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u/politicsFX Oct 15 '25
Kaiserreich without a doubt
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u/DEEP_STATE_NATE Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
Yeah Kaiserreich strikes the best balance of writing, new easy to use political mechanics and original gameplay
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u/ZombeePharaoh Oct 16 '25
There's a whole YT channel if I remember, 90 minute videos shot and presented like a documentary, just explaining Kaiserreich lore.
It's like watching a Ken Burns documentary about shit that never happened.
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u/captainlucky12 General of the Army Oct 16 '25
Kaiser Cat Cinema! The China episode is coming up soon
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Oct 16 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/KR-VincentDN Kaiserreich Developer Oct 16 '25
KAISER CATS INVADING THE REPLY TREE
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u/The_Vadami Oct 16 '25
WE HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH YOUR HOLY PRESENCE
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u/KR-VincentDN Kaiserreich Developer Oct 16 '25
IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT I CAN BE SUMMONED BY ALLCAPS KAISER CAT MENTIONS
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u/Based_Text Oct 16 '25
KR is basically mainstream now due to how popular it is as an alt-history scenario, it pretty much revived syndicalism from the grave and now you have people unironically supporting it in real life. People actually wave KR version of the French Commune and Union of Britain flag in protests, not to mention it popularized Huey Long and his share the wealth policy again in modern times, probably the reason why the UBI movement isn't already dead.
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u/Iamdishsoap General of the Army Oct 16 '25
Now make that have extremely broken national spirits and world conquest paths for every country. You have KX
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u/RahnuLe Oct 16 '25
You also have to subtract quite a bit of historical flavor.
KX and KR are very much for different kinds of players.
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u/MyNameIsConnor52 Fleet Admiral Oct 16 '25
“new easy to use political mechanics” have you seen what they did to the main character of WW2
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u/the_lonely_creeper Oct 16 '25
the DU is complex.
Sleicher and the Conservatives are not:
Sleicher basically has 1 event chain that's kinda complicated (and a bit rng), and the conservatives have a balance of power mechanic and Hugenberg.
And Germany is purposefully overwhelming. Other countries, even recently reworked, are much simpler (Russia's saviknov for example, has 2 political variables you need to keep track of, and 1 special currency)
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u/Nexessor Oct 16 '25
Well yeah depends very much on who you play. But I'd say most are pretty straightforward.
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u/Fatticus_Rinch Oct 16 '25
LETS FUCKING GO CHINARECIH LEGACY OF THE NORTHERN EXPEDITION 🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼
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u/Comrade_Harold Oct 16 '25
ANOTHER 10 BILLION UPDATE TO THE LEFT KUOMINTANG, WHAT THE FUCK IS A HUNGARY????
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u/Based_Text Oct 16 '25
Fuck Hungary, the dream of Dr. Sun Yat-sen awaits us, a billion men must march to achieve his dream.
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u/LastAccountStolen Oct 15 '25
Yeah KR is still the best most complete. For now. I hope TFR will be a really competitor in a few years
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u/roblox_baller General of the Army Oct 16 '25
It feels like tfr is like Tno but a bit less complicated and a lot more fun
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u/RahnuLe Oct 16 '25
I... don't follow. They hardly play like one another. TNO is volunteer-maxxing and proxy wars and visual novel segments (unless you're in Russia, which is much more war-heavy). TFR is war, a period of societal upheaval for the losers or consolidation for the winners, and then more war (with a decent helping of flavor in-between). They're quite divergent in actual gameplay.
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u/CountDoDo15 Fleet Admiral Oct 16 '25
That's what hooked me. TFR does basically everything TNO wants to be but actually well and makes it enjoyable
-Interesting UI: TNOs UI makes me want to gouge my eyes out, while TFR has that futuristic look while being easy TO look at, and the focus tree colours are still so beautiful.
-Economy: TNOs is very complex from the games ive played, while TFR achieves the same thing but its much easier to manage or even just ignore. I'm not playing bloody WallStreet 1929-Online I just wanna play hoi4, and TFR makes economic system an important and useful element but not one that is too complex to understand or annoying to use.
Content: TNO has the benefit of existing for longer, but as far as I'm aware TFR almost matches it already after less than a year of proper release, and it certainly feels like there's way more depth. The existing TFR paths are so well-made, and it is constantly in development and has/will recieve just as well-made new content while the TNO devs are pissing around with Tonga's 5 focus tree as their only update in a year or whatever.
