YMMV / Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg

• Americans Hate Tingle: Not the mod itself, but some of the Latin American paths are not well regarded by Latin American players, in part due to the mod buffing up and outright misinterpreting movements that were long defunct by the time of the mod's starting date (in particular the Liga Patriotica in Argentina) and seeing choices for leaders and paths as particular odd (like Rafael Franco as leader of Totalist Paraguay). This has escalated with claims that some of these more questionable choices for leaders may have influenced Paradox itself to misinterpret them with their Latin American country pack, that some see as taking inspiration from Kaiserreich to its detriment in this regard.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Happens very often to many characters and factions given the Grey-and-Gray Morality setting of the mod. In fact, the player has the ability to ecounter these interpretations and validate them or not via event or focus tree.
  • The Internationale: Are they (if not totalist) a genuinely benevolent socialist alternative to capitalism or are they revenge-seeking totalitarian warmongering dictatorships from the get go, with Totalism being only an extension of an already brutal system? How one feels about the Internationale may be based on how one feels about socialism in the real world and if it can be divorced from Stalinism/Marxism-Leninism.
  • The Entente: Are they defenders of democracy banished from their homes by their enemies, or imperialistic sore losers one step away from outright National Populism? Again, as with the Internationale, it may depend on how one feels about actual history, in particular the legacy of British Imperialism. That said, the devs themselves somewhat lean to the latter interpretation, noting that the exiles have little popular support in both Canada and the home islands, and would likely have to resort to repression post-war to regain power, and that they'd eagerly align with a reactionary or Savinkovite Russia to stop the Internationale in the wake of an Internationale victory in Europe.
  • The Reichpakt: Is the order established by Germany a benevolent one shielding Europe from the Syndicalist menace, or is it oppressive and imperialistic on its own right?
  • The Co-Prosperity Sphere: Are (democratic) Japan and her allies truly a bastion of democracy in Eastern Asia, or are they merely seeking the Entente & Reichspakt's territories for their own imperialistic ends?
  • The Cairo Pact: Are Egypt and the pact's other possible members fighting Ottoman hegemony for virtuous reasons, or are they opportunists just trying to bolster their own political power?
  • Is Huey Long a well-intentioned visionary taking authoritarian means to fight both Syndicalism and far-right racism while genuinely caring for all Americans, or is he an opportunistic, self-serving demagogue that never cared for racial equality in the first place and is only doing what is necessary to maintain power all for himself?
  • Assuming they win, do the Combined Syndicates seek to preserve American culture and reinterpret its national identity in a socialist lens, or do they seek to tear down the American national identity altogether and create a new one in its stead?^note An in-depth look at leftist history in the real world posits that the former interpretation is more likely, with most socialists of the game's era describing a socialist America as fulfilling the aims of both the American Revolution and the Union's goals in the American Civil War. Even among the Totalists, Earl Browder was notorious OTL for American nationalism and William Foster, who would be the most open to forging a completely new national identity, had a far more nuanced view of American history OTL than most modern leftists. The extremely negative view of American history and culture on the modern American left is a recent phenomenon tied to the growth of critical re-evaluations of American history on anti-racist and anti-colonialist (particular anti-settler colonialist) lines that slowly emerged since the 1960s.
  • Is the anti-racism of the Brazilian Integralists genuine, or is it an opportunistic power play to cut into the far-left's support base in Brazil?
• Aluminium Christmas Trees: Lore reveals pertaining to the Union of Britain rework about the role of the police in the Union of Britain handling crime with a light touch and being relatively un-militarized might, on the surface, sound like leftist wish fulfillment about radically reforming, or outright abolishing the concept of policing in light of modern criticisms of American policing. Except that policing was always much more light handed in Britain historically due to the Peelian Principles that were laid down in the 1820s and the post revolutionary British government simply continued that tradition. To this day, British police do not carry firearms.
• Awesome Music: A Kaiserreich-specific soundtrack is available that offers over two hundred songs and pieces. The playlist begins here and may be downloaded here.
