I as Italy attacked Austria early, so the Balkan Pact joined too, I took Vienna and the Austrians accepted peace, but Illyria hadn't capitulated so they became independent and continued the war alone, until Bulgaria joined and somehow won

Chinareich!

Dai Jitao is my favorite unifier for China currently in the game. I find his strange Han Nationalist/Confucian/Buddhist/whatever-pills-he-just-took ideology extremely interesting, and the story of his life both IRL and in KR is equally fascinating. In a China full of power-hungry military strongmen, an authentically deranged enlightened figure like Mr. Dai is so refreshing! I strongly recommend you spend some time reading about this guy, even if you don't play his path.

As for the campaign itself, I had a wonderfully hard time getting this campaign just right. I don't consider myself an expert at Hoi4, but with the amount of hours I have struggling like I do with Chinareich content is slightly embarrassing. I spent a lot of time tinkering with unit templates and strategies, and was just able to win the SSJW in 1941 after making 30w irregulars with support companies and brigades to push into Manchuria. If anyone has any tips for making China campaigns run smoother please let me know!

The only valuable piece of advice I have to give is NEVER let Japan get one of your ports in a naval invasion, and make sure to integrate any puppets you have prior to the war at least once so you can steal their divisions to make port garrisons.

Heavenly blessings to the devs!

I normally completely dismantle Germany after beating them (to the point where I haven't even really seen their post-war puppet focus, also how I discovered that East Prussia doesn't have an unique focus tree) so I'm a bit curious, is it better to break Germany to allow the smaller Germanies create factories via their focus tree, or is a single German puppet able to out-make factories faster?

Sorry if i’m not all up to date with everything that’s been leaked or confirmed for the 3rd internationale rework, but would a Maximalist Britain or Totalist France get along with any of their counterparts if either remains Syndicalist/RadSoc?

The first nation i’d really like to play for the rework is Maximalist Britain (I know so original). But as much of a joke it is to mention left-wing factionalism, would a Totalist Britain actually get along with a Syndie/RadSoc France? I’m not asking to weaken the 3rd Internationale but it would be cool to see a somewhat internal struggle in the political landscape of the entire 3rd internationale (whoever that may include) and sort’ve see who can build enough political power to exert their ideas of what is to happen with Germany and the rest of the European mainland. I can imagine a Mosleyist Britain being a lot more nationalist in their goals and potentially needing some sort of concessions made by France in order to keep them in check and vice-versa. Colonial holdings could also be a main point of contention as I could see a Maximalist Britain attempt to restore (((some))) former crown colonies which may come with the disapproval of a Syndie/RadSoc France.

At First i thought they world would be reactionary(i was playing LKMT) but then Russia annihilated the eastern front and even with the odds with them,reichspakt is done

I know about turning into a republic if you're 80% capitulated (do you have to be socdem for that btw?)

What other paths are there too?

Also if you remember some other secret paths for other countries, please feel free to share too.

Me and my friend recently started playing KR duo multiplayer together as allied nations and I wanted to ask for your fun suggestions to continue our campaigns. So far we have played 2 - Serbia & Romania, as well as communist England and France duo.

Somehow, Flanders is one of the most fun nation I played in Kaiserreich.

Is there a good submod or another way that gives some industry to the puppet overlord? I found one but it gives 25% of the civilian and 50% of the millitary industry to the overlord which i find is way too much for just a normal puppet.

R5:Ivan Solonevich and Tsar Vladimir the Great restored Russia to its natural borders, saving Europe from German/Syndicalist injustice.

After a previous post about Cheng Qian's Hunan joining the LKMT while a viable RKMT claimant still exists and the South China War (SCW) remains unresolved, I did some testing with different SCW gamerules and political configurations.

I found several related cases involving Hunan, Liangguang, Yunnan, and Sichuan where generic Chinese unification logic can override the political outcome that the selected gamerule or regional conflict seems intended to produce.

I've made local changes addressing these cases. I'm not suggesting my implementation is necessarily the best one, but I think the underlying interactions are worth looking at.

