SWE - Game summary from 20/1/12

Quick questions HOI4 version: 1.8.1 Kaiserreich version: Dev 20/1/12

Summary of playthrough

I enjoy Sweden and think it's one of the better small-medium sized tags in the mod with a good design. Placed in a strategic position where it can either safeguard the RPs northern flank or threaten it in equal measure, the breadth of the political focus tree allows for a great deal of replay value.

While not without occasional shortcomings and while some of the leaders have less unique flavor text than others, the fact that they're all decent to very good (the Totalists and NatPops in particular have a lot of flavor to mention two) while also allowing for a great degree of replay value more than makes up for it. The events between 1936-37 in particular with the abdication and coup is also a well-crafted way of allowing a great deal of options for Sweden without it feeling overly forced in the light of the upheaval suffered during those events. Sweden also has one of the more mechanically complex Black Monday mechanics, which also helps to add some flavor to it. It should also be mentioned that while "I think there's room for improvement in places", what's there is well above the average in volume and the quality is good too, so no need to take that as a negative. The team did a fine job.

Beyond the 1936 setup, since this play-through was decided by the KR chat, I ended up rolling with the Totalists and had a fairly conventional game. Norway went syndicalist, Finland remained royalist. WK2 happened in 1939 as it so often does, though it ended up being on the easier side since Russia and Japan went all-in on taking out Germany. I fought the Finns, eventually I managed to take Denmark and contributed to the war effort by taking over parts of the northern German coast. This continues a trend that I've generally had with Sweden where it's a tag with a small population that can "punch above its weight class", so to speak, with focuses and other means that give them above-average unit performance.

The focus tree has also been crafted in a way that allows Sweden to mitigate their own shortcomings to some degree. The military performance is one thing, but you also have the ability to mitigate your manpower problems by increasing your birthrate through social policies. I also appreciate that a lot of them aren't just "there" but reference actual contemporary reforms where possible in a lot of cases. Some of the alt-history nods like the "STASÄ" did get a chuckle out of me too, dunno if it was the intended effect but I liked all the Swedi-fied references to real world communist organizations I came across in this run.

All in all, by the end I had a good time as I usually do when I play Sweden. Playing syndicalist Sweden in particular tends to be extra fun since the military challenge presented to you is a fairly unorthodox one for a WW2 setup.

What could be improved

Since things are currently in a pretty good shape, there aren't a lot of things that come to mind that I'd add. There is some tweaking to the focus tree pacing on the naval/air side that I could think of. Although based on the proposal, it does work as designed:

It certainly achieves this by the end, but I feel like the earlier focuses lack a bit of teeth. Maybe it's just me, but I rarely feel the need to go down this tree unless it's late in the game. The intended effect is, however, achieved in the end after the budgetary debate, so at least there's that. Same goes for the air force; things like unlocking SAAB is nifty, but it's not 200 days nifty considering the political and land warfare focuses that exist and eclipse these in worth. That could very well just be a result of Sweden being a fairly land-oriented power in my games however, so maybe I'm overthinking this.

On the political side, the syndicalist conference takes a fair bit of time and some of the buffs are pretty big (syndicalists being able to massively reduce their civilian factory count for instance) in an alternate timeline it would've been nice to see more ideology-specific focuses. But this is more of a wishlist thing and certainly not something that has to be done. This is fine as it is, think of this more as "maybe this can be investigated as Scandinavia is reworked again if there's time". As it stands, most content is fine. So maybe a better title would be:

Minor additions, tweaks and cosmetic goodies I'd consider to make a good tag slightly better if there's time between reworks

This is a wishlist of minor things and nitpicks for a tag I've played like a dozen times, feel free to ignore all of this.

Would like to see these actually be added. While not an utmost necessity since even the post-purge roster is fine and functional, I do enjoy having syndies lead my syndie army and having that be a break from the past. At the very least, maybe integrate some as military. I'd also add Gyllenkrok to the reactionary roster because he was in the army as well, and I'm one of those nerds that like roleplaying so of course I'd put my Riksledare in charge of my army, just like I always have king Gustaf lead my army, awful stats be damned.

Speaking of, I'd wish for Gustaf Adolf of Sweden to have a unique military portrait for his military role, with his HoS one being treated as a separate one the same way, say, noted shut-in Yang Zengxin in Xinjiang does. ~~Because I like both portraits I guess and think the military one fits in well with the other Bernadottes in the roster~~

Lastly, at the time of writing, this exists:

At the moment (or well, a few weeks back at least), the coronation of both Gustaf VIs use the same event picture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Gustaf_Adolf%2C_Duke_of_V%C3%A4sterbotten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustaf_VI_Adolf_of_Sweden

So I propose possibly simply lifting the one for the prince. It's the one most people will see, since the current guy in the event picture only takes power in the 50s upon the death of Gustaf V if I remember this correctly.

All of these changes are, of course, not really necessary and I'm merely adding it because it's been on my mind in the last few play throughs of mine and may be a byproduct of me playing in Scandinavia for too long.

In conclusion/tl;dr

Fun tag, had a good time with it, team did a good job overall and I can only think of minor tweaks off the top of my head to realistically improve things in its current form. I appreciate the replay value in particular.

Kaiserreich / Kaiserreich-4-Bug-Reports

SWE - Game summary from 20/1/12 #6309