Thought experiment, alternate history:

[Comrade Crimson]

You should have said it's about a mod and not some silly fanfic, because mods=serious.
I'd begin from an entirely different perspective than realistic what-ifs, by asking a single important question:
What would make your history line more interesting than the good old WW2?

(Realism is fine, but you can get away with much if you make something fun and interesting in the first place.)

Civil war in Germany, China, Spain (spain as a tutorial mission perhaps) for one thing, a much more serious storyline and a crapload more factions than the original game (in Red Alert 1's case.)

Fascist Italy and (possibly Fascist) Spain, The Soviets, The Chinese (who can pick either Communist or Nationalist leanings in the game), Imperial Japan, The British Commonwealth, France, Germany (Starts as Weimar but can be "upgraded" into either Communist or Fascist.) and potentially America, but im not sure on that one.

It'd also be gritty and grimdark as balls with lots of gore, grim atmosphere and fully voiced units and factions, voiced cutscenes done in an old noir photo style fashion (like the first Call of Duty in a sense) and so forth, maybe live action footage if I can amount the supplies for filming.

And note, it'd still have crazy stuff in it. Just done in a more psuedo realistic, grimdark dieselpunk fashion rather than the B movies cold war goofball stuff of Red Alert.

In terms of why its more interesting than base line WW2-

WW2 has been overdone for one.

This is a very interesting What If done properly and follows RA1's lore to an extent. And there's lots more subterfuge and spy **** that could go on as the political climate is a lot more unstable.

 

[matmohair1]

sounds very thought provoking indeed,
and logical too, concerning the circumstances...

I'm wondering, if Hitler never rose to power,
wouldn't another member of the party be elected instead
or any one else impacted by the Thule society? Its like take
away the guy who screams loudly and lose all the flavor! then,
Who knows, maybe Germany's internal affairs would get ignored
and they'd get that alliance with the UK or US ?!

 

[Mad Vader]

As long as you stay away from silly **** like a biblical adviser to Stalin, you may get the interest of non-Americans.

Red Alert is an American Cold War nostalgia from the 90s, so a literal remake would be a bit passe.
It's important for your lore to feature present zeitgeist themes to get the players motivated.
The new Cold War between Russia and the West is much less significant, but the threat of Chinese dominance is even more sinister than the daily terror and Middle-eastern news. (To the West, that is - we are assuming you are targeting Western audience.)
I think you need to tailor your alternative history to these themes, however counter-intuitive this seems for historical realism.
That means you need a Western brush with the Soviets (but not a fight to the death), a prolonged conflict with some fundamentalists, but ultimately you need to face the real enemy, China. Bonus factions: an EU-like federation and a Brazil-India (or similar) cartel with their own agendas.

 

[Do not look here]

Maybe this time western allies wouldn't tell Poland to stop goofing around if they'd mobilize army day before big war and definitely forces that were concentrated on eastern borders wouldn't be ordered to surrender to Russkies. All after all, bunch of mounted policemen were enough to whoop some Soviet butts in '39... at least until tanks arrived

But, eh, I guess I understand why we're omitted in most of those scenarios. If only Pilsudski was made into steam-powered cyborg-emperor like in that one book I've read...

 

[Comrade Crimson]

As long as you stay away from silly **** like a biblical adviser to Stalin, you may get the interest of non-Americans.

Red Alert is an American Cold War nostalgia from the 90s, so a literal remake would be a bit passe.
It's important for your lore to feature present zeitgeist themes to get the players motivated.
The new Cold War between Russia and the West is much less significant, but the threat of Chinese dominance is even more sinister than the daily terror and Middle-eastern news. (To the West, that is - we are assuming you are targeting Western audience.)
I think you need to tailor your alternative history to these themes, however counter-intuitive this seems for historical realism.
That means you need a Western brush with the Soviets (but not a fight to the death), a prolonged conflict with some fundamentalists, but ultimately you need to face the real enemy, China. Bonus factions: an EU-like federation and a Brazil-India (or similar) cartel with their own agendas.

I'm not aiming to please the modern audience with present day themes solely for popularity based on "current themes." That said, the rise of fascism/extreme ideologies and political instability is still a very prevalent issue. If even more so today.

