Pride and Fall: The Last Days of Poland is a Game Mod for Hearts of Iron IV, which takes place in a broken Poland in the year of 2027, following a Law and Justice victory in 2023 election and the European Union's intervention.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The game starts in 2027.
- After the End: Atomic explosion. Collapse of the society. Junk becoming a strategic resource. While some parts of Poland are relatively OK, not to mention the rest of the world, much of the mod setting corresponds well with the general view of how the post-apocalypse should look like.
- Allohistorical Allusion:
- Gdańsk is referred as a free city as it was before WWII
. - The story of Flower Consortium is based around the real-life affair known as Skin Hunters affair.
- Areas around the cities of Pruszków and Wołomin are owned by gangs, which is a reference to criminal groups which were notable in Polish 90’s.
- The Roman State in Kalisz refers to a supposed Roman settlement in Poland in the region named Calisia.
- Gdańsk is referred as a free city as it was before WWII
- Alternate History: The game is set in 2027, with a broken Poland after an atomic bomb was dropped over the city of Łódź.
- Arc Words: The subtitle of every superevent starts with words „komu przeszkadza…” (who is bothered about…) referring to infamous "stripes" under news, which often were biased towards government critics.
- Balkanize Me: This mod presents Poland broken into dozens of states, warlords, and cliques. Also, some of bigger countries, like Eurocommissariats and the General Prosecutorship are objects of balkanisations of their own soon after the game start.
- Canon Foreigner: While most characters are based on real-life people, some of them are from fictional works like Father Mateusz, Paweł Kozioł, Władysław Kargul, Andrzej Gałecki, Mr Adam from Polish Angling Association or Albert Szper.
- Civil War: The goal of most factions is to conquer other warlord cliques and unite fragmented Poland as its sole legitimate government.
- Crapsack World: The European Union has become more centralized and is willing to send its military to police neighboring countries. The USA and Germany are destined to be ruled by more and more radical leaders as time goes by. Putin has been ousted, but the succeeding Navalny's government turns out to be just as autocratic as the previous one.
- Denser and Wackier: Most of Postpolonic ideologies are the weirdests paths in this mode. It contains satanic bandit led by black metal musician, group based on paramedics murdering their patients, neo paganists, state based on a game show or Bedlam House run by Albert Szper.
- Dirty Communists: Marxism Cranism ideology is used for more authoritarian socialists warlords, wanting to re-create Polish People's Republic.
- Forbidden Zone: Łódź Bałuty, which even before falling atomic bomb on it was considered bad place.
- Historical Villain Downgrade: While most of the characters are shown in a worse way than in real life, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko are deposed dictators leading rump states in Kaliningrad Oblast and Hajnówka.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: After the collapse of the Polish state, many public figures have gotten radicalized, if not completely insane in a few cases. Already radical individuals were finally given the chance to implement their dangerous ideas. Most notable examples are:
- Alexei Navalny, former opposition figure against Putin’s rule is shown as the one who overthrew him, but his rule is revealed to be just as autocratic as the previous regime.
- Donald Tusk, one of the most important Polish politicians, who was blamed for being too dependent on Germany, works as their outright Quisling.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: While the middle difficulties, Recruit, Regular and Veteran, are the same as in the base game, the hardest difficulty is named "Golem" and the easiest "Sasin" (which is Take That! for Jacek Sasin, Polish minister which became
Memetic Loser after wasting 70 millions PLN on elections which did not take place. - Kent Brockman News: The superevents informing about most important events are shown in form imitating polish news show named Wiadomości (which means News).
- Land of One City: Numerous Free Cities, whose territory is generally limited to the city they represent and nothing else, litter the post-Fall landscape, the most notable being Łódź.
- One Nation Under Copyright: Throughout the Polish landscape corporations of pre-Fall Poland keep functioning under a business-as-usual mindset, the largest even holding and governing territory under the banner. These warlords are represented by the Corporatocracy ideology.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: Neonacionalist ideologies consists of far right activists, but some of it's sub ideologies are National Bolshevism or National Feminism
- Point of Divergence: 2023 elections, which in this world were another victory of Law and Justice party cementing their rule. Real life eletions from the other hand were more like Pyrrhic Victory for them, as while they still won the most of seats, they were deposed by bigger coalition.
- Pride Before a Fall: The name of the mod alludes to this trope. The Law and Justice government became more and more arrogant and open about their attempts to subvert democracy, thinking themselves to be untouchable. The cascade of events ended up with the collapse of the Polish state referred to in-universe as 'the Fall'.
- Punny Name: Some leaders of countries are chosen not because of connections with this region, but because of puns. Examples are:
- Ricardus Calisius (real name Ryszard Kalisz) leading the Roman-like country of Calisia based in the city of Kalisz.
- Roksana Węgiel, an Internal Reformist in the Brotherhood of Coal, because her surname in Polish means "coal".
- The Quisling: To the east of what was once Poland lie the Eurokommissariats, zones where the European Army was able to advance during their invasion, and are led mainly by political figures affiliated with the Europeist party Civil Platform, like Grzegorz Schetyna, or Donald Tusk, who turned into collaborating with German and European authorities in the eve of the invasion to oppose the increasingly authoritarian Law and Justice.
- The Remnant: The old pre-Fall Polish government is located around the city of Legionowo, and other PiS remains remain scattered throughout the anarchy. Other former governments are the Kaliningrad Oblast ruled by Vladimir Putin and Hajnówka invaded by Alexander Lukashenko, after the former was ousted by Navalny's coup and the latter by the Russian invasion of Belarus.
- Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Leaders of countries in this mod are not only real-life Polish politicians, but also celebrities, musicians, hosts of TV shows or even characters from internet memes.
- Schizo Tech: Because of apocaliptic landscape warlords are using weird mix of modern weapon and scavenged civil equipment, like cars or cannons made from trash cans.
- Shout-Out:
- The mod's subheading, The Last Days of Poland, as well as the various warlords vying for power with the German-controlled commissariats to the west is an obvious Shout-Out to fellow Hearts of Iron IV mod The New Order Last Days Of Europe and the Russian Anarchy. The 'Pride and Fall' part comes from Rafał Ziemkiewicz's book Pycha i Upadek (eng. Pride and Fall).
- The atomic bomb falling on Łódź district Bałuty is a reference to a Polish copypasta, where by mistake North Korea bombs not New York, but Łódź Bałuty. Losses were estimated at 32 PLN.
- Brotherhood of Coal is based on Brotherhood of Steel.
- Andrzej Sapkowski, author of Witcher books creates a warlord state based on the world from his books. Also one of his generals is Michał Żebrowski, who played Geralt in Polish adaptation.
- The inspiration for creating Roman country for Ricardus Calisius was noted as Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra. Also a centurion from the movie is one of his advisors.
- KOWALSKI.EXE is a reference to another Polish copypasta suggesting that Janusz Kowalski is not real, and instead an image created by AI by scanning several thousand of faces of the average Pole.
