capturing a province only to find out someone else will get it

[paperhero]

I am playing with Greece with goal to take out Russia (with a little help). The problem I encountered was after capturing Kalmykia, another country that I was in the same faction with claimed it. This seems messed up to me, shouldn't I get the resources from the conquest? Another even bigger problem was that all my units North of it were cut off from supply. When I asked the new owner of Kalmykia if I could pass through, it was refused! This caused me so much frustration that I restarted the game.

If I can't get resources for the provinces I capture, my attack will stall, and maybe end. How many times can I expect this to happen?

I assume the reason the other country was able to claim Kalmykia was it was used as it's justification for its attack on Russia. With this in mind I have several questions about how to work around the problem for my next game.

Getting supplied, Kalmykia is a bottleneck north Caspian Sea on one side and captured Russian provinces on the other from allies. I can only think of 5 ways around this. Which one do you think best?
1. getting on good terms with owner of the province, so they will allow supply to pass through.
2. making 2 ports on either side of Caspian sea, and hoping that the unsupplied units on the north side don't get wiped out before port is built and they become supplied.
3. using Kalmykia as my reason for war with Russia, although I am not sure I will get it if the other country in question also does this?
4. Not joining Hitler. The big problem with this one is Italy, which will justify against me, and bring me into war with not only Italy, but Germany, Bulgaria, and Vichy France to name a few, this will tie up all of my available units just to defend myself and I will not be able to attack Russia.
5. Hope no ones claims Kalmykia, and be prepared to start the game over if someone does.

 

[Bossman Zero]

First off, you might want to read the rules on territorial control:

Warfare - Hearts of Iron 4 Wiki

hoi4.paradoxwikis.com

As far as I know, there only possible claims on Kalmykia are the core claims belonging to the USSR and the releasable Kalmykia nation. War goals from justification are not claims.

Secondly, how did you get to Kalmykia? Did you already annex Turkey and push up that way, stage a naval invasion on the Black Sea, or did you rely on allied territorial gains? If it was the last one, you won't be getting control of territory since it will be given to whoever controls the most neighboring provinces. But if you're allied, you should be able to just move the units through their territory, no need to ask for access.

Third, the supply situation: the central Asian area is just really bad for this in general. Kalmykia has no supply hubs and just the tiny VP of Elista. And since the Caspian Sea is inland, you can't build naval bases there. North of Kalmykia implies to me you're fighting for Stalingrad, which is pretty far from other hubs like Rostov or Astrakhan. Without a hub, you'll either need to airdrop supplies until you take one and convert the rail connection, or hunker down somewhere in your existing supply range and wait the long time for a supply hub to be built (not really possible in your situation).

And lastly, why the big deal over Kalmykia? It doesn't have resources.

 

[paperhero]

Why Kalmykia? First off some background on my personal goal, which is to take out Russia with Greece. to make it even harder, I will try to do it without any DLC, I have a friend who already did that, and finely, what can I say, I am cheap, and having a lot of fun with just playing the base game. To make it even harder I need to do it quicker than my friend. In this way I don't cheese the win by; turtling away until the Axis are destroyed, join the Allies, declare war on Russia, and get the Allies to destroy Russia doing all the work.

Back to why Kalmykia? I did take out Turkey, and started attacking Russia from there. At this point in the game I have about 60 divisions compared to Russia's 300. So you see that I will need a lot of help, and that help comes at least initially from Germany, which I could be either at war with or allied with. If at war with Germany I want to limit the damage we do to each other since we are both fighting Russia, thus I want to stay as away from the German Russian front as I can. The Caspian Sea prevents this so I hug it's coast line at least until I get north of it and can expand East, and away from the German Russian front. At this point in the game Kalmykia is probably the closest point to and boarding the German/Romania front. It was Romania that claimed Kalmykia in my first game.

The big question then is; what is the best way to do this? Being allied with the Axis, at war with them, or neither, each has their pros and cons.
1. Allied with Germany. Once both myself and Germany are in the war with Russia, I will not be able to leave the faction, and must destroy Russia before Germany is destroyed by the Allies.
2. At war with the Axis. If I don't join the Axis, Italy will justify against me and bring in all the Axis powers to war against me, which greatly delays the time which I can effectively war on Russia.
3. Neither: Wait around until England takes out Italy, and only then leave the Axis to attack Russia.