Poll: Playing As The Third Riech

[ExtraDebit]

Kindda distasteful if you ask me, it's like if they made a game to crash planes into buildings and see if you can bring it down.

 

[Stuntcrab]

Yeah, I'm still waiting for an FPS game where you play as a German soldier in world world 2, I'm tired of the same old British/American and sometimes Russian campaigns going through the same places. Just to show a different perspective and show what the German soldiers had to go through, and I hope it'd be mature about it too, instead of every German soldier having "Heil Hitler" or "lets go murder some more babies" as their only lines.

During Company of Heroes I liked the German Campaign more than the American one, I found it more entertaining and interesting with those I think One or two missions.

Hell, maybe we can get to play as a Brazilian soldier during the Italy campaign as well.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

There are probably some mods out their that add more formable nations. have you tried forming an Arabian Empire that spans from the Baltic to the Himalayas to Gibraltar? I guess that depends on what your definition of colonization is.

Colonialism in EU3 is basically any area that is treated more or less according to the concept of 'Terra Nullius': the land is 'empty', except for the inconvenient natives who just happen to live there and 'disappear' after you send enough colonists.

I view that as distinct from the regular conquest, which is not to justify it, but in those instances the game doesn't really pretend that the people whose land you have claimed no longer exist. They will continue to frustrate you if you don't run your empire properly and they're outside your primary culture. On the other hand, the natives in colonial regions mysteriously vanish from the game once it becomes a proper city, and all you have to deal with then is your own colonists getting uppity.

 

[Macsen Wledig]

Well, we live even further from an ideal world now thanks to America. Besides, what exactly did the Soviet union do to deserve this view of it as some kind of evil empire?
In the cold war there were two superpowers, one was supporting groups like the to the Khmer Rouge and the Contras, toppled democratically elected governments in Latin America in favour of fascistic, murderous dictatorships, supported apartheid in South Africa, armed and trained Islamic extremists to combat the rise of pan-arab nationalism and supported the worst kind of human beings like Francis "Papa Doc" Duvalier, Hissen Habré and Augusto Pinochet. The other was the Soviet Union.

While you're absolutely correct, many of the things America did during the Cold War were quite detestable, the Soviet Union was just as bad. They overthrew legitimate democratic governments in Europe and South America as well in order to establish communist states, and they funded communist rebels much like the the US did with the Taliban. On the home front they were brutally repressive against their own people, imprisoning dissidents and persecuting minorities; millions of their own people died under their regime. While the concept of them as an "evil empire" largely came from propaganda, they did more than their share of terrible things during their heyday, no different than the United States.

I wouldn't quite go as far as "just as bad", I think if you listed all the evils that the Soviets committed and I listed all the evils that the USA committed, I would still be reeling off events long after you've finished.

While it's true that the Soviet Union did suppress democratic movements in Europe I cannot think of one democratically elected government that it overthrew in South America, and while it's also true that they supported and funded communist rebels around the globe, I cannot think of one group that comes close to the brutality of the Taliban or the Contras.

On the home front they were brutally repressive against their own people, imprisoning dissidents and the like, but that is no different than the United States, which was shooting protesters on campuses and murdering dissidents like Fred Hampton. COINTELPRO anyone?

As for the "millions died under their regime", I'm going to need a source on that. It's true that in the early years of the soviet union, during the civil war, that many people died from famine but I hardly think you can lay that at the feet of the Soviet Union any more than you can lay the dust bowl at the feet of the United States. The Soviet Union is an odd entity because it's perhaps the only suicidal regime in history, after all the most dangerous place to be was in the old guard of the communist party. All in all, I think that the USA did far more damage around the world than the Soviet Union could hope or intended to do.
Also, let us not forget exactly how the Soviet Union fell and the destitution and poverty that debacle caused, and who was sitting behind it all supporting this humanitarian disaster from the sidelines? The United States of America.

 

[Macsen Wledig]

I'm sure they would have had no problems with having a relationship with the west however it would be suicidal to align with the people who are actively trying to cause the destruction of your state. In other words, why would I align with America when America is funding and training extremists in my country?

The funding only happened after the Soviets moved in.

After the Soviets were asked to intervene by the government of Afghanistan you mean? I however do not see that as a justification for funding Islamic extremists, but America reaped what it sowed in that respect.

And the US used it as an opportunity to bleed the Soviets just as the Soviets used Vietnam to bleed the US.

Ironically the Soviet directed so much aid to North Vietnam they would up bleeding themselves as well.

