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HoI4 Dev Diary - Resistance and Compliance

Hello HoI bois and ladies, welcome to the second dev diary on our upcoming unannounced expansion and 1.8 ‘Husky’ update. This update features some big changes to how occupied territory functions. The biggest part of this is an overhaul of the game’s current resistance system into what we are calling the “Resistance and Compliance” system. This should help curb a bit of power from snowballing (Hello, Germany), remove gamey early war sniping of provinces, and put a bit of a clock on world conquest runs.

The old resistance system is rather simple. Each occupied state has a suppression requirement. If you meet that requirement nothing happens. If the suppression requirement is not met then you suffer from increasingly common sabotage to factories or infrastructure as resistance strength grows. We decided we could make this more interesting and use it as a way to further control the power of snowballing.

The growth of resistance is no longer stopped by having an adequate garrison. Resistance now functions with a target system. The resistance level will grow or decay towards whatever the current target is. The target is impacted by the development of the state, the core owner still existing and other factors. Resistance activities will still scale with the level of resistance, but the garrison will now work as a shield that absorbs these sabotages. If the garrison is adequate, the garrison shield will absorb the vast majority of sabotage attempts and take losses to manpower and equipment. Not having an adequate garrison means a higher resistance target and more resistance activity making it past the garrison shield to the state.

DD_RESCOMP_COMP.png


Compliance is in some ways the opposite of resistance. It is a rating of how willing the local state is to work with their occupiers. Compliance will normally start at zero and increase slowly over time. Compliance growth will generally be slow and several factors can affect that speed of growth. As compliance increases in a state, it will decrease local resistance and give access to more resources, factories, and manpower.

DD_RESCOMP_COMP2.png


Resistance and compliance also will have various effects that are unlocked. Resistance will gain the ability to more frequently bypass the garrison shield after it reaches a strength of 25%. Reaching 25% compliance means reducing suppression requirements for the current level of resistance.

DD_RESCOMP_UNLOCKS.png


The highest level of resistance unlocks include two levels of uprising. The first is a passive malus that is applied to the state, adding attrition, decreasing move speed, and slowing org regain for occupying forces in the area. The 2nd level uprising is a full scale organized uprising that functions somewhat like a civil war. The states that rise up will gain low-quality divisions and either rejoin their former master or if that no longer exists, reestablish themselves on the map. Both of these should be somewhat rare and will require the local resistance being supported by an outside source.

DD_RESCOMP_UPRISING1.png



In conjunction with these new systems, we have reworked how occupied states are handled. Colony states will be removed as a concept and every state not controlled by a nation with a core on the state will be viewed as occupied. Occupied states will now be less rewarding for the occupier. Access to the factories and resources of the state will by default be much lower than before. However, the conqueror can get more out of the state by cultivating compliance or adjusting occupation laws. This gives a bit of granularity between what was previously colony states and cores.

Occupation laws will also be updated to work with the new resistance and compliance systems and give the player more choice. Previous occupation laws were mostly a linear system of paying PP and increasing suppression need for increasing rewards. If you could afford it, harsher occupation would almost always be more beneficial. This was also a system not a lot of people interacted with as it was hidden behind several layers of the menu.

New occupation laws are built around trying to give the player choice based on playstyle and short and longterm goals. The new laws tend towards one of three objectives: compliance growth, resistance suppression, factory/resource exploitation. Compliance growth is a longterm reward, while resistance suppression and resource gains are more short term. These laws will, in turn, be bad at what they are not concerned with. IE focusing on resistance suppression will generally not be very rewarding in terms of resources or long term compliance growth. Cultivating compliance will mean that the player will have to deal with a period of low yields and maybe a more active resistance movement. Each of the big three ideologies will also get their own special occupation laws. These laws fit the themes of the ideologies and give them some unique choices

DD_RESCOMP_OCULAW02.png


That's all we got for this week. Next week we will update the good people of these forums on what is going on with France. Secrets and things hidden will be revealed!
 
This system could work very well to represent the unrest that plagued the British in mandatory Palestine during the 1930s. I hope some events or at least some early resistance in the region will be added to represent this crisis.

Oh man, yes. I've been waiting for that to be modeled into the game in some way.

I was thinking of Mandatory Palestine tag, but the uprising system might do the job on its own with some events+decisions for ENG.
 
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I can see some possibilities with tying in these mechanics with the Nationalist Chinese focus tree; for example, things like "Forcible Conscription" and increases in inflation should add to resistance and Democratic advances (with the Legislative Yuan etc.) should add to compliance, I think.

Not to mention the "Scorched Earth Tactics" Focus in NatChina Tree.
 
Excellent update! At least we got rid of thoses "colonial states" !!

A question about modding : is it possible to make states/countries modifiers affecting resistance/complience? For exemple the diverses minorities helping the occupier against the occupied country legitimate government (like in USSR for exemple) ?

