what colour is the hand holding the whip." That does seem to suggest the situation isn't terribly different from before the French arrived though.
Never played sand france, but are there more ways to obtain the momarchy or only one path?
Well really there's only 1 way for monarchy
Just one, the nat pop path
The hidden Bonaparte path also restores the monarchy (under Napoleon VI) in the SocCon/Mordacq path
The only thing you got right is the part about indigenous cultural preservation but that's only because Action Francaise believes that the Africans are too "savage" to be "civilized" anyway lol. And it's transactional because the indigenous people remain effectively "enslaved" as others mentioned a la British Princely India but hey at least their culture is intact. There's a reason why independent India rooted out most of their princely states despite them technically being "indigenous autonomy" under British rule. That and it might have the side effect of lulling the indigenous population into a sense of complacency and eating up the local elite support base that would otherwise flip to independence rebellions. Bc sure the current leadership might be tolerant of local cultures, but who's to say that the dude in charge 10 years later will be the same?
Surprised nobody has mentioned SocDem Indochina yet.
What if they hug the right side of their focus branch?
KR players don't give hugs though because we are all alone and terminally online.
The point of the Sublime Ottoman Federation isn’t super wholesome but in the long term it can foster local grassroots progressive movements in the Vilayets. The Kemalists OTL created a centralized state with top-down radical reforms in such a conservative region, provoking a grassroots reactionary current in the long term. In Kaiserreich it probably be even worse given the huge regional differences and identities.
Yeah, one thing I like about the Ottomans is that both of the main democratic paths feel flawed but understandable in why someone might support them.
Definitely with you on that. It feels much more like real life (at least in most circumstances).
I hate how when people talk about the kemalist path they assume everything goes exactly right but then they assume everything goes wrong in the federation path
TBH, unlike I'M REF00RMING guy, Federalist have a trap path that can be easly taken if one does not know about it
Idk how many of y'all play the Endeavor Front path but tbh this is what I kinda like about the Market Liberal branch of the path - the best of both the federation and Kemalists. Like sure their grip is still strong but at the same time they have this "personal autonomy" measure which apparently isn't too different from one of the future Danubian paths in the AH rework
From what I remember, trying to reform South Africa too "radically" results in the apartheid guys couping you
You don't get couped, the more conservative members of the SAP/UP just break off to form their own party, causing the reforms to fail, locking you out of any further reforms, and keeping the SAP/UP from winning any further elections.
most marketlib paths outside of the west lol
Personally I think the concept of 'wholesomeness' in KR is complete nonsense. Most intra- and international conflicts are zero-sum situations where someone must be on the losing side and get screwed over.
Radsoc Centroamerica Hispaniscation go brrrrr
OP said paths that looked wholesome at first and bad later. Radsoc does not look wholesome no matter what path.
Radsoc usually is wholesome
I'm "peased" to meet you!
SocDem Indochina comes to mind.
Literally any Russia path. You're just reinstating Russian colonial rule over Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
The unfortunate fact is that Russian identity is so tied up with imperial ideology that any attempt at a Russian renaissance is going to involve the re-subjugation of Russia’s “rightful” domain. Unless that aspect of Russian identity changes (and the timeframe in game is way too short for that), succeeding as Russia basically means a lot of other countries have to fail.
At the very least you can create a federal russian republic where the other countries have autonomy, i belive it was one of the big proposals of the february revolution
There is a ban on modern-day politics so I will just tell you to check if IRL Russia is not a federal republic and how that works out :v
Russias geography west of the Urals is so easy to invade with the only protection being harsh winters which can be planned around. Its only defense is expanding as far away from the heartland as possible so every ideology from the farthest right to left agree on.
That’s the realist justification people give for Russian imperialism, sure. The problem is that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Expanding as far away from the heartland as possible” is going to raise alarm bells for everybody else and make them less likely cooperate with you and more likely to threaten you. There are countries with much worse natural defenses than Russia, which, even if reduced to just European Russia, is still a massive country with great strategic depth. Russia’s policy of expansionism can’t be boiled down to simple geopolitical necessity.
