Albania's "Democratic Reformer"

[Turtler]

Good Bloody God; I didn't realize it before since I haven't actually played as Albania yet, but when doing a Wiki Walk I came across this. In You-Can't-Make-It-Up Fashion. And I Quote:

Enver Hoxha Democratic Reformer Daily Democracy Support: +0.10 Gain Event Move Towards Democracy.

I have seen a lot of wonky political assignments in this game as it is (particularly if you look at Finland being Authoritarian at game start or every other country in Hispanic America), but this is by Faaaaar the most glaring case I've seen. Just "What The Flying Farq, Paradox?"


If you want an idea of just how mind bogglingly inappropriate this is, imagine Kim Il Sung being designated as Korea's "Democratic Reformer." Though if anything Hoxha helped set the stage for the kind of insular hell state that the DPRK would emulate and only start to surpass after he died.

For some sense of perspective: Hoxha was a fanatical, orthodox Stalinist who broke with Tito because Tito threatened his power and Albanian sovereignty. Then after Stalin died he broke with Khruschev because he thought Khruschev was corrupting the revolution and the party, so he sided with Mao. History's single most prolific murderer and tyrant.

Then he later broke with *MAO* because he deemed Mao Not Rigid Enough And opted to carve out his own particular brand of diplomatically isolated, socially catastrophic lunacy on the Eastern coast of the Adriatic.

After seeing and recognizing that I just had to check to see who the Communist Revolutionary in Albania was. And while OK I can kind of see it as appropriate, it still doesn't fit.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/05/enver-hoxha-stalins-devilish-disciple/

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/12/world/enver-hoxha-mastermind-of-albania-s-isolation.html?pagewanted=all

Seriously Paradox, can you fix it? I realize that it is pretty hard to find a non-Communist member of the Albanian leadership who was not tainted by collaboration with either Mussolini or Hitler, but Muharrem Bajraktari, Abaz Kupi, and Said bey Kryeziu come to mind. As does Fiqri Dine (who even though he was a puppet Prime Minister of the Germans was removed for having contacts with the Allies).

But all said, it is really, really, REALLY hard to imagine a worse choice for this than the Stalinist dictator who tyrannized the country for about four decades. Especially since in game his position in the cabinet would lead to the EXACT OPPOSITE effect that he really did.

Can this please be fixed?

[lukas]

Please report it as a bug (or suggestion) on Paradoxplaza. (If you need help with that just say so.) Personally I'm not convinced of any of the people mentioned here (including Hoxha).

[Turtler]

Originally posted by lukas:

Please report it as a bug (or suggestion) on Paradoxplaza. (If you need help with that just say so.)

\
Thank you kindly, and I would appreciate the help.

Originally posted by lukas:

Personally I'm not convinced of any of the people mentioned here (including Hoxha).

Pardon me for asking, but how do you mean "not convinced"?

I'll admit that Albanian history is not my area of expertise and I have my doubts about the potential substitutes I proposed. However, I do figure that they are less jarring than putting Europe's longest lasting Stalinist dictator into the role of Democratic Reformer. My solutions may not be "right" persee, but I figure they'd be less wrong than what is there currently.

If that makes sense.

[lukas]

Originally posted by Turtler:

Originally posted by lukas:

Please report it as a bug (or suggestion) on Paradoxplaza. (If you need help with that just say so.)

Thank you kindly, and I would appreciate the help.

You need the following:
1) a Paradoxplaza (if you don't have one yet click here[accounts.paradoxplaza.com])
2) you need to link[forum.paradoxplaza.com] your Steam account with your Paradoxplaza account
3) only now you are able to see the the HoI4 bug reports subforum[forum.paradoxplaza.com] and the HoI4 suggestions subforum[forum.paradoxplaza.com] ... now you can open a new thread there

In the mentioned HoI4 bug reports subforum there's by the way a sticky thread[forum.paradoxplaza.com] that explains how to write a bug report.

Originally posted by Turtler:

Pardon me for asking, but how do you mean "not convinced"?

I'll admit that Albanian history is not my area of expertise and I have my doubts about the potential substitutes I proposed. However, I do figure that they are less jarring than putting Europe's longest lasting Stalinist dictator into the role of Democratic Reformer. My solutions may not be "right" persee, but I figure they'd be less wrong than what is there currently.

If that makes sense.

