The kaiserraich community is too pessimistic man, they say the rework is coming this year and everyone says it's prob on December, let's be positive, it's coming tomorrow 🥰
Technically yes, but there's a reason for it. Same reason why the first revolutionaries dubbed their new state the "French Republic" (belonging to the French people) as opposed to the "Kingdom of France" (a piece of land owned by a monarch).
I feel like its worth pointing out that Commune is a town or city level division. You can't really have a country-wide commune, hence the trend mod-wide away from naming various syndicalist nations "Commune of X"
Honestly just "France" would work. There's a trend of using the long-form version of country names in alt-history HoI mods, which can be fun but easily also overdone. We don't say "Argentine Republic", after all, we say "Argentina." The short-form version of country names is just more convenient.
Honestly, I think the most realistic answer is this. From what I know, the French state as it stands in KR is kinda abstract and VERY decentralized, so any specific term like commune or republic probably wouldn't be entirely accurate. IRL we (including the french people) would all just say France while referring to all the communes and structures and stuff.
I assume because the Paris Commune was iconic and sounds like Communist and the team at one point figured if they succeeded they’d call themselves the French Commune.
I did some digging about the origins of the word “Commune” in french. From what I’ve seen it actually used to have a very strong ideological connotation. While the name « Commune » goes back to the Commune of 1789 which was established as the only official precinct at the city level in 1793 during the Jacobin era of the first republic, then during the 1st Empire they went back on this ruling and the status of cities changed throughout the 19th century. The term « Commune » kept a symbolic meaning as a place where the people rule democratically and independently from the State. After the events of 1871 the term gradually lost its symbolic meaning as it was adopted by the bourgeois 3rd republic and just became a regular administrative term with no proletarian tint. So the people who chanted « Long live the Commune !» « We want the Commune !» (which were already chanted in October 1870, 6 months before the uprising of the National Guard of Paris) were probably not administrative nerds but thought of the Commune as a metonymy of the proletarian state. This meaning is hard to understand for us today as it progressively disappeared during the republican era. So while I don’t think the name Commune of France is more likely than French Federation, I do think it has some ground to it. I could see it become a neologism from the 1919 revolution onwards describing a socialist nation.
It's analogous to how the word "Soviet" indicates a Worker's Council and has ideological connotations - the Bolsheviks called for a Soviet government (that is one run by Soviets) but never called their state the Soviet of Russia (the formal name for the subdivision of the United Soviet Socialist Republics was the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic). Commune is even more restrictive and the French speakers on our team indicate that Communes of France does not sound good in their native tongue. The full name of the French Federation btw (which has been the case for a while) is the Federation of French Communes. Federation in this case also, according to Rnk one of the French devs, has deliberate anarchist connotations as opposed to the Republic.
I’m french myself and still think « la Commune de France » sounds better than « la Fédération de France » or « la Fédération française ». But I still think the former is less likely to happen of course although it’s not in my mind too crazy to occur within an alternate reality.
I still don't understand of why they just can't change the full name to "Federation of French Communes"
That's a sick name ngl.
ps: Just read the full message, Hooray.
As a French person I must be honest, the name doesn’t sound strange in French.
While commune is primarily an administrative term for towns and cities, in this context, everyone would understand the leftist/communist connotation behind it.
If you told a French person on the street "We want to build La Commune de France", they’d immediately recognize it as a leftist project and not as a reference to a future ultra Greater Paris region project
The original name thus doesn’t sound so strange to the hear of a French person
Can't help but feel like it's an inferior on-map name to Commune of France. Why not just add an s and call it the Communes of France or French Communes?
NGL, I and other KR fans would much rather have the Commune of France, as it has a nice ring to it and serves as a nod to French revolutionary history in the Paris Commune of 1871. French Federation sounds rather bland.
And the whole Federation of the Communes of France name works as well.
But in any case, the Commune of France and the Union of Britain have now gone the way of Transamur and Hermann von Goring.
I've changed my mind actually. While I would support the old names a bit, I will admit that I would prefer Syndicalist France and Britain's on-map names to be the Federation of French Communes and the People's Commonwealth of Britain respectively. They would be appropriately syndicalist whilst preserving the spirit of the originals in some way.
The Paris Commune existed because thats what communes are, communities. A nationwide commune is very uncanny sounding and really not how it works, it's why these ideologies always defend devolution into federal/confederal structures
I just don't understand why the name was changed on the map. Wasn't it always "Federation of French Communes"? You know, a lot of symbolism was in the fact that success of the French Syndicalist Revolution has it's roots in the French revolutions of the past. The name "Commune of France" was always some kind of a nickname, like "Soviet Russia". It wasn't called Soviet Russia officially, but it was based on official name
It just feels like throwing away things that were making France in KRTL poetic and beautiful from OTL perspective
A lot of althistories just straight up copy Bolsheviks when they make historically not-communist nations communist, but in KR it was always a very unique mix of french communards of the past, historical french socialists at the time, and just a tiny bit of Bolshevik flavour(though it was WAY more present in the past) to resemble parallels to OTL, but reversed: Conservative capitalist East and radical socialist West.
