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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!
 
Nice summary. One thing that I find a bit unclear is how on-map divisions act in case of a rebellion in province that they are positioned in. Will they be teleported away to make room for rebel forces...or ...

I guess that if you have standing divisions there they will start surrounded and you will have to work to restablish the frontline. Anyway, with the proper occupation law and garrison I see difficult to provoque a rebellion.

So, once agian, if you have no manpower or are a minor nation... you're fucked? Got it. Once again, done without thinking of the

I don't get why you would be fucked. Sure, as Hungary you will get less factories and resources from non core for a bit, but after one or two years rising compliance you should get more factories, more resources and more importantly more manpower.

The only nations screwed are big powers like Germany and Japan than in less than one year got 100% factories and resources from occupied France or China, now the steamrolling will be slower since they have to rise compliance to get that level of power
 
I guess that if you have standing divisions there they will start surrounded and you will have to work to restablish the frontline. Anyway, with the proper occupation law and garrison I see difficult to provoque a rebellion.



I don't get why you would be fucked. Sure, as Hungary you will get less factories and resources from non core for a bit, but after one or two years rising compliance you should get more factories, more resources and more importantly more manpower.

The only nations screwed are big powers like Germany and Japan than in less than one year got 100% factories and resources from occupied France or China, now the steamrolling will be slower since they have to rise compliance to get that level of power

You dont actually have 1-2 years. Hungary, forming the empire, is on a very fast paced schedule. Otherwise, you won't be able to do anything. You have to take Yugoslavia, Romania, Austria, Czech. You dont need all of either one, and you do get a focus for Romania that is RNG, but you also must go to war with Yugoslavia for thedecision to actually core the locations you picked. If you don't go fast enough, Italy snatches Yugoslavia up. Just want to point that out first.

And I disagree. I think Germany will be just fine. I think the countries that take the biggest hits are the ones that have to go for early wars like Italy, Hungary, Greece, Fascist UK. I could see Japan getting hit hard. All that land in China... oh god. That actually sounds like hell lmao.

Now, I talk about this in an alt-history sense. Roman Empire, Austria Hungary, Byzatine, Any type of Uk run that isn't democratic. Obviously, historically, Italy would be fine because it wouldn't go for anything early on. That's fine. Im talking about its alt-history run, which should always have been viable. Roman Empire is def one of the hardest thigns ive ever had to do, and I found the strategy that worked for me, so im proud.

If you play Italy, you want to go for an Early war as you need more factories, more manpower, etc.

For me, I like to play Italy for my Roman Empire run. In the CURRENT state of the game you quickly try and remove Austria, Czech and Romania from Germany's grasp. This actualyl does harm Germany and slows them down, giving me, Italy, alot more breathing room. If you try to play Italy without doing these gamey things, in the current game, you'll never beat Germany. You just can't compete with Germanys stupidly OP manpower and the amount of divisions they'll spam while still having multiple million Manpower. ugh.

Trust me. I know Germany needs to be slowed down. Im just thinking of the other countries that I enjoy playing that'll be affected that will take it harder.

MAYBE im over reacting a bit.... but I am thinking of the worst case scenario of what this update can bring. It IS a concern.
 
I guess that if you have standing divisions there they will start surrounded and you will have to work to restablish the frontline. Anyway, with the proper occupation law and garrison I see difficult to provoque a rebellion.
Probably something like that, but one of the dev pictures shows a modifier saying, "strategic redeployment disabled" which I think will target on map divisions in a way we havent seen before. I also think paradox should put some event to give support to a rebellion in someones(The british?) focus tree to ensure historical rebellions will happen.
 
You dont actually have 1-2 years. Hungary, forming the empire, is on a very fast paced schedule. Otherwise, you won't be able to do anything. You have to take Yugoslavia, Romania, Austria, Czech. You dont need all of either one, and you do get a focus for Romania that is RNG, but you also must go to war with Yugoslavia for thedecision to actually core the locations you picked.

You don't have 1-2 years to get Austria-Hungary sure as you have to get things done before the Anchluss and the Italian attack on Yugoslavia; but those events aside any minor that annex some land in 1937 and start raising compliance will get more of those territories in 1939 than in the current patch. Meanwhile you won't be able to get use of everything in a single year.

