Does everyone have to go Communist Late Game?

[Stonewall's Way]

I am a "Don't Tread On Me Free market MultiCultural Capitalist" and It offends me greatly to go communist just because my people want to go that way. Is there any tweaking late game to continue as a republic?

[whatamidoing]

You picked the Nordic countries as an example of capitalism. Why those, and not the more numerous, more populous countries doing far worse under capitalism? What are you referring to in my post as "not a given? Which countries are you thinking of that were poorer than the socialist ones with a higher standard of living now while staying capitalist?

[Graknorke]

Originally posted by SGC | Chralex vFG:

If you look historically what you're describing never really happens in socialist countries

The thing you're looking for is probably state capitalism, which the game ALSO lets you do via command economy and activating the government run PM. Now all that profit ends up in your national coffers instead of in the hands of haughty capitalists or smelly workers. So you can plough it all back into military spending or whatever, which you can't really do with cooperatives. Different economic systems let you do different things, which is kind of what you'd expect.

[SGC | Chralex [vFG]]

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

You picked the Nordic countries as an example of capitalism. Why those, and not the more numerous, more populous countries doing far worse under capitalism? What are you referring to in my post as "not a given? Which countries are you thinking of that were poorer than the socialist ones with a higher standard of living now while staying capitalist?

It's 3 AM here, so I cannot give a full answer now. But what about south Korea? Also remember you're arguing that socialism is outright the best (universally), and I am arguing that it is circumstantial, hence why I only have to show specific cases and not a general case. Anyway try to see if South Korea is not a good example, then I'll find a better one tomorrow.

[whatamidoing]

South Korea was (and remains) a massive US imperial project, but despite the US bombing the north essentially to nothing using all sorts of horrific weapons and then implementing a blockade intended to kill as many people as possible, the ROK was still largely worse off than the DPRK until the illegal dissolution of the USSR meant the DPRK lost its own vital trading partner. The DPRK has mostly recovered and is indeed doing better than capitalist countries at that level of economic development. The ROK just got a ton of economic development dumped on it. I'm also arguing trends, and "would be utterly destroyed without nuclear deterrence" isn't exactly a great condition for any country to thrive. A good example of how reactionaries are limited in the game, though.

[SGC | Chralex [vFG]]

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

South Korea was (and remains) a massive US imperial project.

I could just as well argue that North Korea was an imperial project of the big socialist countries at the time, the USSR and China, and that when capitalism and communism squared off, capitalism clearly won, ad- and post-hoc.

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

but despite the US bombing the north essentially to nothing using all sorts of horrific weapons and then implementing a blockade intended to kill as many people as possible, the ROK was still largely worse off than the DPRK until the illegal dissolution of the USSR meant the DPRK lost its own vital trading partner. The DPRK has mostly recovered and is indeed doing better than capitalist countries at that level of economic development. The ROK just got a ton of economic development dumped on it. I'm also arguing trends,

Just some context for everyone else to see, from wikipedia:
"North Korea has maintained one of the most closed and centralized economies in the world since the 1940s. For several decades, it followed the Soviet pattern of five-year plans with the ultimate goal of achieving self-sufficiency. Extensive Soviet and Chinese support allowed North Korea to rapidly recover from the Korean War and register very high growth rates. Systematic inefficiency began to arise around 1960, when the economy shifted from the extensive to the intensive development stage. The shortage of skilled labor, energy, arable land and transportation significantly impeded long-term growth and resulted in consistent failure to meet planning objectives. The major slowdown of the economy contrasted with South Korea, which surpassed the North in terms of absolute GDP and per capita income by the 1980s. North Korea declared the last seven-year plan unsuccessful in December 1993 and thereafter stopped announcing plans."

So as we can see, North Korea also got "Extensive Soviet and Chinese support". Now this is a good place to pause, and think about that no country lives in isolation, and it seems like capitalist countries that helped each other did better than socialist countries, probably because socialism does not work well enough to help its own foreign interests.

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

The ROK just got a ton of economic development dumped on it. I'm also arguing trends,

You give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, you teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime... I am not buying this argument of yours, as I've already documented, North Korea also got "economic development dumped on them", it is just the fact that South Korea made better use of it, and that these systems (capitalism and socialism) themselves don't live in isolation, if capitalism made trading easier for South Korea, so be it, the North themselves chose to be isolationist and their goal is to be self-sufficient which is delusional and of course hampers them, but this is a consequence of their version of socialism.

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

"would be utterly destroyed without nuclear deterrence" isn't exactly a great condition for any country to thrive. A good example of how reactionaries are limited in the game, though.

That is simply the reality of many countries today.

Other fun facts about North Korea:

"North Korea's energy infrastructure is obsolete and in disrepair. Power shortages are chronic and would not be alleviated even by electricity imports because the poorly maintained grid causes significant losses during transmission."

