About Russia and some other issues

[Dronno66]

Hello,

First of all, thank you for a great mod. I honestly enjoy playing this mod more than I do playing Vanilla game. I played as the Russian Empire several times and though I found the campaign interesting, some issue arose. I'll go through them one by one.

All of the issues mentioned I experienced with the latest 0.4.2 version of the Mod.

Focus tree. Mostly the focus tree is quite nice and gives some options for the player. But some paths seem less interesting or beneficial than others. First of all, the focus line regarding East policy. There is an option to improve relations with Japan and an alternative, where you occupy part of China and then get a war goal on japan. With occupying part of China all is easy, you simply must not be a member of any alliance. But with Japan, it is essential that the Japan is also not a member of an alliance, and in my game Japan is always in Entente. So basically that focus is unusable. So it limits my options in the east and also I am stuck with the negative spirit that gives me a minus to national unity. The second issue with the focus tree is the political one. Russia suffers from low national unity. An the only focus branch that allows to improve it is the one to preserve monarchy. I think that other paths should also provide at least some national unity bonuses, or at least provide with something of worth, like manpower, resources. Communist path can only happen by revolution. Kind of makes sense given history, but there should also be an option for a peaceful variant of things, providing a player with an alternative. For example, the historical way with Brest-Litovsk treaty can happen as it did, or an alternative path that can not be taken until 1920 or until the end of the war. In other words, unless I purposefully loose the war, I can't go communist. I suggest adding two alternative options, one is aggressive revolution and you get the whole historical mess Russia ended up with, or you get a more peaceful variant with a communist propagandist (Nikolai Bukharin or maybe Lev Kamenev), similar to how you get one with Facist. Logically any communist path may be the reason you loose most of your generals, depriving you of good commanders. Another matter is that unless I am communist I get no extended focus tree. This is quite disappointing, though I do admit that considering the various options, it can be quite complicated to provide alternative focus tree. With Germany or Italy they are stuck with getting Hitler and Mussolini, but at least they can somewhere to develop. Unless becomes communist, it can form no alliances. Kind of disappointing also. I kind of would've appreciated an opportunity to make alliances with other monarchies if I have one or something. I think that every political path should result with either an option to join an existing alliance or form a new one. Even though Georgy Lvov was the head of Russian parliament after the revolution, he didn't do much. I propose replace him with Aleksander Kerensky. Suggest adding Ivan Goremykin as a minister. Considering that he was a conservative and was a supporter of the Emperor, perhaps he can add national unity (around 5%), but only be available in the monarchy. Russian natural spirits are kind of .... umm, problematic. We have a spirit that gives plus to national unity and the one that gives a minus. Those two basically cancel each other out. And we have the bad railroads thing, that we are stuck with. Alright, I've said enough about national unity already. But the whole bad infrastructure should be repairable. For example in the infrastructure and industry focus line have a sideline regarding this matter and make it only usable if the overall medium infrastructure level across the country is at least 5. Or make it so that is certain regions infrastructure must be a sufficient enough level. Those focuses maybe something regarding upgrading or modernising trans siberian railway. Again, some national spirits should be attainable though political trees. Lets say Facist gives a spirit for more manpower, democrats give faster civil factory construction and Monarchy gives more national unity or increases division recovery rate due to higher moral. Perhaps some events regarding Rasputin.

In game issues. For some reason in my game Turkey is always kind of weak and spams armoured car divisions. Honestly, my mountaineers from caucasus obliterate Turkey every single time and just sweep towards Stambul. After the war Germany makes no land divisions. I am not sure why, but after the war Germany (what is left of it) always builds ships and ..... that is it. From 1915 (the earliest I managed to end the Great War) to 1940 it made no new divisions and was stuck having around 10 infantry divisions. Obviously in such a state it had no options to annex Austria and move forward it's focus tree as it requires Germany to have quite a bit of troops in the field. After the war Italy fails to conquer Ethiopia. Ethiopia always manages to get at least 30 to 40 divisions by the start of Italian aggression. They quickly push out the Italian forces and hold the ports. Since Italy can't conquer Ethiopia it is stuck with nowhere to move by focus tree. Due to the reasons mentioned above WW2 basically does not happen.

It doesn't matter if I play historical or non-historical mode, Russian Empire falls, Soviet Russia appears and Mongolia joins Entente, instantly getting the Soviets into a war with Entente. That is interesting at times, but always gets the Soviets into a situation they can't get out of. Generally that ruins the balance.

If WW1 ends in a historical mode (treaty of Versalles), the world tension drops to zero. If the war ends with Russian Empire still intact, the tension stays at 100 and drops slowly at the regular pace. Basically it means that everyone is Guarantee happy. So unless I want to start a war with half of the world, I have to wait for the tension to drop, which takes a few decades.