• Broken Base:
  • One has emerged between fans who like the mod’s more silly/memetic elements and those who want the mod to be more serious and historically plausible. That the devs seem to currently favor the latter view has caused some minor controversy. One of examples include downplaying the character of Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, who can't proclaim himself as Genghis Khan II and seek to create the Second Mongolian Empire in KR4 0.10 and further. While it is more in line with the actual historical person, this decision was proved to be rather contentious among KR players, since silliness of Ungern's character was one of the oldest and beloved parts of Kaiserreich.
  • Many longtime players were royally pissed when the 0.9 update removed the ability to prevent the Second American Civil War. The devs claimed it was because they felt avoiding the civil war was "boring", and that it was much more fun to play the civil war. For a less divisive reason, a lot of Latin American content depended on the war breaking out. A massive portion of the playerbase, however, vehemently disagreed, accusing the developers of forcing their own sense of "fun" on them, when many players find the ACW either a waste of time or too hard, and would much rather skip it.
• Common Knowledge: A very common interpretation of Totalism is that it is a purely-Red Brown ideology due to many of their leaders being OTL Fascists or authoritarian dictators and nationalists with almost nonexistent ties to authoritarian Communism, or do have ties with authoritarian Communism but are notoriously nationalistic OTL. This interpretation of Totalism usually comes with claims that the Kaiserreich developers are planning to move all authoritarian Communist and Marxist-Leninist Totalists that don't subscribe to nationalism to the radical socialist category. In reality however, what parties get the "totalist" slot is dependent on the geopolitical situation present in each country, with some countries having the totalist slot be represented by authoritarian Communists and others by either Red Fascists or more ideologically eclectic authoritarians.
• Complete Monster (Pre-Version 1.0 Update): William Dudley Pelley was depicted in earlier version of the mod as the leader of the far-right Silver Legion faction within Huey Long's America First Party. If the AUS won, Pelley would attempt a coup if Huey Long rejects measures to enforce Prohibition. If victorious, Pelley purges everyone in the AUS government that's not in his faction and executes Huey Long, turning America into a white supremacist Christian fundamentalist nation. Once in power, Pelley enacts policies such as enforcing Jim Crow laws across all of America, absorbing the Ku Klux Klan into the government and forming a Klan-led Secret Police, and sends dissidents to forced labor camps. Pelley also proposes acts to restrict African-American freedom of movement, cuts African-American education to only focus on labor education, and expands African-American criminalization and penal labor to bring back slavery. Pelley also fosters rabid anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, leading to the biggest polio outbreak in American history.
• Cult Classic: Kaiserreich is definitely not a mainstream game even if it is one of the most popular HOI4 mods, but it still has a loyal and active fanbase with its own subculture coming complete with memes and fan nicknames.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Many examples, as the Ensemble Dark Horse entries below can attest. More extremist factions and leaders in general are generally favored by the fandom. Of course, part of this is based on the player’s own politics.
  • Totalist and National Populist leaders often blur the lines between this trope and Love to Hate. Poe's Law can be in full effect in discussions about such leaders.
  • MacArthur, Huey Long, and Jack Reed are harsh dictators and/or start as major instigators of the Civil War, and all of them are far more popular choices for leader of America than any of the potential democratic and more compromisable presidents.
  • The Third Internationale in general, which many players seem to unironically favor, despite them promoting violent global revolution and having a decent chance turning into brutal Totalist dictatorships.
  • On the other side of the coin, both the Entente and Reichspakt alliances have a large fanbase, the former especially on the official subreddit. They usually contain a wide range of pro from Authoritarian Democraties to even blatant National Populist, and are formed around colonial powers which don't hold the native populations of their domains in very high regard even at their best, to the point of going full Evil Colonialist (though everything of it can be changed during a game process).
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Oswald Mosley's Totalist faction in the Union of Britain may as well be considered the canon choice in who gets to end up ruling, largely due the Memetic Mutation shown below, his boosts to military power and the sheer absurdity of an OTL fascist leading an authoritarian socialist state with Eric Blair of all people, as an underling.
