I'll start this with the usual preamble. Yes, i know it's a free mod, developed over the years entirely by volunteers, that if "you don't like it, just don't play it", but i believe it deserves a fair, constructive criticism, like any other piece of media.

Kalterkrieg is out for quite a while , and i think it's fair to say it's got a reputation to the casual HOI4 audience of being "mid". It's not as grim as TNO when it released, it's not as edgy and provocative as TFR, released some months later than Kalterkrieg, it's not grounded as TWR or elaborate as OWB. Kalterkrieg is Kalterkrieg, and, as far i see, it was largely seen as forgettable.

If you are going to ask around on social media, most people are going to blame it's setting, that you can't have a Cold War without ideological divergences. But i disagree on that. "What if XIX century geopolitics have persisted in a Cold War setting" has a great idea underneath: There is cold war that's devoid of actual ideology, because the monarchists of the world have killed it all, a Concert of Europe held together by nuclear weapons. During XIX century, you had the Great Powers of Europe competing for land, resources and influence in Africa, Asia and Europe itself, which might as well been Cold War of it's own. It's not the lack of wars, because it does have wars that change the course of geopolitics.

The real problem it's the lack of tension on it's setting. Tension is fundamental for a story to work as a story, as masterfully explained by Hitchcock. This isn't meant to be a "tno good krg bad post", but the truth is that TNO is really good in setting up tension to the audience in the "map game" format. When you play as Guangdong, say, the Morita path, you don't need to set up a great war to conquer all of China, but the tension and the stakes are constantly raising as you try to balance improving the lives of the Chinese without being stonewalled by the legislative or bringing the wrath of the Japanese empire. When you play as the USA, you are constantly being challenged with situations abroad and at home that bring tension, winning the election, trying to pass sweeping reforms to America as Hart or LBJ, while you are stopping the Nazi tide. It's that feeling of an uphill battle everywhere that makes for such a memorable experience.

In KRG, there is barely any notions of simmering tension or uphill battles. Between the Entente and Germans, you don't get the feel they truly hate each other's guts, that they are spiteful or hostile towards one another (even if you can trigger WKIII) or even tension within the alliances! There is not a Suez Canal Crisis or the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, Germany and Austria won't go on a spat because of forpo or ideological divergences or who should be the master of Europe, the PSA and NE already worked out all the kinks and will calmly reunify once the AUS is beaten. Elections, even when they aren't just "event: select your new president", are simply a matter of choosing which vessels will you pick for their focus tree's buffs.

Humans, especially those in power, are finicky, greedy, ambitious, spiteful, misguided creatures and don't always act in the most rational manner, but for Kalterkrieg, if something isn't rational or feasible they just don't want to do. Someone once told me that if the Kalterkrieg devs wrote the real life Cold War, Watergate would never happen, why would the president make a plot to spy on his opponent when polling said he was going to win on a landslide, is he stupid?

I like bringing up the Mittelafrikan Collapse because it's a microcosm of the problems with KRG's writing, it's the things that should work but fail in the execution. These things i'm about to say isn't a placeholder, everything is final. The Germans won't attempt quell the rebellions at Mittelafrika with conscripts over their resources, the entire German society (including the army and settlers) read the memo that MAF is big and Germany is devastated so they are all a-ok with the loss of their huge source of minerals (While France OTL lost the far less resource-rich Vietnam and Algeria kicking and screaming).

There isn't a Germany flexing their power to demand conscripts from the nominally independent Eastern European nations, there won't be a breakdown in German-Austrian relations as Austria refuses to hand down fleeing German conscripts, We don't have Entente and Japanese attachés propping up new states to expand their zones of influence over the remains of MAF. Because that would give tension and stakes to the plot, and that can't happen.

I know there are a few Savinkov paths, and I know there is the Death of Purpose end event for him, but I was wondering if that was specific to his more authoritarian path and there are others for his other paths or if that is just his overall ending, regardless of path chosen?