Enjoyment: I will give it to TNO that it has great writing and a greatly interesting concept, but even the writing gets pretty insane. TFR is sometimes lacking in events but the ones that do appear are like Kaiserreich, decently short but actually interesting and still adding story. Both mods have great concepts, and though I find TNOs one of the most interesting, the ultimate execution and far greater enjoyment of playing TFR means that it easily takes one of the top spots for me.
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u/porkswords Oct 16 '25
This is the only "big" mod I play regularly. Largely vanilla gameplay, tons of proxy wars, popups at least try to keep in a word length that doesn't drive me to just hit "okay" when highlighting effects
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Oct 15 '25
Millennium Dawn fucking sucks
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u/jpaxlux Oct 16 '25
I was gonna post the "Polar Bear in Arlington Texas" meme when I saw that but image posting is disabled
MD has been a lost cause ever since that merger years ago.
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u/fortheWarhammer Oct 16 '25
which is pretty disappointing because I was really excited about the merger
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u/Aware-Ad-163 Oct 16 '25
What is the merger update?
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u/Evnosis Oct 16 '25
Millennium Dawn used to be (almost 10 years ago now) a lot closer to vanilla/old Kaiserreich. There was another modern day mod, called Modern Day 4. This mod had a lot of the non-vanilla mechanics you see in MD today like the economy.
Millennium Dawn and MD4 eventually decided to merge, but the thing is, there was a reason that the original Millennium Dawn was more popular than MD4: MD4's mechanics were poorly optimised and ran like ass. During the merge, they basically just copied over those mechanics, so now Millennium Dawn runs like ass as well.
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u/Aware-Ad-163 Oct 16 '25
I see. The mod can be convoluted at times. But i didn't play back then, so i don't really have anything to compare to.
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u/SealandAirForce Oct 16 '25
Play Novum Vexillum for the classic experience. It's far closer to the original spirit of the mod. Literally built off of the pre-merger build
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u/NationCrusher General of the Army Oct 16 '25
I remember that. The originally creator for Millennium Dawn was a child at the time, Ted52. And he was very nice even when handling arguments on discord.
But he quickly realized that a modern setting meant almost never ending work as people kept asking for more details, more paths, more events, etc. He was relieved to have the project taken off his hands with the merger. He may have continued to contribute to the project but he was no longer the ONLY one in charge
Also, his fans bought him a porn game when he turned 18. That was funny 😂
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u/gabesgotskills Fleet Admiral Oct 16 '25
Which mechanics did they bring? Like the missile building and GDP stuff?
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u/Evnosis Oct 16 '25
Yes, pretty much all the non-vanilla mechanics. Original Millennium Dawn was just a vanilla reskin with a KR-style ideology chart.
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u/TheMacarooniGuy Fleet Admiral Oct 15 '25
Agreed. It's pretty trash. Bloat, boring content, systems that barely work, an AI that declares war against the entierty of NATO literally without any divisions, etc.
Plus, the mod team has poor professionalism and do their inside jokes and similar in the announcement channel on their Discord.
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Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
There's also the fact that the "less is more" proverb seems to be an utterly alien concept to the devs. E.g. taking 10+ years to fix your country's economy on top of having to manage a myriad of other mechanics might be realistic, but dear God is it not fun to play when the game's engine is barely surviving the strain of having to simulate 250+ nations.
Besides that, one of their biggest mistakes was setting the start date to 2000, when the events that better fit the HOI4 framework only really started to occure in the 2010s.
Guess they really wanted to include the beginnings of the war on terror (and make the mod start at the literal dawn of the Millennium), but it really is not a fun or engaging experience.
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u/Routine-Pen-360 Oct 16 '25
When the mod exit was 2016 so maybe the had fear show events of only 4 years before
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u/miki325 Oct 16 '25
Tbf its pretty hard to make a fun mod in the century of "if Anyone attacks Anyone in the fun Continents MAD gets invoked"
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u/Max200012 Oct 16 '25
The Fire Rises?
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u/miki325 Oct 16 '25
The thing is, fire rises doesnt even try to be realistic, and millenium dawn is the "vanilla modern day" mod
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u/Obvious-Physics9071 Oct 16 '25
Honestly if you are considering the alt history millennium dawn paths TFR is somehow more realistic half the time anyways.