Look at Ukraine, and Syria. Both of these places went to utter hell because of economic and political instability and the meddling of outsiders to a large extent.


Similar to the Wiemar Republic, in this mod, and Germany in real life due to Versailles.

The Chinese in this spot of history are far from a global threat.

Brazil and other places aren't really of note either, neither are the Cartels... not to any big extent on the global stage anyways.

And Europe is so divided ideologically in this era that an EU like organization likely would not exist.

So, gonna have to decline that suggestion.

And don't worry about the advisor bits. I'm portraying Stalin as he really was, personality wise and being accurate to him. As in, not a womanizer, a lover of cinema and a paranoid, somewhat superstitious hardass who at his core, is a ruthless administrator. And neither is there going to be a shoehorned "Nod" reference/setup either, because that was goofy as balls.

I'm not making any side a total villain here either. Everyone is grey and ugly and as they are. This isn't a "Red Scare" project as much as a portrayal of a story.

Of how world powers intervene in a nation's affairs when said nation is in a problematic and unstable status, and how it sparks off a horrible conflict.

Which is VERY relevant might I add to today's current affairs...

Edit: And again, im approaching this logically and trying to be "historically accurate" with the context of logical alternative history.

And no, im not meaning to razz on you. I just think that any potential message this project carries is already relevant and striking as it is.

Maybe this time western allies wouldn't tell Poland to stop goofing around if they'd mobilize army day before big war and definitely forces that were concentrated on eastern borders wouldn't be ordered to surrender to Russkies. All after all, bunch of mounted policemen were enough to whoop some Soviet butts in '39... at least until tanks arrived

But, eh, I guess I understand why we're omitted in most of those scenarios. If only Pilsudski was made into steam-powered cyborg-emperor like in that one book I've read...

Poland I don't plan to omit, but they will still likely fall under the Iron Curtain. Again I want everyone's theories as to what'd happen here.

sounds very thought provoking indeed,
and logical too, concerning the circumstances...

I'm wondering, if Hitler never rose to power,
wouldn't another member of the party be elected instead
or any one else impacted by the Thule society? Its like take
away the guy who screams loudly and lose all the flavor! then,
Who knows, maybe Germany's internal affairs would get ignored
and they'd get that alliance with the UK or US ?!

A possibility... what are your thoughts on how American businessmen and the British government would be like if Germany did have a right wing fascist party leader that wasn't so aggressive and jingoist as Hitler?

Edit: And again, you can counter any points I made or come up with ideas as to how your suggestion would work, Vader- I welcome ideas.

Just I may turn some stuff down if I feel its a bit too unfitting; so its a bit of give and take here.

 

[matmohair1]

A possibility... what are your thoughts on how American businessmen and the British government would be like if Germany did have a right wing fascist party leader that wasn't so aggressive and jingoist as Hitler?

I dont think it would last that long thou,
any Hitler like fanatic can pop out of that
atmosphere at any given chance 

 

[BenKenobi]

Wiemar republic was steadily stabilising by the time the nazis came into power. Early 30s were a great chance, because the 20s were spent by crying about the Kaiserreich and then the depression halted the whole transition. It was a chance to get people to identify with a state that nearly noone really wanted.

Assuming historical events in other countries, you could expect much larger cooperation between Czechoslovakia and Germany and internally more stable Czechoslovakia. More Italy in Austria. More isolated USSR (no Franco-Soviet Mutual Assitance Pact, no Czecho-Soviet pact, no lame attempts to use European crisis to appear as the great reasonable country in the League of Nations). Better Polish-German relations. Fall of French influence in the central Europe.

And to make it interesting, you can work on the theme of materially ressurecting the Austro-Hungarian economy. No, no laughs. From mid 1930s, Czechoslovakia and Austria were working on improving relations (that were still on the OMG Habsburgs literally worse than Hitler; the North remembers / OMG die rebel scum (assuming we can into relevance) basis) and Czechs were trying to more or less make Austria friends with the rest of the little Entente (Romania, Yugoslavia). This was, of course, more or less driven by a desire to keep Austria out of German spehere of influence, but also by economy reasons. All of the former A-H countries were suffering from the loss of natural and traditional markets brought by the fractioning of the Empire because of how the A-H economy worked. With ideological and security differences blurred by non-existence of big scary grey blob on the west, it is not that hard to imagine some sort of customs union happening in the former Austro-Hungarian countries. Austria was already trying to do similar thing with Hungary (Rome Protocols of 1934).

