Yippie! Coming of Age (Pt 2. Africa and the United States)

This is continued from Part 1 of the diary. If you have yet to read it, click here.

Débrouillez-Vous

The Following Portion of the Developer Diary will focus on Débrouillez-Vous's inclusion in Yippie!

The explosion in African self-determination and political power over the course of the 60s and 70s precipitates and develops alongside a similarly fundamental quake in the geopolitics of the Cold War. The US, Germany, and Japan alike compete within a more dynamic and complex world, with intricate and shifting content spanning the whole of Africa.

For the Pakt, the genuine and self-interested participation of Britain and France within Nazi imperialism is one of the central thrusts of Germany's involvement within Africa. Among the first episodes of this is the West African Crisis, where France and Germany directly cooperate to define the terms of an increasingly out-of-hand colonial crisis that ultimately becomes unavoidable as political gridlock approaches in Germany.

In this crisis, Germany and France's position is not at all lost. Their exit from much of West Africa is, in their view, a temporary withdrawal from France's rightful colonial holdings, a tactical retreat. The wheel of fortune turns and turns and the hungry imperialist looks greedily for an opportunity to reclaim territories for exploitation and senseless national glory.

Further south sits the Congo. It is a country with a complicated relationship with the American empire. A founding member of the OFN and an active participant within the Alliance (and with a public debt largely held by American nationals), the Congo is undeniably an American satellite state, and America’s influence over it is integral to its content. As reform to the once “post-racial” republic comes to a head, coup and counterrevolution precipitate an evolving crisis within the Congo—one that the United States actively seeks to shape and control.

Lumumba's fall from power within the Congo is a very involved section of the Crisis but is ultimately only a small part of it. There are a large variety of clashes between the competing powers in the Congo and between the Congolese themselves, each with consequences and outcomes yet to be seen.

Since the last diary, the Africa team has been working diligently behind the scenes, refining and closing out some of the last areas we have left to cover. We've avoided speaking too publicly, outside of some discussions in ask-a-dev, largely to prioritize showing DV's most mechanical face in its proxies and wider conflicts. 

A few days ago, we gave you a look into one of Britain’s colonial wars in East Africa, the Kenyan February Offensive. It is by no means the only one of its kind, and we have a significant amount that we have not yet shown, and you're sure to hear from us in the future in one way or another—stay tuned.

The United States of America

The Following Portion of the Developer Diary will focus on the United States of America in Yippie!

On March 5, 1957, President Kefauver received a memorandum suggesting the creation of two new space administrations. These administrations were created in response to the United States' increased involvement in outer space, where, some Defense Department officials speculated, the fourth theater of war awaited. The first agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), served civilian space missions and spearheaded space development. The second was an expansion of the USAF’s Air Research and Development Command, organized as the Space Systems Division, later the Space Systems Command (SSC). NASA and the SSC have a shared purpose in advancing American space flight, which has spawned a close collaboration with agency staff and facilities.

The “space race” between the three superpowers began with the first successful satellite launch and since then has only accelerated as the excitement of spaceflight progresses. This excitement shows in scientists’ hope, engineers’ ambition, and the thrill of a public fixated on new American heroes clad in silver suits. The sky was no longer the limit, and what victory the United States failed to seize on the battlefield could be made up for in scientific achievement.

Except, it wasn't all progress; terror, anxiety, escalation, have all found new heights in the space age. It was possible for Germany to park nuclear missiles in orbit over New York or for Japan to send rocket-powered kill-vehicles to pepper Los Angeles with radiation. There are space stations with spy cameras and orbital platforms holding nuclear missiles. The whole world knows that annihilation could be just four minutes and a detachable heat-shield away from total annihilation. That is space-age efficiency.

Space is the fourth front of modern war, and fate rests on Washington to seize that territory for the United States of America—just as Germania seeks to seize that territory for Greater Germany and Tokyo seeks it for Japan. For now, the only place beyond the atmosphere the superpowers can reasonably plant their flag is the Moon. 

Whether the stars and stripes, the rising sun, or the swastika will be first on Luna is up to you, the player. The stakes of losing the moonshot are high and entirely political; nothing is on the moon today that wasn't there a decade ago beyond a few probes—but letting the other side get there first is damaging to national pride and the legitimacy of that superpower's ideology.

Should you invest sufficiently and carefully, you might be first. A lack of care could leave you first but stranded on the lunar surface. 