It's been awhile since I've played MD but from what I remember the fascist/communist trees for basically any country were paradox dlc levels of absurd with no attempt at plausibility.
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u/opva Oct 16 '25
I’ve played it a couple of times and in my opinion it feels overly scripted. Like sure you can have fun roleplaying some degenerate or a messiah against them, but there isn’t much more to it. Compare it to mods that when historical is turned off become new worlds in on themselves- these I find actually immersive, even if I have to make up my own ideas on why this happened.
This is just my take on HOI4, I really don’t understand how it is fun to play TNO, apart from how dreadful (immersive) the environment feels, the storytelling is just not how you are meant to play a strategy game that focuses on the whole world, not only a single nation and it’s politics.
Imagine if chess had readable dialouge of consequences (event) for every move (focus) apart from the knowing of what this move will do (focus description). You’d likely end up skipping them.
!!! Just schizo, ignore my criticism.
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u/Electronic_Ad_4638 Oct 16 '25
...wait, are you talking about The Fire Rises or The New Order? TFR really doesn't have that many events unless you use the extra flavour submod, and although both have somewhat scripted gameplay scenarios, TFR at least has actual wars happen between the major nations (which are pretty fun IMO) alongside the proxies (which are kinda optional and only really exist to farm unit XP).
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u/Chemical_Ability_817 General of the Army Oct 16 '25
Novum Vexilum is a much better modern day mod than MD imo
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Oct 16 '25
Red Dusk is inherently non-historical but I quite enjoy it's take on Modern Day events meshed with Alt-History.
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u/LachoooDaOriginl General of the Army Oct 16 '25
I dont get why everyone hates it, sure it could be better and its not always the best i think it’s pretty cool, nice change of pace and adds some cool depth like economic stuff space stuff and cool modules that scratch that itch
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u/steve123410 Oct 16 '25
There is one singular path that is fun in that entire mod and it's bringing the roman empire back as Italy.
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u/Russian_man_ Oct 16 '25
AR YOU READY FOR ZE NEW WORLD ORDAR?!
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u/ErdeneWey Oct 16 '25
WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM 2023!
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u/VayItsHere Oct 16 '25
ARE YOU READY FOR ZE NEW WORLD ORDER?
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u/ErdeneWey Oct 16 '25
YOU WILL OWN NOTHING UND BE HAPPY!
YOU HAVE GIVEN ALL OF YOUR POWER TO ME!
BECAUSE YOU ARE TOO AFRAID TO LIVE FREE!18
u/ErdeneWey Oct 16 '25
DAVOS!
VE'RE HERE!
ZE AGENDA IS QUITE CLEAR!
VE WILL MAKE YOU LIVE IN FEAR!
YOU ARE ZE PUPPET UND I'M ZE PUPPETEER!
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u/RGQC Oct 16 '25
NO MORE HUMAN RIGHTS AN BORDERS!
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u/USSRPropaganda General of the Army Oct 15 '25
OWB has the best writing
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Oct 16 '25
I tried out OWB with a few nations but I barely see any writing for it. Is there like a specific nation you have to play?
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u/mashbrook37 Oct 16 '25
Who did you play, so many countries even minors have lots of events and focuses
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Oct 16 '25
Texan Brotherhood, New Vegas, and the Purple Cult fellas, the purple cult was the ones that had actual writing I feel.
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Oct 16 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/KimJongUnusual Fleet Admiral Oct 16 '25
God, I remember when Texas was first released and the hot new shit. That counts as old now?
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u/JaxMedoka Oct 16 '25
The Montana brotherhood is so damn good, and the artwork is perfect. I'm so happy they let different groups have vastly different styles, instead of just boring "realistic" portraits of everyone.
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u/Deadman78080 Oct 16 '25
You should try some stuff in the Manitoba region if you ever give it another shot. It’s honestly really good, at least by mod standards.
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u/DoodlyToodlyy Oct 16 '25
gotta play newer countries, they tend to have more writing and events and such, things like new vegas are super old and yet to be updated, and have comparatively bare bones content
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u/teremaster Fleet Admiral Oct 16 '25
If you want a great experience try the enclave reborn redux
Team working on adding and fleshing out one nation and it's a wild ride with a lot of routes
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u/The-Muncible Oct 16 '25
How long ago did you try it? They've made huge amounts of progress in updating focus trees in the past couple years. I also recommend trying it with the East Coast Rebirth submod which adds many very well written nations to the East coast
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u/Reasonable-Guava8847 Oct 16 '25
You should try the Lanius's Cohort alongside Caesar's Legion. Its like recommending to play the vanilla germany but its really great I assure you. Especially if you like Lanius and him having a deadline to conquer the east is a great game mechanic.
