Annex vs Puppet - analysis and issues

[Meglok]

I have been trying to verify the effects of and differences between annexing a conquered country and puppeting the country.

Annex:
Annexing (occupying) is fully controlling a state you do not own. Occupation policy effects per the \common\static_modifiers file (moddable).

occupation_policy_1 = { # Gentlest
resistance_tick = -0.6
local_resources = -0.3
local_manpower = -0.7
local_factories = -0.6
}
occupation_policy_2 = { # Gentle
resistance_tick = -0.4
local_resources = -0.2
local_manpower = -0.8
local_factories = -0.4
occupation_cost = 0.01
}
occupation_policy_3 = { # Harsh
resistance_tick = -0.2
local_resources = -0.1
local_manpower = -0.9
local_factories = -0.2
occupation_cost = 0.02
}
occupation_policy_4 = { # Harshest
#resistance_tick = 0.0
#local_resources = 0.0
local_manpower = -1.0
#local_factories = 0.0
occupation_cost = 0.04
}
# The following is multiplied by local resistance strength.
resistance_effect = {
local_supplies = -0.5
local_intel_to_enemies = 1
local_factory_sabotage = 0.75
attrition = 0.25
}

http://www.hoi4wiki.com/Occupation
This is a well developed page that explains Occupation, the effects, resistance, suppression and just about any other question you may have about occupation.

Edit - Manpower:
Recruitable Manpower is calculated based on the starting state manpower base number (increasing 0.12% per month per wiki) multiplied by 0.5 (base modifier - core) OR multiplied by 0.02 (base modifier - non-core). From the coding notes after the defines modifiers I am pretty sure it is an either/or multiplier, not a cumulative multiplier.

LOCAL_MANPOWER_ACCESSIBLE_FACTOR = 0.5, -- accessible recruitable factor base
LOCAL_MANPOWER_ACCESSIBLE_NON_CORE_FACTOR = 0.02, -- accessible recruitable factor base

That final number is then multiplied by the chosen occupation manpower penalty.

Basically the harsher the occupation is you get less manpower (especially for non-core provinces), but you get more resources and factories modified by resistance. Harsher occupation drives resistance up, increases sabotage, increases enemy intel, decreases local supply, increases attrition, and is more expensive in cost and manpower/production due to all of the suppression troops you need.

Puppet:
Per Wiki - "A puppet is a country whose politics are largely controlled by another country who has puppeted them. When a country is puppeted, their government is replaced by one installed by their overlord, matching the overlord's ideology. You can import goods from your puppet without needing to provide any civilian factories in return."

Umm, ok, obviously a little vague. I attempted to find a file in the HOI4 fodder that defined the effects of puppeting without success. And I can not find a post that defines the effects either. I did find a few lines of code that does modify a puppeted country.

So, here is my best guess of how "puppet" is supposed to work. It is by no means a complete list.

Who can puppet?
- Fascist and Communist countries can puppet, Democracies can not.
Defined in common\ideology file (democratic can_puppet = no, moddable)

Tension Effects?
Per the common\defines\lua file (moddable):
TENSION_ANNEX_NO_CLAIM = 3,
TENSION_ANNEX_CLAIM = 2,
TENSION_ANNEX_CORE = 1,
TENSION_PUPPET = 2,
There appears to be no difference in tension effects between annexing or puppeting a state.
NOTE: the tension modifier is per state annexed. This explains why Japan taking all Chinese states drives tension high.

What do you receive when you puppet a country?
- The puppet keeps it's remaining army (observed results);
- The puppet's ideology flips to yours (wiki - not always working);
- The puppet's politic's is controlled by you, it joins any wars you are in, can't participate in peace deals?, can't send volunteers to other factions, etc (wiki - poorly defined and probably not working);
- You have first call on the puppet's resources (common\defines\lua: Puppet_Master_Trade_ Factor = 400;
- You pay no civilian factories for a puppet's resources (wiki);
- No resistance issues or occupation cost (can save a lot of manpower/production for master);
EDIT - Expeditionary forces received on demand (see below and see ISSUES)

What do you lose when you puppet a country?
- You don't get to use any of their manpower or factories;
- You don't get automatic use of all resources (just first call);
- You don't get captured equipment.
- You don't control their armies, navies, or airforce (AI control)
EDIT - You can demand the puppet's land forces as an expeditionary force. Be advised, they are only as good as the puppet's tech base, template builds, and industry output allows them to be, and see Issues below;

Issues:
Annexing seems to be working fine as designed.

Here are the observed and reported issues with the puppet wargoal:
- Ideology is not changing to puppet master's ideology;
- Puppets are grabbing territory at peace conferences (patch 1.1 might fix this);
- Puppets are sending volunteers all over the place;
- Resources are not being traded to puppet master. [This may occurring because the puppet master does not immediately demand all resources. The puppet sees no call from the master so trades resources elsewhere and the puppet master's later call for trade does not cancel existing trade deals.];
- Puppets are not building divisions after puppet war goal is implemented (reported). EDIT - This may be the template bug noted in Dev Diary 60. If correct then this would reduce the benefits of calling Expeditionary forces.