To see the moonlanding outcomes, click here.

1964 Presidents

Returning to where the previous Yippie! diary left off, the America of 1964 has four competing new visions for America's future (excepting the safe but unsatisfying status quo of the incumbent President Nixon). Each of these men possesses their own ideas, their own dreams, and their own ambitions. We now invite you to join us as we delve into the unique mechanics and cabinets of each of these men and the various ways they seek to steer the country, their own party, and the world.

Barry Goldwater 

The world of Richard Nixon was built on an uncomfortable pragmatism—conservative leadership with gestures toward liberal ideas, a middle way to guarantee stability in an age of geopolitical competition. His fall from the White House allows for a different vision to take hold of Republicans—one where restraint is a dirty word. While former Secretary of State Earl Warren finds himself fighting off inquiries from congressional liberals about what he knew and when he knew it regarding the Madagascar Affair, Barry Goldwater is promising a world without any apologies. There will be no more backroom conniving but straightforward applications of force.

His presidency is one predicated on beating back the political establishment. He is a man of “common sense”, seeking a government that is run like a household where the New Deal consensus that created the nanny state is displaced with daddy and his belt. He seeks to reassert his authority and return America to an age of unvarnished capitalism—no matter how unpopular that may prove to be.

Hubert Humphrey

What if Richard Nixon was an anomaly, and the American people really had fallen into a Democratic, liberal consensus? The election of Hubert Humphrey signifies both a return to form in the resumption of Democratic popular front governance, and a departure with Hubert Humphrey's commitment to bringing about top-down reform in American society. Humphrey is a reformist face on the time-old Democratic machine, bringing a technocratic approach to American liberal corporatism that emphasizes national planning, a robust regulatory state, labor power, and a fluid approach to Jim Crow and entrenched majoritarian chauvinism across the country.

The Humphrey coalition is wide; it ranges from the left fringe of labor and CPUSA participationists to the petty Democratic despotisms of the solid south, and many in between. Balancing such varied and often conflicting voices requires a sort of consensus managed by the President, lest the popular front fracture and deprive Humphrey's agenda of a legislative majority. In this position, the President must forge a path to fulfilling his liberalism, deciding his priorities and which issues he sacrifices to pass his American Crusade into law.

George Wallace 

There's been a rift across this country for one hundred years, one that failed to be mended by the withdrawal of northern occupiers from what they once called the “rebel states”. Southern intransigence has defined many of this country’s problems and yet, at the same time, it was only through the South that Roosevelt was able to forge his modern nation. By lavishing programs onto the region and honors onto its leaders, Roosevelt hoped to ensure its permanent place in the Democratic coalition.

But what is all that worth anyways? What loyalty does Jim Crow owe to Democratic pretensions of progress? The candidacy of George Wallace was built in the cradle of the South, but his appeal is broader than that. It fuels itself in the rage of white men and women who want wealth and welfare with no social obligations. It is sustained by a desire not merely to preserve what existed in the South long before the Blood-Stained Banner but to help the good old boys nationwide, those who feel threatened by new forms of politics in Los Angeles, Chicago, and even DC itself.

President George Wallace learned how to win over these men in the best way possible—by mimicry. He is a channel for their grievances, a reservoir for their rage. He speaks in the language of both the paranoid white unionman and the hysterical parent. He comforts them with dark visions that they have told themselves—that cries of the oppressed are but signs of bubbling anarchy, that these forces must be defeated not only in the South but everywhere, that this can only be done when America stops trying to change the South but accepts it for what it is.

Robert Kennedy

While Humphrey is viewed as the smart pick for the party loyalists, the only man who could ever steal their hearts would be that of a Kennedy. The Senator Robert Kennedy of 1964 is not inspired by personal tragedy or particularly motivated to launch a crusade to save the impoverished. He just wants to get even. 

And for the rank-and-file, those who were lined up to support Brother John, they can smell the stench coming from Washington. They are haunted by visions of the men who leaked his health problems—probably due for a promotion for taking out their agent of change, their would-be savior. This gives the spoiled Robert Kennedy an aura of conspiracy to his campaign.  

It is not a fair world, and it is President Kennedy's job to right it. Yes, there will be traditional favors for labor and support for the social movements that launched him to the White House, but the Establishment that works with them and other ostensible Democratic allies have a target on their back. This obsession to clean houses doesn't end at the Democrat's homestead. The permanent institution of J. Edgar Hoover himself may come under fire.  