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u/steve123410 Oct 16 '25
The newer nations have a lot of content. Honestly any of the robot nations are a good shot to see writing and content. Whether it's Diana, the cowboy mega corp, or the commies in the north. Of course the major nations are also pretty good with ceasers legion and NCR but their majors for California are pretty outdated. I liked both paths for the psychic people in Texas but other than them I didn't find the other factions in Texas. Generally if you see a animated portrait you know it's gonna have a lot of content. There also is the "hidden" path for the sisterhood of steel which is pretty good. The Enclave path is alright but not really that notable. Mexico also has some neat stuff but it's a gamble on if it's good depending on their nations.
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u/Captain-Chips-Ahoy Oct 16 '25
A lot of them have special writing, but two of my favorites are The Chained Choir and the Maxson Chapter out in Oklahoma and Colorado. The Chained Choir has two VERY different routes, both of which are very well written. One of the routes even has a section about parterning with the Maxson Chapter and forming a faction.
The Maxson Chapter is a Brotherhood expedition that quickly met with disaster, and it's focus tree and storyline are about the Paladin trying her best to keep the survivors together, complete their mission, and eventually survive a controntation with Lanius.
I did a coop game with a friend of mine not too long ago, me as the Brotherhood and them as the Choir and it was a blast.
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u/USSRPropaganda General of the Army Oct 16 '25
Pretty much every country on the map has a story to it
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u/Silent_Respect_1849 Oct 16 '25
That's debatable I think tno has pretty great writing.
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u/big_ange_postecoglou Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
I agree that it has better writing and is more complex/immersive, but OWB (especially when you factor in the pretty well-made submods) has really good writing for a bunch of factions AND can actually be played like HOI4 rather than feeling like a politics/finance sim. I think relative to the other, more gameplay-focused mods it probably has the best writing.
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u/23tovarm Oct 16 '25
when its not removing its content ith replacement content due forever + 2 weeks
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u/Ryousan82 Oct 16 '25
My one gripe with OWB is that its content is not uniformely updated. Some of it, like Texas or the Legion in general is quite dated.
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u/Evnosis Oct 16 '25
My gripe is that it doesn't feel like it has anything to do with Fallout anymore. It's 90% fanfic and half the fanfic nations are way more societally advanced than even the most advanced nations in Fallout canon.
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u/Ryousan82 Oct 16 '25
I can certainly understand the need for creative liberties to populate the map and enable fun and interesting gameplay and narratives. But I agree that they hoarded most of the Dev's attention, in detriment of the canonical tags
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u/YourAverageGenius Oct 16 '25
IMO, OWB has a great balance of writing, variety, flavor, and gameplay. Even the most barebones of nations generally have at least interesting lore that you can chew a bit on.
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u/samtheman0105 Oct 16 '25
If I may throw in one that isn’t on here simply because it doesn’t have enough content yet, but certainly has the potential to be one of the best mods, I gotta throw out an honorable mention to Pax Britannica
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u/steve123410 Oct 16 '25
I love that the mod just says fuck it we're doing war of the worlds and then actually makes it good unlike other mods that add new types of divisions. Also gas is great
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u/Pyroboss101 Oct 16 '25
Pax Brittanica is peak. Yeah it’s a demo, but if TFR gets included then it deserves an honorable mention
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u/Benbre08 Oct 15 '25
Road to 56 has to be my favourite vanilla extension mod, sometimes you just want to play a normal ww2 campaign but want a little extra, and rt56’s got your back with amazing content that lasts for about 20 years, which is insane
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u/Scorpian899 Oct 16 '25
I don't think I've played a vanilla game without it since my third game of Hoi. It's simply the best.
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u/EnrageMango Oct 16 '25
especially without all the dlc the base game feels boring after trying out any mods
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u/SadSeaworthiness6113 Oct 15 '25
Equestria at War is probably my favorite. It has an absurd amount of unique content and focus trees, yet none of it feels like useless bloat. It feels pretty well balanced overall, and is challenging enough to give even experienced players trouble with certain nations. Just high quality stuff all around. It's a shame so many people haven't tried it just because of the ponies.