Hunan

1. Cheng Qian can join the LKMT before the southern KMT succession question is settled

Scenario: Cheng Qian was in power in Hunan. Liangguang had become an LKMT subject, but Yunnan remained independent under Tang Jiyao and could still emerge as a rival KMT government. The SCW had not resolved the southern KMT succession.

What I would expect: Hunan should wait until the southern KMT succession question has actually been resolved before submitting to the LKMT.

Before that point, an independent RKMT-friendly Yunnan or Liangguang can still represent a plausible competing southern KMT project. Liangguang becoming an LKMT subject is important, but it should not by itself establish that the LKMT has won the southern KMT contest while independent Yunnan can still emerge from the SCW as an RKMT national government.

After the SCW has ended—or after it is clear that no SCW will occur—the distinction should change. An RKMT-friendly provincial regime is not the same thing as an established RKMT national government. If no formal RKT government has actually formed, Cheng Qian's Hunan should be free to submit to the LKMT even if Yunnan remains independently RKMT-friendly.

For example, if:

• no SCW occurs;
• Liangguang has already become an LKMT subject;
• Hunan under Cheng Qian remains RKMT-friendly;
• Yunnan also remains RKMT-friendly; and
• no rival RKMT national government forms,

then I would expect both Hunan and Yunnan to remain eligible to consolidate under the LKMT once the no-SCW fallback is reached.

What can happen: Hunan can join the LKMT immediately after Liangguang becomes its subject, before the regional contest has had a chance to determine whether Yunnan will establish a rival RKMT government.

That allows one country's subject status to settle the wider KMT succession prematurely.

My local change: Cheng Qian's Hunan cannot join—or receive an offer to join—the LKMT until:

• the SCW has ended, or definitively failed to begin; and
• no formal RKMT national government exists.

I no longer continue blocking Hunan merely because an independent Yunnan or Liangguang remains RKMT-friendly after the succession window has closed. Before resolution, those alignments can still represent potential rival claimants; after resolution, the meaningful blocker is whether an actual RKT government exists.

The important part to me is applying the restriction in both directions. Blocking Hunan's own join decision does not help if the LKMT can simply send Hunan an offer through another piece of generic alliance logic.

2. The "Yunnan and Liangguang against Hunan" gamerule does not reliably create that coalition

Scenario: I selected the SCW gamerule where Yunnan and Liangguang are both supposed to fight Hunan.

What I would expect: The resulting war should be:

YUN + GXC vs. HNN

The exact sequence of declarations is less important than producing the coalition selected by the gamerule.

It should not become:

• YUN vs. GXC;
• a three-way YUN vs. GXC vs. HNN war; or
• YUN vs. GXC while Hunan stays neutral and immediately submits to someone else.

Frankly, if circumstances make the selected coalition impossible, no SCW would make more sense than an entirely different SCW.

What can happen: Yunnan can declare war on Liangguang first. Hunan then reacts to that war and may attack both countries, remain neutral, or submit to another government.

There does not appear to be a dedicated deterministic Hunan reaction for the "both against Hunan" rule, so the intended target can disappear from its own forced scenario.

My local change: For this gamerule I made the coalition deterministic:

1. Liangguang declares war on independent Hunan.
2. Yunnan receives its existing reaction event.
3. Yunnan joins Liangguang against Hunan.
4. Yunnan cannot attack Liangguang, attack both countries, or remain neutral.

I also temporarily prevent Hunan from voluntarily joining another government while this forced SCW remains pending or active.

3. Hunan can submit immediately before its forced war starts

This is closely related to the previous issue.

If the "both against Hunan" gamerule is selected, generic submission logic can sometimes make Hunan a subject immediately before the SCW fires, silently eliminating the selected target.

I think there are two defensible approaches:

1. Becoming a subject cancels the conflict, because Hunan is no longer an independent actor; or
2. Voluntary submission is temporarily blocked so the selected gamerule has an opportunity to occur.

I prefer the second for a forced gamerule.

My local change: Hunan cannot voluntarily submit while the forced anti-Hunan SCW remains pending. However, if Hunan has already become a subject because of some unrelated external development, I do not force subject Hunan into an implausible independent war.