1968 Presidents

1964 seems like such a short time ago, but a new election, as always, must appear on the horizon. With either President Nixon stepping back after serving his full two terms, the incumbent having to fight their way to reelection, or some other freak accident throwing this all off course, 1968 may see each party take a radical new direction across 5 fresh faces.

On the Republican front, the ideological feud that has rested below the surface finally boils over with the face-off between the party's two most dominant governors—Nelson Rockefeller of New York and Ronald Reagan of California. 

Frayed as ever, the Democratic identity crisis continues with a field consisting of no men of great stature. The Senate backbencher establishment pick, Philip Hart of Michigan, is the loyalist favorite, though his care for decorum leaves him easily upstaged by his opponents—the bomb-throwing Mayor of Los Angeles, Sam Yorty, and California's congressional grizzly bear, Phillip Burton. 

Nelson Rockefeller

Governor Nelson Rockefeller is a complex man. Whatever friends he lacks, he more than makes up for in wealth and in connections. While hardly considered a Republican by the more vocal forces in his party, Rockefeller nevertheless is the man who took back New York and rebuilt Republican strength after Dewey decimated it for generations. What Rockefeller suffers from is an image of appearing too serious, too polite. He is always studiously waiting for the presidency—hoping others will appreciate that he has the manners to not buy it all out or tear his party up yet again for a shot. 

Of course, winning the White House doesn't solve any of this. Rockefeller is a man still all too obsessed with image. While he surrounds himself with the type of Republican men who don't bear their fangs like the Goldwater types, they are working towards much the same thing: giving way for the private sector to once again dominate the country's commerce. Refusing to buckle to the growing conservative forces on social policy, Rockefeller is perhaps building his empire on a rickety foundation.

Ronald Reagan

On the opposite coast, another state governor, California's Governor Ronald Reagan, leads a different force in the Republican Party. The former actor turned conservative spokesman found his way into the limelight on television and the speakers' circuit, where Reagan's charismatic and folksy rhetoric made his a handsome face for the Republican Party and him a figure in demand. Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kefauver, and all Democrats elected since Cleveland, are responsible for bastardizing the promise of the American republic and turning constitutional federalism into a money-stealing, business-watching, freedom-hating instrument of neo-fascist tyranny in a world dominated by authoritarianism. All this, punctuated with pithy jokes and a winning smile.

Election day proves he is popular not just with Republicans, but also with conservative Democrats, particularly in the south and the midwest. Of course, once elected it is not so easy to dismantle the bureautocracy in one fell swoop. Instead, the Reagan administration must try different approaches; perhaps he could govern successfully as a bipartisan like he did in California, or pivot to the right, bringing Chicago to Washington and police to our streets. 

Fears of nuclear annihilation terrify Reagan, and he believes only a strong, just nation can save the world from fascism. The United States will achieve global military paramountcy, protecting the Western Hemisphere from fascism and giving Washington its just leverage against the revolutionary despotisms of Europe and Asia. Whatever it takes, Americans will someday be safe from a hostile world and the repressive systems of government that come with it.

Philip Hart

Senator Philip Hart of Michigan has long been a leading liberal in the Senate. While reserved from the circus of pop-politics that dominates the airwaves and papers, he is a man who values government as a guarantor of societal well-being. It's for these reasons that, in 1968, when Lyndon Johnson comes shopping for a candidate within his own caucus, Hart stood out as a simple, no-drama figure that the rank and file could come to admire. 

His presidency seeks to address entrenched inequities through safe and slow reform. It is bringing in the experts to help revive America’s cities, restore America’s confidence in foreign policy, and restore national confidence. 

Philip Hart, as you know, has been in the game for years now. A familiarity with his existing content will do you well in navigating his path, but Yippie! gives us the opportunity to refine his presidency and further explore his approach to power (and that of those around him). Part of that includes, of course, is a cabinet of faces new and old. It also involves a refurbished tree more in line with the level of polish we've given all Presidents in this update.