Probably something like that, but one of the dev pictures shows a modifier saying, "strategic redeployment disabled" which I think will target on map divisions in a way we havent seen before. I also think paradox should put some event to give support to a rebellion in someones(The british?) focus tree to ensure historical rebellions will happen.

That's because there are two tiers for rebellions. The first makes the divisions stationed there to suffer attrition and makes strategic redeployment impossible to simulate guerrilla warfare. In the second tier the ownership of the province is transferred to the original owner and he receives some crappy divisions there so you have things like the Warsaw Uprising.
 
So before this conversation derails, you will have different options to deal with resistance and compliance, both with cons and pros.

This new system (we hope) is more interesting than a binary "ill just put horses here and be done with it".

I would like to remind everyone that we take different nations into account when doing balancing and introducing new systems, not just Germany.

This is a war game and you need at least two to tango
 
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You dont actually have 1-2 years. Hungary, forming the empire, is on a very fast paced schedule. Otherwise, you won't be able to do anything. You have to take Yugoslavia, Romania, Austria, Czech. You dont need all of either one, and you do get a focus for Romania that is RNG, but you also must go to war with Yugoslavia for thedecision to actually core the locations you picked. If you don't go fast enough, Italy snatches Yugoslavia up. Just want to point that out first.

You don't need Yugoslavia to form Austria-Hungary if you're doing the Hungarian focus tree path, you pointed out that you'll have resistance from taking over Austria and Czechoslovakia, I would like to remind you that those events are where the people of the country VOTE to join or stay independent, or for the Czechoslovakians to become a puppet. I'm sure if they join you, there will be high compliance because the people just voted to join, and after that's done you do a focus and get all that land you just got cored and all the problems are gone.

You also mentioned about Germany being nerfed but it applies to everyone, good. The game needs to stop saying "well Japanese troops can't fight Chinese troops at full effectiveness" to balance things historically. Combat systems shouldn't drastically change just because there was a special case. I hope one day that Japanese debuffs against China go away one day.

I understand you're frustrated but this change seems to be almost univserally agreed to be better. I know the like:dislike ratio isn't the most reliable but this page has a couple hundred likes and only 6 dislikes. Now I'm sure there's people who don't like this change and didn't downvote it, but I'm also sure people like it and didn't upvote it.

Fuel was never a thing before, it was and is a very important strategic matter to balance out, especially for the Germans. This is just like that, Allies will have to balance it out but will have some advantages over the Axis who will have a harder time, this time because they are storming across Europe and taking over countries. Fuel completely changed how vehicles and navies worked, strategies of spamming tanks gone out the window because they should be.

I'm sure that if this new system was completely breaking the game and made it unplayable that developers would tweak it and balance it out to be better. I'm not saying perfect because there is balance problems in-game, but at least to be playable. World conquest, or at least mass conquest of multiple nations in such quick succession, should be difficult. It's way too easy right now, there's a reason HoI IV is ridiculed to be a casual, beer and pretzel game compared to PDX's other RTS Grand Strategy games. Adding a bit of challenge is good for the game. I love having to balance fuel use as Germany, having to stop and think about my current operations depending on what my stockpile is like. Do I need to focus on VPs and capitalize the country? Am I running low and need to halt my mechanized forces, allowing myself to build up a bigger stock but gives my enemy time to reorganize? Do I reduce air operations? Do I reduce naval operations? Do I make a run for the oil fields to allow myself to keep pushing forward, take from my opponent but they won't capitulate as fast since I'm not targeting VPs anymore?

Adding depth mechanics, while yes make the game harder, are better for a strategy game. It creates decisions where YOU have to make up a plan on how you're going to get yourself out of the situation or fail. I don't lose a invasion and get mad and quit. When my invasion fails I come up with a new plan and try something else. If I'm getting pushed back, I try to counter their counter-invasion and fight. The game gets boring if it's just you constantly conquering countries with no challenge, no opposition and no pushback.
 
I know the like:dislike ratio isn't the most reliable but this page has a couple hundred likes and only 6 dislikes. Now I'm sure there's people who don't like this change and didn't downvote it, but I'm also sure people like it and didn't upvote it.

