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HOI4 Dev Diary - Exiled Governments

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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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:
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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:

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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.
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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 :)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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WIP event picture!

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

Democratic: Commonwealth of Nations
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Fascism: The Empire
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Communism: Commonwealth of Peoples
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Neutrality: The Imperial Federation
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Right -hand one is if India is included.

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!
 
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Talking about those rules ...

:)

Here are the rules for flag design:

View attachment 405642

From Wikipedia:
Vexillography is the art and practice of designing flags; it is allied with vexillology, the scholarly study of flags, but is not synonymous with that discipline.[1] A person who designs flags is a vexillographer.
You mean those guidelines that were established by a hobbyist organization that didn't exist until 1967?
 
Talking about those rules ...

:)

Here are the rules for flag design:

View attachment 405642

From Wikipedia:
Vexillography is the art and practice of designing flags; it is allied with vexillology, the scholarly study of flags, but is not synonymous with that discipline.[1] A person who designs flags is a vexillographer.
There are so many real flags that don't fit these rules even today that it's stupid to propose that flags should adhere to these rules in a game that place before these rules even existed.
 
There are so many real flags that don't fit these rules even today that it's stupid to propose that flags should adhere to these rules in a game that place before these rules even existed.

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Neat!

While it doesnt look like it will be used this way at the moment, I wonder if Exiled Governments or a similar mechanic could be used to represent not just an ousted government but a "rival" government and army sponsored by another country. For example the Indian National Army seems like it could be represented by a mechanic similar to exiled governments even though it was not itself a real government in exile.

Also can an exiled-government exist alongside a government created for the same nation? Basically if there's a Polish-Government-In-Exile and the Soviets come in can they set up a Communist Polish state even if the exiled government is still around?

And on a somewhat similar note since the Free French seem like they might have a somewhat more fleshed out existence (even if this doesnt turn out to be the France rework DLC) are there any changes to the establishment of Vichy? Currently the entirety of French Equitorial Africa immediately rallies to Free France even though historically only Chad under Felix Eboue never swore allegiance to Petain's regime and it wasnt until Novemeber of 1940 that Free French and British forces were able to secure control over the rest Equatorial Africa. Since an exiled off-map French government can still have a real concrete existence in the game will there be anything about making things more dynamic in terms of who gets what colonies when Vichy pops up?
 
The Imperial Federation looks well-handled. The approach in mods has often been to give ludicrous manpower from all over the empire, then oblige you to deal with crippling national spirits to balance it out.

Perhaps ethnically more British states in South Africa (the Cape), could be cored, rather than just an all-or-nothing affair?
 
Are you able to dip below 0 when paying in political power for these events? I think preventing players from taking event options that cost political powers will prevent this event from being cheesed (having negative pp doesn't have any major draw-backs right now)
 
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!

Also, might I argue that the South African state of Natal should become a federation core regardless of South Africa's choices? The state in game represents both Natal and the Eastern Cape, the areas of South Africa that arguably had the most pro-British sentiment and greatest percentage of English speakers. Even as late as the 1960 South Africa Republic Referendum these regions formed the greatest bulwark of support for maintaining ties to the British monarchy and Commonwealth. This I think would be a small, but flavourful and fair change.

Otherwise the Imperial Federation mechanics look pretty good and I'm really impressed at the devs responding so well to community feedback satisfied Paradox is continuing their proud tradition of integrating community ideas.

The small nitpicks I have however is that, at least in my opinion, it shouldn't necessarily require unanimity. If coding works best for only one opt-out, I think that the present India model should be changed to represent,an Imperial Federation that South Africa opts out of. I don't think Raj/India fits this opt-out, as I don't see why Imperial Federation of the British settler dominions, would result in India, a colony, gaining independence. It would much more likely simply remain a Federation Colony on its way towards independence (so no real change in situation, or arguably just an autonomy boost if you want some trade-off representing lower commitment to maintain the colonies by Dominion voters).
 
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.
From what I have seen this is mainly because Germany loose their fleet and can't invade. Maybe MtG will change this so we see more successful invasions.
 
Current names and flags for the Imperial Federation are as following:
Communism: Commonwealth of Peoples
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I'm not really a fan of the name 'Commonwealth of Peoples', as it just feels generic somehow. I'm wouldn't be quite as opposed to it if it was 'People's Commonwealth', though. 'Commonwealth of Peoples' sounds like the 'Peoples' could be just anybody. Doesn't have the same effect as 'People's' with the possessive. Contrast 'People's Republic of China' to 'Chinese Republic of Peoples' and I think you'll see what I mean. The order of the words kind of alters the ideological emphasis your brain wants to place on each word. Maybe its just me, but I think it's weird enough to be worth serious consideration for change.

