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Annex vs Conquer and Wargoals

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Ericus1

Ericus1

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May 9, 2004
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Would someone please do me the favor of telling me, in very clear, concise, and specific terms, what the difference is between these are. I.e., what, EXACTLY, are the differences in terms of IC, leadership, partisan activity, supply, resources, province control, etc., between using these various options? And what does it take, specifically, to achieve one or the other? What determines if a nation becomes a government in exile or not? Is it ALWAYS if they are in the Allies? What the hell do victory points even matter, other than determining who 'wins', like that matters?

And when do my allies gain a province instead of me? Cores don't seem to matter at all. Is it just if they physically have control when the government surrenders? If it's just a conquer and not annex does it even matter? If the allies landed, took a province controlled by an ally, and then I took it back, would it go back to him or me? Why is it that you never seem to get ownership of provinces, only control, even after a surrender?

I understand the difference between the various forms of puppet governments, as apparently the paradox developers were struck with a sudden surge of pity at that point and decided to actually directly display that information in the game, but are these applied DIRECTLY to the base values in the province, and immediately or only after the nation surrenders? And again, how does this compare to annexing?

Additionally, other than the specific ones, like the Fall of France, what do war goals do? E.g., if I add Dutch East Indies to my war goals as Germany, what the hell does that do? Before they surrender, after they surrender, does it do anything at all?

Part of the reason Paradox's game's learning curves are so steep, and they consequently scare off people, is the almost deliberate lack of specific information available in any way within the game itself. It's like, "Here's a massive, if pretty, interface. What, you want to know what this option does? TOO BAD, MUHAHAHAHAH." Even the manuals are greatly lacking in SPECIFIC details, they mostly just read like "And this button is called 'conquer'. That is all. Next topic." Is it REALLY so hard to put a pop-up mouse over on the various buttons that describes this stuff, in SPECIFIC and CONCISE detail? Jeez.
 
I understand your frustration but Paradox, and many game companies, are purposely vague about what the exact outcomes of player decisions will be in order to allow them to model the fact that humans do not operate on 100% foresight in decision making. Part of the 'fun' is to make your decision and to live with the consequences, whether they meet your expectations or not. Of course, someone can figure it out to some extent if they do the same actions over and over again, or if they look into the game files.

I suspect you are not of the type of player that likes this level of lack of foresight.

I am new to the game and could try to answer your questions but I am still trying to figure the answers so couldn't guarantee my answers are 100% accurate. I sort of enjoy the process of figuring out things on my own. I will just leave you with the reason why the Paradox games are so vague. It may not satisfy you but it is intentional and not due to any laziness factor.
 
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Wow, 4 hours and not a single relevant response. Back in the HoI2 forum people would have been jumping all over themselves to answer questions like this and emu'ing each other. Here I get 75 views, one condescending reply, and nothing useful.
 
Ericus1 said:
Part of the reason Paradox's game's learning curves are so steep, and they consequently scare off people, is the almost deliberate lack of specific information available in any way within the game itself. It's like, "Here's a massive, if pretty, interface. What, you want to know what this option does? TOO BAD, MUHAHAHAHAH." Even the manuals are greatly lacking in SPECIFIC details, they mostly just read like "And this button is called 'conquer'. That is all. Next topic." Is it REALLY so hard to put a pop-up mouse over on the various buttons that describes this stuff, in SPECIFIC and CONCISE detail? Jeez.
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This is why the wiki exists. :) We don't have all the answers and are not perfect, but I think the wiki does a pretty good job.

As to the differences, the easiest answer can be found in the occupational policies in the Politics tab. When a government goes in exile, you are only occupying their territory and the exact amount of IC, etc, you get is determined by your occupation policy.

As to your war goals question, if I select the Dutch East Indies as Japan, when the Netherlands falls Japan will get all of the dutch east indies! :) If Japan does not select that war goal, even if Japan occupies all that territory, Germany will get the land when the Netherlands falls. Thus, the war goal is quite important for Japan.
 
Ericus1 said:
Wow, 4 hours and not a single relevant response. Back in the HoI2 forum people would have been jumping all over themselves to answer questions like this and emu'ing each other. Here I get 75 views, one condescending reply, and nothing useful.
Click to expand...

My response was relevant just not what you wanted to hear. It wan't intended to be condescending there are different theories on game construction. Some believe in modelling the possibility of uncertainty..if you want absolutism take up chess or put the minimal effort into finding the answers directly. I for one am glad that Paradox allows those who want uncertainty modeled to play with that possibility.

If I wanted to be condescending I would have referred you to one of several threads that already break down the math of what you have asked and ended with some sort of quote from Napoleon Dynamite. I told you! I spent it with my uncle in Alaska hunting wolverines!
 