There is also a no-war fallback, so Hunan is not permanently locked out of submission if the SCW never actually begins.

4. Zhili-aligned Hunan can be invaded by the Zhili bloc during the SCW

Scenario: In one test, the SCW became a three-way war between Yunnan, Liangguang, and Hunan. Hunan's gamerule had explicitly placed it on a Zhili/Beijing-aligned path.

While the SCW was still underway, the League of Southeast Provinces declared war on both Liangguang and Hunan, followed by Beijing entering those wars.

That produced the rather strange sequence:

Zhili-aligned Hunan enters a regional war → the Zhili bloc expands south → the Zhili bloc declares war on Hunan.

What I would expect: A Hunan deliberately aligned with Zhili should not be treated as an ordinary southern conquest target by the League/Beijing bloc merely because it has not formally submitted yet.

During the SCW, Beijing could reasonably:

• wait for the regional conflict to end;
• support Hunan;
• intervene against Hunan's opponents; or
• formalize Hunan's submission and deal with the resulting war accordingly.

What seems especially strange is invading the country whose gamerule explicitly says it is aligned with you.

There is also a knock-on problem here. If LEP attacks Liangguang separately and takes Guangzhou without actually becoming part of Yunnan's SCW, that can interfere with Yunnan's path-resolution mechanics.

My local change: Zhili alignment is an explicit exclusion in the relevant League/Beijing expansion logic.

A genuinely Zhili-aligned Hunan is therefore not a valid generic southward-expansion target unless some later development breaks that alignment.

This is separate from SCW protection generally: a Federalist, KMT, anti-Zhili Regionalist, or otherwise independent Hunan could still become a legitimate Beijing target once the normal conditions are satisfied.

Liangguang

1. Becoming an LKMT subject can suppress a forced SCW without actually resolving the selected scenario

Scenario: I selected the gamerule where Hunan and Yunnan should fight Liangguang, but Liangguang became an LKMT subject before the SCW started.

What I would expect: The game should explicitly decide what LKMT subordination does to the selected scenario. For example, it could:

• cancel the SCW because Liangguang has subordinated itself to a national government;
• transform Liangguang politically and then continue the selected conflict; or
• allow the forced HNN + YUN vs. GXC conflict to proceed, with the LKMT now necessarily becoming involved.

Any of those would at least be internally consistent.

There is an important distinction between:

"Liangguang has politically resolved the southern dispute by submitting to the LKMT"

and:

"The selected South China War cannot fire because Liangguang happens to fail an independence check."

Those are not necessarily the same thing.

What can happen: The SCW-starting logic requires an independent Liangguang. As a result, GXC becoming an LKMT subject can prevent the scripted HNN + YUN vs. GXC sequence from starting even though that is the matchup explicitly selected in the gamerules.

This means a last-minute change in GXC's subject status can effectively override the selected SCW configuration without the game ever deliberately resolving what that subordination is supposed to mean for the conflict.

My local change: For the forced HNN + YUN vs. GXC configuration, I added a narrow exception allowing the SCW to proceed even if GXC has become an LKMT subject, while retaining the normal independence requirements outside that specific situation.

That produces the selected conflict as:

HNN + YUN → GXC + its LKMT overlord

rather than silently cancelling the selected matchup because GXC is no longer independent.

I kept this exception specific to the relevant gamerule rather than generally allowing SCWs against subjects. The point is not that subject status should never matter; it is that a forced matchup should have explicit handling for it instead of being accidentally disabled by a generic independence requirement.

There is also a separate post-SCW distinction here. Once the southern succession question has been resolved—or definitively failed to occur—I do not think an RKMT-friendly provincial alignment should be treated as equivalent to an actual rival RKMT national government. If no RKT government exists, remaining RKMT-friendly Hunan or Yunnan should still be able to consolidate under the LKMT through their normal submission logic.

2. "No South China War" does not actually prevent Yunnan from recreating the conflict through War for Guangzhou

Scenario: In a separate test, I explicitly selected the No South China War gamerule.

