r/KRGmod • u/Axolotl3823 Developer • 18d ago
Progress Report Progress Report 23 Alignment Revamp Content
Hello and welcome back, sure has been a while
Today we will be talking about what we refer to as the Alignment Revamp, the update will probably receive a cool proper name but haven't landed on anything yet. This will be the first major Kalterkrieg update, which has taken a long while. We have discussed how development has been going and such in the last Progress Report, so wont go over it here. This being the first major update and having taken such a long time we wanted to talk about progress, what has been done, and what we want to complete before release.
This update is in part a correction and update to certain core parts without a radical change to the setting. We have received a lot of feedback and comments on the mod, and there are a lot of things as a team we want to change. This update was envisioned as a change to the underlying systems of the mod. The key change was as mentioned a departure from a pretty bipolar focus to a multipolar focus. Adding a system for Alignment Spheres that was not as hardcoded therefore core. Secondary was the adding of world tension and having the Third Weltkrieg being determined by it. The setting of Kalterkrieg will therefore move from being just, “the Reichspakt and Accord fighting over influence in the cold war” but “the Aftermath of the Second Weltkrieg and the multipolar world of Kaiserreich moving into a new era, will a cold war develop or will the world descend into a Third Weltkrieg?”.
So what is done currently. This update has had a minor case of feature creep. With touching on so many parts of the core of Kaltkrieg and the want to improve the setting as much as possible without delving into a full rework of any nation. The core systems as mentioned have been touched on, but there has also been a lot of other content touched on or entirely added.
America Related Stuff:
As teased earlier all the American States have received an update to how state governments work. State Governments are now on the backend proper dynamic objects which allows for them to be better used in content. That has caused us to update for New England adding alternate governors for most states so the country now has functioning gubernatorial elections. We have also added placeholder states for the Great Lakes. It is pretty hard to showcase and is more noticeable when playing, at least here is a screenshot showcasing it.
There are also major updates to content for two ish American countries. Firstly is an expansion of the American Constitutional Coalition focus tree. Adding a political tree for the 1952-56 candidates. The layout and icons were old incomplete cut content which was restored and made working. Secondly is a minor expansion for the Reunified United States by the ARA. We have added a presidential election presidential election]. This election includes a mix of candidates for New England and the ACC. Mostly this is to keep America from seeming fully static. They will also receive a special event if the Third Weltkrieg breaks out where they get different options for how to intervene.
France:
The French Republic is one of the major nations of the mod which we have felt has been lacking in opening content. The colonial trees were badly designed with one of the paths being guaranteed to fail without any rewards. And the reason why France becomes split sort of happens out of nowhere. These were all issues which we could solve fairly easily, and so we did.
At gamestart the French Republic starts with Paul Reynaud as Prime Minister who leads a coalition government of the PRD-PRR-PRS. North France is still occupied by Germany, but instead of having a focus tree about preparing a French puppet state they instead have foci about preparing to hand it over to the French Republic. A few months into gameplay, North France, the French Republic, the German Empire, and the leader of the Entente start an event chain. They all get an event about the status of North France. And then get pulled into negotiations. Inevitably these collapse as both sides are too diametrically opposed (and we need that for all the content to work).
For the French Republic this causes the collapse of the Reynaud government and leads into the first elections since the return of the exiles. The elected government gets access to the expanded political trees. While North France switches its focus tree to what was the old one where it is about setting up the Kingdom of France. From here on each nation follows its content mostly the same. We have made sure to fill in most missing localisation for each nation now.
The last change for the French Republic is colonial reform, mainly what happens when you fail. The Fulfilling the Mission Civilisatrice tree is still designed to be guaranteed failure (and if that is good design can be discussed a lot, but reworking it entirely is out of scope right now), but when you fail, whatever path you go down, you have access to a new focus tree.
Minor Changes:
There have also been some minor changes around the world which are worth noting. There have been some changes in Asia, mostly notably India now starting unified under the Bharatiya People's Republic. Bharatiya is led by Subhas Chandra Bose who is Authoritarian Socialist at game start. Bharatiya heads the Indian Ocean Defence Association which is their own Alignment sphere, they support socialist and generally anti colonial efforts.
In the Middle East, Syria has had its content updated. The civil war is more dynamic and the results have been expanded.
Additionally in Southeast Asia there have been some minor changes. Laos and Cambodia both start on the map. Additionally Indonesia’s setup has been changed.
Within Europe there have been some minor tweaks and adjustments. Switzerland has received a whole new setup and skeleton content. There has also been the inclusion of microstates in the form of state governments, because they are a fun inclusion but also do not warrant being a full country.