  • Japan as well, due to the many choices, opportunities and challenging gameplay provided——do you focus on controlling China and carving out puppet states there take the opportunity in the Second American Civil War to seize control of Hawaii and the PSA, or do you take advantage of the chaos in Russia to conquer Mongolia and Siberia? Do you become crazed National Populists similar to OTL Japan, or do you become the bastion of democracy and freedom in Asia?
  • Huey Long is one of the most popular characters in the Second American Civil War, mostly due his Memetic Mutation phrases of E V E R Y M A N A K I N G and S H A R E T H E W E A L T H and despite begin the president of a resurgent Deep South Confederacy Expy, he has surprisingly progressive politics and a wealth redistribution program (The "Share the Wealth" program) that would be easily found by a social democratic government (although one infamous path has segregation in the South enforced even further.)
  • General Douglas MacArthur for being able to turn the Federal government (if Long or Reed are elected) into a military dictatorship which can end in the restoration of democracy or MacArthur crowned as the "American Caesar", plus being an extremely cool (if morally questionable) third option for those who dislike syndicalism or Longism.
  • Female leaders of almost all types have gotten followings. The major ones include old Jiang Qing in the Legation Cities, Soong Ching-ling in L-KMT, as well as and several princesses and queens of aristocratic/monarchist nations.
  • German East Asia and the Indochinese Union for having highly entertaining focus trees and being able to start The Vietnam War in the 1930s. For the former, they can even deploy napalm and attack helicopters if Mittelafrika's researched them.
  • Kaiser Karl I, the Emperor of Austria. For the longest time, the Austrian A.I. would go for the SocDem path, which would result in the creation of a peaceful and multiethnic empire (namely, the "Danubian Federation"). Contrast that with the generally hellish state of most of Kaiserreich's Europe & Asia along with the Federation being largely founded peacefully and with diplomacy — and including the infamously fractious Balkan states, no less. Combining all that with the historical Karl I being a candidate for sainthood have made Karl I be one of the few nigh-universally beloved characters in the entire mod, and has earned him the Fan Nickname "Blessed Karl".
  • Brazil and Portugal are minor countries in the grand scope of things, but are very popular meme subjects due to their Integralist Organic Kingdom paths.
  • As of the China update, two unifiers have become popular:
    • Chen Jiongming and his Federalists. In an era where China is largely divided between petty dictators driven by greed and ambition, Chen Jiongming's Liangguang Clique is the closest to a functioning democracy, with Chen himself being a genuine idealist. Despite starting out as a clear underdog, Chen can potentially unite a broken China and establish a functioning, multi-party federal democracy with extensive civic, political, and workers' rights. He even steps down once the new constitution is ratified, deciding to let China's people pick their next leader.
    • The Left Kuomintang under Song Qingling, the widow of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. While Wang Jingwei starts off as the autocratic head of the insurgency, Song can wrest control away from him in the party congress should they seize Nanjing in time. Allowing elections and ensuring the beginnings of the democratic process her husband envisioned, Song perhaps is the closest one can get to achieving the democracy Dr. Sun fought for, without the authoritarian one-party tutelage he later advocated for historically, or a military dictatorship like the one under Chiang Kai-shek in real life.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The Corn Lord for Nikita Khrushchev, a potential leader of Socialist Ukraine in-game, for his infamous real life campaign to cultivate corn in the Soviet Union.
  • The American Augustus for Dwight D. Eisenhower, if he becomes a successor to MacArthur, who is known as the American Caesar.
  • Battle Pope for the NatPop Pope candidate Julius IV (originally Theodore Innitzer, later replaced by Alfredo Schuster in the Garibaldi's Nightmare update), for his hardline militarist stand against syndicalism and as a reference to the comic book series Battle Pope.
  • Italianization is used instead of balkanization because of the extreme division of what once was Italy, now divided between the Republic of Italy, Socialist Republic of Italy, Two Sicilies, Papal States and Sardinia.
  • Sand France is a commonly used term for National France, which is housed in France's remaining north African and Saharan colonies.