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Conquer is a wargoal, Annex is a result of a surrender event. They are not the same things, infact you can annex a contry that you conquer. What decides a nation going into exile is if its a member of a faction or not. I think the OP meant to ask the difference between occupied and annexed. Occupied means the government went into exile or you couldn't conquer all its VP points(belgium and holland are good examples of this). Occupied territory is dependent on the occupation policy you put in place. Annexed territory(a completely surrendered government not in a faction) runs on variables set in the static modifiers file that is worked in with your nations partisan efficiency modifier in your espionage window. If you wanted more specific answers I'm sorry, theres been plenty of posts over the years this games been out describing them more. The numbers you want are on your computer. Occupation polices are easy to see, and the annexed variables are in the static_modifiers.txt file. There are unique situations where acquire territory can be used to kill a nation in a faction but those situations are limited to only modded games or players who actively look to exploit the wargoal stacks....and its typically only france and denmark that can be killed off this way.
 
Gpeterse said:
My response was relevant just not what you wanted to hear. It wan't intended to be condescending there are different theories on game construction. Some believe in modelling the possibility of uncertainty..if you want absolutism take up chess or put the minimal effort into finding the answers directly. I for one am glad that Paradox allows those who want uncertainty modeled to play with that possibility.

If I wanted to be condescending I would have referred you to one of several threads that already break down the math of what you have asked and ended with some sort of quote from Napoleon Dynamite. I told you! I spent it with my uncle in Alaska hunting wolverines!
Click to expand...

Because when I am playing a grand strategic wargame, struggling with the interface because of terrible documentation is exactly what adds depth and challenge to the game? It'd be like playing a game of chess where you are presented with a set of buttons, but not told which button moves which piece. Does this one move a pawn, or do you lose your Queen? Only Trial and Error will tell. It's all part of the FUN! Do you really not see the difference between having an unknown outcome to how a game unfolds, which adds strategic depth, versus not having an clue what a option in the interface does, which just wastes time in a learning curve?

Sorry, I shouldn't have said condescending, I should have said patronizing. Instead of answering my post, or simply ignoring it, you came in to lecture me about how 'I' should find the game enjoyable, subtly implying that wanting to know how options in the interface work somehow makes me less for it. I asked for VERY specific information, instead you gave your opinion in an insulting manner in a place it was not asked for.


Okay, so essentially everything counts as 'occupied' (like it was in HoI2 for all intents and purposes before you captured all the VP's) until the VERY end of the war, at which point, as I already gather from the wiki, all wargoals are applied in order. The point I was getting at was that there is an annex option when you choose to declare war, and a conquer option, and I wanted to know what the difference was, and WHEN it was mattered, and HOW it effected the nations surrender. And, and do war goals take effect when a nation surrenders and goes into exile, or only after the END of the war and they are annexed. In other words, and I handed control of provinces on the other side of the world if they surrender and become a GiE even if I am nowhere near them, e.g. the Dutch East Indies.

As far as I can tell, whether you declare war with the conquer or annex option is completely irrelevant, it's all comes down to the war goals and the defeat of the faction, as for all intents and purposes nations will always go into exile rather than surrendering outright. Apparently VP's count towards the surrender threshold combined with unity. Which provinces get ceded to your control (not ownership) when an enemy nation surrenders still is a mystery, I'm assuming it is probably limited to the same continent (but again, the magic of the unknown). I can see the defines files myself, and look through the event files, but that still doesn't tell me a thing about how the internals of the engine work, and I don't want to spend days or my limited free time starting new games over and over trying to figure it out through trial and error.

It really is kind of insulting to be told to go search the forums, that this has been asked before. Do you think that wasn't the FIRST thing I did. That I didn't already CHECK the wiki out? There isn't even a wiki entry under reference for the specifics of war choices and outcomes, just wargoals themselves. Jesus, I've been on these forums for YEARS longer than all you people lecturing me, do you think I don't know how they work. I'm sorry if I just got this particular Paradox game, and after spending 30 mins searching through thread posts and not finding the answers to my questions that I DARE ask something that players already know, which would take one person 5 minutes to answer, and expecting ONE person to just answer my questions without giving me a fucking lecture. The HoI2 forums were never like this, the EU forums were never like this. Have to say my first experience here has left me kind of disgusted with the community in this forum.
 
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Well ok, I will try to answer then (I am not pro, I may be wrong and this 'wargoal' feature is kinda bugged in 3.05 FtM if u ask me)

Annex is what happens (or what can happen) with provinces of enemy u occupied when/if ur enemy surrenders. Basically, a province can be in one of the 3 states: just 'occupied' (then what u get from it is determined by ur 'occupation policy'), puppeted (well a single province can't be puppeted, but u got what I mean) then u mb get 'Puppet Master' modifier + another pupper country blah blah and annexed.