China. Well, aside from the whole quick revolution at the start, nothing happens. Would be nice to get events for it to break up into those several states with other major powers being able to either influence or even participate in that. Same with India and Spain, I basically forget they exists in the game. Oh and Spain Civil War never happened.

The Great depression. Kind of expected it to have more of an influence on the world.

Entente never breaks up or disappears (except for Italy that foes Facist). Basically means that the WW2 allies do not appear.

Resources. Strangely enough, Tungsten is kind of rare. Basically only Portugal, Bolivia and USA have decent quantities of the material. Considering how important Tungsten is for artillery, med. tanks and later jets in ww2 era, this makes it quite unbalanced even for most of the major states.

Generals and leaders are immortal. Not that I expect them to die in battle and all, but Brusilov still being around and commanding armies in the forties is kind of a stretch. I honestly have no idea how to fix this one though. I do admit this is not a major problem. Should add Kornilov as one of the Russian generals. Kuropatkin should not be a level 3 general (considering the guy lost every single battle he ever fought).

In the technology tree. Tokarev submachine gun uses the image of the Fedorov avtomat (though they do look similar with Tokarev submachine gun. I personally know only of the Tokarev 1927 model, which is a bit too late for being WW1 era technology, on the other hand, I have no idea what to replace it with). In the machine-gun line, Madsen is represented by the picture of Сhauchat. Also the picture of Madsen picture is used for the Russian second infantry weapon, which is strange. I suggest Berdan rifle as the first tech, Mosing-Nagant as the second.

For some reason early light tanks have no stats and can not be produced, despite being researched. Basically for me light tanks become available only with the model available from vanilla.

I tried supporting autoritarism in other countries. Love that the cost of such actions increased, but I am not sure that the thing actually works. No, the party popularity rises. I got Belgium to 80% popularity of the Autoritarism party, they held elections .... and remained democratic. So, I wasted several thousands of political power? Alright, tried setting a coup, because the more powerful the party, the more support and the better starting position it gets in the civil war. Nope, they got a single province with zero divisions, got stamped out of existence in 8 days. Political power went down the drain.

Actually, there is pretty much nothing to do between wars.

We have an event regarding Ford production line. Why not set it in the industry field as a condition for further development in industry efficiency. Basically the same as with the tank stuff you have to research prior to actually researching heavy tanks.

[MasterWaifuman]

I will try to explain some things:

1. About focus trees. We are currently working on improving focus trees, but Russia is not on the list now. I think I will rework russian tree when complete with soviets. About infrastructure, i think that could be done. Maybe 5 infrastructure in states that in Europe to remove that NS.
2. About AI. Now it is a pretty broken thing because new divisions build role ratio system bring new bugs and i am currently working on Belgium AI (it spams units like hell). If it works i will work on other countries. And German AI is now fixed i think (the new file of GER AI strategy rewrote original file, so i added things from original file). This will be in next update i suppose.
3. About Soviet war with Entente. This is a historical thing because actually, Entente intervened in Soviet war and this war concluded only in 1925 so there is an event that ends this war.
4. The deaths of generals. I think it can be done through events, so this is an interesting thing to add.
5. Civil wars. This thing is a pretty hard thing. Even now most of CWs are broken. So this is that should be completely reworked.

And the last thing about WW2. I think it is too early to expand into WW2 because we have a lot of things that should be fixed or reworked. But the complete decision is still on devs.

[Dronno66]

Thank you for the fast reply. I quite understand that the mod is far from being completed and there are issues that still have to be resolved. In any case this mod is already comparable, if not in some ways better than vanilla. I personally enjoy it way more. So I am quite glad that the issues I wrote out are considered and I do hope that I helped in some way. In any case I greatly appreciate the work you guys are doing. I personally will try to research some material and see if there are some things that I will come up with that may help you later. I any case, thanks for the reply.

[MasterWaifuman]

Actually, I'm curious about the event in 1925 that ends the war between Entente and Soviets. I haven't tested it myself (because i don't play as Russia that much (despite the fact that I'm russian)), so if you have save before 19 january 1925 it would be a big help to test it (because such events may not trigger for some reason).

[Dronno66]

Sorry, don't have such a save, because everytime I play Russia I don't get revolution (because in most cases I beat the Central powers quite easily). But I might try and loose on purpose to see if that happens. Maybe I'll try that on weekend. One thing, I sure never saw that event, most likely because I never saw The Soviets survive that long. Most of the time it results in a very big Japanese Empire.

[Dronno66]

Good day,

considering the recent updates I thought I'd update my previous post regarding issues I found (sort of). I hope this will be in some way helpful and as before, awesome mod, I find it more enjoyable than vanilla.

