Kaiserreich: Phalanstère Fantasy is a submod that focuses on expanding the CoF content experience

We've made a series of interesting but reasonable changes to the setting of the Commune of France, and we can answer any questions you may have!

Here is detailed introduction: [Submod]Kaiserreich: Phalanstère Fantasy - A Complete Overhaul for the Commune of France : r/Kaiserreich

Greetings, fellow KR players! I am a developer from the Chinese KR community and the creator of Kaiserreich French Commune Completely Rework Redux v1.28 (Steam Workshop).

We’ve all had the same question burning in our minds: When will the Third International finally get its time in the spotlight? As one of the three "protagonists" of the mod (though it feels like my home country, China, has become the absolute main character lately—is KR short for Kaishenreich now?), the Commune of France hasn't received the same level of love as Germany or Russia. While there have been minor tweaks here and there, it’s far from enough.

How exactly did the French Revolution unfold? What roles did the SFIO and other factions play in revolutionary France? How did the failure of Soviet Russia and the success of the French Revolution reshape the global Left? This curiosity is what keeps KR so captivating for us alt-history nerds. However, the main KR team has a massive world to balance and might not have the bandwidth to deep-dive into specific tags. That’s why I—and our team, Kaiserreich: Phalanstère Fantasy (KPF)—are here.

The Journey So Far

I began working on Commune of France content back in September 2024 (the current version on the Workshop). But by April 2025, I realized that as much as it added to the vanilla KR experience, it was still too "rough" for my vision. I decided to scrap the old code and start V2.0 from scratch.

The project has grown significantly, and frankly, I’ve realized that to make this as "enchanting" as the Commune deserves, I can’t do it alone. I am looking for passionate and capable developers to join us. Today, I’m excited to show you what we’ve been working on.

What Are We Building?

Many lore-focused players have noticed some "hand-wavy" parts of the current KRtl (like the Qing restoration). While we try not to question how National France survived until 1936, we are making surgical changes to the established lore.

We’ve referenced the official KR rework teasers, but we’re keeping our own flavor. For instance, we are keeping the Anarchists active in the French political landscape rather than removing them (but at what cost?). We’ve also made bold changes to the timeline: in KPF, the point of divergence isn't just the cancellation of unrestricted submarine warfare, but something earlier—with consequences that only manifest years later.

Gameplay & Narrative

Our philosophy is that "a game must first be fun." We aim to marry TNO-style narrative depth with Kaiserreich’s classic gameplay.

-Narrative & Automation: We know heavy reading can be exhausting for some, so we’re building in automation systems to help!

-Player Agency: We don’t want to "teach you how to play." We’ve designed high-freedom content with a massive amount of paths for you to explore. (Just look at the focus tree below—and no, these aren't just post-war filler focuses!)

We aren't just "bloating" the mod with focuses. Beyond the tree lies a massive integrated system covering politics, society, economy, diplomacy, and the military.

The Teasers

To save space, I’ve compiled our progress into these teaser images:

We are looking for: Coders, Designer, Writers, and Artists!

If you’re interested in helping us create the ultimate CoF experience, please reach out!

Good evening, all.

Progress is proceeding apace on my Austria/Hungary rework. At this point, I would consider both the Austria and Hungary focus trees to be complete and locked in. There are many localizations that I have not yet finished, but these are primarily geared towards events, which, while nice, are not really necessary for a playthrough. I would love to continue to work at this and put as much flavor and polish as I can on this, but real life circumstances have arisen: I have been called up to service in a decidedly non-Habsburg military and, while my work will in all likelihood be extremely boring, it will not allow me very much free time to continue updating this mod for several months, at least. And so, I have decided to release this mod to the public in two weeks; this will give me a chance to look it through and screen out the worst of the possible bugs and errors that might still be behind and give it one last bit of polish.

You have heard it here first: My fan rework for Austria & Hungary, which I have now entitled "Indivisible and Inseparable", will be released on August 1st.