Sam Yorty

The name Sam Yorty has been impossible to avoid in recent years—almost as if some nefarious influence were artificially boosting his presence. As America’s urban cores were plagued by riots, the nominally Democratic mayor of Los Angeles pleaded with the country not to give in to this anarchy. Such a disruption was from outside agitators or some internal subversion. The Nebraska-born, former progressive was using the playbook deployed by Southern officials to decry federal mismanagement and defend their segregated practices. This shameless carnival barker routine is what gives a mayor a shot at the Presidency in the year 1968.

While his overall appeal bears much in common with Wallace, Yorty’s innovation is in sanitizing it. Instead of trying to defend overt segregation, Sam concerns himself with “social disruption” and threats to the suburban dream. He believes in tidy streets, flower boxes, and well-armed police officers. He comes to Washington with a promise to “stop the madness” of social movements run amok.

The challenge for Yorty may prove to be his own disinterest in the daily job of governance, a job he farms out to others while he pursues fame and celebrity—a passion that he seems willing to pursue to embarrassing lengths.

Philip Burton 

On the other side of the coin is a man unfamiliar to most—though more as a parasite for the various liberal causes across the country than a true activist. While an advocate for environmentalism, civil rights, and a massive expansion of welfare, the Congressman from California, Phillip Burton, has been a quiet operator in his four short years in Washington. This hasn’t deterred him from demanding a greater perch to speak from. Having cynically tied himself to the various social movements springing across the country, Burton is determined to call in as many favors as possible to become the nation’s big shot. 

While he has a crude and noxious personality, Phillip Burton at the least is a man who understands politics. He knows it's a game you can play at any age and a brutal blood sport. That’s why a man like him isn't going to wait to build seniority. He’s not going to hesitate before cutting people shitty deals and trading favors. If decorum didn't stop him from picking people up by the collar or throwing wads of cash at them to vote alongside him in Congress, it sure as hell won't stop a President Burton. 

In short, Burton’s is a game of give and take. Now, given the role of President, he seeks to take Washington from the entrenched. Having taken the power of the presidency, he now seeks to give the spoils to his benefactors who scored him such a swanky office. 

From there, what happens next falls onto you, the player. Although we've dived into much of what Yippie! will have to offer in terms of new content for playable tags, plenty of new additions, both internally and globally, will keep your game lively until the end date of January '77.

Editor's note: Thanks for reading the diary! You could take this month as a test run of how we're looking to tease and release updates now that Yippie! is officially our next slated update. Until release, you can expect deeper dives into what's been shown off here, from Presidents to Führers. I hope you'll enjoy it. More to come; stay tuned!

Yippie! Coming of Age (Pt 1. Germany and Russia)

Hi all, it's been just over a year since we first revealed the Yippie! update for TNO, which is something we’ve been keeping under wraps for quite some time and which we’ve been burning to talk to you about. I can't even begin to say what it's meant for the team and I to see such excitement for a patch. We are so excited to deliver it to y'all later this year. 

It's with a similar excitement that I invite y'all to read about the full extent of this patch and what we have to offer for the rest of the mod going forward.

I thought it best to hold back on teasers and similar public communications until a time when the team and community could rest assured about the progress of the patch. I can understand how the dry spell between our last teaser and now may have been frustrating for some, so I hope this diary will more than make up for it with all we have to show and announce.     

The structure of this diary will differ considerably from the original Developer Diary (though I encourage you to read the Diary if you haven't already, since I think it paints a fun picture of what's going on in America proper). The full scope of this diary concerns all the changes you can look forward to both seeing and playing inside and outside of America. We'll be globe-trotting across the new content from tag to tag in what we've opted to brand as the first TNO 2.0 update. 

By the end of this diary, I hope that we'll have covered enough of what Yippie! has in store for y'all to fully understand how excited we are to deliver it to you as players and a community at last.

Germany

The Following Portion of the Developer Diary will focus on the German Reich's additions from 1962-1965 coming in Yippie!

As the uncontested victor of the Second World War, Germany stood proudly as master of Europe. With foreign influence broken within and outside of Germany, Führer Adolf Hitler was given the power to shape the future of his Reich and the 20th century. Under his command, the 1940s concluded with an NSDAP in uncontested control, a new economic community that had united the continent, and a palace of steel and granite crowning the new capital of the world.

And for their labors, what glories awaited Germany in the 1950s? Wild boars raided vacant houses; cranes and scaffolds rusted. The Volksgenossen looked up at the Volkshalle with empty pockets and empty stomachs. Hitler blinked, and he was sixty-five. The Führer's arteries stiffened; the nation's economy stagnated.

