HOI4 Dev Diary - Exiled Governments

[podcat]

Welcome to another dev diary for Man the Guns. The expansion has 2 main themes: Naval and Democracies, and so far we have had dev diaries for USA and UK and today its time to continue the second theme by talking about how you can host governments in exile and turn them against their conquerors. We will also be doing some follow up on UK with Imperial Conferences.


Harboring Governments in Exile

Many nations overrun by the Axis would field at least a few small units of exiled forces, such as (but not limited to) the French, Greeks, Norwegians, Dutch, and even Czechs. These served not only in the Army, but also in the Air Force and the Navy. The most well-known, however, are probably the Polish. At their height they numbered almost 250,000 men, and served with distinction in France, Norway, North Africa, Normandy, and Northern Europe, while Polish pilots proved their mettle in the Battle for Britain, among others.
The main focus of this feature is to give extra power to democracies in that nations who are conquered by, say, Germany will be able to function from a host nation and lend their strength to them. Each government in exile has a certain amount of Legitimacy - essentially how acknowledged they are by governments in the world as the legitimate government. The higher the legitimacy, the more advantages you will get from a government in exile.

As you reach each step on the scale the following things will be unlocked (some at more than one place):

• Ability to train and deploy Exiled Veteran Divisions (more details below)
• Ability to have Airwings with exiled manpower. These start out at a higher experience level right away.
  
• Exiled Generals. These guys synergize well with exiled divisions.

So ready for revenge that if this was animated you'd see that glorious mustasch quivering.

Legitimacy is gained first before actually capitulating. The higher your warscore, the better your starting Legitimacy. If you just fold, transport all your divisions to safety or disband them, you won’t get much and the road to gaining more will be that much harder. Once you are actually in exile you gain legitimacy by helping in the fight. This both makes historical sense and means that players have a good reason to fight as hard as possible.

Once a nation has capitulated and is exiled it can salvage some things. Depending on Legitimacy some of the stockpile may be spirited off and some divisions may escape (with severe equipment losses) and will appear in the host nation after a long while (presumably sneaking across the channel in small boats or on long detours etc). These divisions will be Exiled Veterans.

An Exiled Veteran division generally has a better experience level and will get both a combat bonus when fighting the occupiers of its nation as well as an extra bonus when on its old core territory. So these divisions are quite precious and potent. They are trained in much the same way as colonial forces are for those that own Together for Victory and you get access to both their templates and your own:

Playing an Exile

Playing in exile is something I think will be more popular in multiplayer than single player, because you are limiting yourself quite a bit, but for those who like a challenge we wanted to make sure it was possible and give you some of these advantages as well!

If your host is an AI it will be trying to be helpful in this case by passing over control of veteran divisions arriving. Exile Commanders will also be under your control. Because some exiles will have no land at all you will likely need to depend on the master for lend lease of equipment to arm your divisions with. If you are totally landless you will be getting a trickle of manpower based on your Legitimacy as well (Poland is likely in this position while Netherlands or France wouldn’t necessarily be). When you are an exiled nation you can keep track of your legitimacy on the country screen as well as bring up the more detailed view like the host nation can:

Exiled nations also come with several new decisions to help them grow and to celebrate their achievements. We also plan for exiles of nations that don't fall normally, like Czechoslovakia to come into existence from decisions.

Imperial Conferences

Hi! Bratyn here. In the thread for the British Focus Tree dev diary a lot of community feedback pointed out the glaring lack of the Imperial Conference as a potential ahistorical path. As I already mentioned in certain threads, this has now been rectified

I have rearranged the Dominions development branch of the Reinforce the Empire path, and added three new focuses. After having developed Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, it is now possible to kick off the [insertcurrentyearhere] Imperial Conference. Doing so will send a notification event to all parties involved (including yourself), which then activates the Imperial Conference decisions.

This text has since been adjusted to properly locate the Conference in London!