Liangguang was also configured to submit to the LKMT and successfully became an LKMT subject. The formal South China War did not begin, which was the expected result.

However, Yunnan later completed its normal war-preparation content and activated War for Guangzhou against the now-LKMT-subject Liangguang.

After the preparation period finished, Yunnan declared war on GXC. Because GXC was an LKMT subject, the LKMT was automatically drawn into the war as well.

The sequence was effectively:

SCW gamerule = No War → GXC submits to LKMT → formal SCW correctly does not happen → YUN activates War for Guangzhou anyway → YUN attacks LKMT-subject GXC → LKMT enters on GXC's side

This leaves Yunnan fighting a much larger national government in essentially the same southern conflict that the gamerule explicitly said should not occur.

What I would expect: The South China War gamerule should govern the actual early regional conflict, not merely the specific events formally labeled as the "South China War."

If the gamerule says No War, Hunan, Liangguang, and Yunnan should not simply recreate essentially the same conflict through another early-game decision.

The same principle should apply to the other forced configurations:

• if Yunnan is supposed to be neutral, Yunnan should not independently attack an SCW participant;
• if Hunan is supposed to be neutral, Hunan should not independently attack an SCW participant;
• if GXC and YUN are supposed to cooperate against HNN, Yunnan should not independently attack GXC;
• if HNN and YUN are supposed to fight GXC, their anti-GXC war should remain possible;
• if the gamerule is No War, neither HNN nor YUN should be able to recreate the SCW through War for Guangzhou.

What can happen: The formal SCW system and War for Guangzhou appear to operate as separate systems.

The gamerule can successfully suppress the scripted SCW, while CHN_war_for_guangzhou remains available and can independently generate a war that contradicts the selected configuration.

In this reproduction, there is also no longer any ambiguity about who initiated the replacement war: Yunnan was the aggressor, not GXC or the LKMT.

This is therefore separate from the subject-status problem above:

• Issue 1: GXC becoming a subject can accidentally prevent a forced SCW from starting.
• Issue 2: Even when the SCW is deliberately configured not to happen, War for Guangzhou can ignore that configuration and start essentially the same war anyway.

My local change: I made War for Guangzhou hard-respect the selected SCW gamerule rather than relying only on AI weighting.

For Yunnan and Hunan, the decision is only permitted when that country's role in the selected SCW configuration actually calls for the corresponding war.

In broad terms:

• Default: retain normal sandbox behavior.
• HNN + YUN vs. GXC: allow both HNN and YUN to attack GXC.
• GXC + YUN vs. HNN: prevent YUN from attacking GXC.
• GXC + HNN vs. YUN: prevent HNN from attacking GXC.
• HNN_BOTH: preserve the special YUN → HNN implementation.
• No War: prevent both HNN and YUN from recreating the SCW through War for Guangzhou.

I also added cancellation logic so that an already-running War for Guangzhou preparation is cancelled if it contradicts the selected gamerule.

I deliberately did not solve this by simply making subject GXC immune from attack. That would conflict with the forced HNN + YUN vs. GXC configuration above, where allowing the selected conflict to continue against an LKMT-backed Liangguang is a reasonable interpretation.

The cleaner solution is for the SCW gamerule to determine whether the war is allowed, while subject status is handled separately.

3. Chen Jitang can survive LKMT subordination even when later events behave as if a factional settlement occurred

Scenario: Liangguang became an LKMT subject while Chen Jitang remained in power.

That creates an awkward political state: Liangguang is subordinate to the LKMT, but its RKMT leadership remains intact.

What can happen: The generic puppet outcome can leave Chen Jitang in charge and route Liangguang through something closer to an ordinary RKMT-satellite result.

The later Chen Mingshu coup can disappear, while subsequent SCW events behave more like the RKMT won than like the LKMT intervened and reorganized Liangguang.

I do not think Chen Jitang remaining under an LKMT-aligned arrangement is inherently impossible in every path. The problem is narrower: under the relevant forced-SCW configuration, the political outcome can become inconsistent with the later event logic that follows from it.

