The Zveno faction confuses me

I'm mystified too - I was trying for the non-aligned route and Zevno seem to be the non-aligned faction - but then comes a seemingly unstoppable civil war and they had considerably more units than me.

IMO, the faction thing is too much. It is very confusing as to what impact it has, and involves a whole lot of political micro. It's the same c**p as it was with the US tree in MtG which equally made US an annoying choice to play. Put more simply: it isn't fun.

I did not have a problem with any of the four internal factions of Bulgaria. I think I made the right choice when I eliminated or integrated all four of them before "rocking the boat".

Treviranus said:

I did not have a problem with any of the four internal factions of Bulgaria. I think I made the right choice when I eliminated or integrated all four of them before "rocking the boat".

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Agreed. The system does force you to choose who you are going to side with, however what's most annoying is there is no where to really avoid Zveno coup if you try to befriend them. I did a Democratic Bulgaria run and got couped by them when I was going for some of their military advisors, there isn't a way to avoid the coup other than suppressing them into oblivion. Befriending Zveno should either cancel the coup, or greatly decrease their strength when it does fire.

Working as intended I'd say.

The history of Bulgaria is obscure to most people.

Bulgaria is the only country in the world that I'm aware of that had a non-ruling, revolutionary communist party take a parliamentary majority in free and democratic elections. This was in 1923, I believe. The Zveno launched a pre-emptive coup to prevent them from taking power, and put Alexander Tsankov in as Prime Minister, who is a leader option for fascist Bulgaria in BFTB. At the time, he was a liberal democrat and only gravitated to fascism after he lost his position as PM.

In 1934 the Zveno launched another coup and created a fascistic(but not fascist) government which is the one that exists at the start of the game. The leader of the 1934 Zveno coup was Kimon Georgiev, who also played a significant role in the 1923 Zveno coup. In 1944 Georgiev and the Zveno worked with the communists to orchestrate another coup which finally placed the Stalinists in power.

So basically in a span of roughly just two decades, the Zveno launched 1. An anti-communist coup against a liberal democratic government on the verge of a communist takeover. 2. A fascistic coup directed against a liberal democratic government. 3. A pro-communist coup against a fascistic government.

The Stalinists did not dissolve the Zveno until the late 1940's, years after the end of WW2, and Georgiev held high post in the Bulgarian stalinist government for several decades after the war.

Basically, the Zveno being confusing and contradictory ideologically seems to be very historically accurate. Looking at the history involved, it actually makes a lot of sense. There isn't much historical literature on Bulgarian history in English, but reading into it, it seems really fascinating tbh.

In my case I got it right from the first time, but I know a bit more about the history than you seem to.

Zveno are a professional "coup strike force". They are useful in providing you with good commanders and government/staff members, but you have to keep them in check by not letting them get too disloyal or too popular. In Boris III's Bulgaria, you need to be a bit of a Machiavellian, like the tsar himself was.

The other three factions have their uses if you want to go this or that way in your ideologies.

The only one that's not obvious is the Agrarian Union, because they are a peculiar Bulgarian thing / "ideology". In Bulgaria's largely agrarian society, fairly isolated internationally, and lacking a tradition of representative democracy, the Agrarian Union is a populist political formation appealing to Bulgarian traditionalist ideals and paternalistic political culture. In the game they are the "tame" alternative to the more radical groups seeking to upend the constitutional framework.

If you want to develop Bulgaria into a democracy, you need to maintain the Agrarian Union and Socialists as popular and "loyal" (to the monarchy). A tougher, riskier alternative, but a more rewarding one is to foster support for the Democratic party. In reality the Democratic party was a rather boutique political formation, popular mainly among the well-educated city-dweling part of society, which was less than 20% of the population, and about a third of that of the eligible voters.

Propping the agrarians and potentially the socialists (in my experience the socialists didn't need propping through decisions), will probably get you into conflict with the Zvenars. I decided to just disband an eradicate the Zveno, and a little after that, the same fate befell the National socialists, who had lower popularity among the people than they had loyalty to the tsar anyway. I still got rid of them, just to be on the safe side.

PurpulaPhoenixum53 said:

The system does force you to choose who you are going to side with, however what's most annoying is there is no where to really avoid Zveno coup if you try to befriend them

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IMO neither one of the power groups is to be befriended, they are to be managed so as they are maximally loyal to you while remaining minimally popular. That's how it happened historically at least. If you go the way of raising one party to power, this means weakening the tsar's personal rule, and also opposition from the other power groups.

Iskulya said:

3. A pro-communist coup against a fascistic government.

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Technically even the this coup was against a liberal democratic government, because at the time of the coup, Muraviev was already Prime Minister, albeit for only 7 days. He had been appointed by the tsar on the 2nd sept 44 as a face sympathetic to the Allies.

Iskulya said:

Working as intended I'd say.

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If intended is having a fully integrated, fully loyal faction coup you for absolutely no reason, then yeah, it's working as intended. But that's obviously not how it's supposed to be because bothering to use the Zveno at all is completely pointless, because they'll just coup you.

They are more positive towards fascist policies but you still need to crush or integrate them, my advice is to integrate them since they have nice generals.

It took me a few re-tries to figure it out but the faction system isn't that difficult. Though it could use some extra hints and explanations since it's not very intuitive. I learned it the hard way. Timing is key, I'd suggest either rushing the integration or destroying the party before mid 1938(?). At least that was the case in my tests.

I personally planned for Ferdinands Bulgarised Empire and did the following order: First the three foci that get you to the weekly MP boost, then to suffragette for the good advisor, then to Remilitarisation Focus for the decisions. Then I took the co-operate with Zveno and rushed their integration. I ended up with every party integrated besides the Broad Socials and Ferdinand ruling the Balkan (at least most of it).

Pepe Me Peu said:

Zveno

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You only got 3 divisions in the civil war as well? 2 infantry and 1 cavalry? Same here. I'm not sure it's physically possible to win the civil war with that few.

JackAlNXT said:

You only got 3 divisions in the civil war as well? 2 infantry and 1 cavalry? Same here. I'm not sure it's physically possible to win the civil war with that few.

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Yup, sure did. I'd guess it's something to do with them having 100 popularity, despite also having 100 loyalty.