However! Note that this conference will only last for 60 days, and so even though the “Hold the Imperial Conference” focus grants 120 political power, you should be prepared by having a sizeable amount of political power saved up in order to push through the motions you want during this timeframe. Considering the likelihood of the Dominions agreeing to your motions depends to a large degree on their opinion of you, you may also want to have prepared by improving relations with them before you kick off the conference, as you will likely not have time for this in the 60 days you are given. Finally, to make opinion actually matter, all positive opinions throughout the game have been cut in half, and on top of this you get a -100 opinion modifier with all your Dominions (and India) for the duration of the conference. This allows us to use the 0-100 range of opinion to calculate AI likelihood of accepting your proposals.

The possible motions to make are the following:

• Imperial Defense: Each Dominion that accepts gains a 10% production bonus for factories and dockyards for 365 days. Accepting costs them 25 political power. For each Dominion that accepts, the UK gets 3% production bonus for factories and dockyards (for a grand total of 15% bonus max, if all 5 accept) for 365 days.
  
  
• Imperial Trade: Each Dominion that accepts is flipped to the Free Trade law (this making a larger amount of resources available for export), and the UK gets a +50 trade relations opinion modifier with them.
  
  
• Imperial Economy: Each Dominion that accepts gains a 10% construction speed bonus to civilian and military factories, and dockyards, for 365 days. Accepting costs them 25 political power. For each Dominion that accepts, the UK gets 3% construction speed bonus to civilian and military factories, and dockyards (for a grand total of 15% bonus max, if all 5 accept) for 365 days.
  
  
• Appeasement: Only available if the UK is not at war. Each Dominion that accepts gains 10% war support. Accepting costs them 25 political power. For each Dominion that accepts, the UK gets 3% war support.

In addition, Dominions that accept the previous four motions will also get 10 opinion with the UK per motion they accepted. This gives you a way to improve opinion other than simply improving relations. Each motion costs 50 political power to start. Of course, note that all values are subject to change based on testing.

WIP event picture!

Each motion kicks off with a starting event for the UK, where the player can choose whether to roll the dice solely based on the Dominions’ opinion, or to invest various degrees of political power (currently 25 and 50) to influence the outcome. Influencing them will double and triple (respectively) the chance of them saying yes, but the only thing that will absolutely guarantee it is if they have 100 opinion with you.

WIP event picture!

Finally, there is the Imperial Federation motion. This one is a bit different from the previous four, because it will not have effect unless at least Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand unanimously accept the motion. This costs 100 political power to start.

WIP event picture!

India is a bit of a special case. They were not a Dominion, and so if you want their support you will have to first make them one. This is where the new “Indian Autonomy” focus comes in. Taking this will make the Raj a dominion, and also give them +0.5 autonomy gain for 2 years. If you do this before the Imperial Federation, the Raj may (following the same opinion restrictions as the other Dominions) accept the Federation proposal. If you do not grant them autonomy before triggering the Conference, they will always reject it.

WIP event pictures!

If all five Dominions accepted, they then all receive a national spirit that reduces Autonomy by -3 per day. You will manually have to pay the PP to reduce their Autonomy levels all the way down to Integrated Puppet (and these TfV Autonomy levels have therefore been unlocked for MtG!), and once all of them are that Autonomy level, you can take the “Imperial Federation” focus. If India did NOT accept for whatever reason, but all other Dominions did, you can elect to either cancel the plans, or push through with the remaining Dominions and give independence for India. The reason for making this require a long process of autonomy reduction is to illustrate that integration is a long-term process, as well as to make this be a difficult (or at least slow) thing to achieve, due to how powerful it is. The idea is that it should only be possible to get towards the mid-late game. Currently, this takes roughly 3 years. Of course, again note that all values are subject to change based on testing, and especially the speed at which you can integrate them may well change (if anything, likely to be adjusted so that it can be done more quickly).

WIP event picture!

Taking the “Imperial Federation” focus will do multiple things.

• Canada, Australia, and New Zealand will have all units and army leaders transferred to the UK, they will be annexed, and all their core states will become core states of the UK.
  
  
• South Africa will have all units and army leaders transferred to the UK, and they will be annexed, but, to illustrate cultural differences and lingering anti-British sentiment there, their core states will NOT become core states of the UK.
  
  
• The British Raj, if they accepted, will have all units and army leaders transferred to the UK, and they will be annexed, but, to illustrate cultural differences, their core states will NOT become core states of the UK (also done to counteract the OPness of gaining full access to all Indian manpower, which even British Raj/India doesn’t get).
  
