AI creating puppet states on its own

[Mrdie]

Throughout WWII plenty of puppet states appeared (obvious ones being Norway, Croatia, Slovakia, Bohemia and Moravia, and to a lesser extent Denmark and Vichy France) and HOI2 simulated this quite well—at least, inasmuch as scripted events went. But what about non-scripted events in an alternate history world?

IMO the AI should be more prone to release puppet states in areas with very high militancy if said AI is unable to contain rebellions (since forming puppet states would evidently lessen the militancy of the people in said regions). Alternatively, if a state conquers another but wants to also decrease its belligerence so other countries don't totally want to kill it, it should also consider releasing a puppet state.

Speaking of puppets, nationalist revolts should have the possibility of appearing with the objective of overthrowing a collaborationist regime and such, and large empires should have a far larger chance of nationalist rebellions that would require one to set up puppet states in the first place (or else, of course, spend time fighting strong and determined rebellions).

So for example, let's pretend that AI Mussolini takes over France and WWII never happened, etc. World went totally off track. I don't think that Italy would be in any position to keep their hold on France, nor would they even want to hold onto it as direct territory. Chances are since they would be holding a large amount of non-core and utterly hostile territory that they would release a puppet France. There shouldn't have to be a scripted event in this case, it should just be an expected thing to occur.

 

[unmerged(164423)]

That would be great, indeed. But very hard to code, I guess ... The AI would have to check whether it is worth to build a puppet or not.

 

[Inner Circle]

there´s an option in the AI files where you can define countries, which an ai-led nation should liberate...

 

[wormyguy]

It would be best if there were certain ai paths to behave differently with regards to puppet states, kinda like how the German AI chooses between Sealion and Barbarossa. Germany could have an 80% chance of choosing the "Lebensraum" path on the Eastern Front, in which they keep all their conquests, or a 20% for the "anti-communist" path, in which they set up puppet states in the occupied areas (possibly annexed by event after Bitter Peace). Japan could have a 70% chance of an "imperial" path, in which it keeps all its conquests, or a 30% chance of a "Pan-Asian" path, where it releases puppets in Indonesia/Vietnam/Philippines etc. Likewise for Italy in the Balkans or the Soviets in Poland, etc.

 

[Wittman85]

Norway was never a puppet state of Germany.

 

[unmerged(164423)]

there´s an option in the AI files where you can define countries, which an ai-led nation should liberate...

Yes, but what about user defined countries? It's a lot of work to change all AI-files.

 

[Fancykiller65]

Norway was never a puppet state of Germany.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quisling_regime

 

[Wittman85]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quisling_regime

Quisling tried a coup, which ultimately failed, and during the whole occupation he actually angered the Germans more than he helped them. Terboven, being Reichskommissar, controlled Norway with dictatorial powers. I recently saw a Norwegian documentary about Quisling, describing these events carefully.

Norway was occupied, never a puppet. To state that "Norway was a puppet", and then even to continue by saying Norway was "more of a puppet" than Denmark and Vichy France, is nothing but a ludicrous statement. It's just wrong, plain wrong.
Quisling collaborated with the Germans, yes, but Terboven ran the show.

(Oh and yes, I'm from Norway, if that wasn't clear enough.)

 

[Mrdie]

How much power the actual "native" government has doesn't really matter. So long as said government still exists and still nominally controls what it does, it's a puppet state. There's no separating "puppetness" in HOI2, as far as the game is concerned Vichy France is as much of a puppet as Slovakia, Mongolia, or the "Republic of China" under Wang Jingwei.

It could be a puppet state in the same sense as Bohemia and Moravia, which had a native ruler (Emil Hácha) but all power rested in the Reichsprotektor.

 

[unmerged(59604)]

I think it's ridiculous to call Bohemia and Moravia or Reichskommissariat Norwegen German puppets. They didn't have even nominal independence and were under German occupation (i.e. were a part of the "Grossdeutsches Reich"). It's like saying that Estonia became a Soviet puppet after 1940.

