Taking the decision should also impose a research speed debuff on the country in question.
Historically fascist powers have always suffered considerable brain drain that liberal democracies have benefitted from. The Axis powers were technologically behind the Allies in nearly every regard for most of the war (outside of a handful of niche areas).
In terms of balance it also gives a lot more of an incentive to play as a democratic country outside of role-play or focus trees.
The numbers would have to be pretty small on that debuff because every democracy in the world taking that decision would be a pretty goofy debuff otherwise.
Same with the buff, really, depending on the number of fascist countries. It would also make sense if the amount scaled by the industry of the country, since German scientists are going to have much more of an impact than El Salvadorian scientists, for example.
Currently, the allies benefit technologically both from being able to sustain better trade laws and getting the potential +10% combined from both Germany and Italy, in addition to the US getting 6 tech slots on top of that. I think the game as is does a decent job of modelling the allies having better research potential.
Yeah I think reducing the size of the buff/debuff would be pretty reasonable. Maybe 2-3% instead of 5, or have it scaled by the country in question.
I think a nice middle ground is reducing the bonus to 5% but letting it apply to Hungary as well, since several key scientists of the Manhattan project were Hungarian émigrés. To my understanding the Hungarian refugee scientists were actually more significant in both numbers and wartime contribution than the Germans
Or better still, change the bonus to be specific to the US and give the US a boost to nuclear special project speed with all three decisions, since AFAIK nearly all of the exile scientists of note were primarily contributing to the Manhattan Project. Plus they can get Bohr when Denmark gets occupied
One way to balance it would be that countries can take the decision, but the actual effect takes a while to happen, and there’s essentially a timer for scientists fleeing, and where it ends up can differ.
Idk I think the extra 10% research in exchange for 10% stability is good as is.
No need to try and fix a system that already works fine. Allied countries already get enough buffs, there’s no need to add an extra x% of research on top of that.
As to the question of debuffs, most scientists were fired/forced out, regardless of them being hired by an other country or not. So tying a debuff to the decision wouldn’t make much sense
I don’t think the stability debuff makes any sense. Attracting German and Italian political exiles was not hugely controversial before the war, nevermind scientists in particular.
It’s not a question of historicity, it’s a question of balance
A free 10% reassrch buff without a debuff would be broken as hell
It cost pp
Research speed is one of, if not the most powerful modifier in the game, because equipment stats scale rather quickly with upgrades. 200pp for +10% research is a no-brainer. I have, however, passed the opportunity when stability is borderline as is. With the stab hit it becomes a choice, therefore I'd say it's a better balance that simply a pp cost.
They should nerf the research buff, 2% instead of 5. Stab hit is nonsensical.
Historical accuracy doesn’t rlly equal a better game IMO so I think we should just leave it because the nonhistorical paths are so inaccurate anyways. It would make the allies stronger and the axis less fun
My argument is that it also makes it a better game though. The game has basically been a sandbox for fascist countries since release. It makes sense in both terms of both realism, fun and balance that going fascist should impose costs that democracies get to benefit from.
Wdym? Democracy has benefits over fascist nations in every way. They’re worse because they can’t expand
The only concrete, ideology-specific benefits of Democracy are the ability to host Governments-in-Exile (in practice giving you a handful of elite divisions, but hampered by the AI's shoddy division designs), a situational occupation law, and the Relief of Command army spirit, which is admittedly powerful but becomes basically pointless once you have a reliable supply of Army XP.
In return for this you get far less freedom to actually influence the world, and far lower rewards for your actions since you can't even create full puppets. The way the game is balanced of course makes it so that the democratic majors will almost inevitably win against the Axis absent player intervention, but this is almost entirely down to focus trees, manpower, industrial capacity, and not having to commit 80% of its land forces in a different front. In terms of actual direct benefits democracy is far and away the weakest ideology in the game
thank you for rewriting my comment
Doesn't look to me like "democracy has benefits over fascism in every way". In fact I listed the only three things that it does do better.
(Man, I hope this comment doesn't get read out of context someday lol)
I was saying they have benefits on everything except expansion and they really do
Uh yes this my exact point. I’m saying democracies should have a better ability to counteract this
it doesnt
There’s a version of this in the game already: UK, US (and maybe some other countries?) have decisions to give refugee to Axis scientists. AFAIK it costs 100 pp per Axis major.
I know, I’m talking about changes to the existing decision
"Historically fascist powers have always suffered..."
How many fascist powers are we talking about here, and how long of a historical baseline could you possibly have?
That's like saying "Historically South Sudan has always been a member of the UN..."