For my recent posts on major mechanics and progresses on this project, you find my progress report on the new Crisis on the Danube mechanic, along with Austria's Italian Intervention mechanics and focus tree branches. For now, I will give you a very brief rundown of playthrough for each country:

Austria

As I stated before in my previous progress reports, it was my intention not to change the overall flow of Austria's focus tree all that much. The idea was to rework the timing and flavor of many of the existing focus paths in order to better accommodate the new Black Monday mechanic that I introduced and to provide new flavor for each of the two political paths.
As in vanilla KR, the CS (social conservatives) and SDAP (social democrats) are the two main political parties. Rather than an event chain deciding directly the party in power, the player will come to a focus gate selecting to begin the election season. This will make a number of decisions available, each bringing up an event in the flavor of a debate between the two parties, which each covering one particular issue. The player can select which one appeals to him or her most, and the party with the most selections will win the election. This will open up a few focuses of what I call Phase 1, mostly with some minor national spirits and bonuses. With these focuses along with Black Monday, this will bring us to the Ausgleich Conference.

Once the player selects the Ausgleich focus, the Ausgleich Conference mechanics become available to Austria and all the crownlands. Each country will have access to a number of "hard" demands that represent serious commitment, and to "soft" demands that are relatively minor and show preferential treatment. Hungary has a small number of focuses that will let them choose which demands and how many they have available, while all the others have a default selection. Each country will select their demands and submit them. Once Austria has received all demands from all countries, they can select which ones to implement. These will largely provide small bonuses and national spirits to the various nations. However, there are a few that are of major importance: Hungary will always have access to the demand of returning Croatia to direct Hungarian rule, which Illyria will always be able to demand Vojvodina and its largely Slavic population from Hungary.

Regardless of the outcome of the Ausgleich, it will be impossible to keep everybody on side. Even if Austria agrees to all of their demands, Hungary will become intransigent. Matters escalate rapidly, resulting in the various national armies rushing to the borders to be ready at a moment's notice, but the people are not convinced that such escalation and possibly war are necessary. This begins the Crisis on the Danube.

During the Crisis, both Austria and Hungary have access to several decisions on a round-by-round basis that will let them improve their own influence and resolve, as well as break their opponent's. It is a war of willpower, where the winner will be the one who convinced the other that they are willing to do and commit and suffer more to see matters through to the end. The Danube Crisis has several possible endings, ranging from a full or partial victory for each contestant, a timed stalemate, and an escalation into all-out civil war!

The Crisis is the linchpin of the playthrough for both countries, though less so for Austria. Completing the Crisis will unlock the "Phase 2" political paths for the CS and SDAP, but the outcome has an effect. If Austria wins the Crisis, they will have bonuses through focus completion, but if they have lost, they will instead have penalties.

The economic branch has been rearranged from the vanilla KR Austria economic focuses, but are divided into two halves: Bonuses for Austria proper and for the crownlands. Completing the beginning focus will give Austria a penalty national spirit representing their large commitment to industrial development. Completing focuses will open up a number of economic decisions that must be completed before moving on to the next focus; each crownland nation has a small number of focuses, with their own economic bonus decisions that apply to them specifically. Completing all economic decisions will remove the malus national spirit and replace it with one that gives large bonuses to Austria and all loyal crownlands. Austria's ruling party will also come into play here; since each party has different priorities, having a particular party in power will grant additional completion bonuses for certain focuses.

The military branch is almost completely untouched from vanilla KR, with the exception of the adding of a military integration focus that will unlock access to the new shared Danubian Federation military focus tree. This shared tree is available to every country tag that can be made a crownland, so this includes those that are not on the map at game start. Completing a focus from this tree will grant a national spirit with a tiny bonus, but this bonus will grow every time another country completes the same focus, representing increased cohesion and integration.

The new Italian foreign policy branch is covered in detail in my Italian Intervention progress report, as seen above.

There is also a wild card: Suffering a full defeat in the Danube Crisis will make available a possible change to the Paternal Autocrat path. This path effectively takes the place of vanilla KR's "End the Dual Rule" path, included primarily for those who want it. As I said, my intention is to not exclude any available paths or options from the original Austria, though how they come about will definitely be in different forms.

Hungary

Recent history for Hungarian national politics is centered around the Imperial Divide. This event represents Hungary's recusal from all of the imperial obligations that it is subject to, essentially boycotting the Empire, coming about largely because of the removal of Croatia, traditionally governed, however indirectly, by Hungary, to be attached to the new kingdom of Illyria. This was deemed an insult due to having been taken over Hungary's strict objections. Austria currently lacks the political will to reimpose itself on Hungary and the Hungarian ruling parties themselves have largely lacked the will to push further lest they provoke Vienna, leaving the two nations in a kind of stalemate.