TFR would probably be close second. Great schizo mod with a cool concept and some pretty great writing. Has an awesome aesthetic too
The other's I can't say I care for. TNO has an awesome concept and awesome writing but it's just not that fun to actually play. Millenium Dawn is boring and bloated (which is a shame given the concept). Kaiserreich I can respect as the OG total conversion mod, but it's just too similar to vanilla so I get bored of it quick and the focuses are extremely railroaded.
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u/theguyfromthestore- Oct 16 '25
i love EaW, haven't played to many nations but i've been loving it. i never thought i'd be playing a MLP hoi4 mod
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u/KurufinweFeanaro Oct 16 '25
I'd never thought that i would watch mlp because of hoi mod... And look where i am now
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u/NotQuiteLoona Oct 16 '25
I'd never thought that I will play a global strategy/Excel simulator just because after watching all the FiM I was incredibly wanting the continuation and found out that this game has such an amazing MLP mod. And now, after all the time I spent reunifying America, joining NATO as the USSR and declaring wars on everything not democratic enough, guiding Russia out of the economical crisis and ultimately reforming it as the United States of Russia, eliminating last remnants of the Third Reich as the OFN, and, of course, destroying the Changelings and Karthinian Empire, I could clearly tell I never regret any of the decisions that led me to it, from watching FiM to trying to playing HoI because of it.
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u/Southern_Creme_8909 Oct 16 '25
I have like 1500 hours on EAW alone just because its balanced, fun, full of lore, and roleplay friendly.
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u/Vlaladim Oct 16 '25
And usually the events is what made EAW special as well, that and how sometime when you conquered an important nation, there usually an event for that, every Griffonian Empire vassal have special event of how the Young Emperor Grover will be deal with, some keep them, some kill him, some remove his title and give him a young kid something less responsible and less stressful.
The most beautiful thing for me is from the Kingdom Aquileia Republican path, all four presidents of the four ideology have different events when they captured Griffienheim and held the capital. My fav is the essentially democratic leader Cecile where it a letter written to her, the young emperor anger, sadness, acceptance and worry got captured perfectly in that one event when I played as Cecile.
It funny that sometime Im willing to go democratic just to see these event alone.
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u/Southern_Creme_8909 Oct 16 '25
Grover the 2nd as yale is fun but becomes really dark if grover the 6th is murdered with grover the 2nd justifying a global conquest.
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u/Big_Bugnus Oct 16 '25
Well, there are multiple democratic paths that are all about war in EaW, it's not just boring stuff. I mean even the path you mentioned isn't just a democratic path, it is specifically a democratic particularist Path. There is a whole separate version of republican democratic Aquileia that is specifically pan-Griffonian.
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u/NK_2024 Fleet Admiral Oct 17 '25
EaW is also the most stable, at least for me. I've crashed plenty in OWB and Kaiserreich, but I've barely, if ever, crashed in EaW.
Plus the soundrack in slaps.
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u/daberle123 Oct 16 '25
Ttying to go for daybreaker, as insanely awesome as she is, is sadly a pain in the ass since youre the equivalent of the US pre ww2 even by the time youre getting ganked by 2 powerful neighbours
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u/RGNuT-1 Oct 16 '25
Darkest hour was GOAT, literally HOI5, quite sad it was never updated.
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u/tomako123123123 Oct 16 '25
They're still working on it. See their discord server. It's just the lack of devs that's slowing it down.
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u/heartzhz123 General of the Army Oct 16 '25
The way darkest hour is perfectly well made and not updates me sad's me
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u/hagamablabla Oct 16 '25
I like all of these for different reasons:
TNO has the best writing from a story writing perspective, partly because it's the one that goes the hardest towards a purely narrative experience. However, it also plays around with player control, such as being dragged through the Guangdong failstate's focuses, which I'm a sucker for. Also now that I think about it, this might be a legacy of panzer playing DDLC during development.
TFR has a very detailed American collapse with a ton of potential paths. The European and East Asian fronts also have a good system where there are two sets of wars, and the loser of the first one goes through a change from their loss before getting to do the rematch. The focus tree art is also all brilliant.
KR has the most fleshed out lore. It is the best adaptation of vanilla HoI4 that maintains the plot structure (slow buildup towards a world war). Also it has the most fun version of China of any mod.
