Drozdovite
commented
4 years ago . Events are fine and well-written and probably give the player a better overview or PR politics than most US students will ever memorize (I'm assuming that the devs did their homework and that everything's in order obviously). But I was never really able to do anything, and by 1942 no one had ever threatened me and I never felt like I had any meaningful interactions with anyone else. The latter's likely caused by the whole "democracy and independence" thing.
Well, the US is meant to go back after PR when it goes independent, but I have to wait until Alpinia does his part about that.
I feel like a syndicalist route (or at least pro-3I route) would also help a ton with this since everyone would hate you and want to invade you. There was an event about syndies leaving my socialist party that never really went anywhere, maybe that's a venue? Or SocDems turning to France/UoB to deal with their financial dependence on USA? I don't know how realistic any of this is, but I think that could be incredibly fun too. Not just for a PR player, but say, think about French submarine bases in the Caribbean and how wild that could be in a game. Most of the time when you play 3I it feels like you're locked into Europe, but that kind of option would make Puerto Rico a very important and interesting strategic location, able to interdict enemy shipping throughout the Atlantic, lending a new dynamic to the 2WK for games where the Caribbeans don't flip.
There's 0 chance of that unfortunately. It'd be both political and geopolitical suicide.
Quick questions HOI4 version: 1.9.1 Kaiserreich version: Dev 3/25
SUMMARY
Well this is an interesting one. I'm a relentless shill for small countries and actually enjoy places like PR! That said, I think there's some room for improvement to make this place more fun. I went the democratic independence route this time, so some of my points here may very well already be addressed. I intend to try out all other routes too, so maybe I'll have a completely different image of it by then!
To tl;dr though: the current execution is fine and it's very well executed from a lore and "working with what we have" kind of perspective. You're a minor, you're very screwed in a lot of ways, you have few options, and nor should you to a degree! I feel that most restrictions and penalties make sense and those that didn't just need a few tweaks like I mentioned elsewhere for minor player convenience rather than anything else.
To make a minor country fun I feel like it needs to be two out of three things, and ideally all three: there needs to be good and fun lore, fun mechanics to occupy a player, and ways for larger countries to feel like your country's important to them. Now, this may again be irrelevant and exclusive to the route I was playing, but I feel like for my run, the only criteria being fully met here is the lore one. Events are fine and well-written and probably give the player a better overview or PR politics than most US students will ever memorize (I'm assuming that the devs did their homework and that everything's in order obviously). But I was never really able to do anything, and by 1942 no one had ever threatened me and I never felt like I had any meaningful interactions with anyone else. The latter's likely caused by the whole "democracy and independence" thing.
I feel like if I faced more aggression from any eventual ACW victor early, that could vindicate most of this. I would've loved to have been given the chance to protect my newfound independence from a vengeful CSA! I'd likely have died, sure, but it would've been fun to see them try to pry the independence out of my hands. Maybe this happens later on, but I played on until 1942 and was left ignored for a fairly long time by all parties even after the ACW ended.
I feel like a syndicalist route (or at least pro-3I route) would also help a ton with this since everyone would hate you and want to invade you. There was an event about syndies leaving my socialist party that never really went anywhere, maybe that's a venue? Or SocDems turning to France/UoB to deal with their financial dependence on USA? I don't know how realistic any of this is, but I think that could be incredibly fun too. Not just for a PR player, but say, think about French submarine bases in the Caribbean and how wild that could be in a game. Most of the time when you play 3I it feels like you're locked into Europe, but that kind of option would make Puerto Rico a very important and interesting strategic location, able to interdict enemy shipping throughout the Atlantic, lending a new dynamic to the 2WK
for games where the Caribbeans don't flip.Anyway, I think the tag's well-made for what it is, minor wishful thinking aside. I don't expect anything gigantic out of such a minor country and I finished a run in a couple of hours. I think there's room for improvement, but I'm not sure how justifiable these things may be from a lore standpoint, and if they aren't I wouldn't push for them.
Oh yeah, super minor
I don't think this deserves its own issue even tbhbut I felt like the capitalization of these two words seemed a bit off, since they aren't titles/names but seem treated as such.