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In yesterday’s post, we said we’re reviewing our rules and actions in this incident. I want to thank those who took the time to open up a ticket or message and respectfully voice your concerns. There were a lot of genuinely concerned fans that just wanted to be heard, and we’ve used those messages to help make these changes.
I want to start off by reiterating a point from yesterday. Our handling of this situation has created a lot of frustration and left the impression that Paradox had taken a position on Atatürk. Paradox never aims to review history or take positions on political figures, and we clearly handled that responsibility poorly.
As the owners of the Discord server, the responsibility for what goes on and the experiences our players have rests with us, and we need to handle that responsibility better. In order to reach that point, we need to start with a better foundation for both our users and our moderators. The rule at the heart of this incident was not designed for discussion or interpretation on what historical figures are allowed, or to open questions on what should be a straightforward server guideline. This should have been prevented, and we failed.
As the rule is not working the way it needed to, and as we’ve seen a number of questions about how it is applied, we’ve been looking at it as a place to start improving. We’ve spent a great deal of time reviewing this rule as well as others, working to make things clear, fair, and helpful for everybody, players and moderators alike.
Changes to Rule 4
We’re modifying the server rules to make them more transparent and easier to understand while also making them more straightforward for moderators to enforce. We shouldn’t have to think twice when it comes to the enforcement of a basic server rule. If that is the case, the rules are not clear enough to act upon and we should not ask our moderators to do so.
As a result we will be restricting the usage of all political or military characters who were born after Jan 1, 1800. To still allow for a large pool of characters to choose from, you may still use any official Hearts of Iron IV in-game portraits, including those from after 1800, with the exception of prominent leaders of Nazi Germany.
The aim here is to ensure our guidelines leave no room for ambiguity, nor edge cases in the future, hence the clear cut-off. For details on which characters this will include, the full text of the rule will be posted on the HOI Discord soon.
Updates & Banned Accounts
As we roll out our new rules, real-world pictures of political figures after the cut-off year will not be allowed. We will have a grace period of 7 days during which profiles using these photos will have a chance to change to an in-game portrait, or to select a different image entirely. After this time, we will begin enforcing the new rules as we have always done.
Lastly, we have seen a very troubling volume of abuse and even open threats directed at us, our developers, our moderators, and even others outside of Paradox. This behavior is completely unacceptable, and always will be. Accounts banned for abuse, harassment, and similar reasons will remain banned, and we will continue banning abusive accounts going forward.
I expect you will likely have questions or comments about these changes, and you’re welcome to share them so long as they stay respectful and reasonable. These rules will represent a change for all of us and we’re going to be hard at work ensuring we get them right.
If you wish to discuss or comment on the changes, please do so in the thread attached to this message. This will make it easier for us to read your comments while also giving us the space to continue enforcing the rules throughout the rest of the server.
If the Turks have this much power to influence Paradox maybe they should bitch about the billion pieces of DLC across all games. Who gives a fuck about some discord profile pics ? Anyway Turks are cockroaches and scum same as all the other sandniggers.
They don't really give a shit about Paradox and their DLC policies or games. Shit, seeing Age of Wonders get hit by proxy gets under my skin but that's more me loving those games than hating Paradox. Fact is that the people who give enough of a shit about the Paradox DLC wall usually grab a bulk on sale if they play on/off (was my case, all the essential mods got updated by then), grab the season pass or pay the sub if they are more active. Hell reviewbombing the recent DLC is pissing in a pond with how poorly received and low quality it has gotten. The last Stellaris expansion was basically a concept test for Afterworld for fuck sake.
They did actually fight (and win, obviously) a battle for Kars though? You could argue it wasn't much of a fight, but it was a fight and at least a couple hundred troops (mostly Armenian) died as a result. Same as with modern Gyumri as well. The Turks already held Kars when negotiating the final, formal handover in 1921 so it was more-so a recognition of a fait accompli rather than the Soviets generously turning over land which was in their hands rather than Turkey's.
my my i did not know Lenin was the head of non soviet armenia and georgia at that time...
Also which treaty with which country was in effect on deciding the borders of turkey? what happened to that country? Oh was it russian empire, what an interesting thing. where was armenia in 1877?
the thing is you say russian armenia, but russia was not a federalist state before ussr. there was no russian armenia. there was soviet armenia but no russian armenia.
And if you believe armenians did not skirmished against turkey before the war of Otlu you are mistaken.
