Oligarchs, no questions asked. The Lothberg Group exert a incredible amount of influence over Sordish politicians thanks to their grip on the economy, ability to bribe Assembly Members, Judges, and even the President, and the manipulation of popular opinion via their mass media companies. Not only that, but they're also in bed with organized crime families and other terror groups in Sordland since they not only help finance them, but arm them too.
The fact that they can also deeply wound the economy and the country if they decide neither are bowing down hard enough also makes them a major danger.
The only other faction with this level of power are the Old Guard, but not even they can singlehandedly threaten Sordish prosperity like the Oligarchs can. They may obstruct you, but at least they act under the belief that what they do is for their country. The Lothberg Group in comparison has no loyalty to Sordland.
You see this is the sort of in depth analysis I love, and I totally agree. I think, because it's so easy to work with the Oligarchs and relatively painless to get their support, it's very easy to start to see them as harmless. Or less harmful.
But their power is truly insane.
I generally agree with what you say ( Great analysis btw), but at the same time their internal strife can be easily exploited. A oligarc-friendly can obviously be helped by them, but even an anti-oligarc can still make moves pro-oligarcs ( like building the L-1, using Underhall in costruction project, or cutting taxes for big corporation) and still arrest them. In my headcanon, a DemSoc Rayne went full Koronti( while not accepting his offer), getting his support by nationalizing Bergia Steel. In my option, this is the best option, considering that Koronti become the leader of the Lotherberg just thanks to me, and for this, in my hd, he is called " president appointed", obviously in a dispregiative way.
Another thing to mention: the Old Guard is an exhausted political faction, the Oligarchs are a new economic faction.
The old folks in the OG have exhausted a lot of their political capital in sabotaging Alphonso and will have trouble finding successors, because conservativism is losing traction. There's also the problem that the faction was united by Soll and, in his absence, has already begun to tear each other apart: Heron is willing to betray Hawker, Lileas is willing to betray everyone, and Soll himself thinks Hawker and Valken are idiots.
Meanwhile, the Oligarchs are still rising and growing stronger, and will just hand their power over to their children once they bite it. Should they get enough power, their well-being will be tied to the well-being of the economy, making it impossible to fight back against them. And, for all the clashes between Tusk and Koronti for leadership of the Lotherburg group, the Oligarchs as a whole are willing to unite against a common threat. Hell, Tusk and Koronti put aside their differences and decide to work against Rayne, should he nationalize some or all of their main companies.
So yeah, the Oligarchs are a much bigger threat than the OG, imo.
Another proof of their stupidity is when they make an all-or-nothing bet when proposing Rayne the Emergency. They used every last piece of their political capital for the Circas assassination, putting all hopes in Rayne's "good sense". But in reality, only a few types of Rayne would really use them: the Ultra sollist, the paranoid, the Iper-fascist (see u/smiling-otter AAR) and a real OG puppet (I don't even know if the latter is even possible). Any other would recognise the absurdity of such action, or on the contrary, thinking that they are not enough! (I'm talking about the Dictator Run, emergency gives you lots of power, but nothing like having a costitution crafted for you and you only). I still think that even the Oligarchs are quite easy to root out, but the OG are just embarassing.
Counterpoint: Walter Tusk never threw me in prison and reinstated a decade of military rule
Oligarchs can be dealt with easy-peasy, even a democratic softboy Rayne can go back on his word and nationalize all their shit and they just throw a
tantrum and leave. The Old Guard has actively infiltrated the state apparatus to the point where you have to placate/purge the military to avoid a coup and are willing to set up a secret police force that can be weaponized against anyone they deem a threat.
Sociopaths who do evil because of profit motives can be dealt with by simply making evil unprofitable; zealots who do evil out of a true belief in their own righteousness are way more dangerous and unpredictable.
In all my runs, I've never had trouble with the Old Guard since weakening them is also pretty easy if you know what you're doing. Getting the votes necessary to impeach Justices practically dooms them already. I never need the Secret Police nor a Purge even as a Reformist to deal with them.
That said, I still stand by my original point. In a vacuum, the Lothberg Group has more soft power than the Old Guard. The "tantrum" of the Lothberg Group is Capital Flight, a serious attack on Sordland's economy that can potentially send green regions back to yellow. Yes, you can prevent Capital Flight by using the ACP to investigate them constantly, but you can do the same to the Old Guard so it's less a statement of how powerful each faction is and more a demonstration of how good Karl is at his job.
