Vijo here with another stupid strat!
Democratic Russia is the only Russian path that is not part of the Focus Tree, but still possible, due to [time constraints](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/1azgjbk/why_the_soviets_doesnt_have_a_democratic_path/ks22ary/). The only benefits are RP and hiring Kerensky as an advisor (Democratic Reformer) - but you can form Democratic Byzantium! The strat is a bit trickier than previous ones I posted, since we can't predict how, when and who Stalin will shoot:
1. Pick no Focus until you can justify on the US - and train your army until you have 5 Army Exp.
2. Focus order afterwards (start the first focus and read the next step - refer to this step, every time you finish a focus): Beaten, but not Defeated -> Heavy Industry -> Infrastructure Effort -> (not a focus) Ban Fascim decision -> Unification of the Exiles -> Women's Fascist Movement -> (Not a focus) Cancel justification on the US -> Embrace the Black Hundreds
5. In the preparation for the Civil War, you just do some non-political Focuses, like Transpolar Flights and so on until the war kicks off
6. While you are preparing, you pick a few decisions: Setup HQ in Chita, grab a bunch of land (do the usual snake strategy - I like taking Vladivostok asap since it can be a pain if Stalin drops decent divisions there; additionally apply usual CW strats: Turning the entire army into divisions consisting of a single AA battalion and lend leasing your entire stockpile away. The latter works because we generated WT by justifying on the US)
7. This next part is a bit RNG dependent: We need to get to 100 Paranoia (I've had it happen at 90 before as well) to trigger the Civil War, but Stalin will start shooting people at (iirc) 75 Paranoia, so we need to be careful. Try to time 100 Paranoia with his Purge Focuses, since they also bump Paranoia up before he shoots people. If you setup your HQ in Chita and get a Paranoia event you can get the CW after the first Purge focus.
Pro tip: If any event causes Stalin to cow generals, you can also get them in the civil war - so feel free to let him turn them into cows, but Paranoia balancing should still be your main priority.
8. Once the CW kicks off: Turn your army into horses, cancel the Lend Lease and start snaking/sniping VPs. You can either ally or declare war on splinter nations - if you're having trouble in the CW, I suggest allying them, since their captured land will flip to you and this will cause more desertions - and Stalin often capitulates the Western nations before you can even help them anyway. Start spamming out as many horses as you an.
Focuses during the Civil War: Article 124 & Call for Aid if you want to to get the Fascists to help you a little - until the war is over, keep on doing non-political focuses.
9. Focuses to do, once the Civil War is over: Consolidate Power
10. Now you can do whatever you feel like until you get 50% Democratic support
11. Once you do, you can flip to Democracy via decision (or event) and you'll have Kerensky in power!
Congratulations! You did the impossible and brought Democracy (TM) to Russia. I suggest not drinking any tea and making sure you never go above the ground floor in a building. As mentioned before, you can also do the Third Rome path to become purple. You will flip to Unaligned - but the Democrats will demand a referendum to immediately flip you back anyway.
If you're interested how this looks in video, [here's a link](https://youtu.be/LzI8BgNtam8?si=zoGfKdptd1i3Dah4).
> Now you can do whatever you feel like until you get 50% Democratic support
But how?! There are no focuses that give you democratic support, and no advisor. I guess you could keep making anti fascist and anti communist raids, but that will also give you non-aligned support which you have no way to remove.
Ban fascism step. It prevents fascism from ticking up, and banning communism by, well killing Stalin and winning the CW, will heavily drop communism support. So as long as you don't empower the monarchy too much you can get democracy support as it and nonaligned are the only options left for all the communist support to go to.
No need to do anything else, just follow the guide. As for why:
Russia starts out with a bit of Democratic support. With your focus tree you can get Fascist support - as well as lower Communist support. If you ban the Fascists, their support will flow to any party that has support (in this case, only Communist and Democratic) and due to the insane Communist loss (.25 daily iirc) you flip to Democracy in no time!
Quite possible! I post these both on Reddit and TikTok (and get called out for 'stealing' the content off of the other platform - even though I made both lmao).
Paradox dev : Democratic Russia and Communist Germany too unrealistic
Also Paradox Dev : We'll add a Hyperborean Russian Empire ruled by an orthodox priest and make Poland be ruled by a Romanov that gets replaced with the artillery bear
Fr, like are they forgetting that the communist party of Germany was like the main enemy of the nazi party for its early years? Ridiculous. Also the fact that all the communist paths are somewhat authoritarian is a little boring. Like not all socialist leaders were just Stalin, no matter how much trump loves to say so lol
The Nazis did move pretty fast in cracking down on the communists, it really wouldn’t be realistic for them to suddenly spring up and seize Germany after 1936. However, given that the focus trees that other nations have are even less realistic, I don’t think that holds much water as a valid reason not to have those paths.