I don't think you can frame this as some kind of geopolitical tit-for-tat. They are not even similar events, the Soviet Union was asked to intervene in Afghanistan, the USA intervened in Vietnam because of some ridiculous "Domino theory."

The US didn't back the Mujahideen to bring them into power, they were a means to an end and would have been able to go on the marry way if they'd not started harbouring terrorist groups that attacked the West.

You can't pour money, arms and training into a political organisation and expect it not to take power, that would be incredibly naive. Not to mention, "harbouring terrorists"? They were the terrorists, they dragged Afghanistan into the dark ages, but that's okay because America needs to fight her enemies... for reasons.

In that regard you're extremely ignorant of the era and what the Cold War was about. You're fixated on seeing this through the lens of your value based issues and refuse to acknowledge the difference between the West and Eastern European at the time.

Neither Democratic Republic of Afghanistan nor the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan had a common interest with the West, the former was a ally of our enemy at the time while the latter unwisely chose to aid our enemies and got for it.

What does that even mean? How does that justify the horror that was wrought upon Afghanistan? Yes, the USSR was at odds with the USA, but who was the aggressor? Who was the one taking aggressive actions?

I'm not your teacher, if you're so ignorant as to not know what they perpetrated than the onus is on you to go out and study it, not me to waste my time lecturing you.

Calm down pal. What did they perpetrate that made them the "evil empire" while the USA could bounce around the world supporting genocide and dictatorships but she was "the leader of the free world"? It just seems rather one sided and disingenuous.

The act that you're so focused and detailed about the actions of the West during the Cold War and so ignorant of those of the Communists shows that you don't want to argue, you agree with them and you've already made up your mind long ago to ignore everything they did, something which I don't do on my own end, though I have a far different world view and that is based on a realistic outlook of Western civilizations interests and what is needed to protect it.

I've done no such thing, it'd happily listen to what you think was so terrible about the USSR that it justified supporting people like Augusto Pinochet and the Khmer Rouge? I realise that the USSR was far from perfect and that their support of people like Ceausescu is abominable, but as I'm sure your mother has taught you two wrongs don't make a right. Not to mention that the USSR was no threat to Western civilization.

The toppling of democratically elected governments in Latin America wasn't even in retaliation to anything that the USSR was doing in the region half of the time. Half the time it was because United Fruit Company wanted better deals in the area. They were literally making the lives of people in the region shit to enrich a fucking fruit company. Oh, how noble!

This sentiment of "Our country, right or wrong!" seems detestable not to mention myopic.

Love putting words in people's mouths. I didn't claim that and the myopia lay with you seriously asking me to list the atrocities committed by the Soviet Union and the threat Communism posed.

Well, that is the sentiment I'm getting from your posts. Instead of just going "well, that was a shitty move by the USA" you seem hell-bent on justifying some atrocious actions by the seer fact that the American state saw something as a barrier to it's interest. Which says to me "Our country, right or wrong!". It doesn't matter if what we are doing is morally repugnant, it's important that we do it to dick over our perceived enemy. On a side note, what threat did Communism pose exactly?

 

[beastro]

I don't mean to change your mind or anything, but radical modern Islam has jack-all in common with the Islamic world of antiquity, and 'Islamists' represent a tiny minority of the Islamic world today.

I'm fully aware of that fact, still doesn't mean I like it no differently than the people of my grandfathers generation who refuse to buy anything German or Japanese.

Yeah, and that's not exactly unwarranted.

Me, I personally can't play any games that involve colonialism. My EU3 playthroughs end at about 1500 because I don't want to sit in Europe for 300 years but neither do I want to ruthlessly exploit natives on foreign soil.

Why not play as a Germany petty kingdom and form HRE or Prussia, or, well Germany?

Because that was meant as a barb at me trying to goad, not a serious statement.

Except it wasn't. I actually cannot get into the game when colonialism takes off, because so much of what I've studied in history has reinforced my perception that colonialism is just fucked up from start to finish. Treating a piece of land as though no one lives there and systematically reinforcing the inhabitants as second-class citizens over centuries of occupation, I can't handle.

Believe it or not, I was trying to illustrate some common ground.

I recognized that afterwards, other matters had my emotions flare, but felt it would be disingenuous to edit my post.

Second class citizen thing, slave labour and other matters make it a mixed bag. I don't see it as wholly bad or totally fucked up, but much of it stands as simply the same march Mankind has been doing for centuries one way or another through conquests, enslavement and migrations, both forced and not. The only difference was the idealism of those doing it later on the Neo-Colonial era which is why I find the Belgium colonization so egregious.

