Video Game / Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg

Fest steht und treu die Wacht, die Wacht am Rhein!^Translation Firm stands, and true, the Watch, the Watch at the Rhine!

"Now the sword must decide. In the midst of peace we have been attacked. Germany united has never been conquered. We will advance with God by our side, as he was with our forefathers."

— Kaiser Wilhelm II

Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg is a Hearts of Iron II, Darkest Hour and Hearts of Iron IV Game Mod that is set in an alternate timeline where the Central Powers win World War I. Currently in 1.4 beta for Hearts of Iron II, 1.9 beta for Darkest Hour and 1.0 for Hearts of Iron IV, Kaiserreich takes many of the same nations in a different direction, while introducing dozens of new countries, ministers and leaders.

The Kaiserreich timeline departs from that of the OTL^note "original timeline", i.e. the real world history during The First Weltkrieg in 1917, when the German Empire does not renew unrestricted submarine warfare. This prevents the United States from having the impetus to join the war since its shipping is not threatened. Later that year, a British submarine mistakenly torpedoes an American freighter heading to Germany while enforcing a naval blockade choking Germany off from food imports and needed supplies. To soothe American relations, Britain has no choice but to ease the blockade, allowing the Central Powers to regain their footing. With renewed strength, the Central Powers are able to reverse their misfortunes with new offensives in spring 1919. There is still no crushing victory but the Entente no longer has any hope of starving the Central Powers into submission. With no American intervention, Russia knocked out of the war, and both Britain and France at the end of their rope, France loses the ability to carry the war forward and sends out feelers for an armistice. Germany accepts. The Central Powers are declared the victors of the war in the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. Germany legitimized their gains in the east, creating a series of allied nations and forming the Reichspact. Their gains against France are minimal, and even these are erased as France descends into a Syndicalist revolution leading to civil war, leading Germany to stay well clear. A cold war developed between the Central Powers and the British Empire until the "Peace With Honor" was signed concluding their war in a stalemate, leaving Germany as the dominant power of Europe, a position that it would carry into the world in the decade after.

The following decade saw a world created far different from the one we know. A bitterly exhausted France was reborn following their civil war as the Commune of France, the torchbearer of worldwide Syndicalism. The British Empire, bloodied and bankrupt following millions of her sons dead for no good cause, fell to their own revolution. The monarchy and loyalist military and politicians fled to Canada and began the decades-long project to gather their forces from the remaining dominions of the empire to strike back to the home islands and reclaim the birthright. An insular United States, having loaned huge sums to the Entente now with no hope of repayment, plunged into a seemingly permanent Great Depression. With the traditional political machinery all but paralyzed by the crisis, extremist socialist and populist movements, with ideas previously unthinkable to the American mind, have seen growing acceptance. Victorious Germany extended their reach worldwide, intervening in the Russian Civil War to crush Russian communism, leading to a White victory. Combinations of military action, clever diplomacy, and outright theft resulted in the capture of former British and French colonies, leading to a truly worldwide German Empire.

It is now 1936, and much has changed since the war's end. The former Entente homelands of Britain and France have been remade in Syndicalist revolution, creating a red alliance that seeks both revolutionary and revanchist expansion. In White Russia, the defeat of the Soviets led to nothing but years of irrelevance and instability, but iron-willed revanchism has since taken hold. They see the creation of the Reichspact nations as theft of their rightful territory, an insult stoked and nurtured by the new Vozhd Boris Savinkov into a fire that will consume Russia to be remade or destroyed. The United States has become a hotbed of radical politics after years of neverending Great Depression, and there are whispers of armed paramilitaries making preparations for great uprisings that may collapse America into a Second American Civil War.

Germany remains the hegemon of the globe, with an empire spanning across three continents. But for all their successes in war, success in peace has proven more elusive. Arrogant mismanagement has turned their conquered territories into hotbeds of unrest. Their economy, for all its outward prosperity, has begun to tremble. Revanchist nations across the globe prepare and wait for the right moment to make their ambitions real. Unrest and uncertainty shake the German psyche as they see themselves now, as before, surrounded by foes and threats. New alliances are forming as the old ones are dying, and all are preparing for a new global conflict. A Second Weltkrieg, promising to be several times bigger than the first, seems to lie on the horizon.

The latest version of the mod can be downloaded here (for Darkest Hour) and here (for HoI 4), the mod also has its own wiki, official subreddit and Twitter. While similar in Broad Strokes, there are some slight differences between the two versions of the mod due in part to different mechanics in the respective base games, slightly divergent development choices and different release paces.

Kaiserreich has also its own spin-off Führerreich: Legacy of the Great War, based on a Double-Blind What-If novel described in Kaiserreich. There is also Red Flood, which, like Führerreich, originated from a double-blind what if novel described in Kaiserreich, but it has since expanded into its own thing.

Several Cold War-themed spin-off mods set after the Second Weltkrieg are currently under development. Two of the more notable ones are Kalterkrieg: Shadow of the Weltkrieg, focusing on a cold war between the Entente and Reichspakt after their difficult victory over the Third Internationale, and Krasnacht: Twilight of the Gods, focusing on a cold war between a victorious Third Internationale and the emerging Savinkovist Saratov Pact.

Compare with The New Order: Last Days of Europe and Thousand-Week Reich for other examples of Hearts of Iron Alt-History mods in which Germany wins WW2 instead. See also Kaiserredux: A Kaiserreich Expansion, a Kaiserreich submod that focuses on fun and interesting scenarios over realism/grounded lore, which restores some former retconned IV Kaiserreich content and adds in many of their own.

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Direct rule from the tropes!:

• 0% Approval Rating:
  • How Leon Trotsky is looked upon by the Socialist nations due to his responsibility in the failure of the Russian Revolution.
  • President Hoover of the USA is so widely hated that his own party has largely disassociated from him.
• A.I. Roulette: While the AI does have certain biases to event outcomes, most of the time the AI's decisions to events are completely random.
• Allohistorical Allusion:
  • The Spanish Civil War once again happens in the 1930s, but with many differences compared to real life. It happens in the Kingdom of Spain instead of the Spanish Republic. There are three sides instead of two, and are between Carlists, Alfonsists, and Anarcho-Syndicalists instead of between Republicans and Nationalists. A rework currently under development plans to change the Spanish Civil War to a war between a Monarchist coalition (led by Alfonsists, but the Carlists can coup them) and a Republican coalition (which can break down into liberal Republicans and Anarcho-Syndicalists for a three-sided civil war).
  • Black Monday, the inevitable crash of the German stock market in 1936, is a direct allusion to the Wall Street Crash that started The Great Depression. This is Zig-zagged in that the Wall Street Crash did happen in the Kaiserreich timeline, albeit earlier (1925) and didn't have worldwide ramifications thanks to America's isolationism.
  • Leni Riefenstahl ends up directing a movie about Adolf Hitler's heroism and valor combined with a message about German superiority.
  • The American Civil War event chain has an event where FBI director Hoover proposes to the president to assassinate Huey Long (or Reed). This is in reference to the numerous conspiracy theories surrounding supposed government involvement in Long's assassination.
  • Description of one of the focuses for the Market Socialist path for Combined Syndicates of America, "American Syndicalism", says that even though businessmans spilled blood of the American workers for too long, America still can use the American entrepreneurial spirit for building Syndicalism with American characteristics.
  • Charles de Gaulle can succeed Philippe Pétain as leader of the exiles of Nationalist France; historically they ended up on opposite sides of World War II, with Pétain leading the Vichy government for the Axis and de Gaulle leading the Free French for the Allies.
  • Completing the Public Works focus for Canada causes an event about the creation of the "Queen Mary Way", or QMW, a large highway in Ontario named for Mary, The Queen Mother, King Edward VIII's mother. In Real Life, there is a large highway in Ontario called the "Queen Elizabeth Way", often called the QEW, named for Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. They cover approximately the same stretch of land.
  • One of the militia units for the CSA is the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, unlocked when the civil war begins. In real life, the brigade was one of many formed by the Comintern to assist the Second Spanish Republic, and mainly made up of American left-wingers. Oliver Law is also available in several minister positions for the CSA.
  • One of the Canadian national focuses available after restoring the United Kingdom is to create a holiday to celebrate their country, which they call Canadian Day.^note Though the holiday we know as Canada Day would have already existed, it's just that it was generally known as Dominion Day until the 1980s.
  • In addition to the loading screen depicting Russian State troops lifting their flag above the Reichstag, the event for whenever Berlin falls to a foreign invader will mention a squad of soldiers doing the same thing.
  • Syndicalist nations around the globe have the option to attend Spartakiade events, an international sports event exclusive to them. In real life, the Spartakiad was a Soviet-sponsored international sports event for Eastern Bloc countries.
  • If the player decides to keep Russia politically right-wing (either by restoring the Russian Monarchy or having it as a Conservative/Market Liberal republic) and declares war on the Commune of France or Imperial Germany, an event will fire named "The Great Patriotic War against the Commune of France/Germany". (The Great Patriotic War was the Soviet name for the Eastern front of World War 2)
  • Following the end of a Second Weltkrieg where both the Reichspakt and the Entente fought against the Third Internationale and defeated them, it is very easy for France to become partitioned into a Reichspakt-aligned "French Kingdom" in the north, and the Entente's National France in the south. This mirrors the partition of Germany following WWII, and the mod Kalterkrieg directly draws upon this parallel as a part of its Entente-Reichspakt Cold War.
  • If the Netherlands has a conservative, military or far-right government in power, Marinus van der Lubbe will set fire to the parliament building, exactly five years after its historical counterpart. This event can then be used as justification for a red scare and the consolidation of a far-right regime. You know which other far-right politician blamed commies for setting fire to the parliament building?
  • If MacArthur is able to lead the United States to victory in the Second American Civil War, he has the option of ceding power back to a democratically elected government or seize control of the nation as a president for life. If MacArthur chooses the latter, he will reform the government along the lines of his OTL occupation of Japan.
  • George V and Captain Myers quote Winston Churchill's "We Shall Fight on the Beaches" and "This was their finest hour" speeches in World of Kaiserreich Dominion Of Canada (British Exiles) - 2/2. For added irony, they are quoting the first speech in the exact opposite situation that Churchill gave it in real life: He was talking about defending Britain from invasion, they are talking about their invasion and liberation of Britain.
  • If Syndicalist revolution occurs in Ukraine or White Ruthenia, or if they leave the Reichspakt, the German Empire may invade these countries to restore loyal royal regimes. This is quite similar to the actions of the Soviet Union from OTL in 1956 and 1968, aimed at preserving its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.
  • Prince Albert, The Duke of York, OTL George VI, isn't the King at game start since Edward VIII didn't abdicate. However, mid-way through the game, Edward VIII can abdicate following a scandal involving a twice-divorced American woman who fled from the civil war and fell in love with the king, and Prince Albert can then be crowned as Albert I, directly replicating the events of real life.
  • If they lose the election, the ANI will attempt a March on Milan, which, if successful, will result in a far-right party leading the Italian Republic. This largely repeats the March on Rome from OTL, after which the Kingdom of Italy was headed by the National Fascist Party, but unlike the allusion case, the march on the Eternal City went without armed conflict.
  • The Forest Brothers, partisans from OTL that fought for the liberation of the Baltic states from the USSR, are also present in the Kaiserreich timeline, where they fight for the independence of Latvia and Estonia against the pro-German United Baltic Duchy and German influence in their countries in general.
• Alternate Continuity: The Darkest Hour version of the mod still uses some legacy lore that the Hearts of Iron 4 version has retconed. While some of the changes from KR4 are planned to be backported, the KR:DH devs have stated that they plan on expanding existing content rather than overhauling the older mod to match KR4.
• Alternate History: The basis of the mod, as said above, is a timeline where Germany won World War I.
• Alternate History Wank: The victorious German Empire after WWI generally averts this trope. Despite winning, it still lost great amounts of men, was unable to prevent hostile revolutions from breaking out in France and Britain, and has a very unstable colonial empire at the start of the game combined with a huge stock market crash. On the other hand, right after WW1 (which lasted until 1921), Germany helps ensure a White Russian victory in the Russian Civil War by arming the White forces, and bring down the Kuomintang's Northern Expedition by decisively intervening in the Zhili Clique's favor via supplying the Wuchang garrison, capturing Guangzhou and assisting Sun Chuanfang's forces to decisively defeat the NRA in the field. The final result is combination of unlikely, improbable and outright impossible events setting up Imperial Germany as (at least nominal) superpower. In past versions, the Russian and Chinese interventions were closer to this trope as instead of simply sending advisors and rifles to the side the Germans chose to support, the German Empire deploys boots on the ground as well in Russia; in China, instead of assisting local forces they deploy troops in a less indirect fashion (as in, instead of assisting a local force they send their own army in), defeating the Guominjun in months and asserting their influence in Southern China.
• Anachronism Stew: As the Jack Malone video has him talk to the audience with No Fourth Wall, he compares the narrator of the AUS video to Clint Eastwood, only to recieve a call that his analogy doesn't work for the time period as Eastwood is just a child in his setting.
• Arc Words: All five of the American nations' videos in the World of Kaiserreich series start with some variation of "A long time ago, the United States was a land of vast opportunity and promise."
• Artifact Title: Should Germany be somehow wiped out of the map early on, the game's title becomes this.
  • But if Germany does not bother with international events in favor of isolation, the game's title ultimately becomes a Secondary Character Title.
• Back from the Brink: Many nations, but especially Russia, China and the USA are all in the midst of political turmoil and/or civil war that will determine the fate of the nation. The player can play as one of the competing factions in these three nations and reunite the country and return it to world power status.
• Badass Preacher: If Canada succeeds in retaking Britain, they can get a new generation of Canadian officers. One of them is John Weir Foote, a Canadian military chaplain known in real life for winning the Victoria Cross for his actions at Dieppe. Here, he's a general, but still wears his clerical collar.
• Balkanize Me:
  • As is in the vanilla game, China is divided into several warlord factions, though this is really a subversion as the warlords aren't real countries, with most of them recognizing the Qing authority in Beijing (at least in theory). China is actually only divided into two countries: the Qing Empire and (Fengtian Government of) the Republic of China.
  • The former Russian Empire has been partitioned in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: it's been divided between the Russian Republic, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia on the Caucasus, Turkestan in Central Asia, and the German puppet states of United Baltic Duchy, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine in Eastern Europe. An independent Siberia can also be released if Russia is defeated.
  • Following the collapse of the British Raj, India is divided between the Dominion of India, the Princely Federation (which also owns a semi-independent Madras), and the Bharatiya Commune.
  • Austria-Hungary is no longer a big centralized Empire, and is instead five constituent states with one being Austria and four other semi-autonomous territories. The breakdown can go further if negotiations break down into a civil war, while its neighbors all dogpile in so they can settle old scores.
  • Italy, following the post-WWI Italian Civil War, was balkanized into 5 states: the Italian Republic, the Socialist Republic of Italy, the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, the Papal State, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. Venice can also revolt from ANI-led Italian Republic.
  • If the Kingdom of Two Sicilies defeats all rivals on the peninsula, it can balkanize Italy even further, re-creating old Italian states, such as Tuscany and Venice. This is a subversion, however, as the peninsula is technically united as a heavily decentralized confederation.
  • If Germany is capitulated, the winner can divide it into Bavaria, Rhineland, Hannover, and Prussia.
  • If France was capitulated, it can be partitioned into Normandy, Brittany, Occitania, and North France.
  • If Syndicalist Spain loses to Germany, it can be divided into several nations including an independent Catalonia and an independent Basque Country.
  • The Union of Britain can balkanize itself by electing the Radical Socialists, who favor devolution, which depending on other choices, spins off Wales and Scotland as either subjects of England or fully independent syndicalist nations. A similar balkanization can happen if Britain loses to Germany. Of note is that Ireland had already went independent in the aftermath of Weltkrieg.
  • If Brazil is defeated, it can be balkanized into seven countries: Goyaz, Grão Para, Vera Cruz, Pernanbuco, Bahia, São Paulo and Piratini.
  • Deutsch-Mittelafrika has a very high chance to spawn several rebellions in 1936 then collapse entirely soon after, creating no less than 20 countries.
  • If Germany doesn't want Mittelafrika to explode uncontrollably and instead want a controlled demolition, they can manually break Mittelafrika into many smaller colonies. They can also do this as a way of more efficiently administrating its now vastly-expanded colonial empire, making each of its colonies puppet kingdoms that essentially run their own affairs but are vassals of Germany.
• Bittersweet Ending: Since the Second American Civil War is inevitable, America's civil war storyline usually ends on a bittersweet note. If a benevolent and democratic faction controls America after the civil war, America in the end will receive a better regime than the dysfunctional government of the pre-Civil War era, and/or successfully ward off dangerous radicals from seizing power and returning America to peace. However, America would still have underwent years of bloody civil war, and will need time to rebuild and heal its wounds. The only real aversions to a bittersweet ending for the 2ACW are the American Caesar and the Business Plot paths for the US and the Union state respectively, both of which are unambiguously portrayed as bad for the country.
• Book Ends: If Jack Reed wins the presidency, then the Second American Civil War starts with Douglas MacArthur marching his army on Washington to depose him. If the CSA win the resulting war and the Totalists seize power, then it ends with Smedley Butler marching his army on Washington to depose them.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: Invoked by the German Government In Exile focus "Get Out the Museum Pieces", which furnishes the exiled German government with 5,000 Karabiner 98k rifles by scrounging up display and trophy guns from all over the German colonies and pressing them into service for a desperate attempt to reclaim the German mainland.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Liberia, if it sides with National France. Gets thrown into chaos by the U.S Civil War, and if it decides to become a puppet of National France, then if National France gets thrown into chaos. One of the options Liberia can choose from this is even called "Why does this always happen to us?"