"Based on interviews with defectors, North Korean women are routinely subjected to sexual violence, unwanted sexual contact, and rape."

"With 1,100,000 people in modern slavery (via forced labor), North Korea is ranked highest in the world in terms of the percentage of population in modern slavery, with 10.4 percent enslaved according to the Walk Free Foundation's 2018 Global Slavery Index. North Korea is the only country in the world that has not explicitly criminalized any form of modern slavery. A United Nations report listed slavery among the crimes against humanity occurring in North Korea."

"North Korea is widely described as having the worst human rights record in the world."

Based on all of these things I think those "trends" you are referring to are a nonsense, North Korea will never get to or exceed the level of development of South Korea, if North Korea chooses to retain its current structure.

It is absolutely mad how your dogmatism makes you see North Korea as a state that could eventually catch up to South Korea, even ignoring all the consequences of the regime that I've listed above, all in the name of "economic development", I think it is good to remind ourselves that what we were talking about is Standard of Living, not directly economic development even though they are linked but the system in place hampers the benefits of economic development on standard of living, yet you seem to think the raw economic development is more important, but for what end? Some dictator's end apparently.

I think we've seen it all now, I won't be taking anymore questions, I think everyone are able to extrapolate from what we've both said.

[Zero, Dark Knight]

I just want to say that SGC gets it, and I am glad it's not just me who sees the RNGs desire to pull towards a certain point, again, 'pull' is an important word here.
It means it has a destination - an end point - already chosen.

I am unsure what the solution is.
I wish every player who plays this game, a good time, fun experience, and all the bug fixes, patches, and updates they could ever want - but wishes are like grains of sand, on a beach.

I want Victoria 3 to do well.
but a part of me knows that this game will always have a "fight" in it, and it is not a fight against the AI, or against your own in-game population to help create the society you want, it isn't a fight against enemy ships, to break a blockaded trade route, and it isn't a fight in a war for some rich resource lands.

No, it's a fight against the pull of a predetermined outcome, like water headed towards a waterfall. It won't hurt the water, it won't hurt the rock, and it won't hurt gravity.

but once it's at the bottom, it has a very, very difficult time getting back up, and even if it does.

...well.

- thanks again SGC. peace.

[Menkerot]

Originally posted by Zero, Dark Knight:

I just want to say that SGC gets it, and I am glad it's not just me who sees the RNGs desire to pull towards a certain point, again, 'pull' is an important word here.
It means it has a destination - an end point - already chosen.

I am unsure what the solution is.
I wish every player who plays this game, a good time, fun experience, and all the bug fixes, patches, and updates they could ever want - but wishes are like grains of sand, on a beach.

I want Victoria 3 to do well.
but a part of me knows that this game will always have a "fight" in it, and it is not a fight against the AI, or against your own in-game population to help create the society you want, it isn't a fight against enemy ships, to break a blockaded trade route, and it isn't a fight in a war for some rich resource lands.

No, it's a fight against the pull of a predetermined outcome, like water headed towards a waterfall. It won't hurt the water, it won't hurt the rock, and it won't hurt gravity.

but once it's at the bottom, it has a very, very difficult time getting back up, and even if it does.

...well.

- thanks again SGC. peace.

that was really poetic. Well said :) but to be fair, Vicky 1-2 was also like that. For example, they also nudged you to pass reforms and liberalise, because if you don't and tried to stay absolute monarchy or dictatorship, with high plurality you will have constant rebellions. Which is sort of true to history, come to think of it. Here at least you have some boni for autocratic play like authority.

[Montecalm]

Originally posted by Menkerot:

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

What do you mean? "Heavily left ideas" were pretty popular in the time period during which the game takes place, let alone more moderately left ideas, and even in places like the USA. You should learn some history. The big issue with the game is that capitalists don't fight back nearly as hard as they did irl to keep their power, and they are far too kind to their workers.

history is indeed not your strong point. Not surprising.

Manners and courtesy are not your strong points. There are nicer ways to make your points, unless you enjoy being boorish rude.

[Menkerot]

Originally posted by Montecalm:

Originally posted by Menkerot:

history is indeed not your strong point. Not surprising.

Manners and courtesy are not your strong points. There are nicer ways to make your points, unless you enjoy being boorish rude.

people are so soft these days if this is rude. What isn't then? A sort of "Kind sir, I am sorry to say that you are a bad person" reply? Reminds me of that legendary English / British manners when a gentlemen first goes home, then writes a letter to his offender: "Dear sir, you are a cheater".

[Emperor Zero]

Communists will always be a bunch of the low poor pops who will try to rebel in mass, best thing to do is just crush them and kill them and remove any political power they have.

