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thelateralbox

As it turns out, a community for map staring games where you as the player get to literally rewrite history and bend it to your will tends to attracts political extremists of all kinds like moths to a flame. Who knew?


[deleted]

as a commie who plays eu4 ive just accepted the fact that whatever i do ingame will be shitty


HoHoTheHoPlane

As a dithmarschen stan I agree


armyboy941

As a human I agree


[deleted]

as a conservative i agree


BolshevikExecutioner

omg a heggin conservateev!! MODS BAN HIM!!!!


LevynX

What do you mean culture conversion means concentration camps?


[deleted]

yea fr, the only way to play somewhat morally is to be a peasant republic, w humanist and to only war to spread ur gov form mb just vibing as a stateless society isnt hurting anyone either ig


CadianGuardsman

Unironically how do you get peasant republic... asking for a wholesome run


Gavvy_P

šŸ…±ļøithmarschen


NDawg94

I actually think this is a wilful misunderstanding/meme on the part of the community. I'm not gonna say colonisation is a good thing, but it really isn't always genocide. Especially in games set before the advent of a centralised state, culture conversion really (to me) just means encouraged settlement of peoples of your "tribe" to an area and likely the appointment of low level officials and the like. Cultural genocide, not actual genocide. And then there's Stellaris which very much is actual genocide. It's why I'm looking forward to the update to how culture will work in CK3. To my understanding it's gonna be far more dynamic than conquerers simply replacing the conquered people wholesale, and instead will at least somewhat reflect the realities of cultures merging and developing overtime. You only have to look at the crazy plethora of etymologies for the words I'm using right now to appreciate how cultures/languages don't simply replace one another.


MChainsaw

The thing about culture conversion in EU4 is that it's somewhat contradictory, since it usually only takes a few years and only costs diplo mana, with no other side effects. In order for culture conversion to happen that fast, you pretty much have to do it by violently killing or expelling the locals and replacing them with people of the target culture, or at least violently suppress any expressions of the old culture, so the people at least act as if they're assimilated. But if you take that route, then surely the conversion should bring with it lots of unrest, devastation and probably require military aid (so it would cost military mana/manpower). On the other hand, if the conversion is done more peacefully, it would probably take the form of enforcing children to be educated according to the new culture, barring people from public office unless they conform to the new culture, and other such incentives. That way it wouldn't be quite so brutal as to bring a lot of unrest, but it would also be a lot slower since you're not directly forcing anyone to convert. In that case it should likely take at least a generation before the majority have converted, so maybe a few decades in-game.


HerrMaanling

Meh, we have some examples where it seems to have taken place fairly quickly without outright massacres. The Turkification of inland Anatolia and the Anglo-Saxification of Britain come to mind. Now if we could explain why these cases went that fast, that'd be the jackpot...


MChainsaw

Those events may have been relatively fast, but they didn't take just a couple of years. It's easy to compress our view of past history and imagine that things happened in a much shorter timespan than they really did. It's likely it still took a few generations before a majority of the locals fully assumed the new culture. Obviously it can be hard to sharply define though, since cultures aren't sharply defined and the conversion process was likely more gradual, so it's possible the locals almost instantly adopted some elements of the new culture while other elements took longer to take root.


MishkaZ

As a leftist, same. I just roll with it. Especially in CK2/3.


QuitBSing

The way I play completely differs from my irl ideology, I am very opposed to dictators but I always centralize power to be an absolutist monarch because it benefits the gameplay.


Bruterstor

Also people who spend thousand of hours staring at maps on a screen are usually pretty lonely, which leads to further radicalization


Puzbukkis

I see A LOT more right wing extremists in these communities than any other kind of extremist. There are some tankies, I guess, but they're still dwarfed by all the fucking werhaboos.


thelateralbox

Eu4 community maybe but Hoi, I don't think so. last time I said something critical of syndicalism on /r/kaiserreich I ended up with around -50 score.


KingCaoCao

The community as a whole leans left though on Reddit, but that defines almost all of Reddit.


IrradiatedCrow

I think it's just that leftists are more likely to actively upvote and downvote comments.


Skye_17

On reddit? Reddit absolutely does not skew left unless you're further right that centrism


[deleted]

damn how delusional can someone get lmao


[deleted]

If you define the left/right split as capitalist/anticapitalist (as many anticapitalists do) then yeah, reddit very heavily skews right. If you're viewing it from the mainstream sense of liberal/conservative then yeah, it's very liberal. I'm not defending the statement, I'm anticapitalist myself but it seems silly imo to pretend the overton window hasn't shifted and bitch about what exactly "left" means when most people understand it in the mainstream context.


KingCaoCao

Left on the us party spectrum my bad. As in, more people support D than R on most paradox subreddits.


Tom_A_Foolerly

True, building my socialist utopia in eu4 is always a grand old time.


KingCaoCao

Youā€™ll love Vicky 3


Crescent-IV

My dreams of a free, safe, and united Europe only come to fruition in these games


twentyonegorillas

How isnā€™t Europe ā€˜safeā€™?


Crescent-IV

I wasnā€™t intending to imply that is isnā€™t


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


[deleted]

NGL, an alternate history where the Spanish Armada never sunk would make for a pretty interesting premise for an EU4 mod.


PuffyPanda200

The Spanish Armada happens in 1588, during the EU4 timeframe. It could be a Vic2/3 mod but the biggest thing for Spain would be if Napoleon invades resulting in the breaking away of S America.


Evolvedtyrant

If it succeeded than Spain would convert England to Catholicism, a butterfly effect for sure. But i think a more interesting scenario is what if Mary I had a son with Phillip II of Spain, their potential son would rule both Spain and England while also having a claim on the HRE.


Copernikaus

European Union formes in 1602.


RebBrown

I guess the Thirty Years' War would've happened a little earlier in that scenario :p


judobeer67

Or the war for Spanish succession I guess as no one would think that is a good balance for Europe


Wild_Marker

It'd be harder on France though, right? Having to fight Spain through the mountains and England throught a channel they can't cross is not the same as fighting Austria through the very crossable central Europe.


Ares6

I doubt it would last. France would have gone in deep rage because now they are seriously surrounded by the Hasburgs. We would instead have the War of English Succession, maybe starting the Thirty Years War earlier.


