History WhatCouldHaveBeen / TheNewOrderLastDaysOfEurope

* While Svetlana Bukharina [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=Trivia.TheNewOrderLastDaysOfEurope&more=t#edit27756948 was always meant to be Komi's Libertarian Socialist/Left Communist unifier]], [[https://old.reddit.com/r/TNOmod/comments/dtrlu5/svetlanas_portrait_leak/ her first portrait]] was actually a photo of Nikolai Bukharin's second wife Anna Larina before switching to a portrait of Bukharina's birthmother Esfir Gurvich and pass it off as a StrongFamilyResemblance. This was because photos of Bukharina are incredibly scarce, [[SerendipityWritesThePlot forcing the dev team to make do with what they had]] before they miraculously found a period appropriate photo of her.

* At release, the failure of the Dai Li Conspiracy and the ''Gekokujo'' crisis infamously resulted in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d9JWCgch94 Order 44]], where Reform Bureaucrat hardliner leader Kishi Nobusuke leads a clique of vaguely-defined "National Purists" (ideologically Ultranationalist, practically composed of super-hardliners and opportunists willing to be fellow-travellers with them) to coup the government, purge his rivals, and massacre all dissenters, paving the way for the entire Japanese empire to be put under the same brutal thumb as the Manchurian system. This portrayal is considered to be too over-the-top for Kishi, and was cut and replaced with the IJA and Palace Coup events, with Kishi becoming the grey eminence for Kaya's technocrats, and the economy minister under his ally Mutō Akira (leader of the IJA coup, and formerly Kishi's security minister). When Japan was later reworked, his role once again changed: after his failure to recreate the Manchurian experiment in Guangdong, he was forced to resign as Prime Minister in disgrace, and can only become politically relevant again if Kōno Ichirō dismantles the YSK. The IJA coup has also been removed with the rework, due to the mischaracterisation of Mutō himself (who was very loyal to the YSK and anti-coup in real life) and the IJA in general (who never truly cared about taking over the government)--and because throughout the Empire of Japan's lifespan, no cabinet was toppled through violence.

* The Penelope's Web diary described a path for when the CHP manages to hold on to power after losing the Second Italo-Turkish War. It was cut because the developers think that it's redundant to have two CHP paths (victory and defeat, with only minor differences) and that it doesn't make a lot of sense for them to lose the war without being voted out of power.

* In old lore, Mosul and Kirkuk was a semi-autonomous puppet state of Turkey, reluctantly governed by Ahmed Barzani and the Barzani clan. Now, Mosul and Kirkuk is an Inspectorate-General, with no illusion of it being anything more than a Turkish colony.

* The Aryan Brotherhood in early leaks and the original demo was led by "Andreas Maier", real name Alexander Medvedev, a Hero of the Soviet Union from Perm. As this portrayal of Medvedev (who was a loyal Soviet soldier and anti-fascist in real life) was unacceptably [[HistoricalVillainUpgrade out-of-character and offensive]], especially with the risk of his surviving family found out due to constantly seraching the Internet for mentions of him, Medvedev was rewritten into an anti-AB fighter, and his old role is now fulfilled by Alexey Dobrovolsky (an actual neo-Nazi in real life). According to the original leader bio of Andreas Maier, the Aryan Brotherhood originally aimed to unify West Russia before "submitting themselves to RK Moskowien in the west". It's unclear how this would impact the general Russian/German gameplay, and by the time Medvedev was replaced by Dobrovolsky, the Aryan Brotherhood was changed to a conventional Russian unifier. Presumably, this was scrapped because doing so would mean that whoever unified the other three regions would have to fight Moskowien to reclaim West Russia, and doing so would likely [[CurbStompBattle trigger a war between the Russian unifier and Germany before full preparations were made for the Second West Russian War]], to say nothing of how this would impact ''other'' things that could be happening in Germany.
* At release, the Aryan Brotherhood was depicted as a Nazi cult whose members have grown so deluded that they now worship the same people who invaded and destroyed Russia, up to speaking 'Deytsch' (broken German represented by transliterating German words into Russian Cyrillic then back to English)--something that would be laughable if they weren't also Nazis. In the rework, Alexey Dobrovolsky and Valery Yemelyanov are now depicted more accurately to real life (the AB's designer describes that their previous portrayal is [[https://discord.com/channels/286752091429535756/806276324297539586/1227168728458858526 just OCs]] and that such a thing would fit better in occupied Moskowien than in warlord Russia).

