Fixing Fractured Government in Japan - Help please.

[Big Nev]

I’m thinking that the little coloured dots next to the portraits indicate which party the leader belongs to.

But all my cabinet are grey or dark grey. Do I need to assign some blue &/or red ministers. The problem is, I can’t find any.

Is Japan stuck with a fractured government?

[CplKatie]

It doesn't hurt you I dont think does it? You have a law with the reverse effect in action...repression or something, I dont have a japan game going right now but I'm pretty sure its just a tooltip annoyance at best.

[Big Nev]

Hi CplKatie.

A very fast response.

Well... no. It doesn’t seem to hurt, but it is annoying. Sometimes it’s red & sometimes it’s green but my National Unity doesn’t change from 70% no matter what I do.

But I’m right that I should use some colour in my cabinet? There just doesn’t seem to be any.

[CplKatie]

Its one of those features that applies to all nations but really only matters to democracies. Dictators and communists have civil laws that counter it so they didn't see a need to write extra code to bypass it.

[xtfoster]

Its one of those features that applies to all nations but really only matters to democracies. Dictators and communists have civil laws that counter it so they didn't see a need to write extra code to bypass it.

That's not 100% accurate. If you have something else affecting your unity (like Foreign Spies, Convoy Raiding, or Strategic Bombing) then also having the Fractured Government modifier will matter (because the Civil Laws will be mitigating that in addition to the other modifiers).

[CplKatie]

That's not 100% accurate. If you have something else affecting your unity (like Foreign Spies, Convoy Raiding, or Strategic Bombing) then also having the Fractured Government modifier will matter (because the Civil Laws will be mitigating that in addition to the other modifiers).

Its 99.9% accurate. The only thing that Fractured government did was add a sliver to the top of all the unity hits. The Propaganda press and the better press law, both would shave that sliver off, and in the top notch press law, you'd still have mitigation to your unity hits. Whereas a democracy at best will always suffer from fractured government alone and would amplify with unity hits. Fractured government is completely unimportant to a dictator/communist nation. Game mechanics wise it makes sense, and in reality it made sense, ofcourse a dictator doesn't have to worry about fulfilling political party roles...he can have them killed. Democracies are what this effect was meant for.

[Pro_Consul]

Is Japan stuck with a fractured government?

This question appears to have gone unanswered, but the answer is "No, you are not stuck with it". You can put your domestic spies to supporting your party in power, which will reduce the support of all other parties, eventually reducing them to the point that no party but the one in power has high enough support to demand a cabinet position. When that happens the fractured government modifier will go away and stay gone. Be warned, though, it takes a long time sometimes and is best done from the beginning of the game.

Edit: but of course CK is also right that you need to evaluate whether it is worth bothering to this much trouble to remove a penalty when it might be having negligible net effect on your nation.

In fact, I use this little game fact as an offense tool on certain occasions. If I want a particular country to surrender more quickly due to low NU, then rather than have my spies go right at the NU mission, I first have them spend a goodly while raising the support of MY party in that country. That will almost always result in fractured government because nations in differing factions also tend to have parties in power which are ideologically aligned with that faction, meaning any party whose ideology aligns with a different faction is not going to be well represented in the pool of potential ministers. Example, USA has very few Bund ministers, so if Germany raises the Bund's support the USA will not have enough potential ministers to fill the number of posts required to avoid the penalty. Then once that penalty is likely well underway, I switch to counterespionage for a little while to clear out the domestic spies in that country (don't want them supporting their own party back up) and then I switch to lowering NU. At this point there are now two penalties being applied at the same time, the fractured govt and the direct effect of my spies. Of course attacking another country's NU only really works if you have the time to go at it long term before you even face them in battle.

[CplKatie]

This question appears to have gone unanswered, but the answer is "No, you are not stuck with it". You can put your domestic spies to supporting your party in power, which will reduce the support of all other parties, eventually reducing them to the point that no party but the one in power has high enough support to demand a cabinet position. When that happens the fractured government modifier will go away and stay gone. Be warned, though, it takes a long time sometimes and is best done from the beginning of the game.

Edit: but of course CK is also right that you need to evaluate whether it is worth bothering to this much trouble to remove a penalty when it might be having negligible net effect on your nation.