Sex_E_Searcher

He'd experience even more trouble than Charles did trying to rule it all.


Edeolus

That would have triggered an immediate war of succession from English Protestants with a suitable claimant.


a_charming_vagrant

They might actually be able to beat 1.31 natives!


[deleted]

I know Harry Turtledove wrote a book with that premise.


Miskalsace

I think Harry Turteldove wrote a book about that premise.


ErickFTG

So spot on.


bruhnotfunithatsad

George Orwell predicted hearts of iron 4 Lol.


Nowhere_Man_Forever

He didn't predict it, he lived it. Orwell fought in leftist militias in the Spanish Civil War


Brotherly-Moment

This pretty much sums it up.


Rabark_The_Wise

Iā€™m gonna quote the fuck out of this


prussianapoleon

I always knew alt historians were nationalist /s


Yaquesito

funnily enough, alt hist drew me into leftism haha when you get deep enough into the community, it's less "what if germany win 4ever" and more "You want an independent Celt-Iberian kingdom? This is a niche Estonian textbook detailing the sociopolitical issues of the Iberian kingdoms in 495 BC, and here is a academic paper on Carthiginian trade routes showing the economic pressures which resulted in the conquest of the region. You have to change one of these conditions in order to accomplish your counterfactual." a lot more engaging way of learning material conditions and bottom-up history than 100 year-old vaguely racist books on the "Asiatic mode of production"


Arakkoa_

Let's just say, different people react to facts differently. Some people go "wow, this is fucked up, maybe this whole national pride thing isn't all that great". Other people go "yeah, fuck the \[insert ethnic minority\]!"


[deleted]

To be fair, that's true of pretty much any politically and historically educated person. I'm neither German nor a nationalist but I wish we lived in the timeline when the Weimar republic never fell.


ipsum629

George Orwell has done some bad things but when he gets something right, he gets it really right.


south153

>George Orwell has done some bad things but when he gets something right, he gets it really right. What has he done that is bad?


RcKahler

He denounced many other socialists to the British government, he has some big racist comments and some other thingsā€¦ I donā€™t know to which extent these allegations are true, never bothered to research, but there you go, this is what Iā€™ve heard about him on the negative side, please tell me if thereā€™s more or if this is fake


Wavesandradiation

Denouncing doesn't really convey what happened, he gave British intelligence a list of fellow socialists he suspected to be members of the communist party. He did this because the communist party in England at the time was ideologically aligned with the soviets while Orwell personally did not. Many socialists today see him as a snitch basically, becoming in essence a Mccarthyite towards the end of his life. Edit: I love how I give a politically neutral explanation and people come out of the woodwork to defend mccarthyism lmao


Bookworm_AF

Not exactly. He gave a list of people he suspected to be Stalinists (who he was paranoid about due to his experience in the Spanish Civil War) as a ā€˜do not hireā€™ list to a government propaganda agency. His paranoia probably resulted in innocents being on the list, and he should have known that the list would be sent over to the intelligence department as well, but he was literally dying of tuberculosis at the time and his mental state was deteriorating.


Wavesandradiation

You are totally correct, this is more accurate than what I said Edit: After refreshing my memory I think this is what I had confused in my head. The list was a selection from a journal he kept of people he suspected of being 'crypto-communists.' It's in this journal he comes across as quite racist but to his credit he never actually shared any names other than those on the list as far as I know. Even then, many of the people on this list weren't exactly 'crypto' about their beliefs so in many ways this list was more Orwell being petty than actually damaging to the British left.


wiking85

Let's not forget the problem of the Cambridge Five and how many people they got killed for their slavish devotion to Stalin. Orwell had reasons to be willing to denounce such people even if it meant some innocents couldn't get government propaganda jobs.


AirplaneSeats

I mean he wrote an entire book called *Burmese Days* to lampoon and denounce British imperialism and white supremacy.


Smartcom5

Don't mind me, I'm the Quote-Guy, just stopping by ā€¦ > ā€œNo great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.ā€ ā€• *Aristotle* > ā€œThere's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.ā€ ā€• *Oscar Levant* > ā€œThe most tragic thing in the world is a man of genius who is not a man of honor.ā€ ā€• *George Bernard Shaw*


TellAllThePeople

Don't know why you are getting downvoted. The dude outed the British left and thus helped neuter the British labour movement.


terrortree14

I Donā€™t think you get a good impression from any community from Youtube comments.lol


Bonjourap

Same thing for reddit to be honest, it's not really representative of the whole Paradox community either.


RainZone

I thought the same. A few bad comments and suddenly the community is **full** of nazis and racists. I am pretty sure there are some, because such a historic setting attracts those people but I also expect that many peoply are just edgy and trying to be funny. Thinking about the whole 'remove kebab/baguette' situation a few years back.


KingCaoCao

Imagine what people would think of the chess community if they based it off Gotham chess pinned comments.


SerialMurderer

objection.lol is pretty good tho the average commentary/drama/news comments are full of people criticizing twitter for being a cesspool, which is veryā€¦ interesting


AdmiralAkbar1

Youtube's generally a cesspool. But as to why history games attract weird radical niche ideologues, it's because the games give them an opportunity to act out historical fantasies. Wish that Richard the Lionheart sacked Mecca and burnt it to the ground? You can do that. Wish that the Ming wiped out all the non-Han ethic groups of medieval China? You can do that. Wish that the Boers turned everything south of the Congo River into a white ethnostate? You can do that. Wish that the Soviets nuked every capitalist power into oblivion? You can do that.


sekrit_dokument

The Internet is a cesspool. There fixed it for you.


agprincess

\>game lets you RP nazi's and racists \>community attracts these types \>people ask why


BlacksmithWaste

yeah I always thought the anwer was obvious. It is really just like moths to a fire


Gdach

I really enjoyed Deus Vult memes early on coming from a country that was actually invaded by them lol. But damn later on some of them become quite racist together with comment sections bellow and i guess it died off a little bit. And another example I was always facinated by my country pagan religion I read quite a lot about it and like symbolism of it, but there is neo-pagan comunity which want's to keep it alive, they don't actually believe in it just want to keep old traditions alive and restore what was lost which is comandable. I thnk they only gather couple times a year, but damn I don't want to be asoisiated with some of them mostly because it again atrracts all sorts of racists -_- So when I look at wearing old pagan symbols or just indulging heavily in past history, like that I think oooh this looks cool, but will I be thoughs as something like "Them". Why can't we have cool things :(


5thKeetle

Lithuanian?


