I started my first playthrough of the mod by choosing to play as Prussia (the state that built the future KaiserReich seemed like a good place to start) and was immediately impressed by the map. This mods map is generally historically accurate to the start date, has made major modifications to the vanilla game to achieve that, added just about every possible tiny little entity possible, in the fragmented Germany and Italy, as well as in the less well documented and yet to be colonized continent of Africa. Almost every leader in the game has a great looking portrait, from the major powers to the minor backwaters, and further to this, there appear to be custom party leaders and heads of state who have the potential to become leaders via politically trickery, also with portraits (viewable in the political bar along with custom advisors in the major nations, and a slew of new custom laws unique to this mod affecting everything from minority rights to state religion to suffrage). This is all very impressive.

Then I moved on to the tech tree... this may be the best part of the mod in my opinion. It's extensive, has several new tabs, and is largely (with a couple later exceptions I'll get to in a bit) historically accurate. It is also filled with custom photos to accompany each custom tech item. This really helps with the immersion in the mod. Working through the flight tree and unlocking my first recon balloons felt somehow satisfying, even with their tiny (yet very accurately so, I wouldn't want to see it any bigger) range of operation :). I also love that the mod has implemented tech trees for civilian technologies in ways that seem very much fitting, and which provide realistic bonuses for your nation (medical and agricultural advances for example help with population growth, while advancements in scientific understanding such as the periodic table help with research speed).

My only problems with the tech tree (which is near flawless) are as follows... 1.) The sheer size of the tree in terms of number of tabs makes it difficult to use. You have to go into your options and edit your UI scaling to even see the last 3 tabs, including the flight tab and as yet unpopulated (though rightfully so given the wars covered thus far) special projects tab. Editing UI scaling in settings sounds easy enough in theory, however editing it enough so as to see all 3 tabs makes everything on your screen (the portraits, tabs, divisions, and most of all the text) so incredibly tiny compared to the map that you can barely see it, much less read anything that pops up. I ultimately had to settle for scaling my UI back to 0.9, which leaves everything big enough that it doesn't ruin the look of the game, but small enough that I can see 1 of the (and a bit of the 2nd) tabs that was cut off the screen. This works for now because all technologies to this point are accessible, but will no longer work when chemical, rocket, and nuclear weapons (or maybe even space race items) are added in special projects, at which point I'll have to push the settings even further and deal with the horribly tiny UI. Unfortunately however I'm not sure if there is anything the mod devs can do to fix this issue, I really don't have enough knowledge of how this works to know whether or not that's possible. And problem 2.) This problem is radically smaller than the first and likely will be fixed with further updates. Some items of technology are notably available far too early given their historical time of invention. The ones that screamed "available too early" to me were the Maxim Machine Gun and the C93 Semi Automatic Pistol (first semi automatic handgun in history). These items are both available on the tech tree starting at around 1880, while in reality they shouldn't be available until closer to 1890 (which is currently beyond the scope of the tree). The Maxim was first prototyped and used in the mid-late 80's but didn't see actual use in proper military combat until the early-mid 90s, with the first unit to receive one getting theirs in 1889. As for the C93... well the name makes it obvious. It was manufactured in 1893 and came into use immediately thereafter. I recommend slight tweaks to the tech tree to reflect that. Beyond those notes however I was thoroughly impressed by the tech tree, which was one of the shining glory points for the mod.

With the tech tree discussed I'll move on to focuses and events. As mentioned earlier I was playing Prussia for my first go, one of the 7 nations in the game which currently have their own unique trees (the 7 are Prussia, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Confederate States, Sardinia-Piedmont, and Portugal... it's also worth noting that the German minors also have trees unique to only the German minors, which allow them to make choices regarding their relations to Prussia, and interesting and fitting addition). My objective with Prussia was to play historically (and though I didn't expect to get nearly as far as I'm about to describe, given the early state of the mod) by ultimately making Bismarck chancellor, shutting down the liberal revolutionaries, defeating Denmark, beating Austria in the 7 weeks war, forming the North German Confederation, beating France in the Franco Prussian war, forming the German Empire, creating the German colonial Empire, crowning Kaiser Wilhelm II, bringing back autocracy, and prepping for WW1. Obviously it doesn't get that far yet... the focus trees doesn't even come close to getting that far yet... and that's a good thing. As it stands the focus trees it very detailed, though it's current form isn't fully functional and not every focus has a completed corresponding effect. The trees are clearly very early as far as work goes, but they show an immense amount of detail and future planning, which is great. I don't and didn't expect the trees to be anywhere near where they are when I started the mod, so for now I think they are definitely exceeding expectations.