 

[Comrade Crimson]

Wiemar republic was steadily stabilising by the time the nazis came into power. Early 30s were a great chance, because the 20s were spent by crying about the Kaiserreich and then the depression halted the whole transition. It was a chance to get people to identify with a state that nearly noone really wanted.

Assuming historical events in other countries, you could expect much larger cooperation between Czechoslovakia and Germany and internally more stable Czechoslovakia. More Italy in Austria. More isolated USSR (no Franco-Soviet Mutual Assitance Pact, no Czecho-Soviet pact, no lame attempts to use European crisis to appear as the great reasonable country in the League of Nations). Better Polish-German relations. Fall of French influence in the central Europe.

And to make it interesting, you can work on the theme of materially ressurecting the Austro-Hungarian economy. No, no laughs. From mid 1930s, Czechoslovakia and Austria were working on improving relations (that were still on the OMG Habsburgs literally worse than Hitler; the North remembers / OMG die rebel scum (assuming we can into relevance) basis) and Czechs were trying to more or less make Austria friends with the rest of the little Entente (Romania, Yugoslavia). This was, of course, more or less driven by a desire to keep Austria out of German spehere of influence, but also by economy reasons. All of the former A-H countries were suffering from the loss of natural and traditional markets brought by the fractioning of the Empire because of how the A-H economy worked. With ideological and security differences blurred by non-existence of big scary grey blob on the west, it is not that hard to imagine some sort of customs union happening in the former Austro-Hungarian countries. Austria was already trying to do similar thing with Hungary (Rome Protocols of 1934).

So you're saying an economic bloc of Hungary, Austria, Yugoslavia and Romania would occur?

I'm curious now, how would their interests affect the rest of Europe, and in particular, Germany and Spain? How would they react to Benito Mussolini and Italy? And to the Soviet presence?

How would they react to Italy's expansionism into Africa?

And you mentioned the Wiemar Republic stabilizing until the depression. Given the economic status of Germany, people at one point were using money as fire kindling due to how rubbish the currency value was. A wheelbarrow of German deustchmarks would warrant you a single loaf of bread from what I am aware...


Would you reckon the improved relations with other European nations such as Poland, Czechslovakia and possibly this economic bloc of Austria and co affect Germany? And possibly of philanthropic and investor interests from Britain and America?

How would France be in this situation?

And with the Soviet isolation, what would you reckon that would bring for their internal policies and overall attitudes?  I'm curious as to what would be the overall actions in Spain and China too, given the civil wars in these areas...


This is all very interesting to me and im wanting to know more on your hypothesis.

Edit: I apologize if I seem indirect or unclear in some things in my posts by the way; im operating on little sleep due to a very wonky schedule change with work and I haven't slept well as of recent. So if I seem a bit mentally out of it in my posts; its sleep deprivation making me a bit woozy. Trying to amend it and get some rest.

 

[Comrade Crimson]

1. Communist invasion of the west some time in 42-44 whilst Europe is still recovering from depression.
2. Invasion grinds to a halt, when the full might of the British empire and United states arrives to help protect, around about the French border, down to the Italian alps. (Fascists would probably be seen as necessary evils)
3. Lots of people die
4. Around 1949/50, either the allies drop a nuke on Moscow (geographically difficult, maybe Petrograd) or the Bolsheviks drop one on Paris/London. And we see an armistice with favorable terms to the bomb-dropping side.
5. Japanese ambition would've lead to a US war eventually, providing the US with the war it needed to become a superpower. Probably early 1940s.
6. European empires still crumble, but slower than historically. For some reason.
7. Eventual fall of communism. Because it was ****.


That's my entirely accurate hypothesis, feel free to poke holes.

Just noticed this.