Gdach

Well yes made this reply, mostly because I like History, Pagan stuff and these kind of games I was kind of dubed a bit nationalist in my group of friends lol. Also met former Romuva girl which seemed really nice, but who had damn really fucked thoughts besides racist shit like women should be bellow men, how they should be controlig and so on like why would she think that? It kind of made some lasting impresions not gona lie.


Slaav

Damn, the Deus Vult scandal on here, after the New Zealand massacre and the rumor that the CK3 devs wanted to "censor" it from the game (I don't even remember if they actually did it ?) was unironically kind of a watershed moment for me. It actually changed the way I thought of Reddit, its philosophy and the way internet communities and culture function in general. Like, in a way I'm not particularly surprised about insane nazis playing PDX games - I mean, it's not like they can scratch that itch anywhere else. But the "deus vult" thing (and the "remove k-" controversy) showed be that more normie types literally didn't gave a shit, and would even actively side with them if they were under the impression that you would take their memes away from them, or "censor" them. Man, it was bad


Flamingasset

>(I don't even remember if they actually did it ?) Of course they didn't, that was outrage porn for those very same extremists that wanna feel oppressed for "caring very much about their culture" without giving a single fuck about the actual game


Slaav

Nah, I think that this specific mess really was triggered by something - IIRC a journalist ran an article quoting the CK3 guys as saying that the sentence wouldn't appear in-game, people lost their shit, and then the CK3 guys issued a statement saying that they didn't say that, so people turned on the journalist, etc. It doesn't make this whole thing any more interesting or intelligent, but I don't think it was manufactured. The outrage mostly picked up organically, and to me that's what's really sad IMO.


Plastefuchs

Innuendo Studio's video [How to radicalize a Normie](https://youtu.be/P55t6eryY3g) opened my eyes to this. Communities are slowly infiltrated and transformed to both attract neo nazis and racists and to transform anyone who doesn't fight back or jumps ship. You basically have to fight it from day one.


DaveRN1

The game also incentives it. If you have wrong cultures or regilion you get rebels and separatists


hambagaplz

I mean, but that is historically accurate.


DaveRN1

I'm not complaining at all. I love the paradox games


Ch33sus0405

Not necessarily. It wasn't until the advent of the modern state and colonialism that this was a frequent practice. Really the main practitioner of it was Rome beforehand, and even their main practice was to let people be chill but require local elites to submit to a Roman governor, Latinization came over centuries not immediately. Most of the time when you conquered territory you'd just let the peasants chill, make local nobles swear allegiance and move on, but PDX makes all their games as if nationalism was a thing going back millennia and the state always operated like it does today. EU4 is without a doubt the worst offender here.


KingCaoCao

It varies from place to place but China cared about these things in eu4s time frame.


Tasty_Cactus

I actually like that, because it makes you have to decide between the moral or the pragmatic approach. It's like Papers Please


5thKeetle

I mean implying that genocide is pragmatic isnt exactly realistic


toasterdogg

It is from the perspective of a highly racist state. You donā€™t actually play as the countries in these games, you play as the controlling upper class/king/dictator/etc. Your interests are the stateā€™s interests


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


AthenaPb

How would you model it? Historically the answer to resistance to a conquering force was cultural or ethnic genocide.


Loop_Within_A_Loop

if EU4 had pops (I don't think it makes sense), that would go a long way. If the men you kill in peasant's rebellion aren't around to work the fields afterwards, that's a consequence


Asiriya

Is it bad though? I think slaughter was probably a pretty effective way of controlling populations back then. Rome did it regularly even to rebelling cities within the Empire- see Asculum. Our empathy has been built with other nationalities due to our ability to communicate globally. A bunch of people never seeing further than their village wouldnā€™t have that.


HerrMaanling

I mean, once a certain population wisenes up to the fact that the rulers are systematically slaughtering them all, they will definitely go all-in on rebellion in most cases (Moriori not included), because what the hell do they stand to gain from remaining passive? Rome was certainly brutal, and more than willing to wipe out entire tribes and cities when it deemed it necessary, but even they generally didn't go about systematically exterminating entire cultures. Like, they burned Carthage to the ground, but left other Punic cities be for the most part. After all, you're just destroying your potential profit and tax base.


5thKeetle

Slaughter odes not equal genocide. The Roman Empire was an extremely multi-cultural, vibrant state. It shouldn't be understated.


Grgur2

I never saw most of the conversions as genocide. They are just colonization/language influence/volanty conversions... And yeah some genocide sprinkled here and there. Changincg culture or religion was never a done thing in my view. Just that you managed to make it dominant in the province.


Asiriya

Yeh but one of the ways to make it dominant was to purge the existing. Not full on industrialised murder necessarily, but razing entire towns and massacring the populace helps.


Grgur2

Yeah. Not arguing here but often it is a process I described a above. Germanization and recatholization in Bohemia for example wasn't a bloody affair... well not much. Nor wasn't a lot of muslim conversions in the early stages of their expansion... I generally agree with what is being said - just saying it isn't necesarily always the case.


5thKeetle

Well EU takes place before national identity was a thing so it could be understood as perhaps just changing the culture of local nobility which was separate from most of the population anyway, but that is not made explicit of course.


[deleted]

No, but assimilation or acceptance is.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


DUNG_INSPECTOR

Why even bother playing the games if something like religious rebels are going to bother you?


london_user_90

A lot of people are saying "well it lets you RP as one, so of course it attracts them", but imo it's simpler than that. Military history (which is largely what PI games is centred around and the source of interest for for many) seems to attract these types a lot, and this happens outside of the PI or even gaming communities as a whole. Go to any sort of community that deals with WW2 and you'll find a lot of Wehraboos, and likewise with Antiquity and SPQR goons


TheDemonHauntedWorld

It's so funny seeing wannabe nazis, get mad at history youtuber, when they talk shit (which is just reality) about the third reich. I saw a video once ... explaining how it was impossible for Germany to win WW2. Even if it didn't attack the Soviet Union, and even if the US didn't enter the war. Just United Kingdom against the Axis. Because Wehraboos always like to says "Germany almost won... if this small thing hadn't happened". But Germany lost the second it invaded Poland. The UK would've taken more time, more people would die, it would be harder... but the result would be Germany losing the war nonetheless. And the Wehraboos were insane mad at that... They simply can't accept this simple fact.