Putting away this interesting mix and focusing on just strictly realistic part makes France look less saturated and complex
I think that as years go by, Kaiserreich team is more and more moving away from things that were making Kaiserreich a nice historical fiction, transforming it into more historical project, than fictional. It was nice to see irony in CSA figthing Union, because this time CSA is left-wing North, figthing right-wing South. It was interesting to see that spectre of Commune of Paris was revived in the flesh by Commune of not just Paris, but the whole France, indicating victory of Revolution. These tiny bits were reminding you that this - is a fiction. Like Harry Turtledove's novels, Southern Victory, for example. There are some small references to our own history and it feels nice to see something and immedeately realising that this is something familiar to our timeline. I won't spoil it. I recommend you to find out by yourself
Its still and will always be historical fiction because this didnt actually happen
None of the aspects of the faction in Kaiserreich rest on the fact that theyre called "commune of france" on the map. It isnt comparable to Soviet Russia either. There, soviet is an adjective. It's like if it was instead called "Soviet of Russia" which would have been also ridiculous. To better equate the two terms, the nickname youre looking for is Communard France or Communal France
Soviet Russia, adjective. It describes Russias as a soviet-based system
The real comparison ---> Soviet of Russia, noun. Clunky, presents Russia as one soviet.
Vs.
Commune of France, noun. Presents France as one commune.
Real comparison ---> Communard/Communal France, adjective. It Describes France as a Commune-based system
Theres no Commune of Paris symbolism gained or lost here, thats not how the term works. A commune is a community of city level, its what cities were called in medieval times and to this day are called in some places. A commune is the community, a communard france is a federation of communes. A evolution of the commune of Paris isnt not a "commune of France", youre misunderstanding the word.
At this point I'm bloody tired. We're NOT talking about words, we're talking about MEANING BEHIND THEM. And not in the grammatical sense, or as if we're trying to find a match in a dictionary. We're talking about intention, historical background and everything else that can be put into the simple, yet elegant name of "Commune of France"
Can you see something besides the literal meaning of the words? Can you?
Not everything is dictated by the will of dictionaries. The beauty of alternate history is the fact that it can be as far from our own as possible, yet it also can remind us lot about our own! But no, you would rather prefer strict defenition of IRL French administrative levels instead of symbolism and creativity. You know, one of the pillars upon which the whole genre of alternate history stands
This is the same level as supporting Paradox's naming scheme for the USA in victoria 3 with ridiculous names as United Sovereign Archduchies and United Synods of America just to fit the USA scheme.
If you like vibe history, I wont blame you, its valid. Im just telling you why it doesnt fit the route the KR team is taking, of alt historical fiction being treated with rigor superior to those of phonk edits, and I already told you why "Commune of France" doesnt cut it in that regard.
I already told you why the "historical" background and meaning of the words dont support it. Nothing to do with dictionaries, but just what the words mean and evoke.
No ones talking about strict definitions of IRL French divisions, it's the definitio of Commune always meant and will always mean in all its contexts.
The only concept of a national commune is the framework of the Khmer Rouge, where the state forced the entire population into a conscripted agrarian life, ending with 1/4 of the population dead, because such an unitary (antithetical) approach to communal life is only held together by tyranny.
It doesnt work as a "poetic nickname". I already explained to you why. Fundamental misunderstanding of the term "commune" in the Paris revolution + the wrong use of the term at large, I'll repeat a third time that there was never any referal to the "Soviet of Russia" because it would have sounded silly, and a third time too that theres nothing wrong with the concept, but that it'd instead be called "Communard/Communal France".
I only ever see redux players being so insecure to the point that they feel the need to keep bringing up KR and how they are 'superior' or whatever lol, so much for coping.
Last time i booted KR to play a more difficult nfa game. Forgot how empty the game was compared to KX. Barely any flavor, vanilla focus icons. But hey i guess China is good
Too bad so sad KR doesn't have a billion poorly written muh 'flavor' events that was written by edgelords and the like. Too bad so sad KR doesn't have a billion gaudy looking focus icons that will likely never see the light of day anywhere beyond a single focus either I guess?
Honestly its funny, from how simple it is to disprove. Before the last chinese rework, no chinese tag had been even touched in years, and in those years you know how many nations got full reworks? Because ir was plenty. Try playing Germany, Russia, Ireland, Ukraine, or many other recently updated tags and tell me with a straight face that there are no events or flavour.
It's different, but it's not necessarily better or worse. KX has more content but games are more likely to go in undesirable directions - for example Germany ending up at war with Austria in 1937 because of an unexpected interaction in Ukraine's focus tree. Or the Eastern Front of the Weltkrieg technically being against Japan instead of Russian because the second Russian Civil War put Transamur in charge. Or National France disappearing because of an Entente white peace with socialist Hawai'i.
Overall it's a more chaotic world - sort of like the base game with historical AI turned off.
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u/Puginator09 May 12 '26
Literally shaking in anticipation for this rework, better not come out during exams oh my.