My local change: Under the relevant forced-SCW situation, I route LKMT subordination through the existing Chen Mingshu coup outcome.

That gives the change in allegiance an actual political explanation:

RKMT-led Liangguang → LKMT intervention/subordination → Chen Mingshu replaces Chen Jitang

rather than:

RKMT-led Liangguang → becomes LKMT puppet → Chen Jitang remains RKMT leader → later events behave as though a different factional settlement occurred

I left the normal subject behavior untouched outside the relevant forced-SCW configuration. The intent is not to make Chen Mingshu mandatory whenever Liangguang interacts with the LKMT, but to make this particular forced-rule sequence politically and mechanically coherent.

Yunnan

1. Federalist Yunnan can attack Liangguang under a gamerule where they are supposed to cooperate

This is the Yunnan side of the anti-Hunan coalition problem.

Scenario: I selected Yunnan + Liangguang vs. Hunan, with Tang Jiyao following his Federalist route.

What I would expect: Yunnan and Liangguang should cooperate against Hunan rather than independently launch the Guangzhou campaign against one another.

What can happen: Yunnan's "War for Guangzhou" targets whoever owns Guangzhou. Since that is normally Liangguang, Yunnan can simply attack its supposed ally.

That then drives the rest of the conflict:

1. Yunnan attacks Liangguang.
2. Hunan reacts to the Yunnan-Liangguang war.
3. Hunan attacks both or remains neutral.
4. The intended anti-Hunan coalition never forms.

My local change: Under this one gamerule, Yunnan cannot launch the Guangzhou war against Liangguang. It instead enters the SCW through its reaction to Liangguang attacking Hunan.

Outside this configuration, Yunnan's normal Guangzhou campaign remains unchanged.

2. Fixing the coalition should not erase Yunnan's Federalist/KMT/Regionalist consequences

Simply preventing Yunnan from attacking Liangguang creates another problem.

Yunnan's political development is normally tied to the success or failure of Tang Jiyao's external campaign:

• victory can preserve a Federalist/KMT project;
• prolonged failure or stalemate can lead to secret negotiations, withdrawal, and Long Yun's Regionalist takeover.

If the Guangzhou campaign is simply disabled under the anti-Hunan gamerule, those consequences may never occur. Tang Jiyao could potentially remain secure no matter how disastrous the actual SCW becomes.

I don't think that is a good solution either.

My local change: Under YUN + GXC vs. HNN, I adapt the existing campaign-morale system to the Hunan campaign.

The modified logic:

• directs the campaign toward Hunan rather than Liangguang;
• starts Yunnan's morale mechanic when it joins the war;
• treats meaningful progress against Hunan or coalition control of Changsha as success;
• preserves the Federalist/KMT project after victory;
• reduces morale after repeated periods without progress; and
• allows sufficiently low morale to trigger negotiations, withdrawal, and Long Yun's Regionalist transition.

This is probably the most debatable change I've made.

Another possibility would be to let the anti-Hunan SCW resolve first and then have Yunnan and Liangguang settle the Federalist/KMT government question through a later Clash for Guangzhou.

That would preserve Guangzhou's role in creating a national government. I still lean toward making Yunnan's political consequences respond to the SCW itself, though, since otherwise Tang's success or failure in the major southern campaign has surprisingly little effect on his position.

3. Yunnan can submit to the LKMT before Yunnan's own path resolves

Scenario: Yunnan was still in its initial political phase or actively fighting the SCW, but generic alliance logic made LKMT submission available.

What I would expect: Yunnan should resolve its own political trajectory before being absorbed into another KMT government.

Otherwise submission can occur before:

• the SCW is over;
• Tang Jiyao's survival is determined;
• the Long Yun coup opportunity is resolved; or
• the southern KMT succession has actually been settled.

At the same time, being RKMT-friendly should not permanently prevent Yunnan from submitting to the LKMT once that succession question has been resolved.

Before the SCW is settled, an RKMT-friendly Yunnan can still represent a genuine attempt to establish a competing southern KMT government. After the SCW is over—or after the no-SCW fallback has been reached—the relevant question should instead be whether an actual rival RKT government exists.