Vichy France wasn't a German puppet until Operation Anton in 1942. It was not a member of the Axis, it had international recognition and Germany did not control its foreign policy.

 

[Mrdie]

I think it's ridiculous to call Bohemia and Moravia or Reichskommissariat Norwegen German puppets. They didn't have even nominal independence and were under German occupation (i.e. were a part of the "Grossdeutsches Reich"). It's like saying that Estonia became a Soviet puppet after 1940.

I didn't argue that B&M or Norway should be represented as puppet states in the game. They should be represented as Nazi territory, same with Albania under the Nazis, etc. But both had their own governments, B&M was a protectorate (which is why it should be shown as Nazi territory).

Also yes, technically Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were Soviet puppet states post-Red Army moving in until they formally joined the Soviet Union as SSRs. "At 3:30 o'clock in the afternoon of July 21, 1940, Lithuania became a Soviet Socialist Republic by unanimous vote of the People's Sejm. Two hours later, also by unanimous vote, the Sejm voted to apply for admission..." Not that I oppose them being represented as direct Soviet territory or anything before then, though.

Vichy France wasn't a German puppet until Operation Anton in 1942. It was not a member of the Axis, it had international recognition and Germany did not control its foreign policy.

Didn't Germany exert much pressure on its domestic policies, though?

IMO all this could be fixed by having 3 versions of "puppetry": colonies, protectorates (includes governments under union to a strong extent à la Albania under Italy, along with military rule à la B&M and Norway), and puppet states. The former two would show such territories under their "masters" flag and color.

As a note, under this system Tannu Tuva would be a protectorate, which makes sense IMO since no other country besides the USSR and Mongolia recognized its existence (Mongolia only grudgingly) and it had no real contact with the outside world (even Mongolia) besides Soviet-filtered and sponsored efforts.

 

[Fancykiller65]

Quisling tried a coup, which ultimately failed, and during the whole occupation he actually angered the Germans more than he helped them. Terboven, being Reichskommissar, controlled Norway with dictatorial powers. I recently saw a Norwegian documentary about Quisling, describing these events carefully.

Norway was occupied, never a puppet. To state that "Norway was a puppet", and then even to continue by saying Norway was "more of a puppet" than Denmark and Vichy France, is nothing but a ludicrous statement. It's just wrong, plain wrong.
Quisling collaborated with the Germans, yes, but Terboven ran the show.

(Oh and yes, I'm from Norway, if that wasn't clear enough.)

Your the expert.

 

[unmerged(164423)]

And now please back to topic This issue is very interesting and it should be implemented, if possible.

 

[unmerged(87183)]

No, Puppet's suck. Only historical ones should be included. Give this opetion to the AI and it will make all kinds of retarded decisions.

As for Vichy, it was an independant nation. What's more is it was recognized by the Allies. However, after 1942, it was basically a Puppet-in-Exile (oddly in the very nation that "exiled" it, Germany).
Germany exerted influence over it as much (probably less) as it exerted influence over any of it's actual allies (save Japan and it's puppets), yet none of them are puppets (save the Croatia and Slovakia, which were created by Germany).

 

[Mrdie]

No, Puppet's suck. Only historical ones should be included. Give this opetion to the AI and it will make all kinds of retarded decisions.

How? Puppets are a fairly important part of warfare, considering that most invaders of territories attempt to portray themselves as liberators. WWII had various historical puppets of varying sizes from Pindus to obviously more notable ones as noted in my first post. Had Germany conquered the USSR, or Japan invaded Africa or the Middle East, or any other various alternate history scenarios, puppets would have been formed. To just include "historical ones" makes no sense. Why should historical puppet states be given a free pass yet in alternate situations where realistically puppets would have been formed they aren't because the AI doesn't have an event relating to them?