Why would you say a war of independence suddenly had to open an eastern front against armenians when much of the country were occuppied by invading forces? Was it an invasion of Armenia or breaking an army as quickly as possible to focus on the western fronts?
upgraded for the first time in like 6 years to a Mac Studio. For the first time I can crush the Seljuks without dropping to 20 fps and the game time going to a crawl. I love crushing Turks so much.
>As a result we will be restricting the usage of all political or military characters who were born after Jan 1, 1800. To still allow for a large pool of characters to choose from, you may still use any official Hearts of Iron IV in-game portraits, including those from after 1800, with the exception of prominent leaders of Nazi Germany.
They don't really give a shit about Paradox and their DLC policies or games. Shit, seeing Age of Wonders get hit by proxy gets under my skin but that's more me loving those games than hating Paradox. Fact is that the people who give enough of a shit about the Paradox DLC wall usually grab a bulk on sale if they play on/off (was my case, all the essential mods got updated by then), grab the season pass or pay the sub if they are more active. Hell reviewbombing the recent DLC is pissing in a pond with how poorly received and low quality it has gotten. The last Stellaris expansion was basically a concept test for Afterworld for fuck sake.
Vlad accomplished a lot with the limited resources & severe disadvantage vs. the Ottomans in basically every regard which he had to work with, but John III of Poland here was ultimately more successful at actually permanently halting the westward expansion of the OE. Makes for a killer song, killer art, etc. too.
Seriously though it's fucking ridiculous that the Turkish nationalists' crashout has gone & ruined post-1800 pfps for everyone else, good thing I don't much bother with the official Paradox forums or Discord nowadays, they probably wouldn't approve of my choice for a Based Dirlewanger avvy anyway.
my my i did not know Lenin was the head of non soviet armenia and georgia at that time...
Also which treaty with which country was in effect on deciding the borders of turkey? what happened to that country? Oh was it russian empire, what an interesting thing. where was armenia in 1877?
the thing is you say russian armenia, but russia was not a federalist state before ussr. there was no russian armenia. there was soviet armenia but no russian armenia.
And if you believe armenians did not skirmished against turkey before the war of Otlu you are mistaken.
Why would you say a war of independence suddenly had to open an eastern front against armenians when much of the country were occuppied by invading forces? Was it an invasion of Armenia or breaking an army as quickly as possible to focus on the western fronts?
The Soviets annexed the 1st Armenian Republic right afterward because the latter had deemed them a lesser evil to the Turks, and I would certainly say they had grounds to think that way. In any case, my point was that contrary to what you had said previously about how Kars was 'never actually occupied by an invading turkish army', the ground being ceded at the Kars Treaty was indeed occupied by the Turks after battle with the Armenians. Thus the cession was just a diplomatic formality recognizing the fait accompli on the ground, created by Turkish bayonets; what wasn't a formality was the Turks giving Alexandropol/Gyumri to the Soviets, which they also held, but evidently that was deemed not worth fighting over by the Turks of the time, any more than Kars by the Soviets; what more can be said in that regard however, but that one's a fool if he thinks Communists are in the business of giving anything - including the aid they rendered to Turkey vs. the Entente and Armenia - away for free with no strings attached & out of the good of their black hearts, whether on an individual or national level.
And by 'Russian Armenia' it should be fairly obvious that I was simply referring to the Russian portion of the area historically recognized as Armenia & inhabited by Armenians, and in no way suggesting it was some kind of special federated subject like an SSR or American state; of course that wasn't the case for pre-war Yerevan or other parts of Armenia under Russian control, nobody enjoyed such rights in the Russian Empire (which was quite centralized & preferred Russification policies) except maybe Congress Poland. This is the same sense that, for instance, Wikipedo understands the term 'Russian Armenia'. I would argue it reflects all the more poorly on the OE that the Armenians could see how raw the Russians' deal was (no autonomy, Russification, etc. - IIRC the Soviets were actually lighter-handed than the Tsars in these regards until Stalin took over) and still end up thinking it was preferable to remaining under Turkish overlordship.
As to the rest, this is pretty much what I had been grousing about a page ago. I didn't say a word about whether the Armenians had skirmished with the Turks before Karabekir's push eastward, but it frankly doesn't matter overmuch; don't you think it's rather obvious as to why said Armenians might be just a bit mad at said Turks c. 1918-20? You may say 'them mountain pseudo-Jews started it by scratching us at Oltu (or wherever else)', then the Armenians will say 'nigga we need to get revenge for the genocide', to which the standard Turk nationalist answers vary from 'there was no genocide' to 'we had to genocide you out of self-defense against your Russian puppet masters & you'd have done the same to us if you could' to 'you got richer than Turks did in the Ottoman system, that's not how an empire is supposed to work', to which I'm sure the Armos have their own answers, and on & on it fucking goes to the beginning of time.