  
• UK gets a new cosmetic tag with a new map color, name, and flag.

WIP event picture!

Current names and flags for the Imperial Federation are as following:

Democratic: Commonwealth of Nations

Fascism: The Empire

Communism: Commonwealth of Peoples

Neutrality: The Imperial Federation

Right -hand one is if India is included.

Spoiler

Rejected Titles:

In the skies above the isle...

Brought to you by Game Devs in Swedish Exile

Defending Britain to the last Pole

Say [ZENSIERT] to your [ZENSIERT] Balls

More smiling Indian soldiers than you can shake a stick at!

 

[Bratyn]

this is all great BUT im still waiting on the decision/focus to invite ireland to the allies as a commonwealth nation since they where historically in the commonwealth in ww2 and also the decision to return northern ireland to ireland in exchange for joining the war effort which churchhill historically did but was refused by eamon de valera

These already exist. They were added in WTT. You can return Northern Ireland in return for Ireland joining the allies and the war, or you can declare war on them.

 

[Bratyn]

I feel that India's colour should change after the federation is formed to make it easier to tell that they aren't a part of the British sphere anymore, and to (imho) make the map look nicer

I'll look into this. The color -is- subtly different, but not enough.

 

[Bratyn]

If South Africa strengthen its ties with the Commonwealth before being annexed, virtually eliminating the anti-British sentiments, will its states become cores of the Empire?

Good idea!

 

[Bratyn]

Regarding half the bonus relation improvement, is this just for UK or everyone?
I mean, Manchukuo and the chinese warlords have invite investors national foci that require 75+ relation with key countries.
Considering that with the exception of Germany and maybe Soviet Union if playing with Communist China you will have a -10 penalty for different ideology and a maximum of +50 to improve relations, does it mean those requirements will be halved as well?

Every positive opinion value in the game has been slashed. Improving relations as a game mechanic is entirely unchanged, however, and still reaches +100 max relation improvement, so these requirements should still be entirely possible to get, except that they might require a tiny but more player action now.

 

[Bratyn]

1. What determines the host nation, is it faction leadership?

Yes.

 

[Groogy]

I'm so excited for exiled governments, nice job guys!!!
There is only one question that remains unanswered: can Wojtek the Bear be an exiled general

@podcat this pls

 

[Havebeard]

This looks outstanding!

A few questions regarding Governments in Exile;

1. What determines the host nation, is it faction leadership?

2. You've spoken about equipment and some divisions being transferred over to the host, what about ships?
Two examples that come to mind are Operation Peking where the majority of the Polish Navy fled to British Ports and went on to serve in the RN and the Polish Armed Forces in Exile;
as well as the Norwegian Merchant Marine that defied the Germans and their puppet government and sailed in service of the Allies.

1. Faction leadership, yes. If faction leadership changes you still keep the exiles though. If the faction leader capitulates and a new country takes over leadership the exiled governments flee to the new nation with their old host.
2. Ships can flee to the host. Exactly how it works is either described in the diary or undecided ;o)

Don't forget the government in exile under a government in exile, aka the Spanish republic forces in the free French army. Yes, that's a thing. They even liberated Paris.

Will this be in the game in some way, or is Republican Spain losing out on this?

No exileception. It does not work well with the mechanics we have.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Can we take the British focus that allows us to annex the USA and still form the Commonwealth?

 

[Bratyn]

And the fascist one is just stunning, especially if you have Edward at the helm.

Edward is now ruler of Unaligned Britain, however - so it would be Mosley at the head of the Fascist-flag Empire.

Can we take the British focus that allows us to annex the USA and still form the Commonwealth?

Yes. This is part of the "Reinforce the Empire" branch, which is mutually exclusive with the decolonization branch. Both can be taken regardless of which ideology you become.

 

[Bratyn]

That will make it quite hard to get +100 opinion value as imperial Germany to request restoration of British titles due to causing world tension lowering opinion. Not that it matters that much anyway.

Not particularly, considering you need to be in the same faction with them anyway you'll get that +50 opinion boost as well.

 

[Havebeard]

Really nice! one question though, how will manpower reinforcement work for exiled divisions? Will they get mp exclusively from their respective exiled government's pools or will they also be able to get it from the host's?

