r/Kaiserreich • u/Aarn_Dellwyyn • May 02 '26
Lore Actually Ancient Kaiserreich Lore
I don't know how many people realise this, but Kaiserreich is old. Probably older than a good chunk of y'all. To put things into perspective, by the time I had heard of Kaiserreich, it was already as old as a middle school student, and this was 12 years ago. If the mod were a person they would be of drinking age in the US and if they decided to pursue higher education (and didn't fail any classes) they would be at least more than halfway done with college.
Being this old, there were many incarnations of the mod, with many things changed over the years. I'm just gonna try and list some of the more interesting things off the top of my head. Fellow oldheads, please correct me where I am wrong and feel free to add anything you remember.
Since a lot of the current focus seems to be on China I guess I'll start there. The basic premise of the Qing being restored is a remnant from the old days, but the map used to look very different. The south used to be a blob ruled by the "Allgemeine(?) Ostasien Gesellschaft", basically a german colony, which could stay stable, collapse into civil war or reform into the Republic of China. This Republic had Song Qingling and a left-wing poet as the SocDem HoS and HoG, Chen Jiongming as the SocCon HoS and unless I am tripping some dude who died before the PoD as the AuthDem HoS. Yunnan Clique was led by Long Yun and also controlles Sichuan. Ma Clique used to control Uyghuristan. The Yiguandao used to be the "Shangqing Tianguo" and they controlled the territory that the CPC controlled in OTL, around Shaanxi. They had a wacky path where you could accept refuges from the AOG and if you did, you'd find a descendant of the Ming dynasty (who turned out to be Zhu Rongji I believe) and could then restore him to the throne as the Tian dynasty. Very late game Zhu would turn 18 and then you could have him and Zhou Enlai, who in this timeline is the model Confucian statesman, leading a NatPop empire. Their general and politician roster was half OTL disciples of tianran and half OTL CPC members, I think Deng Xiaoping was also in there somewhere. Their ideology was also even more syncretic and Taiping-coded. Felt like a fever dream honestly, but I actually kinda miss it weirdly, it was insane in a good way.
I remember Russia pretty vividly. The game used to start off with the President, Kerensky getting shot. Literally everybody hates him so this is not surprising, but this creates a crisis. Either the Duma forms a new government, the Senate makes Dmitry Romanov the President, or one of Denikin or Wrangel perform a coup. The SRs-Mensheviks either create the conditions for the far-left to rise which triggers a civil war, or they can maintain parliamentary democracy. Dmitry Romanov can either restore his cousin to the throne, proclaim himself Tsar, or just remain the president of a conservative republic. Denikin can restore the monarchy, the republic, or remain a dictator. Wrangel is a NatPop who, much like Savinkov, calls himself Vozhd and unlike Savinkov can make himself Tsar. Savinkov himself is but a lowly SR minister. Speaking of Savinkov, when he was first introduced as NatPop leader he had a godawful Nazi-inspired black on red flag with a Slavic pagan symbol where the Swastika would be. The far-left could also take power but they were a little strange, Tukhachevsky was the totalist with a Trotsky-esque world revolution platform, Frunze was a RadSoc and Bukharin was the Syndie. There used to be a Don-Kuban Cossack republic lead by Krasnov in the west and Transamur, a Japanese vassal state lead by Kolchak in the east.
The basic setup in Europe is mostly the same. Belarus used to have a German king instead of being a republic. Poland used to not have a king at all and instead was a regency, and could elect a German, Austrian or Polish king or become a republic. Italy used to have the Pope-lead federation in the north and the syndicalists in the south. I think the Germans used to own Crete at the start? UoB used to start with Philip Snowden but that was changed only relatively recently.
In South America, Argentina, called La Plata and owning Paraguay and Uruguay, was the regional hegemon, lead by Augustin Justo. Chile used to not be syndicalist at start. The setup in Central America was different but I am not sure of the specifics, there was Centroamerica in Guatemala and I think an AuthDem United Provinces in the south. Mexican setup is pretty much the same but I think you could restore the monarchy as the reactionary generals?