The difficult fact I'd face though if I were you would be trying to play almost any faction in a game like one from the EU series and not have it face some sort of sordid history you'd be reliving. Western history is merely the most well known, there other matters in the Middle East such as the White slave trade I brought up, then in India there's knowing society is working under the full weigh of the caste system, playing a Japanese faction forces you to ruthlessly conquer all the others to become shogun.

Brought to abstracts like they are in games like EU, CK, of the Civ series it's all you can really do. The ideal way I think you'd wish people would have lived by all those centuries would have made these games extremely boring, as you found out.

"War makes rattling good history but Peace is poor reading" - had Hardy lived today he'd be saying the same thing about gameplay.

Colonialism in EU3 is basically any area that is treated more or less according to the concept of 'Terra Nullius': the land is 'empty', except for the inconvenient natives who just happen to live there and 'disappear' after you send enough colonists.

I view that as distinct from the regular conquest, which is not to justify it, but in those instances the game doesn't really pretend that the people whose land you have claimed no longer exist. They will continue to frustrate you if you don't run your empire properly and they're outside your primary culture. On the other hand, the natives in colonial regions mysteriously vanish from the game once it becomes a proper city, and all you have to deal with then is your own colonists getting uppity.

This is something I've always found annoying in EU games and those natives should be added to the regions population and not vanish. It makes you have no incentive to leave the natives since they can undermine your ability to fully colonize and bring that region into your empire, so it's quick and easier in the long run to just bring an army and scour over them until they trigger combat and effective wipe out the all the natives making it ahistorical and more comparable to modern ethnic cleansing than bringing the people and resources of a land into your empire to exploit them.

Once the natives do vanish in most areas I edit my saves and make the dominant ethnic group in those areas the native ones and don't bother using the options to convert their culture to mine with the exceptions being places like Australia, New Zealand and parts of North America where colonists came to greatly outnumber the natives.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Second class citizen thing, slave labour and other matters make it a mixed bag. I don't see it as wholly bad or totally fucked up, but much of it stands as simply the same march Mankind has been doing for centuries one way or another through conquests, enslavement and migrations, both forced and not. The only difference was the idealism of those doing it later on the Neo-Colonial era which is why I find the Belgium colonization so egregious.

The difficult fact I'd face though if I were you would be trying to play almost any faction in a game like one from the EU series and not have it face some sort of sordid history you'd be reliving. Western history is merely the most well known, there other matters in the Middle East such as the White slave trade I brought up, then in India there's knowing society is working under the full weigh of the caste system, playing a Japanese faction forces you to ruthlessly conquer all the others to become shogun.

A lot of what goes on in the colonial period does also take place more explicitly in the other areas of the game, you're absolutely correct. But the difference is that the game at least makes you aware of it, and when you're facing a rebellion or you've suddenly dropped to -3 stability, there's always that little twinge that 'well, I am being a dick to all these people'.

This is something I've always found annoying in EU games and those natives should be added to the regions population and not vanish. It makes you have no incentive to leave the natives since they can undermine your ability to fully colonize and bring that region into your empire, so it's quick and easier in the long run to just bring an army and scour over them until they trigger combat and effective wipe out the all the natives making it ahistorical and more comparable to modern ethnic cleansing than bringing the people and resources of a land into your empire to exploit them.

Once the natives do vanish in most areas I edit my saves and make the dominant ethnic group in those areas the native ones and don't bother using the options to convert their culture to mine with the exceptions being places like Australia, New Zealand and parts of North America where colonists came to greatly outnumber the natives.

I agree wholeheartedly. If they would just make it so the natives become a thorn in your side even after you form a city, it would be less difficult for me to play it.

 

[Duster]

I like it. Wish I knew some good media/books on it. Loved das boot, gonna be watching My way soon hopefully.

 

[kuolonen]

I have been waiting for a game like that to come, outside strategy and multiplayer FPS. Though I dread to think how arsely the game devs are probably going handle the aspects of that along with publisher adding its own spit in to the mix.

Most likely it will be basically the average CoD game all over again, but this time you play as a Wehrmacht soldier who has seen the truth of freedom and apple pie and blergh.

 

[Greg White]

To be honest, I'd love to be able to play as Germany during WWII. WWII British and American forces already knew that the guys in charge of Germany were evil bastards because they had people who would escape from some of the camps and tell them what was going on, but the Wehrmacht soldiers were largely clueless.

There's so much room for storytelling through gameplay playing as the Germans. Imagine this: early game you get sent to fight the French with the game emphasising that these were the men responsible for your country being in such a horrible state for the last few decades. Make sure to remind the player that they have more men, better fighting vehicles, and the backing of the British Empire, then make a show of both forces being steamrolled and driven to the horrible defeat that was Dunkirk.