I know Estonia and Latvia can have governments that entire into alliances with Russia (depending on the Russian gov) and Poland and Lithuania can have nationalist uprisings that ally with Russia for survival, but are there any pro Russian groups in Ukriaine or Ruthenia? I know it would kind of ruin the 2 WK if Ruthenia or Ukraine turned against Germany (not counting the socialist Ukraine since Russia also invades it or annexes it automatically).

I was just curious about all possible ethnicities of leaders in all possible Russia paths. I remember pre-rework Russia had a possible Georgian (Socdem?) leader. I only know Wrangel and Zinoviev as non-Russian/Slavic leaders.

I hope this post doesn't give off H-particles, just think it would be cool to have a minority leader etc!

First off, this isn't a complaint about my skill issues - I can beat China and Germany as Japan just fine.

However, I can't say the same about the AI. I haven't seen AI-controlled Japan win once in the Pacific since the Russia update dropped. They always get pushed out of Korea and totally fail to defeat GEA, usually having never even set foot in China proper.

And this is just China in AI hands. A semi-competent player such as myself playing the LKMT or Qing can sweep Japan out of Manchuria and Korea in a matter of months with a decent Inf/artillery template. I don't have screenshots but I had a LMKT game where my K/D ratio was nearly 10 Japanese for every Chinese.

This is also pretty unsatisfying in gameplay and narrative. The Second Sino-Japanese War is built up to be the ultimate, desperate life-or-death struggle for the Chinese nation against foreign imperialism to end the Century of Humiliation - only for the Japanese to collapse without ever actually setting foot in the Chinese heartland. I wanted an epic Eight Year War of Resistance, but I don't even have time to go through the LMKT's wartime focus tree before the Fading Sun event fires!

Now, this can partially be chalked up to Paradox AI jank - it's hard enough for it to manage multiple fronts, let alone multiple fronts that require frequent naval invasions.

But I also think that Japan is too underpowered compared to China, which by extension makes the AI accomplishing the rest of its war goals impossible. Most potential China unifiers have modern focus trees that enable rapid industrial expansion, which Japan starts with some pretty nasty debuffs that take a while to get rid of like the Great Drought or Landlordism.

This wouldn't be a problem if Japan was much more powerful than China to start, but it's not - I counted up the total factories at game start of all Chinese tags except Fengtian, which was 35 civs and 23 mils, compared to Japan's 29 civs and 19 mils. Japan has an advantage in dockyards with 14 to China's 0, but navy is basically meaningless in the Sino-Japanese war.

Fengtian, the wildcard, starts with 4 civs and 4 mils. Anecdotally I haven't seen AI Fengtian go pro-Japan once since the Russia patch, which basically guarantees a Japanese defeat because it immediately forms the Chinese United Front, puts the frontline in Korea, and hits Japan with the Mantetsu Collapse debuff. I don't know what the actual stats for Fengtian's coup is though.

Looking at the starting factory count it's obvious why Japan loses - their industry is kneecapped from game start. While China has its own painful debuffs, especially its army spirit, it has a greater starting industry and multiple tags all going through their focus trees which grant plenty of free industry at the same time. China snowballs hard by the time the Second Sino-Japanese War begins, while Japan is always going to be playing catch-up.

This is totally historically backwards. Japan had an immense industrial advantage over China, which was still mostly a feudal backwater, while Japan had been modernizing for decades longer. This disparity showed in the results of the real-life Second Sino-Japanese War, which was a bloody slog for the Japanese but resulted in huge territorial gains, even as they were fighting a multi-front war with the British and Americans. Even in 1944, as Japan was being bombed at home and pushed back across the Pacific by the US, they were making gains against China in Operation Ichi-Go. You'd be hard-pressed to argue that China could have beaten Japan entirely on its own.

And this was in a context where China had been (somewhat) unified for a decade under the KMT - in KR China is even more of a dumpster fire, in an active civil war with anywhere between 2 to 5 rival governments. Worse, there's fewer extra fronts to pull away Japanese resources - the United States is in a civil war itself and won't be coming to help for at the very least several years. Germany is the only peer competitor in the region, and they've got bigger problems closer to home.