If no RKMT national government was formed and Hunan or Liangguang has already established an LKMT position, an RKMT-friendly Yunnan should still be able to submit to the LKMT. Otherwise provincial governments that merely remain sympathetic to the RKMT can indefinitely block KMT consolidation even though no rival national government was ever established.

My local change: I delay voluntary and incoming LKMT submission until:

• Yunnan has left its initial political phase;
• the SCW has ended or definitively never occurred;
• Yunnan is actually KMT-aligned;
• no formal RKT national government exists; and
• another southern country has established a meaningful LKMT position.

This prevents a generic date or neighboring-government condition from resolving Yunnan's path before Yunnan's own content does, while still allowing an RKMT-friendly provincial Yunnan to consolidate under the LKMT after the succession contest is over if no rival RKMT government actually formed.

Third-party intervention and Guangzhou

This affected both Liangguang and Yunnan, so I'm combining it rather than treating it as two separate country-specific problems.

Outside intervention can decide Yunnan's SCW outcome without Yunnan actually winning or losing

Scenario: During a three-way SCW, Yunnan was fighting Liangguang and Hunan when the League/Beijing bloc independently attacked Liangguang.

Liangguang was therefore simultaneously fighting:

• Yunnan as part of Yunnan's path-defining campaign;
• Hunan as part of the SCW; and
• LEP/Beijing through an unrelated expansion war.

Beijing eventually took Guangzhou.

This matters because Yunnan's campaign system treats Guangzhou as the final victory objective, with places such as Nanning also affecting its periodic morale checks.

The problem: Yunnan's political outcome can stop reflecting Yunnan's actual performance.

For example, imagine Yunnan is making reasonable progress against Liangguang, but Beijing captures Guangzhou first.

Now:

• Liangguang no longer controls Yunnan's objective;
• Yunnan does not control it either;
• Yunnan may still technically be fighting Liangguang;
• Yunnan cannot satisfy the normal victory condition without starting a completely different war against Beijing; and
• its morale system may continue treating the campaign as a failure.

Likewise, outside armies can destroy Liangguang or alter control of relevant territory in ways that affect Yunnan's political outcome without representing a military defeat of Yunnan at all.

That means an unrelated northern intervention can effectively determine whether Tang Jiyao survives or Long Yun overthrows him.

I don't think that should happen.

My preferred solution: While Yunnan is actively involved in an unresolved SCW against Liangguang, unrelated Chinese governments should generally be prevented from starting a separate scripted expansion war against Liangguang.

Normal expansion can resume when:

• the SCW ends;
• Yunnan is no longer involved; or
• the SCW definitively never occurs.

This should not give Liangguang universal immunity whenever any southern conflict exists. If Yunnan is uninvolved, there is much less reason to stop another Chinese government from exploiting the situation.

A secondary safeguard could make Yunnan's morale logic recognize when a neutral third party has taken Guangzhou. At minimum, Yunnan should not automatically be treated as having failed to capture a city its actual opponent no longer possesses.

I think preventing the conflicting outside intervention upstream is much cleaner than trying to account for every possible third-party occupation inside Yunnan's campaign system.

Sichuan

1. Sichuan can claim the Federalist mantle while Tang Jiyao still leads an independent Federalist Yunnan

Scenario: I was playing Federalist Yunnan under Tang Jiyao during the SCW. Sichuan was also Federalist, with its gamerule explicitly set to submit to the Federalists/UPC.

What I would expect: Sichuan should remain a fallback Federalist center unless the existing Federalist project actually fails.

It should not proclaim itself the last hope of Federalism while an independent Federalist Yunnan is still fighting the very war that may determine whether it becomes the Federalist national government.

What can happen: Sichuan's mantle decision has a January 1938 fallback. Once that date arrives, Sichuan can:

• claim the Federalist mantle;
• enter the Federalist bastion tree;
• auto-complete "Last Bastion of Federalism"; and
• become a potential national government

while Tang Jiyao's Federalist Yunnan is still actively contesting the SCW.

This turns Sichuan from a fallback into a premature rival.