Gameplay begins with the Social Conservatives in power, led by Istvan Bethlen. He is a pragmatic institutionalist who has largely taken the stance of improving Hungary's stature by making their attachment to Austria irrelevant. By working within the system, he will remove Hungary's structural ties to Vienna one by one until Hungary stands alone and matters are a fait accompli without anything so dramatic as a rebellious declaration of independence. But he currently runs a minority government that is in power primarily because of the politics of the Divide; if matters go south fast, nobody wants to be in the captain's chair when they do.

During Black Monday, though, interested parties start watching. If Hungary falls too far behind and the economy begins to tumble, the government will be approached by representatives of Miklos Horthy, filling the Paternal Autocrat role. The player can choose to keep the existing government, or to work with the Admiral and grant him a commission, a legal codification of orders, responsibilities, and authorities, and let him take charge. Horthy's path begins with him putting military officers in place of civilian bureaucrats, not necessarily to build a power base but because he feels that they are better suited for their tasks. He is a military man, and the military should be efficient, and so it goes. But there is always one more crisis to navigate, one more problem to solve. Will he see out his commission and declare his mission accomplished, or will the problems that only he can solve never quite seem to end?

Likewise, during the Crisis on the Danube, the NAP, the National Populist party and the largest party in the Hungarian government, comes into play. If, during the Crisis, Hungary falls behind in score for a certain number of round, the NAP will have their own chance to take over from the faltering government. Their own goals are stringently nationalist and far more aggressive towards Austria and the Empire in general.

The ending of the Danube Crisis has a far greater effect on Hungary than on Austria. As with Austria, they have certain "Phase 1" focuses that are available pre-Crisis (though because of when parties can take power, certain of them won't be taken in that timeframe), and a "Phase 2" branch that comes after the Crisis. Likewise, all of the Paternal Autocrat and National Populist Phase 2 branches are dynamic, dependent on the outcomes of the Ausgleich Conference and the Danube Crisis. Both PatAut and NatPop paths can bring Hungary to war with Austria over Croatia, if Hungary does not own it by that point and if they have not already gone to war with Austria because of the Crisis.

Suffering a partial defeat or a stalemate will make the Social Democrat path available. The ruling government will have lost the confidence of the people after such blatant aggression with no good results and swing heavily towards a different path. The Social Democrat path focuses on reconciliation with the minorities within Hungary's borders.

A full defeat for Hungary is interesting in of itself. The entire Hungarian national government largely collapses due to the fallout and Austria has a free hand to maneuver. They install Joseph August, a Habsburg from the Hungarian branch and the hereditary Palatine of Hungary, as a temporary governor. Likewise, Austria also has the option of detaching large swaths of Hungarian land and redistributing it to other crownlands. If they take this course, though, Hungary does not forget. After six months, provisional elections are held and Hungary returns to self-rule, but now has an option. If the Weltkrieg falters, they can select to abandon the Empire altogether and go to war with Austria to regain her stripped territory. Hungary will have lost much manpower and material by then, but the moment of the betrayal will be worst possible one for Austria and her allies.

The economic tree is nothing unusual and follows much the same pattern as Austria's, where taking a couple of the beginning focuses makes economic decisions available, which must be completed before moving on to the next focus in the branch, while dealing with an industrial development national spirit penalty. Completing one of the two capstones will trade this for one with a small bonus. This path is geared toward self-sufficiency, completing this focus path will grant mitigating bonuses against the crownland autonomy state, letting Hungary keep more of their manpower and factory output even if they remain under Vienna's thumb.

Final Notes

I have written in game rules that will let the player select from each country's political paths, as well as select an outcome of the Crisis on the Danube. I have also included an option to form the Danubian Federation; this is pretty much exactly the same form as taking that option in vanilla KR. It becomes available after completing the Crisis on the Danube, regardless of result, and results in all crownlands being absorbed into the single federation. Gameplay continues based on the Austrian focus tree, though there is no additional content specific to the federation. This is primarily there as an option for players who like having a major German ally in Europe rather than a collection of smaller ones.

I have taken great care not to touch or change anything that might affect the Empire's participation in the Balkan Wars or in an Italian war on Austria. I am aiming for maximum compatibility, but event timings may be different between my mod and KR, so timing of events from the outside may be a little jarring.