I'm very excited about this update, but I forgot to upvote. Thank you for reminding me to do so. :)
 
You don't need Yugoslavia to form Austria-Hungary if you're doing the Hungarian focus tree path, you pointed out that you'll have resistance from taking over Austria and Czechoslovakia, I would like to remind you that those events are where the people of the country VOTE to join or stay independent, or for the Czechoslovakians to become a puppet. I'm sure if they join you, there will be high compliance because the people just voted to join, and after that's done you do a focus and get all that land you just got cored and all the problems are gone.

You also mentioned about Germany being nerfed but it applies to everyone, good. The game needs to stop saying "well Japanese troops can't fight Chinese troops at full effectiveness" to balance things historically. Combat systems shouldn't drastically change just because there was a special case. I hope one day that Japanese debuffs against China go away one day.

I understand you're frustrated but this change seems to be almost univserally agreed to be better. I know the like:dislike ratio isn't the most reliable but this page has a couple hundred likes and only 6 dislikes. Now I'm sure there's people who don't like this change and didn't downvote it, but I'm also sure people like it and didn't upvote it.

Fuel was never a thing before, it was and is a very important strategic matter to balance out, especially for the Germans. This is just like that, Allies will have to balance it out but will have some advantages over the Axis who will have a harder time, this time because they are storming across Europe and taking over countries. Fuel completely changed how vehicles and navies worked, strategies of spamming tanks gone out the window because they should be.

I'm sure that if this new system was completely breaking the game and made it unplayable that developers would tweak it and balance it out to be better. I'm not saying perfect because there is balance problems in-game, but at least to be playable. World conquest, or at least mass conquest of multiple nations in such quick succession, should be difficult. It's way too easy right now, there's a reason HoI IV is ridiculed to be a casual, beer and pretzel game compared to PDX's other RTS Grand Strategy games. Adding a bit of challenge is good for the game. I love having to balance fuel use as Germany, having to stop and think about my current operations depending on what my stockpile is like. Do I need to focus on VPs and capitalize the country? Am I running low and need to halt my mechanized forces, allowing myself to build up a bigger stock but gives my enemy time to reorganize? Do I reduce air operations? Do I reduce naval operations? Do I make a run for the oil fields to allow myself to keep pushing forward, take from my opponent but they won't capitulate as fast since I'm not targeting VPs anymore?

Adding depth mechanics, while yes make the game harder, are better for a strategy game. It creates decisions where YOU have to make up a plan on how you're going to get yourself out of the situation or fail. I don't lose a invasion and get mad and quit. When my invasion fails I come up with a new plan and try something else. If I'm getting pushed back, I try to counter their counter-invasion and fight. The game gets boring if it's just you constantly conquering countries with no challenge, no opposition and no pushback.

You do not get a focus to core them. You only core them after doing the decision((Waking the Tiger)). And to do the decision, you must have I believe the northern part of Yugoslavia.

People just aren't thinking about the issues this could bring, and thats why its like this. No one seems to give a damn about all the things ive brought up, and its sad.


But wahtever. I cant change how this game is going. Im just one dude and while I can forsee all the issues, Im just one man. if the general public wants Allies win 2.0, than whatever. I'll just have to find a way around it even if it means I can no longer get achievements.
 
So before this conversation derails, you will have different options to deal with resistance and compliance, both with cons and pros.

This new system (we hope) is more interesting than a binary "ill just put horses here and be done with it".

I would like to remind everyone that we take different nations into account when doing balancing and introducing new systems, not just Germany.

This is a war game and you need at least two to tango

So you're going to make every nation take less resistance in occupation than another? Because I'd like to point out several of your game mechanics like formable nations rely on quick rapid conquest.

Byzatine Empire is a great example of this. Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. You have to quickly take Romania and Bulgaria before they join Germany. Albania before they get annexed by Italy. Yugoslavia before Italy.

All of these have to do be done rapidly or you've automatically failed.


The way this was presented was, you need manpower and you need equipment to handle each province. What if you have neither to spare?


And I 100% agree that the old system needed to go as sticking Horses on something was silly, I just tend to look at things in a Worst-Case Scenario. That way, I could point out the potential issues than praise something as the the best thing since Sliced Bread.
 
