For the Motherland Developer Diary 6 - Neutrality & Government in Exile Updates

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Welcome to a new development diary! This weeks focus is on making Hearts of Iron 3 act a bit closer to historical events. One of the things that affects the war a lot is neutrality - for example controlling when US can enter the war is very important and the limiting factor is neutrality. The battle over neutrality is fought with spies which makes having all your spies on boosting or lowering neutrality very important. We didn’t like how key these spy actions were and how hard it was to balance when a country couldn’t enter the war, so we decided to change the way neutrality and threat is used.

We are changing neutrality to be a fixed value and represent how isolationist a country is. It is only ever changed through events and decisions. When deciding if an action like joining a faction is available this fixed neutrality will be compared to perceived outside threat. How you see a threat is now a bit more clever too and is modified by the following: distance in the world (as Sweden I'm going to feel less worried about a war in china than in Europe), the strength of factions and alignment (if I'm pretty closely aligned to Germany and about to join the axis the fact that they invade Poland isn’t really going to be very scary for me). So to affect when a country like US can join the allies you will now be using your spies to increase how threatening Germany appears to them instead, an action which is susceptible to counter espionage.

A bonus point of this is that it frees up some spies for doing other things, like affecting foreign party support which King touched on in his video diary about coups last week.

The other thing we have been working on is better modeling of Poland’s situation during WWII. As the soviet forces break the German occupation late in the war the soviets will install their own puppet government controlling Poland (ignoring the existing government in exile in Britain). This is a new general game mechanic so it will work for other situations and the requirements is that your faction controls their capital and 50% of the territory of a government in exile.

Here is two pictures, the first one showing Poland as Soviet is able to install their puppet government and the second showing a few polish underground resistance cells active earlier in the war.

GiE.pngpol.png

Next week we'll talk about historical elections and some new interface updates some of you have been asking for. Stay tuned!
 
Is the distance for threat based on capital-to capital distance or nearest border distance? Sweden might not be worried about war in China, but the UK could be. Not as much as they would be about war in Europe, though.
 
Is the distance for threat based on capital-to capital distance or nearest border distance? Sweden might not be worried about war in China, but the UK could be. Not as much as they would be about war in Europe, though.

its a combination of capital and borders
 
So, if I play Poland and I get exiled and Poland becomes a USSR puppet, which Poland do I play?

then you are the puppeted Poland, Comrade Romtos.
 
We are changing neutrality to be a fixed value

I dont like this for my mod (randomhoi) : ((((((

A bonus point of this is that it frees up some spies for doing other things,

Well, maybe a better solution is to assign a number of spies for every mission you what to do. For Example, I have 10 spies in my country, 5 for counter, 3 for NU and 2 for ruling party. THAT would be awesome : )
 
I dont like this for my mod (randomhoi) : ((((((

I'm not very familiar with how your mod works, how will it cause problems for you? you can always generate random neutralities right?
 
I'm not very familiar with how your mod works, how will it cause problems for you? you can always generate random neutralities right?

yes, like now, but it decreses over time (by modifiers,laws) so the AI can declare war at some point. (There is no specific events or decisision for war). If its fixed, the threat generation must be a lot higher or somelse. Maybe i just dont understand the new rules.

Anyway, dont worry about that :) its just a mod, but thx for your interest.
 
I understood correct?
The mission for my agents to bring the own neutrality down is deleted?

Hope not, but the way with borders and capitals is good, if I understood right, that this, when you have more borders to an agressor country, the thread is increased (?).
 
Mostly welcome and thanks~~~~~ even mentiong the election!!!! If the Soviet Union not controls 50% of the polish land although they controls Warszawa, then what is happen? (Maybe, is the government in exile returns?) And, if the regimes changed and became the puppet of the Soviet Union, the ruling party also changed?? A Conservative comrade(=leader), maybe, would not welcomed by Stalin. ^^
 
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I understood correct?
The mission for my agents to bring the own neutrality down is deleted?

Hope not, but the way with borders and capitals is good, if I understood right, that this, when you have more borders to an agressor country, the thread is increased (?).

right now how much border you have doesnt affect it. as long as you do then threat is increased. the formula is subject to change depending on how it balances out though.

yes, like now, but it decreses over time (by modifiers,laws) so the AI can declare war at some point. (There is no specific events or decisision for war). If its fixed, the threat generation must be a lot higher or somelse. Maybe i just dont understand the new rules.

Anyway, dont worry about that :) its just a mod, but thx for your interest.

you can still change it with modifiers in a mod though no problem, I havent removed any modifier support.

Does comrade Romtos still control the Partisan units? Will there still be Partisan units at all? And what happen to the GiE, does that one get removed? (So basically you're upgraded from GiE to puppet?)

yeah its basically an upgrade from GiE to puppet. the old GiE government isnt recognized anymore and you get a new government of the "right type" :) Historically when Soviet did this to Poland they later talked with the allies to make the whole thing more legit, but that was after and they wouldnt really be in a position to oppose the change.
 
Will there be a possibility to tell my domestic spies whom to hunt down while counterspying? Assume I'm the USA and want to join the Allies, can I tell my own spies to leave eg the British spies alone and go out for Axis spies only? If we can't change neutrality with domestic spies any more, will there be other domestic spy missions? Can I split up my domestic spies to have them do different things at the same time? If yes, does this also apply to spies abroad?
 
What does this mean for minors like Brazil or Argentina? Will this make it easier to join the war or harder. A big concern for me is that the neutrality will kill the fun that comes from being a minor. Sure in the current version you have to work a good couple of years before war but most minors can't afford to devote their IC to a spy war in an attempt to increase the threat of a nation on another continent.
 
Has the support our party spy missions been fixed?
After 1.4d I had a hard time keeping my party in power. Counterespionage with ministers and all could not stem the tide and support own party was way to weak.
 
So to affect when a country like US can join the allies you will now be using your spies to increase how threatening Germany appears to them instead, an action which is susceptible to counter espionage.

A bonus point of this is that it frees up some spies for doing other things, like affecting foreign party support which King touched on in his video diary about coups last week.

I'm sort of confused by the above statements as they seem contradictory. If we need spies to increase threat then how does this free up spies for other things? Does this also imply that leadership devoted to spies will be more important for most countries?
 
Can you explain how "the strength of factions and alignment" will be calculated? By the number of VPs, controlled provinces, size of armies, number of nations in that faction or by something else?