And it's a very good sort of overall timeline/look at events. Of course, the outcome of the war I have still yet to decide, and whether or not I want my campaign to be diverging timelines depending on faction/ending dependent on faction or whether its one continuous story line that jumps between perspective.
Some questions on this. How do you think Japanese ambition would play out in China, and what their actions or stances towards the Soviets would be?

 

[BenKenobi]

To a degree. I don't think it would be as formal as 19th century Zollverein, mainly because of the relations beween the countries (Czechoslovakia and Hungary had very bad relations). The bloc would quite possibly care very much about pretending it does not exist, because the nationalism was very strong. However, such bloc would be (and was) very beneficial - Austria-Hungary was not imperialist, it did not have any colonies and its economy was pretty much only focused on its interior (yes, differences here and there: Bohemia & Moravia (Czechoslovakia) was exporting some goods to Germany and Hungary was trading food with Germany), but the Empire was very very protectionist. Its market policies were rather liberal, but border customs were high. This means that almost all Austro-Hungarian companies were making goods for the Austro-Hungarian markets. Then, in 1918, it dissolved into much smaller countries that immediately set the similar tax barriers that A-H had for themselves. Czech lands had around 60 percent of A-H industrial output and suddenly found themselves with +-25 percent of A-H markets and only heavily taxed export. Some kind of tax union (but again, not entirely Zollverein, more like a set of bilateral treaties that are secretly coordinated) would benefit pretty much everyone, especially with Yugoslavian access to the Adriatic.

Whether it would evolve into something bigger is a question; and without external threat I am rather pessimistic here. If yes, it would be most likely just to secure the markets. Another argument against further cooperations is, well, the friendly Germany.

German hyperinflation was around 1923, not during the Great Depression 1929+. In the latter, Germany actually experienced deflation (which was also destructive).

 

[Comrade Crimson]

To a degree. I don't think it would be as formal as 19th century Zollverein, mainly because of the relations beween the countries (Czechoslovakia and Hungary had very bad relations). The bloc would quite possibly care very much about pretending it does not exist, because the nationalism was very strong. However, such bloc would be (and was) very beneficial - Austria-Hungary was not imperialist, it did not have any colonies and its economy was pretty much only focused on its interior (yes, differences here and there: Bohemia & Moravia (Czechoslovakia) was exporting some goods to Germany and Hungary was trading food with Germany), but the Empire was very very protectionist. Its market policies were rather liberal, but border customs were high. This means that almost all Austro-Hungarian companies were making goods for the Austro-Hungarian markets. Then, in 1918, it dissolved into much smaller countries that immediately set the similar tax barriers that A-H had for themselves. Czech lands had around 60 percent of A-H industrial output and suddenly found themselves with +-25 percent of A-H markets and only heavily taxed export. Some kind of tax union (but again, not entirely Zollverein, more like a set of bilateral treaties that are secretly coordinated) would benefit pretty much everyone, especially with Yugoslavian access to the Adriatic.

Whether it would evolve into something bigger is a question; and without external threat I am rather pessimistic here. If yes, it would be most likely just to secure the markets. Another argument against further cooperations is, well, the friendly Germany.

German hyperinflation was around 1923, not during the Great Depression 1929+. In the latter, Germany actually experienced deflation (which was also destructive).

Yeah, the price of goods shot up... which the Nazi's circumvented by basically giving stuff freely away, like radios and cars at times as a form of propaganda to appease the masses and get them feeling better about the rather crap economy. That wouldn't happen. Anger and tension would likely spike in this alternate case...

In terms of external pressures to the Little Entente as im gonna call it- they'd have 2, possibly 3 sources of that.

The Soviet Union of course, encroaching and invading Eastern Europe and eventually the rest of Europe in this scenario, and from Fascist Italy which would also be rather aggressive and Machiavellian in trying to manipulate the affairs of other nations.

And Germany as well... not because of true economic competition but more so because of problems politically. Combine Fascist Italy, France (to a mild extent) and Russia essentially dicking with local political parties and other fringe groups in the battered German state and economy, I highly doubt Germany would be completely friendly. I feel it'd be torn in its loyalties and policy mindedness, given that you had large communist, fascist and other more extreme political groups active in a turbulent status period. Which, Stalin was known for having ties to German communist groups and they often followed his heed and orders... so I don't doubt they'd be supportive of a Russian "liberation" invasion.