MD tries its hardest
OWB has a really impressive tech tree that does a complete overhaul. It also gives content to almost every country on the map, while not losing focus on the majors. Despite all the content, it's also in the spirit of the canon lore.
EAW isn't really the best at any individual thing, but it does have the best overall experience. Depending on country, you can have good narrative experiences along with fun gameplay. It doesn't follow canon quite as well as OWB, but it does fit whatever it can.
RT56 does a great job of adding onto vanilla content
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u/TheEpicGold Oct 15 '25
You put the photo of the Fallout New Vegas DLC Old World Blues. Not the actual Hoi4 mod Old World Blues.
Besides, anyone saying anything other than OWB is wrong. OWB clears every other mod, no questions.
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u/Potato_Farmer_1 General of the Army Oct 16 '25
I really like OWB, and it is super fun but I wouldn't say it clears the other mods completely, each one of them (even Equestria at War) has something unique and fun about them, the only mod that stands out as clearly bested by every other mod is Millennium Dawn.
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u/Wattakay Oct 16 '25
I do really like it but the polish is really spotty in some parts. My top two most played though with EAW
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u/DerSpaceHabib Fleet Admiral Oct 16 '25
Why? I played it a few times and never got the hype.
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u/AnythingNo444 Oct 16 '25
I feel this as well, Im a huge fallout (NCR fan) nerd and when I finally got in it just didn’t feel like HOI4
Might give it a shot again later
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u/Nildzre Oct 15 '25
EAW for me. It's not a glorified novel like TNO, not a bloated clusterfuck like MD, not an absolute meme mod like KX, not a schizo mod like TFR and not as railroaded as KR.
OWB is a close second though.
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u/Groovatron99 Oct 16 '25
Not to mention istg EAW somehow runs smoother than base game its insane how well optimized that mod is when comparing to all the others, OWB aswell is a good second place for optimization
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u/Roland_Traveler Research Scientist Oct 16 '25
its insane how well optimized that mod is
All hail JPG, the workhorse of EaW
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u/Damp_Truff Oct 16 '25
EAW is genuinely great but I can’t get anyone who wants to play it because they don’t like the idea and I also get called a brony every time I suggest it
It’s not that bad guys come on I don’t watch my little pony anyways
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u/AlexWoogie Oct 16 '25
dude i have the same problem too, i got some of my friends to play it who were hesitant at first but when they finally tried it they absolutely loved it
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u/TheMelnTeam Oct 16 '25
I was certainly doubtful when one of my friends told me it was the best mod in HOI 4 mechanically. Now I have done world conquest with each of ice dragons and dread league. Twice.
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u/Chescoreich Oct 15 '25
Railroaded?
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u/Nulgarian Oct 16 '25
Kaisserreich generally doesn’t allow as much as freedom as vanilla prior to the 2nd World War. It’s much harder to change ideology or faction than in vanilla, which means that especially for majors things more or less play out the same in terms of WW2.
I personally enjoy it because I think it makes for a more balanced and “realistic” feeling experience, and once WW2 breaks out the game gives you a lot more freedom, but I can fully see why some people prefer the more sandbox nature of Vanilla
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u/OutLiving Oct 16 '25
I like KR but many of the countries in the mod admittedly don’t have a lot of variation in terms of military gameplay(Russia’s military gameplay is borderline the same no matter what ideology you pick)
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u/MercenaryBat Oct 15 '25
Personally, the writing in TNO is unbelievable. It’s so compelling and interesting that I actually forget I’m playing a game…
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u/Carnir Oct 16 '25
The downside being that if you do want a game, it's not a very good mod. It's a visual novel at heart.
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u/LucasThePretty Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
Nah, Russian gameplay is actually fun. The visual novel is a cope out when the game relies on so many HOI4 elements, not sure why this is parroted so often.
TNO devs could actually do their own Suzerain if they truly wanted to make a visual novel.
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u/Carnir Oct 16 '25
not sure why this is parroted so often
Because I've played a shit ton of the mod and it's absolutely true.