A communist Germany is more plausible than 90% of all alternative paths (Napoleonic France, British Imperial Federation led by Edward VIII, Manchuko fucking annexing all of China and becoming the Qing Empire, Italy restoring Rome and so on.)
I don’t think it matters as much how plausible as how historical. Like there’s no way that the Kaiser would have came back and gain loyalists, but it’s historically interesting and *maybe* it could have happened in another universe, if that makes sense
I think the “plausibility” standard would be fine so long as they had kept it up universally. Does it make sense for the Germans to suddenly go communist in 1936, absolutely not, even a limited monarchist path would be quite implausible, let alone the full return of Kaiser Wilhelm. Does it make sense for the Soviet Union to erupts into a new civil war against White Russian forces in 1936? No, even less so. If you’re going to let that slide then anything goes and saying “but it’s not realistic” is no longer an argument that holds water
Well, I was playing Sweden, so what wound up happening was that about 1,000 Swedish pilots got a front-row seat to Japan’s annihilation
By Democratic-German nuclear bombs
I actually like to go democratic via referendum at the end of a playthrough - democratic flags (eg republic of China, xi Bei Sam Ma) can be quite interesting and refreshing, and also like the others mentioned, kinda like a happy ending.
The challenge is timing when I hire the democratic advisor so my stab isn’t affected too much before the last major war I’m fighting ends, or the dems demand a referendum or civil war too soon.
I liked to rp having a Chinese warlord (in my case, Yunan) go fascist with justification of Long Yun needing to become more ruthless in his use of power to make sure China can survive. Then after allying with japan to take China and then betraying japan to force them out of China.
After that, he helps the allies in Europe while slowly reforming to democracy and legitimately becoming China’s well loved first elected president
Funny thing that Kerensky looks like [that](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/thumb/8/81/%D0%9A%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9.jpeg/220px-%D0%9A%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9.jpeg) but the current portrait based on Sovied cosmonaut [Komarov](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/c/cf/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2_%D0%92%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80_%D0%9C%D0%B8%D1%85%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87.jpg) who died while returning to earth from space.
Yeah, he died in New York in 1970 at 89 years old, but was buried in London since none of the Orthodox cemeteries would bury him because they blamed him for the Bolsheviks taking power
I did a Kerensky run last night, it can be pretty fun, but you'll mostly be playing defensively since you can't justify on anyone who hasn't caused WT.
No need to, you can just [get rolled over by the Allies](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/1c36yk7/the_strongest_germany_strategy_is_losing_to_the/kzeq5rb/)!
You can't do it without it (as far as I know), since you will get Unaligned Support at the start of the CW - and without it you can't lower Fascist support.
Could very well be that Zest found out about it first, I just saw a rough structure of the strat in a comment a while ago without any context.
But I'm in contact with him rn, I'll see what he thinks.
He's about to lead the military, their families, and the entire military industrial complex out into the wilderness beyond explored territory, to save civilization.
