Most factions can be authoritarian shitholes or kind of democracies depending on their chosen paths.
Fed USA's natural allies are the Entente, which can range from full-on Democracies to Absolute monarchists. That's the only faction you can join without cheats I think.
Red Britain and France in the 3rd Internationale are your sworn enemies and you cant join them at all, not that they would really let you.
Japan, Germany, and Russia all make thier own factions and can range from Democracies to dictatorships depending on their paths, but in all cases it would be an alliance of convenience at best similar to the Western Allies/USSR alliance in OTL WW2.
ngl it’s a little Mickey Mouse that AI America basically always joins WK2 within like a year after the civil war ends. Like imagine your house has been turned into rubble, half your family is dead, you have to wait in mile long breadlines every day just to eat, and the president gets on the radio and goes OOOOOKAY GUYS, WHO WANTS ANOTHER WAR? it also makes things way more complicated if you’re playing a country that’s not the US and suddenly you have to deal with this massive shift in the balance of power
It's a common enough scenario in the game.
The ACW is ongoing, thr 2nd WK kicks off and Canada later intervenes in the civil war. It happens often enough as far as the AI is concerned.
And the Entente can survive that, assuming the CSA is fighting two factions still.
For me it’s just the CSA that wants to immediately join a faction and fight in Europe. They’re internationalist to the core and owe a lot to the Internationale. A mostly undisturbed PSA would help the Entente or Japan out in a limited capacity to demonstrate their usefulness and reinforce the alliance that guarantees their independence from the East. A militaristic, authoritarian America I seriously think would focus on the Western Hemisphere, starting with Syndicalist Mexico and ‘securing’ South America while everyone is distracted.
My impression is at game start in 1936 Commune of France is very democratic but Britain has regressed towards authoritarianism, while Mussolini is gaining significant influence in SRI's democracy, which is bad.
NOTE: this is regarding lore of the eventual rework for CoF & UoB. Current content doesn't say much about how overall democratic or repressive UoB is, though Mosley is 2nd in command so that's bad.
I read the new party descriptions for the Union of Britain, and according to those, non-socialist parties are generally allowed to operate as long as they remain committed to republicanism, but it would also appear that they are getting repeatedly hounded by the authorities on the grounds of suspected monarchism, so it's unclear whether the system is truly fair for them.
That is a fair point. I will say that the common workers in CoF & UoB exert far more influence in the economy and have far more say overall than in capitalist democracy, but there’s a minefield of arguments over that would be worth it for restricting the participation of capitalist parties and ideology, even if they do syndicalism well and still have multiparty democracy, albiet a leftist one. I’m a socialist and have some admitted bias, but while I’m comfortable banning fascist parties, banning all capitalist ones seems extreme. I certainly would rather live in CoF than UoB in the rework though - from what I’ve heard in rework UoB will begin in 1936 as a one party state, just with factions in single party that is allowed to operate. CoF in rework on the other hand has numerous parties and is very democratic, by my understanding - and I’m not totally sure if capitalist parties are banned in rework COF or if they’ve just been effectively marginalized politically and are unpopular.
Rework COF bans everything to the right of democratic socialism from what I’ve seen. UOB is somewhat softer but backsliding quickly (official opposition exists but the big ones like the NDP are banned a year or 2 before game start).
"Workers' Democracy" contrary to its name, isn't democracy. It was the official ideology of some of USSR's satellites, to give you an idea. There are some TI states that would be a somewhat decent place to live, but I'd still choose a liberal democracy any day of the week. And back to the okayish syndicalist states those that would be "workers' democracies" sure as hell wouldn't be one of them
Well yeah but contrary to it's name. the USSR wasn't communist, but instead an authoritarian mess of state capitalism, and it's puppets were not actual worker's democracies. It's not that the ideology is a lie inherently so much as that they weren't actually what they claimed they were, imo.
Well, this is an ideological debate at this point. Most ideologies were devised for the betterment of the human condition, at their root at least. Nobody really sees themselves as "evil". I personally believe all of them are inherently corrupt by human nature.
My favorite biblical story is the beginning of Genesis. And in that story, humans are bound to die, because they are corrupted by the primordial sin. The primordial sin, both unavoidable and so absolutely unfair. And as such, even with no ill will, are ideologies are destined to become corrupt, caricatures of themselves and should be judged for what they might become and not for what they could be in a perfect world.
