Byzantium.

I think there is a mistake in the Deploy the Yamato focus, Without Reason. It requires Advanced Airplane Catapult, unlike the other required techs there is no boost for it. So if you do everything to prepare for the focus by the time you should be able to do it, Advanced Airplance Catapult is still 4 years ahead of time and requires 750 days to research

Yes, you are absolutely right @ik_wil_ni_dood - I will fix this in the next update which should drop in just a few days.

Thanks for letting me know!

If you ever work on a rework of the USSR National Focus Tree, would you consider working to make a truly realistic alternate path? With or without Trotsky. Permanent Revolution has been misconstrued due to the Stalinist "socialism in one country" propaganda into a theory of unceasing war, and every NF Tree I've seen in HOI4 from vanilla to mods just represents it as a series of war goals. It certainly would never compromise with its stance that all workers of the world must be liberated for communism to succeed, and that the USSR would fail without a successful revolution in a developed nation. It was more about planting the seeds for the people of those nations to revolt on their own, and then offering them all the support possible. It is inherently different to the nationalist expansionism people were later led to believe it expressed, which is more in line with whatever you consider fascism to be. A global revolution cannot be expansionistic.

Black ICE is certainly my favorite historical mod, and I am not asking for more alternate history content. Simply a more realistic representation of the path that is already there. I just finished reading Trotsky's 1937 book "The Revolution Betrayed" and his predictions were very accurate for how things took course over the next decade. A Trotsky path would focus on purging the bureaucratic dictatorship, bringing back the democratic soviets, returning political rights to the Communist Youth, allowing other political parties to exist, and the permanent revolution as far as it could. That goal would conflict with the same wartime concessions to democracy that were made after the October Revolution, because by 1936 he was certain another war was on its way and that Germany's main target was Russia. Hard choices would need to be made.

As a leader I believe he would have been much more prepared than Stalin, and certainly never would have made any sort of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but the civil war and need to consolidate authority after would present many difficulties. Also, considering he was Jewish, I don't think Hitler would have even brought himself to being able to offer a pact of non-aggression even while knowing he would break it.
A Trotsky path for the USSR that was properly developed would be both historically plausible as well as incredibly difficult. I would love to see the best of them be a part of Black ICE, and if there was not already a few (pretty broken) new focuses and events for Trotsky in the mod I would not have thought it something worth suggesting.

Again a very late reply, but you are welcome @without reason. I have not played for weeks, but look forward to giving it another go. I will keep my eyes open for anything else.