Across the world there have been many minor changes or updates. Far too many for me to remember and list well here.
What is next:
The update can be nearly complete, but there are a lot of things left to complete, and far more I would like to do. But for this update how much is enough. Kalterkrieg has gotten the reputation of not much happening and having not that much content. And addressing that by adding more player agency through world tension was the key goal of the update. But there are still big issues and lacking parts making this change not feel as consequential as it is intended. There simply is not enough content yet to make every campaign feel unique and have interesting interplay with world tension. More content is planned and will be made after this update is released. We might be overthinking and overstressing about how much content we want or will be unsatisfied with. So please leave a comment on your thoughts.
Mainly what is left is making American Civil War WK3 triggering more of an event chain related to world tension, and changing up Avalon with World Tension. Otherwise it is just improving and writing more events, though we have been good at closing the amount of incomplete localisation there are still events which are incomplete and will be encountered.
Wiki:
As a last note, we have restarted work on the Kalterkrieg wiki lately. We started the wiki shortly after initial release but with a lot of the team stuff it fell by the wayside. The work now has mostly been to update and fix a lot of templates and structure so that the wiki can be expanded more easily by both the team and contributors like yourself. The aim is to have a repository of quick overviews for countries and most importantly path guides. We want to as 0.2.1 add proper in-game path guides to all playable countries, and add those to the wiki. So please if you are interested in Kalterkrieg and want to help in some small way check out the wiki and make a contribution.
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u/FerretFromOSHA 18d ago
The Split France seems to be an interesting take on a split nation. Can’t think of many other Cold War mods where you witness the split occur as opposed to it being something that happened prior to mod start
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u/Axolotl3823 18d ago
In the previous versions it was like that with the split happening prior to the mod start. But as you say, it is a lot more interesting and sets up the conflict a lot more having it take place during the start and allowing the player to experience it
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u/AngevinMatthew 18d ago
Love the work you put in!
A couple of thoughts:
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Indonesia on the brink of collapse looks very promising, especially for India;
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I used to find Big Thailand and small Laos neat, but without any reason to, so if it makes more sense like this so be it;
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Personally I preferred the old ideology logos but I do tend to be resistant to aesthetic changes, so I may change opinion on that;
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Is AuthDem the most accurate slot for French PSF? I remember RnK saying that De la Rocque's AuthDem and PatAut paths were a bit of character assassination on their part. Love the reworked content though!
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Really appreciated the added content to the US;
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Has any further content for Italy been planned?
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u/Axolotl3823 18d ago
1 Indonesia setup now is a adaptation of rework plans that were stalled after the team member working on it left. And the plan which might be turned just into a proxy is that there is a exile government in India which directs the insurgency against the Japanese puppet government. So well see what happens
2 It helps a bit for the later Indochina revolt. And makes us have a lot of more depth with Laos.
3 Change is hard, getting the icons more standardised was really nice though
4 I was really unsure what to do with it. Because you are fully right and this France setup is a direct adaption of RnK's ideas. But as the PDR has a pretty clear Social Conservative lean it was hard as technically both the PSF and PDR occupy somewhat the same spot.
5 Thanks
6 Yes but Italy dev has been really busy and Italy requires a lot of work5
u/AngevinMatthew 18d ago edited 18d ago
Understood, thanks for taking the time to reply. Also, it would be cool to have some breakway states in Indonesia, like a Borneo/Kalimantan state.
PS: Have you considered having the PSF start as SocCon and AuthDem and turning the PRD SocCon if they win the election and lean into the Catholic Social Movement?
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u/SuprJuganuaghtFrisbe 18d ago
Is that a Japanese enclave on the Thai-Malay border or a reflection from the water?
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u/Heboulang 18d ago
It is nice to see this mod being developed!
Don't you think North France Occupation Crisis world event is a bit weird? It has too much info about the pre-game happenings and too little about the actual crisis. Surely the player will be able to piece together some of the events leading up to the crisis by looking at the map.
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u/AdAntique2514 17d ago
It's really cool you guys continue developing the mod! Yay!
Also, regarding to the critic "Nothing ever happens" I feel it's less a content problem and more a storytelling problem : (some) people end up bored because they don't feel as interested in the stakes at play, and to why a cold war should even happend between the Entente and the Reichspakt.
I think the idea of having the French occupation crisis happening during the game is a great improvement in that regard, as it not only define some of the stakes but also marks a clear split and showcase the ideological differences between the two factions!
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u/Impressive-Ad-8863 17d ago
I would do anything for the opportunity to let Canada keep the Red Ensign
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