What's the sense/use of the claim province function?

3 reasons:

Manual peace treaties automatically add claimed provinces for the demander, so you can 'claim' territories you want on the map and then offer a peace treaty without memorizing province names.

Claimed provinces are given to you by allies/puppets if they do not have a core or claim on it after a period of time.

Claimed provinces can be demanded from another country, useful for re-organizing puppet borders as a master (claimed, f12->acceptall, demand territory, f12->acceptall to turn off)

As far as I'm concerned this is one of the most player-friendly mechanics offered in any HoI mod. I remember with a shudder the chore of having to keep side notes of the names of provinces I wanted to claim from an enemy in a peace settlement then trawl through its province list highlighting each in turn - an especially burdensome task if that enemy happened to be Russia with its myriad of similarly named targets. Now it's just click and demand. What a boon.

Epaminondas said:

As far as I'm concerned this is one of the most player-friendly mechanics offered in any HoI mod. I remember with a shudder the chore of having to keep side notes of the names of provinces I wanted to claim from an enemy in a peace settlement then trawl through its province list highlighting each in turn - an especially burdensome task if that enemy happened to be Russia with its myriad of similarly named targets. Now it's just click and demand. What a boon.

Click to expand...

Especially if you use the E3 Map by Mumia.

What a thought. The horror, the horror!

Also if you are planning to liberate a country, the country won't get any territory you have a claim on. If you claim the province where the liberated country's capital would be, then it won't appear in the "can be liberated" menu.