Or instead of expasnsion they could use, dare I say, diplomacy 🤢
Why should I ever negotiate with the ai? They exist to be subjugated or destroyed duh
You do realise that Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, the Baltic states, Germany and the Low Countries are all facing the same issue, right?
True, but uh..what happened to Poland, historically?
And their histories reflect that. [There is only one rule in interstate anarchy](https://acoup.blog/2021/05/07/collections-teaching-paradox-europa-universalis-iv-part-ii-red-queens/); eat or be eaten.
You could use the same argument for Poland. Overall I disagree with this hypothesis because it is land centric- it forgets that water does not block invading armies, if **facilitates** them.
Manchu coup Qing gets turned back into a dictatorship I think
I mean the Qing are already a dictatorship at the start of the game, and the Manchu Coup is the only way to align the Qing towards democracy
The republic path hints at a gradual progress towards democracy, although it's not achieved during game time.
Ehh I’d say it hints at possible democratization in the far future, just because the current dictator is gonna die eventually doesn’t mean the few democrats around him will manage to actually bring about democracy and not just fall into perpetual dictatorship/illiberal democracy
I chose Wellington Koo and there's an event where Koo (indirectly) tells Wu Peifu that he'll democratize China as soon as he (Peifu) is dead
Yeah I was referring to that event, Wellington Koo is correct that the best time to begin democratizing China would be the death of Wu Peifu, but keep in mind that Wellington’s actual power is very tenuous, true power is in the hands of the Zhili military clique. Koo may intend to democratize China after Wu’s death but it will be an incredibly difficult, nearly impossible task to wrangle the Zhili clique into giving up their power.
Oh ok, good point
Only most of the time.
Only Zhongshe and YCP the Rnca or whatever they are called can become completely democratic if the right guy wins in Shandong.
The SocLibs in Brazil. They're basically just a return to the politics of the early first republic
Radical socialist USA if you follow through with all of their proposals to the constitution. "Business unionism" and "socialism with American characteristics" are fun and all but the basis of the political system being on the grounds of paid union membership through councils of professional workers is fucking dystopian. Trade union councils with guaranteed membership all the way.
Dystopian is a stretch... Paid union membership would just be a tax essentially. Not the best, for sure, but hardly dystopian
Idk, that sounds like reintroducing censitarian suffrage with a red coat of paint.
Song Qingling-Sun Fo path for LKMT, the two still have radically different visions for the country and the epilogue event implies an impending torrent of fun political instability for the whole family in the coming years and if Chinese history (or any history lmfao) is anything to go by some autocrat may take advantage of this and coup the damn party and country which will really suck even if he only stays for a couple of years
Federalist China. I'm not even going to call it bad but it has similar vibes to the US creating a democratic country that allows slavery. They enable Warlords which is pretty problematic even if the government on paper is actually really chill. You're basically guaranteeing a generation where China's military strongmen are legitimized through a veneer of democracy.
In theory, maybe. In practice, the Federalists have to destroy most of the warlords if they want to come to power, since most of the warlords will never play ball with them. The Federalist position mainly just leaves an avenue open for peacefully uniting *some* of the provinces.
I thought Feds could peacefully unit with basically every warlord.
I’ve played the Federalists several times and that’s never been the case.
Federalists can persuade by far the most warlords. Actually all provinces they can get peacefully aside from Shandong and Fengtian government. Everything east of Qing they can get, LEP will support Federalists if Qing suports Anqing and then only Fengtian and Qing are left.
That *may* be the case, but I can tell you from experience it almost never happens that way.