From there either move on to the fighting in North Africa or the Soviet Invasion, both with very different themes. North Africa is all about taking on the aging British Empire but making sure to fight fair(i.e. no killing prisoners) while the Soviet Campaign is all about reminding the player that these guys lost horribly to tiny Finland just a few months ago and then proceed to have the player fight seemingly endless waves of enemies, but also show them how 'badass' the Waffen-SS is and then remind the player through their actions that they were evil bastards.

You can move the player around to different fronts later on to demonstrate the differences between the Americans and British vs the Soviets, jumping around from various army groups before finally ending up in the 12th Army and letting the player choose whether they want to fight to the last man against the Soviets or break out the 9th Army and make a run for the American lines with the civilians.

 

[Frankster]

Got no problems playing the german side and have played as them in the following games:
-Company of heroes
-Hearts of Iron
-Silent Storm
-Red Orchestra
-Some ww2 online fps i can't remember
-War Thunder
-World of Tanks

snip

I'd totally kickstart that game

 

[Branindain]

I would be uncomfortsble if they put me in charge of Auschwitz, or otherwise provided fringe lunatics with some kind of revolting sandbox to play in. In a responsibly made game, however, I would have no dramas representing individuals fighting for the Axis.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

I wouldnt mind since the Swedes alreafy me playing as unapologetically evil psychopaths in Payday and Hotline Miami. A game where you are gleefully or under the gun of an officer commit atrocities in a fps will be an interesting idea.

 

[Spartan448]

The only people that seem to care anymore is Russia. Any WWII game on steam immediately has Russian spam demanding Russia be put in. It even happened to LuftRausers.

They even swarmed Red Orchestra's forums and demanded that the Russian guns be made more powerful than they really were because "these guns won." Since Germany wins almost every match I seen.

I play Red Orchestra 2, and I go Axis every single time because Germany just has the better equipment. Outside a couple weapons like SMG, Russia really has nothing to offer.

Germany kept bringing in new stuff from the Me 262 to the MAUS. other factions stayed with the familiar. In gameplay terms that means scalable power.

Its like having a star wars game and having the empire having the ability to build multiple super star destroyers. In "real life", only 1 exists and that meant the empire lost the war. In a video game, there is no such thing as a limit so you can spam super star destroyers and roll over the puny rebels.

Hell, in Warthunder they had to add korean war jets so germany won't seal club all the other planes with their jets. German propeller planes are one hit killers because they used 30 mm cannons which make American .50s look puny. The max power America gets is 20mm and thats at the end. When Germany had those cannons for a long ass while before they go up to 30mm.

Being American in War Thunder is like pulling teeth until you get to the jets. Thats why the devs made it so American planes never EVER face other planes from that same era. They make it so outdated planes always go up against higher end American planes so American players have a chance. Even with the outdated planes, them having 20mm standard hits American players hard.

Spoiler: In fact, I am going to use this. been waiting for an excuse. WarThunder players will get the joke. Balance is nonexistent if history itself isn't fair, so Gaijin tries to balance it and fails horribly.

In a lot of games, playing as germany is a no brainer. There is no reason to let morality get in the way of the objectively better equipment.

if you don't use it, someone else will and make you regret choosing anything else. Its the same reason all warthunder players go Germany or Russia. Why put yourself at a constant disadvantage?

Do me a favor and learn about games before you post about them. The German tree in WT never had a sealclubbing plane with the exception of the 163, which shouldn't have been uptiered, but was still preforming better than it should have. The American planes are all decent and a 12.7mm round is enough to mess with a plane's aerodynamic capability. The problem with the Americans in WT right now is the influx of shit players. Probably the Brits are the best at seal clubbing simply because of how undertiered the Griffin Spitfires are.

 

[Spartan448]

if we stuck to WWII, germans would have jets and the brits would have knock offs. The germans would seal club everyone, and that's why you have 1950s jets fighting WWII props. Hell, if things were really realistic the Americans would be using p-51s against ME 262s. That's what I was saying.

Also the G6, F-4, and G-10 are seal clubbing planes. The F-4 is overperforming from its historical stats. The G6 kills everything, and the G10 as well. The TA 152 was another seal clubbing plane, but now it goes up against Jets so people have a chance.

gaijin even said they changed the tiers based on how well people were doing in the plane, and America gets undertiered because noobs always choose America for an "easy win." So it looks like American planes are shit when its really the pilots that suck because they thought choosing America means 100% victory just by showing up.

