Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:10 pm
I'm not sure whether Kaiserreich is that big. Granted, Hearts of Iron IV is definitely one of the more popular games out there with a very large community, with a big chance of being the most popular strategy game out there. When it comes to how big it is amongst alternative histories Kaiserreich probably is the setting with the largest active fanbase (although I'd say Man in the High Castle is the most well-known setting overall). One thing I have noticed though is that the HOI4 playerbase is on average pretty politically active or at the least keeping up to date with politics. That, mixed with Kaiserreich's decision to opt for a few alternative ideologies and "what-if" political movements helps people find out about some ideologies that haven't seen the light of day since the rise of fascism and the consolidation of communism as socialism's main radical branch.
I don't think it will have any big impact outside of the internet. The main two groups that could "benefit" from new attention are syndicalism (which is more than just a meme, but is very small outside of those few well-read working class activists in labour unions) and whatever happened to Huey Long's Democrat populism, and I think the latter is probably pretty dead by now as the Democratic Party is much more invested in social justice and economic liberalism while Huey Long's name is more invoked to justify any kind of policy within the borders of Louisiana. The other political movements that are present in Kaiserreich have already been popular amongst edgy strategy gamer kids before Kaiserreich became popular anyways, such as the rise of the more monarchical conservatism of the High Tories within the British Conservative Party's youth (albeit still incredibly small). We already have a few memes for those kind of people within the Victoria II playerbase...
Also, I definitely wouldn't want to live in the world of Kaiserreich:
- Most of "monarchist" Europe is run by practically a collection of dictatorships, satellite states and a few 'democracies' ran by a Prussian style military-bureaucratic administration
- The syndicalist nations have traded Stalinist state suppression for ideological zeal amongst a population very much ready to lynch everyone that doesn't agree with the most radical avant-garde view of syndicalism in 1936
- The US is a powderkeg
- Japan is the same failing democracy as it was in real life, and it probably is even worse now as Ludendorff's ideas of total war (which influenced the Japanese military a lot during their radicalisation) are now even more popular and justified amongst the army
- Russia (in the rework) is ran by rabid nationalists
- The Middle East is dominated by a very unstable modernising state which is at times on the brink of being ruled by nationalist Turks (which we know doesn't work out for minorities) while the rest of said state is being torn apart by ethnic and sectarian violence
- China doesn't go through Generalissimo Cheng's modernisation programs. One can say a lot about the Kuomintang, but at the least they helped alleviate the bad situation in the 1930s. Instead the world of Kaiserreich still has the Zhili (under the guise of a new Qing Empire) and Fengtian cliques fighting it out in northern China while the rest of the country is ran by drug-smuggling warlords like it was in the 1920s. Only Guangdong and Shanxi seem slightly better off and even then they would be faring slightly better in our 'timeline'
- The rest of the world remains roughly the same. However, that same rest of the world wasn't exactly the best place to live in in our 1936 anyways
I don't think it will have any big impact outside of the internet. The main two groups that could "benefit" from new attention are syndicalism (which is more than just a meme, but is very small outside of those few well-read working class activists in labour unions) and whatever happened to Huey Long's Democrat populism, and I think the latter is probably pretty dead by now as the Democratic Party is much more invested in social justice and economic liberalism while Huey Long's name is more invoked to justify any kind of policy within the borders of Louisiana. The other political movements that are present in Kaiserreich have already been popular amongst edgy strategy gamer kids before Kaiserreich became popular anyways, such as the rise of the more monarchical conservatism of the High Tories within the British Conservative Party's youth (albeit still incredibly small). We already have a few memes for those kind of people within the Victoria II playerbase...
Also, I definitely wouldn't want to live in the world of Kaiserreich:
- Most of "monarchist" Europe is run by practically a collection of dictatorships, satellite states and a few 'democracies' ran by a Prussian style military-bureaucratic administration
- The syndicalist nations have traded Stalinist state suppression for ideological zeal amongst a population very much ready to lynch everyone that doesn't agree with the most radical avant-garde view of syndicalism in 1936
- The US is a powderkeg
- Japan is the same failing democracy as it was in real life, and it probably is even worse now as Ludendorff's ideas of total war (which influenced the Japanese military a lot during their radicalisation) are now even more popular and justified amongst the army
- Russia (in the rework) is ran by rabid nationalists
- The Middle East is dominated by a very unstable modernising state which is at times on the brink of being ruled by nationalist Turks (which we know doesn't work out for minorities) while the rest of said state is being torn apart by ethnic and sectarian violence
- China doesn't go through Generalissimo Cheng's modernisation programs. One can say a lot about the Kuomintang, but at the least they helped alleviate the bad situation in the 1930s. Instead the world of Kaiserreich still has the Zhili (under the guise of a new Qing Empire) and Fengtian cliques fighting it out in northern China while the rest of the country is ran by drug-smuggling warlords like it was in the 1920s. Only Guangdong and Shanxi seem slightly better off and even then they would be faring slightly better in our 'timeline'
- The rest of the world remains roughly the same. However, that same rest of the world wasn't exactly the best place to live in in our 1936 anyways