Thanks
 
The occupation system and non-core provinces was the single most unrealistic thing about the whole game. While it worked just well enough, what I am seeing here is beautiful. Truly a dream come true.
 
I suppose this now means that paying inadequate attention to occupied territories can *make time an ally of a rebellion*.

And that failure to deal with it decisively will have us explaining to a far less... patient audience. Hehe. ;)
 
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Interesting concept, could you give examples how this works ingame right now.

So how does it work for example for Italy peacedealing Yugoslavia+Greece, or Japan agains China. How does these changes affect these nations. Can you raise cooperarion in 2 years high enough to make it beneficial for the coming world war?
How does it work for Germany and occupying Poland, Benelux and France. Do you still just press Force Labour/Harsh Quotas for maximum Industry?
And how does it work for UK/France in Africa/Asia. Do they need garrision divisions all over the world no, just to stop rebellions? Or does this only become a problem if for example Italy ignites rebellion in Egypt?

Edit: Ah just now I see that it seems that garrisions are now offmap and just consume Manpower and Equipment. Mega-nice.

Raising compliance to high levels will take years.

You can still choose harsh laws that revolve around generating resources, but those will be bad at controlling resistance and generating compliance. Longterm you will get more out of a state with high compliance than with harsh occupation. Its a choice between long and short term reward. Running harsh occupation laws will generate less resources and factories than in the current game.

The allies will not need to dedicate large numbers of resources to hold their colonies unless certain things happens.
 
Really like the new occupation laws. So will this new system be able to simulate the very active French and Polish resistance and the Warsaw Uprising for example? Also, historically I believe the territories that Germany occupied eventually became a big drain and strain on their empire.
 
Does resistance and compliance work at a state level or at a country level? If Germany occupies France, do all French states share the same level of compliance and resistance?

On an independent note, what are your thoughts about having ideologies for states and not just for countries? It would mix nicely with civil wars, resistance/compliance, democratic elections, etc.

Resistance and compliance exists on a state by state basis. However, we also look at the average of those values across all of a tag's cores for certain things IE: full scale revolts.

State by state ideology seems overly complicated to me without a lot of gain in game play. It could also make balancing historical game progression, which is already not trivial, even more bananas.
 
I wonder if this means minor nations can finally compete a tiny bit better with regards to manpower?
Are the Chinese puppet for manpower times over? Probably not that far I assume.. But this does look like a great improvement.
 
How are you going to deal with the fact that certain historical occupation policies (atrocities of Nazis, particularly on the eastern front) touch on forbidden subjects?

Unless you've changed your position, I don't expect you to enable such radical policies in this game, even though they would definitely make historical sense (and even gameplay-wise, in terms of naturally fitting to established systems).
I'm sure concentration camps or PoWs handling are totally out of question, but are we going to see at least some generic "scorched earth" policies that represent really extreme measures without being (too) politically volatile and specific?

I understand it's a touchy subject and that it is really difficult for you in terms of how it limits the design space and discussions we can have. I hope we can all understand that and respect that whatever you decide it's a tough call and not really up for debate here. IMHO, all the more reason for you to be clear about it and set expectations early.
 
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Can we know what the unique ideological regimes of the occupation are?
It’s not even necessary to describe their effect. I just want to know the names. I just want to feel the flavor
 
Nice! I'm happy to see the "colony state" abomination gone. The old system meant that colonies would never rebel, which was quite unrealistic. BTW, how does this new mechanic work with governments-in-exile?
 
How are you going to deal with the fact that certain historical occupation policies (atrocities of Nazis, particularly on the eastern front) touch on forbidden subjects?

Unless you've changed your position, I don't expect you to enable such radical policies in this game, even though they would definitely make historical sense (and even gameplay-wise, in terms of naturally fitting to established systems).
I'm sure concentration camps or PoWs handling are totally out of question, but are we going to see at least some generic "scorched earth" policies that represent really extreme measures without being (too) politically volatile and specific?

I understand it's a touchy subject and that it is really difficult for you in terms of how it limits the design space and discussions we can have. I hope we can all understand that and respect that whatever you decide it's a tough call and not really up for debate here. IMHO, all the more reason for you to be clear about it and set expectations early.
Imo the last two (or even 3) occupation modes cover this. Martial law, Forced labour and Harsh quotas (guy possibly in a prison suit and behind a metal fence) seem to be just enough and i don't want this game to delve too deep into controversial subjects that CAN be avoided without much gameplay and historical interference.
 
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Excellent update! At least we got rid of thoses "colonial states" !!

A question about modding : is it possible to make states/countries modifiers affecting resistance/complience? For exemple the diverses minorities helping the occupier against the occupied country legitimate government (like in USSR for exemple) ?

Thanks

This should be possible