And at their new nadir, Russia struck. Another Red Army marched into Arkhangelsk, Vladimir and Yaroslavl, threatening to flood Europe. For a moment, the Reich heard a creaking underneath its feet, but the Wehrmacht stood firm. Panzers formed walls against the Russian flood, as endless barrages of artillery fire and guided missiles repelled the Bolsheviks back into the frozen wastes. Moskau held, Hitler was still the Führer, and Germany was still unhappy Europe's master.

But for a moment, Germany could sense defeat. They saw a vision of the Thousand-Year Reich dead before it turned thirty. For the first time, they could imagine themselves defeated—and it scared them.

Today, with no frontiers left on the continent, Europe is governed by the same attitude that shaped its master. The Reich sees itself in perpetual war with the other superpowers of this world. To the west, the United States of America, a mongrel state whose Jewish masters scheme to pollute the world's essence. To the east, the Empire of Japan, ungrateful allies of convenience whose inferiority complex burned their once-strong relationship.

Yet, Germany refuses to kowtow to either. Even at the Reich's lowest point, neither America nor Japan could meaningfully challenge their dominance; with the Reich revitalised, with its worst years behind them, their position is all but solidified. In his own mind, the Führer has grown older, stronger, and wiser. He has shaped his country's journey towards its grand and glorious destiny. An entire generation does not know life without his guiding hand, and their elders condemn the years before his ascension.

Now, the year is 1962. The Reich is haunted by one question: How can Germany still prove itself to be a world leader? Open warfare against its greatest enemies is no longer viable. The three superpowers house nuclear arsenals that can end the world if provoked, and there is no glory or destiny in a world of ashes. Feats of strength and athleticism that previously channelled martial impulses can no longer sate national appetites. And what colonial conquest can be achieved when even the coldest frontiers of the world have already been claimed and squabbled over?

Look beyond the world, at the sky and the stars above. There is one more frontier left to conquer. You merely need to find your way into this final front.

For years, research into rocketry has focused towards breaching the atmosphere. Engineers have worked tirelessly to develop a vehicle for a man to survive beyond the atmosphere. Under the Reich's space agency, ROSA, men of ingenuity such as Werner von Braun devise a plan to place a man in orbit. By the beginning of 1962, they are in the plan's final stages.

With a manned orbit around the Earth, the Reich has confidently taken the lead over the United States and the Empire of Japan. It is a major achievement given the nation's previous lack of progress in this front, especially when compared to the Japanese satellites that instilled fear across the world just one decade ago.

Such an event surely must remind the German people that they are only a mere thirty years into a thousand years of glory. To ensure that the German people can appreciate this success, TV stations across the Pakt have broadcast the achievement. Slow-scan television signals beam down images of Raumsfahrer Wilfried von Engelhardt. Television stations spread the images from Saint-Nazaire to St. Petersburg. Europe cheers, and the rest of the world watches with awe and terror.

Nobody is more captured by these images than Hitler himself. For him, great victory in the space race will counter the claims of stagnation that followed his Reich through the 1950s. In his private estate, he watches the television with great interest as von Engelhardt's vessel orbits Earth. For the first time in years, the Greater Germanic Reich has an uncontested lead, and it excites him.

Indeed, it excites him a little too much.

No statement will be made. The SS work overtime to conceal this moment of weakness. Stimulants and stagecraft allow for Hitler to speak shortly after the orbit, despite still barely clinging to life. But rumours spread, sliding through the cracks and gaps in the walls they hastily build around this moment. It will not take long for the world to realise that the Führer is dying, and the Reich's silence fuels further speculation.

When he goes, what happens next? It is one question among many that has haunted Germany for years. While Hitler recovers from his heart attack, Germany is plunged into chaos from the psychic stress of nearly losing its beloved Führer. An economy previously thought to be shielded starts to fracture. Protests in the streets erupt as years of simmering tension boil over. The certainty of supremacy found in Russia's second defeat is shattered, and it has been shattered from within.

Meanwhile, in the East, plans for further pacification out of Moskowien are stalled. Baltic terrorists, Ukrainian communists and Polish insurgents poke and prod at their jailors, seeing if Hitler's death exposed cracks in their walls. The Russians that writhe and bark in their broken land lash out; rabid dogs sneaking out through a crack in the fence. In Novaya Zemlya, scientists and high-ranking officers rush nuclear tests; a show of force to scare the rabid dogs back into their yard.

