Mod history & concept
Everything started around 2008 when I've played Hearts of Iron 2 Doomsday for the first time. After one or two matches, I tried to conquer the world with Romania. Since I'm a very creative person, I wrote a 'alternate history'-story for my "Greater Romania Empire". This story grew very strong, at least it consisted not only of a alternate history for Romania, but also for many other countries - a full scale alt-history, comparable to Kaiserreich.
Most of these alternate Events were various Revolution which led to a balkanisation of europe. Due that, the Project was called "Usurpator". With the release of Darkest Hour and the expansion of the techtree with WW1 techs, I overworked the story behind Usurpator.
In the new version, the world after WW1 was afflicted by famine, revolution and civil war. This led to a highly unstable, violent world. The technological advance stagnated on the level of 1920. Fights between monarchists, democrats, nazis and communists broke out all over the world. Because ironclad 'Tank' were the most important weapon in these conflicts, I renamed the mod to "Era of Steel".
Around 2013, I rewrote the concept once again. Inspired by AGEODs 'Revolution under Siege' and the TRP, I wanted to create a alternate history mod, which was neverthless highly accurat - based on the scenario of my RuS savegame, where I was 1920 able to accomplish a patt with the whites in the russian civil war.
Since I grow older and meanwhile love to write complex novels, I've created 'Eternal War', a yet unfinished, unpublished and german only alternate history novel, which is the base for this mod.
The concept is hard to define. At least, this mod is more like a collection of hunders small changes for my personal taste, mixed with lot of alternate history events.
I overworked the concept again in early 2017 and decided to make a full scale mod out of this "personal" project.
What is Eternal War?
Do you want to play an game as authentic as possible? Play TRP.
Do you want to play an highly competitiv, MP focused game? Play Kaiserreich.
Do you want to play an game hard as hell? Play Edge of Darknes.
Eternal War is something other. Highly story based, it's more a kind of an RPG: choose your country and lead it through WW2 - with a lot of different events which will maybe lead to a totally surprising end. Beside this, I wanted to keep the vanilla game experience as good as possible. You CAN play WW2, and if you don't active interfere, the outcome should be like in real history. But you can also change the worlds destiny completely.
Some of the main conceptual elements:
- Arc-based storyline for (mostly) minor nations.
- Beside this alternate history. a highly authentic feeling: historic OOBs, corrected ministers, more historic events etc.
- A more casual game mechanic to allow eaqsygoing roleplaying, especially with normally weak minors.
- The possibility to expand the game into the cold war and even modern days.
The most important changes to Vanilla DH Full
Like mentioned above, there are several changes to the vanilla HoI. Here I will explain the most essential ones. But Keep in mind that there are a lot of other small changes!
1. Arc.-based Storylines: For some nations, I've made a full alternate history which integrates itself into the real history we know. These stories are part of my "eternal war" world history, which continues into the far future. If you play with such a country, you're free to choose the 'eternal war-arc', which will lead to a new way and (maybe) affect the outcome of WW2 massive. Neverthless, you can also play the historic way. If you do, the world after ww2 should be the same as in reality. In the current version, there are more or less 3 arcs avaible: The balkan arc (playable up to the german capitulation), the russian whites arc (playable up to 1941/Barbarossa) and the facist switzerland arc (only playable to the outbreak of the Swiss Civil War).
2. Overworked Terrain: Plains are now Flatlands (plain to hilly terrain with no to decent Vegetation), Hills are Mountains (around 500-1500 meter), Mountains are now high Mountains (1500 and more meters). This change should simulate the strategical problems with mountain ridge better. Fighting in the Mountains is hard, but fighting in high mountains is nearly impossible. The Alps, the Balkan, the Pyrenees - this natural defences should be much more important then in vanilla HoI. Fight in high mountains is very bloody and lossy - Jäger-Infantry is a must.
3. More clear modifiers, more WYSIWYG. DH uses sometimes +1% defence in XY Terrain etc.. It's nearly impossible to oversee, which units is best for task XY. In Eternal War, tanks are axemplary total useless in high mountains (-more then 80% effectivness). But also regular infantry: without any terrain training, they suffer from cold and rough terrain, and this as defender AND attacker. They are better then tanks, but still a very bad choice. Same System I use for brigades: a tank brigade lowers the weakness only few %. But eh, a brigade is 1/3 of a Division. A infantry divisioon + a tank brigade means that 1/4 of the whole Division is armoured. In Eternal War this is reflected 1:1 according to the equipment stated in the unit tooltip. Every single tanks lowers the weakness XY %. With manpower the same: a strategic bomber needs a crew of 10. An STRAT Group of 100 Bombers needs so 1000 men -> MP cost 1. No more give away MP for ghost soldiers. If you know the basics of military tactics/strategy, you should be able to play DH.