  • Mittelafrika Explosion for the collapse of Deutsch-Mittelafrika, due to its suddenness and the extreme amount of states created in its aftermath, though this has been lessened mechanically in recent updates (mostly to prevent people's computers from freezing) to a slow demolition once stability reaches the breaking point, with states breaking away one by one over several weeks of game time.
• Fanon:
  • Several USA AARs that focus on Quentin Roosevelt have depicted his brother Archibald as an AUS sympathizer, which is actually quite plausible given his far-right tendencies in Real Life. This became Ascended Fanon in version 0.8.
  • Mosley and his Maximists have a disproportionate amount of attention in the Fandom, and are commonly thought to be the "canon" leaders of post-1936 Britain. It helps that his path results in a more interesting and dramatic political scenario, while his rival factions have quite vanilla political paths. The developers seem to have gone with this in World Of Kaiserreich - Dominion Of Canada (British Exiles) - 2/2, which says Mosley is in charge of the Union of Britain.
  • In general, Totalists are far more popular than their rival factions in Western European syndicalist nations, as can be summed up in this comic◊.
  • The reason why monarchist factions and Savinkov are frequently chosen by Russian players is because of the fanon idea that Russia in this timeline starts out as the Weimar Republic, a failed democracy that had also rejected communism when a revolution failed.
  • The fanon fate of Germany itself almost always has it conquered by Russia (and more specifically, by Boris Savinkov's National Populist Russia), due to this loading screen based on the photo of the Soviet soldiers raising a flag over the Reichstag, symbolizing their triumph over the Nazi regime (except the flag in the screen is changed to the flag of the Russian State led by Savinkov's National Populists, the KR version of Nazis).
  • Many fanon depictions of the Commune of France (at least, in timelines where the Internationale is defeated, instead of the ones where where it controls what were the capitalist First World nations during the Cold War era) have it sharing the fate of OTL Germany: Being defeated and divided between a Pro-German North and a Pro Entente South, usually ruled by Francois III and Napoleon VI respectively.
  • Most fanon interpretations of Deutsch-Mittelafrika have Hermann Göring take over Deutsch-Mittelafrika as a National Populist and declare independence from Germany, and basically spends his time as ruler running his new country like a mixture of Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now (with all the inherent Nightmare Fuel that entails)... And it often results in the natives rising up and tearing down Mittelafrika, and scores of tribes and nations rising out of the ashes of Göring's empire.
  • According to the Fanon, if Nikita Khrushchev takes control of Ukraine, he'll attempt a massive program to plant corn across all of Ukraine (like he did in Real Life when he was the leader of the USSR). See the entry Corn Lord on Memetic Mutation.
  • The two common interpretations of the aftermath of Kaiserreich's World War 2 is a Space Cold War, either between the Internationale (including the Combined Syndicates of America) and Savinkov's Russia (often with a "Eurasian Alliance" of satellite far-right dictators), or between the Entente and the Reichspakt, with America under Huey Long's American Union State on either side. Both interpretations of Kaiserreich's Cold War currently have HOI4 mods in-progress to explore those eras, with the former being represented under Krasnacht, and the latter under Kalterkrieg, as well as under one of the most popular AARs of Kaiserreich, The Crown Atomic.
  • In previous versions, many fans assumed that Queen Elizabeth II would become the monarch of the British Empire after Edward VIII's death, due to there being no event for him having children, and the fact that some historians have even hypothesized that he may have been sterile. This has died down in the latest versions, as an event has been added announcing the birth of his first son.
  • Many players have interpreted the "American Stratocracy" focus (and the path leading up to it) available if MacArthur takes over the US Government and wins the Civil War as the US becoming similar to the government in Starship Troopers, with public service being a requirement for voting.
  • Popularily submodded leaders include Kaiser Wilhelm's daughter, Victoria Louise^note Base HOI4 seems to have noticed this, as the "Waking The Tiger" expansion adds a German path to restore the Kaiserreich, under a very specific event chain, lets Victoria Louise to ascend the throne of a new Holy Roman Empire, and Walt Disney in the Pacific States of America (e.g.: the Pacifican Dream sub-mod).