I understand that China needs to be given a fighting chance to make its gameplay accessible for all players, but I really think defeating Japan needs to be much more of a challenge, especially for the AI. I'm not a die-hard realism advocate, but it does stretch my suspension of disbelief to see a bunch of dysfunctional warlord states that had been killing each other a year ago sweep the IJA out of Korea.

All in all, if nerfing China's power creep is off the table, then I propose that Japan be given a stronger starting industry to compensate, or that their various debuffs be reduced to allow Japan to better scale with China. This will better reflect the material reality of 1930's East Asia and create more exciting gameplay while playing a Chinese unifier.

Most of the factions in KR appear to fall heavily in one direction or the other when it comes to the ideological makeup of their members. If you pardon the pun, the 3I is the only one that feels particularly international. The Reichspakt, Entente, Moscow Accord, and Co-Prosperity Sphere all function as extensions of a single country. The Third International feels like it operates just fine even if its European members go Totalist while everyone else remains Syndicalist or Radical Socialist. The other factions appear as if they rely on ideological purity AND subservience to one particular nation.

How do you explain it or reconcile it in your own games? Why would liberal countries align to a NatPop Japan or Russia? Would Schleicher Germany tolerate a SocDem Eastern Europe? And why would anyone feel like the Entente is a viable option? Is it all just pragmatism?

https://preview.redd.it/1jr80lgwgcge1.png?width=672&format=png&auto=webp&s=2fec470ba8d4a02dd735afc0d087f4b58ebf0024

Do you want Natpop to be brown again? Well, it's quite simple really! Just follow the instructions here :

→ First, you'll need to open the mod files. To do this, just go to the game launcher > select mods > select Kaiserreich and click on this option :

https://preview.redd.it/vozz34fypcge1.png?width=1912&format=png&auto=webp&s=c0b5b8feff0bf4c2f8df9fc6b02c1be63ec7a554

→ Once in the mod files, go to common > ideologies > open the .txt file

https://preview.redd.it/hb1hjqd0qcge1.png?width=933&format=png&auto=webp&s=a031462006fbaa52cb3d4734ed10cb253eb1d805

→ At the very bottom of the .txt are the lines of code for the piechart's color. Change the numbers in the color line to these: { 150 75 0 }

https://preview.redd.it/tpv5ljm4qcge1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=30af6272ef4ce36a9cfc6535b172ccea0b950817

→ Then return to the main mod files and go to gfx > interface > ideologies.

https://preview.redd.it/fhdqfwo5qcge1.png?width=1330&format=png&auto=webp&s=0fbbcbd3c79832fa43e36ed0b7c3bab61bc8c420

→ Now delete the two green Natpop icons, and rename the two brown Natpop icons as follows :

national_populist_group_old > national_populist_group

national_populist_group_small_old > national_populist_group_small

https://preview.redd.it/fnpcbij7qcge1.png?width=1038&format=png&auto=webp&s=73cbaab5862dce22081c7ad64b75d0da6520cf5a

And that's it! You can close the files and launch the game. Brown Natpop is back !

I like cannons, you like cannons, everybody like cannons. I have been using the 9-1 template for like four years now, since it is the normal, Christian template we all use.

However I was wondering a thing, usually equipment stop being a problem after a while and my inner love for artillery demands me to increase the quantity of cannons, I want to experiment with 9-3s, I want to rip the enemy force apart with the anger of the heavens before the infantry hit their lines, but I was told that adding more artillery would worsen the template and make my troops weaker.

Something I wonder too is that by adding more art I gonna make my divisions lose organisation as they get bigger, so what if I remove some infantry to add extra art? Maybe making them 7-3? What do you guys think? No need to be shy, if needed be rip apart those plans and bring me back to reality.

Due to the state of Austro Hungary, do you think they can?

So, I was playing as SRI recently and reading the focuses and playing the game; I had some questions regarding how the SRI government functions. As far as I can read in-game and on the Wiki, the SRI is a unitary parliamentary socialist republic. It has a unicameral parliament formed of candidates elected from both unions and popular vote, and a system where it seems that both the President and the Prime Minister hold power. But I still have some questions that remain unanswered:

1. If the parliament is formed of candidates elected from both unions and popular vote, does it mean that 50% are directly elected and 50% are elected through the unions, or something along those lines?