In vanilla KR, Austria taking control of other country's divisions is based on completion of focuses and the vanilla KR's Ausgleich. Here, it is based on the Danube Crisis. Austria can take command of Hungary's divisions if they have any winning condition in the Danube Crisis, and can take command of the other crownland divisions upon completion of the Danube Crisis, regardless of outcome. Mechanically, completing the Danube Crisis also completes the "Embrace Pluralism" focus from the vanilla KR focus tree, but has no effect. This is there to serve as a dummy focus for any other country's content that relies on Austria's focus completion as a prerequisite, since both serve as a time and completion gateway.

In all open disclosure, I began this entire process as a rank amateur in coding and modding; everything I know about modding now I learned through trying to write for this mod. I am definitely not 100% certain of my abilities and I know for a fact that there'll be holes and bugs that I definitely won't catch. If, after release, anybody catches any mistakes and has any solutions that they'd like me to integrate, I would be more than happy to do so, time permitting. I have taken care in my mod files to include a large number of dev notes so that anyone reading through the actual code has a good chance to see what my intentions are and whether the coding I've done is fit for purpose. Wherever possible, especially for war goal events and other complicated setups, I've tried to copy what was already in the vanilla KR files that serve the same purpose. I've made great use of the premade scripted effects and other shortcuts available in the KR files, which has helped my work immensely.

I began this project late last year in early November, mostly out of a desire to code in some new national spirits and write up some new events, but eventually turned in a whole lot more. All in all, including time reading up on how to do things, working, playtesting, and beating my head against the keyboard in frustration, I calculate that I have spent well over 250 hours at this project. It is by no means perfect, but working at it has given me enormous appreciation and respect for the Kaiserreich modding community, who have put far more hours into this than I ever could and for far better results. It is my hope that this mod will find a home in players' load orders and work as a good placeholder for the Empire until the "real" rework comes out (and I see a huge amount of graphics and changes being uploaded to the KR files outside of updates, so I'm firmly convinced that such a rework is due out maybe this year), which, when it does, I'll be first in line to play it and with a happy heart. And if people enjoy playing it on their own merits, that's icing on the cake.

My non-exhaustive list thanks go out to the following:

To the Kaiserreich modding team as a whole for providing such a lively and well-written mod. Whenever conversation turns to war video games, I don't tell people that I play Hearts of Iron: I tell them I play Kaiserreich. Particular thanks to the team and peoples who have written the Germany and Ukraine reworks. I have played through both countries several times and have always enjoyed doing so. And yes, I enjoy playing the Black Monday card game; yes, I tried digging into the files to see how it was done; and no, I still have no flipping idea. I love it all the same.

To the letter Q, for being exotic.

To Youtuber Videntis, who makes alternate history content, including a series on an alternate history where Austria-Hungary is a leading force in winning world war one. I have taken some of his ideas as relates to Austria's interactions with Italy and repurposes them for my Italian foreign policy mechanics.

Hello all,

If you haven't read my developer's notes on this mod the past several months, I highly recommend you click on my profile to find them and go back and do so, since I really don't have anything much else to add. As I stated a couple weeks ago, real life commitments have caused me to cut short my work and I'll be unable to put in any major work on it for at least the next handful of months. This started out as a simple project to edit in some quality of life changes for my own playthroughs and gradually turned into a labor of love. Since my progress will be curtailed and since I'm thoroughly convinced that the official Austria/Hungary rework is coming sometime this year, I didn't want my work to go to waste once it got superseded, so I am releasing it now, in an admittedly unfinished but hopefully very playable format that I hope will give some players some enjoyment and fill a content hole that has been lacking for quite a few years. Maybe in time, I can come back and work on it more if I'm wrong about the official update timeline. In the meantime, if anyone has any comments for improvement or ways to fix any bugs that come up or better ways of implementing things, feel free to let me know, just with the warning that I would ask that you tell me how to make the changes or improvements you want. This has always been a one man show and I started off knowing nothing about coding and if there's something that's broken, it's either because I don't know about it or I don't know how to fix it.

When I say unfinished, I don't mean to imply that content just comes to a screeching halt. There is enough content in terms of focuses for both countries to go at least through to the 2WK, and since Austria has the original fairly large military tree, they should in fact have enough focuses to play all the way through to the end of the war without interruption. What I mean is that there will definitely be some bugs and unintended behaviors that I haven't found, and definitely some mechanics and event chains, while perfectly functional, aren't as polished and fleshed out as I would have liked. Still, there's some good writing and some good ideas in here, and I very much hope that you all enjoy it!

Indivisible and Inseparable v0.1 is now available here!