0% market access on Occupation might be too destructive

[Life is Comedy]

While the new mechanic of removing occupied states from broader market access is indeed interesting in making wars scary, it might be a little overturned in how much the combination of 0 market access and devastation destroys countries way above what is reasonable.


Still ongoing game, almost 1890s, France especially has become a depopulated wasteland. In the last 15 years, it was occupied almost fully 3 times (all AI Vs AI wars). It had reached almost 70M inhabitants, it has now about 26 Millions and still decreasing cause of lingering devastation.

This happened because of the unfortunate combination of having all three times a wargoal against them, that required basically capital control. But all three times the invasion came from the South. Twice from Great Britain, once from Spain.


On the upside. As Germany (player) I have taken with 92 infamy France as a protectorate. A last invasion that might be solved in that timeline as a humanitarian mission (especially after having been ruled by red Communist!!! Long live the French and the German Emperors !).


While I like the added risks of wars, maybe (just indicative numbers) having occupation either just capping max market access to 50% as black market exists etc or just removing 50% access (and so technologies technically make it less painful...) might remove the worse effects of war.


Tyler: the new combination of devastation + no market access might destroy countries way more than intended for good gameplay

 

[IsaacCAT]

I like this suggestion that links military supply in occupied states and their market access.

IMHO, the occupier and the occupied need to feel the strain of an occupied state that is dying. There has to be consequences for both sides.

I would not go as far as the suggestion goes by implementing occupying armies but increasing supply to deployed armies depending on how many states and how populated they are, to reflect the occupation cost.

Thread 'Occupation rework: land blockades'
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/occupation-rework-land-blockades.1838644/

 

[Life is Comedy]

I had even checked if there was another recent thread but lost that one. Ops.

Yeah. Maybe too much of a hassle for players and AI.

The bigger issues is that even Peasants die out A LOT.

 

[Manchura]

I would say that occupation shouldn't reduce MAPI to 0 but instead drop to 50 while swapping over to the occupier's state over the course of occupation, this allows you to extract a ton of temporary goods out of states during a war and promote refugee migration while also incurring the cost of state management

 

[Aarontheshirt]

I would say that occupation shouldn't reduce MAPI to 0 but instead drop to 50 while swapping over to the occupier's state over the course of occupation, this allows you to extract a ton of temporary goods out of states during a war and promote refugee migration while also incurring the cost of state management

Unless the do some major reworks on the enemy capitulation the player could easily abuse wars to get resources for a long period.

Balancing this sounds really painful.

 

[Manchura]

Unless the do some major reworks on the enemy capitulation the player could easily abuse wars to get resources for a long period.

Balancing this sounds really painful.

not really, a state with 50% mapi where you are forced to pay for all the expenses is actually a serious drain in government resources especially if it has devastation on top of that so occupying a state with 20 government buildings would generally be enough to drain most nations occupying it for more than a year

 

[Kipsta]

0% market access seems like such a band-aid solution lol. The obvious mechanic should be that occupied states get access to the occupiers market with buildings starting out with a massive throughput penalty that gets reduced over time to simulate occupation taking places, restarting civilian life from a chaotic state.

I also don't think that "occupation" itself should cause devastation. ACTUAL COMBAT and the front line should cause devastation, but why would the death toll just keep on increasing in occupied states? Currently it's like every country is waging a war of annihilation against other countries civilian population with the goal of genociding them.

 

[Peelyboy]

Currently it's like every country is waging a war of annihilation against other countries civilian population with the goal of genociding them.

19th century Stellaris

 

[kingsword]

It’s overkill considering the devastation malus already cripples a province during a long war. I can see this totally annihilating minors locked in civil wars.

 

[OxfordNik]

I mean, 19th Century occupations would have been pretty devastating to local populations - but also a drain on the occupying powers, which is why they weren't too frequent.

Like the idea of reducing market access to 50% and switching to the market of the occupier, with throughput penalties. Would also say (again) that devastation needs to decay more quickly, depending - ideally - on the construction efficiency in the state, so that well developed areas can quickly rebuild.

Maybe also balance it with less developed areas generally incurring less of a devastation penalty to begin with; after all, should all of Alaska be at 100% devastation just because the Canadians occupied the inhabited areas for a couple of years?

PS: it would also be great to have a mechanic to simulate the League of Nations/ Geneva Conventions type thing, where states agree to generally behave better towards the civilian populations in occupied areas, in exchange for e.g. reduced infamy generation.

 

[MylesSCP]

In addition to changes to how occupation causes MAPI loss and devastation, we need a mechanic to address devastation rather than having to just wait for it to go away. A decree and/or the ability to use construction to restore devastated areas would be nice.

 

[Desseabar]

I like this suggestion that links military supply in occupied states and their market access.

IMHO, the occupier and the occupied need to feel the strain of an occupied state that is dying. There has to be consequences for both sides.