Continuing with the tree, I wanted to take a moment to talk about the unification of Germany and how it (appears) it will be handled. I became somewhat concerned when I saw that the tree does not feature any options to start the 7 weeks war or Franco Prussian war, and even more worried when I saw no reference to the North German Confederation. Since the mod is still very early in development this would not frighten me in and of itself. However, the tree DOES contain a focus entitled "A New Germany" which it says will unlock the German focus trees *this has yet to be worked into the game). This worries me. If I choose to go down the historic route of choosing Bismark (the "A New Candidate" line) I should not but able to form Germany without first defeating Denmark, fighting the 7 weeks war against Austria, forming the North German Confederation, and fighting the Franco Prussian War. Only then should the German Empire (and thus Germany proper) be a formable nation... unless of course you pick one of the alternate history trees such as the "rise of socialism" tree, in which an alternate means of forming the country makes sense. I ultimately did reach the "New Germany" focus, after completing the entire tree, and found that it did not in fact form Germany, which was a relief. I'm not sure how the mod devs plan to approach the formation of Germany for the historic tree, but I sincerely hope the North German Confederation isn't skipped.

My only other three concerns with the focuses and events for Prussia specifically are as follows (these are again much more minor) 1.) When you complete the "New Candidate" focus and get Bismarck as Chancellor, he becomes leader, but doesn't have a portrait (of himself... Bismark needs a portrait like the other leaders, he's too important to not have one). 2.) To actually unlock the new candidate focus you must first have the 1962 election... I like that alot... what I don't like however is that you must also complete the "New Era" focus... my problem with that isn't what the focus stands for, it's what the focus does... that being adding a centrism drift that lasts for 7300 days... that is crazy. If I'm choosing "New Candidate" it's because I wanted to stick with Bismarck's conservatism (and ultimately Wilhelm II's Autocracy) not go liberal. The centrism drift from New Era last for a very long time and is super hard to counter out with the focuses available after new candidate. Sure you can use those focuses (such as "fight the liberals") to reduce centrist popularity a couple times, but it isn't nearly enough, as the centrist drift last so long that (even with all the conservative advisors appointed) centrism ultimately overtakes conservatism by a lot and Autocracy is totally eliminated as a relevant ideology in the country. This should be an easy fix. Centrism drift last for less time, fight the liberals reduces centrism drift, etc. Would all work. And 3.) The War against Denmark. I was shocked the War was in the game (by event rather than focus... I was pleasantly surprised to see it trigger, as I didn't think the mod would go that far yet). The War was perfect, my armies and Austria's won as they did historically, and Denmark capitulated. The problem was that after they capitulated there was no custom event which created the real life peace treaty. Instead I just annexed all of Denmark, lol. In our timeline Austria and Prussia split Schleswig-Holstein between them, and there should be an event which allows the Prussian or Austrian player to do just that. I'm sure the mod developers are currently working on this however, or have maybe even finished working on it, as the War itself was already in the mod and I was not even expecting that. :) (I got my hopes up so high I sat around after that waiting for the 7 weeks war to kick off via event but, alas, it isn't in the game yet, lol)

Now that I've talked about all that, I'll move on to the rest of the mod items. Firstly, generals. This was great. The major powers all appear to have custom generals, field marshals and admirals all with their own portraits, as well as custom generals and admirals who can be required later on via focuses (A great addition) Acquiring Von Moltke via focus was one of the highlights for me. Secondly, Resources and Buildings. There are lots of custom resources and Buildings in the game, which is great to see and is very era fitting for the start of the game. These all have custom icons showing a great deal of time and careful consideration. My only concern with this is how the mod plans to handle resources in the late game (WW2 and Beyond) as several of the vanilla resources that fit those time periods are now absent from the game. This is far from a huge issue, it's more of a nitpick, I'm just curious if there are any plans to re-implement resources such as rubber later on down the road or if it entirely impossible to have more than 6 resources available in the game at a time. Regardless, the custom resources are a great fit and a great addition on the part of the dev team.

