Economic value of Puppet States

[Jape]

This may be very much common knowledge but I'm away from my copy of HOI2 at the mo so aren't able to check it, but what is the value, economically, of puppet states if anything?

Namely, in terms of trading, are deals with puppets more advantageous or similar to a free nation with similar relations?

 

[Pal]

This may be very much common knowledge but I'm away from my copy of HOI2 at the mo so aren't able to check it, but what is the value, economically, of puppet states if anything?

Namely, in terms of trading, are deals with puppets more advantageous or similar to a free nation with similar relations?

You don't need to make trade deals with puppets, as they give you every resource they have (above a buffer stockpile of 1k) for free. Only supplies and money aren't given automatically. A great exploit with this is to buy their army for 5k resources, as they will immediately return the price to you. So you basically get your army for free (reinforcement cost and time is much less than building it yourself).

Beware, though, that the actual trade deal "willingness" does NOT take into account whether they are your puppet or not, it's solely based on relations (automatically +200 when releasing puppet) and their AI file. Nationalist China won't trade with Japan even after they are being puppetted.