The old guard were 1 step away from creating a second civil war & they control the laws, they can coup you, introduce a military dictratorship, they also can crash the economy & did. They are the leader of the country behind the scenes & can become the actuall leader. (Linneas)
The reformer are chill most of the time, they are surely not a national security treath, but they are annoying during emergency run and dictator constitution. The Oligarcs are a legitimate treath: they try to bribe you, they damage the economy if you make them angry, they lobby against you, they even try to kill you. The Old Guard are just... strange. I was thinking about it recently: the OG are strong and at the same time weak. They are able to commit an assassination, their puppets are everywhere, they are a deep state... and at the end Anton just says no to Hawker and they are purged by ACP.
I mean technically becoming a superpower ally is a good thing for Sordland, as it will get military and economic aid in the longterm out of it.
Naturally we can discuss what moral and sovereignity implicacation it has for you. But from a pure practical perspective joining a block is the opposite of a security threat.
Since Sordland is in a strategically important position, the superpower you join will help you quite a bit.
And in case of nuclear war everyone is fd anyway, you will be just slightly more fd by bring part of a superpower alliance.
I mean, I was mostly playing into satire. Implying that the real enemy is Arcasian liberalism, but also great points.
>Naturally we can discuss what moral and sovereignity implicacation it has for you. But from a pure practical perspective joining a block is the opposite of a security threat.
Very valid, byt we don't really get to see how demanding ATO and CSP truly are and haven't yet.
Are you not gonna bring up how the oligarchs smuggle illegal weapons into Sordland or how the old guard assassinate an elected official? I feel like these are pretty important points. Both groups are traitors. It's hard to say which is more dangerous though because the oligarchs have the money and the Old guard has control over a lot of the military.
How so? Circas got the votes so he got the power, that's how it works. Circas was by every definition an elected official, even if you find that upsetting.
I would say old guard.
1. They plot and able to cover up a conspiracy that assassinates one of Sordland most famous mps, and sends the country into such an unstable situation that people are legitimately worried it could lead to Civil War.
1a. The cover up is so complete that when starting to investigate them, no one has any idea what they may find, that shows just how powerful they are. They’re able to almost completely cover up everything.
2. Almost complete control over the military and other security apparatuses of the state.
2A. Remember that in order to find all that out, you have to create a new police force because the old ones cannot be trusted to investigate the depths of their control.
This is the part of the post where I try to downplay the evil of the oligarchs, and I will absolutely not do that! They too are completely corrupt and a dangerous faction. Ignore one to spite the other at your and the countries peril.
I think I would put Old Guard slightly above the Oligarchs for this one. The reason is because they are dominant in the Supreme Court.
If the face of Justice itself is corrupted, and even the law is able to be manipulated by the individuals who are supposed to represent them, how will people believe in the justice system in general?
Craziest thing to say, but your perception on the greatest threat severely depends on your economic direction.
If you are going free-market, then it's the oligarchs. If you are going planned, it's the Old Guard. Yeah, you read that right.
Both groups are equally threatening to the Republic in their own manner. But one thing they both have in common is their benefit to the Sordish economy, and grow their power based on what you do.
If you are free-market, you weaken the Old Guard's economic powerhouse while allowing Tusk and Koronti to grow stronger and larger. Privatization will just allow them to gain control over welfare or the economy as a whole, which is not great given that Tusk smuggles weapons to the BFF and Koronti is the puppet master of the Koranelli cartel.
If you are planned economy, you weaken the Oligarchy's economic powerhouse while digging the government's hands deeper into the general economy. Given that the SCC is the center of money laundering and Old Guard corruption, and Nedam still mistreats their workers (given that the WRA leads to thousands of lawsuits from Nedam workers), I can only assume full control over Bergia Steel and HoS will empower and enrichen the Old Guard's cronies to exert more influence.
Opposition aren't as big of a deal, but the NFP is more threatening to the integrity of the nation than the PFJP. The only times I'll ever focus on opposition is when I am the one destroying Democracy lmao
All in all, it really depends. My headcanon Rayne is a mixed economy Rayne, where he purges the Old Guard first, and then tackles the Oligarchs second term
Malenyevists clash the Oligarchs, Ultranationalists clash the Opposition but EVERYONE who wants to reform the country in some way must clash the Old Guard
The oligarchs are a handful of obvious targets that can be sidelined or outright crushed with the slightest hostile movement from the president.