In last case u see these provinces like ur own, but they give u limited resources (the limitations are defined somewhere and are different depending on the exact province afaik), they may have some partisan activity etc.

So to summarize it up, Annex = one of the conditions enemy province can be in. It looks like very simple but here comes something to make things worse: one country's provinces can be occupied by different enemies (lets say Ger + Ita). In this case when 'main conqueror' chose "Puppet" whole country became his puppet and his allies got nothing. When he chose 'Annex' everyone got what he occupied unless there is special event on that country surrender (Hello, buggy "Bitter Peace"!) or maybe sometimes (not sure! mainly because 80% of your conquests ingame are scripted like conquest of France/USSR/etc) the leader of winners might get all territories.

Before FtM u could either choose "Annex a country" or "Puppet it". Now new conception of "Wargoals" has been presented.
It allows you to choose a wargoal (I think you must choose at least 1 when u are winning in any unscripted war). If u choose "Conquest" its pretty much like "I want to Annex this country when/if I conquer it". Puppet means puppet. But now pretending on some region via Wargoal option gives you more chance to overcome hardcoded script/chance you get nothing. One thing which really confuses me is that you can select only 1 region (or mb I did not try this option enough) and can't add more. So I chose "Khabarovsk kray" as Japan as my wargoal and could not add half of other USSR territory :( Imagine what? Yes, if I remember correctly, I got only this set of provinces. What would happen if I did not do it? I would get territories coded by even "Bitter Peace". At the same time, as someone mentioned above, it can be a tool to secure your conquests. Lets say you are Japan and Germany (who controls the capital of Netherlands) annexes it after u conquer last VP province. I dont remember who will get Holland India but I think via Wargoal you can (if u need/want to) try to secure that these territories go to you.

So I see it rather as a tool to try to fix if things go wrong. Other than that puppeted/occupied/annexed provinces - are still same and nothing changed AFAIK.

Hope I clarified something...or mb not :/
 
I believe what defines what territory you get is whether you have control of the province. E.g because Germany always chooses Conquer wargoal in France, even after Vichy fires, Italy posseses to land it captured (leading to awkward borders). I may be rusty, but Conquer and annex I think are the same thing. If the country doesn't go GIE and surrenders outright, I believe Conquer causes annexation rather than occupation.
 
Thank you, yes, both of you actually did clarify things for me somewhat. What I've gotten is choice of war declaration is irrelevant and nation surrenders basically don't matter. The only time they do is when you defeat the faction, in which case it's based on war goals. It was the outcomes of these options that was what I was trying to figure out, so I didn't waste days fighting ww2 only to find out at the end I declared war with the wrong option.
 
Since FtM was released, annex happens very rarely. I'm guessing I get about 1 annex in 10 as Germany. On the other hand, playing as Italy and attacking first Yugoslavia, then Bulgaria, then Romania, then Hungary in 1937, I get the annex every time. I believe this is because these countries have no faction they can continue the fight in exile with.

If you annex, you get a fraction of the country's ICs. But your partisan activity will be really bad, so get ready to play whack-a-mole. If you conquer, you get zero ICs (at least if your occupation policy is collaboration government). But your partisan problem is significantly better. In either annex or conquer, you get a fraction of the country's manpower, not sure if it differs but I think not.

What this means for me playing Germany is that I now build two full builds of ICs before the war because I cannot expect to acquire very many ICs via annexation. I'm then happy I only get the conquer and not the annex because then my partisan problem is much lower and there is little in the game I find more unpleasant than playing whack-a-mole.

You kind of have to learn what each war goal does. So as Germany, if they chose the war goal Drang Nach Osten they will always annex the Soviets west of the Urals when surrender occurs, but if you don't chose Drang Nach Osten you'll either conquer or annex ALL the Soviet Union, which makes for whack-a-mole on steroids.
 
Yeah I'm not too sure how it works really.
I have had all vps for certain countries under control, get the conquest pop up and still have that government in exile thing.
I was thinking about Poland, if Germany doesn't completely annex Poland and it becomes a gov in exile wouldn't that mean the Blitzkrieg modifier would stay til Poland is annexed?
If so thats a big mistake...

Puppeting should replace the government of the subject country but doesn't and has been discussed before Install "government type" is broke'd.
I guess as far as micromanagement goes its a bit annoying but it doesn't ruin the overall game experience.
I'm sure PI knows theres a few kinks in the programming will we see them repairing or improved this year?
Hard to say, look at all the other games they published this year already.

I guess in Strategic terms, "You don't want to spread your forces to thin or on to many fronts." Same could be applied to PI.
 
It says on that page that the war goals that set up communist governments do not work currently. When will they be functional?
 
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