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • A decent chunk of KR's fanbase is made up of Grey Wolves. The CSA armed forces also includes a division nicknamed the "Dry Boys"^ExplanationAn In-Series Nickname for the host of Chapo..
  • Weirdly enough, with Star vs. the Forces of Evil, with both fandoms' Reddit subs crossposting their own memes for most of 2018.
• Good Bad Bugs: While playing as Mongolia, this player had the event where Ungern-Sternberg was overthrown and shot as the result of an unrest caused by low stability... But Sternberg's death didn't remove him from the list of generals!
• Harsher in Hindsight: An example regarding Russian intervention in Ukraine: Russia has the option of passing out citizenships and passports like candy to create a pretext for intervention by defending "Russian citizens". This was a strategy used by the Russians in Abkhazia and South Ossetia in our own history as well, and several years after the event chain was written, Ukraine and the Crimea.
• Just Here for Godzilla: The Second American Civil War storyline is by far one of the most notable things about the mod and attracts a lot of players compared to even the central Second Weltkrieg. The Kaiser Cat Cinema Youtube channel has even made a large number of music videos and trailers based on the conflict.
• Love to Hate:
  • Oswald Mosley, for the memes that he and his Totalists generate. It helps that, despite being as authoritarian and nationalistic as he was in Real Life, the Kaiserreich version of Mosley doesn't seem to have fallen into the fascist bigotry he did in OTL and has stuck to his socialist roots throughout.
  • Back when he was a path ingame, William Dudley Pelley for the American Union State, who basically turns the former United States into the Republic of Gilead. Similar to the blisteringly insane horror of The New Order's Sergey Taboritsky and his Holy Russian Empire, people like that Pelley serves as a horrific black mark on the American Union State and provides an unambiguously bad ending to the American Civil War, in addition to serving as a fantastic Final Boss for any potential invader of North America. That said, fans were mostly understanding of the reasons for removing him upon the release of the 1.0 update.
  • In a similar vein, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu in Iron Guard Romania. Virtually no one in the fanbase really likes him, but they see him as a good antagonist to fight against.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Emperor Pedro III is the emperor of Brazil, ascending to power after the way was cleared for his ascent to the throne by the Brazilian Integralists. Upon taking power he launches a massive purge of the Syndicalists and establishes the paramilitary Imperial Green Guards to suppress the far left and enforce religious fundamentalism, while indoctrinating the population through the distribution of Integralist propaganda and the creation of youth movements to indoctrinate the youth. Despite these measures however, Pedro III stands out as one of the more benevolent National Populist dictators in the setting, using his powers to weaken the powers of local governors and oligarchs in order to give the population as much individual rights and freedoms as possible; ruling through charisma and . Emperor Pedro is also noteworthy for his anti-racist policies, as he institutes laws protecting indigenous tribes and Afro-Brazilians from racial discrimination within Brazil in order to create a new cosmopolitian culture blending both Portuguese and Afro-Brazilian traditions.
  • Huey Long—also known as The Kingfish—is a populist from Louisiana who despises syndicalists while also desiring to save the American economy with his "Share the Wealth" program, which he perceives as America's only defense against Syndicalism. Popular in the American South due to his bombastic style, Long allies with the far right Silver Legion and the War Powers Committee in order to create a anti-syndicalist power bloc in the form of the America First Party despite his relatively tolerant views for his time, being so charismatic that his death would mean its dissolution. When the Second American Civil War starts, as either due to him either using Reed's assassination to his advantage, rebelling against either a social democratic Progressive government or a Reed presidency, or due to Douglas MacArthur's military coup against him in office, Long serves as the face of the American Union State. If the AUS wins, Long declares himself President for Life and purges his more despicable allies, while allowing his Minutemen to harass Syndicalists. Despite being a dictator struggling between his own altruism and his growing authoritarianism, Long's charisma and relative benevolence made him stand out from most dictators.