I would not go as far as the suggestion goes by implementing occupying armies but increasing supply to deployed armies depending on how many states and how populated they are, to reflect the occupation cost.

Thread 'Occupation rework: land blockades'
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/occupation-rework-land-blockades.1838644/

I'm not sure who it was, but someone had a great suggestion of making army supply come from buy orders on the local state, which I really liked. Combine that with market-flipping and treating the state as unincorporated and it seems great, especially for civil wars.

I know devs are worried about incentivizing a system where you perma-occupy states, but I think that's only an issue because 1) there's no garrison/occupation cost and 2) the rigid war goals system. They're actively adjusting the second point, but adding an expensive manpower cost to the first point also really helps.

 

[IsaacCAT]

making army supply come from buy orders on the local state

Barracks are located far away from the front lines and supply lines are required to send the goods to the front.

Changing local buy orders from the state where Barracks are located to the front line states does not make any sense for me and would be a headache for players to balance.

However, increasing supply depending on how many and how big states are occupied makes a lot of sense. I totally agree that you should be able to buy from occupied states but I do not think flipping markets for occupied states is an easy thing to implement.

adding an expensive manpower cost to the first point also really helps.

This also makes a lot of sense. However, what do you mean by manpower? Armies composed by battalions are located in front lines.

If occupation would subtract a percentage of soldiers from all battalions that will weaken the occupying force in battles as its battalions would be half full, with the corresponding -% in attack. Instead, I would prefer to have full battalions greyed out in armies to depict they are busy occupying the states and not able to participate in offensive battles.

 

[TitaniumMan91]

Pretty sure they don't swap markets because they couldn't think of a good way to do that with the coding and given the choices of "fully occupied state still produces for the owner" and "0% market access," the latter is the one that made the most sense.

 

[Desseabar]

Barracks are located far away from the front lines and supply lines are required to send the goods to the front.

Changing local buy orders from the state where Barracks are located to the front line states does not make any sense for me and would be a headache for players to balance.

However, increasing supply depending on how many and how big states are occupied makes a lot of sense. I totally agree that you should be able to buy from occupied states but I do not think flipping markets for occupied states is an easy thing to implement.

The idea as I recall was to shift buy orders to the state where troops actually are, which reflects both 'foraging' (if you want your soldiers to have grain, they have to source it from the local countryside) and difficult supply lines (you have to flip the state + have good enough transport to get grain up to your frontlines, so fighting in eg rural Africa is much harder). I don't think it's feasible without bigger changes to occupation, though.

This also makes a lot of sense. However, what do you mean by manpower? Armies composed by battalions are located in front lines.

If occupation would subtract a percentage of soldiers from all battalions that will weaken the occupying force in battles as its battalions would be half full, with the corresponding -% in attack. Instead, I would prefer to have full battalions greyed out in armies to depict they are busy occupying the states and not able to participate in offensive battles.

I said manpower to be agnostic to the exact solution, or if it becomes something else entirely like HOI4's model. Then it opens up trickier questions, though; the Prussians very thoroughly occupied France, for example, but cut a very narrow line into Austria in 1866. Those are two very different occupation costs for both the defender and attacker.

 

[DarkBlue]

It’s overkill considering the devastation malus already cripples a province during a long war. I can see this totally annihilating minors locked in civil wars.

We need to nerf devastation too. And give countries a few tools against it.

 

[yurcick]

I don’t think the penalties are too harsh or unreasonable. What’s unreasonable is the country’s unwillingness to surrender despite having a significant portion under a lengthy occupation.
Well, 1.0 war support has got to go.

 

[WTH666444]

I don’t think the penalties are too harsh or unreasonable. What’s unreasonable is the country’s unwillingness to surrender despite having a significant portion under a lengthy occupation.
Well, 1.0 war support has got to go.

Something I imagine the "limited wars" objective will handle. All good on that front

 

[Dman1791]

I don’t think the penalties are too harsh or unreasonable. What’s unreasonable is the country’s unwillingness to surrender despite having a significant portion under a lengthy occupation.
Well, 1.0 war support has got to go.

I'd argue it is unreasonable, at least if you include the very long tail of devastation penalties. Really, devastation is just too easy to ramp up. It feels like a 30v30 front of infantry in 1840 can hit the devastation cap relatively easily just by being static for a while, which really shouldn't be happening if 100% devastation is supposed to represent the areas utterly destroyed by WW1 trench warfare.

 

[Life is Comedy]

Exactly. Civilians die during wars. That sadly a fact. But I have another example of invading Florida as Germany. 1890s.

Naval invasion. I occupy Florida. Within just 2 months from the first battle for Florida, Florida goes from around +1% population growth, to -1% population growth. And I didn't even have a "pillage" general/order to kind of "RP" that.

And this even though, from memory, Florida didn't really have any industry. Almost all peasants. So not even in game mechanics to really explain the disruption of all civilian supply lines.