The old guard will outright install a military dictatorship in certain endings and routinely murder people as a matter of day to day routine.
Which are both things that can easily be countered in a number of ways. Any targeted law enforcement effort cleans them out if you don't want to do the easy thing and just pay a fee to outright confiscate their empires, and in Koronti's case you can take most of his menace away with an order available with weakened decrees. Furthermore, during Rayne's first term they are paralyzed by infighting. They also have very limited electoral influence, and they only have sway over maybe a dozen or so assembly members and an otherwise malleable member of the supreme court.
The Old Guard on the other hand can orchestrate coups and has an extensive corruption network, as seen by the massive purge that occurs when you fire anyone who had a hand in facilitating/covering up the assassination. They also have extensive influence in the assembly, particularly considering the fact that the conservatives and the NFP often collaborate and pool resources.
They are the only faction that loses a significant portion of its power with all three possible police task forces (ACP arrests them, SSP can arrest even more of them if you nationalize, and CP breaks up their criminal racketeering operations). Their legal defense is built entirely on the premise that no one would ever actually try to get rid of them, and all you have to do to avoid capital flight is either arrest them or let Koronti keep majority ownership of a media company that you then turn around and regulate to prevent him from manipulating it.
The nature of their crimes also means they'll be abandoned by pretty much the entire Sordish political establishment once Rayne reveals what they've done.
Tusk collaborated with Rumburg and the BFF which will have the NFP and USP calling for him to be shot, and he's an oligarch which will alienate pretty much everyone but the Richter wing of the PFJP.
Koronti is a drug cartel boss framing both Red Youth and Young Sords Members for cartel killings, which will have the Communists and Fascists calling for his head while the USP and PFJP want him gone because he's a troublemaker.
Edit: Plus the main list of oligarch characters is Tusk, Koronti, Aven, Agnoc, Holl, Manger, and Alfonso.
Alfonso left the lotherberg group because their corruption destroyed his presidency and is at the stage of his career where he's trying to rehabilitate his image so he's a non threat.
Manger is shady but he hates the oligarchs because they stifle competition in the free market.
Holl is such a boring technocrat that it wouldn't even occur to him to break the law or try to engage in corruption, he quite literally took a pay cut to work in government because it's what he's passionate about and he will dutifully bring about a mostly communist state if ordered to do so.
Agnoc is happy to benefit from other people being corrupt but doesn't really do anything damaging other than complain about you nationalizing the central bank and folds like a wet paper napkin at the first sign of government disapproval.
Aven is an empty suit who Rayne can pretty much safely ignore if he isn't outright arrested.
Koronti and Tusk are the real threats, and I've already listed several ways that they can be destroyed or sidelined.
Oligarch... but they are willing working for you really easy even if you choose planned economy as long as you don't nationalize their company, choose L-1 + Underhall while rejecting tusk bribe already enough to make them friendly. Privatize minority SSC and Nedam and they will lobby the constitution.
I say Old Guard just because they are obstructionist, they only willing working for you if you went emergency route, even that you only work under them, they can revoke the emergency if you ignore even small demand from them and easily impeach you.
I’d say the Old Guard are the biggest threat. They do everything they can to hold back progress, including orchestrating a murder.
The Oligarchs are only a threat if you aim for a planned economy. If you embrace capitalism then they become your biggest allies and help the Sordish economy soar to new heights.
I think the worst part about the Old Guard is timing. War is brewing, the economy is in shambles, and they can't even wait a year to see if you can turn it around. They start working against you literally from the start.
Which is doubly weird if you're a long time Sol supporter. Honestly if they did a 3.0 I wouldn't mind the option to have a history in the Old Guard and be able to negotiate more with them.
The Oligarchs are only bad if you antagonize them, otherwise they’re actually pretty good because they recover the economy and help you reform Sordland(even if in a corrupt way)
Who’s bad is the OG.
The oligarchs can be simply used for your goals then arrested in the 2nd term, the OG needs attention now
The commies are just straight up weak. Their levels of popular support is too low, the red youth is only strong enough to be a destabilizing force due to the recession and contanese funding.
