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What's the most Cringeworthy Alternate History you've ever read?

Avian Overlord said:
The syndie-wank comes to mind.

Edit: And the monarchy wank for that matter.
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Can you be more specific?

The entire point of Kaiserreich is that any number of familiar or exotic ideologies can end up dominant, thus I don't see how that makes it "wank" just because some marginalized ideologies of our timeline could be more successful in this rather different one.
 
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Avian Overlord said:
The syndie-wank comes to mind.
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When did economically devastated and war-ravaged countries on the losing side of WW1 with deeply unpopular leadership ever have socialist revolutions?

Like, there's plenty that isn't all that realistic in Kaiserreich (the US comes to mind), but the very concept of socialist revolutions occurring in Western Europe after losing WW1 really isn't too far fetched. They happened in Germany and Hungary OTL and nearly happened in Italy
 
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bigseb31213 said:
Like, there's plenty that isn't all that realistic in Kaiserreich (the US comes to mind), but the very concept of socialist revolutions occurring in Western Europe after losing WW1 really isn't too far fetched. They happened in Germany and Hungary OTL and nearly happened in Italy
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Socialist revolutions in Western Europe is one thing. Said socialist revolutions creating industrial superpowers who have none of the economic problems a post revolutionary autrarkic state would have, and also have no internal dissent toward their economic polices, but without any of that naughty communist repression; every state they want to buy food from also conveniently having a socialist revolution; and being likely to get America and Russia despite the former having a lack of socialist support the POD is far too recent to address, and the latter having just ended a civil war were the socialists got crushed; is a different thing entirely.

And that thing is wank.
 
Avian Overlord said:
Socialist revolutions in Western Europe is one thing. Said socialist revolutions creating industrial superpowers who have none of the economic problems a post revolutionary autrarkic state would have, and also have no internal dissent toward their economic polices, but without any of that naughty communist repression; every state they want to buy food from also conveniently having a socialist revolution; and being likely to get America and Russia despite the former having a lack of socialist support the POD is far too recent to address, and the latter having just ended a civil war were the socialists got crushed; is a different thing entirely.

And that thing is wank.
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Some of the economic stuff is a bit wank-y (that can be said of literally any kaiserreich country, looking at later focus trees), but I think you are significantly overestimating how isolated even the USSR in the 1920s was. American investors were offering credit to Soviet firms in the 1920s, let alone embargoing the food trade

And only the Totalists are truly autarkic within syndicalist countries, most of the syndicalist economic trees functionally devolve industrial control to communes and unions, with strong state-driven development. Doesn't mean that money was abolished or that markets don't exist
 
Plus the part about America happens for meta reasons in that they don't want one side to immediately stomp. I once saw America avoid civil war, join the reichspakt and conquer Canada
 
If you wanna knock on Kaiserreich, skip the economics, worry about the metric fuckton of civil wars that happen for Basically No Reason

It's an in-joke in the fandom at this point, it gets ridiculous
 
Honestly, as much as people complain that the 3rd Int is too strong and unrealistic, the Entente is so much worse at meeting plausibility checks, but usually gets a pass because of the political biases of those making the criticisms. For some reason we're supposed to believe NatFrance can plausibly survive as a solely colonial power in North Africa without constant revolts and a totally unstable government, and that Canada is powerful enough to do stuff like invade the US.

This isn't even going into stuff that was flat out removed or will be like the A.O.G. in China, or the SRI being in the south opposing a Pope-led Italian Federation.

As for economics, Kaiserreich basically handwaves that everything works , protectionism, free trade, a regulated capitalist market, market socialism, a planned economy, Syndicalism, etc. are all considered viable by the game because it is first and foremost a game. There are very few exceptions to this, and they tend to be country specific, which usually is because of a dev or some pre-existing lore on the country.
 
Silent Runner said:
There is good Alternate History. There is bad Alternate History. And then there is Alternate History so awful you wonder if the author ever went to school. What's the most cringeworthy Alternate History you've ever read?
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I think my first ever AH timeline fits that bill, but that was because i was young and naive to think i could create and write a good AH timeline.
 
lordhen said:
I think my first ever AH timeline fits that bill, but that was because i was young and naive to think i could create and write a good AH timeline.
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I understand the sentiment. I feel the same about my first (and only) AH timeline - objectively it may not be the worst, but given it's my stupid things and poor writing it has a some degree of added cringe when I look at it.
 
lordhen said:
The Dutch joining the war much earlier than OTL.
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How did that make anything different? Other then slightly more or less dead people, and maybe borders altered
LordInsane said:
I understand the sentiment. I feel the same about my first (and only) AH timeline - objectively it may not be the worst, but given it's my stupid things and poor writing it has a some degree of added cringe when I look at it.
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What was that about?
 
Terran Allias said:
How did that make anything different? Other then slightly more or less dead people, and maybe borders altered

What was that about?
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The British binding themselves slightly less to the French in the run-up towards the Great War and the Germans focusing East-first.
 
Terran Allias said:
How did it go? Or at least what do you think would happen
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How it went in the TL was that the *Central Powers won with Britain neutral and Belgium on the Central Powers' side. I don't particularly think I am well-equipped to speak on what could plausibly have happened given such divergences.
 
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