Another alternative name could be 'Commonwealth of Workers', 'Commonwealth of Laborers', or 'Commonwealth of Brothers'. Maybe the Head of State could be referred to with the title of 'Big Brother', ba-dum-tish. And on that note, I'm a little surprised that its not called 'Commonwealth of Oceania'? A British Imperial Federation would cover almost all the same territory as the 1984 state. I'd understand if there was a copyright issue preventing that.

And as a suggestion, a 'Newspeak' focus could be fun for Fascist/Communist Commonwealth, and 'Anglosphere Standardization' could be its Democratic equivalent. Theme of the focus would be exactly that, standardization of both military equipment and local civilian laws throughout the desperate Commonwealth - as well as an official 'International' version of English

Now, I'm sure there was already some degree of standardization in effect throughout the commonwealth, but certainly decades of home rule would have meant at least a few inevitable differences. After all, those Canadian savages drive on the wrong side of the road! How can a federalized commonwealth have one set of driving laws in the UK, Australia, South Africa, and India; but have another set of laws that only apply to Canada? I'm talking about standardizing stuff like that. Make the Federalization feel 'complete', inside and out, and not just map painting that leads to less things to do. Plus Focuses that give a bit of a bonus are always nice, especially since they're uncommon in the late game.

And, obviously, for 'Newspeak' we're talking a completely different kind of standardization and that's not a negligible one at all. Best left to the imagination, but giving the Americans a news event where the latest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica has made 'drastic controversial changes' might be a funny hint to what is going on. Could result in the Commonwealth's current political party gaining support in the USA and other non-federalized parts of the linguistic Anglosphere, much like the USA's various Monroe Doctrine focuses already do, along with some other useful bonus.

As one last thing, maybe this whole 'Standardization' thing could be a way of bringing the USA into a kind of pseudo-member of this Federalized Commonwealth. I am definitely not talking about a focus that would let the UK absorb the United States as well, but rather literal standardization like what NATO has wanted to do for some time. Maybe an 'Anglosphere Standardization' focus wouldn't really change enough throughout the already very British equipment reliant Commonwealth, but such a thing would certainly be a major reform if the USA and Commonwealth all standardized their equipment together. It might be something for the USA to accept or refuse - and may not be possible at all if the USA isn't already the UK's ally and/or in its faction - but it could allow huge bonuses to production efficiency and/or lend-lease. The British already used a lot of American equipment, this could just make some of that official both ways and eliminate all prior logistical concerns that NATO wanted to stamp out historically.

Just suggestions. I think the whole Commonwealth Federalization concept all on its own got me excited to play the UK, which I am not normally fond of due to how spread out its empire is. So kudos for that. And the prospect of a USA-Commonwealth early Cold War post-WW2 could really breathe new life into the 1945-1948 late game. I'd love more late game mechanics in general.
 
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Will completely landless exiled govt countries get a new decent capital supply region or will their divisions just die out of supply anyway?

Make it "will all exiled countries ..." actually, as Free France is going to be flat with those extra state upgrades to Gabon anyway.
 
Neat!
Also can an exiled-government exist alongside a government created for the same nation? Basically if there's a Polish-Government-In-Exile and the Soviets come in can they set up a Communist Polish state even if the exiled government is still around?

This could be the basis for a generic 'Operation Unthinkable' mechanic, with two preconditions:
1. Before a nation, let's use Poland as an example but it could be any nation, capitulates; another nation, let's use the UK as the example but it could be any nation, must guarantee their independence. Like the UK did to Poland historically.
2. The capitulated nation is restored, but puppeted or annexed by another nation that is not already at war with the one that is hosting the exiled government. Again, like the USSR did to Poland historically, but it could be any nation.

So in this circumstance, the nation that accepted the gov-in-exile receives a demand from the exiled government to 'resolve the situation.' Perhaps it could lead straight to a demand to declare war, or perhaps it could be a two stage thing where first there are some events that involve strongly worded letters (from the UK's side to USSR in the case of the example) and some choices on whether or not to comply with those demands (from the USSR's perspective, where acceptance leads to Poland being unpuppeted and restored to its original political leanings, and refusal escalates the situation to an international incident) before the UK or USA or whomsever would be faced with a choice to go to war for the exiled government or betray the exiled government and do nothing.

Obviously this is predominantly a way for the Allies and Soviets to find an excuse to go to war, but there's one other use for this same mechanic. Often when I play the USA, I try to have my goal for the Pacific theater be the liberation of Korea and other Japanese colonies. Historical outcome, basically. The problem I often face is that the UK will sometimes have a higher warscore simply due to fighting since '39 rather than since '42 or so, and without fail will have as its first priority to puppet Japan - leaving its colonies unmolested and unliberated, which really just makes me feel like I had my own victory in the Pacific robbed from me. And while Korea would almost certainly NOT have had an exiled government for the USA to host, this same 'Operation Unthinkable' mechanic could be used to demand the liberation of places like Korea or Taiwan in the circumstances I described - with ultimatums that could lead to war, but could also just be complied with without further consequence. UK AI says "Oh, sorry, didn't know you the Human player had that as your goal" or says "Tough luck, yank" and the USA-UK Cold War starts. Just from a slight alteration to the mechanic that had UK dealing with occupied Poland.