* Originally, HMMLR (and specifically its monarchist faction) was led by Claude Auchinleck, the last British general to surrender to Germany in Operation Sea Lion. TFL initially replaced him with Maxwell Knight (as leader of HMMLR as a whole) and Creator/ChristopherLee, then settled on Fitzroy Maclean (as leader of the monarchist partisans), though both Lee and Auchinleck remain high-ranking partisan commanders; Lee also replaced Arthur Harris as leader of what remains of HMMLR's right wing if the uprising fails.

* [[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-new-order-last-days-of-europe-thread-ii.508299/page-39#post-21996837 According to one of the British Dev team]], an early concept for UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher was a standard Fascist within the Royal Party (this was back when the party was Fascist by default and Enoch Powell was leading the collaborationist government), making her a Fascist and "made to fit that mold, with predictable results for her portrayal". Before this concept was scrapped, there were vague plans for her rule to be so brutal and awful that a revolution would've occurred against her, ushering in a Communist Britain and Thatcher being executed just like Louis XVI near the end of Britain's story. In the first release, Thatcher is Alec Douglas-Home's successor as leader of the Royal Party, and can become de facto dictator of Britain by the end of the first decade. Since the TFL developers found it utterly implausible that a person who took in and gave her life savings to a Jewish refugee would collaborate with Nazi Germany, or that a woman in her late 30s can become PM of Britain in the '60s, she is now a chemist responsible for making the bomb that kills PM Domvile. The flavor text reveals that she hates fascism for many of the same reasons she hated communism in real life, seeing it as an authoritarian system that ruined the prospects of advancement for people like her who aren't privileged or connected.

* In older versions, Bill Alexander continued leading the English socialists after HMMLR won the English Civil War, and [[https://www.reddit.com/r/TNOmod/comments/d6h79o/free_england_leak/ had a unique path]] where he can make a compromise and keep the monarchy (which is rather out-of-character for a hardline communist like him). In the first release, Alexander steps down after the civil war is won, and his successor Harold Wilson will abolish the monarchy if the Socialist Labour Party wins the first election. In current lore, he died in 1956 in the Battle of Cable Street alongside David Stirling.
* David Stirling used to have [[https://youtu.be/OXS5n1WV0xA?t=242 an extremely dark super event]] for his unification apparently suggesting that he will be gunning down protestors and executing collaborators left and right. It's since been toned down, and his teaser content in TT shows that he and the MSA are pro-democracy military men who want to abolish the Young Democracy Law. In current lore, he was captured and executed in 1956 after the Battle of Cable Street alongside Bill Alexander.
* The original release depicted UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan and Keith Joseph (who currently serve as the Tories' PM candidates in the first general election after HMMLR's victory) as [=MPs=] in the collaborationist government, something which makes no sense, since Macmillan was on the Nazis' black list due to his opposition to appeasement and willingness to support communists against fascists and Joseph was Jewish. In particular, Macmillan, after becoming Prime Minister, will try so hard to clear the taint of fascism that he turns England into a de facto one-party state.
* The National Democratic League (a party formed after HMMLR's victory, representing its right wing) was originally led by George Jellicoe, with a left wing led by Norman St John-Stevas and a right wing led by Enoch Powell. Now, the Tories simply return from exile in Canada, Lord Jellicoe is only a general, and Stevas has no role to play.
* In the original release, Arthur Kenneth Chesterton was the face of the hardline fascists within the collaborationist government, who can take over after HMMLR is defeated. In TFL, this role is now fulfilled by Andrew Fountaine (who previously was Chesterton's chosen successor); Chesterton himself served as PM from 1953 to 1956. Additionally, TFL originally had him already having drunk himself to death by 1962; in current lore, he's still an Earl in the House of Lords and can become Home Secretary under Wallop.
* Pre-TFL Reginald Maudling was depicted as a radical collaborator MP who wants to restore democracy, albeit through reform instead of rebellion like HMMLR does. His path paints him as the last hope of British democracy after HMMLR's defeat, as he tries to clear the taint of collaboration and reform the United Kingdom as a democratic country, truly free from both the German and American boot. He was changed into a corrupt kleptocrat who essentially hands the British economy to German cartels to avoid HistoricalHeroUpgrade and HistoricalBadassUpgrade (the real Maudling, as Home Secretary, was responsible for the UK government's Northern Ireland policy during the period that included Bloody Sunday in 1972, in which he defended British soldiers shooting at unarmed children, and was forced to leave office due to an unrelated scandal in one of the companies of which he was director).