[Emperor Zero]

Originally posted by Zero, Dark Knight:

So if the game tries to force you to push communism in the later era, isn't it because it's programmed to do that? which means it's an intentional push to try and sabotage players "creating their own history".

I just find it very suspect that in this game, it essentially tries to tell us what the best play style is, which consequentially means there're 'worse' play styles.

Which, (despite my PC being unable to run it as a main reason,) is a huge secondary reason I'm unwilling to pick up this game.

You can't create your own history without extreme fight and pressure and unneeded stress and micromanagement. While the "wrong" history is a 'sit back and do what the game devs say, now praise communism'.

and as far as I've seen in the year+ of YouTube reviews, footage, let's plays, and game updates, it hasn't made any efforts to 'correct' this obvious push towards heavily left ideas which weren't really popular in the time period the game takes place in.

and, in some cases, still aren't that popular even today in real life.

a fellow code geass fan :D

[Emperor Zero]

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

Originally posted by SGC | Chralex vFG:

Okay - let's just speed up this process a little bit...
So, I looked up wikipedia (which is leftist biased as well), and it only lists 5 countries as socialist countries: China, Cuba, North Korea, Laos and Vietnam... And honestly, I think most people don't even need to look-up what the standard of living there is. And honestly, can you even call most of these properly socialist?

Meanwhile you have the nordic countries that are capitalistic and has a very high standard of living, albeit with some welfare programs, again, my point is not that capitalism or socialism is better, essentially both could work, I think it is situational. What is better is circumstancial, as it should be in this game.

Wikipedia doesn't have leftist bias. It does have liberal bias, typically.
Also, that's why "at equal levels of economic development" is important. You're comparing countries that were heavily-exploited colonies and/or feudal backwaters a century ago to countries near the center of capitalist imperialism that have reaped those benefits for centuries, and that you picked those ones that had at least strong social-democratic, if not actually socialist, movements forcing reforms. That's why those studies comparing, say, China and India, or the Philippines and Cuba, are interesting.

funny how all the most advanced and developed nations with the highest standard of living and wealth all are and were capitalist and never socialist. I don't really care for either and don't like either really but trying to act like one isn't the reason you are able to even comment or talk about this and the other isn't the cause of millions of deaths. name a successful socialist country, please do, only one that comes to mind for me is china and they are more of a capitalist nation then a socialist one. also disagree with the liberal bias vs leftist bias, I feel it was once more of a liberal bias but now most liberals have turned into leftists.

[Emperor Zero]

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

South Korea was (and remains) a massive US imperial project, but despite the US bombing the north essentially to nothing using all sorts of horrific weapons and then implementing a blockade intended to kill as many people as possible, the ROK was still largely worse off than the DPRK until the illegal dissolution of the USSR meant the DPRK lost its own vital trading partner. The DPRK has mostly recovered and is indeed doing better than capitalist countries at that level of economic development. The ROK just got a ton of economic development dumped on it. I'm also arguing trends, and "would be utterly destroyed without nuclear deterrence" isn't exactly a great condition for any country to thrive. A good example of how reactionaries are limited in the game, though.

Dude There is no way you are trying to use north korea as a good example of socialism working, like seriously what? south korea completely destroys north korea in every metric, name a capitalist country that north korea does better than. if this is them RECOVERED then the ussr and socialism clearly failed it. south korea is a success because of capitalism and its own choices and actions, sure usa gave them a push, same as the ussr giving north korea a push and we see what they both did with that push, now you can argue the usa gave the bigger push but why is that? oh its because the usa was far richer and far better then the ussr a socialist country and the usa was a capitalist country, why are we arguing about the mini versions? usa > ussr and south korea > north korea, case closed, socialism has been shown to be inferior to capitalism on every occasion. i get it you like the ussr I can tell by the "THE ILLEGAL DISSOLUTION OF THE USSR" but just be honest and objective and look at the facts.

[whatamidoing]

Yeah, the facts are that the USA is rich because it keeps billions around the world poor. Capitalism isn't restricted to national borders.

[Emperor Zero]

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

Yeah, the facts are that the USA is rich because it keeps billions around the world poor. Capitalism isn't restricted to national borders.

The usa is the reason people around the world are poor? good one man, yep I'm sure africa and asia would be utopias if it wasn't for a nation that was formed only 247 years old, please explain how is it that the usa makes BILLIONS poor? you have no actual way to prove this, "capitalism isn't restricted to national borders" exactly why its good, european countries and the usa has IMPROVED the world and has brought goods and food that many nations would never have, but yes le capitalism bad le socialism good! the world could be a utopia and you guys would still find some way to complain and ask for more more, its human nation i guess, pretty similar to how it is in game, if you focus on increasing standard of living eventually it becomes impossible to meet the standard it just keeps getting higher and higher. Thing is I hate the usa but your argument against them is just horrible.