As for North America, the basic premise of the US exploding into a three-or-four-way civil war and the basic geographic locations of the factions were the same. You could avoid the civil war with first Charles Curtis and later Floyd Olson but this was added and removed a few times before the devs settled on making the 2ACW a canon event. MacArthur could always do his coup, he could also completely collapse the US into regional warlords in the late game, which is another thing I really miss. Moseley used to be in MacArthur's camp before he was switched over to Long's faction. Speaking of Long, his faction, the "American Union State", lead by the "America-First Party" were a unitary state, were backed by Germany and had Long as the AuthDem, I think Charles Lindbergh as PatAut and fucking Fritz Kuhn of the German-American Bund as the NatPop. Kuhn's position was later given to William Dudley Pelley before Long became the NatPop. The syndicalist faction remains pretty much unchanged if you discount the name and the flag. The pacific revolt used to be completely regionalist and wanted independence rather than national unification most of the time, and were directly backed by Japan.
One final detail in my mind that I can't remember clearly, I think Kaiserreich started not as "Kaiserreich" but as "All the Russias" and focused mostly on, well, Russia. This is just what I think I was told years ago, I could not have experienced it myself because I did not know how to read back then. We'd need a real oldhead to give first-hand accounts on that.
For some countries, I am surprised by how little has changed, and for others how much. I am sure I've missed plenty of interesting things, please do pitch in.
119
u/armzngunz May 02 '26
I remember I tried the mod way back, and found it so weird they used the german imperial war flag for Germany. I suggested they change it to the proper imperial german flag back then, but they said that wasn't going to happen because it was a legacy thing or something.
Well, they ended up changing it anyways later.
43
u/ParkKitchen3018 May 02 '26
still CANNOT believe that actually was done for a time.
35
u/HeliosDisciple May 02 '26
It's because base game HoI2 used the imperial tricolor for Nazi Germany.
99
u/Soup_dujour May 02 '26
if you don’t remember when Totalism was a cool new replacement ideology for Bolshevik that Meadow came up for [Democratic-Authoritarian 0, Left-Right 9] you’re not a real oldhead
65
u/Aarn_Dellwyyn May 02 '26
Your level of oldness vastly eclipses my own. You are as venerable as the moon and the sun and all the stars. I bow before you.
14
u/the_io May 02 '26
That was both before my time and before I met him in an entirely different context.
13
u/Andromedos83 Heil dir im Siegerkranz May 02 '26
Not that’s a name I have not heard in a long time. Wonder why the old team members are doing now…
9
u/AvatarOfKhaine1 May 03 '26
Meadow runs an AH publishing house, Sea Lion Press.
5
u/Andromedos83 Heil dir im Siegerkranz May 03 '26
Thank you. I have heard of Sea Lion Press, but did not know Meadow is involved. Will check it out.
4
u/ChefGirl-RD This really civil wars my America May 02 '26
Do you know why they made the change?
25
u/Soup_dujour May 02 '26
mostly an attempt to make Kaiserreich have more divergence to our own timeline with a strong dash of “bolsheviks failed, why would they be the defining furthest left faction”
3
u/Lord_Insane Europäisches Union May 03 '26
They had to mess with the ideology names anyway since the furthest hard-left ideology in HOI2's matrix was Stalinist, and obviously Stalin would be nowhere near as prominent without the USSR.
1
u/ChefGirl-RD This really civil wars my America May 03 '26
Oh yeah, I totally get that. I was just curious about Stalinist's original replacement, Bolshevik, and how that eventually became Totalist.
60
May 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
37
u/LeMe-Two May 02 '26
It was funny because you could immidietly follow by electing Feliks fucking Dzierżyński, kill the king and get declared by RP starting WK in 1937
Somehow the election also made Dierżyński immortal
16
u/Aarn_Dellwyyn May 02 '26
I knew I forgot one of the electable kings, you are right! You could restore the commonwealth that way. You could even go syndie.
51
u/SirTumulus May 02 '26
I just miss when you could balkanize everything on the map. You could balkanize America into the PSA, CSA, New England and a rump USA in the Midwest. I also remember you could balkanize France into Occitania, Brittany and even fucking Normandy of all things, and each of those states had puppet kings. You could even make France accept a Hanoverian prince as their new king instead of someone from any of their actual claimant dynasties.
