The Sword of Damocles - (Sign Up Thread) - Closed, 2017 Game Next

[Cranberry]

This is a bit bad now, but I didn't see this earlier - I actually said in the thread a few weeks back that I would love to play as Germany again. I saw you reserved the Ottomans for Kal, so I thought you would have put that into consideration as well.

Would you mind terribly, Kingpoleon, to play as another country? This is an akward situation and all, I know...

[Cranberry]

^ Thank you so much, Kingpoleon!

I hope I am not jumping ahead of things here and am a bit too fast with this, but as you said, Lumine,

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might I give a go with this?

I would have imagined Germany receiving a new, democratic constitution some time around 1910-1918; if we have uninterruped four-year elections since the last game (with elections it 1902 and 1906), we would have just had an election in 1926.

Fresh from this elections, I would like to play as Kanzler Wilhelm Marx, obviously from the ZENTRUM party. Marx leads a rather centre-left cabinet of ZENTRUM, DDP and SPD. Vice-Chancellor is Otto Braun (SPD), foreign minister is Gustav Stresemann (DDP) (The parties are largely like OTL Weimar Republic, with the DDP including some parts of the DVP). The main opposition force is the DVP (hybrid of OTL Weimar Republic DVP and DNVP, with the DVP's liberal wing off (Stresemann and the like) to the DDP), and in the Reichstag there are also some minor rightist parties as well as the KPD.

Voting for the Reichstag is for all men and women above 20, PR like OTL Weimar Republic, but for the sake of simplicity with fixed 397 members like in the OTL Kaiserreich.

If we look at the results from 1926 (if I may do that as well, if not, please change whatever you want to change, Lumine):

GOVERNMENT: (256 Seats)
Zentrum - 25% - 101
SPD - 25% - 99
DDP - 14% - 56

OPPOSITION: (141 Seats)
DVP - 22% - 88
KPD - 8% - 32
Minor Rightist Parties - 6% - 21

Polarisation between right and left is signficantly lower than in OTL Weimar Republic, as all parties but the KPD and some minor right-wing lunatics are in favour of the status quo, as is 90% of the public and the imperial family. Militarisation is lower than Kaiserreich / Prussian-levels, but still quite high for a democratic country. There is a sort of "Germany is a great power" feeling, seeing as Germany is a centre of democracy and economic development.

[Cranberry]

Alright, great. As I said, go on and change whatever you want to change, Lumine.

[Cranberry]

Another possibility is limiting a number of such states. Like Austria being annexed by Germany, Tyrol by Italy and formation of Yugoslavia. But that's all up to Lumine.

Maybe German-speaking Austria (so OTL Austria minus the Burgenland but plus South Tyrol & Sudetenland) could really have joined Germany, if there was a A-H breakup? Since there was no Treaty of Versailles, no one could have prohibited it, and the Austrian populace would have been 90% in favour of that...

[Cranberry]

Another possibility is limiting a number of such states. Like Austria being annexed by Germany, Tyrol by Italy and formation of Yugoslavia. But that's all up to Lumine.

Maybe German-speaking Austria (so OTL Austria minus the Burgenland but plus South Tyrol & Sudetenland) could really have joined Germany, if there was a A-H breakup? Since there was no Treaty of Versailles, no one could have prohibited it, and the Austrian populace would have been 90% in favour of that...

Wouldn't it empower Germany too much though?

That's eight million people, mostly farmers, no real stragetic importance. I wouldn't think so?

Also, Lumine, Galicia to the German puppet state friend and ally Poland is okay?

[Cranberry]

One thing I forgot; Poland and the Baltics were instituted as German puppet states last game. If I might again pop in my two cents here, I would propose that they all have practically full autonomy on the internal (Poland as Kingdom, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as duchies), but together with Germany proper have some sort of "Common Foreign-political Council" (Gemeinsamer Außenpolitischer Rat) with 1 representative each from the duchies, five from Poland and ten from Germany; so that Germany in fact controls everything related to foreign policy. Also, I would have the Kaiser rule all five of these entities in personal union (Kaiser Wilhelm III, Emperor of Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) with a local ruler that we established last time serving as Kings and Dukes under him (similar to how Bavaria and Saxony had Kings themselves).