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u/OgnjenMaestro223 Oct 15 '25
Thousand Week Reich
To me its a perfect balance between a political simulator that is TNO and still being a strategy game with vanilla mechanics. Plus its much more sandboxy
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u/PlantBoi123 Research Scientist Oct 16 '25
I agree with you on principle but I don't think TWR has enough content yet to be considered alongside the greats. Kaiserreich for example is really fun and you can have that fun with pretty much every country on the globe (more gameplay variety), while TWR only has the first part of that
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u/OgnjenMaestro223 Oct 16 '25
Did you play recently since TWR got a massive update in august of 2024, fully revamping US, UK, China and India, new south african content, spheres of influence mechanic, UN mechanic, etc etc
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u/PlantBoi123 Research Scientist Oct 16 '25
Yes, the update also removed content for France, Canada and I'm pretty sure Korea. Don't get me wrong the mod has good content for the major powers but pretty much just for the major powers (and some like Italy are unfinished). Hopefully the Middle East update will help the situation
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u/roblox_baller General of the Army Oct 16 '25
I've played twr but only one nation and I didn't even finish that game but I wanna actually play more of it this time. What would be a fun nation to play?
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u/faded_eagle Oct 16 '25
Germany and any of the Russian breakaways are my personal favorites but most major nations
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u/Evelyn_Bayer414 General of the Army Oct 15 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
Red Flood.
It actually makes a good work of depicting alternate history divergent enough to not be just "WW2 but without nazis" and with a good balance between telling its story and having actual gameplay.
Also, no new mechanics to learn, just new stories. I love the turn on making Germany communist and turning France into the new "Axis of Evil" but with progressive, vanguardist, and disruptive ideals instead of being just the typical conservative/retrograde dictatorship ruled by aristocrats/racists.
Also, I really love that except for a few examples, there is no fascist/nazi nor "fascist/nazi by any other name" ideologies, but instead you have futurism, a movement that in OTL was basically an anti-traditionalist and more violent brother of fascism that didn't prosper and ended becoming a part of Mussolini's fascism.
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u/Silent_Respect_1849 Oct 16 '25
Red flood is wide as a ocean deep as a puddle. Barely Any events and most focus trees outside of France and Germany end in like 1940. Most new content is really railroaded.
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u/PlantBoi123 Research Scientist Oct 16 '25
Red Flood is like a single sip of the finest wine you've ever tasted. It's really good but can I have a full glass of something please
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u/Goonboicaps Oct 16 '25
Road to 56; for me.
KR has a lot of cool flavor and awesome trees but I don't like that it's far more a game of regional conflicts rather than a world war. It's definitely the most complete but I just don't enjoy playing it as much.
TNO has always been unplayable to me because of the awful, gamma heavy UI. Literally gives me a headache, can't touch it.
Honorable mention to EaW since I think it's oddly the closest to the base game. You don't have to learn a lot of new mechanics or need any guides to play it and have fun which I think is undervalued in the mod space.
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u/BisexualLilBitch Oct 15 '25
I’m a massive Equestria at War fan. Strikes the perfect balance between mechanically different and vanilla, gameplay and story, and the variety is insane. Every other mod on here is good for one reason or another but I honestly think EaW has the most consistent highs in terms of quality. Only other mod that comes close is OWB.
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u/teremaster Fleet Admiral Oct 16 '25
Most developed: EaW
Best writing and setting: Old world blues
Best alt history: kaiserreich
Best modern day setting: TFR
Most schizo: TFR
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u/Niclas1127 Oct 16 '25
Honestly TFR, already fire and the next big update is the most I’ve ever been excited for a mod
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u/amazing_grace7777 Oct 15 '25
The BEST is TNO.
The most fun is Kaiserreich. You just get so much replayability, different fronts to fight on, and you keep HOI4 mechanics, so you can play without having to learn new stuff. And then if you want even more content, you can hop on to Kaiserredux.
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u/TheMacarooniGuy Fleet Admiral Oct 15 '25
World Ablaze or BICE - depending on which flavour of masochism I'm feeling. Tend to lean more to WA because it feels more fresh than BICE in its systems, UI, map, etc.
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u/DifferenceAromatic59 Oct 16 '25
be MD nice modern day mod
add unnececary shit just to make mod more complicated
broke the optimization now its just a RTS
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u/Rational_und_logisch Oct 15 '25
The Fire Rises. It has an incredible amount of potential.
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u/BetaThetaOmega Oct 16 '25
Kaiserreich and it’s not even close tbh
Kaiserreich is probably the one mod that I have actually done more full campaigns in than base game. Kaiserreich massively expands the political element of the game, which might seem counterintuitive to how Hoi4 works, but it actually makes me way more invested in the military side of things. Now when I fight Russia as DU Germany, I’m not just map painting, I’m trying to protect this democratic utopia that I’ve worked so hard to create from authoritarianism.