4. New Ministers, techtree, leaders and more: Long term it should be possible to play up to 2050 - I will add the techs and everything else it needs.
5. Dumb AI: Since the AI is partially very unhorthodox and do strange things, I've made the AI much more unflexible. This guarantees a more or less historic outcome of WW2 (which is necessary to play further into the cold war), but makes the AI very predictable/gives lot of room for exploits. Neverthless, this mod aims to allow fine and cozy roleplay with your favored Nation. If you need to use exploits bsessive - don't play this mod
6. Live time Support. This Mod is my life-time project I working on since 2008. I aim to expand the timeline up to the future, which I maybe will never be aible to do since it that much of effort. But I will always work on this project, no matter what. Even if DH is played by absolute no one - this is primary not a mod for the community; this mod is a to bring my novel to life. And I will do this, even if no one is playing DH any more, even If I'm the only last guy on earth. So, if you like this, you don't have to fear that the "Team" stops to improve and expand this mod. I will always working on.
Background Story
After the russian revolution, the Whites where able to reach a patt. In 1921, a all-russian-peace-treaty was concluded. 1927-1931 there was a intercommunistic war between Stalin and Trotzki. Stalin won.
1934, the UdSSR invaded the Countries created in 1921, controled by the Whites.
The western countries suffer from economic weakness; additionally to the great Depression unsuccessful interventions in Russia has cost many lives and lot of money. In these days, Hitler came to power and led Germany to new strenght. Unstable, desolated by civil unrest and economic problems, the West is not really a thread to the new power. But many fascists, which were radicalised by the bloody wars fought by the communists, meanwhile view every kind of socialism as a bad outgrowth of communism. Since WW1 the world was parted by the democraties & dictatorships. Now, with the rise of new facism, which is not aligmed to any existing allince: How this will influence the upcoming war?
Whats done?
You should be able to play through WW2 with any country you wish. For Romania, the alternate history is fleshed out up to 1945. Techs, units, and for some countries even historic ministers/govermental changes should be integrated up to 1945/german capitulation. If you just watch, the outcome of WW2 should be a historical partening of europe with the 'orthodox Entente' (Balkan Arc) as 3rd Cold War Party.
The mod should be stable and without any errors except missing translations.
At the current state, only very few textes are available in english. German (my main language) is fully supported.
Whats next?
Primarily, ensure that the AI follow the intended way. To allow a continuation from 1945, it is very necessary to create a stable WW2 Outcome.
Secondary, I really want to make an english version. For this, I have to translate a unmanageable number of Strings, especially since the file structur is a bit messy during the long development time (2008-today).
Tertiary, I have to rework the mod structure. Rearrange files, and subfolders, replace static texts with translatable strings.
Quaternary, I want to finish the timeline up to 1945. Means: adding all 1936-1945 available story arcs, adding all neccessary historic Events to 1945, adding ministers, govermental changes etc up to 1945.
What I need?
YOU!
Primary I need translators. I can english, but not that good; I need Google translate to check what I've wrote. This way I'm very very slow in translating. Every sentence the community can translate for me would be great!
Secondary, I need testers. I mostly use my free time to mod, not to play. Since it's very important to have a predictably WW2 (to continue the story after), I need players that report 'non-canon' situations. Additonally I think I've messed the balancing with adopting my new System of modifiers, doctrines and unit-values. With that less time I have to play myself, I can only correct the hardest problems. And I'm not a good HoI Player, a pro who can better evaluate whats OP and whats UP would be great!
Tertiary, I need database editors. Since I want to delet all unhistoric & not 'Eternal War' related characters, adding techteam & leaders for even the smallest minor, correct all goverments and make appropriate election/coup events, I Need nearly a specialst for every Country.
Write me an PM or here in the Forum if you are interested to help! You can become a full team meber of Vmods, including Name in the credits and a General/Minister/techteam ingame
Credits
Some of the OOBs based on the TRP - thanks a lot for your work and the permission to use it!
You can download the eternal-war here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kbr_LBkKHvJEgLH0XARRA0nwEIezerSj/view?usp=drive_link
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