2. Although the Wiki says that the SRI is a "Unitary Republic," in the game, the economic focuses speak of "Regional Unions" and "Regional Autonomies" that have significant power. Is this power only economic or also political?

3. Who has the true executive power: the President, the Prime Minister, or both?

i used to be able to win with any italian faction but i just tried the SRI and it felt pretty impossible to win the war before the 2WK. all the separate factions get fighter volunteers from germany and austria so i can't get air which makes pushing either front extemely hard. does anyone have some advice for the build/strat?

Every time there’s an update for a major power in Europe, there’ll always be a slew of posts that complain about busted spirits or focuses, and the answers always are ‘power creep’, ‘well in my games [x] always’, ‘get better’, or some variation of the three. This happened with Germany, and now it’s happening to Russia.

Not that these criticisms/answers are unfounded, but I believe it’d be better if these type of discussions were moved to a single megathread so that there’s more content about the actual contents of Kaiserreich.

Anyone else theme a playthrough based on AI choices? Example is I'd start a Ukraine play pre Russia rework and tailor the run to whatever Russia did, e.g. if Savinkov, then liberal Republic, if republic, then Hetman dictatorship, if socialist, then LUN. Not sure if this makes me weird lol.

From the games I played in KR it seems like the AI is significantly better than it is in the base game. If I push very aggressively my troops often get encircled in KR and the AI actually builds better and larger divisions than in the base game. I have a relatively small sample size so I was wondering if you guys have noticed that as well.

Every time I have a spy caught inside the Helvetic Commune there is never an option to rescue said spy. So is there some national spirit in not aware of or is this an ongoing bug?

There are several elements of the German political mechanics that are somewhat confusing or don't make a whole lot of sense:

1. The Enabling Act: in response to the Brunswick uprising the Reichstag agrees to give Schleicher dictatorial control over the Imperial government, effectively shutting themselves out of the loop (seemingly indefinitely). The question is, why would they do that? Schleicher's threat to resign doesn't seem persuasive; the Kaiser could just appoint someone else to carry out the Reichsexecution (which would easily pass anyway). The other point about this is that Schleicher has been in power since the start of the Ruhrkampf; it seems far more likely that the Reichstag would regard him as having failed completely to control the situation. Also, the Act always passes regardless of how badly the political situation has gone for Schleicher; it will still pass even if none of the 'Man in the High Castle' focuses have been taken.
2. The existence of the Enabling Act seems to be based off its OTL counterpart, but the circumstances are completely different. The situation of the Reichstag in 1933 OTL was one in which the NSDAP held ~43% of the seats (and the DNVP 8%) and had paramilitaries able to intimidate the rest into compliance; Schleicher has neither.
3. The DVLP route has a similar 'how do they do that' problem. The S-W-R coalition cannot have a Reichstag majority without support from at least part of Zentrum (IIRC it is not possible for the DkP and DNVP combined to have a majority in the 1936 elections). It is extremely unlikely that Zentrum or the LVP (or possibly even the DkP) would approve the abolition of universal suffrage, let alone the Reichstag, so their constitutional reform plans don't appear to have enough muscle to go anywhere. Incidentally, it is a bit odd that the Kleist-Schmenzin cabinet can collapse because of issues with the DVLP, but not Zentrum (who have more seats). The Enabling Act doesn't exist in the SWR path.
4. Why does the Democratic Union government result in an SPD cabinet? They need a coalition to get a majority, but it seems unlikely that the other coalition members (most likely the LVP and Zentrum) would be willing to accept Muller rather than a compromise candidate.
5. The choice of Zentrum chairman doesn't seem to have too much of an effect; Zentrum will still join a coalition determined by the Kabinet Schleicher minigame regardless.

I know in KR sometimes you can sign a conditional or white peace. Is that possible in this case?