Developer Diary | Historical Denmark

Velkommen til Danmarks historiske Dev Diary! As you might have so astutely observed, today’s Dev Diary is all about Historical Denmark (and if you didn’t catch that, it’s ok; no one understands Danish anyways, so you’re not alone). Denmark has had the great misfortune to be designed by a Swede, namely me - and why would that be such a terrible thing you might ask yourself? Well, let me shed some light on that and give you a bit of context dear reader. Denmark and Sweden have fought the most wars between them than any other countries, so there’s some old blood and rivalry here. Which is thrilling to me; I now have the chance to make them as underpowered as I want - muahahahaha!

Before we go any further, do keep in mind that everything is still a work in progress and might change before releasing in- oooopsie! Spoilers ;) But every bit of feedback and correction is welcome! Do you think I missed something? Do let me know! Did I misspell something in Danish? Don’t even bother - I’ll never get it right anyways ;)

Denmark is famous for surrendering after merely 2 hours when Germany invaded, so this Dev Diary will be similarly short and sweet. Let’s jump straight into it, shall we?

And there you have it folks, that’s all from-

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So, this is awkward…. I’ve been told that this won’t do and that Denmark needs at least 2 more focuses. I might be able to throw something together. But before we get there we have other things we gotta talk about.

Historical Context

Let’s start with some historical context because it’s crucial to understand Denmark’s situation leading up to the war and why they surrendered so quickly. Denmark’s entire foreign policy was based around their perceived biggest threat, which prior to WW2 was Germany (and thereafter the Soviet). This way of viewing the world was shaped by their disastrous war with Prussia and subsequent defeat by them in 1864. From this date onward they pursued a policy of neutrality and did all it could not to anger Germany, lowering military spending and eventually focusing on what would become the welfare state.

One of the reasons why they kept this strict neutrality and disarmament was because they were unable to obtain security guarantees from the UK or from a Nordic Alliance once the war was looming on the horizon. The UK was in no position to offer any meaningful support to the Danes (and told them so in no uncertain terms) while the rest of the Nordic nations had widely different security concerns and couldn’t unify behind a common policy. The Danes realized that they had no hope to withstand a potential German invasion and didn’t, therefore, bother with military spending except to keep a symbolic force to emphasize their sovereignty.

Map changes

Before we delve into what changes are coming to Denmark, let’s first look at some maps! My suggestion to simply bundle up all of Denmark into one state and rename it Southern Sweden was sadly downvoted (but just barely!). Instead, Denmark gets a whole bunch of new states (so that any Swedes - and Norwegians too! - can really savor the sweet, sweet sensation of conquering all of Denmark, bit by bit). As you can see, Germany is getting an additional state as well, and the Kiel channel has moved to a more accurate position. In total, Denmark starts out with 7 states now.

Besides that, the Danish Belts have