  • For the Entente, it's the West Indies Federation, which has neither any real strategic importance nor a starting army (downplayed in that neither do they have any real threats unless the Combined Syndicates win the Second American Civil War or the American Union State does and aligns with Reichspakt).
  • For Reichspakt, it's Flanders-Wallonia (German-puppeted Belgium), sitting as more or less a province away from the French and usually in the first line of fire. It also has a tendency to suffer rebellions that split it into Flanders and Wallonia without any outside influence.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Pops up here and there:
  • The Union of Britain doesn't have submachine guns and assault rifles, they have machine carbines^note Which is what the British Commonwealth initially called them and machine-rifles, while the remnants of the British Empire^note Minus Australasia, who have completely different guns has auto-carbines and auto-rifles. Germany and Austria also have machine carbines (in German, obviously), though they use the term for assault rifles.
  • Before 0.8, most of the Union's tanks had the same name as they did in real life, and all of Canada's did, but Union called the Churchill the "Mosley", and the Churchill Kangaroo the "Mosley Kangaroo". After 0.8, the Union was given generic mechanised equipment, and all their tanks have different names. However, while most of the Canadian tanks keep their real life names, the Churchill is now called the King.
• Canon Welding: A Played for Laughs Example in the Story of Jack Malone, where Malone meets the narrators of the American Union State and Pacific States trailers, even though the videos are assumed to be within their own timelines.
• The Cavalry: In the lead-up to the Second American Civil War, Congress considers granting expanded rights, protections, and citizenship to Native Americans. Refusing has no consequences, while enacting the proposal gives the player a hit to stability and political power while they're already hemorrhaging both. But if you agree, during the Civil War as the Federal Government finds itself in the worst position of any faction, they get one distinct advantage: +20 Encryption from Navajo Code Talkers.
• Christianity is Catholic: Averted. Despite being an RTS that doesn't have religion in mind, events give a lot of flavor on denominational religions.
• Church Militant: If the Saudis win the Arab unification war, they can either emulate real history and become an absolute monarchy, or they can invoke this trope by declaring a new Caliphate and launching a series of jihadist wars.
• Chummy Commies: The Syndicalist Internationale is arguably much more democratic and less totalitarian than the Soviet Union in real life. Even if the Totalists come to power, it is possible to vote out the Totalists and becoming democratic socialist or anarcho-syndicalist, by choosing moderate or anarchist factions.
• Cincinnatus:
  • If Douglas MacArthur comes to power through a coup and wins the second American civil war, he will have the option to stand down, set an election, and peacefully hand power over to whoever wins. He literally gets the nickname "American Cincinnatus" for this act.
  • One arguable (and odd) example is an entire country being a Cincinnatus: New England will often ask Canada to occupy them in the event of a civil war, as they are loyal to the federal government, but the division of support leaves them cut off from most of the government's forces by the CSA. Canada can choose to honour the agreement, giving the land back to the US once the war is over. Or they can just keep it.
• Civil War: A large amount of civil wars can happen in the mod:
  • China starts out as a nominally united Empire with lots of autonomous warlord-led provinces swearing their loyalty to Beijing. However, as soon as Qing/Zhili hegemony collapses, it is inevitable that other politically motivated factions will start rising up in China, eventually leading to a civil war between several rival governments. Fengtian Government and Qing/Beijing Government will inevitably go to war, and the KMT and the Federalists are also likely to proclaim their own governments and fight to unify China.
  • The United States of America inevitably collapses into a civil war between the federal government, the Combined Syndicates of America, the American Union State, and/or the Pacific States of America. Additional factions will also appear when the war breaks out, and the winner will likely have to reconquer them to reunify America.
  • Spain has a high chance to fall to a civil war in the late 30s, just like in reality.
  • The collapse of the British rule in India had created a three-way division between the Dominion of India, the Princely Federation, and the Bharatiya Commune, and the three can easily declare war on each other to attempt reunification.
  • It's one possible outcome for the (already fragile) Austro-Hungarian Empire should its constituent realms turn on one another.
  • German East Asia has the choice to prop up a collaborator government when Vietnamese syndicalists rise up against the colonial authorities.
  • If Ireland handles its Ulster loyalist tensions poorly, Ulster loyalists will declare independence and begin a civil war with Ireland.
  • The southern provinces of Argentina broke away to form a syndicalist Patagonian Worker's Front. Argentina, currently undergoing a far-right coup d'etat, is expected to go into a full-scale civil war with Patagonia regardless who comes out of the coup.
• Commie Land: Played with. The three major socialist nations in the Third Internationale, Union of Britain, Commune of France, and Socialist Republic of Italy, have many similarities to real life Eastern European communist nations, but are different in many other ways too. Being technically "Syndie Land" instead of "Commie Land", these nations have fully fledged Syndicalist democracies instead of Leninist dictatorships. Being industrialized Western European nations instead of poor Eastern European nations, people living in Syndicalist countries are having a much better time than the OTL Eastern European communist countries.
• Commie Nazis: While almost all Totalists reject democracy and promote authoritarianism, Totalism as defined in the original Totalist Charter also promotes militarism and ultranationalism, in essence combining Leninism with Fascism to create a version of national syndicalism. There are only three real followers of this particular branch of Totalism, the original creators of the Totalist Charter: Mosley's Maximists, Mussolini's National-Syndicalists, and Valois's Sorelians. Mosley and Mussolini in real life are both fascists with socialist streaks, while Valois is a socialist with a fascist streak.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • The second Weltkrieg has at various periods of the mod's history been this. Earlier versions of the mod tended to favor a reverse WWII where the Commune of France, with superior doctrines, would easily roll over Germany most of the time, whereas more recent post-DH versions usually see a fairly easy German victory without Russian or player involvement.
  • The Second American Civil War is usually extremely one-sided. In whose direction it's one-sided varies by release version. In versions of KR4 earlier than 0.5, the Combined Syndicates of America and American Union State crush the USA between them (sometimes the Pacific States also join in on squeezing the USA), and then the CSA uses its superior industry and international backing to roll over the AUS with relative ease. Afterwards, the winner will eventually get a wargoal though focuses on the smaller Pacific States and quickly crush them unless the PSA has joined a faction (usually either the Entente or Co-Prosperity Sphere). It's also possible for the USA to quickly crush the PSA if they act immediately, and turn its resources against the AUS and CSA (and later Mexico if they invade) while leaving the CSA and AUS to waste time fighting each other.
  • If National Populists come to power in Lithuania and declare themselves free from the German yoke, they usually don't last long, since the military powers of Lithuania and the entire Reichspakt are very unequal, and not in favor of Lithuania.
  • The Fifth Anglo-Afghani War between the Emirate of Afghanistan and the Dominion of India almost always ends with the rapid defeat of Afghanistan and them return their conquered territory back to the Dominion of India.
  • Russia's invasions of Central Asia, against the Alash Orda, Khiva, and Turkestan. All three are near-powerless former Russian territories with generic focus trees. Victory for Russia is a foregone conclusion, with the declaration of war only serving notice to the player that Russia has begun their expansionist focuses.
• A Day in the Limelight: The entire mod counts as one for historical figures in our timeline like Huey Long, John Reed, Oswald Mosley and Pyotr Wrangel that never rose to significant prominence despite their potential, thanks to Germany's victory in World War I radically changing the course of events. Significant figures in our timeline like Josef Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill have downplayed roles or like in the case of Roosevelt, are outright dead.
• Dark Horse Victory: There are about six or so major factions that can reunite China, but there are also numerous regional warlords that can, through player action, unite China themselves and declare a united China tag, without the support of any other factions.
• Deal with the Devil:
  • Right-wing Russia might choose to stab Germany in the back and cooperate with, or even outright join the Internationale, in order to reverse Brest-Litovsk Treaty. There is also an option for them to demand part of that territory in exchange for joining the Reichspakt, in which case it's Germany that makes a deal with the devil, abandoning its allies to the Russians to save her skin.
  • Yet another case is that, if Germany is defeated by the Internationale, it is possible for it to join the Entente (and the "Empires in Exile club"), the very same whose exile was caused indirectly by Germany's victory, in order to make their return back to the mainland.
  • And then there is the option for a Germany who has defeated the Commune of France to offer National France the conquered territory (and hence a return to France and Paris without any fighting at all) in exchange for dropping claims on Alsace-Lorraine and defecting to Reichspakt... Alliances in game are as often dictated by Realpolitik as by ideology.
  • In the Second American Civil War, if things are going really badly for both the CSA and AUS, it is possible for Reed and Long to join in a desperate alliance against the Federal government, despite them being on the complete opposite end of the political spectrum, and the leaders of both factions absolutely hating the other on both an ideological and personal level. As one would expect, the alliance will fall apart the moment the USA is defeated.
  • Speaking of which, Huey Long can make an alliance early into the game with Southern white supremacists like the Klan and the Silver Legion to bolster his own power. In Real Life, Long hated the Klan, and they hated him. If the AUS ends up winning the Second Civil War, this alliance of convenience almost inevitably breaks down, with the extremist wing attempting a coup of its own to depose Long and seize power for themselves.
  • Any country accepting investment from the Co-Prosperity Sphere. Doing so will give the nation huge bonuses in industrial capacity and construction speeds, but will allow for equally huge trade imbalances with Japan that would let Japan basically plunder their available resources for a song. And once the nation accepts investment, all future stages are entirely dependent on Japan's decisions, meaning it's no longer their choice to avoid the oncoming consequences. They can build factories, but will have to trade them for resources they no longer have. If Japan invests too heavily, the target nation will automatically become a puppet state, representing their complete economic domination.
• Decadent Court: The German Empire certainly qualifies, as its victory in the First Weltkrieg singlehandedly allowed a strong monarchy to remain a viable government option well into the 20th century. Wilhelm II takes a hands-off approach to actual rulership and normally simply confirms the decisions taken by the elected parliament in his name, but all power flows through him, so ambitious officers and politicans flock to him and even more so his son, the future Wilhelm III, who has much more proactive ideas.
  • Taken to an extreme with the United Baltic Duchy, a German protectorate encompassing OTL Latvia and Estonia. It has a government structure seemingly designed for German nobility who can't get past the 1600s, a deliberate throwback to feudal society. There is a ruling Duke who normally rules in name only but has massive break-glass-in-emergency reserve powers. The upper parliament houses and regional governments are ruled by "knighthoods", clusters of landed gentry in all but name who trade favors and influence to get things done. There is an elected parliament house, but it's powers are limited and can be vetoed by any of the above entrenched groups. The game scenario begins with a democratic leader working for greater representation, but that can be broken or thwarted at several points in the pre-war stages. If the Forest Brothers rebellion isn't quashed or the government collapses, the Duke will summarily dismiss the elected government and hand power to another faction.
• Different World, Different Movies: Several examples are mentioned, and more implied. For instance, in previous versions, J. R. R. Tolkien decides to write The Downfall of Númenor, based on the notebook he kept during the Weltkrieg, instead of The Hobbit in 1938, which ends up merging bits of The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. He insists it's not a metaphor for the postwar revolutions among the Entente, just as in Real Life he insisted LOTR wasn't an allegory for World War II. However, post-0.8, he writes the Hobbit instead.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Forming the Nordic Federation. Doing so requires all three Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) to complete a particular branch of their focus tree, that can only be accessed with a democratic government, meaning that if any of them go syndicalist or absolutist, the decision tree is locked off, and even then it's optional, meaning the AI may very well decide not to follow it in countries outside player control. But if it is completed, all three countries join to form the Nordic Federation, giving access to the country's new focus tree with an emphasis on integration and maximizing joint assets.