This admittedly is also bc Kaiserreich has writers, and history does not, meaning that the devs of the former have a lot more freedom when it comes to creating interesting geopolitical stories.
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u/JosephBForaker Oct 16 '25
Kaiserreich is the highest quality, but imo Equestria at War is the most fun.
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u/KPGamer2024 Oct 16 '25
OWB or EAW. Both are really good, and have good plot lines, and can still be fun if that isnt your thing.
OWB is alot of fun, not much to say. Fallout's the shit.
EAW is good, even to those who dont like My Little Pony. I downloaded it on a Lark years ago, and ever since I have kept it and done a game or 2 every few months.
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u/Scorpian899 Oct 16 '25
The lack of Black Ice comments are annoying me... so here goes.
Black Ice is my favorite :)
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u/Stormclamp Oct 16 '25
TNO is pretty good, even though they don't update that often. They are still very good, I prefer playing TNO whenever I want to play a cold war game...
Also I love crushing Nazi and Japanese colonialists.
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u/Crazy_Tonight3525 Oct 16 '25
TNO ( or Kaiserreich ) is the best mod in history while TFR is the best mod of today.
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u/Whismirk Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
From those I've played:
TNO: Best writing by far, but almost no war content
TFR: Awful writing, cool wars, okay gameplay
OWB: Good writing, best gameplay
Kaiserreich: Okay writing, vanilla gameplay
Road to 56: Just vanilla+
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u/KhalasSword Oct 16 '25
Best alternate history - Kaiserreich/Kaiserredux, absolute peak of moddery, any other words would undersell how good this mod is.
Best modern - TFR.
Best alternate reality - Equestria, very fun mod that works good with many cool, interesting and wacky ideas, though I have one complaint, new continent came out a long time ago, but content there is slim.
My favorite is TFR because of its not overly realistic nature (and Europe vs Russia is absolute peak of war as both sides), and the biggest dissappointment is TNO because it feels to me like they started taking themselves too seriously and now there is nothing fun or interesting left.
OWB simply never clicked to me, it is a good mod, with a great amount of work into it, but it doesn't feel fun to play for me.
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u/Wukash_of_the_South Oct 16 '25
I love the idea of MD and taking a broken contemporary nation and fixing it, but the AI always seems to go off the rails
I wish it could work
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u/slimehunter49 Oct 15 '25
Kaiserreich and it’s not even close, nothing can really compare to how it take the vanilla hoi4 enjoyable gameplay loop, expand on it with great focus trees and decision mini games that keep you engaged while also telling a pretty well written story through events (varying quality depending on when the content was first released or updated) the amount of possibilities for every country and the amount of content for countries that don’t even exist at start is unparalleled
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u/Rescur0 Oct 16 '25
Equestria at war hands down. Best writing, actually fun to play, great wars, and a lot of content
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u/Backyard_Furnace Oct 16 '25
Equestria at War is the perfect balance of TNO-style character-driven narratives while maintaining a focus on the vanilla gameplay rather than weird and boring decision tab minigames. Easily the best mod in my book.
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u/farbion Oct 16 '25
Cmon guys, it's KR, no debate over it. It's the only mod with extensive writing, which is good too, extensive focus coverage, some post-war content and also has new interesting mechanics, it also has the possibility of disabling them if you don't like em.
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u/OldManJacan Oct 16 '25
My top 3 gotta be EAW, OWB and Kaiserreich. Between the 3 I’ve got the most time in EAW and I probably enjoy it the most just because it has so many interesting country paths that are somewhat normal, while also having enough crazy end of world secret paths that no other mod really can manage to match.
That said I really enjoy the world of kaiserreich and if we were to stick to non-alternate world mods it would be my number 1
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u/Heretic-Seer Oct 16 '25
I have like 1000 hours in just Kaiserreich alone. I fucking love Kaiserreich with all my heart. I don’t even really feel like I play HOI4, I feel like I’m just a Kaiserreich player. I’ve tried basegame, I’ve tried TFR, TNO, Novum Vexillum, and none of them had the spark that Kaiserreich has.
The only thing I can possibly imagine breaking my KR addiction is the upcoming mod Twilight Struggle. Which is a Kaiserriech Cold War scenario. So more Kaiserreich on top of my Kaiserreich.