Yeah OK man, I've seen this cycle of historical spergery with a side of self-righteousness a million times across a million forums since I was a kid and it never gets less annoying, but by far and as I have said before, online Turks remain the least likely to admit even the slightest fault (unless the fault in question is 'we didn't kill enough of the [insert other ethnicity]'). The only good thing I can say about it, and Internet Turkish nationalists generally, is that I would still rather deal with them & their refighting online wars with their Greek, Armenian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Serb, etc. counterparts than online SJWs. At least something funny and not actually ruinous even to other, entirely unengaged parts of the online community can arise out of the former's hijinks sometimes (not this time though, if that new Pdox pfp policy is any indicator).
Balkans don't deny shit, they brag about what they did and dare you to take it to the courts. The ones who do option 3 on your list would either be the Israelis or India.
Balkans don't deny shit, they brag about what they did and dare you to take it to the courts. The ones who do option 3 on your list would either be the Israelis or India.
Of course. 𝓐𝓘 𝓲𝓼 𝓫𝓮𝓼𝓽 𝓮𝓺𝓾𝓲𝓹𝓹𝓮𝓭 𝓽𝓸 𝓭𝓮𝓪𝓵 𝔀𝓲𝓽𝓱 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝔀𝓸𝓻𝓵𝓭 𝓽𝓸𝓭𝓪𝔂. Who else? 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕵𝖊𝖜𝖘? Please. 𝕹𝖔𝖗𝖒𝖎𝖊𝖘? They brought enshittification to us all. This will be the age of AI. ＡＩ！
Did you know that every single person born after January first 1800 is actually Adolf Hitler (except for the Paradox approved ones that are totally for real not Adolf Hitler)? I'm so glad I got to learn so much about the world and all of its many chaotic, moving pieces; all under the wise and paternal guidance of Paradox Studios
Back when HoI4 was new, Hitler's picture was covered in shadows because they were too chickenshit to show off le austrian painter. It quickly drew memes like him being an unlockable character in a fighting game, and if you have the image on hand please cover me because I can't find it. They eventually gave him a proper profile because like much of early HoI4 it was fucking retarded but they somehow managed to realize that.
Funny enough, Konrad Adenauer is basically seen as worse than Hitler in the HoI4 community because if you go non-historical and he comes to power over Germany, if you're going on a non-democratic focus path (aka actually wanna have war in the wargame) and you can't find non-democratic allies then you might as well just restart because that cunt is the embodiment of this image:
At least Hitler let me have war in my fucking wargame.
Well, no, Kars and the like were parts of Armenia's old kingdoms and principalities, all of which predated the Ottomans and even the Seljuks, and the areas still had, depending on who you believe, Armenian pluralities or narrow majorities prior to the genocide. It was as much Armenian territory as the rest of the first republic of Armenia.
You can split hairs about which imperial power were the owners during which period to somehow squeeze as much legitimacy over ownership all you want, at the end of the day those were still parts of the heartland of Armenia, and as already mentioned, the census data is pretty clear about it.
You'd even have a pretty good case that the persecution of minorities by the Ottoman state during the closing days of the empire was an understandably paranoid response to what happened to Turks in the Balkans
Massacres of Christian populations by Ottoman governors or tribal clients had been a consistent feature of the empire for centuries, and began ratcheting up in the mid 19th century, with stuff like the Hamidian and Diyarbekir massacres taking place decades before the Balkan Wars.
Arguing that the natural response of expansionist Islamic governments to losing land to religious enemies or having their colonial populations massacred in reprisals is to carry out pogroms against unrelated ethnic minorities who are only coreligionists is not the hill I think you want to die on.
Of course. 𝓐𝓘 𝓲𝓼 𝓫𝓮𝓼𝓽 𝓮𝓺𝓾𝓲𝓹𝓹𝓮𝓭 𝓽𝓸 𝓭𝓮𝓪𝓵 𝔀𝓲𝓽𝓱 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝔀𝓸𝓻𝓵𝓭 𝓽𝓸𝓭𝓪𝔂. Who else? 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕵𝖊𝖜𝖘? Please. 𝕹𝖔𝖗𝖒𝖎𝖊𝖘? They brought enshittification to us all. This will be the age of AI. ＡＩ！
In Germany. It's still this way in Germany. Games are not considered art under German law so artistic depictions are not permitted, unlike in movies like Downfall. Though I think this changed semi-recently so it might be different now.
It never happened.