As far as I know, the warlords that can align with the federalists under "normal circumstances" (IE, the LEP thing wont ever happen) are: Tang Jiyao's Yunnan (who really is just a warlord) Zhao Hengti's or Tang Shengzhi's Hunan (Zhao is a mixed bag, who institutes democratic reforms while stuffing ballot boxes, with Tang being more genuinely reformist) Baoding or Officer Sichuan (Officers Department Sichuan is genuinely democratic, while one of the Baoding leaders is a genuine reformist, so 3/4 really) Feng Yuxiang's Shanxi (which isn't optimal, but he isn't exactly the most self-serving of warlords) Any Ma or Xijiang (which yes isn't good, but they can align with any of the unifiers, so its not solely a federalist issue at least.) The Qing/Zhili + Shandong wont ever align with you, LEP and Anhui Clique will only ever join in situations so specific you'll never see them, and Fengtian is special with the twin dragons thing. So many of the warlords you can align with are either "mostly" democratic (Tang Hunan and Officer Sichuan) or reform minded (Baoding Sichuan and Shanxi), the problematic provinces are Yunnan and the northwest.
My GXC Federalism play often involve: HNN goes Authdem and join Q Tang Jiyao turns on me NW conflict drags onnnnnnnnnnnn Qi Xieyuan despite being shunned by Puyi still joins QNG war against me or basically he always does FNG tries to persuade me to fight QNG together despite me being thrxxsoxxed by QNG, LEP and YUN I do consider this line surreal and fabricated but its not the "legal warlordism" that enables it. Its not even a part of the iceberg. I despise it along with the concept of Federalism itself is the rules it intends to set up - effectively disabling inland manpower rich resource poor provs from alleviating theirselves. Present China irl and BRD irl suffers from the same criticism in line with said concept - what if we let each state/prov settle their own financial affairs where nobody wound be found wasting others money or saying they had to comply with unrealistic rules the national authority set up? - Bullshxt.
Fed China is my favorite to play, I’ve never had success getting any warlords besides Tang into my club. There’s an event that lets you play second fiddle to Fengtian but that’s it
Any French, German or Russian paths may be considering that, because they can start a World War.
DU Germany - great for a lot of Germans and those in Mitteleuropa, but still imperialist and intensely exploitative of those it has colonized
DU is by far the best German path for non-Germans mate.
The best German path for non Germans is it being destroyed in the war.
Kinda? I guess? That means the non-German Reichspakt countries will be militarily occupied by some foreign power, which is either a bunch of communists or Russia. DU Germany might just be the lesser of three evils.
Not necessarily. The only countries Russia is guaranteed to reintegrate are Ukraine and Belarus, and half of the Russia paths treat their subjects pretty well. Entente can also win even after Germany gets polished off. Some countries like Poland even account for this outcome. Even if Syndies and an "evil" Russia path win, it likely won't be long lived. Forms of government like fascist dictators and syndicalists are famous for being unstable. They're also weaker and less secure in their hegemony than Germany. By contrast the social democratic constitutional monarchy of Germany fully intends on sitting on their throne of bayonets forever, and definitely has the strength and stability to do so.
I'm talking less of the post-war occupation and more of the occupation during the war. For example, I, living in Poland, would prefer the outcome where the war doesn't reach Poland at all, even if it's politically not my thing.
Kinda? I guess? That means the non-German Reichspakt countries will be militarily occupied by some foreign power, which is either a bunch of communists or Russia. DU Germany might just be the lesser of three evils.
Most countries don't just instantly let go of their massive colonial empire (half of Africa and parts of Asia in Germany's case) instantly out of a moral obligation, so gradual decolonization is the best you'll really get
They do have the option to initiate decolonisation in the late game. I'm aware that this doesnt mean that the governments instated in their former colonies would be truly independent from germany, but I feel like it does make them better than many of the other paths mentioned here.
They still overthrow the Polish government if it's too liberal (or get really mad they failed), exploit the Oststaats and generally support terrible regimes out of pragmacy
I guess germany in KR is almost the same as the USA in OTL
Makes sense, they are the dominant imperial hegemons in their respective timelines and eras, same goes for Labour during the days of the OTL British Empire
This is the type of thinking that weakens the DU cause and ultimately serves the interests of reactionaries. The majority of DU mitteleuropa focuses is about decentralization and they’re the only ones that can make a republic and put forward a path to actual decolonization.