In the halls of power, there are many would-be saviors all fighting to be the hero to vanquish Germany’s intractable problems. The struggle for dominance has played out quietly, though if one looks through the right doors and keeps an ear out in the right places, one might hear the chaos unfold. Sudden arrests, formal denunciations, a whisper that drives party officials underground and ambitious officers to the front lines; these are the signs of a quiet war, all trying to answer one fundamental question.

When he goes, who comes next? It is the question that has haunted Germany for years. And in its halls of power, four men answer: "me."

As Hitler rests, his deputies wage a polite and quiet war for supremacy. Martin Bormann and his allies in the NSDAP weave a brown web, binding the state and the nation to the party's will. Across the hall, Heinrich Himmler rallies the SS towards a vision of guided revival, a national and racial reawakening guided by an aristocratic SS. Visionary architect and minister Albert Speer reaches out to the disaffected, promising a new world more favourable to those loyal citizens the Reich has ignored and forgotten. And the Reich's favourite uncle, Hermann Göring, stands tiptoed above the fray, positioning himself as the great man above petty politicking, whose force of personality can heal these divides and mesh these disparate groups into a cohesive whole.

The Second Kampfzeit is an attempt to find the answer to the questions that have been haunting the country for decades. It is also the crisis that consumes and paralyses it. When Hitler finally dies, one man will emerge to take control. 

The answers he provides are not yet defined—some are yet to be reviewed, others are yet to be revealed. But with the release of Yippie!, we offer a glimpse into the new Greater Germanic Reich ahead of the Victor and the Judge patch. 

While the additional Germany content slated for Yippie! predominantly focuses upon the new starting situation, all existing paths are preserved beyond the Kampfzeit, with facelifts where necessary to preserve a seamless narrative. That isn't to say, of course, that you may only experience the immediate aftermath of the Kampfzeit as just Bormann and Speer.

Russia

The Following Portion of the Developer Diary will focus on Amur and the Russian Warlord's additions in Yippie!

Twenty years have passed since the fall of the Soviet Union. The Russia of today is not yet dead—merely shattered, asleep. Its inhabitants are consumed by fitful thoughts of the worlds that could have been, the roads that could have been taken, the dreams that have been long deferred. Across the 34 successors, the would-be Russias, people scrabble for food, take shelter, and seek warmth. They are haunted by memories of the past and think much on the ways they might revenge themselves upon the present.

But the nightmare of past generations weighs like a nightmare upon the living and, though all Russians seek to avenge themselves, they are not unified on how to do so. Bread and fuel remains scarce among these ruins, but there is no shortage of confident men and women with ideas on how to reforge their demolished nation. There are many authorities who claim dominion over this ash heap and seek to claim its resources before their sister states—like too many embryos sharing a womb.

Mechanics, now coming in Yippie!, represent these struggles. 

After the West Russian War—when Yegorov, Kirov, Zhukov and Tukhachevsky bloodied the collaborateurs in occupied Muscovy—the Greater Germanic Reich took it upon itself to punish a defeated nation. For years, bloodthirsty Wehrmacht troops have assembled along the A-A Line, preparing for Operation Nachtigall: an eastern offensive to reclaim territory they lost to these sleepwalkers. They aim to push what remains of Russia further into Siberia.

Hitler's heart attack has thrown all these careful plans into disarray. Political strife in Berlin-Germania has suspended further talk of an eastern offensive; officers are too busy fighting each other in the name of their future Führer than bullying Russia into further submission. What was once a guaranteed offensive to rally a cruel nation is but another half-forgotten dream.

Border warlords in the Russian Anarchy have not been ignorant to their enemy’s slackening grip. They sent commandos and, when that did not result in retaliation, squadrons, and when Germany still did not react, they sent companies. Raiding parties became counter-offensives. Many dreamed that they would be the one to reclaim Moscow—but none were as bold or brazen as the Soviet remnants in Gorky, pushing the limits of their crippled automotive industries into tank squadrons that embarrassed the Reichskommissariat.

Then the Reich awoke. In a panic, it announced and performed nuclear tests in occupied Novaya Zemlya, an occupied and barren spit near the Arctic. The news did not dissuade attacks; nuclear weapons were still untested in battle and seemed still fantastical in their destructive power. Few believed the Reich would waste such a weapon against a stirring nation. Gorky continued its operations deep into occupied Muscovy, even brushing against the old capital itself.