* The left-wing elements of HMMLR were originally led by UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson and Reg Birch, whose contrasting portrayals epitomised the distinction between 'good' Libertarian Socialists and 'evil' Authoritarian Socialists pervasive in old TNO:
** After HMMLR wins the civil war, the Left Resistance reforms into the Socialist Labour Party led by Wilson, whose portrayal resembles a liberal's idea of a good socialist: he abolishes the monarchy as his first action and supports free healthcare and education, gender equality, secularism and religious freedom (all much more left-wing than the real Wilson, who was moderate even by his cabinet's standards) without wishing to end bourgeois democracy, and will in fact have to purge the actual socialists from the SLP so they couldn't overthrow him. After TFL is integrated, the centre-left elements within HMMLR are represented by the exiled Labour Party led by Michael Foot (who is personally a republican, but cannot abolish the monarchy), while Wilson inherits pre-TFL Maudling's role as the most radical reformer within the collaborationist government. The developers reasoned that when Operation Sea Lion happened, Wilson was too low-ranking to be on the evacuation list to Canada, and since he was at his very core an opportunist, he attached himself to the BPP so he could rise in the ranks and reform Britain from the inside, despite his distaste for Germany--it would not make sense for an Oxford academic and political weasel like him to join an underground partisan movement.
** On the other hand, Birch, Wilson's main rival in the Socialist Labour Party, looks like something from Red Scare propaganda, as a bloodthirsty enemy of freedom and democracy, who can overthrow Wilson if he fails to keep the SLP's left wing in check. Birch's planned content (which was never made before TFL's integration) had him build many bunkers and de-industrialise Britain. After TFL was integrated, Birch no longer has any role to play, and the British socialists are represented by different people, with more accurate depictions; they also now take power through a bottom-up revolution with popular support, instead of an intra-party coup.

* In early game files, the Portuguese Civil War used to involve four contenders: the stratocratic Government of National Salvation (which is responsible for instigating the war), the moderate fascist Portuguese State (which was cut before release), the liberal Portuguese Provisional Republic and the communist Portuguese People's Republic. Currently, it is a two-sided war between monarchists and opposition figures who bandwagon on republicanism.

* Before Sweden's lore was overhauled, the developers released a [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sweden_leak_2.png teaser]] on what their skeleton content would have looked like, if it was finished. Here, Tage Erlander would have been assassinated under mysterious circumstances and put Torsten Nilsson in charge of the country, mere months before the 1964 elections. In the midst of these troubles, there were four possible candidates to take over:
** Nilsson could have won the incumbent SAP another term, continuing the social democratic status quo.

* In the demos, Sweden's starting Prime Minister was Olof Palme, who succeeded Tage Erlander in 1959, ten years before he did so in real life. In the first release, Erlander is still leading Sweden by game start, before being assassinated and succeeded by Torsten Nilsson in 1963. In current lore, Erlander becomes Prime Minister and leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party after the death of Herman Zetterberg (who holds both seats by game start).