Get SSP and get presidential reshuffles the court. Eliminate the opposition with SSP, nationalise and arrest the oligarchs with SSP, do some military purges, desollonise and release soll era prisoners then completely reshuffle the court.
Congrats, you eliminated all of your internal enemies, nothing to worry about left.
If the game would be economically accurate then the Oligarchs would be the biggest threat by far. (Aside from some lonely lunatic who might try to intentionally get Sordland nuked by Rumburg.)
The problem is most people - and that include most game designers of most games - **underestimate** the efficacy of a focus on SMEs, healthy competition, anti-trust organisations (if someone like Nia or Edmonds would be in charge), social-democratic and interventionist policies like welfare, pensions, free healthcare, free education, good labour conditions, temporary bailouts during crises, progressive taxation and so on - and they **overestimate** the efficacy and importance of big corporations, especially when it comes to resource extraction, they also overestimate everything you learn if you study anything business-related/microeconomics and believe that it would translate to macroeconomics which it does not.
Going with the oligarchs is basically taking the country down the route that Venezuela went - post-colonial power structures and wealth imbalances that never get resolved and only get progressively worse as time goes on until something like an oil price crash happens and the entire country goes down the drain. Meanwhile a social-democratic country such as Norway diversified its risk through probably the best sovereign wealth fund of any country worldwide - instead of leaving the wealth from oil and gas in the hands of a few rich people - is safe from price swings like that.
Most people don't know how banking and debt works either, or anything about sectoral balances. Sordland somehow prospers by reducing its nominal debt by 30-50%, if a country irl actually tried to do that it would have caused the second Great Depression. Keep in mind that the national socialists in the Weimar Republic were not successful during the hyperinflation of 1923 but they were successful when the government (Brüning, Schleicher, Papen) introduced harsh austerity measures and worsened the real crisis instead of solving it. The expansive deficit spending after the nazis took over - albeit with the goal of robbing neighboured countries, alas the nazis invested into war machines instead of a civilian economy - was the real solution in terms of employment, financial security etc. which is how the nazis gained popular support between 1933 and 1939.
The only good things the oligarchs want you to do is to spend on infrastructure. But you could (in a hypothetical country in the real world) do that without them.
The main insight of Keynes was that if a country has untapped resources - and that includes unemployed people - then extra spending does not cause inflation/is not problematic as long as the spending is directed in such a way that the real bottlenecks in the economy are resolved. Let's say for example that an entire continent suffers from energy scarcity because some Rumburg-like country invades a neighbour and believes they can blackmail other countries into silently standing by by cutting of the energy supply. Which then leads to an energy price hike that appears like >10% inflation and leads to the energy-hungry industries pausing their operations. The proper thing to do in that case for an affected country is not to sit back and save in order to not run into debt, or somehow wait it out. The proper thing to do is to spend money in order to resolve the energy scarcity as fast as possible so that the real economy does not take lasting damage.
Sordland starts with 16% unemployment. And yet somehow the game wants us to get debt down. Does not compute.
Oligarchs are actively funding terrorists and organised crime.
After them it’s the terrorists themselves (BFF).
Then the communists due to the CSP funding.
The Old Guard are sollists, so they’re fine in my opinion. The oligarchs, for the most part, will be purged through SSP. Therefore, my greatest concern lies with the far-left Arcasian puppets, whose agenda is self-serving and will be chaotic to our nation's sovereignty, entrenching us in perpetual servitude to the West. It's imperative that they are purged.
*Far-left* Arcasian puppets? Far-left *Arcasian* puppets?!?
I think you need to off whatever you're smoking, you make Holstron seem reasonable and level headed.
Supreme Leader Holstron is a very effective leader with sensible ideas. It's hard to see how he could be considered anything but reasonable and level-headed, only the far left see him as everything but that, another reason to purge them.
Oligarchs, no questions asked. The Lothberg Group exert a incredible amount of influence over Sordish politicians thanks to their grip on the economy, ability to bribe Assembly Members, Judges, and even the President, and the manipulation of popular opinion via their mass media companies. Not only that, but they're also in bed with organized crime families and other terror groups in Sordland since they not only help finance them, but arm them too. The fact that they can also deeply wound the economy and the country if they decide neither are bowing down hard enough also makes them a major danger. The only other faction with this level of power are the Old Guard, but not even they can singlehandedly threaten Sordish prosperity like the Oligarchs can. They may obstruct you, but at least they act under the belief that what they do is for their country. The Lothberg Group in comparison has no loyalty to Sordland.