The pressure mounted. The tyrant stirred and arose briefly from his deathbed. He decided that these nightmares had to be banished—one way or another. If conventional militaries were unable to contain Russia and if Novaya Zemlya's test did not dissuade them, then he would repel them instead with concussive force.

In the face of the world's first use of nuclear weapons in combat, Russia fell backwards. Its leaders crawled back into the frozen wastes, back toward inky shadows from the horrible light and heat consuming Gorky. And as they fled, the world learned something new: For all its destructive might, for all its horror, nuclear weapons were no longer a fantastical, impossible-to-conceive horror. It was real, practical. It was something from which data could be collected and studied. 

They dared to imagine that they might prepare against the threat, to study its flaws, to find a means of overcoming this latest barrier. They dared to imagine a way to conquer death.

But enough of dreams. On the other side of Russia, a would-be tyrant turns to the west. News of Gorky's destruction makes its way through the Russian Anarchy—radio broadcasts ensure that all of Russia knows about Germany's latest crime within the hour of its commission. The Far East temporarily ceases its petty feuds and resource wars to condemn Germany's horrors. But all eyes soon turn towards one of its warlords, bearing the symbols of their hated foe, wondering what their reaction will be.

And with all their foolish pomp, this is what the All-Russian Government of Amur says: What Germany did is unconscionable, and when we unite Russia, we will drive the Teutons out of Muscovy. But we will not abandon our symbols or our beliefs. Konstantin Rodzaevsky knows better: You don't need to like or respect Germany. You just need to do what they do better.

While the mechanics you have seen will be applied to all warlords, we have reviewed some who we feel are due for some extra work. One in particular caught our eye: Amur. Its early-game content is strong, but we felt that its late-game potential has yet to be realised. With the release of Yippie!, not only will every warlord receive updated mechanics, but Amur shall also receive unique mechanics and an expanded focus tree and narrative for their super-regional stage.

For now, please take a look at Amur's new mechanics. We'll provide further information on them in the future:

Let us now fast-forward a few years. Under Rodzaevsky's guiding hand, Amur has seen victory after victory, unifying both the Far East and Central Siberia. The Russian National State emerges as a meaningful contender for Russian unification. But our mechanical expansion also comes with additional narrative. With Rodzaevsky, he must now grapple with what he wants and what he can achieve.

Though he is but one war away from securing all of Free Russia for himself, the contradictions of his cruel state cannot be avoided. His love of German fascism has ignited terror attacks on the Yeniseysk Dam and protests across Central Siberia. Every day, crowds grow, seeking to challenge all that Rodzaevsky has built thus far. His backers shuffle in shadows, urging the tyrant to moderate his message. They would gladly support his government if it were but a little less outlandish, a little more presentable, if he swapped the swastika for an eagle and the brown shirt for a suit.

But Rodzaevsky does not want to change. He still believes in the power of the National State that has driven him since Amur. He sees in the victory against the Western unifier a potential vindication of his beliefs. If he can win without compromising, he will prove to everyone—old allies, new supporters, his backers in Japan, and his enemies in Germany—that his vision and his will were strong enough. He will prove that he has the will to power, that he has within him the capacity to not only unify Russia but to be a greater leader than Adolf Hitler ever was. He believes he can reveal himself as the next Great Man of History.

This will all play out in Amur's super-regional stage:

This is a taste of our future plans for the Russian Anarchy. With our recent mechanical overhaul, we have laid solid foundations for its future expansion. In time, we will turn our attention to other warlords, and further develop the story of Russia in The New Order.

It is the story of dreams and nightmares, a listless nation haunted by unresolved pasts and futures that never arrived. Though many pursue the idea of awakening the sleeping giant, not every Russia’s story will be happy. It may fall into the same fascism of its enemies, as it can with Amur. It may be so consumed by desires of revenge that it takes the world with it. It may lose itself in false nostalgia, clinging to memories of people and places that never existed. 

No, many of Russia's endings will not be happy. We cannot promise that. All we can hope is that they'll always be interesting.

For now, we hope that you have enjoyed this brief look at the future of Russia, and we look forward to giving you the opportunity to fight for The New Russia in TNO 2.0.

Part 2 (Africa and the United States) ➜