Finally I'd like to discuss the American Civil War, because it is a highlight of the mod as it stands so far, being the largest conflict by far currently implemented into the game. There is one glaring problem with it... it's WAY too short. Typically it only lasts for about 3/4 of a year, and it always ends in a Union victory. Seeing as it lasted 4 years in our timeline this feels incredibly, short. If the War lasted 2 years in the mod that would be another matter, but the Union always gains a huge advantage very fast and then crushes the Confederacy. It ends so fast that the CSA doesn't even have time to finish half of its custom focus tree.

I was super excited (I mean I almost clapped I was so happy) to see the Trent Affair appear in the mod as an event. It's near and dear to me, as I remember making a series of discord posts suggesting it as an addition to the mod while I was helping out with Timeline of Iron and was shocked to see that the suggestion had been taken, or someone else had suggested it later and it was taken then. Regardless it's indescribable how great it is to see it in the mod. The idea of Britain and France having the option to intervene and alter history was exciting to me. So I went to play through as the UK and see if I could help the Confederacy win by intervening. Sure enough the event appeared, I kept calling for war (even though France opted not to join me, lol) and eventually, it happened, I intervened. It was great, my British divisions swooped in from the North via Canada, capturing Boston, then New York... Washington DC was in my sights... and then it was over, the CSA capitulated. "What??? Why???" I thought. "How can they have lost this early again? It's only 1862... and Very Early 1862 at that!" The answer is that the War is not yet balanced in such a way that the Confederacy can survive long enough to win, even if the European powers intervene (I tried again with France... couldn't do it them either, the Confederates always lose by early 1862, so even if you intervene as Britain or France, and are winning handily, it's too late to save the CSA).

This needs to be fixed. I ultimately had to cheat to win the war at all in any playthrough (using console commands... and even this was hard as the mod somewhat obnoxiously prevents the player from tagging the Union and deleting their divisions...Note: I call this obnoxious out of suspicion as I saw a YouTuber use this tactic to win after repeated failed attempts, only to have a dev say he was "a bit harsh" in the comments for implying the mod was unbalanced while having cheated by deleting union divisions prior to the war. This makes me think the dev team blocked the player from deleting union divisions intentionally after seeing his video, for that reason... Why? Why would you do that? Blocking players abilities to use console commands really doesn't help sell your mod, as it prevents players from experimenting with it to create their own scenarios... YouTubers in particular love to use console commands on HOI4 In order to set up scenario videos... videos which tend to bring lots of new players and publicity to mods. I don't recommend blocking player freedom in this manner, though I do see and understand the motive for doing it [Note: I could be entirely wrong on this and the dev team may not have intentionally blocked anything in this manner. If a dev reads this and I was wrong, please let me know, I'm just speculating here]). Please, I beg, if it is at all possible, find a way to make the American Civil War last longer when played by the AI, so that it doesn't seem so short and historically small by contrast to what it was in our historical timeline. As a major note to this however, the dev I mentioned earlier did say in a reply to that YouTube comment that they are working on balancing for the American Civil War, and that is very great to hear. I look forward to checking it out again in the next update :)