Now, some of the issues I had before were resolved, partially by the Waking the Tiger DLC. So the national unity (or stability as it is now) is no longer an issue for the Russian Empire. Actually, in a way it makes some of the Russian national spirits kind of obsolete. I mean I understand, the spirit with orthodox church gives plus five to national unity. But who needs that, if I can just improve the conditions for workers and easily deal with the low unity now. Not to mention that if I win the war, unity goes up. On the other hand, the negative spirits Russians have are considerable. And yeah, I understand where that is coming from, but there should be some way to at least partially mitigate them. Yes, the Ghosts of 1905 spirt can be removed (but it can not be done for a reason I will write out later). The railroad one is also something that a player is basically permanently stuck with. It doesn't matter if I upgrade the infrastructure to a max in the whole country, I am still stuck with it. I think that there can be a sub-brach in the industrial tree for russians, that allows to remove this focus, but only after 1920 or so. So during the Great War, the focus stays and the player has to take into account, but once he is in the period between wars, he can actually do something productive with this matter. Now, once the war is over there is some problems. Now, if the Entente wins the "historical" way (checked it by playing a state is South America), the treaty of Versalles goes in motion, Entente is dismissed, tension drops to zero and all that stuff. But if something goes not in accordance with history, we have problems. And lets face it, creating an alternative path for history is what this game is about, at least partially. So, the Russian empire survives and .... there is no treaty of Versalles. Makes sense, but there is nothing replacing it either. We just get the standard after war treaty mechanic, make whatever territorial changes we can and are stuck with Entente still existing after the war is over. Actually half of the world democracies join it instantly, so it actually grows.

The problem is that first of all without the treaty of Versalles Germany has no new national focuses. No Hitler, no nothing. They are stuck. But they have a whole focus tree to still work with, but can't use it, because the treaty is obligatory to access it. Since Entente exists, Japan stays in Entente and that means Russia can't use the National focus to remove the 1905 spirit. Japan actually has a national focus to leave Entente, but I never saw it use the damn thing.

Industry based focus trees. Well, when it comes to non-major states, getting an extra factory every couple of years makes sense. If I play as a major that has like a a few dozen of factories, getting one extra is not that big of a deal. No, it helps, but really, one factory is kind of cheap. Maybe give a couple of focuses that add 3 or 4 factories as a one time bonus, while using the other focuses on other things, specific to the countries. The Russians can have something to help with their infrastructure issue for example, French can get some more fortifications, Britain can gain more dockyards. Some countries might gain some access to the resource they are limited with and so on. Honestly, if it wasn't for the extra tech-research slot that comes after those, I might not even bother with those at start (aside from the one giving bonus to industry research).

Now about technologies. For the most part everything is balanced and working. But there are a few things to point out. First of all, the planes. The first 1912 tech gives you a basic fighter and the basic ground attack plane (though for some reason you start with the ground attack one and have to use the sub-technology to get a fighter). Well, ground attack planes are a useful thing to have, but if I start building them, I am stuck with the basic variant until I get to WW2 era variants. This part really needs a separate branch of plains, and each can just be a modified variant of a fighter or something.

Tanks. Well, there should be at least some ways to boost tank technologies speed prior to the start of the war. Nothing that allows tank armadas to appear by 1914, that would be just silly. but at least something to make tank actually a viable thing in WW1. Honestly, the way it is now, I at times don't even bother with them. The come too late. An yeah, historically that makes sense, but again, this game gives alternatives a change to happen. I personally envision this as alternative branches in the pre-war military focus tree. One allowing for boosts to airforce, one to tanks, one to navy and those being mutually exclusive (the player can choose only one). So every country might have some sort of an advantage in some area due to concentrating its efforts on it. Some some might get some early tanks, some might have better planes and some might be able to field more submarines. This at least give options. It doesn't break anything, as the trench warfare remains and infantry retains the status of the army backbone.

Coal as a resource. Umm, honestly, no matter what country I played, navy in WW1 was never of much interest. Well, Britains has use of it, but for the most part their starting Navy is sufficient. What I am trying to say is that coal is basically only use in navy and eventually it becomes kind of useless. So if I play as Russian, I have a national focus on investing into industry and gain steel and coal in a couple of regions. Alright, steel is always welcome, but coal. First of all, not that there is any shortage of it to begin with. Two, I don't use it. There is no need. It is better to wait for interwar period and start building better ships that no longer need coal. I'd rather get some tungsten. I realise that you are mostly concentrated on the WW1 period right now. But interwar period and national focus progression really needs at least some basic improvements.

China is still a bore. They get revolution and then simply exist. But is one of the most .... bloodied regions in the world at that time. But here, China is so nice and peaceful. There really should be something to make them break apart.

But either way, I really thank you for the mod. Awesome, I enjoy it even with the issues it still has and it does feel provide more than vanilla. After all there is not that much content for WW1.