  • In Germany post-rework, the Social Democratic path is advertised by the developers as this. Keeping the coalition together and taking constitutional reforms requires taking a huge number of focuses in the political tree, with a constant countdown towards radicals leaving the government if laws aren't passed to their satisfaction. There is no way to stop the countdown or "complete" the reforms needed until the 2WK breaks out, so there is no choice but to continue down the political tree unless the player wants to risk a failed government. And this all takes place post-Black Monday, in the crucial 1938-39 period where a player wants to be focusing on their military tree. There are options to reduce world tension by tiny amounts to hold back the war outbreak, and the player will need every second. Even so, when the war begins, the player will be woefully behind in their military prep. But if they win, the post-war period allows for enormous bonuses resulting from constitutional reforms, leaving them free to take the fight to Japan, America, or the Entente if need be.
• Dirty Communists: Totalism, short for Totalitarian Socialism, is the most extreme far-left ideology of the game, and is generally not portrayed sympathetically. While Totalism as defined in the Totalist Charter is more of an alternate national syndicalism, Totalism elsewhere is generally used to simply represent authoritarian socialism, going anywhere from Leninist vanguardist holdouts to outright expies of Stalinism, all of whom reject democracy and promote authoritarianism. Purges, work camps, secret police, and socialist reeducation are common in these states.
• Divided States of America: While the main three participants in the Second American Civil War (the Federalists, the Combined Syndicates and the Union State) will always fight to the death, the same cannot be said for the other participants. At the end of the war, America can end up split into as many as five distinct nations: the Pacific States of America, New England, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and whoever emerged victorious between the USA, CSA and AUS.
• Double-Blind What-If: There are events for two Alternate History novels written In-Universe, speculating about an Entente victory in World War I:
  • The first book is Our Finest Hour by Winston Churchill (in previous versions of the mod named Führerreich or A Third Reich, then written by Erich Maria Remarque). In Our Finest Hour, Theodore Roosevelt was elected as the president of the United States in 1912, leading to America intervening in the First Weltkrieg and defeating Germany. The Russian Civil War ends with a Red victory. Postwar, a revanchist German ultranationalist named Adam Dressler mounts a coup in Germany and takes over the country. Dressler leads the German Workers Party, who believe in the national populist ideology of "People's Socialism". The novel ends with the beginning of a three-sided Second Weltkrieg between Dressler's "New Reich", a British-led Western Entente, and a Soviet Russia led by Sergey Kirov. In-Universe, the book was criticized for its flaws in historical logic, but Chruchill defends his story and claims that "something like this could have happened in another universe". This is the book (in particular the pre-retcon Führerreich version of the book) that was adapted into the mod Führerreich: Legacy of the Great War.
  • The second book is The Red Flood by Lithuanian author Ignas Šeinius. In Red Flood, the Entente wins the Weltkrieg after Russia achieves a significantly more successful Brusilov Offensive, capitulating Austria-Hungary in 1916. A defeated Germany becomes Syndicalist, while Kolchak mounts a coup in Russia and turns it into an ultranationalist totalitarian dictatorship. Europe soon plunges into a Second Weltkrieg between Germany and Russia, with Lithuania being the frontlines between the two. The British are also said to be planning a naval invasion, though their target is unspecified. The story is criticized for its horrific descriptions of cruelty and war crimes, but much like Churchill, Šeinius defends his work by claiming "something like this could have happened in another universe". This book also been adapted into a mod for Hearts of Iron 4, Red Flood.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: United States, compared to its vanilla game counterpart, receives a heavy Nerf in the form of its inevitable Second Civil War. US's Industrial Capacity and Manpower take a heavy hit until the player completes a long and extensive National Focus tree.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: While Kaiserreich is usually seen as the "What if Germany won WW1" mod, it originally started as a "What if the Whites won the Russian Civil War" in a separate mod called All the Russias in Hearts of Iron II, which featured changes only on the territory of the former Russian Empire. The lore for Russia in Kaiserreich was lifted straight up from this mod.
• Easter Egg: The mod contains a handful, usually brought about by players achieving very difficult playing conditions in rare circumstances while playing as certain countries. They don't typically affect the playing experience that much but can add doses of extra flavor.
  • As the United Baltic Duchy, the player can allow the Baltic Brotherhood to take control of the country if they should fail to recover from Black Monday in the specified time limit. If they do so and then if they (a very tiny country, keep in mind) can survive Russia and/or the Third Internationale and the German Empire capitulates, and then if they are able to take back the German core lands from the invaders, they can claim ownership and form the German State, an ultrafanatical pseudo-Nazi crusader state and the only German National Populist path in the game. Much of their focus tree are named after phrases from the Nazi mythos and, as of the 0.24 update, the German Government in Exile in Mittelafrika can declare a war of reconquest against the Baltic German usurpers.
  • If a player takes control of Latvia (which can only form if the United Baltic Duchy collapses into its component nations) and if they are able through some incredible miracle to take Moscow from Russia without help from the Reichspakt, they can form the legitimate, OTL, accept no imitations Soviet Union, as a true union of states instead of a Russian hegemony.
  • Though not considered one of the Chinese warlord states, it is technically possible for the Legation Cities to unify China under the title "International China". We say technically because the Legation Cities are a series of international mandates along the Chinese coast based in Shanghai, a neutral territory free of Chinese interference and ruled by a council of major power representatives balancing economic interests in the country. They have a microscopic manpower pool and tiny defense militia divisions, and can collapse completely without outside interference if too many of the Legation powers pull out or the cities go bankrupt. Their only advantage is the Unequal Treaties national spirit (all Chinese states send a percentage of civilian factories to the Legation Cities until China is unified, representing the exploitative claims other world powers have on Chinese industry) introduced in the 0.23 update. International China has no unique post-unification focus tree or content, but forming it is probably the single most difficult objective in the entire game.
• Enemy Mine: When Japan invades China, Qing (or whoever claims the mantle of national leadership) can form a temporary United Front with other warlord factions (like the Kuomintang did in real life) to defend China against the Japanese.
• Evil Colonialist:
  • Hermann von Göring in Mittelafrika can force the native population to expand the mines of Katanga under horrible labor conditions, displace Africans from their homes during the construction of a power plant, and use forced labor to create weapons for Germany.
  • German East Asia under Admiral Hellmuth von Mücke is very repressive to its Indochinese population, brutally suppressing strikes and enforcing a strong divide between the colonizers and colonized. Unsurprisingly, all this leads to the Viet Cong rising up against them.
• Evil Pays Better: Zig-Zagged.
  • Options to be lenient to your enemies are usually just as beneficial as punishing ones, and events like granting women the right to vote, and if you're Russia, not forcing the populace to be Russified are much better than the totalitarian ones. Can be seen as Pragmatic Villainy though. Downright inverted for the Indian integration events, where being as soft and accepting as possible gets you cores and tech-teams much sooner.
  • On the other hand, sometimes it's played completely straight. For example, if Liberia wants to pursue a socialist government, it has two options — elect the Radical Socialists or have a Totalist coup. The Radical Socialist focuses give no benefits other than relatively useless national unity, a paltry increase in daily political power gain (all three other electable parties give a larger boost to political power gain), Internationale membership, and independence from any puppet status Liberia is currently facing (only really useful if Germany bails out the Liberian debt) while the Totalist coup and focuses give a large amount of manpower, a major boost to recruitable population, free divisions, an ORG recovery buff for all divisions, and the same increase in daily political power gain, independence, and Internationale membership, and may do this more than a year before the 1939 elections could have happened.
• Evil Reactionary: Integralism is an interesting "branch" of National Populism in Kaiserreich, which can come to power in Brazil, Portugal, Two Sicilies, National France, and Carlist Spain. The Integralists of Kaiserreich are variously influenced by Portuguese Integralism or French Integral Nationalism, but they are universally monarchist, economically corporatist, highly reactionary and traditionalist, and fiercely nationalist. They are generally authoritarian but also regionally autonomist, while their racism levels are quite varied. They are an interesting contrast to the reactionary but modernist and anti-monarchist National Populists like Savinkov's Russia.
• Evil Versus Evil:
  • Through the game runs on Grey-and-Grey Morality, it is possible, depending on how the game is played, for it to end with a final showdown between Savinkovist Russia or Militaristic Japan and its allies and puppet states comprised of repressive National Populist/Corporatism/Pseudo-Fascist/Ultranationalist regimes versus an alliance of equally repressive Totalist nations.
  • Its also possible to have a revanchist Entente consisting of an authoritarian Canada (later as the United Kingdom as an Absolute Monarchy), National Populist Australasia, military junta-run United States or Business Plot-run American Union State, National France (a totalitarian colonial state), Paternal Autocrat Sardinia, and various other allies or puppet states going up against a Reichspakt led by an absolute monarchist Imperial Germany and its authoritarian and ultranationalist allies and puppets, and a Third Internationale dominated by Totalists.
  • China post-rework can have many different but equally brutal warlord factions going up against each other. War crimes are committed by basically everyone.
• The Federation:
  • The Habsburg Empire became something like this post-Weltkrieg, comprised of autonomous states still under Austro-Hungarian rule. Although it's possible to play it more straight through reforms resulting in the Danubian Federation or restored (albeit totalitarian) Austro-Hungarian Empire.
  • The Princely Federation is an Indian federation of aristocratic governments, but it is possible for it to be reformed into a more democratic Dravidian Federation. The Dominion of India/Delhi government also has some federal elements, but they are less strong and clear than in the Princely Federation.
  • The federal parts of the German Empire's government structure are partly suspended when the game begins as a lingering consequence of the Weltkrieg, but the softer reform path sees one of the key elements of it restored.
  • This is Chen Jiongming's plan for China, believing it to be a continuation of the checks and balances that any healthy democracy needs, that China's size and diversity would make any unitary regime too unwieldy, and that there was a good Chinese tradition of local self-government that a federalist approach could strengthen to build up democratic traditions from the bottom-up.
• Former Regime Personnel: Having fled the failed Bolshevik revolt, Stalin, Zhukov, Tukhacehvsky and Chuikov are acting as advisors to the Patagonians and can also act as such to the resurgent Red Russians and the Commune of France.
• For Want Of A Nail: In our timeline, Absolute Monarchism and Syndicalism became discredited with the collapse of the German/Austro-Hungarian/Ottoman and Russian empires, as well as Leninism being the ideology that lead a revolution in Russia. The post-WWII world also saw decolonization and a moving of industry out of the west and into the third world, making a resurgence of Monarchism and Syndicalism relatively impossible. Thus, the Cold War ensured that Leninism and Capitalism would be the dominant left and right ideologies. In the world of Kaiserreich, Leninism's failure in Russia versus Syndicalism's success in France has lead to Syndicalism remaining dominant on the left and Monarchism still being a viable right-wing ideology due to Imperial Germany's dominance, while traditional representative democracy has seen its credibility badly eroded.
• Four-Star Badass: The Second American Civil War features several Real Life examples of this trope — Douglas MacArthur, Omar Bradley, and George S. Patton just to name a few, all fighting against each other.
• Gambit Pileup:
  • China is a large mess of individual warlord and faction gambits that all come crashing into each other into an epic power struggle. At the start of the game, China consists of nine warlord factions^note Qing (Northern Zhili clique), the League of Eight Provinces (Southern Zhili clique), Fengtian Government, Shandong, Shanxi, Yunnan, Sichuan, Ma clique in Northwestern China, and Xinjiang and a set of foreign concessions^note Legation Cities. The League of Eight Provinces will also inevitably fail and collapse into five more factions^note Anqing, Nanjing, Hunan, Liangguang, and Kuomintang. Almost all of those factions, including the LEP collapse factions, have internal power struggles and combine to make a mega power struggle.
  • Outside of China as a whole, Romania also features overlapping gambits, albeit on a smaller scale; at game start, King Carol II and President of the Council of Ministers "Captain" Corneliu Zelea Codreanu are turning their attention towards one another, seeking to claim credit both over the much-needed land reform in particular and any prospective national unification in general. If Transylvania, Dobruja and Bukovina are indeed obtained, the last thread uniting them is torn asunder, and they will take advantage of a Legionary party dispute to finally take the other down. It can either end in Carol assuming complete power, Codreanu or his successors forcing the King to abdicate and ushering in Legionary dominance under a figurehead monarch, Michael dismissing the government and announcing a restoration of democracy, or the "Green Prince" Alexandru Cantacuzino rallying the Legionary Movement and taking complete control of the country.