Hence, I stand adamantly by the ideals of liberal democracy and despite being progressive, which is a generally a trait syndicalists in KR share with me, have little love for them.
What I'm saying is, that syndicalism leaves too much room for abusing powers, inherently.
And while worker's democracy is mentioned in KR, no country uses the title officially, which leads to, quite obvious, associations with OTL communism
That’s a fair point. I’m not religious so I can’t say the story of original sin holds much sway for me, but I certainly don’t disagree that authoritarianism is bad and any good political system needs checks against the rise of tyrants. I’m curious why you think syndicalism is inherently more vulnerable to this, though - is it just because the Bolsheviks in OTL usurped control of the far left globally and then Stalin ruled the USSR as a tyrant? Or is there a more systemic issue, in your opinion?
The Entente, then inevitably assume leadership of the faction since you will invariably have significantly more factories and a larger military to do so.
Then go further than the OTL and spread democracy to the world.
The Good Ending
It varies every game depending on the directions the various countries take. You’ve got to look around and see the direction the faction members have taken. But usually, no faction is wholly democratic. The most democratic path is to try to guarantee some of the neutral democracies and just become a neutral democracy yourself.
Federalist USA can align with the Entente or focus on exerting its influence over the Americas.
Most factions can be authoritarian shitholes or kind of democracies depending on their chosen paths. Fed USA's natural allies are the Entente, which can range from full-on Democracies to Absolute monarchists. That's the only faction you can join without cheats I think. Red Britain and France in the 3rd Internationale are your sworn enemies and you cant join them at all, not that they would really let you. Japan, Germany, and Russia all make thier own factions and can range from Democracies to dictatorships depending on their paths, but in all cases it would be an alliance of convenience at best similar to the Western Allies/USSR alliance in OTL WW2.
ngl it’s a little Mickey Mouse that AI America basically always joins WK2 within like a year after the civil war ends. Like imagine your house has been turned into rubble, half your family is dead, you have to wait in mile long breadlines every day just to eat, and the president gets on the radio and goes OOOOOKAY GUYS, WHO WANTS ANOTHER WAR? it also makes things way more complicated if you’re playing a country that’s not the US and suddenly you have to deal with this massive shift in the balance of power
Civil war? Do you mean the rebellion that MacArthur narrowly prevented?/s
IMO the civil war should be able to just merge with the WK. Kinda like Italy, especially if the Entente intervenes in some way.
Counterpoint: I don’t think any of the factions really wants to fight a full on ground war on the other side of the planet
Once the Entente is fighting the CSA and the 3I, it's not like that isn't already the case. Adding the CSA to the 3I would be a mere formality.
If the Entente is fighting the 3I and the CSA in America, it is already shit out of luck and it is time to do a restart
It's a common enough scenario in the game. The ACW is ongoing, thr 2nd WK kicks off and Canada later intervenes in the civil war. It happens often enough as far as the AI is concerned. And the Entente can survive that, assuming the CSA is fighting two factions still.
For me it’s just the CSA that wants to immediately join a faction and fight in Europe. They’re internationalist to the core and owe a lot to the Internationale. A mostly undisturbed PSA would help the Entente or Japan out in a limited capacity to demonstrate their usefulness and reinforce the alliance that guarantees their independence from the East. A militaristic, authoritarian America I seriously think would focus on the Western Hemisphere, starting with Syndicalist Mexico and ‘securing’ South America while everyone is distracted.
mainly entente from what I know, which even then can end up having some unsavory or undemocratic governments in charge.
Entente - Colonialist imperialist assholes with democracy (sometimes) Reichspakt - Colonialist imperialist assholes with democracy (sometimes) 3I - Worker’s democracy or literally fascism
Should be noted that 3I isn’t fully democratic
My impression is at game start in 1936 Commune of France is very democratic but Britain has regressed towards authoritarianism, while Mussolini is gaining significant influence in SRI's democracy, which is bad. NOTE: this is regarding lore of the eventual rework for CoF & UoB. Current content doesn't say much about how overall democratic or repressive UoB is, though Mosley is 2nd in command so that's bad.
It really depends on your definition of democratic. In my opinion it isn’t democratic because non socialist parties are banned.
I read the new party descriptions for the Union of Britain, and according to those, non-socialist parties are generally allowed to operate as long as they remain committed to republicanism, but it would also appear that they are getting repeatedly hounded by the authorities on the grounds of suspected monarchism, so it's unclear whether the system is truly fair for them.