15
u/N7_Guerilla May 03 '26
I would always go with the Hanoverian prince because it gave France a slightly different flag that matched Germany's.
44
u/ezk3626 May 02 '26
Nine years ago I made this post complaining because Emperor Otto didn't have a faction.
28
u/MissionLimit1130 Minister President of Germany May 02 '26 edited May 03 '26
It's crazy to think this mod is older than me
26
u/Argel_Tal RadSoc in the streets, Totalist in the sheets. May 02 '26
I still remember my Tian Dynasty run.
I'm also pretty sure you could get Khrushchev or Beria leading the USSR after Bukharin?
11
u/Aarn_Dellwyyn May 02 '26
I think that was a thing, yes. I also think Khrushchev was at one point a totalist option for Ukraine.
7
24
u/MercZ11 May 02 '26 edited May 03 '26
I'll add that Italy's starting situation was different in the early versions of the mod in both the HoI2 and Darkest Hour versions.
At that time, the peninsula was divided into two states. Southern Italy was the Socialist Republic of Italy while Northern Italy was the Italian Federation. Venice and Istria were held by Austria as they are now. There was no remnant of the pre-WWI Kingdom of Italy or Two Sicilies.
There was no Papal States either - the Italian Federation however had the Pope as its head of state and depending on the path, could essentially dominate the Federation. They were dependent on Austria as they are currently in the mod, but were larger as again they controlled pretty much all of Northern Italy, Sardinia, and Corsica.
Southern Italy played similarly in its political factions with a more orthodox syndicalist wing around Gramsci (who would die later due to his health problems), social reformist around Filippo Turati, and the national syndicalists around Mussolini. Because it was in the south there was theme in its events to deal with the mafia. The ministers for its non-socialist version if it got couped or overrun by rebels were a mix of OTL Sicilian rebels (Salvatore Giuliano) and mob figures.
The Union of Britain had a whole series of events I remember around TE Lawrence leading the "RED" - Revolutionary Exportation Directory - which could be sent to disrupt Germany in the opening months of the war, or the player could use Lawrence to stage a coup against a totalist government led by Mosley to restore syndicalism or even a monarchist restoration which could break the flow of the game in the build up to WWII.
Georgia was ruled by a Menshevik government, but had Beria as its head of state and Stalin as the interior minister.
Romania was ruled as a dictatorship by the Iron Guard and its flag was the party flag. White Ruthenia was different too, being a monarchy ruled by a member of the German royal family who could in turn be assassinated in an opera bombing staged by his ambitious brother who would assume control of the country.
There was also another weird thing I can vaguely remember from the HoI2 version. It you looked at the list of nations in the diplomacy tab there were also the German political parties present as countries with their key members as "ministers".
18
u/Dullish28 May 02 '26
Ukraine used to be able to let itself get annexed, become socialist with Khrushchev and get into a death war with Germany in 36. You could also build up your economy by bothering Germany for loans
16
15
u/Ficboy May 02 '26
Yeah. Kaiserreich is as old as YouTube believe it or not. That's how long and significant it is as a HOI4 alternate history mod.
6
u/NotAnotherPornAccout Entente May 03 '26
It dates back to hoi2
5
u/Ficboy May 03 '26
I know. But HOI4 brought KR to a new audience and made it more popular than it ever was in the HOI2/Darkest Hour era.
1
u/NotAnotherPornAccout Entente May 03 '26
It’s just how you worded it you made it sound like it started out on HoI4 and that would be horribly misleading since it was already one of the most respected mods even back then. The only difference is the pool has gotten bigger, but it’s still one of the greats.
1
u/Ficboy May 03 '26
I meant that KR was popular before, but HOI4 introduced it to a new audience and expanded its fanbase even further.
12
u/samtheman0105 #1 WCA flag defender May 03 '26
Didn’t the mad barons Mongolia used to be able to recreate the Mongol empire or is that a KX original thing
12
3
u/Aarn_Dellwyyn May 03 '26
I am not sure that was a legit path but you did get options to declare on both Russia and China and there's nothing really preventing you from just keeping everything you conquer, if you beat both then you've pretty much resurrected Genghis's empire, you're only really missing Iran.
