Anderkav wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 7:22 pm
McGuba
I understand why you would want to move away from politics, but it seems to me that unfortunately (or fortunately) this is not possible.
Basically, Panzer Corps is not well equipped to really detail with politics, and particularly the politics of totalitarian rule or democide. Panzer Corps 2 has dabbled with it a bit more and I do remember the DMP had one rather ambitious perspective to do it more wholly, but the latter collapsed without too much progress (Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa seems to be one of the better ways I've seen of handling this, ditto Cauldrons of War).
Anderkav wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 7:22 pm
Soviet prisoners of war, as well as ordinary citizens of the Soviet Union, were an important part of this war machine. Starting from loading and unloading operations and work at various heavy enterprises(coal industry, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, etc.). Even the same Atlantic rampart was also built by the hands of prisoners. You can also recall the export of various resources from the territory of the Union(such as grain or even chernozem (soil)). All this helped to maintain both the economy and the social situation in Germany at a good level. A chivalrous war as with the allies in North Africa was impossible.
Sure, but most of this happens in the background, in the stuff you are generally not directly controlling. In much the same way that you do not see the similar (though smaller) depredations the Reich inflicted on Western civilians to that effect in Vanilla or most mods (including in the WWI mod where you had the Hindenburg Programme). Logically the player's avatar would still be complicit in these crimes, but a lot of them are simply beneath the notice of the game's interface or action.
Similar to how you don't simulate out the abuse of prisoners, looting (or worse) of villages, etc. as your units advance over hexes. That's stuff that just- for lack of a better word- "happens."
It's not the nicest solution but it does simplify stuff a lot, as well as make things a bit more sanitized- unduly as it may be- for the average player who doesn't want to face the full ramifications of what totalitarian exploitation is like.
It's important not to FORGET it too thoroughly or go with the "Clean Wehrmacht/etc" view of history in reality, but for what's ultimately fictional entertainment I can understand, much like why "Russia at War", "Soviet Storm"< or the Big Map scenarios for PCHAS and the Kaiserschlacht don't touch much on that.
There's also the side issue that in addition to a lot of the atrocities involved being impossible to accurately represent on a map the scale of Battlefield Europe (I mean I could see you being able to simulate massacre of say a village on a small scale, by making a bunch of unarmed/defenseless "enemy" to represent civilians, but that isn't easy to make work in a Grand Strategic Wargame), a lot are not handled. When you order a unit to get resupplied at the Eastern Front, you're mostly giving the orders for that. The fact that this will probably mean your guys going out, violently conscripting a bunch of local civilians to help them offload the supplies and ferry them to your one, and then having your support staff put it back together is pretty far beneath your notice and paygrade. You just ordered the action done and it got done.
The Banality of Evil is overused and often misunderstood (in particular Arendt really misunderstood much of what Eichmann's deal was) but it is quite the thing.