Conclusions:
EDIT - My two cents. If your conquest is a small country with little in the way of manpower or factories you may want to consider puppeting to avoid dealing with occupation issues. Also being able to Expeditionary call a large army from your puppet could be of great use.
Otherwise I would always annex, especially if the country is a mid to large country. The extra production and guaranteed resources you get by annexing can be of great benefit as YOU direct how the factories are used instead of the AI.

As working currently I would never puppet due to the peace conference issues. A puppet should never get a claim, it is going and doing what it is told for the benefit of it's master. The idea of puppet Slovakia telling Germany "the Ukraine is ours" is beyond ludicrous. After I see the effects of the Red Ball Express Patch (1.1) I may revise my opinion.

If anyone has additional info or wishes to correct the above info post away. I hope this helps people with questions about what happens when you annex or puppet.

 

[Alien-47]

You can demand expeditionary forces from a puppet, and it can't say no. So you have full control of their land forces. Combine that with a fact that they have full manpower from their core states, while you suffer 98% penalty.

 

[Quantum_AI]

What Alien just said. I was playing MP as the Raj and the Brit player took all my armies for funsies. Then he dropped from the game and I was stuck with no armies. So I did a fascist coup ;p

Anyway, my point is with pupetting you can have a puppet use all of it's manpower and resources to build armies. Then, if you don't trust the AI using it properly, you can just take all their armies. This aspect, combined with the fact that you can take the puppet's resources for free and then sell them, I say no reason why NOT to puppet!

Oh and then there's the single most important factor to puppet (rather than annex) in any PDX game: Pretty Borders!

 

[Lord Dakier]

Slightly off the subject isn't it a bit daft that democracies can't puppet when the USA starts off with Philippines as one and India can become one of the UK.

 

[Quantum_AI]

Slightly off the subject isn't it a bit daft that democracies can't puppet when the USA starts off with Philippines as one and India can become one of the UK.

Yea I was thinking the same thing. But then again..... Western hypocrisy !! ;p

 

[Owl Raider]

Annexing is worth it for industrial base, puppeting is worth it for manpower. Depending on what you need more proceed accordingly. For some reason you neglected to mention that the occupation policies give penalties to manpower on top of the initial -90% manpower you gain from non core provinces so annexing land for manpower is simply not worth it. By the way, do expeditionary forces include planes and ships or only land divisions?

 

[Quantum_AI]

Annexing is worth it for industrial base, puppeting is worth it for manpower. Depending on what you need more proceed accordingly. For some reason you neglected to mention that the occupation policies give penalties to manpower on top of the initial -90% manpower you gain from non core provinces so annexing land for manpower is simply not worth it. By the way, do expeditionary forces include planes and ships or only land divisions?

You can only ask for land divisions. And you can select the number of divisions that you want.

Also, since you can buy all the puppet's resources for free and sell them to others for CF, you can actually get some industry benefit off a puppet as well.

 

[Meglok]

@taO jee - Added in auto call of Expeditionary Forces, Thanks. Just not an issue for me. I haven't left enough units for it to matter, minor's tech base and templates suck, and half the time they can't produce enough guns to equip their troops. But if you were considering puppeting a major with large armies this would be a big consideration.

Annexing is worth it for industrial base, puppeting is worth it for manpower. Depending on what you need more proceed accordingly. For some reason you neglected to mention that the occupation policies give penalties to manpower on top of the initial -90% manpower you gain from non core provinces so annexing land for manpower is simply not worth it. By the way, do expeditionary forces include planes and ships or only land divisions?

@Owl Raider - manpower modifiers were mentioned in the annex section. The non-core penalty may not be 90% as it was in HOI3. I couldn't find anything in the static modifier or triggered modifier files that stated that penalty. If you know where that modifier is located please advise.
What I did find was this in the common\defines.lua - "LOCAL_MANPOWER_ACCESSIBLE_NON_CORE_FACTOR = 0.02, -- accessible recruitable factor base"
Exactly how and where this modifier applies in the calculation I am unclear on. But you are correct, non-core occupied provinces do give you less manpower.

 

[Vampiresoap]

Reasons for annexing:

#1) One country with 51 IC >>> 3 countries with 17 IC each

#2) AI puppets spawn ridiculously weak troops (outdated template, etc)...slowly

 

[Alien-47]

Reasons for annexing:
#2) AI puppets spawn ridiculously weak troops (outdated template, etc)...slowly

Yeah, and if you force-puppeted someone, then he probably has about 0 troops at the moment, and has to rebuild an army from scratch. Although when puppet someone peacefully, you at least get a sizable garrison force.

 

[Meglok]

More info on manpower:

Recruitable Manpower is calculated based on the starting state manpower base number (increasing 0.12% per month per wiki) multiplied by 0.5 (base modifier - core) OR multiplied by 0.02 (base modifier - non-core). From the coding notes after the defines modifiers i am pretty sure it is an either/or multiplier, not a cumulative multiplier.

LOCAL_MANPOWER_ACCESSIBLE_FACTOR = 0.5, -- accessible recruitable factor base
LOCAL_MANPOWER_ACCESSIBLE_NON_CORE_FACTOR = 0.02, -- accessible recruitable factor base

That final number is then multiplied by the chosen occupation manpower penalty.