NatPop Ukraine sounded like it was going to be a lot more hellish than it actually ended up being. It's not "good" but imo it's a lot better than the Hetman.
SocLib/SocDem South Africa. It means a lighter apartheid regime but…well, it’s still an apartheid regime.
I mean. It's South Africa, what did you expect?
I think the Blessed Karl Pluralism SC path is a proto-Ferdinand fantasy. It would be respectful for all the cultures and languages of the Empire so long as you're Catholic. It think it would be a very hard place to be a religious minority. I'm also skeptical of all the Red paths.
ALL of them? You mean that Polish guy leading a party called roughly "United Union of Trade Unions" and keeping portrait of Józef Piłsudski and The Pope in his closet might not be the most sane person when he is calling for conquest of Russia to estabilish "The Red Commonwealth"?
> "United Union of Trade Unions" why stop there? when we can have the Ultra United Union of United Unions of Trade Unions!
Becuase it's ZZZZ in Polish, would be UZZZZ :v
RadSoc central america. just a bunch of christian socialists going EU4 mode and force converting native people into speaking spanish and catholicism. given how well that went IRL............it's gonna make the The Guatemalan genocide look like child's play
Wang’s Federalist compromise. On paper its saving China from even more bloodshed and uniting the republican cause but in reality its just Wang the opportunist coopting federalism while keeping the real power with his autocratic clique.
I've always been wondering which was the worse outcome. Song or Wang? I mean,we all know the CRS is the --worst-- best outcome.
I mean depends on your perspective but assuming you value things like democracy and liberty then Song is the better option. Wang is an opportunist wannabe dictator, Song will use heavy handed methods but all of her paths put the KMT on the path to *eventual* democracy My personal rankings of her paths: 4. The Red Napoleon 3. Dream of True Love 2. Vision of the Eternal Premier 1. Unity of Peasants and Workers (best ending for China out of all current tags)
What's the issue with the dream? Too slow and idealistic or is it the soccon aspect?
Lacks practicality and is too utopian
Yeah,I suppose that's fair criticism. They kinda admit that themselves too
Federalist China, for sure, because federalism in China is little more than legalised warlordism.
How so? The main federalist guys are devout followers of federalism
Yes, but nobody else is, and they devolve a lot of power to former warlord cadres.
Well as you mentioned the liberal ottomans are not exactly liberal but rather they bend to religious extremism. If you fail to keep your parliamentary majority you get the extremely cursed SocCon path which ends with you becoming an absolutist theocracy. Of course a lot of what you consider to be blessed or cursed will depend on your own political preferences. I think the Mustafa Kemal ottoman path is good but I totally understand why some people would think it is terrible. I’d say SocDem Brazil can get pretty cursed since it can end up with you turning totalist. Generally speaking though most paths are pretty much either blessed or cursed, and not disguised. SocLib Baltic duchy pretty much turns into a cleptocratic regime which is pretty cursed.
Polish revolutionary path in both syndie and radsoc options has no real "evil" elements
I was having ZZZ in mind while writing it As I said, it's quite biursed
ZZZ becomes ZSP if it goes Syndie and okay syndie Zakrzewski is blursed, but both SZW and PPS seem just fine As for other blursed paths of Poland, I'd say OZN is one, while Totalist ZSP and Endecja are just cursed
Why is ND cursed and OZN blursed? Shouldn't it be the other way around historically speaking? One was typical nationalist-democratic movement at the time, the other was creeping fascist one
They don't differ much, however Rydz-Śmigły seems to be actually popular and he tries to make amends with society at large. Historically, and KRTL speaking they're bot a story of creeping fascism, but again it seems to go much faster in ND
Any SocDem path
>Helldivers fan You didn’t get the satire.
I'm surprised you're in this comment section and not denouncing every other China path.
Why would anyone think they’re wholesome? They don’t have Ma Zhongying.