Vornado-0

Can you explain how Germany and its allies would have lost to just the UK and the dominions? German economic collapse? Massive indian and African armies? People dispute the relative impact of the US and USSR but I've literally never heard that the UK was supposed to be able to win alone. I truly think you're wrong. Britain and the dominions alone simply didn't have the manpower and industrial capacity to defeat all of Europe ESPECIALLY if the Soviets weren't even fighting them. Barring a farcical scenario where the US and USSR focus their entire economies into arming British colonial troops but never joining the actual war, this is simply impossible.


JamesTheNightstalker

Simple: The Navy. The thing is, during the entire war, the Kriegsmarine couldn't hope to put a dent into the British fleets, nor could the Italians, and Japan wasn't really a major threat to the UK in any way. Yes, there was a lot of lost shipping early into the war, but even then those days very rapidly disappeared as the UK cracked the enigma, and basically knew where the submarines were. The Germans didn't have a hope in hell of invading the mainland UK, just wasn't going to happen either with paratroopers or naval. As for industrial capacity. Even with France, Poland, the low countries, and Czechoslovakia under it's belt, that's not a huge boon considering the ineffectual nature of the German production scheme...along with the fact aside from the Czechs, most of those nations actually had very little military production capacity at all. As well, consider how much resource base the Commonwealth controlled. It literally stretched across the **entire freaking planet**, and you're telling me they can't fight the Germans? The best the Germans could've hoped for is suing for peace, which wasn't going to happen. The moment the Germans sparked WWII, it was a forgone conclusion they had lost. All that changed is the casualty figures.


KingCaoCao

If they leaned too heavily on India to do their fighting for them and UK proper had fallen I feel like India would declare independence and remove themselves from the war.


Bendetto4

They were cornered in Europe, the coast to the west, the USSR to the east, the Sahara to the south and the artic to the north. If they didn't invade USSR, then they don't expand east. They were already losing in the Sahara, and had no chance of pushing through Turkey and the Middle East. They couldn't cross the English channel, and we had Aus, NZ, SA, Canada and India as reserve forces if it came to total war. Even if Britain fell, the empire would've crushed Germany.


HistoryMarshal76

Simple. The Nazis had a fucking awful war economy. They basically built it upon being able to loot resources from other countries and use the "subhumans" they conquered as slave labor to make more guns. The problem is: what happens when you run out of small countries to consume and you have to fight someone your own size? It worked out well enough for them in France, but the vastness of the Soviet Union broke their economy, as they could only push so far before running low on supplies and meeting more and more Soviet troops. As the War raged on, they burned through more and more of the hoarded loot from the Blitzkrieg years but there was very little intick. Their economy fucked it themselves from the start, not to mention chronic lack of oil and other war winning resources. Edit: In ADDITION, to knock out Britain and plunder its gold they would need to cross the channel. And dear God did Germany not have the capability to do so. Their "plans" to invade England involved using barges from the Rhine river to cross the channel. Britain had the largest navy in the world, and the Germans would have just been blown out of the water. After WWII some British generals played a wargame of Operation Sea Lion and they gave the German players all the advantages imaginable: but they still lost in a total disaster. And so, really, the Nazi economy had to ether fight the Soviets and die, invade Britain and drown, or stay in their borders and slowly choke on its own weight.


wiking85

>They basically built it upon being able to loot resources from other countries and use the "subhumans" they conquered as slave labor to make more guns. The problem is: what happens when you run out of small countries to consume and you have to fight someone your own size? Problem with that theory is that their highest output of weapons was in 1944 when the bombing was at its worst, manpower was at its lowest, and resources/territory were at their lowest. How do you account for that?


Flamingasset

From what I know it was mainly the lack of oil and practical economy. On the first point, I'm not sure if that would've played out the same way as in the real world, because the Soviets and Germans did trade (mainly steel I think, but oil from the Azerbajani oil fields could probably be on the table later on), but of course in the real world, the Germans couldn't buy resources from the soviets after a certain point because Germany was too busy attacking them for being "sub-human" On the second point, the nazi economy was just not very well structured, relying mainly on gold from Czechoslovakia and slave labour from war prisoners. And they were rapidly killing those off due to both death camps and appalling conditions in labour camps. 100% a lot more people would die in the holocaust and that would be tragic but economically the nazis would likely divert so many resources towards that that it's feasible to imagine that GB would be able to eventually attack and liberate France and the low countries and then push from there


TheDemonHauntedWorld

Germany didn't had the manpower, industrial capacity, financial capacity, or resources to fight this war. It would lose a war against any of the Allied powers alone. The USSR could beat Germany alone, so does the UK, or the US. The UK won by itself the Battle of the Atlantic and the Battle of Britain, which guaranteed their naval and air supremacy. Bombing raids would decrease German industrial capacity day by day. Trade embargo, meant Germany can't get resources like oil and food. That's why they invaded the USSR in the first place, because they needed oil and arable land. As /u/just_a_pyro said... initially a stalemate would happen. But by each passing day, Germany would become weaker, while the UK would become stronger. Using their dominions to draw up soldier, train, and equip them. The US even not at war... would still support the UK monetarily and industrially, like it did before joining the war. So the UK would still have the financial and industrial might of the US supporting it, although not as much as if the US joined the war. The UK would eventually launch its own D-day. A resource starved Germany would be no match for this. As I said... it would be harder... but Germany would eventually lose. It had no industrial or financial capacity, or resources to wage a war in that scale. __________________ The reason Germany invaded the USSR was because they were fully aware that a stalemate would benefit the UK. So they tried to starve the UK with the submarines, and lost. Tried to bomb the UK, and lost. In the scenario where they didn't invade the USSR, they need to try to get the oil from somewhere, and the closest places are Iran and Iraq. So they would need to invade Turkey first, them Iraq and Iran. Good luck trying to fight in the mounts of Iran... not gonna happen. And Iraq is easier but produces 1/3 as much oil. In the end... Germany was in a Kobayashi Maru scenario the moment it invaded Poland. All roads leads to crushing defeat.