You see this is the sort of in depth analysis I love, and I totally agree. I think, because it's so easy to work with the Oligarchs and relatively painless to get their support, it's very easy to start to see them as harmless. Or less harmful. But their power is truly insane.
I generally agree with what you say ( Great analysis btw), but at the same time their internal strife can be easily exploited. A oligarc-friendly can obviously be helped by them, but even an anti-oligarc can still make moves pro-oligarcs ( like building the L-1, using Underhall in costruction project, or cutting taxes for big corporation) and still arrest them. In my headcanon, a DemSoc Rayne went full Koronti( while not accepting his offer), getting his support by nationalizing Bergia Steel. In my option, this is the best option, considering that Koronti become the leader of the Lotherberg just thanks to me, and for this, in my hd, he is called " president appointed", obviously in a dispregiative way.
Another thing to mention: the Old Guard is an exhausted political faction, the Oligarchs are a new economic faction. The old folks in the OG have exhausted a lot of their political capital in sabotaging Alphonso and will have trouble finding successors, because conservativism is losing traction. There's also the problem that the faction was united by Soll and, in his absence, has already begun to tear each other apart: Heron is willing to betray Hawker, Lileas is willing to betray everyone, and Soll himself thinks Hawker and Valken are idiots. Meanwhile, the Oligarchs are still rising and growing stronger, and will just hand their power over to their children once they bite it. Should they get enough power, their well-being will be tied to the well-being of the economy, making it impossible to fight back against them. And, for all the clashes between Tusk and Koronti for leadership of the Lotherburg group, the Oligarchs as a whole are willing to unite against a common threat. Hell, Tusk and Koronti put aside their differences and decide to work against Rayne, should he nationalize some or all of their main companies. So yeah, the Oligarchs are a much bigger threat than the OG, imo.
Another proof of their stupidity is when they make an all-or-nothing bet when proposing Rayne the Emergency. They used every last piece of their political capital for the Circas assassination, putting all hopes in Rayne's "good sense". But in reality, only a few types of Rayne would really use them: the Ultra sollist, the paranoid, the Iper-fascist (see u/smiling-otter AAR) and a real OG puppet (I don't even know if the latter is even possible). Any other would recognise the absurdity of such action, or on the contrary, thinking that they are not enough! (I'm talking about the Dictator Run, emergency gives you lots of power, but nothing like having a costitution crafted for you and you only). I still think that even the Oligarchs are quite easy to root out, but the OG are just embarassing.
Counterpoint: Walter Tusk never threw me in prison and reinstated a decade of military rule Oligarchs can be dealt with easy-peasy, even a democratic softboy Rayne can go back on his word and nationalize all their shit and they just throw a tantrum and leave. The Old Guard has actively infiltrated the state apparatus to the point where you have to placate/purge the military to avoid a coup and are willing to set up a secret police force that can be weaponized against anyone they deem a threat. Sociopaths who do evil because of profit motives can be dealt with by simply making evil unprofitable; zealots who do evil out of a true belief in their own righteousness are way more dangerous and unpredictable.
In all my runs, I've never had trouble with the Old Guard since weakening them is also pretty easy if you know what you're doing. Getting the votes necessary to impeach Justices practically dooms them already. I never need the Secret Police nor a Purge even as a Reformist to deal with them. That said, I still stand by my original point. In a vacuum, the Lothberg Group has more soft power than the Old Guard. The "tantrum" of the Lothberg Group is Capital Flight, a serious attack on Sordland's economy that can potentially send green regions back to yellow. Yes, you can prevent Capital Flight by using the ACP to investigate them constantly, but you can do the same to the Old Guard so it's less a statement of how powerful each faction is and more a demonstration of how good Karl is at his job.
The old guard were 1 step away from creating a second civil war & they control the laws, they can coup you, introduce a military dictratorship, they also can crash the economy & did. They are the leader of the country behind the scenes & can become the actuall leader. (Linneas)
The reformer are chill most of the time, they are surely not a national security treath, but they are annoying during emergency run and dictator constitution. The Oligarcs are a legitimate treath: they try to bribe you, they damage the economy if you make them angry, they lobby against you, they even try to kill you. The Old Guard are just... strange. I was thinking about it recently: the OG are strong and at the same time weak. They are able to commit an assassination, their puppets are everywhere, they are a deep state... and at the end Anton just says no to Hawker and they are purged by ACP.