• Gameplay Derailment: In the mod, Russia does not possess many of the Ostwall countries normally held by the Soviet Union in the vanilla game. Normally, a large majority of the Soviet Union's victory points are in its eastern European holdings, so that by the time an opposing player reaches Moscow it is near capitulation. But in KR's Russia, necessary victory points are held east of the Urals, so that a player can capture St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Volgograd and still be a far distance away from capitulation, forcing them into a multi-year slog to reach all the way to central Asia or using the time-consuming intelligence mechanic to form collaboration governments to reduce the needed capitulation limit, even though by that point there is no realistic chance of a Russian comeback with a huge majority of their resources and factories now in enemy hands. There is a certain realism in Russia's "General Winter" keeping them in the fight, but the monotony of slugging it out for that one last victory point is easily the least popular part of KR's European theater. The reverse is also true to a lesser degree, as once a Russian player starts capturing the Ostwall nations (Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, the United Baltic Duchy), victory against the German Empire is generally only a matter of time.
  • A proposed mechanic in a future revamp of Germany and Russia will eliminate much of this, allowing a winning player to propose a peace treaty after capturing a number of the enemy's key cities outside of the normal victory mechanic, allowing them to form a good-but-not-perfect victorious peace with the enemy and avoid the frustration of a drawn-out mopping up operation.
• Golden Mean Fallacy: Comes into play in an Austria playthrough. During the decennial conference between Austria and the constituent members of their federation, Austria is left mediating between Hungary, who wants to slap down any other nation wanting to share their first-among-equals priveleges, and everyone else who has territorial claims against Hungary trailing back to the First Weltkrieg. Trying to keep everyone happy or splitting the differences leads to a very suboptimal status quo focus tree, leaving the empire nations allied but separate, each building their own divisions and following their own focuses and leaving Austria without access to a majority of their manpower and resources, a loose collection of second-rate powers squarely between most of the Second Weltkrieg belligerents. The other unity paths, either peaceful federation or bootheels on necks, come from pissing one side or the other off to the point of civil war. It causes short term pain, but the resulting united Austrian nation is much better poised for great power status.
• Government in Exile:
  • How the Canadian and Nationalist French work. Both house governments in exile that were overthrown by Syndicalist revolutions in their respective countries.
  • This can happen to the Netherlands or Germany (and in more specific circumstances to Portugal). Netherlands escapes to Dutch East Indies, while Germany escapes to Mittelafrika.
  • There are also more classical cases run independently from another country, although due to game mechanics those only come up in the events about them (a victorious Bharatiya Commune can invite Ho Chi Minh to Calcutta to set up a government-in-exile for a free Indochina, for example).
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: Many of the events have words or descriptions in the languages of their respective nations. Not all are grammatically correct.
• Gratuitous German:
  • World War I and World War II are consistently referred as "the First Weltkrieg" and "the Second Weltkrieg" in Kaiserreich, due to German cultural dominance. (As a note, the actual German name for WWI and WWII are "Erster Weltkrieg" and "Zweiter Weltkrieg" respectively)
  • Old versions of the mod used to have the satellite monarchies of Mitteleuropa named in German, though this was eventually removed for consistency and simplicity's sake. The only remnant is Mittelafrika, due to it being a geographical descriptor and an outright colonial regime.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Given the complexities of politics, and the ability to play as any country in the game, most countries in the game are morally ambiguous. Aside from a few unambiguously evil rotten apples (such as most of the National Populists and most of the Totalists, who are both often portrayed as being unambiguously bad), most political paths maintain some form of moral ambiguity, and players can let their own personal politics to decide who is good or bad.
  • The three main alliances all have their own goods and bads, and objectives that can be painted as being either good or bad.
    • The Reichspakt is an alliance of German-aligned authoritarian monarchies — but most of them are constitutional monarchies, and not absolute monarchies. Their goal is mutual defense against enemies, a completely justifiable goal to hold.
    • The Entente includes both flawed liberal democracies and harsh military regimes. Their goal is to return the world to the pre-Revolutionary status quo, which can be seen as either reactionary against social progress or fighting against the totalitarian tendencies of Syndicalism.
    • The Syndicalists ranges from moderate democracies to not all that far from Totalism. Their goal to spread global revolution can be seen as either trying to free the world from the chains of colonialism or trying to plunge the civilized world into a cycle of chaos and political instability.
  • Russia and Japan's factions tend to show up to the world stage later in the game. Japan can range from being just as brutal as it was in our timeline to a bastion of democracy and progress while even Russia's Totalist and Natpop faction have some Pet the Dog moments.
  • At their worst, both the Reichspakt and Entente can turn into the militant revanchists and evil colonialists they are accused of being.
  • All the civil wars generally run on this, with all the sides capable of committing war crimes, sometimes beyond the control of the player. The Second American Civil War for example:
    • The American Union State under Huey Long wants to pursue a progressive economic agenda that still preserves American market economics. They can also be seen as Southern populists trying to take power from the federal government and create a dictatorship.
    • The Combined Syndicates of America follow a form of workplace democracy, and pursue expanded worker's rights and absolute racial and sexual equality. They can also be seen as radical revolutionaries wanting to bring down the establishment and cause chaos in America.
    • The federal government wants to restore the Union and maintain its traditional mix of democracy and market economics under the Constitution. Or they can be seen as cruel oppressors trying to stop progressive revolutions and hold on to their throne of power.
    • The Pacific States of America see themselves as the last bastion of the true spirit of America's ideals of liberty as the other factions devolve into chaos, totalitarianism, and corruption. They can also be seen as opportunists looking to secede from the Union while the other factions are too busy fighting each other.
    • New England can be seen as pragmatists that don't want to get involved in a war they know they have no hope of winning, or as cowards who refuse to fight and may go so far as to turn to Canada, controlled by the same crown that once ruled over the original 13 Colonies, for protection.
  • Even some of the national populists and totalists themselves will have shades of Grey. On the National Populist of the spectrum, the Intetgralists in Portugal and Brazil tend to be racially tolerant and treat their subjects relatively benevolently unless they step out of line, while Huey Long does crack down on The Klan and improve American social services. On the Totalist of the Spectrum, the American and Australasian totalists will push to end racial inequality and enact wide sweeping social reforms within their respective nations.
• Hate Sink: For all the moral ambiguity of the Second American Civil War, these individuals and groups within the American Union State are the worst of the worst
  • William Dudley Pelley and his Silver Legion are easily the most despicable faction within the American Union State. If he seizes power from Long with the help of the Prohibition Party, Pelley will turn America into a white supremacist Christian fundamentalist nation through enforcing Jim Crow all across America and bringing back slavery. He also permanently cripples the American population by banning all vaccines, leaving large amounts of the population crippled by polio.
  • The War Powers Committee are little better, being a committee of businessmen seeking to enforce corporate dominance over America at the expense of the poor. During the Civil War, they back the American Union State, the Federal Government and the Pacific States as a means of destroying the Combined Syndicates of America despite officially backing the American Union State. If they overthrow Huey Long using their frontman, General Van Horn Moseley, they will greatly empower the rich and American corporations while purging Combined Syndicates remnants, labour unions and left wing activists, while barring immigrants suspected of Syndicalist leanings from immigrating to America. Oh, and zero chance in hell that they'll implement the progressive economic policies promised by Long.
• Historical In-Joke:
  • By the start of the game, Mussolini holds the position of the General Responsible for Transports of the Socialist Republic of Italy. His job is making trains run on time.
  • Kim Philby, a British double agent for the Soviet Union in real life, can be a minister for both Totalists and Market Liberals in the Union of Britain.
  • "Syndicalism with American characteristics" is an obvious reference to "Socialism with Chinese characteristics", a phrase which is rather infamous and widely-mocked in leftist circles.
  • Following updates, Churchill was retconned into the author of the in-universe German defeat alternate history novel Our Finest Hour, instead of Erich Maria Remarque's Fuhrerreich. This contains two in-jokes:
    • The title is a reference to Churchill's famous speech during the Battle of Britain,
    • The book itself is not only a reference to the fact that Churchill really did write an Alternate History story (well, essay), but the essay he wrote was about a historian in an alternate timeline writing an alternate history essay about what would happen if the even had happened the way it did in our timeline^note The essay was called If Lee Had NOT Won The Battle of Gettysburg, and the idea was that it was from the point of view of a historian in a timeline where the Confederacy was victorious, with the historian repeatedly asking the question of how things would have gone differently had that not happened. Amusingly, the essay was part of a collection of Alternate History essays by various leading writers at the time called If It Had Happened Otherwise, and included an essay by Ronald Knox called If the General Strike Had Succeeded, about a timeline where Britain was under Communist rule. Just like what had happened in Kaiserreich, except with syndicalism.
  • In the event announcing the birth of Edward VIII's first child, it mentions that, prior to the birth, his brother would have become king in case of his "death or rather improbable abdication".
• Icon of Rebellion: The torch and hammer symbol is adopted as the symbol of Revolutionary Syndicalism, replacing hammer and sickle as the worldwide revolutionary symbol.
• Inciting Incident: For most of the game world, the Black Monday economic crash. Most world powers had been inching towards war for many years prior to game start, but Black Monday completely upends Germany and its Mitteleuropa allies, with Russia and the Third Internationale rushing to take advantage before they can recover. China collapses completely into civil war because of financial strife caused by the fallout.
  • Before the 1.0 updates, the assassination of Aelxander Kerensky, Russia's president, was one, as he had been the sole leader able to provide even a modicum of stability since Russia's civil war. Since the rework, he had been defeated for election, but ends up assassinated all the same.
• Insistent Terminology: Austria and Hungary have different names for each model of equipment, despite almost all of them being the exact same as each other. For example, Austria has the Karabiner M.24, while Hungary has the 24M karabely. As well, Austria is ruled by Karl I von Habsburg-Lothringen, while Hungary is ruled by Habsburg-Lotaringiai IV Karoly. They are the same person.
• Invaded States of America:
  • In IV, Canada has various options to approach the Second American Civil War. Some of them include annexing New England and Upstate New York with its permission to protect them, then choose to keep it for themselves, annex Alaska, and annex the Panama Canal, as well as take various sides in the war.
  • National Populist Mexico also has the option of invading the United States to take back territory they had lost in the Mexican-American wars, such as California and Texas.
• Irony:
  • In the Second American Civil War, the faction based in the North has a name that is abbreviated 'CSA', while the faction from the Deep South is called the American Union State.
  • Should Deat, Mussolini and Mosley lead Internationale France, Italy and Britain and face off against Petain, Amadeo I and Edward who lead Entente France, Italy and Britain, then the showdown between the Internationale and Entente is between OTL Axis Collaborators. Funny enough, the former are framed as Commie Nazis while the latter's authoritarianism can make them A Nazi by Any Other Name should they reach sufficient depravity.
  • Speaking of China, the Japanese are still supporting a Manchurian puppet state in opposition to the legitimate Chinese government — except in this world, the puppet's a republican splinter state while China is ruled by a restored Qing Empire under Pu Yi, the exact opposite of the historical situation.
  • This loading screen is based on the photo of the Soviet soldiers raising a flag over the Reichstag, which symbolizes the triumph over the Nazi regime. The flag in the screen, however, is changed to the flag of the Russian State which is led by Savinkov's National Populists, the KR version of Nazis.
  • Should the United Kingdom be restored, one of the national focuses they have in the Reconstruction Authority tree in called "Loyalist Propaganda", which gives a national idea called "Agitprop". Agitprop is a Russian term for political propaganda spread to the masses through popular media, such as plays, literature, films, etc., with the political message being explicit rather than subtle. The irony is that, most of the time, agitprop was something the Soviets and other far-left Russian groups used, meaning the United Kingdom is basically using the tools of the syndicalists against them.
• Ironic Death: This timeline's version of Adolf Hitler was killed during the intervention in Russia...in a gas attack.