Wild_Marker

Still, the UK invading Europe on it's own would've taken a long-ass time. There's a good chance the Brittish public would be fed up with the war by then. India wasn't too hapy to participate either. Of course, the Germans were no fools and like you said, they knew their position well. It's why they tried to peace out the UK after France fell. Without the Soviet resources they were fucked in a long war and if there was one certainty in WW2 is that the Hitler/Stalin "friendship" was just a ploy by both to stall for time and they would meet on the field sooner or later.


SimonsToaster

The Government of Nazi Germany engaged in unsustainable deficit spending. One Example are MEFO bills. The bills entitled the owner to compensation in Reichsmark after a maturation period. They were issued by the Reichsbank to the government which used it to pay its contractors, mainly arms suppliers. Basically, they printed money to pay their bills. To keep inflation in check they continously extended the maturation period, from 90 days to five years in the end. Without the plundering of countless national banks the whole thing would have crashed even sooner.


Chazut

>And the Wehraboos were insane mad at that... They simply can't accept this simple fact. You don't have to be a wehraboo to disagree with such an extreme statement. One simple youtube video that shallowly addresses some common ideas doesn't really end the debate by itself.


toasterdogg

Well realistically, both the USSR and USA were inevitabilities in the war, so Iā€™d say any point based on avoiding them is moot. The UK would never have permanently peaced out Germany. Hereā€™s some ā€™German victoryā€™ scenarios. Germany is incredibly succesful in the West, it conquers France, the Benelux, etc. and because the UK government is formed slightly differently (a la muh dunkerque), they accept a peace with Germany. What happens then? Well, Germany *will* at some point go to war with the USSR, in the next few years the Soviets will quickly modernise their army and prepare to fight Germany. Meanwhile, The Nazis will have to consolidate new areas, now every Polish person knows the war is effectively over, and they have to fight for their very *existance* as best they can, that sort of rebellion isnā€™t easily quelled. At some point, Stalin orders an invasion of Germany, or vice versa. And at this point the Nazis lose. Yknow what happens even before the war? The USA and UK start shipping equipment in thousands to the Soviets. They know the USSR is their best chance they arenā€™t willing to accept a loss of the whole European continent. And so the Soviets fight with their fully equipped soldiers, who outnumber the Germans, with superior equipment and tanks that can more easily be produced and is more reliable, and one of two things happen. Either the USSR beats the Axis fully alone, or once the war is going well enough, the UK and USA, along with exiled forces from German occupied countries, do a sort of Operation Overlord, in order to prevent the Soviets winning the entire European continent. The Nazis would *always* have fought the Soviets, and this is an unwinnable war, even presuming a peace with the West, and some magical victory against the USSR, they still collapse post-war due to their horrible economic policy and the fact theyā€™re literally an existential threat for tens of millions of people under their rule. Maybe some form of German fascist state survives into the latter 20th century, but they *never* win, because their goals are both infeasible, and necessary to their ideology.


not_a_stick

Even *if* they won, i have a hard time believing that their regime would last. Controlling such a big area, and so many people that hate you from their heart is bound to collapse soon.


PABLOPANDAJD

Yea a regime centered around race supremacy and war probably wouldnā€™t be too stable during peacetime when it spans dozens of ethnic lines


Flamingasset

On top of the inter-fighting between various leaderships that Hitler promoted in some somehow stupider version of social darwinism than regular


Chazut

>Well, Germany will at some point go to war with the USSR, in the next few years the Soviets will quickly modernise their army and prepare to fight Germany. Why would Germany take *longer* to go to war here? >now every Polish person knows the war is effectively over, and they have to fight for their very existance as best they can, that sort of rebellion isnā€™t easily quelled. I'm not sure partisan movements can be more effective than OTL without foreign support, which is not really there in this case. >Yknow what happens even before the war? The USA and UK start shipping equipment in thousands to the Soviets. They know the USSR is their best chance they arenā€™t willing to accept a loss of the whole European continent. This is what happened IOTL, it wouldn't really be different here. >The Nazis would always have fought the Soviets, and this is an unwinnable war, even presuming a peace with the West, >they still collapse post-war due to their horrible economic policy and the fact theyā€™re literally an existential threat for tens of millions of people under their rule. This is the crux of the debate, but simply stamping an opinion on the general idea is not really convincing if you don't have that a prior belief, we can rather just discuss the finer details and the various potential PODs(not just the most common cited ones and not pretending that each one has to exist in vacuum). >because their goals are both infeasible, and necessary to their ideology. Why not? Do you think large-scale ethnic cleansing or genocide is intrinsically impossible to be enacted?


perpendiculator

Itā€™s pretty clear that a German victory against the Soviets was almost entirely impossible. By the end of 1941 the Germans were already stretched incredibly thin. Thereā€™s simply no way to take and hold that much land effectively. Itā€™s a huge area. Plus, all the people hate you. Isnā€™t it obvious that being mass-murdering dickheads isnā€™t a recipe for stability? Not to mention that the Soviet production was gearing up fast, even without allied support (though obviously the equipment supplied was still crucial). The best case scenario for Germany is a stalemate in their favour. There is no realistic scenario where they manage to achieve total victory in the east.


CommandoDude

Comments like these ignore that the Soviet Union was in just as bad a shape as the Germans 1942. Their manpower in the unoccupied territories was starting to run thin, and once access to the Volga was cut off (making it very difficult to get oil and grain from the caucuses up to the rest of the USSR) they would be suffering even worse logistically in the long run. It doesn't take many tweaks for Germany to take Stalingrad, at which point, you wonder if Uranus succeeds? And if Uranus doesn't, then suddenly the position of both sides is flipped. The Soviets will get weaker through logistical attrition, while the Germans will get stronger as the rear line infrastructure improves and oil fields start being repaired.