They only grab from the veteran exiled manpower pool

 

[Bratyn]

I had to guarantee them as well to actually reach +100 in the current game I'm playing. If all the positive opinion values are slashed it would be impossible to get to that threshold.

By my calculation you will cause 20 World Tension simply by getting to that point in the focus tree, meaning you will incur -40 relations with Britain. On top of that, they have -10 relations because of a difference in government. However, you get +50 from being in a faction with them, along with +100 max due to improving relations. This means you should still be able to get it?

Of course, if you decide to war anyone then you can't, but that's the price you'll have to pay...

 

[Bratyn]

Could you explain how you differentiate a decision and a focus tree node?

It is not clear to me why returning Ireland is a decision rather than being part of the focus tree, or conversely.

There is in this case not really any better reason than that we needed a bunch of decisions for the new decisions system, and we weren't doing the UK focus tree for WTT, so we decided to give them a bunch of options in the form of decisions instead.

Generally, though, the idea is that shorter, more flexible 'decisions', that are dependent on more quick-pased changes in the world scene, are Decisions, while slower and more long-term developments are focuses. The line is extremely blurry and even for us as developers there's stuff that in hindsight we think would have fit better as the other.

 

[Bratyn]

I found a strategy where if I early DoW the US I can avoid the Hindenburg event. Sad that's getting removed.

I'll have a look at ol' Hindy. No guarantees, though!

 

[Havebeard]

What happens if a host surrenders, then? Do their guests just go to another host?

Yes. Answered further up.

Just to be clear: is Republican Spain going to get a government in exile? Are you going to acknowledge the heroes that were the spearhead of the French Free Forces in Chad, the ones that liberated Paris as elite troops of the Lecrerc division, and who were fighting fascism since the year 36?

No

Nice touch, so that means that they'll keep veteran stats even as they suffer and replace losses, right?

Not 100% sure if we added some XP retention when suffering losses, but they have their combat bonuses no matter what level and they can train to a higher level in recruitment.
It's also a matter of balance when it comes to XP retention, but I see what your point is.

 

[Bratyn]

The problem with this is that Germany is almost never able to capitulate Norway. It should be available even if Norway has not capitulated in my opinion.

I agree. It's been adjusted

For events and decisions involving the British Empire, you should spell it as "Defence", with a C, since that is how it's spelt in English speaking countries that are not USA. Even British things during WW2 write "Defence".

"Commonwealth of Nations" with the modern Commonwealth flag is extremely stupid for a 1930s British Empire. All of the Dominions except for South Africa were extremely pro-Empire and considering that they had (and except for Canada still have) a Union Flag on their own flags and were all British citizens, it doesn't seem likely that upon bringing the empire closer together they would all just toss out the flag they all had and reject any notion of the empire. Things were different back then, so the game should reflect the time period it is set in. In Canada for example, Britain was home, and USA was seen as an economic and cultural threat that was posed to tear it away from Britain.

Essentially what I am trying to say is that the Union Flag should be used for the country and "Imperial" or "Empire" or some other variant of that should be included in the name. If you still want a different flag, perhaps just model it off of the Dominion flags and put the Union Flag in the corner and have some sort of imperial symbol or something in the middle.

Paradox games use American English, and we will use this for all localization. I may disagree with that personally, but it is company policy so it will happen

The Imperial Federation was unlikely, period, so I don't see the point of discussing which flag would have made most sense when the entire concept as a whole had virtually no chance of ever happening in the first place. The reason I picked that flag is because a Democratic unified empire would likely be most respecting of all its constituent parts, and because the British Commonwealth of Nations already existed as an entity at this time. The more Empire-focused flag is the unaligned one, as this one emphasizes the Empire aspect rather than the Federation aspect, and therefore is a variation on the Union flag.

@Bratyn Might I suggest that when India becomes free its color changes to an orange since I don't know why but it seems to fit a free India, also how is it going with the map changes? I would imagine slow since there is still plenty to do and you have plenty on your plate already.

Agreed, and done. Not sure which map changes you are referring to?

Will Britsh Malaya also get annexed through the imperial conference decisions?

Yes. But they are not represented at the Conference, as they were not a Dominion.