Being unaligned in the final chapter appears to outright lose you the game, no matter earlier decisions

[Ash]

I've played through the game three times now, trying to get an unaligned victory, and regardless of my military situation (max investment, trust either Iosef or the fascist, allow either the Soviets or the Americans basing rights, etc)... When the northern Russians invade, and my generals tell me 100% we're going to win the war.... the next event is the battle of Holstead and I lose.

Either the developer should have had an in-game character tell you that you can't win this war unless you ally with Soviets or Americans, or not have your damn generals lie to you when they say, almost verbatim "there's not a chance in hell we can lose this, sir, we love you because you've done everything you can and have no reservations"... only for the next scene to be you getting shot in your palace.

It's enough of a ludonarrative disconnect that I have to think there's a bug in here somewhere, because nowhere else does the game have this big of a disconnect between what you do and how you're punished for your actions.

[Disturbed]

I think one major problem here is that the checks to pass this crisis are rather eraly on while later narrative options seems to lead to an dead end. For example Wehlen: While not helping him with the bluds in the first place hes still ranting at the Allied Nations against Rumsburg for arming the Bludish, which I supported in my speech. During the meeting he even started about the Rumsburg threat but telling you this is not imminant and a problem for a later time. Still there is no option for the player to possible reach to him maybe even for the price of some greater concessions on your side.
One other thing I hade hoped for to diminish the Rumsburg threat was exposing their nuclear program. I even got a notfication that an A.N. investigattion confirmed that and Rumsburg was put under sanctions. No effect.
When I turned down Mr. USA on an alliance he said "Okay, maybe later. I always get what I want.", but no no other chance here either after this one passed.
There is no other chance to buff you army when you are maybe in a better economical situation except fot the budget allocation even when tensions are growing higher like after the plane shutdown.
The war plans with the generals didn't seem to have no effect either. Full frontal attack or feint retreat with pincer attack? Who even cares?
All in all this event felt rather inflexible with the missing last ditch effort to maybe tip the balance in regard that the outcomes are only total victory or total defeat.

[Yiya]

I feel like I've been cheated by this game

[Mr. Nowak]

It is perfectly possible to be non-aligned and stand up to Rumburg. Suzerain is full of balancing acts and the regional alliances represent one aspect of a non-ATO and non-CSP playthrough.

[The Mogician]

Messaggio originale di Mr. Nowak:

It is perfectly possible to be non-aligned and stand up to Rumburg. Suzerain is full of balancing acts and the regional alliances represent one aspect of a non-ATO and non-CSP playthrough.

So what are the requirements of winning the war?
In my last run through, I had:
1. kept conscription
2. modernized the army
3. increased military funding
4. Non-aligned, got the northern neighbor's alliance and didn't deal with Wehlen because the ruler sounds like a megalomaniac
5. full on socialist welfare state

Yet I got the lost war ending. What gives?

[Disturbed]

Messaggio originale di Naro9995:

missing Agnolia there. I am about to try all that but with Agnolia.

He did. Northern neighbour alliance he said.

[Keaton]

Messaggio originale di The Mogician:

Messaggio originale di Mr. Nowak:

It is perfectly possible to be non-aligned and stand up to Rumburg. Suzerain is full of balancing acts and the regional alliances represent one aspect of a non-ATO and non-CSP playthrough.

So what are the requirements of winning the war?
In my last run through, I had:
1. kept conscription
2. modernized the army
3. increased military funding
4. Non-aligned, got the northern neighbor's alliance and didn't deal with Wehlen because the ruler sounds like a megalomaniac
5. full on socialist welfare state

Yet I got the lost war ending. What gives?

Pretty much the same here and lost. I called Agnolia as an ally, I expected Whelen to join since they had the same problems. Modernized everything. Revealed their nuclear program at the AN and aside them being sanctioned by other world countries. Nothing changes at all.

The same way as my previous run where I neglected the military and had no alliance at all. So I'm not sure what exactly is needed to win against Rumbourgh. The ending is abrupt though I have to admit.

[Mr. Nowak]

Agnolia is too small a nation to beat Rumburg alone sadly.

[Chevraut]

my first playthrough, I am unaligned but I still won the war.

I did emergency powers, allied with old guard, and boost military budget. modernised navy.

but I think the tipping point is the alliance with the Valgs

somehow on my second playthrough i did the exact same steps but due to running privatized economy, valgs did not ally with me, only signed trade deal.

that lost me the war.

[That unnervingly happy turtle.]

So as has has already been said, one of the primary reasons that you lose the war is that you aren't fighting a "near-peer" power. You are a regional power being courted by the superpowers for your influence with it mentioned pretty early on that if you aggravate either one too much they will end you.

You may have modernised the army but the air force is still using prop-planes against jet aircraft, your pilots have 400 hours flight time on average compared to the 600 hours on average of the superpowers. Your air force doesn't even cooperate closely with the army or navy and I don't think you have any carriers to even begin to offset the naval power disparity.

