It always comes down to AI and, to a lesser degree, player expectations. People claim to want alt-history and sandboxiness, so vanilla HoI3 had very little restrictions. Jesus christ the shit storm on their forums when WW2 didn't start on 1st September 1939 with Germany attacking Poland. Or France stood their ground. Or Any of the other myriad thing that could happen - fascist USA being prime example. So turns out that vast majority of players actually want the WW2 to go exactly as it historically happened, except that the country that the player runs should have 100% freedom to do any- and everything. Whoopie, players are retards, news at eleven.
+1 for special path to Hitler's Nobel Peace Prize.
Well, to be fair, this IS a reasonable standard for simulational accuracy, that, in the event that the player does not intervene, history should unfold similarly to the way is actually did, or could very well have. If something wildly out of the blue happens, like the world being conquered by Tibet, something is wrong with the simulation. It should not, however, necessarily be perfectly on rails, although perhaps a rail-strength slider might satisfy everyone.
Eh, I dunno. You can still bomb an awful lot of countries and still get a Nobel Peace Prize. Let's not forget that Obama has bombed more countries than arch-warmonger Bush or any other American president in history.
You should see the house-rules for the big MP campaigns. Most are extremely restrictive - forbidding the intelligence game completely is common. Some do make sense, as USSR for example can easily exploit a minor war to get the best laws in 1937 and thus be an unstoppable juggernaut by 1940.
I just wish the AI would know how to use armour properly. Unfortunately that is hardcoded in the .exe so modders can only fiddle with division composition and construction priorities. At least it was discovered that if the AI has enough GAR units to guard ports and VP provinces, it doesn't waste armour on such tasks. But it is extremely rare to see the AI try an actual armoured breakthrough and if you see one, it was purely by chance.
Absolute agreed. Any Cold War expansion will have to focus on having at least three possible end scenarios for setting up the post-war world order, followed by a reasonable nuclear system to keep the big atomic dogs in line. Good news is that the path system seems to provide a good basis for modders to pursue this too.