And it really is best to keep this entire 'Operation Unthinkable' mechanic as generic as possible, because not only could post-war maps be drawn any number of ways but also because these disagreements should be able to occur not just between the Allies and Soviets, but between and within any faction in the game. HOI4 may be 'about' WW2, but it goes till 1948 so at least some sort of version of a 40's era WW3 should be simulated - as generically and as universally as possible, as stated before. And since Operation Unthinkable was first planned out in 1945, that cleanly puts it into the timeframe with three years to spare, so there's no excuse not to include a mechanic for it - especially since it's too late game for it to be a Focus.
 
It seems like Netherlands is (almost) confirmed to be one of the new focus trees. (Focus on naval power, democracy, and fuel depots in Indonesia)

My personal candidates for the other new focus tree are:
- Belgium (colonial power with exiled government)
- Philippines (puppet democratic state under the US, battleground between the IJN and USN, exiled government)
- Brazil (naval power in the Americas)

I'd put Spain, Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria in a Mediterranean DLC (with Italy and France reworks) and the Scandinavians in a Soviet DLC.
 
Talking about those rules ...

:)

Here are the rules for flag design:

View attachment 405642

From Wikipedia:
Vexillography is the art and practice of designing flags; it is allied with vexillology, the scholarly study of flags, but is not synonymous with that discipline.[1] A person who designs flags is a vexillographer.

This pretty much means ever brazilian flag fails in one of those rules (usually using lettering AND seals) and most of the older ones were not simple (they had a coat of arms surrounded by branches of tobacco and coffee, the major exports of Brazil at the time).
 
It seems like Netherlands is (almost) confirmed to be one of the new focus trees. (Focus on naval power, democracy, and fuel depots in Indonesia)

My personal candidates for the other new focus tree are:
- Belgium (colonial power with exiled government)
- Philippines (puppet democratic state under the US, battleground between the IJN and USN, exiled government)
- Brazil (naval power in the Americas)

I'd put Spain, Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria in a Mediterranean DLC (with Italy and France reworks) and the Scandinavians in a Soviet DLC.
Honestly I was against the idea of the Netherlands having a unique focus tree because it would be pointless to use in multiplayer as you would just die, but with this exiled mechanic it makes nations like the Netherlands, Poland, and Yugoslavia actually playable. :)
 
Honestly I was against the idea of the Netherlands having a unique focus tree because it would be pointless to use in multiplayer as you would just die, but with this exiled mechanic it makes nations like the Netherlands, Poland, and Yugoslavia actually playable. :)

Playing as Allied Poland and SFR Yugoslavia just got more interesting. :)

Netherlands fought with a small but high-quality naval force against the Japanese during the Battle of Java Sea. They also have cool ship designs, even though most of their ships were basically wiped out and had to rely on surplus British ships later on. http://www.naval-encyclopedia.com/ww2/netherlands/dutch-navy-ww2/ (Possible lend-lease of warships as new mechanic?)

Belgium had a brigade-in-exile (Brigade Piron), fighter squadrons in Britain, and even troops within the SAS. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium_in_World_War_II#cite_note-81)

Philippines have a potential for alternate history routes:
- if Communist, PHI can align with Communist China and goes on an anti-colonialist crusade ala South Africa (peasant revolution)
- if Fascist, PHI can align with Japan and perhaps claim the Captaincy-General territories (Guam, Marianas) in exchange for greater trade relations? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captaincy_General_of_the_Philippines)
- if Democratic, options to either proceed with developing Manila's industries (historically) or even out development on other islands (greater stability and resources)

Brazil to simply have a neighboring rival for the United States if you go ahistorical. Monroe Doctrine says hi.

Personally I would love to have these four new focus trees, but PDX says only two new ones, so... who knows. :)
 
The Imperial Federation looks well-handled. The approach in mods has often been to give ludicrous manpower from all over the empire, then oblige you to deal with crippling national spirits to balance it out.

Perhaps ethnically more British states in South Africa (the Cape), could be cored, rather than just an all-or-nothing affair?

Yeah in the otherwise outstanding British Overhaul mod, the IF focus gives you cores EVERYWHERE, even newly conquered areas. I had taken the DEI and it got cored after that event. But I agree that the Cape areas of S-A should get cored, along with Caribbean islands, Hong Kong and Singapore.