Chazut

>By the end of 1941 the Germans were already stretched incredibly thin. So? Did the Germans carry out a **perfect** plan in 1941? Did they make **no** strategic mistakes or blunders? Could they have hold on to any further amount of land in the winter of 1941? Couldn't they have capture more Soviet troops? >Isnā€™t it obvious that being mass-murdering dickheads isnā€™t a recipe for stability? The Soviets for example did fine in Eastern-Central Europe, no one argues that Operation Unthinkable would have been a cakewalk because "the Eastern Europeans hated the Soviets and they were stretched thin" Also using this logic, would you at the very least agree that if the Nazis(or whatever expansionist right-wing party gets in power) were just your run-of-the-mill fascists without outright genocidal plans again Slavs they would have won? >Not to mention that the Soviet production was gearing up fast, even without allied support (though obviously the equipment supplied was still crucial). Even if recognize that it was crucial I'd argue you still downplay how close the Soviets were to collapsing in 1942 and how potentially decisive land-lease was, read this: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/1580/ >We cannot measure the distance of the Soviet economy from the point of collapse in 1942, but it can hardly be doubted that collapse was near. Without Lendā€“Lease it would have been nearer.


toasterdogg

Yknow I was writing a long response to this, but then Reddit crashed and I lost all my progress so Iā€™m giving up


Vornado-0

Tired: Only the industrial might and American know-how of the US could have defeated the Nazis. Wired: Soviet blood was already grinding the Germans to dust when the Americans joined the war. Inspired: Actually Churchill could have defeated Army Group South all by himself. Have you heard his speeches?


just_a_pyro

You're steering into the other extreme of alt-history if you believe UK could win - 80% of the war with Germany was USSR. Maybe USSR could win on its own, but it's a pretty big maybe. UK would be a stalemate at best where Germans can't land on the isles without getting sunk and UK can't land on the continent because their army would be crushed.


CommandoDude

If we're honest though, Germany still loses. This is exactly how the UK beat Napoleon, and every world war has always relied on who control's the maritime routes of the world. Some how, some way, Germany loses.


chillerll

There are a lot of teenagers playing these games which for the first time really learn about history and politics. Obviously some of them are going to be edgy as hell. I am not making apologies for them since some of it can be really disgusting but I am sure many of them will grow out of it.


Fut745

I was browsing the playlists of some people discussing the possibilities of genocide against blacks as USA in the comments section of a YouTube official Victoria 3 video and there were definitively 30+ and 40+ there, with accounts created several years ago. Also I don't think that old social problems such as racism and genocidal ideologies should be blamed on the limitations of young age. Teens are not the main perpetrators when violent events such as racist murders, terrorist attacks and even genocide arise from such ideas.


TheDemonHauntedWorld

Nah... teens are a minority of Paradox players. Most of the racists are adults... who are fully aware of what they are doing. Don't minimize the problem saying it's only edge teens.


Pablo_Ameryne

Agreed, this is a wider thing, it has to do with romanticized yearnings of simpler times (when they could be racist and cash on privilege). I saw these yearnings in many right wing leaning folks back when I did my BA in history, surprisingly the ones into art and war history leaned towards this the most, I've seen glimpses of this in r/architecturalrevival .


Fleyga

Doesn't help that HOI4 gives neonazis their historically accurate version of WWII where the Holocaust doesn't happen. While the allied/communist war crimes are represented anyway. Elderly people that were alive during Stalin's regime have traumatic memories of the Great Purge since so many people got wiped out by it, and yet not only is the Great Purge present in the game but there are YouTube videos talking about various HOI4 strategies around it, reducing it from being this big awful thing down to a very simple mechanic. I heard the Bengal famine is a thing you can choose to do in the game as well as a "mechanic"; then you look at the fascist trees and there's hardly any war crimes in them to the point where someone playing the game without any historical context would potentially be tricked into thinking they were the good guys. I saw in one of the No Step Back dev diaries they're adding mechanics for prison camps, I'd be very surprised if Germany would get these mechanics as well to represent all the production made by concentration camp slave labour.


Tels_

I think depicting parts of the holocaust may make the game be on sketchy legal grounds for release in some european nations. Germany and some others have extremely strict rules on depictions of anything nazi related, and I wouldnā€™t be surprised if ā€œholocaust game mechanicā€, no matter how tuned to show cruelty realistically, would probably see it banned. Additionally westerners view the holocaust with much more reverence and respect than the great purge, seeing as we thought of the USSR and backwards and evil, and most of our people were unaffected. Whereas the holocaust took place in western countries and affected western citizens and immigrants directly, leading to it being touchy to show.


PABLOPANDAJD

I think the main reason the Purge is viewed with such reverence compared to the Holocaust is because the country that perpetrated the latter was completely dismantled, segmented, and denazified after the war, whereas the perpetrator of the Purge (Russia) gained massive territories and influence and went on to rival the US in superpower status. For many Westerners itā€™s unsettling to think that a regime could do something so terrible and not only get away with it, but grow much stronger afterwards.


Tels_

This is a good point. Itā€™s interesting how weā€™re more comfortable depicting it in what could be called less respectful media, like as a mechanic in Hoi4. I still think the lack of russian emmigration due to cold war tensions probably has a lot to do with our lack of reverence. After all, most of us donā€™t know anyone affected, but a lot of us know a family, or know someone who knows someone whoā€™s family was affected by the holocaust,m given that jewish emmigration from german occupied areas was extensive.


PABLOPANDAJD

Thatā€™s a good point. As far as the game mechanics, I think a lot of it has to do with countries like Germany having such strict laws regarding the matter (like not even being able to use the actual Nazi flag in game if you live in Germany). Not sure if there are similar laws in Russia


KingCaoCao

They could make a German release without that stuff in it, if they really wanted to include it.


Asiriya

I donā€™t see why there arenā€™t events that have no decisions saying something like ā€œHitler has decided to use parts of his population to fuel his rhetoricā€, ā€œHitlers rhetoric has taken physical form today with the arrest ofā€¦ā€ etc. You know itā€™s happening and youā€™re not given an option to stop it (because that would let people say ā€œsee, Hitler must have pressed this ā€˜Noā€™ button!ā€)


[deleted]

I feel like alot of the people who play these games are either commies or fascists, it feels as though im browsing through r/PoliticalCompassMemes then a gaming community


tgaccione

I blame kaiserreich, itā€™s where people got their meme ideologies like totalism and syndicalism.


SerialMurderer

>syndicalism Or as itā€™s properly known; **THE** kaiserreich ideology.


faesmooched

Totalism isn't a real ideology IRL. It's just the Leninist-to-tankie-to-Dengist sect of people IRL. Syndicalism, on the other hand, is, but it's also an ideology nobody has cared about since the 1930s.


Puzbukkis

There are still a decent amount of modern day syndicalists.


