The Ottoman rework has been teased for a long time so I know you’ll be happy to hear it is finally here and ready for you to enjoy! Not only that, but the National France rework comes with it two, along with several other new focus trees. We’ve also spent time working on other changes, such as letting you recall volunteers, along with many bug fixes and performance improvements. We hope you enjoy the changes and have fun playing Kaiserreich!

Note: As always this patch isn’t save-game compatible. If you would like to continue your game please use the manual download found here:

- The KR4 team

Changes

Notable Additions

• Completely reworked the Commune of France’s generals, admirals, and military ministers
• Russia’s foreign policy has been overhauled to accompany the changes to the Middle East and the Caucasus
• Added “Recall Volunteers” button
• Expeditionary Forces no longer count towards the division limit

New Focus Trees

• Syria
• Iraq
• Hejaz
• Georgia
• Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem
• Suez International Zone
• Cyrenaica

Reworked/Expanded Focus Trees

• Ottoman Empire
• Egypt
• Tripolitania
• Jabal Shammar
• National France

Tweaked Focus Trees

• Russia
• Russian Socialist Republic
• Romania
• Ireland
• Portugal
• Oman
• Yemen
• Germany

New Events

• Romania
• National France
• Syria
• Iraq
• Hejaz
• Georgia
• Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem
• Tripolitania
• Ottoman Empire
• Egypt
• Cyrenaica
• Jabal Shammar
• Ikhwan

Tweaked Events

• Russia
• Commune of France

New Decisions

• Ireland
• Romania
• National France
• Portugal
• Syria
• Iraq
• Hejaz
• Ottoman Empire
• Egypt
• Cyrenaica
• Jabal Shammar

Tweaked Decisions

• Commune of France
• Russia

New Custom Country Paths

• Ottoman Empire
• National France
• Egypt

GFX

• New focus icons for Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Germany, Mittelafrika, Peru, the Union of Britain and Venezuela
• New flags for Alash Orda, the Commune of France, Illyria, National France, the Ottoman Empire and Ulster
• Adjusted the Africa loading screen to match the new situation
• New or updated portraits for:
  • Afghanistan: Amanullah Khan
  • Armenia: Berç Kerestecıyan, Hamazasp Babadzhanian
  • Assyria: Agha Petros, Dawid d’Mar Shimun, Shimun XXI Eshai
  • Austria: Alfred Jansa, Alfred Klahr, Eduard Barger, Erhard Raus, Franz Böhme, Franz Dinghofer, Friedrich Adler, Friedrich Materna, Georg von Trapp, Heinrich Pergler von Perglas, Julius Ringel, Karl Eglseer, Karl Renner, Lothar Re

When you were voting, I studied the drone. When you were having coronavirus, I mastered electronic warfare. While you wasted your days at the firing range in pursuit of vanity, I cultivated force projection. And now that the world is on fire and the barbarians are at the gate you have the audacity to come to me for help.

--Anonymous Redditor, 2016 [translated by /u/AmericanNewt8 into 2020ese]

A new kind of warfare has taken the world by storm this year. While most of us were preoccupied with the election, the coronavirus, and the other exciting events that have taken place over this year when decades happen, a small number of people have kept a close watch on distant battlegrounds in the Middle East; where the face of war has changed since January in ways that few would have predicted--and with it the region as a whole.

1. In the Beginning

But let's go back a ways; to the ancient world of circa 1980. Drones were not a new technology in any sense of the word--but they weren't particularly of interest beyond hobbyists, target drones, and occasional odd military projects like the D-21 reconnaissance drone. However, things were changing with the introduction of digital cameras and increasingly capable processors and transmitters as computers rapidly developed--and so it was only a matter of time before someone took advantage of that. That someone was the Israelis. Israel has a high level of technical expertise, large defense needs, but a relatively small industrial base, so it often pioneers technologies of this sort, and so it did with the Tadiran Mastiff.

This innovation quickly proved to be of significant utility in the First Lebanon War. Besides spotting Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO, they played a crucial role in the still-infamous "Bekaa Valley turkey shoot" in which Israeli aircraft supported by UAVs destroyed a massive quantity of top-of-the-line Soviet hardware--almost 90 Syrian aircraft and 29 surface-to-air missile batteries at the total loss of minor damage to a pair of F-15s and one UAV shot down. Electronic warfare and AWACs control also proved crucial in this conflict, which in many ways paved the way for the successes of Desert Storm and the 2003 Iraq invasion; and reportedly shattered the self-confidence of the Sovie

Looks like there's a reason Trump is cleaning house:

Trump’s anti-ISIS envoy admits he MISLED president about US troop numbers in Syria to keep them there

OK here's the most disgusting part, the CNN neoliberal psychopaths seem to have known about this and even celebrate it but they still run with stories about Trump staging a coup because he fired plenty of these scumbags from the DoD.

Holy shit, this is too much.

Hello everyone and welcome to another Middle Eastern themed PR. With release hopefully approaching quickly now, today we are going to do a bit of a collection of various tags and trees. Whilst these tags will be playable once the update hits, they (besides Jabal Shammar) have had some of their content cut short for this update and will rely on future work to make them as engaging and fun as possible.

A Middle East where Egypt presses for self-determination and Saudi Arabia fails to defeat the state of Hejaz. Multiple variations of this can exists, with Hejaz existing or not, Syria existing or not, Libya being united or not, etc

Jabal Shammar

Founded on the ruins of the Second Saudi State, the great emirs of Ha'il build the foundations of the Rashidi state. That this state was to last only a few decades, until the ascent of Ibn Saud in 1904, was not foreseen but also inevitable as the brutal reign of the Shammari over the folk of Najd distanced the proud Rashidis from the main brunt of the Arabian population and economy. Through a series of battles, the Rashidi armies were pushed back first from Riyadh and later from all parts of the Arab interior until all they had left was their homeland in the region of Jabal Shammar.

Different from the other Arab warlords however, the emirs of Ha'il maintained close relations with the Sublime Porte who readily used them as the shield to defend their Southern flank. This relation would continue into the weltkrieg as whilst the Hashemites sided with Britain and the Saudis sided with themselves, the Emirs of Jabal Shammar put all their money on the Ottoman Empire, remaining loyal even during the empire's darkest days. Whilst this loyalty was greatly rewarded after the war, it put a large target on the Rashidis who became seen as Ottoman lapdogs and traitors to the Arab cause.

Despite 'victory' in the weltkrieg, the Emirate has not seen the fortune it hoped to acquire by siding with the Turks and although relations with Konstantiniyye remain warm, the industrial revolution and its spread to the Middle East have greatly harmed the already fragile Shammari economy. Reliant on pilgrims travelling through the Arab interior towards Mecca for their Hajj, the advent of steam ships, cars and most importantly the Ottoman rail network have struck massive blows to this ancient trade.

Backed in

We had a news thread for Trump winning in 2016 so I assume the mods are ok with this, too.

Today major news sources officially called the election in favour of Joseph Biden, who will become the 46th President of the United States no matter what happens in the states left to be counted.

The implications of this are huge and many in an American and global context, but what are the implications for the Middle East and, in particular, the Levant?

Trump 'asked for options on strike on Iran nuclear site'

Rockets apparently fired by an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia hit U.S. complex in Baghdad as tensions with Tehran rise

Israel strikes widely in Syria, sending signal of aggressive post-Trump posture

WW3 fears: Saudi Arabia says nuclear weapons armament ‘an option’ in stark warning to Iran

TLDR; Trump may have started WW3: massive escalation in the middle east within only 24 hours since the public release of Trumps attempt to attack a nuclear site in Iran.