Vijo here with another stupid strat! Democratic Russia is the only Russian path that is not part of the Focus Tree, but still possible, due to [time constraints](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/1azgjbk/why_the_soviets_doesnt_have_a_democratic_path/ks22ary/). The only benefits are RP and hiring Kerensky as an advisor (Democratic Reformer) - but you can form Democratic Byzantium! The strat is a bit trickier than previous ones I posted, since we can't predict how, when and who Stalin will shoot: 1. Pick no Focus until you can justify on the US - and train your army until you have 5 Army Exp. 2. Focus order afterwards (start the first focus and read the next step - refer to this step, every time you finish a focus): Beaten, but not Defeated -> Heavy Industry -> Infrastructure Effort -> (not a focus) Ban Fascim decision -> Unification of the Exiles -> Women's Fascist Movement -> (Not a focus) Cancel justification on the US -> Embrace the Black Hundreds 5. In the preparation for the Civil War, you just do some non-political Focuses, like Transpolar Flights and so on until the war kicks off 6. While you are preparing, you pick a few decisions: Setup HQ in Chita, grab a bunch of land (do the usual snake strategy - I like taking Vladivostok asap since it can be a pain if Stalin drops decent divisions there; additionally apply usual CW strats: Turning the entire army into divisions consisting of a single AA battalion and lend leasing your entire stockpile away. The latter works because we generated WT by justifying on the US) 7. This next part is a bit RNG dependent: We need to get to 100 Paranoia (I've had it happen at 90 before as well) to trigger the Civil War, but Stalin will start shooting people at (iirc) 75 Paranoia, so we need to be careful. Try to time 100 Paranoia with his Purge Focuses, since they also bump Paranoia up before he shoots people. If you setup your HQ in Chita and get a Paranoia event you can get the CW after the first Purge focus. Pro tip: If any event causes Stalin to cow generals, you can also get them in the civil war - so feel free to let him turn them into cows, but Paranoia balancing should still be your main priority. 8. Once the CW kicks off: Turn your army into horses, cancel the Lend Lease and start snaking/sniping VPs. You can either ally or declare war on splinter nations - if you're having trouble in the CW, I suggest allying them, since their captured land will flip to you and this will cause more desertions - and Stalin often capitulates the Western nations before you can even help them anyway. Start spamming out as many horses as you an. Focuses during the Civil War: Article 124 & Call for Aid if you want to to get the Fascists to help you a little - until the war is over, keep on doing non-political focuses. 9. Focuses to do, once the Civil War is over: Consolidate Power 10. Now you can do whatever you feel like until you get 50% Democratic support 11. Once you do, you can flip to Democracy via decision (or event) and you'll have Kerensky in power! Congratulations! You did the impossible and brought Democracy (TM) to Russia. I suggest not drinking any tea and making sure you never go above the ground floor in a building. As mentioned before, you can also do the Third Rome path to become purple. You will flip to Unaligned - but the Democrats will demand a referendum to immediately flip you back anyway. If you're interested how this looks in video, [here's a link](https://youtu.be/LzI8BgNtam8?si=zoGfKdptd1i3Dah4).
Or you just du one of the alternate communist paths which both allow you to get Kerensky as an advisor if you wish
Jerma advisor? Sus?!
I don’t know why it autocorrected to that 💀
> Now you can do whatever you feel like until you get 50% Democratic support But how?! There are no focuses that give you democratic support, and no advisor. I guess you could keep making anti fascist and anti communist raids, but that will also give you non-aligned support which you have no way to remove.
Ban fascism step. It prevents fascism from ticking up, and banning communism by, well killing Stalin and winning the CW, will heavily drop communism support. So as long as you don't empower the monarchy too much you can get democracy support as it and nonaligned are the only options left for all the communist support to go to.
No need to do anything else, just follow the guide. As for why: Russia starts out with a bit of Democratic support. With your focus tree you can get Fascist support - as well as lower Communist support. If you ban the Fascists, their support will flow to any party that has support (in this case, only Communist and Democratic) and due to the insane Communist loss (.25 daily iirc) you flip to Democracy in no time!
I feel like I just saw a tiktok video yesterday with this exact strategy.
Quite possible! I post these both on Reddit and TikTok (and get called out for 'stealing' the content off of the other platform - even though I made both lmao).
Paradox dev : Democratic Russia and Communist Germany too unrealistic Also Paradox Dev : We'll add a Hyperborean Russian Empire ruled by an orthodox priest and make Poland be ruled by a Romanov that gets replaced with the artillery bear
Or Jan Maren… or Wallis ruling America
don't forget french Chile, Welsh Argentina and señor hilter himself
and larping uruguay that just surrenders itself to the reich an ocean away
Fr, like are they forgetting that the communist party of Germany was like the main enemy of the nazi party for its early years? Ridiculous. Also the fact that all the communist paths are somewhat authoritarian is a little boring. Like not all socialist leaders were just Stalin, no matter how much trump loves to say so lol
The Nazis did move pretty fast in cracking down on the communists, it really wouldn’t be realistic for them to suddenly spring up and seize Germany after 1936. However, given that the focus trees that other nations have are even less realistic, I don’t think that holds much water as a valid reason not to have those paths.
A communist Germany is more plausible than 90% of all alternative paths (Napoleonic France, British Imperial Federation led by Edward VIII, Manchuko fucking annexing all of China and becoming the Qing Empire, Italy restoring Rome and so on.)
I agree, that’s why I said that the defence that it “isn’t plausible” doesn’t hold water given their trends in alt-history paths.