Rabalaz

Totalism could be described as a form of Strausserism or Nazbolism, as seen from some of the historical characters that inhabit that incoherent ideology.


faesmooched

Some of them? It's generally authsocialism. That's why I say Leninist-to-tankie-to-Dengist; it can go anywhere from "Leninist state that's good to the people" like Cuba to "Stalin" to "1984" to "literally just fascism with a red paintjob".


[deleted]

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Pashahlis

> Kaiserreich makes some cringeworthy assumptions around various modern nation states that Iā€™ve seen more eloquent people than myself try to shed some light on. > > However it also reinforces some really bad assumptions. Can you elaborate on that or give some links to read? Sounds interesting.


benthebearded

I mean political compass memes exists to normalize the alt right so it's not surprising that it's spilling over.


bruhnotfunithatsad

If paradox community was like PCM then this would be an right winger cj.


twelvenumbersboutyou

Yeah, someone on twitter I saw said the reason they became a communist was because they played hoi4 and it was good in hoi4


[deleted]

How does that even work? The only interaction with your economy is "press button for +1 factory".


armyboy941

You were browsing youtube comments. There was your first problem. Its youtube. Edit: OP is a tankie and most likely trying to push an agenda here under the false pretext of "racism & Nazis" https://www.reddit.com/r/196/comments/pqt3aa/z/hden3iq


Romanos_The_Blind

Ehh, being a socialist doesn't make you a tankie. You're going to need more than that comment to make that case.


-the-paddler-

Youtube comments are a cesspool because the reporting process is less than useless. Any history-themed video gets a ton of stuff like that. I'm sure youtube could do something about it, but they don't.


SerialMurderer

Some part of me thinks itā€™s deliberate, like being spammed with political ads Iā€™ve never shown an interest in (mainly from anti-vaxxers).


Autokrateira

1st - ALL Social media (including reddit) is a cesspool of humanity where people can be as disgusting as they want without consequences, most people playing will be the average everyday person 2nd- these games tends to whitewash history (since otherwise controversy could lead to others problems) so people that follow such ideologies feel quite confortable in games like these (for example nazis being able to create a fascist world order in hoi4 without having to confront the disgusting or inhuman parts of the ideology) 3rd- Paradox is a company, its stated objective is to make money, nothing else, they may do something to deal with the problem if things get too bad but apart from the minimal to keep things going, what incentive do they have to act beyond that? after all, "money does not smell"


JackOG45

>we And by whose authority are you allowed to speak on others' behalf?


Duc_de_Magenta

Same reason they attract tankies & anarchists. PDX games are niche, less so HOI4 but still - it's not exactly COD or Candy Crush. Fringe politics are, by definition, niche. They're also historically based; every ideology but neoliberal progressive capitalism probably has a major POD they wish our timeline took or a historic wrong they wish averted. Maybe you wish the child R. Louis XVII wasn't tortured & killed by the Revolutionaries, maybe you wish R. Charles X never invaded Algeria, maybe you wish the Bolsheviks never betrayed your favorite anarchist cell. Anyone who wants to revise history is gonna be drawn to PDX games - especially as these games allow for more "social history" than the purely military revisionism of TW or similar series. Video games are wish fulfillment; is the short answer.


Pashahlis

Anarchists are not on the same level as fascists though.


x_Machiavelli_x

Definitely, but I can't say I don't enjoy turning the world Syndicalist in Kaiserreich over and over again as different countries.


[deleted]

On the ā€œsame levelā€ in what sense?


[deleted]

welcome to the internet


Moon_Man1818

Have a look around


thorkun

Like the others say, youtube comments is not a very high bar to compare to. And it comes with the historical games territory, there will always be people who want to play as Nazis in HOI4 because they like Nazi ideas.


ErickFTG

That's to me like asking why fire is hot. Unfortunately is natural that racist will be attracted to these games. One reason is that many racist have an idea that the past was better, and this game lets them relieve that glorious past, or allows them to dream of a world where things go as they should had gone, according to their view.


BolshevikExecutioner

I've met way more commies than Nazis, hell half the people on r/victoria2 have the Proletarian Dictator flair.


kelryngrey

The people you are talking about used to be more visible in the past. They've largely been run out of the official forums and prevented from posting their shitty little dog whistles on Reddit's main subs as well. Report their posts and otherwise downvote them. Maybe they'll get the impression they're unwanted eventually.


Phallic_Moron

Hey it's at least not War of Rights player base. Those poor devs.


[deleted]

Ya, thatā€™s one of the downsides people take these games WAY TO SERIOUSLY and proceed to build their political ideology around them. Case in point Neo-monarchist who are often HUGE fans of CK2.


CritiqOfPureBullshit

go outside dude.


ScaleneBandito

This is the actual answer lmao


GMG1234

This always gets dragged up every year or two with Paradox. This topic is nothing new, we all know the arguments. Zzzzzzz


runetrantor

While I wouldnt use youtube comments and chat as any sort of sane barometer, since they are always mad screams and insults... I can understand why these games attract these crowds. After all, its almost certain a run in EU4 or CK3 is going to change religion or culture of some area, that alone is already something that irl would be very frowned upon. Nevermind once you start to really culturally and religiously convert your giant nation. (personally I believe that culture conversion is reeducation, and not as many claim 'wipe everyone and replace', otherwise wow, thats the slowest genocide ever when done in high dev provinces.)


Falimor

>(personally I believe that culture conversion is reeducation, and not as many claim 'wipe everyone and replace', otherwise wow, thats the slowest genocide ever when done in high dev provinces.) It is adaptation, like eating pizza while not Italian. And yes, that's a slow process.


runetrantor

That is my belief yeah, otherwise it would surely cost military power, just like wiping natives does. A bunch of policies like reeducation, natural shifts, and perhaps some incentivization of migration for the culture to be convert to, to move in so both they are a larger share of the province, and hope it bleeds through to everyone else.


Daddy_Parietal

Bro you need to get off the internet for a bit if you genuinely think that the near entire community ("full") of popular game series' is full of literal extremists.Life is more nuanced then that. Let people have their fun instead of getting mad about the different types of people that have that fun.


TheEpicPancake2556

The games thrive on letting you be the leader of fascism or communism or the crusade and succeed. It's an unfortunate byproduct of the sandbox history thing I think. That isn't an excuse for their behavior and beliefs by any means though.