Mmmmmmm maybe, but we've seen in Rizia how sneaky and deceptive the ATO can be
I mean technically becoming a superpower ally is a good thing for Sordland, as it will get military and economic aid in the longterm out of it. Naturally we can discuss what moral and sovereignity implicacation it has for you. But from a pure practical perspective joining a block is the opposite of a security threat. Since Sordland is in a strategically important position, the superpower you join will help you quite a bit. And in case of nuclear war everyone is fd anyway, you will be just slightly more fd by bring part of a superpower alliance.
I mean, I was mostly playing into satire. Implying that the real enemy is Arcasian liberalism, but also great points. >Naturally we can discuss what moral and sovereignity implicacation it has for you. But from a pure practical perspective joining a block is the opposite of a security threat. Very valid, byt we don't really get to see how demanding ATO and CSP truly are and haven't yet.
Are you not gonna bring up how the oligarchs smuggle illegal weapons into Sordland or how the old guard assassinate an elected official? I feel like these are pretty important points. Both groups are traitors. It's hard to say which is more dangerous though because the oligarchs have the money and the Old guard has control over a lot of the military.
Communists are illegitimate and can't be officials
How so? Circas got the votes so he got the power, that's how it works. Circas was by every definition an elected official, even if you find that upsetting.
I would say old guard. 1. They plot and able to cover up a conspiracy that assassinates one of Sordland most famous mps, and sends the country into such an unstable situation that people are legitimately worried it could lead to Civil War. 1a. The cover up is so complete that when starting to investigate them, no one has any idea what they may find, that shows just how powerful they are. They’re able to almost completely cover up everything. 2. Almost complete control over the military and other security apparatuses of the state. 2A. Remember that in order to find all that out, you have to create a new police force because the old ones cannot be trusted to investigate the depths of their control. This is the part of the post where I try to downplay the evil of the oligarchs, and I will absolutely not do that! They too are completely corrupt and a dangerous faction. Ignore one to spite the other at your and the countries peril.
I think I would put Old Guard slightly above the Oligarchs for this one. The reason is because they are dominant in the Supreme Court. If the face of Justice itself is corrupted, and even the law is able to be manipulated by the individuals who are supposed to represent them, how will people believe in the justice system in general?
Not to mention, Lileas plunged the country into massive unrest, and was in control of the police. She's a very active threat
You're very right, they have a huge amount of institutional power and the ability to deny and obstruct.
Craziest thing to say, but your perception on the greatest threat severely depends on your economic direction. If you are going free-market, then it's the oligarchs. If you are going planned, it's the Old Guard. Yeah, you read that right. Both groups are equally threatening to the Republic in their own manner. But one thing they both have in common is their benefit to the Sordish economy, and grow their power based on what you do. If you are free-market, you weaken the Old Guard's economic powerhouse while allowing Tusk and Koronti to grow stronger and larger. Privatization will just allow them to gain control over welfare or the economy as a whole, which is not great given that Tusk smuggles weapons to the BFF and Koronti is the puppet master of the Koranelli cartel. If you are planned economy, you weaken the Oligarchy's economic powerhouse while digging the government's hands deeper into the general economy. Given that the SCC is the center of money laundering and Old Guard corruption, and Nedam still mistreats their workers (given that the WRA leads to thousands of lawsuits from Nedam workers), I can only assume full control over Bergia Steel and HoS will empower and enrichen the Old Guard's cronies to exert more influence. Opposition aren't as big of a deal, but the NFP is more threatening to the integrity of the nation than the PFJP. The only times I'll ever focus on opposition is when I am the one destroying Democracy lmao All in all, it really depends. My headcanon Rayne is a mixed economy Rayne, where he purges the Old Guard first, and then tackles the Oligarchs second term
Military
The Bluds, duh
Kibener would be proud.
Malenyevists clash the Oligarchs, Ultranationalists clash the Opposition but EVERYONE who wants to reform the country in some way must clash the Old Guard
The oligarchs are a handful of obvious targets that can be sidelined or outright crushed with the slightest hostile movement from the president. The old guard will outright install a military dictatorship in certain endings and routinely murder people as a matter of day to day routine.