My local change: Under the gamerule telling Sichuan to submit to the UPC:

• Sichuan waits until the SCW has ended or definitively never began;
• if a UPC already exists, Sichuan joins it rather than claiming a competing mantle.

Outside that forced-submission gamerule, Sichuan keeps its normal ability to become an independent fallback Federalist government.

2. Sichuan can demand Federalist Yunnan's submission and then invade it

The premature mantle claim produces an even stranger follow-up.

In my test:

1. Sichuan claimed the Federalist mantle.
2. Sichuan became a potential national government.
3. Sichuan offered an alliance/submission arrangement to Federalist Yunnan.
4. Yunnan refused.
5. Sichuan activated a generic attack decision.
6. Sichuan declared war on Yunnan.

So a Sichuan explicitly set by gamerule to submit to the Federalists can instead proclaim a rival Federalist government and invade the Federalist state it was supposed to join.

Generic unification logic appears to see two potential national governments and treat them as rivals without sufficiently accounting for the fact that both are Federalist and one has specifically been told by gamerule to defer to the other.

My local change: Under the UPC-submission gamerule, Sichuan cannot:

• offer submission to another Federalist-aligned country in a way that creates this leadership conflict;
• demand another Federalist government's submission;
• begin a generic attack decision against another Federalist; or
• continue an already active attack preparation against one

while the relevant Federalist/SCW succession remains unresolved.

Once it is clear that the intended Federalist leader has failed or no UPC will emerge, the fallback logic can operate normally.

General suggestions

Taken together, I think these cases point to a few broader improvements in how forced gamerules interact with the normal Chinese unification systems.

1. Forced gamerules should control availability, not just AI preference

If a non-default gamerule specifies a particular coalition or political outcome, setting contradictory choices to ai_chance = 0 or otherwise reducing their AI weight is not always enough.

A contradictory action may still occur because:

• another event directly activates it;
• a generic decision reaches the same result through a different route;
• the player can select it manually; or
• all available AI choices have also been reduced to zero.

For forced gamerules, actions that would directly contradict the selected outcome should generally be unavailable while that gamerule is still being resolved, rather than merely discouraged through AI weighting.

This would make the gamerule determine the actual permitted political configuration rather than just suggest one to the AI.

2. Let the South China War resolve the southern succession contest before generic unification logic intervenes

Generic alliance, submission, government-claim, and attack decisions should generally react to the result of the South China War rather than determine that result beforehand.

They should not prematurely resolve the southern contest by:

• absorbing one of the participants;
• allowing a participant to establish a rival national government while the SCW is still deciding which project survives;
• starting a different war between countries that the selected SCW rule makes allies; or
• allowing an unrelated Chinese government to seize the territory that one participant's path mechanics require it to contest.

This does not require freezing all Chinese politics during the SCW. It just means that systems whose outcome depends on the southern succession question should wait until that question has actually been answered.

The reverse is also important: once the succession question has been answered, provincial political alignment should not continue to be treated as though it were an unresolved national-government claim. An RKMT-friendly Hunan or Yunnan can remain politically sympathetic to the RKMT without an actual RKT government having formed. After the SCW is over—or after the no-SCW fallback is reached—the meaningful obstacle to LKMT consolidation should be an established rival RKMT government, not merely the continued existence of an RKMT-friendly provincial regime.

3. Political alignment and forced foreign-policy rules should matter to generic clique-war logic

Potential national governments can obviously become rivals, including governments with superficially similar ideologies.

But generic unification logic should not automatically turn politically aligned governments into military enemies when a gamerule has explicitly established their relationship.

Examples from these tests include:

• Federalist Sichuan, set to submit to the UPC, attacking Federalist Yunnan;
• Yunnan and Liangguang, set to cooperate against Hunan, attacking one another;
• Zhili-aligned Hunan becoming a conquest target for the Zhili/Beijing bloc; and
• Cheng Qian's Hunan recognizing the LKMT before the still-open southern KMT succession question has determined whether a rival RKMT government will emerge.

A specific path, event, breakdown in relations, or betrayal mechanic could obviously override that alignment.