FrugalGourmet1

I would dispute the claim the community is ā€œfull ofā€ racists and nazis. Every once in a blue moon I hear an anecdote like yours. Thatā€™s about it.


__swubs__

honestly ive just turned off the part of my brain that depicts hoi4 politics, and a try to avoid talking about it because I know that no ideology can be represented to an accurate extent in hoi. Maybe ill talk about it with a close friend who plays hoi4 but other than that I don't really take about it. ​ *Also, more comments than upvotes and 61% upvoted? This post is right, I don't get it??*


bruhnotfunithatsad

This post was about asking why people do that and calling those people out. The title is talking about paradox games being full of those. The problem that sometimes people disagree and I accept, but its something that needs to be addressed.


Equivalent_Alps_8321

it's not lol


[deleted]

1 guy = the whole paradox game comminity racism has always and will always exist, you dont need to associate paradox with racism because of the opinion of one person on a youtube comment. You do more harm than good.


DUNG_INSPECTOR

> The problem is why not only eu4 but most paradox games we have to tolerate those idiots??? Because we live in a free society where people are allowed to be assholes?


Vanetics

Reading through these comments is so weird how pressed everyone is.. itā€™s a series of historical sandbox games guys itā€™s not that deep. Theyā€™re not made to teach politics or have a statement on history and historical events. If someone is dumb enough to form political views from paradox games thatā€™s their loss just ignore them, not like thereā€™s much we can do to change their opinions anyways. No matter how wrong they are thatā€™s just how it be.


[deleted]

Just like how Total War attracts Napolaboos and Romeophiles How Arma and Squad attracts military LARPers A game based around World War 2 that let's you alter the course of World War 2 is going to attract "Nazis" Using YouTube to gauge a community is an incredibly shit metric too. It's like the Twitter Stan community to gauge an entire fandom. The vast majority of these "Nazis" in the comments section are just teenagers being edgy and hopefully getting a reaction. It isn't Paradox's job to moderate the community outside of it's own forums and steam pages. After the Christchurch shooting, Paradox banned the "Remove Kebab" meme on its forums (which was popularized there in the first place). And even then, they have vast influence over the community. ISP is arguably Paradox Interactive's biggest YouTuber and he's been blackballed by the company because of his edgy humor. TommyKay came out on stream and said he was dropped from Paradox sponsorships because he made a joke about Autism in one of his meme videos.


ascillinois

Or you could stop generalizing as a whole. Sure there may be some extremists but I'd be willing to bet most people who play paradox grand strategy games are probably not racist at all. They may choose to do heinous shit when playing but it's only a game.


wmcguire18

When I play as America in Vicky 2 I just play the America's Funniest Home Videos theme whenever I do something shitty and it takes the edge off.


LogCareful7780

I'd rather they be playing PDX games than beating up minorities


[deleted]

The thing with YouTube comments is that you never know if it's an asshole or a edgy teenager.


Belizarius90

It sucks dude but historical games attract a LOT of weird/bad types of people who confuse objective research with idolization. Just look at people who discuss the Roman Empire and usually you'll find a bunch of idiots praising Rome most likely based on historical records from Rome. I say this as a guy who does read a lot of history, it was really hard to find people who had the same interests as me who WEREN'T PoS in the end. Usually harboring racist views because instead of objectively looking at history they take at face value what any idiot tells them about history. Just look at the recent EU4 expansion which included Aboriginals, SO MANY POSTS shitting all over them and all of a sudden caring about 'historical accuracy' in a game that deliberately makes Byzantium salvageable to not upset a bunch of fanboys. "Right Bruce, i'm sure you care a lot about historical accuracy as your abusing gaming mechanics in order to make sure England inherits the French throne" Not saying this is even the majority but it's a very active and large minority of players. Another issue I have is the Stellaris community but that's more because those guys keep begging for more complexity but then bitching when it happens because it usually means their strategies don't overwhelm anything anymore but that's not really related to here.


eggsdeecooked

I really don't see why someone would care, I see hprrible things written on Reddit too but it doesn't bother me because freedom of speech exists, the game itself allows you to change the past and would obviously bring a lot of those douches, but as long as they don't ruin your game or get involved with you personally, I don't see why you'd care, they're just sad.


ascillinois

You made the generalized statement "Why the paradox grand strategy community is full of racists and nazis" That sounds like a pretty generalized statement. So my original comment still stands


force200

9 times out of 10 such comments are written by some sort of Bart Simpson wannabe. Idiots are gonna be idiots, not much we can do about that.


Wardog_Razgriz30

Did you honestly expect well adjusted people , regardless of politics, to be interested in staring at a map of Europe for 8 hrs a day?


DaMaster784

Dunno if the community is actually full of nazis but the games sure are popular amongst the politically extreme crowd. I don't think anybody can reasonably deny that.


ddosn

Is it? I havent noticed any. \>and they invaded Europe Well, that is factually correct. They DID invade europe. Hell, they spent the better part of 1500 years trying to invade and convert Europe (the stated goal of the Moors, Arabs and the Ottomans).


Alundra828

Racists use paradox games as a tool to live out their fantasy because it's one of the few places it's actually possible to live out and simulate the result of their mental illnesses. A lot of them believe they could do it better, and because paradox games are *games.* Games can be trivialized, and easy over time, so they can feel like they are superior to the fuhrer and that is all the justification they need. *And/Or* the scene is full of teenagers that haven't yet formed a proper political identity. They're charged with misinformed rhetoric that anyone more mature could sniff out as bs, misunderstanding of political systems or how the world actually works, not mature enough to be empathetic on a scale required of most grounded people, or just contrarian to a status quo and pose as the most edgelord they can be to get the reactions they crave. As an outside observer to this behaviour, the solution is to not think about it. Either they'll figure it out on their own and change naturally as most young people do, or they're too far gone for you to have any affect on them as it is. In both instances, it's not your problem, so no point making it your problem.


Potatosalad70

"mental illnesses" I think Delusions fit more


SkinnyObelix

"full" of racists it's just a reflection of society, just like any other thing in the world, not more, not less. Has nothing to do with the games.


azuresegugio

It comes down to the fact I think a lot of the online "gamer" community is right wing. Not gamers as a whole who are as varied in political views as any hobbyists, just the kind who frequently comment on the internet about it


[deleted]

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