  • John "Jack" Reed is the candidate of the American Socialist Party in the 1936 presidential elections. In the leadup to the elections, Reed takes advantage of the political chaos in the US to consolidate his own support; effectively flipping the state of Minnesota to the Socialist side if the Progressives collapse. Assuming Reed wins the 1936 elections, he either tries to enact his policies via court packing and executive orders or he tries to suppress the American First movement via the use of the national guard before he's ousted by a military coup. If he loses the election however, Reed continues to agitate against the US government; taking advantage of Huey Long's assassination assuming it occurs to turn public opinion against the US government and launch an uprising. Once the Second American Civil War begins, Reed can enact measures such as War Syndicalism as well as enact ruthless means to deal with political opponents in order to bolster the war effort of the Combined Syndicates of America. If the Combined Syndiates are victorious, Reed steps down in favor of the next generation of socialists, content with leading the revolution to victory and letting new leadership decide the future of the a Socialist America.
  • Kurt von Schleicher, known as "the Red General" is the incumbent Prussian Minister of War in the German Empire, a position that he acquired through multiple political connections. Appointed to the position of Chancellor following a deadlocked election in the wake of Black Monday, Schleicher would use a worker's uprising in the Ruhr region as pretext to pass the Enabling Act to be granted the power to supress the uprising. Seeing the uprising as a provocation from the Syndicalist Internationale, Schleicher would ally with ultranationalist elements of the German army and play off both the German states and all political factions within the German Empire against each other to consolidate power, while undermining the efforts of the democratic opposition, the far-right, and the Bavarian government to remove him from power. If Totalists come to power in France and Britain, Schleicher would co-opt their measures to militarize Germany further. While his methods ultimately cause the destruction of German democracy, Schleicher sees his machinations as a worthwhile cost to prepare Germany for the coming war against the Internationale.
• Memetic Badass: John Nance "Cactus Jack" Garner. Garner is the least popular of the potential presidents, but that has lead to some people turning him into a Memetic Badass, helped by his awesome Real Life nickname of Cactus Jack, his 400lb hammer (yes, he really had one, it was a gift), a picture of him pointing two revolvers at President Truman while smoking a cigar, and his refusal to compromise with anyone.
• Memetic Mutation: Now has its own page here
• Misaimed Fandom: While National France is framed by the developers as the Token Evil Teammate of the Entente even in their best path due to the fact that said paths continue the colonial subjugation of Northern Africa, many of their leaders serving in the Vichy regime OTL, and their path offering the most autonomy for the colonies ultimately creating a far-right antisemitic absolutist monarchy. A vocal chunk of fans, particularly those with a negative opinion of socialism, see National France as preferable to the Commune or at worst as A Lighter Shade of Black to the Commune. This often takes the form of projecting conditions and behavior from individuals and groups existing OTL onto Kaiserreich (ie: the perception that not even the French far-left had OTL was supportive of decolonization and that France partook in the Cold War as a on-and-off member of NATO and didn't veer far to the right), or claiming (albeit not without reason) that some of the worst paths for the Commune also involves OTL Nazi collaborators and French Fascists coming to prominance there.
• Moment of Awesome: Before the China Update (0.10), Sternberg's Mongolia (with strong emphasis on crazy). Restoring the Mongol Empire, complete with pillaging and the tributary system, as the mad Russian general who believes himself to be the reincarination of Genghis Khan? Why not?
• Once Original, Now Common: During the HOI2 era and the early years of HOI4 as a game, Kaiserreich was the main big alternate history mod for the game because of its continuous development schedule keeping it in the fans' line of sight where other mods fizzled out over time. It was praised for its deep commitment to its lore and event chains where early alternatives presented only a token scenario to justify their gameplay without ever exploring the consequences of that scenario. It continued its momentum into the HOI4 release, but other mods began development that others saw as being more willing to push the envelope such as The New Order Last Days Of Europe and Red World that introduced a far different user interface, a more narrative focus and in general a far different experience. This in comparison to Kaiserreich, that has always used a near-vanilla UI and has for several years had many of its more fantastical yet popular elements (the Mad Baron and the T.E. Lawrence coup, just to name a couple) be retconned in favor of a more grounded, realistic approach to its lore. The mod continues to be perhaps the most popular full conversion HOI4 mod, but detractors see it as stale in comparison to newer alternatives.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: John Nance Garner, as a quick look through this page's history will indicate. He went from Memetic Loser to Memetic Badass that will preserve American democracy with no compromise, not even allowing a junta to form.