To conclude this mod is an amazing mod, and even though it is very early in development, it is heavily customized and shows great promise. It is littered with signs of long term planning (East and West Berlin are separate states in anticipation of the cold war, most modern borders can ultimately be seen if you look over all the states in Africa, Europe and Asia, and several focuses point towards future events relative to the mod at present). Everything from the complex borders to the beautiful custom music for each major country shows great time and effort have been invested. This project is very ambitious... very, very, ambitious, but ambition is good, and from what I've seen I have confidence that the dev team can pull it off in the end. I look forward to playing more of this mod, and will return to it frequently. If the dev team would like a "playtester" or a "historical fact check guy" or both, I'd be happy to volunteer time. Playing this mod was a fun experience and I would play it again, even prior to an update. Considering how early the current version is, I will wholeheartedly recommend it, as it far surpasses any other mod I've ever seen at this early a stage of development, instilling a great deal of confidence that this mod can, and will, achieve its aims. I will be excitedly following the dev team in any way I can as the mod keeps on moving down the road to 2050 :)

FINAL REVIEW: 9.5/10- AMAZING AND EXCEPTIONAL GIVEN ITS STATUS AS A VERY EARLY MOD IN PROGRESS

PS: I hope this review is helpful to the mod developers in one way or another. I just now realized I spent two hours writing it. Time flies, lol

PPS: I also feel the need to report that one of your devs (or someone claiming to be one of your devs) was insulting commenters under a video posted by Rimmy Downunder (A popular HOI4 YouTuber) covering this mod. One fan was insulted for joking demanding focus trees and another was insulted for calling "blasphemy" when they saw that General Lee was a 1 star. Check the replies under the pinned comment on his video... while the dev in question seems to have deleted their vulgar and insulting replies after I commented 4 days ago and mentioned that I previously volunteered time with members of the dev team for Timeline of Iron (afraid I'd DM Powerblo on Discord maybe? lol), the replies to their insulting comments from angry fans and from myself are still there and some still have the devs YouTube name tagged. These replies describe much of what he had said. I hope the dev in question is caught and disciplinary action is taken as (contrary to what the mod said when they implied that a fan was an idiot for insinuating that his vulgar and insulting responses were reflecting poorly on the whole dev team) the actions of this particular supposed dev do not reflect well on the mod or it's team, which is incredibly sad as this is a great mod with an amazing team behind it. Powerblo was never anything but nice to me when I worked on TOI and I know that behaviour of that nature is surely not endorsed or supported by the developers of this mod. I continue to hold out hope that the supposed dev in question is actually just some jerk on YouTube claiming to be a dev and not really involved with the mod, lol

PPPS: when I saw the error icon for the mod I laughed out loud. Nice one Powerblo, lol :)

That's really nice of you and we appreciate how much time you have spent to write this review :^)
The dev team is working really hard to improve the experience of playing the mod with adding new systems and gameplay mechanics (and graphical improvements too!). The Deus Ex Machina update will feature fixes and for a lot of your concernes. And we will listen to your suggestions aswell. Really nice to see people that are passionate aboute our project. Thank you, again, for taking your time to write this!

-mklr

I would like to point forward that my comment on Rimmy's video was not meant to be pushing a narrative that players should not be able to use console commands in their games. That is not something I am advocating for, what I was talking about are the experience of the game and multiplayer games.

If the player is just able to delete the armies of the US and play as the CSA, there is really no point of it being a "game". What a game is a obstacle that has a win and a lose condition. If they player can just delete all of the American forces and win the Civil War as the CSA easily, then it isn't really a "game" anymore. I want to avoid that, and make the Civil War something that 'means' something, rather than just some sweep that can be cleaned out easily.

Secondly, in multiplayer games. If the CSA were to delete the USA's forces while in a multiplayer game, then that would really change up the game. Effectively, it would neuter the US as a influential force (unless it took the CSA again which it probably won't). And I don't want this to happen in multiplayer games, as it can really tip the scales of power in the game without a fight.

And to the point of the "a bit harsh", during the time I wrote that comment I had missed the point that Rimmy played the game multiple times as the CSA before. I assumed that he deleted the units and equipment for the US in the war, and then stated that the war was unbalanced. I was later corrected by Rimmy in the comments, and I replied to that thanking him for telling me that.