And the Fascist's in this case may look to Mussolini on the other hand.

France? France would be interested in Germany's politics for their own safeguarding reasons... paranoia over WW1 I reckon.

 

[BenKenobi]

Yeah, the price of goods shot up... which the Nazi's circumvented by basically giving stuff freely away, like radios and cars at times as a form of propaganda to appease the masses and get them feeling better about the rather crap economy. That wouldn't happen. Anger and tension would likely spike in this alternate case...

No. During the Great Depression, a lot of German companies went bankrupt and the unemployment was skyrocketing, but there was no inflation. Weimar government did not increase public spending because it feared the hyperinflation and huge budget deficits. People were impoverished and unable to buy things because they did not have money; not because money were worthless. There was deflation, not inflation.

Spoiler

 

[Comrade Crimson]

I know, I didn't mean as in "the prices of goods shot up" as a reference to the currency growing worse, I mean that the prices of goods literally shot up because of bankruptcy and deflation, where things grow more expensive and where unemployment occurs and businesses need to spike up prices in order to be able to make a profit... often laying off people.

My own province of Alberta right now is going through a period of deflation.


But yeah, that aside- thoughts on the political hypothesis here?

Edit: I also should've clarified better in my post. The whole wheelbarrow thing was as you said in the 20's after you corrected me, I reviewed my history once you brought that up.

 

[Mad Vader]

What if the world rapidly entered a new Ice Age, so it would be more like Alberta by the crunch time in the 40s?
Write about what you know, they say.

 

[Comrade Crimson]

What if the world rapidly entered a new Ice Age, so it would be more like Alberta by the crunch time in the 40s?
Write about what you know, they say.

Climate's actually been warming up here. This has to be one of the warmest winters yet.

As for writing on "what I know about" I have... a varied experience. Lets just say that


Though, the complications of an ice age I am actually writing about for a completely different project. But again, that's a book im writing, not for this (likely OpenRA) mod I aim to produce out of this hypothesized alternate WW2 scenario.

 

[Mad Vader]

Just a nod at your arctic existence, not a jibe.
I hope you put your varied experience in character development - you may need colorful fictional characters apart from the rather cold fish that are country leaders.

 

[Comrade Crimson]

Just a nod at your arctic existence, not a jibe.
I hope you put your varied experience in character development - you may need colorful fictional characters apart from the rather cold fish that are country leaders.

Oh, no worries about that. Remember this is going to be (likely) an RTS OpenRA mod so I am going to have a colourful cast of characters on the field you command and interact with.

Commanders, soldiers and others; I got plenty of idears to bring the world to life. If anything the leaders of nations are going to be a rather cold and distant thing that you rarely see yourself as a player, they are a "Politician" that you don't directly interact with, most of the time. Its just their decisions can decide what happens to you.

 

[Vicccard]

The Weimar Republic would either succumb to a second Communist revolution, a authoritarian regime or would eventually stabilize. Meanwhile, the process of social democracy would continue, leading to less support towards the communists especially because there is now no reason to fear that the nazi's/ubernationalists would take over.

I don't understand why everybody thinks the USSR would become ubermighty. Presuming that Lenin still died when he did and Trotski didn't become his successor, Stalin would have continued with his authoritarian practices while, in the rest of the world, democracies and constitutional monarchies start climbing out of the recession. The only threat to their success would be the Soviet Union and its communism, so presumably the free world would form some sort of alliance or bloc against them, and it's not hard to imagine who'd win. There were still powerful anti-Communist and anti-Russian feelings in most of the USSR, happy to take over.

 

[Mad Vader]

It would be great if he would explore an alternative Soviet Union, led by a healthy Lenin or Trotsky as a successor. Not much difference in imperialist foreign policy goals, but the methods might have been different.


Um... this explains a lot.

 

[Vicccard]

My knowledge is a little lacking on the subject, but wasn't Trotski for a far more aggressive attitude towards spreading socialism to other countries?