If the AI makes "retarded decisions" then that's up to those in charge of the actual feature to fix. In any case, it could be easily set to have it so the AI contemplates the idea only after taking territories, so the mental image of, say, Britain suddenly letting go to Nigeria due to some discontent within it in 1938 would never happen. Ever. (Which makes sense) Whereas the idea of such happening to Japan in the Middle East or Africa would cause them to create puppet states.

Plus AI states should refuse to create puppets in core territory.

So I don't really see where the room for "retarded decisions" would lay.

 

[Easy1]

Quisling tried a coup, which ultimately failed, and during the whole occupation he actually angered the Germans more than he helped them. Terboven, being Reichskommissar, controlled Norway with dictatorial powers. I recently saw a Norwegian documentary about Quisling, describing these events carefully.

Norway was occupied, never a puppet. To state that "Norway was a puppet", and then even to continue by saying Norway was "more of a puppet" than Denmark and Vichy France, is nothing but a ludicrous statement. It's just wrong, plain wrong.
Quisling collaborated with the Germans, yes, but Terboven ran the show.

(Oh and yes, I'm from Norway, if that wasn't clear enough.)

It’s all about how you define a puppet state.

Remember that all Norwegian public organizations and institutions (the police for example) cooperated with the Germans after the occupation, not only Quisling

 

[Mrdie]

IMO a puppet state is basically a government which is nominally sovereign and is capable of administering its own territory (including its own armed forces).

Of course this in itself can cause problems. For example, Albania under Italian occupation did not claim sovereignty, but it did have its own government and army, was allowed to fly its own flag, etc. But I wouldn't really call it a puppet state since it was legally an autonomous part of Italy; its government members were often also politicians who participated in the Italian Senate (like collaborationist Albanian PM Mustafa Merlika-Kruja).

Manchukuo, by contrast, claimed sovereignty and was recognized by its puppet master (Japan) as sovereign. Plus it had full control (in theory) of its government, its armed forces, etc.

 

[Galleblære]

It’s all about how you define a puppet state.

Remember that all Norwegian public organizations and institutions (the police for example) cooperated with the Germans after the occupation, not only Quisling

Of course most parts of the old government functions in some way after a conquest given the opportunity, people still try to go to work, go to school, run hospitals etc.

Calling it a puppet depends on your definition of the word I suppose. I'd argue that Norway was basically run directly from Germany, and that Terbhoven and his goons were there as a policing force, and they had put Quisling to the task of winning the "hearts and minds" of the Norwegian population, something he failed utterly at.

A puppet in my mind has at least some degree of autonomy (as is reflected in the HoI2 game). Norway, Bohemia etc doesn't have that.

 

[Mrdie]

Bohemia & Moravia was a protectorate, so I can see why it's not in the game. We'd need to include other protectorates then, like Morocco, Kuwait... and all of them lacked their own armed forces, which IMO is a pretty important qualifier.

I do understand what you mean with the "hearts and minds" stuff though, like the Belarusian Central Rada, which recruited Belarusians to serve in the Wehrmacht and such. You're right, these should really just be represented as direct territory. I agree that Norway should be direct territory, like Albania post-Italian occupation is.

 

[Galleblære]

Bohemia & Moravia was a protectorate, so I can see why it's not in the game. We'd need to include other protectorates then, like Morocco, Kuwait... and all of them lacked their own armed forces, which IMO is a pretty important qualifier.

I do understand what you mean with the "hearts and minds" stuff though, like the Belarusian Central Rada, which recruited Belarusians to serve in the Wehrmacht and such. You're right, these should really just be represented as direct territory. I agree that Norway should be direct territory, like Albania post-Italian occupation is.

Morocco is French (and later Vichy France) territory in the HoI2 game. Kuwait is English territory in the game.

Remember that with certain ministers, you would get manpower from occupied territories in HoI2. So this can be abstracted to show how Germany managed to get some recruits from territories they had just conquered. (IE Ukraine, Belarus etc)