The old flat modifier of -90% for non-core provinces from HOI3 appears to be gone.

 

[Wildcat_PL]

If you're big enough you have plenty of manpower, and since it's the only resource that puppet can get from territory better than you it can be ignored. you only get 50% or 80% of puppets resources for free and when you control territory youself you export those resources (who nooone buys basicly). But you can close economy and export nothing.

 

[Galagros]

- The puppet keeps it's remaining army (observed results);

Really? I puppeted Hungary as Greece and watched their whole army disappear so I haven't puppeted since since it seemed lame. I'll have to try again soon.

 

[Nic507]

- You don't control their armies, navies, or airforce (AI control)

Actually you do all though its not clear on how. There is a button called request forces in the diplomacy tab. It pretty much lets you have full control over there army 100% of the time. As for my two cents relating to this discussion, I still think annexing this the way to go since you have no penalties to "IC" once you annex said nation in the peace conference. The only time i think puppeting would be warranted would be if you wanted to tap into the manpower potential of a country like China or India, when you yourself are very low on manpower.

 

[es333]

If I take over Estonia as Latvia, should I puppet or annex it? I haven't bought the game yet, just reading the forums and HOI 4 seems to be broken as hell, so looks like I have to wait for 2017 until they fix all the bugs to get it.

 

[Czert]

If I take over Estonia as Latvia, should I puppet or annex it? I haven't bought the game yet, just reading the forums and HOI 4 seems to be broken as hell, so looks like I have to wait for 2017 until they fix all the bugs to get it.

manpower wise it will be beter to pupet it, ic / resource wise it will be better to annex it. And one you are over 50 factories extra research slot is very handy.

and for manpower....you can llways modifi game filesto give yourself more pop for more manpower, but it need new game to work.

 

[Novacat]

There are a few misconceptions, however, that should be cleared. A lot of people are getting occupied territory and annexed territory mixed up. Annexed terrtiory will not generate unrest, and Annexed territory will not generate partisans. These are misconceptions.

Resurrecting this thread, but, I would like to point out a few things. I feel that, at the moment, puppeting is far superior to annexing, for the following reasons.

- For every 2.5 billion of non-core population, gets you the same manpower as 50 million of core population. Basically, annexing gets you next to no manpower
- Puppets will usually always have export focus or free trade, which allows you to obtain 50-80% of their resources. This synergizes well with using free trade for the factory/research bonus.
- Puppets with colonial holdings (Netherlands being a prime example) will ship those resources home without you needing to do anything. It can significantly reduce your need for convoys.
- Puppets will purchase resources from you, which gives you free civilian industry.
- Puppets are great for garrisoning their home territory, which frees up your troops for elsewhere
- Puppets always lose their army when being puppeted, not sure about their airforce, however, they do keep their navy
- Puppeting generates less world tension than annexing

The only reason I would see to annex, is if you desperately need the factories.

One strategy I am attempting, to deal with the chronic lack of oil, is to annex most of a future puppet, leave a rump state, then construct synthetic oil refinieres on the puppet's territory before transferring it back over. It also allows me to temporarily utilise the civilian/military factories in a pinch. Probably not a good idea if you are trying to keep world tension down, however.

 

[Secret Master]

Annexation is best.

There are zero partisan issues once a peace treaty is signed. The Soviet Union? The partisans go home and take a nap once Stalin throws in the towel. You still get 100% of factories and 100% of resources (at your tech levels!) with no sabotage.

There's little manpower to get from non-core territory, but who cares? I can always conscript more people from my cores at a penalty to factory production. And does a 30% penalty to factory production matter when I just added 100 factories by annexing a major power?

Puppets will have worse tech, worse division composition, worse leaders, worse production, worse AI, and worse everything than if you just own the land yourself.

If partisans were still active after signing a peace treaty, I'd change my mind.

 

[Lord Curlyton]

The fact that unrest dies completely after a peace treaty is not only the single biggest reason making the decision to annex easy, but its a major flaw in the game imo. Unrest should VERY slowly tick down on a counter, regardless of whether its merely occupied or newly seized. The penalty should be much, much lower and faster if its core states you are retaking, and moderately reduced if you have claims, and non-existent for focus/event annexations. That way the true major benefit of a puppet state could come into play: its ability to police its own lands while providing you the raw material to drive your industry. Otherwise you'd have to expend a lot of resources just to police your new lands, depriving you of vital men that could be used to do frontline fighting, ESECIALLY if the timer and degree were upped each time a successful resistance event fired (or it ticked up to 100%). Foreign intervention to fund said resistance should also be an option.

 

[James_Manring]

I only puppet countries that have a population over 1 million, so I know they will be producing some troops if I give them equipment. If they have a state that is very resource rich I will consider annexing that, such as the Rubber in Brazil or Chromium in Cuba, because I have better extraction techs. In a game as Mexico, annexing most of Central America, then a few pieces of South America, while puppeting the rest of South America will leave you with several sizable puppet armies as well as plenty of industrial expansion to become a Major Power before taking anything from the USA.