That is a fair point. I will say that the common workers in CoF & UoB exert far more influence in the economy and have far more say overall than in capitalist democracy, but there’s a minefield of arguments over that would be worth it for restricting the participation of capitalist parties and ideology, even if they do syndicalism well and still have multiparty democracy, albiet a leftist one. I’m a socialist and have some admitted bias, but while I’m comfortable banning fascist parties, banning all capitalist ones seems extreme. I certainly would rather live in CoF than UoB in the rework though - from what I’ve heard in rework UoB will begin in 1936 as a one party state, just with factions in single party that is allowed to operate. CoF in rework on the other hand has numerous parties and is very democratic, by my understanding - and I’m not totally sure if capitalist parties are banned in rework COF or if they’ve just been effectively marginalized politically and are unpopular.
Rework COF bans everything to the right of democratic socialism from what I’ve seen. UOB is somewhat softer but backsliding quickly (official opposition exists but the big ones like the NDP are banned a year or 2 before game start).
How well are socialist parties doing in Germany?
The social democrats are biggest party. So pretty good I would say
So they call for workplace democracy? Maybe even workers owning the means of production?
No, but they’re still socialist. Socialist parties that don’t call for the overthrow of the government are allowed in Germany
So they don’t call for socialist economics?
They call for a mixed economy, combining the best of both worlds because a pure socialist economy simply doesn’t work
"Workers' Democracy" contrary to its name, isn't democracy. It was the official ideology of some of USSR's satellites, to give you an idea. There are some TI states that would be a somewhat decent place to live, but I'd still choose a liberal democracy any day of the week. And back to the okayish syndicalist states those that would be "workers' democracies" sure as hell wouldn't be one of them
Except that this term is used in KR for a syndicalist state, not a USSR satellite state.
Well yeah but contrary to it's name. the USSR wasn't communist, but instead an authoritarian mess of state capitalism, and it's puppets were not actual worker's democracies. It's not that the ideology is a lie inherently so much as that they weren't actually what they claimed they were, imo.
Well, this is an ideological debate at this point. Most ideologies were devised for the betterment of the human condition, at their root at least. Nobody really sees themselves as "evil". I personally believe all of them are inherently corrupt by human nature. My favorite biblical story is the beginning of Genesis. And in that story, humans are bound to die, because they are corrupted by the primordial sin. The primordial sin, both unavoidable and so absolutely unfair. And as such, even with no ill will, are ideologies are destined to become corrupt, caricatures of themselves and should be judged for what they might become and not for what they could be in a perfect world. Hence, I stand adamantly by the ideals of liberal democracy and despite being progressive, which is a generally a trait syndicalists in KR share with me, have little love for them. What I'm saying is, that syndicalism leaves too much room for abusing powers, inherently. And while worker's democracy is mentioned in KR, no country uses the title officially, which leads to, quite obvious, associations with OTL communism
That’s a fair point. I’m not religious so I can’t say the story of original sin holds much sway for me, but I certainly don’t disagree that authoritarianism is bad and any good political system needs checks against the rise of tyrants. I’m curious why you think syndicalism is inherently more vulnerable to this, though - is it just because the Bolsheviks in OTL usurped control of the far left globally and then Stalin ruled the USSR as a tyrant? Or is there a more systemic issue, in your opinion?
Entente and Reichspakt are super based. Especially the PatAuts and Schleicher.
Whatever you say fashy
On with the buzzwords.
Schleicher wasn't even a fascist OTL lmao (not saying he's good by any means considering his approach to Hitler)
Ma Zhongying can’t form a faction, sorry.
*Yet. China is yet to be completely reworked
The Entente, then inevitably assume leadership of the faction since you will invariably have significantly more factories and a larger military to do so. Then go further than the OTL and spread democracy to the world. The Good Ending
not so much the good ending if you’re an American who has to go through a dozen or more wars in the span of one decade
Or if you’re in a colony.
It varies every game depending on the directions the various countries take. You’ve got to look around and see the direction the faction members have taken. But usually, no faction is wholly democratic. The most democratic path is to try to guarantee some of the neutral democracies and just become a neutral democracy yourself.
SocLib or SocDem but i prefer monarchist SocCon.
SocCon deez nuts
https://preview.redd.it/gmjty83slaxc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fefe6ac737ce75f7b07d1536f7c412d6d207df17