• Ironic Name: Should National France end the Republic and become undemocratic, the event that plays focuses on how, in order to put down a pro-Republic uprising in Algiers, the government had to have a battleship bombard the city. Said battleship was the Démocratie^TranslationDemocracy
• Istanbul (Not Constantinople):
  • Saint Petersburg is known as Petrograd, like it was called in 1914-1924, since its name was never changed to Leningrad. Similarly, other Russian cities, the names of which were changed during the Soviet period, still have their pre-revolutionary names (like Tsaritsyn instead of Stalingrad/Volgograd, Nizhny Novgorod instead of Gorky and Vyatka instead of Kirov).
  • The Falkland Islands are called the Islas Malvinas, with Port Stanley being Puerto Argentino, while South Georgia^note The British Overseas Territory, not the southern part of the country or state is now Isla San Pedro^note A case of Shown Their Work: a Spanish exploration ship did indeed name it San Pedro at one point, though Spain never laid any claims to the island, as according to the Treaty of Tordesillas, it was Portuguese territory. In fact, the Spaniards who named it did so long after it was discovered, and they were actually working for a French company at the times
• Kaiserreich: As the name may indicate, the triumphant German Empire remains a major player in world affairs.
• Kingmaker Scenario: The winner of the American Civil War can play one to any of the major factions, as the weight of a reunited U.S. can tip the scales of the ongoing global conflict. Each of the American claimants can lend itself to one or more of the main factions, but tend to lean towards a weighted favorite. The AUS will lean towards the Reichspakt, New England towards the Entente, the Pacific States will gravitate towards the Co-Prosperity Sphere, and the CAS, of course, will favor the Third Internationale. The original United States under MacArthur can join the Entente, but tends to be more of a wild card, and under AI control is much more likely to take the neutral route of not helping anybody.
• Let No Crisis Go to Waste: A major part of everyone wishing to challenge the current world order, and especially the Entente's plans.
  • Black Monday throws a major spanner in the works of the Imperial German world order and gives the Internationale a chance to build up and strike Germany while it's weak. Similarly, many other regional power blocs use the chance to nibble at Germany's subjects, and its less satisfied subjects might even try to break free.
  • Canada can use the Second American Civil War to seize large amounts of land from the US, including the Panama Canal and New England. Several National Focuses for the members of the Entente require the Internationale to be at war with the Reichspakt, using their distraction to make invading them easier.
  • Similarly, the South and Central American countries can take advantage of the Second Civil War to settle scores and attack each other, which couldn't happen under the Munroe Doctrine. Japan may also seek US holdings in the Pacific.
  • If the Commune of France purges the army under Jacobin rule, National France may immediately invade while the Commune is completely disorganized.
  • Germany used the British Revolution as a chance to seize pretty much all of Britain's African and Asian colonies, reorganizing them into Deutsch Mittelafrika and Deutsch-Ostasien.
  • (As of .14 for Hearts of Iron 4) Should Mittelafrika collapse, South Africa will get an option to send an ultimatum to Sudwestafrika to submit to them and then invade the rest of Namibia.
• Lensman Arms Race: The world of Kaiserreich never had anything like the London and Washington Naval Treaties of our timeline, and without such treaties and Kaiser Wilhelm's obsession with building up the Kaiserliche Marine into the mightiest navy in the world and Britain's equal interest in ruling the waves, a second dreadnought race kicked off after the Peace With Honor, culminating in monstrous hyper-dreadnoughts that dwarf even Yamato, the largest battleship ever built in our timeline, with armament such as fifteen 18-inch guns and armor against their own weapons. The unsustainable cost of trying to keep up in this was one of the factors that led to the British Syndicalist Revolution, and the first post-1936 dreadnought technology amounts to realizing that this has gotten out of hand and refocusing dreadnought design on their strengths, especially armor, while putting less effort into speed (which is left to the new fast battleships developed to succeed the older battlecruisers) and scaling back the size of the armament to smaller, but higher-velocity 16-inch guns that retain similar performance against armor, resulting in designs that are actually cheaper than their predecessors.
• Luck-Based Mission: Serbia's expansion into Illyria is borderline impossible if Austria-Hungary doesn't collapse into an Austro-Hungarian War, which the player as Serbia has no way to influence and cause.
• Magikarp Power:
  • Out of all three main alliances the Entente starts off the weakest. All of its starting members face the possibility of being overthrown or leaving the alliance, and most of its potential members (like the USA or Russia) are more likely to end up joining one of the other factions. However, with the right events, it's possible to end up with the US, Russia, a unified India, all the former British Dominions, and even Portugal and Spain joining to create a truly unstoppable force.
  • The United States of America is the biggest of them all. They start off with no military power to speak of (they have even less starting divisions than some of the minor countries), huge debuffs on just about everything, and also facing the daunting task of defeating an inevitable, possibly multi-sided civil war. However, with a little skill and luck, it's possible to turn the US into a superpower that rivals Germany, retake all the former lands and have a truly unstoppable force.
  • The Indochinese Union starts off completely cut off from resources, few factories, and having to get equipment via arms smuggling once Germany slaps an embargo on it. They also have to fend off the superior firepower of the German Empire and naval invasions regularly. But play your cards right, and it's possible to transform a tiny guerrilla force into a formidable army capable of not only seizing back its home territory, but going toe to toe with Siam and fend off any attempts to colonize Indochina again.
• Mexico Called; They Want Texas Back: As National Populist Mexico, it's possible to take advantage of the crisis brought upon by the Second American Civil War and seize back the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and Southern California from the US, and possibly advance to conquer more of the Deep South with the right strategies.
• Mêlée à Trois:
  • The collapse of Mittelafrika usually results in smaller powers fighting each other.
  • The Spanish Civil War usually turns into a 3 way fight.
  • The American Civil War usually has 4 factions fighting against each other, albeit it can also be a 3 way melee or (in rare cases) a 2 way fight.
  • The collapse of the League of 8 Provinces always results in the Nanjing Clique fighting against the secessionists in both KMT and Anqing, with Shandong joining in as well. Should the Nanjing Clique gets taken down, the victors will be quick to turn on each other.
• Middle Eastern Coalition: An odd 20th century alternate history example: the Cairo Pact is a military alliance formed by the Sultanate of Egypt, encompassing nations from the Middle East to North Africa.
• Monumental Damage: If Berlin falls to the Commune of France, the Communard soldiers will blow the Brandenburg Gate, accompanying the destruction of one of the famous German monuments by choir of the Internationale.
• Morton's Fork: The run-up to Second American Civil War features many options, diverging paths, and possibilities for who gets elected in the 1936 Election, but all of them leads to a standoff and the eventual civil war.^note In previous versions, exactly one of them allows the player to avert the war entirely.
• Multiple Endings: While no two games of Kaiserreich should end the same, this trope is invoked for America, Russia and China in terms of returning them to world power status.
  • Taken as a whole, the reworked China in Kaiserreich can reunite under Zhili puppet or Manchu restored Qing, Wu Peifu or Zhang Zuolin's Republican China, Left wing or Right wing KMT China, a federalist United Provinces of China, or a generic Republic of China formed by independent warlords (who join up into a loose "National Protection Alliance").
  • As the second civil war in America is now inevitable, the United States can reform as a democracy brought in by Federalist, Pacific or Canadian backed forces, a type of Syndicalist state, a form of nationalist dictatorship through the American Union State that ranges from progressive under Long, oligarchal, or white supremacist and finally as a military junta should the Feds refuse to return to democracy. Given the different flavors even between the non radical factions, America can therefore adopt any form of non-monarchist government.
• Mythology Gag: "Union of Britain" and "Commune of France" are in the unmodded Hearts of Iron as well, as the alternate names taken by United Kingdom and France if they turn to communism.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: In Kaiserreich, Hitler died during World War I, and Mussolini remained a socialist (if a totalitarian socialist). As a result, neither Fascism nor Nazism exist in Kaiserreich. Instead, the ideology of National Populism serves as their replacement, being the farthest-right ideology that takes on many Fascist traits like ultranationalism, totalitarianism, militarism, reactionism, and a total rejection of democracy and socialism. Unlike what's associated with this trope however, most National Populist leaders lack the extreme racism and Master Race rhetoric of Nazism (with the Integralists in Brazil in particular outright rejecting racism). However, some National Populists like America's Pelley and Mexico's Sinarquistas do have racist ideologies to their National Populism. Romania's Iron Guard would've most likely been a National Populist with racist antisemitism... but their in-game depiction is quite sanitized and consists of largely vanilla totalitarian nationalism, likely due to the too-close-to-home nature of antisemitism.
• No Fourth Wall: Played for laughs in the Story of Jack Malone trailer for Hawaii, when he speaks to the audience directly, especially after he compares an American Union State soldier (the narrator from the AUS video) to Clint Eastwood, only to receive phone call stating that his analogy doesn't work since Clint Eastwood is a kid by the time the video takes place. and thus has to make a more time period accurate reference. He also met the narrator from the Pacific States video and makes fun of him for wearing impractical clothing for the cold mountains, a common audience criticism of the video.
• Non-Indicative Name:
  • The developers have admitted that filing Zhang Tianran's Yiguandao movement under the National Populist ideology isn't very fitting, as the Eurocentric view the game's ideologies are based on doesn't work at all with an ideology entrenched in Chinese spiritualism. Regardless, the gameplay mechanics mean that it's the only tag it can possibly fit under.
  • In general, ideologies in China are used to represent different factions and the patterns of their policies rather than exact ideologies. For example, some warlords are categorized with democratic ideologies like AuthDem or SocCon, even though none of them are democratic.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Countries invested in by the Co-Prosperity Sphere risk this. If Japan invests past a certain number of stages of progression, the country is economically dominated and becomes a Japanese puppet state automatically.
  • Kaiserreich contains a number of state progressions known by the fan community as "Trap paths". Considered something of easter eggs, they occur when a player takes a certain political path beyond a point of no return. The game is generally nice enough to give warnings when the player is approaching a path with irreversible consequences.
    • Serbia begins the game with its military infiltrated by the Konspiracija (literally "Conspiracy"), an evolution of the infamous Black Hand. A Serbian player can take decisions to accept aid from the group in the form of weapons and resistance increases to occupied territories. Following an authoritarian path will result in a strongman elected to the office of president, who will subsequently be assassinated. If the Konspiracija is not exposed and foiled, the conspirators in the military will form a coup, with all other possible leaders moving softly in fear of their lives. At that point, all non-Konspiracija focuses will be locked off, the player will have crippling stability penalties and the nation will soon disintegrate in ethnic rebellions that make the '90s OTL Serbia look like a summer tea party. Even if the player salvages the situation militarily, the locked focus tree and stability penalties will make it impossible to take further action and Serbia will become a literal failed state.
    • In the Ottoman Empire, a combination of circumstances where Russia and France are ruled by radical governments will embolden extremist movements and allow the player to select a national populist path. If the player pursues a focus tree promoting Turkish nationalism, at a certain point, resistance in conquered Arab and north African territories will skyrocket and the empire will shatter into its rebellious states. This happens even if the Ottoman player has already fought the War in the Desert. It is possible to reconquer all lost territory, but the Ottoman Empire loses its cores outside Turkey proper, meaning factories and manpower from those areas are lost forever as most of the empire's provinces are transformed from benign indifference to Turkey into seething powderkegs of rebellion.
• Obvious Rule Patch: If Russia becomes syndicalist, they will form a faction unto themselves called the Eastern Front of the Third Internationale. This is because if they join the main 3I faction alongside France and Britain, during the Weltkrieg the combat AI will compel them to ship divisions to western Europe to support their allies. This results in Russia almost completely abandoning the eastern front and having the bulk of their divisions slaughtered during transport by naval interdiction in the Baltic Sea. Keeping them in a separate but allied faction ensures that the Weltkrieg will remain a two-front war. Once Germany capitulates, Russia will then join the 3I proper.
  • The 1.10 release that focused on the Ireland rework also introduced the releasable puppet of Northumbria on the British island, should the overlord choose to balkanize the territory. This notably goes against Kaiserreich trend of phasing out releasable nations with no real nationalist movements, and no Northumbrian kingdom has existed since the 900s. According to the developers, this was done to bypass a bug where an AI overlord that takes any part of Scotland will also heavily favor also taking the Northumbria state, even though it is not a Scottish core. Many instances would occur where the overlord would be unfriendly to the newly released England (such as England being released by an opposing power); with no friendly adjacent country to give the territory to, the overlord would simply directly occupy it, leading to unsightly and nonsensical maps. Having a one state releasable nation gives the overlord an option to release their excess territory if no other options are available.