As for the dev that was insulting commenters, I had not known about this before and I have not really looked at the comment section since my reply to Rimmy. If you have any pictures, know of the name, or know someone that has pictures, please send them to me.

Thank you for your review!

EDIT: After looking at the comment section again, I can tell which dev did it. The dev in question is no longer working with us, but I will still approach and talk them about it.

Originally posted by PresidentStorm:

I would like to point forward that my comment on Rimmy's video was not meant to be pushing a narrative that players should not be able to use console commands in their games. That is not something I am advocating for, what I was talking about are the experience of the game and multiplayer games.

If the player is just able to delete the armies of the US and play as the CSA, there is really no point of it being a "game". What a game is a obstacle that has a win and a lose condition. If they player can just delete all of the American forces and win the Civil War as the CSA easily, then it isn't really a "game" anymore. I want to avoid that, and make the Civil War something that 'means' something, rather than just some sweep that can be cleaned out easily.

Secondly, in multiplayer games. If the CSA were to delete the USA's forces while in a multiplayer game, then that would really change up the game. Effectively, it would neuter the US as a influential force (unless it took the CSA again which it probably won't). And I don't want this to happen in multiplayer games, as it can really tip the scales of power in the game without a fight.

And to the point of the "a bit harsh", during the time I wrote that comment I had missed the point that Rimmy played the game multiple times as the CSA before. I assumed that he deleted the units and equipment for the US in the war, and then stated that the war was unbalanced. I was later corrected by Rimmy in the comments, and I replied to that thanking him for telling me that.

As for the dev that was insulting commenters, I had not known about this before and I have not really looked at the comment section since my reply to Rimmy. If you have any pictures, know of the name, or know someone that has pictures, please send them to me.

Thank you for your review!

EDIT: After looking at the comment section again, I can tell which dev did it. The dev in question is no longer working with us, but I will still approach and talk them about it.

Sorry for taking so long to respond, I was travelling internationally (I'm Canadian) for Comic Con International and haven't been online for a while.

Thank You so much for this response. I absolutely understand where you are coming from here and am grateful for the clarification. I agree that the Civil War should be a very meaningful event in the game (its the first major war to break out in the mod's timeline afterall) and should be impactful as far as changing the course of history going forward. My complaints mainly stemmed from the CSA seeming to be beaten too quickly every time the Civil War broke out, leading me to feel that the war was unbalanced (for the moment anyway, the mod is still in development so I imagine that will change) and the outcome was always a certainty... that being total Union victory within just over a years time. I think your wording was perfect, the Civil War shouldn't be a sweep, it should mean something. That being said, that's when I tried to activate the console to see if I could delete some of the union's divisions and even out the sides a bit (was looking to test and see if I could manually balance it out a bit in my own personal game) and noticed that it was impossible to delete union divisions... I was curious if this was put in to discourage the use of console commands and I thank you sincerely for correcting me and clarifying that this was not the case. I certainly don't think it's really fair to be deleting all of the union divisions before the war even starts in an effort to make the war a total walk in the park for the CSA, and so I agree with you entirely. If lots of players were starting as the Union and then just deleting all of their divisions before the war that would be an easy and likely annoying exploit, so I'm glad to hear that this is the reason deleting union divisions was not possible for me.

Your response here was great and only furthers my existing confidence in the mod. Clearly yourself and the dev team are planning for the future quite a bit, and are considering how certain alternate history events will effect the balance of power in the future of the game. With a mod like this, that sort of pre-planning is definitely going to be helpful. I also very much like hearing that multiplayer is being taken into consideration when work is being done, as with a mod this ambitious I think there will be lots of potential for incredibly fun multiplayer gameplay.

As for the former dev insulting and lashing out at commenters on YouTube, I'm happy to hear that the situation is resolved. That whole series of events was unfortunate and I was a bit sad to see that sort of contention in a comment chain for a mod that really does have a great team working on it, and a bright future ahead of it. I hope to see more people actively following it's progress in the future.

Thanks so much once again for your reply, it was very informative and helpful for me.

Amazing work with the mod so far. keep up the great work,

EmperorM