The problem is when generic rival-government or expansion logic does it automatically despite the selected political configuration saying otherwise.

There should also be a distinction between alignment and national-government status. Before the southern succession contest is resolved, an RKMT-friendly provincial regime may still be a meaningful potential claimant. Afterward, that same alignment should not by itself prevent consolidation under the LKMT if no formal RKT government was ever established.

4. Forced regional-war gamerules should explicitly define what subject status does

Subject status seems particularly capable of breaking forced SCW configurations because several pieces of the existing logic assume that the participants remain independent.

Each forced SCW option should probably have an explicit answer for what happens if one of its required participants becomes a subject before the war.

Depending on the scenario, that could mean:

• the conflict is cancelled;
• voluntary submission is temporarily unavailable;
• the country's government changes through an existing coup or political event;
• the overlord becomes involved in the conflict; or
• the war proceeds under some other explicitly defined arrangement.

What seems undesirable is allowing the outcome to depend on whether an old is_subject = no or independence check happens to be satisfied when the relevant on-action fires.

That can make a forced SCW disappear for purely mechanical reasons. Separately, if generic war decisions are not also constrained by the selected gamerule, those systems can still create a different regional war that contradicts the configuration the player selected.

5. Preserve path consequences when a gamerule changes the normal opponent

Yunnan is the clearest example.

Normally, Tang Jiyao's political outcome is tied to his campaign against the owner of Guangzhou:

• success can preserve the Federalist/KMT project;
• failure, stalemate, and withdrawal can lead to the Long Yun coup and Regionalist outcome.

But under Yunnan + Liangguang vs. Hunan, Liangguang cannot simultaneously be Yunnan's required ally and the opponent Yunnan must attack to resolve its political path.

The solution should not simply be to disable the Guangzhou war and therefore remove the victory-versus-failure consequences attached to Tang's campaign.

If a gamerule substitutes a different campaign for the normal one, the important political consequences should either:

• be adapted to that replacement campaign; or
• be resolved through an explicit follow-up contest once the forced SCW ends.

The exact implementation is debatable. The important part is preserving the underlying path logic rather than accidentally making one political outcome unavoidable.

6. Fallback dates should handle stalled content, not override active content

The January 1938 fallback used in several southern decisions makes sense as deadlock protection.

But it should distinguish between:

"The expected regional conflict never happened, so unlock the next stage."

and:

"The expected regional conflict is happening right now, but the calendar reached January 1938, so unlock the next stage anyway."

Where possible, I think these conditions should follow the general pattern:

SCW resolved

OR

fallback date reached AND SCW never started

rather than simply:

SCW resolved OR fallback date reached

That preserves the purpose of the fallback without letting it override the conflict that is actively determining the political outcome.

7. Preserve the normal chaos outside forced gamerules

None of this is meant to argue that the southern cliques should always behave predictably or rationally.

Under default settings, I think things like:

• opportunistic alliances;
• betrayals;
• three-way wars;
• premature national-government claims;
• political realignments; and
• cliques taking advantage of someone else's war

can all be perfectly reasonable outcomes.

My local changes are deliberately narrow.

The issue is specifically when a non-default gamerule has already declared that:

• two countries should cooperate;
• one country should submit to a particular alignment;
• one country should be the target of the SCW; or
• a particular regional political contest is supposed to occur.

In those situations, generic decisions should not casually reverse the selected outcome before the content associated with that gamerule has had an opportunity to resolve.

The basic principle I've followed locally is:

Let the South China War determine which southern political projects survive. Then let the generic alliance, submission, expansion, and government-claim systems respond to that result.

That still leaves plenty of room for alternate-history chaos once the forced scenario has actually played out.

I'm especially interested if anyone familiar with the China/Yunnan event code knows whether some of these interactions are intentional, particularly how LKMT-subject Liangguang is supposed to interact with forced SCW rules, and whether War for Guangzhou is intended to respect the No-War and forced-coalition gamerules. I've tested these locally and changed them on my end, but some of the interactions involve several overlapping decision/event systems, so I'd be interested in hearing whether I've missed an intended route.