Austria/Hungary fan rework: Preview of Empire-wide mechanics
Good morning, all.
A few weeks ago I shared my current work on putting together a new and playable focus tree for Hungary. My work on this is proceeding apace and, aside from filling out a lot of localization to replace my crib notes and placeholders, I would consider it very much complete. I also shared that because of my thoughts on new mechanics involving the Empire, that I would be ripping apart the existing Austria focus tree and basically be using it for spare parts in order to accommodate my new playthrough timeline. This is still very much a work in progress. The military tree is more or less complete, as it was the focus branch that has changed the least. An economic tree has been put together by repurposing the existing economic focuses from the three mutually exclusive playthrough paths and making most of them available in their own separate focus branch with a little bit of rewriting. I'll share details on these at a later date, but I will share that currently the available political paths are still between the CS (social conservatives) and the SDAP (social democrats). One lacking feature in the current focus tree is a lack of flavor or distinction between the two paths; aside from what name to call the amalgamation of the Empire when they join, there is very little difference between the two. Currently, one way I am addressing that is by changing or adding bonuses to various focuses based on which party is in power, along with of course a small exclusive focus tree for each path. It's not much, but hopefully the end result will be a more noticeable playing difference when choosing between one ruling party or the other.
But today, I am sharing some screenshots of some of the newer cross-country mechanics I am building out. They will be the center of a playthrough through at least until mid-1937 as the Empire deals with one crisis after the other, and only after all of these crises are resolved will Austria and Hungary both be able to complete their political paths.
First is Black Monday, of course. Tied into Mitteleuropa, the Dual Monarchy is hit as hard as any other country in the German sphere. However, there is a wrinkle. Early in 1936, many representatives from the various crownland countries are assembled in Vienna in a pre-conference to begin hashing out an agenda for the following year's Ausgleich Conference. Thus, when Black Monday strikes, there are a number of functionaries with some decisionmaking power available to take action. An emergency injection of funds is issued (represented by a timed idea on Austria with a severe consumer goods factor penalty) that staves off the worst effects of the economic crisis. After that, each country begins to fend for itself.
Shown in the window is a Black Monday tracker. A repeating mission ticks by, and the Black Monday idea will worsen every 21 days until the crisis ends. Focuses and some decisions will be available that will lower the Black Monday idea. Both Austria and Hungary will have both cooperative and selfish Black Monday focuses: Cooperative focuses will give mild bonuses to themselves and others, while selfish ones could give very large benefits but inflict further penalties on other countries. After the crisis is over, these dynamic Black Monday ideas are exchanged for timed ideas, much like Germany's Black Monday system (without the card game), that will tick down and remove the Black Monday debuffs level by level until its gone entirely. The other countries that do not have a focus tree or decision to deal with it will have a built-in event that will randomly reduce their Black Monday rating in order to simulate their involvement in the system.
Following this leading into 1937 will be the Ausgleich Conference. Austria will have a focus to begin the conference available anytime in 1937. Each country will have decisions available representing demands that they will pose. I've broken these into Hard or Soft demands, where Hard are the destiny-shaping matters of national importance, while Soft demands are the favorably policies and nice to haves. Austria, representing the Empire, will see these decisions become available when each country submits their chosen options and will have a limited budget to select which options to enact. Austria will also have a number of Empire-specific options representing policies affecting all the component nations. Certain of these decisions will be mutually exclusive: For example, and most significantly, Hungary will almost always demand the return of Croatia to direct Hungarian rule, while Illyria will demand the addition of Vojvodina and its slavic population. Only one of these options can be selected... or rather, only one of these options can be enacted, but in this case, Austria can play a dangerous game and offer both sides what they want to win their support and either succeed, or watch the entire scheme blow up in their faces.
The outcomes of the Ausgleich will lead directly into my submod's main centerpiece of the playthrough: The Crisis on the Danube. Almost without exception, someone will be extremely upset with the outcome of the Conference and will be feeling a certain way about it. It will be a round by round system of diplomatic maneuvering that can result in a full or a partial victory for one side or the other, a very unsatisfying stalemate, or erupt into full civil war! I have not shown any screen captures of the Crisis here yet... mostly because I've tried playing through it to test what I have written and it turns out it's an extremely buggy mess that's not ready to make it's debut.
There is still a lot of work to do, but there's also been a lot of progress that I'm very proud of so far.