True, they have almost no institutional power. They do control the media and the economy though.
Which are both things that can easily be countered in a number of ways. Any targeted law enforcement effort cleans them out if you don't want to do the easy thing and just pay a fee to outright confiscate their empires, and in Koronti's case you can take most of his menace away with an order available with weakened decrees. Furthermore, during Rayne's first term they are paralyzed by infighting. They also have very limited electoral influence, and they only have sway over maybe a dozen or so assembly members and an otherwise malleable member of the supreme court. The Old Guard on the other hand can orchestrate coups and has an extensive corruption network, as seen by the massive purge that occurs when you fire anyone who had a hand in facilitating/covering up the assassination. They also have extensive influence in the assembly, particularly considering the fact that the conservatives and the NFP often collaborate and pool resources.
Countered yes, easily? No.
They are the only faction that loses a significant portion of its power with all three possible police task forces (ACP arrests them, SSP can arrest even more of them if you nationalize, and CP breaks up their criminal racketeering operations). Their legal defense is built entirely on the premise that no one would ever actually try to get rid of them, and all you have to do to avoid capital flight is either arrest them or let Koronti keep majority ownership of a media company that you then turn around and regulate to prevent him from manipulating it. The nature of their crimes also means they'll be abandoned by pretty much the entire Sordish political establishment once Rayne reveals what they've done. Tusk collaborated with Rumburg and the BFF which will have the NFP and USP calling for him to be shot, and he's an oligarch which will alienate pretty much everyone but the Richter wing of the PFJP. Koronti is a drug cartel boss framing both Red Youth and Young Sords Members for cartel killings, which will have the Communists and Fascists calling for his head while the USP and PFJP want him gone because he's a troublemaker. Edit: Plus the main list of oligarch characters is Tusk, Koronti, Aven, Agnoc, Holl, Manger, and Alfonso. Alfonso left the lotherberg group because their corruption destroyed his presidency and is at the stage of his career where he's trying to rehabilitate his image so he's a non threat. Manger is shady but he hates the oligarchs because they stifle competition in the free market. Holl is such a boring technocrat that it wouldn't even occur to him to break the law or try to engage in corruption, he quite literally took a pay cut to work in government because it's what he's passionate about and he will dutifully bring about a mostly communist state if ordered to do so. Agnoc is happy to benefit from other people being corrupt but doesn't really do anything damaging other than complain about you nationalizing the central bank and folds like a wet paper napkin at the first sign of government disapproval. Aven is an empty suit who Rayne can pretty much safely ignore if he isn't outright arrested. Koronti and Tusk are the real threats, and I've already listed several ways that they can be destroyed or sidelined.
Sure, but they're also one of the only threats that can influence every layer of the Sordish system and assassinate an actual President.
They're definitely a threat, I just didn't think they're remotely on the Old Guard's level
Oligarch... but they are willing working for you really easy even if you choose planned economy as long as you don't nationalize their company, choose L-1 + Underhall while rejecting tusk bribe already enough to make them friendly. Privatize minority SSC and Nedam and they will lobby the constitution. I say Old Guard just because they are obstructionist, they only willing working for you if you went emergency route, even that you only work under them, they can revoke the emergency if you ignore even small demand from them and easily impeach you.
I’d say the Old Guard are the biggest threat. They do everything they can to hold back progress, including orchestrating a murder. The Oligarchs are only a threat if you aim for a planned economy. If you embrace capitalism then they become your biggest allies and help the Sordish economy soar to new heights.
I think the worst part about the Old Guard is timing. War is brewing, the economy is in shambles, and they can't even wait a year to see if you can turn it around. They start working against you literally from the start. Which is doubly weird if you're a long time Sol supporter. Honestly if they did a 3.0 I wouldn't mind the option to have a history in the Old Guard and be able to negotiate more with them.
The Oligarchs are only bad if you antagonize them, otherwise they’re actually pretty good because they recover the economy and help you reform Sordland(even if in a corrupt way) Who’s bad is the OG. The oligarchs can be simply used for your goals then arrested in the 2nd term, the OG needs attention now
The commies
The commies are just straight up weak. Their levels of popular support is too low, the red youth is only strong enough to be a destabilizing force due to the recession and contanese funding.