• One-Federation Limit: Averted. The Italian Federation (before 0.6), the Iberian Federation (Syndicalist Spain), the Danubian Federation, and the Princely Federation (non-affiliated Indian state) all exist or can be formed during the course of the game.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted, sort of. National France has the potential to become the Kingdom of France if the leadership decides to invite Jean of Orleans to reclaim his throne after Petain steps down. Meanwhile, the Germans, if they win the war against the Commune of France, have the option of setting up the puppet French Kingdom.
• Oppressive States of America: All three of the main factions in the Second American Civil War have an extremist, despotic fringe that may take power under the right circumstances: The Totalist Vanguardist faction for the Combined Syndicates, the Wars Powers Committee and National Populist Silver Legion faction for the Union State, and the MacArthur military junta for the Federal government.
• Orphaned Etymology: While it was more prominent in earlier versions (especially before 0.8), it still pops up from time to time.
  • Before the massive overhaul of the naval tech tree in 0.8, The United States can still develop the Midway-Class aircraft carrier, even though the Battle of Midway is almost guaranteed to not happen.
  • Pre-0.8, Canada could develop the Bren Gun, and the Union of Britain could get the Bren Carrier, despite the fact that the Bren would most likely not exist.^note It was developed from the Czechoslovak ZB vz.26 light machine gun, and the name Bren comes from where the two guns were developed, Brno and Enfield. Czechoslovakia doesn't exist in Kaiserreich, and while Czech weapons are made by the Austro-Hungarians in Kaiserreich's timeline, Enfield is under the control of the Union of Britain, who the Austro-Hungarians have zero reasons to cooperate with.
  • Several US tanks are named for American Generals, despite that tradition being started by the British. As well, the Patton tank still exists, even though Patton betrays the United States during the Civil War. This is especially notable, since they do actually take stuff like this into account elsewhere, with the Union of Britain version of the Churchill tank and Churchill Kangaroo APC being called the Mosley and Mosley Kangaroo instead. Even stranger, the CSA also calls it the Patton, despite the fact that it's guaranteed that he won't be on their side.
  • Pre-0.8, the third Canadian light tank is the M3 Arctic Fox, despite the fact that terming things M# is American terminology, and the Arctic Fox is a Canadian design.
  • The pre-0.8 German assault rifle is an odd example. While it is designated the Sturmgewehr 43 instead of 44, there is still the fact that the term Sturmgewehr is thought to have come from Hitler himself^note There is some debate, though. Post-0.8, it is now called a machinenkarabiner (Machine Carbine).
  • A possible name for a Union of Britain armoured division is the 7th "Desert Rats" Armoured Division. Thing is, the real 7th Armoured Division was only formed in 1938, after the war broke out, and only got the nickname while fighting in North Africa
• Peace Conference: In 1928, after Germany and Japan directly fought each other during the Jade Wind Incident, USA organizes the Shanghai Conference in an attempt to resolve the Gambit Pileup that China had become. The conference established the Legation Cities as Truce Zones for everyone involved, Chinese, German, or Japanese, maintained USA's Open Door Policy on China trade, and organized a ceasefire for all of the Chinese warlord factions.
• Pet the Dog:
  • It's possible to be extremely lenient to defeated enemies if the player so chooses — playing as the victorious White Russians, for example, one of the choices given fairly early on provides the option to formally recognize the local Soviet councils and essentially integrate the defeated Reds peacefully into the government.
  • If playing an authoritarian-at-start regime with a unique focus tree, it's possible to make concessions by pursuing the branches that encourage reforms, letting the player win back their people's trust while keeping their authoritarian leader in power. Of course, you can always be a jackass and crack down even more in other branches.
  • Hermann von Göring might be a ruthless colonialist in how he treats the native Africans under his rule, but he also has a soft spot for the many endangered species on the continent and will even try to create laws to help protect them.
  • Boris Savinkov is generally seen as a pseudo-fascist, but he is presented as being pretty benevolent towards national minorities, even letting them exist on equal footing with ethnic Russians as long as both recognize themselves as Russians and declare their loyalty to Savinkov's regime.
  • Subverted with William Dudley Pelley, as while he (on the surface) seems to support democracy more than Long does, he also restricts voting rights to white Christians and tries to keep welfare limited to only the "loyal whites."
• Point of Divergence: The point of divergence of the Kaiserreich timeline is 8 January 1917, when Kaiser decides to not reenact unrestricted submarine warfare. This decision prevents the US from the involvement in World War I and leads to the following failure of the Allied offensive in the west.
• Proxy War: China is the site of a proxy war between Germany and Japan. Germany directly supports the Zhili clique (who had under their requests reformed into Qing), while Japan directly supports the Fengtian clique (who under Japanese pressure refuses to recognize Qing and formed their own competing government), who are directly hostile to each other. The Legation Cities are born out of tensions caused by German and Japanese forces scrambling to occupy former British concessions, and as they currently stand are the site of a diplomatic battleground between German and Japanese ambassadors.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: The HoI4 version includes a large new sountrack consisting of dozen of hours of music from all around the world, including national anthems, patriotic songs, military marches, or just popular music of the era (for instance, the soundtrack includes "Lili Marlene", Charles Trenet's "Douce France", the swans theme from Swan Lake...).
• Puppet State:
  • Much of the Reichspakt, along with Germany's territories in Africa and China, are puppets of Imperial Germany, rather than being actual independent nations in an alliance.
  • Imperial Japan has a puppet state in Fengtian, which is a claimant to legitimate rule of China. However, late in the game, they can attempt to overthrow the Japanese yoke and unite China as a free and independent country.
  • Kaiserreich puts a much higher emphasis on subservient states than the vanilla game. Whenever a nation capitulates to another nation or is annexed in a peace deal, there is an event that will let the new occupier choose to either keep the new land for themselves or create one or more puppet nations out of their former enemy. Choosing to claim conquered lands directly instead of releasing puppets results in stacking war support penalties because of the populace not supporting the government taking over a nation they have no legitimate claim over, incentivizing forming new allied nations instead of the map painting that a vanilla game can lead to.
• Putting on the Reich: National Populists tend to evoke imagery of real-life fascists, with a general obsession of rallies, insignias, and State Secs. They tend heavily towards nationalistic and aggressive tendencies, though very few have any kind of racial superiority element.
• The Quisling: The original, Vikdun Quisling, is a potential minister of Norway, though without any of his OTL subversive activities.
  • Charles Edward, hereditary Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. A grandson of Queen Victoria, he chose to side with Germany instead of Britain during the First Weltkrieg. He has spent the interbellum years as a moderately influential socialite in Germany society. If Germany capitulates the Union of Britain and chooses not to return it to the Entente exiles, or reneges on the Halifax Conference agreements, he can be installed as the monarch of a restored United Kingdom or a devolved England, where he earns the title of the "Traitor King", universally despised by all aspects of British society, syndicalist and monarchist alike, as nothing but a German puppet.
• Red Scare: Due to the spread of Syndicalism and other radical left ideologies around the world, fear of the Syndicalist revolution is common in capitalist nations.
• La Résistance:
  • France can cause a rebellion in Wallonia and Alsace-Lorraine once war between Germany and France breaks out, spawning 4 militia divisions. This can really help the Commune if they exploit it well.
  • If the Commune of France loses the Second Weltkrieg and is partitioned between the French Republic and German-occupied puppet kingdom, the former can support an insurgency against the latter. This often leads to a Third Weltkrieg.
• The Remnant:
  • The Entente is called "The Empire-in-Exile Club" because of this. Britain, France and Italy had hostile revolutions that exiled their governments to their colonies, Britain is now based on Canada (Although it still possesses a Vestigial Empire of Colonies), France on Algeria and the Italian House of Savoia only controls the Kingdom of Sardinia.
  • Stalin (going by his real name), Zhukov, Tukhachevsky and Chuikov represent the forefront of Bolshevik expertise and are in Patagonia advising the revolution before possibly returning to Russia or Red France should the Syndicalists end up in a war there.
  • Due to the failure of the first Russian Revolution, Marxism-Leninism has been reduced to a fringe ideology within the radical left around the world (even the Bolshevik remnants have moved on to Syndicalism). However, the Leninists are still represented by the Jacobins in France, and if they manage to win the elections, they will be in control of a powerful industrialized nation that is also the leader of the Internationale faction. Within Russia itself, socialism can be put in place once again and it's possible to take a Leninist path once more.
• Revenge Before Reason: In previous versions, Edward VIII may bring the Entente into the Second Weltkrieg against Germany, judging that avenging their initial defeat is a more pressing concern than reclaiming Britain from the Syndicalists.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: So many, in part due to the mod's focus of shifting focus away from major 20th century figures to more minor ones.
  • Many of the members of Nazi Germany in our timeline such as Rudolf Hess and Joseph Goebbels serve in various far-right parties, including one led by Ernst Rohm, while there is no event to elect them to power they can be appointed manually as ministers.
  • Reinhard Heydrich is an admiral and a possible minister of military intelligence in Mittelafrika.^note OTL's Heydrich started his career by serving in Weimar-era German Navy, from which he was expelled in 1931
  • Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg is a school teacher in the United Baltic Duchy. Fitting, as he is a Baltic German.
  • Hermann Göring and Joachim von Ribbentrop administer Mittelafrika for the German Empire — in theory. In actuality they lord over the place like old-school absolute despots, and the Fatherland basically turns a blind eye to their dealings so long as Berlin gets its cut.
  • Joseph Goebbels is a prominent movie critic who writes a favorable review on Leni Riefenstahl's movie about Hitler.
  • Josias zu Waldeck und Pyrmont, head of the Princely House of Waldeck and Pyrmont and also an SS general in real life, is a general in German East Asia.
  • Heinrich Himmler is a Freikorps commander in the United Baltic Duchy committing violence against the local villages. He gets killed during one of his fights against local partisans.
  • Winston Churchill is a possible minister for the Entente-liberated Britain.
  • Due to the Nazis never rising to power, Albert Einstein remains in Germany as an armaments minister.
  • Boris Savinkov, historically a Right-SR who ran its Combat Organization/Terror Brigade, and afterwards opposed the Bolsheviks, is the leader of the National Populists in Russia, and has taken power at the start of the game. He arguably takes over the role that Hitler filled in OTL.
  • Charlie Chaplin is a potential minister replacement for the Minister of Security for the Combined Syndicates of America, fitting his real-life reputation as a leftist radical. It's mentioned that his film Modern Times is quickly banned in the United States for being anti-capitalist, which actually happened with his film Limelight in 1952.
  • Pancho Villa remains alive and active in Mexico, leading one of the major factions of the new socialist Mexico alongside fellow revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, and he may come to lead all of Mexico depending on how events pan out.
  • Quentin Roosevelt, the son of Theodore Roosevelt, didn't participate the Weltkrieg and avoided his death and is a prominent Republican politician. In later elections, he runs as the Republican presidential candidate.
  • Clement Attlee is a member of the Federationalist faction in the Union of Britain and a potential Chairman if either his faction wins in the Second Congress after the Second Weltkrieg.
  • Howard Hughes and William Randolph Hearst are potential Heads of Government for the Pacific States. Hughes can also be the Economic Minister and the Chief of the Airforce. John Ford can be the Minister of the Interior or Head of Military Intelligence^note He did reach the rank of Commander in the US Navy during WWII, and reached the rank of Rear Admiral in the USN Reserve. And Walt Disney is a potential Economic Minister.
  • Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, is still alive, and is now the head of the Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte (German Air Force).
  • Father Charles Coughlin, Catholic priest, Huey Long supporter, anti-socialist and anti-Semite who has a radio program where he talks about his political ideas, is a possible minister option in the AUS. USA and the Papal State both get an early-game event where Coughlin rants about Syndicalists and Jews on his radio program, claiming that the Jews caused Syndicalism and the Black Monday crash.
• Rightful King Returns: Numerous examples.
  • Kirill Vladimirovich, the head of the House of Romanov following the death of Nicholas II, can be restored as the Tsar of Russia.
