Navigating Turkey’s Sectarian Woes: A Guide to State Management
A recent question on Reddit sparked an in-depth exploration of Turkey’s intricate state management mechanics in Hearts of Iron IV. This guide, focusing on the Ottoman path, aims to illuminate the complexities of navigating sectarianism and achieving national unity.
Exploiting the System: Securing Ataturk’s Legacy
- Strategic Timing: A unique exploit exists within the game’s mechanics. By postponing elections until the option to retire Ataturk arises, players can retire him and subsequently select the "Assess Our Future" focus. This maneuver grants the player the beneficial "Legacy of Ataturk," despite deviating from the historical path. This exploit hinges on the focus’s coding, requiring Ataturk’s absence and preventing the negative outcome associated with the Fundamentalist Democratic leader.
Early Game: Balancing Fundamentalism and Opposition
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Fundamentalist State Management: The initial phase presents players with the "Fundamentalist State Management" mechanic. The "Initiate Counter-Fundamentalist Operation" decision, available every 90 days, offers a chance to reduce fundamentalist opposition within a state, potentially shifting it from insurgency to sedition, and finally to mere opposition. There’s also a small chance of placating the fundamentalists, changing their modifier to a positive one. However, be wary of the equally likely chance of increasing opposition. Meanwhile, Kurdish states will periodically experience rising opposition, requiring careful management. On-map decisions, while offering interaction with Kurdish sentiment, often yield unpredictable results.
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Asserting Dominance: An important observation, at least when playing with historical AI, is the Soviet Union’s tendency to back down from confrontations. This presents an opportunity to adopt a more assertive foreign policy, pushing for favorable outcomes rather than resorting to compromises.
Mid-Game: Navigating Political Reforms
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Ratifying the Six Arrows: Upon enacting the "Ratify the Six Arrows" focus, a new set of decisions, collectively known as "Law 3115," become available. Among these, the "Secularism" decision offers a 50% chance of either bolstering Kemalist support in a neutral state or diminishing opposition within a fundamentalist one. However, this decision, usable every 60 days, is generally not recommended for those pursuing a fundamentalist path. A more effective strategy will be presented later.
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Lifting the Ban on Political Parties: Lifting the ban triggers a series of events, some impacting state flags. While most events have minimal impact on state alignment, those pursuing the Ottoman path should prioritize choices favoring Democrats and Fundamentalists. This is crucial as it influences the crucial voter fraud event, essentially forcing a choice between stability loss and increased fundamentalist opposition. Note that this event also temporarily disables the decisions mentioned in point 2.
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State Modifier Overview: By this stage, the typical state modifier landscape comprises Kemalist Loyalist states with bonuses, Kurdish Insurgency states with maluses, Traditionalist (fundamentalist) opposition states with maluses, and potentially some placated fundamentalist states with minor bonuses. Neutral states might also persist depending on earlier choices.
Late Game: Consolidating Fundamentalist Control
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Embracing Fundamentalism: Opting for the Democrats in the elections unlocks a modified "Fundamentalist State Management" mechanic. This iteration introduces the "Empower Fundamentalists" decision, allowing for the upgrade of "Placated Traditionalist" modifiers to the more potent "Devout Traditionalists" every 120 days. Additionally, the "Law 3115" decisions are altered, replacing "Secularism" with the superior "Jihad" decision. This new option functions similarly to "Empower Fundamentalists" but boasts a shorter cooldown of 100 days. Furthermore, "The Enemy Within" decision category becomes available, granting access to the "Increase Influence of Fundamentalists" decision. This powerful tool, usable every 45 days, spreads fundamentalist (placated) sentiment in unaligned or neutral states. Utilizing these three decisions strategically allows for widespread bonuses across most states, except those previously aligned with Kemalists or Kurds.
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The Price of Miletim Adami: While Kemalist states continue to provide bonuses initially, enacting the "Miletim Adami" focus shifts their stance to hostile, turning their bonuses into maluses. This, coupled with the persistent maluses from fundamentalist opposition states, creates a challenging period where only a handful of placated fundamentalist states offer bonuses. To counter this, the "Kemalist State Management" mechanic and its associated "Root Out Kemalists" decision (usable every 75 days) become invaluable. This decision targets Kemalist schemers, the first level of opposition, effectively weakening their national focus impact.
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Regional Elections and Kurdish Integration: Permitting regional elections marks a turning point in mitigating sectarian strife. This action pacifies all fundamentalist opposition states and unlocks decisions to integrate the Kurds, leaving only Kemalist states as sources of maluses. This also partially alleviates the negative effects of "Sectarian Woes."
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The Purge and the Choice: Initiating the "Purge the Officers" focus triggers the civil war, with states possessing Kemalist modifiers likely joining the rebellion. Interestingly, a coding quirk results in the loss of access to both "Kemalist State Management" and "Fundamentalist State Management" decisions if Adnan Menderes is not in power. However, both mechanics are restored upon selecting the "Pivot to the Past" focus.
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The Final Purge and a Lingering Issue: The "Purge the Remaining Kemalists" decision eliminates all Kemalist state modifiers. However, a critical limitation prevents the establishment of fundamentalist support in former Kemalist and Kurdish states. This limitation stems from the "neutrality flag" requirement for fundamentalist support. While removing Kemalist and Kurdish opposition eliminates their respective modifiers, it fails to apply the crucial neutrality flag. Therefore, maximizing fundamentalist states necessitates ensuring that all decisions impacting neutral states, and consequently removing their neutrality, favor fundamentalism.
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The Limits of Mitigation: Despite successfully navigating the complexities of state management, completely eradicating the "Sectarian Woes" malus proves impossible. The weaker version of the malus persists even after integrating Kurdish states, hinting at a potential bug within the "Permit Regional Elections" event chain.
Conclusion
Successfully navigating Turkey’s intricate state management system demands a nuanced understanding of its mechanics and a willingness to exploit its quirks. By strategically timing decisions, manipulating opposition levels, and capitalizing on available tools, players can overcome sectarian challenges and guide Turkey towards a brighter future.