Tiers should be based on chronological order, not because noobs to the game favor one faction to another. I shouldn't have to be someone from WWII time warped into 1953.

If we went by pure history, some factions would be unstoppable like the UK and Germany. Just like in tank battles Russia would be unstoppable in certain tiers because they had better tanks. They change everything so everyone has a chance.

The american planes are under tiered and late war American planes fight early war planes from everyone else. That's the only way American players can even compete. Even then, I regularly down much higher end American planes with the crappiest of my planes because of the difference in gun power.

a .50 cal is crap in war thunder. It was accurate in real life, but the game makes all bullets accurate regardless if you are in arcade or not. You have to pummel planes when a 20 or 30mm is a one shot kill. You do not have the time to pummel anything in war thunder, the TTK rate has to be instant or else you won't get the kill. That's why Gaijin had to overhaul it entirely.

I have lost track of how many kills I steal from American players because their bullets couldn't do the job. they pummel other planes only for a single blast from my cannons to kill it. Even more when I see BnZs come around and steal even more kills from US players.

I have lost track of how many times an American plane has gotten the jump on me, and their TTK was so slow I managed to run back to my friends and still be able to competently fight. I even have the replays to prove it, with me fighting in a plane that was barely held together.

Why do you think that the F4U with cannons was so popular when they added it? Because video games aren't like real life and video games favor one hit kills to get anywhere in warthunder. You don't get the big points for kill assists, you get the big points for kills. Even though teamwork was paramount in flight, Gaijin still rewards lone wolfing. In fact, the game is basically a death match and you get punished for anything different. The planes worked in real life because ballistics actually mattered and teamwork did too. WT has neither of those.

First of all, the Gloster Meteor and the Messerschmidt 262 were both introduced in the same year. The 262 was only a few months earlier than the Meteor. And WWII props do have a chance against later jets, if the number of Shooting Stars I've wasted with my Spitfires and Tempests is any indication. The Mustang has always been a piece of shit even in real life, but a P-47 is more than a match for a 262, and is definitely capable of shooting one down.

I have never been shot down by a TA, and the F-4, G-6, and G-10 are challenging but by no means were ever meant to sealclub.

The Russians didn't have better tanks than the Germans until after WWII. There is a reason the Blitzkreig basically reached Moscow, and the only reason it didn't knock the USSR completely out of the war is because Hitler decided to try to insult Stalin by taking Stalingrad, which resulted in the Werchmacht being encircled, cut off, and destroyed, wheras the same probably would not have happened had the Werchmacht proceeded to invade Moscow.

You must be playing Arcade mostly, because in RB I am mostly fighting planes from the same era (or I was until the Bearcat got downtiered to 5.3 for some asinine reason), and really the only two tiers that bleed over often enough for you to kill higher-tiered planes would be tiers 4 and 5, and that's mostly because jets have a hard time winning against props.

The 12.7mm machine guns do their job more than effectively in War Thunder. The B-17's feared turrets, which only bear on average 3 or 4 individual guns at a time, can do their jobs of shooting down planes more than effectively. A second or two of continuous fire from a Bearcat or Thunderbolt shreds most planes like grated cheese, or at least damages a plane beyond reliable operation.

Even with 20mm and 30mm cannons it takes more than a single burst to down a plane. Even the mighty 4 Hispanoes on the later British planes need to make contact with three or four bursts to down a plane. Large-bore cannons even have trouble sometimes - the Fridge Launcher is not a guaranteed kill.

Lone Wolfing has NEVER been a good idea outside of Arcade, especially not now that RB matches tend to have an average of 10 or more players, meaning that if you go off on your own you will find yourself double or triple teamed by enemies. As for ballistics not mattering, that is completely false and has always been the case. 7.7mm machine guns have the best accuracy and probably the least bullet drop, and as weapon sizes get bigger, muzzle velocity decreases, and bullet drop increases. The rounds move more slowly and in more of an arc towards their targets. Ballistics also changes depending on the weapon firing the round as well. Hispano Mk V cannons for example have the best muzzle velocity of all cannons, making them easiest to use. American cannons are so horribly inaccurate you might as well have been given a plane armed with scatterguns.

 

[Jamieson 90]

I'd like to play as the Germans just for the sheer fact that it'd be different. The Russians and Allies have been done to death. I don't know how you'd go about "winning", the game though since the Germans eventually lost. Maybe you could play as a German soldier that later became a sympathizer? And while we're on the subject I wish one game had the balls to include the Hitler Youth in the defense of Berlin.