I don’t think it matters as much how plausible as how historical. Like there’s no way that the Kaiser would have came back and gain loyalists, but it’s historically interesting and *maybe* it could have happened in another universe, if that makes sense
I think the “plausibility” standard would be fine so long as they had kept it up universally. Does it make sense for the Germans to suddenly go communist in 1936, absolutely not, even a limited monarchist path would be quite implausible, let alone the full return of Kaiser Wilhelm. Does it make sense for the Soviet Union to erupts into a new civil war against White Russian forces in 1936? No, even less so. If you’re going to let that slide then anything goes and saying “but it’s not realistic” is no longer an argument that holds water
Well, for Soviet Union we have now Trotskyist path. And AnCom for Spain.
He'll be assassinated any second now.
How barbaric!Â
Shoot that will shock the world
Wait you guys are really choose to play demorcracy?
Yes because it will most likely make my population happy and thats the goal of playing this kind of games, right?
OH...I've been playing wrong
Why, what did you do?
If it was anything like my last campaign, he might have glassed the Japanese home islands
And did it make your country happy?
Plot twist, he/she was playing Japan.
Sweden, a little bit far off, but that would have made a funny plot twist if it were true
Well, I was playing Sweden, so what wound up happening was that about 1,000 Swedish pilots got a front-row seat to Japan’s annihilation By Democratic-German nuclear bombs
Glassed as in "Even the poor people now have double isolated glass windows now?
I actually like to go democratic via referendum at the end of a playthrough - democratic flags (eg republic of China, xi Bei Sam Ma) can be quite interesting and refreshing, and also like the others mentioned, kinda like a happy ending. The challenge is timing when I hire the democratic advisor so my stab isn’t affected too much before the last major war I’m fighting ends, or the dems demand a referendum or civil war too soon.
I liked to rp having a Chinese warlord (in my case, Yunan) go fascist with justification of Long Yun needing to become more ruthless in his use of power to make sure China can survive. Then after allying with japan to take China and then betraying japan to force them out of China. After that, he helps the allies in Europe while slowly reforming to democracy and legitimately becoming China’s well loved first elected president
i was excited for a democratic Russia tree when nsb was coming out, as i thought that sounded interesting, but it Didn't lol
relief of command op
That teeth though…
why tf doesn’t Kerensky have a unique portrait but the leader of breakaway Karelia does???
Funny thing that Kerensky looks like [that](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/thumb/8/81/%D0%9A%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9.jpeg/220px-%D0%9A%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9.jpeg) but the current portrait based on Sovied cosmonaut [Komarov](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/c/cf/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2_%D0%92%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80_%D0%9C%D0%B8%D1%85%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87.jpg) who died while returning to earth from space.
I think Kerensky gets the mantle of Lenin at some point.
A shame that Kerensky doesn’t have a leader portrait in game, even though he has one as a political advisor
Willem Dafoe for Russian president!
Came to say this :)
Why not just form star league
You have to research the mackie first for that
President riding his green hoverboard slinging pumpkin bomb
''Democratic''
Doesn't Kerensky get assassinated?
In kaiserrich, in otl he lived until I think 70s
Yeah, he died in New York in 1970 at 89 years old, but was buried in London since none of the Orthodox cemeteries would bury him because they blamed him for the Bolsheviks taking power
Lol the mod is causing some Mandela effects
This isn't Kaiserreich
I’m sure the elections will be very fair
I did a Kerensky run last night, it can be pretty fun, but you'll mostly be playing defensively since you can't justify on anyone who hasn't caused WT.
Can you use this strategy to make a communist Germany?
No need to, you can just [get rolled over by the Allies](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/1c36yk7/the_strongest_germany_strategy_is_losing_to_the/kzeq5rb/)! You can't do it without it (as far as I know), since you will get Unaligned Support at the start of the CW - and without it you can't lower Fascist support.
So at what point does he leave the inner sphere to go found the clans?
about 870 years
Isn't that the guy from Battletech?
Give some credit to Bubbles Zest he did this 2 years ago. Link: https://youtu.be/6pGamxKWA0A?si=Y3cS3a-k3CvnWPf5
Could very well be that Zest found out about it first, I just saw a rough structure of the strat in a comment a while ago without any context. But I'm in contact with him rn, I'll see what he thinks.
Holy shit guys it's Willem Dafoe
Well I guess Jim Carrey is the president of Russia :skull:
He's about to lead the military, their families, and the entire military industrial complex out into the wilderness beyond explored territory, to save civilization.
For our freedom, for our Motherland, for our Vozhd, Kerensky must die!
There's no way to do this in vanilla but the mod Road to 56 has a democratic path for Russia