I simply mean that "I'm not convinced of any of the people mentioned here (including Hoxha)". Like you I don't know all too much about Albanian history, so I had to read up online about the people mentioned. None of them (including Hoxah) sounds like a fitting person. So I hope the devs find a more suitable candidate.

edit: Apparently there's already a bug report[forum.paradoxplaza.com] about this. (Just posted there and added some infos.)

[nocountryfortheworkers]

I don't think it should be too hard for Paradox to find some names of people from differing parties that *died* if need be.

On a related note of lesser weight, I'm amused when I make Australia go Communist that I basically have to make use of Robert Menzies [father of the anti-communist "Liberal" Party if I want more Political Power. My "Silent Workhorse" option, Herbert V.Evatt, is not an option for Communist government in Together For Victory. Yet Evatt was Labor.

[Turtler]

Originally posted by lukas:

I simply mean that "I'm not convinced of any of the people mentioned here (including Hoxha)". Like you I don't know all too much about Albanian history, so I had to read up online about the people mentioned. None of them (including Hoxah) sounds like a fitting person. So I hope the devs find a more suitable candidate.

Ah, gotcha. Thanks for hte clarification, I guess I was just confused by the wording. And yeah, I can understand. It just strikes me that among all the possibilities for "Democratic Reformer" in Albania, Hoxha would probably be one of the very least fitting possibilities.

The others may not be that good of a fit, mind, but they fit less badly than he does.

Now, for Communist Revolutionary he's as shoe in though.

Originally posted by lukas:

edit: Apparently there's already a bug report[forum.paradoxplaza.com] about this. (Just posted there and added some infos.)

Thank you greatly! I appreciate it.

Originally posted by kommissarw:

I don't think it should be too hard for Paradox to find some names of people from differing parties that *died* if need be.

Sure, and I can understand. That's why I am willing to give a fair bit of leeway, like putting Roman Dmowski as Poland's Fascist Demogauge (because "Meh, Close enough"). Likewise what I find to be the very, very Odd ideology assignments of so much of Hispanic America.

But I can at least understand there are reasons for those. Putting the decades long Stalinist hardliner as a DR is...less so.

Originally posted by kommissarw:

On a related note of lesser weight, I'm amused when I make Australia go Communist that I basically have to make use of Robert Menzies [father of the anti-communist "Liberal" Party if I want more Political Power. [/quote]

Interesting. isn't Lance Sharkey the CR for Australia?

Originally posted by kommissarw:

My "Silent Workhorse" option, Herbert V.Evatt, is not an option for Communist government in Together For Victory. Yet Evatt was Labor.

Ya, that is odd. To be fair, I can understand why many leaders of Labour would not have a place under the wonderful world of Communism; Salami Tactics were the norm ever since Lenin neutered the SRs way back when, and it is safe to say that a lot of coruageous left winger non-Communists would have probably gotten purged.

The thing I find odder is that if Evatt was going to get purged, someone who was more overtly anti-communist like Menzies would probably have been higher on the list.

[big zzz]

I think for Albania's democratic reformer they should put Fan Noli (who was a liberal Albanian patriot living in the U.S and hugely popular in Albania), Enver Hoxha DEFINITELY needs to be the Communist Revolutionary, and Mehmet Shehu should be the Prince of Terror, this would be historically accurate.

[lukas]

Originally posted by Komandanti:

I think for Albania's democratic reformer they should put Fan Noli (who was a liberal Albanian patriot living in the U.S and hugely popular in Albania), Enver Hoxha DEFINITELY needs to be the Communist Revolutionary, and Mehmet Shehu should be the Prince of Terror, this would be historically accurate.

Noli is a good suggestion in my opinion! Making Shehu Prince of Terror as well (link[en.wikipedia.org]). It seems to me that for the Communist Revolutionary there indeed isn't a better candidate than Hoxha, since the Communist party was founded in 1941. So I guess there isn't really another person that better suits the 1936/39 start date anyway.

[Turtler]

Originally posted by Komandanti:

I think for Albania's democratic reformer they should put Fan Noli (who was a liberal Albanian patriot living in the U.S and hugely popular in Albania), Enver Hoxha DEFINITELY needs to be the Communist Revolutionary, and Mehmet Shehu should be the Prince of Terror, this would be historically accurate.

Beautiful. Absolutely brilliant ideas. i didn't even know about Noli before (or if I did I had forgotten). So yeah.

Thank you!