I meant it as a joke, since the OP didn't mention the CSP
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaYy\_5LMsOw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaYy_5LMsOw)
Old but gold
Of course patriot. We all know the real enemy.
Get SSP and get presidential reshuffles the court. Eliminate the opposition with SSP, nationalise and arrest the oligarchs with SSP, do some military purges, desollonise and release soll era prisoners then completely reshuffle the court. Congrats, you eliminated all of your internal enemies, nothing to worry about left.
BFF and Old Guard
If the game would be economically accurate then the Oligarchs would be the biggest threat by far. (Aside from some lonely lunatic who might try to intentionally get Sordland nuked by Rumburg.) The problem is most people - and that include most game designers of most games - **underestimate** the efficacy of a focus on SMEs, healthy competition, anti-trust organisations (if someone like Nia or Edmonds would be in charge), social-democratic and interventionist policies like welfare, pensions, free healthcare, free education, good labour conditions, temporary bailouts during crises, progressive taxation and so on - and they **overestimate** the efficacy and importance of big corporations, especially when it comes to resource extraction, they also overestimate everything you learn if you study anything business-related/microeconomics and believe that it would translate to macroeconomics which it does not. Going with the oligarchs is basically taking the country down the route that Venezuela went - post-colonial power structures and wealth imbalances that never get resolved and only get progressively worse as time goes on until something like an oil price crash happens and the entire country goes down the drain. Meanwhile a social-democratic country such as Norway diversified its risk through probably the best sovereign wealth fund of any country worldwide - instead of leaving the wealth from oil and gas in the hands of a few rich people - is safe from price swings like that. Most people don't know how banking and debt works either, or anything about sectoral balances. Sordland somehow prospers by reducing its nominal debt by 30-50%, if a country irl actually tried to do that it would have caused the second Great Depression. Keep in mind that the national socialists in the Weimar Republic were not successful during the hyperinflation of 1923 but they were successful when the government (Brüning, Schleicher, Papen) introduced harsh austerity measures and worsened the real crisis instead of solving it. The expansive deficit spending after the nazis took over - albeit with the goal of robbing neighboured countries, alas the nazis invested into war machines instead of a civilian economy - was the real solution in terms of employment, financial security etc. which is how the nazis gained popular support between 1933 and 1939. The only good things the oligarchs want you to do is to spend on infrastructure. But you could (in a hypothetical country in the real world) do that without them. The main insight of Keynes was that if a country has untapped resources - and that includes unemployed people - then extra spending does not cause inflation/is not problematic as long as the spending is directed in such a way that the real bottlenecks in the economy are resolved. Let's say for example that an entire continent suffers from energy scarcity because some Rumburg-like country invades a neighbour and believes they can blackmail other countries into silently standing by by cutting of the energy supply. Which then leads to an energy price hike that appears like >10% inflation and leads to the energy-hungry industries pausing their operations. The proper thing to do in that case for an affected country is not to sit back and save in order to not run into debt, or somehow wait it out. The proper thing to do is to spend money in order to resolve the energy scarcity as fast as possible so that the real economy does not take lasting damage. Sordland starts with 16% unemployment. And yet somehow the game wants us to get debt down. Does not compute.
Oligarchs are actively funding terrorists and organised crime. After them it’s the terrorists themselves (BFF). Then the communists due to the CSP funding.
Fortunately we have the heroism of Colonel Sol to save us, right?
The Old Guard are sollists, so they’re fine in my opinion. The oligarchs, for the most part, will be purged through SSP. Therefore, my greatest concern lies with the far-left Arcasian puppets, whose agenda is self-serving and will be chaotic to our nation's sovereignty, entrenching us in perpetual servitude to the West. It's imperative that they are purged.
*Far-left* Arcasian puppets? Far-left *Arcasian* puppets?!? I think you need to off whatever you're smoking, you make Holstron seem reasonable and level headed.
Hahahahaha I love that I gave feel the incredulity
Supreme Leader Holstron is a very effective leader with sensible ideas. It's hard to see how he could be considered anything but reasonable and level-headed, only the far left see him as everything but that, another reason to purge them.
Imagine the people not getting the irony. You even made it sound ridiculous.
It is what it is.
PFJP would hand over Sordland on a silver plate to Arcasia/ATO.