• Ron the Death Eater: Once again, this is heavily influenced by a player's real-life politics, but the three major factions often have their negative attributes exaggerated by their opponents.
  • Opponents of the Entente often paint them as a coalition of crypto-Natpop Evil Colonialists obsessed with revenge and privilege, more interested in reclaiming their supposed "birthright" than doing anything constructive.
  • According to their detractors, the Internationale is an alliance of authoritarian Dirty Commies and warmongers, more than willing to plunge the world into the worst conflict in history in the name of achieving world revolution.
  • Enemies of the Reichspakt paint it as The Empire Played Straight, an authoritarian superpower crushing workers rights and political rights alike in the name of German supremacy while exerting draconian measures on its eastern European satellites in order to extract grain and other resources from them.
  • A democratic Russia gets this in some circles, not helped by discourse surrounding the ongoing conflict with Russia in Ukraine seeping into Kaiserreich discourse. They are presented by their opponents as wanting to impose their views on Eastern Europe at all costs and wanting to override the cultural identities of the Eastern European states that achieved independence from Russia at gunpoint.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • Seriously, compare the entries and memes for authoritarian and radical ideologies compared to the Social Democratic, Social Liberal, Market Liberal and Social Conservative ideologies. Since Kaiserreich is a morally grey universe, people couldn't care less about the liberal factions at times.
  • Despite being the closest thing in the game to Fascism and Nazism in our timeline, even moreso in earlier versions of the mod, National Populist routes are usually the most requested for the various countries with each update.
  • Even a fair chunk of those that do not subscribe to the more apologetic interpretations of National France and agree with the devs that National France is the Token Evil Teammate of the Entente find National France more entertaining to play as due to the interesting flavor events, the various paths, and the fun challenge offered. Part of this is tied to the fact that National France has already been reworked, while the Internationale rework has not been completed yet, leaving Communard content more barebones compared to National France's content
• The Scrappy:
  • Niclas y Glais's faction of Autonomists in the Union of Britain pre-0.6 version. If he wins the British elections, he will impose the balkanization of the Union into either puppet or independent states of Wales and Scotland, depending on choices made during the elections. As a result, Britain itself becomes significantly weaker, while the new states don't compensate that and are largely useless, which doesn't help a Internationale player.
  • The AOG (Allgemeine Ostasien-Gesellschaft). The AOG was, prior to the China rework, a German company that ruled almost the entire South of China as its own country, likely modeled after the British East Indian Company that once ruled India. The AOG had always been a bit of a Scrappy that people liked to joke about because its existence made no sense (the East India Company IRL took a long time to consolideate their company rule, unlike AOG in the KR backstory) and its massive amount of Chinese divisions led to almost a third of soldiers on the Western Front of the Second Weltkrieg being Chinese. The sole redeeming feature of the AOG pre-rework was that it had a Chinese Republican path that allowed Chinese revolutionaries to launch a revolution and restore the Republic of China. After the China rework, the AOG became a sidelined lore element and is no longer playable.
• Tear Jerker: The Second American Civil War, which is now inevitable, descends into a nightmarish bloodbath that usually lasts several years and sees millions dead and swathes of the US reduced to rubble even if you've only managed to get only the AUS or CSA to rise. The fact it is no longer preventable even if none of the parties involved ultimately wanted it to happen only makes it worse. The dev team's own cover of "Which Side Are You On? really helps sell the whole tragedy of the situation. And if whichever side wins goes down a "bad" path like MacArthur as American Caesar, Moseley, Browder or Foster, it means all the death, fighting, and suffering was completely and utterly for naught.

---