In fact, I use this little game fact as an offense tool on certain occasions. If I want a particular country to surrender more quickly due to low NU, then rather than have my spies go right at the NU mission, I first have them spend a goodly while raising the support of MY party in that country. That will almost always result in fractured government because nations in differing factions also tend to have parties in power which are ideologically aligned with that faction, meaning any party whose ideology aligns with a different faction is not going to be well represented in the pool of potential ministers. Example, USA has very few Bund ministers, so if Germany raises the Bund's support the USA will not have enough potential ministers to fill the number of posts required to avoid the penalty. Then once that penalty is likely well underway, I switch to counterespionage for a little while to clear out the domestic spies in that country (don't want them supporting their own party back up) and then I switch to lowering NU. At this point there are now two penalties being applied at the same time, the fractured govt and the direct effect of my spies. Of course attacking another country's NU only really works if you have the time to go at it long term before you even face them in battle.1

Good strategy for spy work. I shall try this next time I play germany. Like I mentioned though, this strategy is useless against the comintern and major's in the axis faction. I think only vichy is a democracy in the axis, everyone else will have the ability to use the press laws that counter it.

[Pro_Consul]

I think only vichy is a democracy in the axis, everyone else will have the ability to use the press laws that counter it.

That is why I came up with the two-pronged assault on NU in the first place. If you do both things, give them fractured government and hit their NU directly with your spies, then it is too much for the -10% damping effect of a propaganda press to deal with. With the democracies the effect is more dramatic, true, but repressive regimes are not immune, just a little resistant.

[Secret Master]

This question appears to have gone unanswered, but the answer is "No, you are not stuck with it". You can put your domestic spies to supporting your party in power, which will reduce the support of all other parties, eventually reducing them to the point that no party but the one in power has high enough support to demand a cabinet position. When that happens the fractured government modifier will go away and stay gone. Be warned, though, it takes a long time sometimes and is best done from the beginning of the game.

I tend to work to remove it once I have other things taken care of domestically. I find that if I am a dictatorship and my NU is already high, then raising NU has negligible impact on NU as does fractured government. But since I find fractured government more annoying, I raise party support for a year or two to clear it out.

This is after I've killed off enemy spies, of course.

[CplKatie]

I tend to work to remove it once I have other things taken care of domestically. I find that if I am a dictatorship and my NU is already high, then raising NU has negligible impact on NU as does fractured government. But since I find fractured government more annoying, I raise party support for a year or two to clear it out.

This is after I've killed off enemy spies, of course.

I have found recently that putting 10 spies in your puppets nations and setting them to counter espionage helps them generate enough spies to do the same to you. More often than not as the UK and Japan, I usually just leave my home spies on raise unity and let the puppet spies handle the enemy actions in my nation.

[Secret Master]

I have found recently that putting 10 spies in your puppets nations and setting them to counter espionage helps them generate enough spies to do the same to you. More often than not as the UK and Japan, I usually just leave my home spies on raise unity and let the puppet spies handle the enemy actions in my nation.

Oh yeah, but the first 2 months of the game, most majors are so infested with spies from every 2-bit country that I can kill off 20 or more a week. I like to clean house first before putting spies in allies/puppets, raising NU, or supporting my party.

You can get an impressive list of domestic espionage help from allies and puppets, though. It's really neat to see 7 different countries running counter espionage in your own country. It's like the United Nations has a black-ops counter-intelligence program that makes Black UN helicopters look sane in comparison.

[CplKatie]

Oh yeah, but the first 2 months of the game, most majors are so infested with spies from every 2-bit country that I can kill off 20 or more a week. I like to clean house first before putting spies in allies/puppets, raising NU, or supporting my party.

You can get an impressive list of domestic espionage help from allies and puppets, though. It's really neat to see 7 different countries running counter espionage in your own country. It's like the United Nations has a black-ops counter-intelligence program that makes Black UN helicopters look sane in comparison.

Yeah I have no problem with my own nations counter espionage, its my puppets/allies who are low leadership that I do that strategy for, I fill theirs up to 10 as well, what this does is it kills the enemy infestations in their weaker leadership nations.

[Baltasar]

Oh yeah, but the first 2 months of the game, most majors are so infested with spies from every 2-bit country that I can kill off 20 or more a week.

That's hopefully going to change with TFH...

[Big Nev]

WOW.

Lots of advice on how to use spies in my next game. Especially puppet’s spies. I would never have thought of that.

As for setting my cloak & dagger brigade to reduce the opposition, I mean, support my party. I think I need to keep them on counter espionage ATM.

Thanks very much guys.