Your navy is outdated by this point and whilst still the best in the region outside the superpowers they still have larger, more capable fleet units. Hell, going by the analogues one of them has a navy with so many aircraft on its carriers that your air force looks like a bad joke.

You may have modernised the army but your still facing a modern force that following the parallels is 4-5 times the size of yours with more veteran soldiers and commanders. Add on that they have a larger and more mechanised force and their air force regularly exercises with their army. Both sides are using conscripts so the slight morale issue of conscript soldiers isn't an issue here.

It's also important to remember that during the Cold War apart from NATO and the Warsaw Pact many neutral powers actually sat in the UN as a dedicated independent block with their own agreements between one another. Many of the neutral nations in the middle east even quietly agreed to defend each other if the Soviets invaded, that's part of why the USSR picked Afghanistan to invade rather than start a war with Iran who had other Arab nations promising them help.

Afghanistan only won because the US sent in equipment and CIA operatives to show them how to beat a Superpower without fighting fair. Here, if you don't pick up all the regional allies you can then they will come for you and whatever allies you get. You basically have to either have enough allies to make it into a fair fight where you can spare the troops to help your weaker allies push forward and thus forcing a stalemate or running their casualties up. Your other option is getting their rival involved which means you sit a Sword of Damocles over their heads should they invade.

The Not-USSR wants neither nuclear annihilation, given that by this point they have either yet to create their first nuke or only have a couple of them and thus could be bombed out by Not-America. However, they also don't want a prolonged war. With too few allies they will knock you out quickly forcing your allies to surrender given you're hinted as being the big economic and military power in the alliance. If you have all the non-aligned allies you can get however then they face the threat of a prolonged conflict which promises casualties they can't justify. Again, look at Afghanistan. The casualties there caused problems for the soviet leadership just as Nam did for the US.

[MrSmiley]

Feels like I just wasted an entire day playing this game, found everything so enjoyable to be hit with such a bleak ending. Literally in the space of 10 minutes at the end of the game my country went from max economy, invested in Military, increased its size, allied with Wehlen and Agnolia, Army Ministers tell me that war was going to be easily won.

Then bam. Suddenly my son dies, the country loses in about 2 slides of exposition and I get the electric chair?

Game of Thrones ending eat your heart out.

[Cynical Crusader]

Messaggio originale di MrSmiley:

Feels like I just wasted an entire day playing this game, found everything so enjoyable to be hit with such a bleak ending. Literally in the space of 10 minutes at the end of the game my country went from max economy, invested in Military, increased its size, allied with Wehlen and Agnolia, Army Ministers tell me that war was going to be easily won.

Then bam. Suddenly my son dies, the country loses in about 2 slides of exposition and I get the electric chair?

Game of Thrones ending eat your heart out.

Exact same feeling, just over in like 3 clicks. Quite possibly the worst way I've ever seen a game tie up its ending.

[MrSmiley]

Messaggio originale di Cynical Crusader:

Messaggio originale di MrSmiley:

Feels like I just wasted an entire day playing this game, found everything so enjoyable to be hit with such a bleak ending. Literally in the space of 10 minutes at the end of the game my country went from max economy, invested in Military, increased its size, allied with Wehlen and Agnolia, Army Ministers tell me that war was going to be easily won.

Then bam. Suddenly my son dies, the country loses in about 2 slides of exposition and I get the electric chair?

Game of Thrones ending eat your heart out.

Exact same feeling, just over in like 3 clicks. Quite possibly the worst way I've ever seen a game tie up its ending.

Right? Considering you spend 90% of the game focusing on elections, passing the constitution etc. there's absolutely no indicator on how the war will go. Even worse, there's Iosef giving you blatantly wrong information when there's nothing/noone else indicating otherwise or that he might be wrong.

I funded my military and increased expansion but get told at the end game briefing I still only have 400,000 soldiers?

[CreutzFeldJak0b]

i maxed the military and had both agnolia and wehlen as allies, yet i lost because the alliances didnt trigger.
should i have given in to the demands by the queen?
anything else i could have done?
was my spech at the un not good enough?

[Valtharsus]

Messaggio originale di MrSmiley:

Right? Considering you spend 90% of the game focusing on elections, passing the constitution etc. there's absolutely no indicator on how the war will go. Even worse, there's Iosef giving you blatantly wrong information when there's nothing/noone else indicating otherwise or that he might be wrong.

Iosef is a lying dog whom often plans a coup against you, you can't trust a word out of his mouth.

[Fable]

You can also get an alliance with Lespia, without joining the ATO and thereby staying unaligned. That allowed me to win the war without changing military spending, as well as securing me re-election as a third-party candidate (my party voted for Graf). I'm gonna have to agree that it makes sense that you're not able to beat Rumsburg alone, and Agnolia's army is not enough to change that. But the game could have communicated it better.