TIB - Game summary from 13/1

[ReiVL]

Quick questions HOI4 version: 1.8.1 💀 Kaiserreich version: Dev 13/1

Summary of the game

Man, look at that Tibet. This is honestly one of the more positive surprises I've had from the China rework, although a lot of that comes from my biases and geography. I love playing as small underdog tag and be put into situations where I have to fight off a Goliath to my David. While not quite on the level of fighting off the entire 3I as Switzerland, fighting the Ma Clique and Sichuan in the mountains is a mean feat. The tag currently is functional as far as the focus tree goes, but could us some more tailored political content for the left-of-center faction. In terms of flavor there's enough here for such a small tag with such obscure figures. So no complaints there, it's fine for what can be realistically expected from such an isolated place and Tibet's isolation and culture are carried over into the gameplay as well as one can realistically expect from the game engine.

The actual war was where I got the bulk of my fun from. It was a constant struggle in my experience since you start out with almost nothing, both your rivals are stronger than you even with Mongolian help, and there's little you can do about it other than wear them down in inhospitable deserts and mountains. By 1939 I'd managed to build up enough strength with the help of Bharatiyan arms shipments that I could actually advance, but by then Japan declared on Qing, Qing declared on me through the Sichuanese membership of the United Front, and then Kumul started to rush down my unguarded border. Cue a mad dash to pump out militias. After another year of struggles in the mountains, Qing was crushed by Japan (and they did very well since they got into a 4-front war and Tibet, the underdog, was now one of the largest empires in the world! Never mind the part where most of my gains were uninhabitable mountains and deserts and that Fengtian would probably obliterate me a year from when I quit.

All in all, riveting game but I am, again, very biased in favor of small tags facing big challenges.

For disclosure, had one crash during the bug for disclosure related to a Sichuanese tech focus. It has been reported and did not impact my game in any meaningful way as I could circumvent it by giving Sichuan a bomber tech (the issue was that they got 25 Sichuanese bombers via focus and if they don't have the interwar bomber tech the game crashes because it's being asked to give Sichuan a unit that doesn't exist).

Ways to improve the tag

Not sure how to realistically improve the tag. Every tag doesn't need a gigantic focus tree and 500 things to do. Tibet is great at being a small tag that gives you plenty to do through basic war mechanics from 1937 and onwards and that's all it need to be. All my suggestions are mostly nitpicks and the relative drought of leftist focuses on the political side.

The only things I can think of would be the following:

Merge the two Bhutanese intervention focuses into one. Currently both are government-dependent and it would be better if you had one that was "one of the following has to be true:" and then have the criteria for both there instead of them being split.

Also, this focus seems wrong. It's an arsenal, the text says that you want to make it a tool for defense, and it mentions firearms. Yet, you get civilians for your effort, in a focus tree that has civilian factories given to the player in other places too. I feel like the focus should give you military factories since that seems to be what the intent was. If it wasn't, then the text of the focus should be changed to fit the effects of the focus.

I think that's all off the top of my head.

[Flamefang]

Going to assign OMD as this is his tag.

[OperationsManagementDecisions]

Tip arsenal fixed. Other fix is neglegable