[Cranberry]

Galicia will go to Poland, yes.

I'll probably grant Austria to Germany the way we're going now, and compensate by making Serbia, Hungary and Romania very powerful while having a lot of minor states.

Great, many thanks!

One other thing that I thought might be interesting (I must be getting on your nerves pretty heavily by now, Lumine xD), is if one of the German colonies in Africa had a pretty large presence of German white settlers (say similar levels to South Africa in the 1920ies, so ~20%) - would you be on board with that, and if yes, which one would you think is most likely? South West Africa would be pretty easy to get a pretty large share of Whites as there were maybe half a million blacks there at that time at most, but the country is pretty desertous and so not a top target for migration... So Tanzania, or that Cameroon-Congo colony I have on the west coast (would probably be called Deutsch-Kongo, I'd assume)?

[Cranberry]

Uuuh that's brilliant!

Do I see this correctly and is Vilnius a part of proper Germany in here? (I guess I could have given the two provinces east of East Prussia to Lithuania by now, with the Russian threat seemingly out of the way)

Galicia will go to Poland, yes.

I'll probably grant Austria to Germany the way we're going now, and compensate by making Serbia, Hungary and Romania very powerful while having a lot of minor states.

Great, many thanks!

One other thing that I thought might be interesting (I must be getting on your nerves pretty heavily by now, Lumine xD), is if one of the German colonies in Africa had a pretty large presence of German white settlers (say similar levels to South Africa in the 1920ies, so ~20%) - would you be on board with that, and if yes, which one would you think is most likely? South West Africa would be pretty easy to get a pretty large share of Whites as there were maybe half a million blacks there at that time at most, but the country is pretty desertous and so not a top target for migration... So Tanzania, or that Cameroon-Congo colony I have on the west coast (would probably be called Deutsch-Kongo, I'd assume)?

Approved, it will be Tanzania.

Alright, great, thanks! This could certainly become interesting at a point!

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Did I hear German here? *exerts influence among expatriates in a chronically unstable region*

[Cranberry]

Bulgaria recovered its lands on a previous incident on the late 1910's. Sadly, it's not an Ottoman Puppet anymore, xD (Greece is not an Italian vassal either, all because of balance)

OK, thanks for an explanation.

(am I left without any puppets? )

High time to make new ones?

[Cranberry]

By the way Lumine,
I think France would have lost much more colonies after a defeat with Germany, but that's your call.

They did lose virtually everything, they got to keep Algeria and Northern Africa because defeat was not total and the British were able to put pressure to prevent further loss. Who will you play as, by the way?

Update: World building is growing large, so I can adventure we'll have several threads for this (perhaps by continents). Chances are I'll put a NO WAR rule among players for the first few turns so we can balance things out and let the scenario grow.

But, but.... that's the fun part

No, seriously, this really makes sense - it will take some time for us just to get used to this completely divergent and different world.

[Cranberry]

Oh yes, the US backstory really is great. Will we get similar ones for the other countries as well?

[Cranberry]

Could I do a Papal orchestrated Coup d'etat against the Kingdom of Italy? So now its a republic that is a theocracy in all but name?

Obviously it's up to Lumine. I do sincerely hope that if he finds that storyline implausible, you'll still remain as Italy player.

I'll be Italy no matter what. I just want to be a bloody theocrat is all

Just my five cents, this is obviously all up to Lumine (and you), but I don't really find such a theocrat scenario plausible at all - where would the pope suddenly get the power to implement such a coup d'état? But as said, please you do you, play Italy only the way you want to (and our god and master Lumine allows )

[Cranberry]

Could I do a Papal orchestrated Coup d'etat against the Kingdom of Italy? So now its a republic that is a theocracy in all but name?