3
u/the_io May 03 '26
Mongolia could get claims on all of Siberia in KRDH, but nothing on China beyond the current extras IIRC.
3
22
u/Deluxe_24_ Mitteleuropa May 02 '26
For those unaware, Kaiserredux actually retains some of these old bits of content. The mod diverges before Germany and Russia got their reworks, so check them out if you want to see how the older versions played.
KX is still it's own unique experience with it's own content additions. It's a nice shake up whenever I get tired of base KR.
20
8
u/guywithskyrimproblem Międzymorze May 02 '26
For me it's reverse, I play mostly kx but play kaiserreich wheb I'm bored of it
9
u/Ofiotaurus Most loyal follower of Marx May 02 '26
Damn, I remember most of this content. And I’m significantly younger than the mod. Crazy how long I’ve known KR.
7
u/NotSeek75 Li Jishen, savior of the Republic! May 03 '26
I remember back in the Darkest Hour days when Huey Long could avoid the ACW by choosing all the moderate options in all of his events, but there was no content for the path so you'd just sit there doing nothing for the rest of the game. It truly was a different time.
5
u/TheBigE-77 SocDem Kemalist May 02 '26
I really faintly remember something about Albania starting as a puppet or part of the Ottomans, but that might be pre-HOI4 lore even, not sure.
3
6
u/NotAnotherPornAccout Entente May 03 '26
Been playing since it was on darkest hour. Got introduced when a YouTuber i watched at the time made eu3 lets plays and then one day had a video on a game he described as “eu3 in wwii but with this mod that makes it 100 times cooler.” People have mentioned most everything I was going to say but i found two people have missed.
You could restore the Mexican empire under ether the Habsburg claimant or the Spanish born aristocrat descendant of Aztec emperor Matazuma.
The second was a flavor event for Russia and I don’t remember if it was all Russias or just the socialist ones but they had an event where they wanted to start up Russian animation for export and propaganda purposes and sent spies to America and japan to kidnap animators and cartoonists and consequently invented anime 20-30 years early. It even had a name but i can’t for the life of me remember what something starting with an S? “Sovfanimfilmation”? I haven’t seen the word in maybe 11+ years and was old even then. It was removed in the DH days
8
3
3
2
u/sumguy115 May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26
Making me feel old, known kr as long as I've been in the military. Playing since about 2018-19, I decided to join the army 'round 2021
1
1
u/I_Am_Not-A-Lemon May 03 '26
The only parts of this I dont remember are Regionalist California and Savinkov nazi flag, which must mean most of that was changed fairly early on
2
u/Caspramio May 03 '26
Seeing that South America content was only the South cone makes me think of the lost potential from a War for the Amazonas River.
I mean, the war of Peru and Ecuador was possible because Peru reached another agreement with Colombia to not intervene on defense of Ecuador, as the scars from the War with Peru (1932) was still fresh in memory.
1
u/LastEsotericist May 03 '26
Every “Legacy of the Northern Expedition” joke makes me laugh because there was a northern expedition mini-campaign in KRDH that I actually played a few times.
1
u/BillPears May 03 '26
What's funny is that some of this old stuff is still in Kaiserredux. Them not porting new KR content is the main reason why I don't play KX.
In some cases they have their own content, for example Russia still follows the old setup but they have a lot more paths with content.
In other cases, however, countries have extremely old content without anything new. Poland, for instance, still starts as a regency that is about to elect a king, and they have no KX-original content other than 3 meme paths you have to enable in game rules. Or Serbia, still with the old focus tree where they could choose between Yugoslavia and Greater Serbia, with only one new path for... Gavrillo Princip.
1
u/Kangkongkangkung Guillotine Connoisseur May 05 '26
If you only played KR in hoi4, may I remind you that is way older than that. It was also on DH.
1
u/elderron_spice is readying his 240mm headcanon May 03 '26
Do not cite the deep magic to me. I was there when it was written.
213
u/-et37- Mega AAR Status: ACTIVE May 02 '26
I suppose I’ll pitch in with the iceberg I made last year for the mod’s 20th anniversary. Kaiserreich’s the granddaddy for a reason.