Dev Diary: Baltic States | Part Two

Hello everyone and welcome back to another dev diary for Barbarossa where today I’m going to be diving into the unique branches for the Baltic states.

I would like to open up by showing the state rework I neglected to show last week, so here they are! The new Baltic States'... states.

ESTONIA

Starting with Estonia, we have two starting focuses: Rally the Nation or the Era of Silence. Historically, the Era of Silence was a time in Estonian history where Konstantin Päts suspended all elections in Estonia out of fear of the fascist Vaps Movement.

While going down this path, the Vaps will gradually grow more and more agitated, and the player must use a series of focuses and decisions to prevent the nation from fracturing into a civil war. Once the Vaps are dealt with, Päts stands ready to prepare the nation for the inevitable wars to come.

A banker and economist, Päts has access to some powerful bonuses to the Estonian economy and internal stability.

Since his dictatorship was underpinned by the fear of fascists and communists, the threat both pose must be pushed into irrelevancy if an Estonian player wishes to restore democracy in their nation.

However, the dictatorship can be maintained by pushing not only communism and fascism into irrelevancy, but also democratic support.

Rally the Nation has the player take control of the Vaps in a series of decisions much similar to Britain’s fascist marches, whereby the Vaps must rally public support for their movement and overthrow the government. This culminates in a march on Tallinn and taking over in a civil war.

From here, it’s a race against time to bolster the military and ready the nation for war. As a movement made mostly of veteran’s societies, the Vaps have access to some powerful military bonuses and free units.

On top of that, the Vaps held close connections to the far-right veterans in Finland and as such, once they have taken over Estonia, they stand ready to give official support to the Finns to do the same in their own country by organizing marches through Finland.

Once this is done, Estonia is at a crossroads for where her identity lies. She may lean into her Scandinavian identity and conquer the Nordic countries, or she may lean into the Finno-Ugric identity and prepare for a war against Russia.

If Estonia successfully conquers the Nordics and completes the “Estonia is Scandinavia” focus, she will gain access to the old Nordic League decision from Waking the Tiger.

Leaning into the Ugric identity however will allow Estonia to form the new Empire of Finno-Ugra out of the Finnic identities living in Scandinavia and Russia.

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LATVIA

Next up we have Latvia’s political focus, beginning with Kārlis Ulmanis’ historical decision to suspend the constitution of Latvia.

The focus tree is split into the military and civilian governments, which may or may not merge into one depending on your choices.

Historically, Ulmanis assigned the marshal of Latvia to be his Prime Minister, replacing Kviesis of the Farmer’s Party. Choosing to do so will allow the player to vastly improve their military industry.

Marshal Balodis became so influential in Latvia that many believed the nation to be a diarchy between Ulmanis and Balodis, despite this not being the case. However, the player will be able to make this perception a reality and establish Balodis as dictator