Obviously it's up to Lumine. I do sincerely hope that if he finds that storyline implausible, you'll still remain as Italy player.

I'll be Italy no matter what. I just want to be a bloody theocrat is all

Just my five cents, this is obviously all up to Lumine (and you), but I don't really find such a theocrat scenario plausible at all - where would the pope suddenly get the power to implement such a coup d'état? But as said, please you do you, play Italy only the way you want to (and our god and master Lumine allows )

Too bad it's not plausible, because I'd love to see the Papal tanks landing in Palestine.

I think I'll do a theocratic Italy with Papal backing rather than complete Papal control. If that's acceptable of course.

That's obviously for Lumine to decide, but again, I just don't see any potential for a theocratic power to arise in early 20th-century Italy, not in OTL and even less so ITL - no one with any remote power and gravitas would back anything like that.

[Cranberry]

Not at all wanting to rush you, Lumine, but I just wanted to state I'm really looking forward to your next updates!

[Cranberry]

Oh Lumine, you magnificent bastard. I cannot tell you how much I love you right now.

[Cranberry]

Lumine, you are a maniac. Chapeau!

[Cranberry]

Lumine, this was amazing. You are truly a master. We bow before you in awe and anticipation.

[Cranberry]

One quick nitpick - I'm not really convinced that Germany, arguably the one having the best position into the future after the first game, would have the same economic rating as provisional government Russia, or also Italy and Spain for that matter, who have all witnessed extreme turmoil within the last ten years, while Germany was left unscathed.

But I'm sure you will have your reasons for that - I just am interested in hearing them, as I personally can't see it with our current knowledge.

EDIT: Come to think of it, I also don't really find it plausible for the United Kingdom.

[Cranberry]

Alright, so your ratings are more to be seen as relative accessors of a nation's economic potential than as absolute numbers, am I getting this right?
If so, could you maybe also include some absolute numbers, so to ease comparability? A way to do this is take, idk, the UK for example as n=100 and give the others ratings relative to this number, assessing a rough number of GDP so to say. I'd fully understand though if you'd say that that was too much work for you, you've already got so much on your plate.

[Cranberry]

Probably best to give you a heads up, expect very little activity from me Thursday-Saturday, maybe even Sunday-ish. I'll check in at least once a day, but not to the insane extent I've been active the last days

[Cranberry]

That'd be all from me for turn 1.

[Cranberry]

Enjoy your holiday, Lumine!

Two things from me - sorry for being very low on activity the last days: I was graduating high school this week, with the great Matura-exams (Kal will know what this is, for the others, it's basically the Austrian, Italian and Central European version of the Abitur / Bac / A-Levels, so kinda like a bigger version of finals), so I had other things in mind - first studying, then completely different things. On top of that, my computer decided it was the perfect time to break (kinda), so for two weeks-ish now I've just been able to access Atlas on my iPad. While that works fine for browsing, it's kinda a pain in the ass for proper posting. Regardless, I'll try to be more active again now that the exam period (and school in general) is over.

Secondly, I'll be on holiday in Iceland from July 4 to July 15, and plan to like never use Atlas during that period. So for that time period then, can we have a Italy-style solution with Lumine doing my internal policy, and Kal doing my foreign policy + army?

[Cranberry]

Have the best luck with matura!

I've finished it on Thursday, but thanks nevertheless

[Cranberry]

Alright people, this seems as if it is a bit of a bad time, but I'm going on holiday for two weeks - as we said before, could Kalwejt take over my foreign policy during that time, Lumine?

Have fun guys, and don't destroy the whole planet while I'm off

[Cranberry]

Sorry guys, I won't come back to play as Germany. In fact, I don't plan to return to Atlas at all, and I am just here shortly to let you know. I hate to let you down that way, but I'm sorry. Have fun, and thank you for the fun you all gave me.