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If it's harder to make meme formable nations like the Byzantine Empire, then that can only be a good thing.

I expect it'll still be easily doable, but it may take longer, especially if you want to pursue occupation policies that keep your manpower more intact.
 
If it's harder to make meme formable nations like the Byzantine Empire, then that can only be a good thing.

I expect it'll still be easily doable, but it may take longer, especially if you want to pursue occupation policies that keep your manpower more intact.

Easily doable.......

Lol. no. Its not easily doable at all.

Most of these formable nations are not 'easily' doable at all unless you're some super Hoi4 god.

Not everyone is Dark Souls level.


And why is that a good thing if its even more difficult? What exactly does it harm you if someone in a singleplayer match does something? It doesn't harm you, yet you still wanna say. "No fuck you."

There is no reason to nerf things, that doesn't need to be nerfed, just because you don't like that they can do it. If it doesn't affect you, than mind your own business. If it was something broken, I'd understand, but its not broken, its not overpowered, its already difficult as hell. People just try to force their own wants and desires on everyone else in this world.
 
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You do not get a focus to core them. You only core them after doing the decision((Waking the Tiger)). And to do the decision, you must have I believe the northern part of Yugoslavia.

Have you never played Hungary with their focus tree for Austria-Hungary? They literally have a focus that changes your colour, name and flag to Austria-Hungary and you get access to unique division names, and gives you cores on all of Austria and Czechoslovakia, later they can get other cores. You also don't need Yugoslavia for this focus. Yes you need those provinces for the DECISION to form Austria-Hungary, but not the focus tree for Hungary.
 
Have you never played Hungary with their focus tree for Austria-Hungary? They literally have a focus that changes your colour, name and flag to Austria-Hungary and you get access to unique division names, and gives you cores on all of Austria and Czechoslovakia, later they can get other cores. You also don't need Yugoslavia for this focus. Yes you need those provinces for the DECISION to form Austria-Hungary, but not the focus tree for Hungary.

It's been a while since I touched Austria-Hungary so I'll just take your word for it, but again, the way the focuses work with the heavy RNG and not any real way to bypass it unless you save scum, it's still going to be hit decently hard with the new update. Maybe they'll update the focuses in the tree so there's a better way to do things. Who knows.

Im just worst casing.
 
Why are we even having this discussion.

1. you're focusing way too much about this one particular case instead of seeing the whole picture.

2. as I already pointed out to you, assuming that the game won't be rebalanced around this new feature is a very large and unfounded assumption.
 
All this talk about Austria-Hungary…. here i'm thinking about all the potential this mechanic would open up:

- Soviet partisans operating in Belarus, Baltics, Ukraine etc
- Warsaw Uprising, where Soviet Union would have the decision to either help Polish Undergound retake the city or leave them to die like Stalin did
- the Italian resistance that helped Allies in liberation war
- a complex civil war and diplomacy that was happening between Partisans, Chetniks and Ustaše with Axis, Allies and Comintern intervention in occupied Yugoslavia
 
- a complex civil war and diplomacy that was happening between Partisans, Chetniks and Ustaše with Axis, Allies and Comintern intervention in occupied Yugoslavia
Would be very nice to see, but probably takes a lot more work to implement so most likely won't happen soon.
 
All this talk about Austria-Hungary…. here i'm thinking about all the potential this mechanic would open up:

- Soviet partisans operating in Belarus, Baltics, Ukraine etc
- Warsaw Uprising, where Soviet Union would have the decision to either help Polish Undergound retake the city or leave them to die like Stalin did
- the Italian resistance that helped Allies in liberation war
- a complex civil war and diplomacy that was happening between Partisans, Chetniks and Ustaše with Axis, Allies and Comintern intervention in occupied Yugoslavia

Same mechanic can be used to model the decolonisation of Asia. The allies should face resistance in places like the dutch east indies after the Japanese occupation.
 
Same mechanic can be used to model the decolonisation of Asia. The allies should face resistance in places like the dutch east indies after the Japanese occupation.
I just realized; The resistance mechanic gives an actual reason for a non-communist UK to decolonize; Now that you'll need manpower to garrison all non-core lands, decolonization could free up a considerable amount of manpower.