I didn’t know about the fighter, I would like to have included Yugoslavia if they had more equipment I knew about. But as it is, the best case scenario I can think of is Yugoslavia merging with Greece. Otherwise these vehicles would be premium/event stuff.
I don’t have time to get into the weeds on these guns, but at the very least I think the CB-51 100% qualifies to be added to the game as it is chambered in 7.92x33mm and was (probably) designed in 1943. I appreciate the scrutiny of the tech trees though.
That is a solid argument. I hadn’t considered the impact on Soviet players who wouldn’t want to have their matchmaking skewed towards Stalingrad all the time. The system itself might also discourage players from making presets with squads from multiple faction due to the reduced map variety. The whole idea was to increase historical immersion and allow people to see the unique cosmetics their squads have (hungarian/italian squads would have german cosmetics on other maps). Maybe the better solution is just to include more maps where the cosmetics of minor nations would appear, like @Gef019 mentioned.
That does indeed sound like the fairer solution. I’d say that to qualify for the soft-rule you’d need a minimum of 2-3 players (?) or the majority of the team having a specific nation, but this might get too complex when you have a mishmash of nations in your lineup or team (finnish + hungarian + slovakian troops). As you proposed, perhaps instead of map preference you’d have cosmetics of specific minor nations in the right theater present, all the while restricting certain maps to specific BRs (no Battle of France in T5 or Berlin in T2) and keeping certain theaters of war, for now, not present in the game (meaning no Winter War, despite having Finland as a minor nation, as it’d look a little off having Germans fighting the Soviets on the Mannerheim line), thus keeping minor axis nations as volunteers forces. Honestly I think the only issue with nation specific maps and customization that arises with this proposal are the 3 oddball nations of Finland, Greece and Spain as they’d end up most of the time wearing German and British uniforms respectively and their maps would always seem a little off (German troops in Finland, Americans in Spain or Greece).
Greece doesn’t have it so bad, as they adopted adopted British uniforms after Greece fell. So Greek forces would make a lot of sense in british uniforms, plus they would get a special patch on their uniforms that they had when fighting in Tunisia. So they would only truly not have unique uniforms for low BR pacific and normandy.
Spain is in a similar spot, at least for the nationalists. All that makes their uniform unique is the patches on their helmets and shirts, which they would only lose in Normandy and Tunisia. (Assuming Nationalist Spain would be introduced in a “Battle of Leningrad” update, where the Spanish volunteers were concentrated and not “Spanish Civilwar”).
Finland is definitely the #1 oddball, with their uniforms being much more different to the uniforms of Germany.
I think I should also mention that some cosmetics would vary, even for the main factions. I think Americans would have to have British gear on Greek or French maps where they weren’t present. German troops in Finland makes sense if the maps are continuation war maps where Germany was present, otherwise Germany and all other axis nations would have to swap to Finnish uniforms in a winter war setting.
I should also make it clear that this is a very long term idea. The amount of work it would take to implement the framework and individual new nations would be a lot. So I would assume that each nation would be treated as a “new campaign” update, as seen in the 2023 roadmap for the game. So each new nation would come with a new map associated with it. What I am trying to get at is there shouldn’t be a situation where Finnish forces are in the game but no Finnish maps.
Didn’t know about the Greeks and totally forgot about the Division Azul of Spain. I can also see the Spanish Civil War at BR 1-2 with Soviets and French volunteers (in time appropriate uniforms) vs Spanish Nationalists and German and Italian volunteers. The Invasion of Greece could be limited to a BR of 1-3. I find the solution of American forces wearing British gear where they did not fight a suitable compromise. As for Finland, it’d either go the same route or would be added at a much later date, once we reach a certain level of population, with great fanfare in an attempt to bring in more players to try an play Finland exclusively, either way it’s definitely the hardest one to add.
But I agree, the nations should be added progressively in a campaign system, with the simultaneous introduction of new maps. It’ll definitely happen in the future but the way it is done will be decisive. If they add as seperate main nations, seperating Germany and Italy from a unified faction tree for example, it’ll be yet another irreversible mistake from the game developers, heavily criticized and essentially dead on arrival.
Well, I had limited space to make it. I could expand it but it is just a concept to prove what is possible. I am glad there is so much more than can be added to make the tree even better.