  • Flanders-Wallonia is ruled at the start of the game by the German king Adalbert, with the legitimate Belgian king Albert currently in exile in Canada. Adalbert has on a tenuous grasp on rule, reflected in massive initial national penalties that can result in a popular uprising that can restore Albert to rule in a restored Belgium. As a tiny country right on Germany's front doorstep, it is entirely up to Germany to decide whether to let the matter stand, negotiate to extract concessions from Belgium in exchange for noninterference, or invade and replace their puppet king, which can risk direct war with the Entente.
  • Serbia can restore the monarchy with the underaged Petar II of the Karađorđević house.
  • The Integralists in Brazil can restore the Empire of Brazil and crown Prince Pedro of Orléans-Braganza as the Emperor.
  • National France can restore the monarchy of France as well, in Bourbon or Bonaparte flavors.
  • Canada, which houses the British Royal Family in exile, has the primary goal of trying to reinstall Edward VIII onto Great Britain.
  • Pu Yi, the last emperor of the Manchu dynasty that ruled Qing China before its overthrow, was reinstalled onto a German-backed constitutional monarchy on Zhili Clique territory, which was nominally recognized by all other Chinese warlords due to the Zhili hegemony. He has no actual power as all the real power rests in Wu Peifu's Zhili clique, and must work his way to actually unify China.
  • Subverted by the Carlists in Spain, in which Xavier de Borbón y Parma claims the Spanish throne from the crumbling Kingdom of Spain (with the support of Italy and other Catholic powers), yet he's not considered a legitimate pretender by the rest of Spain.
  • In Portugal's backstory, following their defeat in the Weltkrieg, a pro-Monarchist counterrevolution overthrew the republican government and restored the Kingdom of Portugal and the former King Manuel II, who was overthrown in the 1910 revolution. In 1936, Portugal is ruled by Manuel's former competing claimant Duarte II (a.k.a. Duarte Nuno) as a part of the Pact of Dover, a private agreement on Portuguese succession following Manuel's death as he had no heir.
  • Hawaii can restore the monarchy if it gains independence.
  • The Kingdom of Sardinia can unite Italy with the former monarch.
  • Subverted in the cases of monarchies restored by foreign powers after a nation gets conquered, such as Mexico's two monarchy options. In these cases, the restored monarchy is more or less a Puppet King.
• Rule of Cool: The German Empire flag in Kaiserreich isn't the actual German Empire flag, it's their War Ensign. The choice of the flag is a piece of legacy lore that stuck due to its iconic status.
• Serious Business: In IV, Canada is very serious about The Stanley Cup, to the point that a Canadian team losing to an American team causes them to lose some Political Power.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: If Canada is overthrown by either a failed reclamation of the Home Islands or a successful invasion by the Combined Syndicates of America/Union of Britain, then an event will fire saying that the House of Windsor has been evacuated to Australia.
• Second American Civil War: The Second American Civil War is one of Kaiserreich's major events. In the wake of a far worse Great Depression, the American politics have become far more fractured and radical, with the far-left Socialist Party of America and the Longist America First-Union Party rapidly rising to power. Following the 1936 election, no matter who gets elected, one or more radical factions will declare the American government illegitimate and revolt against the government, inevitably triggering the civil war in 1937. While the civil war was avertable in past versions of the mod, it has been made unavoidable in version 0.9.^note Except through some cheese strategies like conquering America before 1937
• Shown Their Work: The mod has a ton of nods to real history, along with being based on an incredibly plausible Alternate History premise.
• Shout-Out:
  • Poland's text for the end of the Olympics is "Poland cannot into Olympics," a play on a popular Paradox forum meme.
  • One of the focuses in the Long's America focus tree of AUS is named "It Can Happen Here". This is quite fitting, considering that Berzelius Windrip, the dictator from the novel, was based on Huey Long.
  • One of the loading tips claims that "Ottoman Empire is the strongest state" on the grounds that it faces great internal and external pressure to collapse, and yet it persists, a shout-out to Europa Universalis where this the Ottomans really are one of, if not the strongest nation in the game.
  • One of the events for Yunarmiya for National Populist Russia has references to the Russian Visual Novel Everlasting Summer in it, including the name of the camp Sovyonok and a reference to the title of the novel itself.
  • The Ottoman Empire have an option to form desert rangers to patrol their "wastes".
  • In the Princely Federation, they have an option to have Osman Ali Khan seizes power from the council and attempts to grab all power for himself. Doing so will result in the Southern Indian states rebelling. What is Osman's reaction when the first state (Mysore) rebels? "It's treason, then."
    • There's also the reaction to MacArthur seizing power in Washington, kicking off the Second Civil War. "My allegiance was to the Republic, MacArthur, to DEMOCRACY!"
  • One of CSA's military focuses has this line originally spoken by General Shepherd from Modern Warfare 2:
  "Tomorrow there will be no shortage of volunteers, no shortage of patriots."
  • When Liangguang declares independence Qing will get an event about it with the response "Rebel Scum!"
  • In the reworked Germany focus tree, much of the flavor text of the "Promote Light Industry" focus describing the list of industries Germany should promote in a post-war occupied France^*"leather goods, beer, wines, spirits, toys, musical instruments, textiles and apparel" is taken directly from a military dispatch discussing the Morganthau Plan, the controversial real world proposed plan for post-war Germany to rip out all heavy manufacturing and replacing it with a consumer export industrial base.
• Sudden Downer Ending: Played for Laughs in the last second of the light hearted Story Of Jack Malone Hawaii trailer, where after escaping to Hawaii via Draft Dodging, the Lovable Coward suddenly has to deal with Japan invading.
• Take a Third Option:
  • Huey Long considers himself to be representing the third way between Syndicalism and Free Market Capitalism, but his dictatorial methods undermines worker unionism enough to piss off the CSA.
  • The Pacific States and New England both posit liberal democracy if the USA, AUS, and CSA degenerate into military, far-right or far-left dictatorships.
• The Theocracy:
  • The Papal State, naturally, with it's path decided by which Pope the cardinals elect to replace Pius XI. It can actually become a “constitutional theocracy” if a liberal or progressive Cardinal is elected, who then focuses on ecclesiastical matters and leaves governance to a democratic legislature.
  • There are several other (non-Christian) theocracies in game as well, including Turkestan (radical Islam) and Shangqing Tianguo (Chinese spiritualism).
• The Usurper:
  • Germany can install German nobles as France and Britain's monarchs instead of the British Windsors and French Bourbons/Bonapartes (or Republic if National France decides not to restore either dynasty).
  • The Carlists aspire to have Xavier be this for the legitimate Spanish royals.
• Velvet Revolution:
  • It is possible for the governments of Portugal and a Totalist Italy to be fully democratized without much bloodshed if dissent is high and the player chooses to cave in to the demands of the protesters.
  • National France (in the state as of 0.8; a rework has been teased) is a military regime, but dissent is rising and calls for a restoration of Republican liberties are being made. Notably, the military regime can't be preserved in its entirety, and the transitions are all peaceful — the closest is mostly restoring the Republic but having Petain remain President until death or a liberation of the mainland (an authoritarian regime can be maintained, but it transfers power to an absolutist monarch).
• Vestigial Empire: Numerous examples exist at the start of the game.
  • The British Empire has almost completely collapsed. Their overseas territories were either taken by other countries, taken by Germany, or went independent. The remains of the Royal Family and the British government has been sent into exile, operating out of Canada. They have a very loose alliance with only a few of its former dominions/colonies still working with them.
  • Allied to British Canada is National France, the remnants of the old French regime, now in exile in France's African colonies after the Syndicalist revolution in cosmopolitan France. They lost most of their overseas colonies beside the African one, much like Britain.
  • The Austro-Hungarian Empire is slowly sliding into internal tensions, and can easily collapse without major reforms.
  • The restored Qing is technically a subversion. The actual Qing was overthrown during the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, and is pretty much completely dead. The restored Qing is little more than warlord territory with a fresh coat of imperial paint. Puyi is really the only part of the old Qing that survived the Xinhai Revolution, and even after his restoration, he has little to no support within China and is isolated politics-wise, with the Zhili warlords handling most of the daily governance.
• Victory by Endurance: If the Syndicalists end up winning the Second American Civil War, this is usually how they do it — their territory includes a substantial majority of America's population, industry, and infrastructure, so they can produce more supplies than the other factions involved in the war, muster more troops to fight, and replace losses faster. All they really have to do is fortify and wait while their enemies gradually bleed themselves dry.
• Videogame Caring Potential: Much harder, of course, but present. Enact major reforms to free your people, save collapsing nations from dying, turn nations on the edge of destruction or despotism into constitutional monarchies, pursue diplomacy over invasion, etc. Prior to the option's removal, probably the greatest example of all was fully averting the seemingly inevitable Second American Civil War and enacting the Fair Deal to rebuild the American economy.
• Videogame Cruelty Potential: Almost more than actual Hearts of Iron. Want to re-enserf the peasantry under a new Russian Empire or create a fascist state out of the ruins of Russia? Create a fully dictatorial Totalist or Corporatist regime in America or thrust it under the rule of a military Junta trampling on constitutional rights? Execute protesters and those who oppose your reign? Make the civil wars of our timeline even worse? And not allow women to vote?! Then come and play Kaiserreich!
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Some of the harsher options have negative consequences that aren't always directly seen upon choosing them. The Dominion of India, for instance, is set up so that the softer, kinder your re-integration of the regions of the other two claimants to the Raj are, the quicker your rule is accepted and you get cores. Be as moderate as possible, and it might only take a few months. Be as harsh and radical as possible, and it might take more than a year. Similarly, there are harsh penalties and limits given to manpower for the Union of South Africa if apartheid is implemented.
• The Von Trope Family: Seeing as Imperial Germany is still alive, Von names are much more in use. Notable example include Roman von Ungern-Sternberg (who is actually Russian, but of German extraction), and Hermann von Göring (who got the noble treatment after Germany wins WWI).
• We ARE Struggling Together: The Kuomintang during the Republican era is a big tent organization that included both left-wing and right-wing factions, both of whom claims to be the "real" successor of Sun's ideals. With Chiang Kai-shek's death in Kaiserreich, the left-KMT purge has been prevented, and both left and right-wing KMT survived into 1936, with L-KMT being represented by the guerrillas rising up in Jiangxi and Fujian, and R-KMT being represented by the National Revolutionary Army remnants in Yunnan. This political divide can turn into outright war between left and right wing KMT, if R-KMT decides to set up their own Central Committee to subvert the current Central Committee dominated by L-KMT.
• We Have Reserves: The Syndicalists in the Second American Civil War have this as their primary advantage, both in equipment and in men — the other factions get better generals (the American Union State) or better-trained troops (the Federal Government), but at the end of the day there just aren't very many of them, while every Syndicalist soldier killed has three more lined up to take his place on the battle line, with the industrial base of the Rust Belt to back it up.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: A fair number of major countries start with leaders who die (or can die) soon after the game starts. In IV, some (such as Canada) are unable to access most (or even all) of their focuses until their first leader dies.
• White-and-Grey Morality: It's possible for all major factions in the game to end up as democratic or benevolent, whether it be a constitutional monarchy, worker's democracy, or liberal democracy. However, the revanchism left by the Weltkrieg means these factions will go to war, although conquered people at least don't have to worry about tyranny after.
• Whole-Plot Reference:
  • The American Union State and its related event chains are heavily inspired by It Can't Happen Here, which in turn was itself inspired by the real Huey Long and his "Share Our Wealth" movement.
  • The Combined Syndicates draw influence from Reds!: A Revolutionary Timeline. Though the first version of Kaiserreich slightly predates the first version of Reds!, the developers have openly admitted to having drawn inspiration from it when fleshing out the Combined Syndicates in newer iterations of the mod.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Eventually in one patch, the developers made it so that no matter your decisions, you couldn't completely avert the Second American Civil War. While it is possible to reach a compromise with either Reed or Long (depending on which President is elected), or even outright assassinate one of them (can be done regardless of President choice), the spurned/surviving part will take offense and rise up in rebellion.
• You Don't Look Like You:
  • Leo Stefan I von Habsburg-Lothringen, a child monarch head of state for Ukraine that can appear when King Vasily I gets assassinated (Leo is Vasily's nephew), actually uses an image of a young Otto von Habsburg as his portrait, because the real Leo Stefan has little to no known photographs.
  • The Paternal Autocrat military dictator of Panama, Manuel Pino, uses a picture of real life Panamanian dictator Omar Torrijos as his portrait as Pino has no known photographs.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After the Cairo Pact defeats the Ottomans, Egypt and Iran can limit Arabia's power by not giving the Arabs land, resulting in an outraged Arabia leaving the Cairo Pact.

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