Occupation should not be free.

[unmerged(25612)]

The issue that most wargames, including HOI as far as I have heard (Don`t actually own the game), is that occupying a country does not "cost" anything.

When Germany annexed France, whole divisions were left to France to guard the area, not only from an invasion from the sea, but in order to maintain the occupation. Armies became the police of the occupation. They guarded that resources were used for the benefit of the occupator.

All Strategy games represent this poorly. When armies roll over a country, the only men who are left behind are those who die on the field.


I was thinking of the following:

-All provinces belong to a state (Just like in Vic). (States have been agreed upon already haven`t they? Would seem rather strange to have air missions hit only the small provinces, so I am assuming that we have states in the first place.)

-The minimum occupationary force of a state is a division. Having multiple divisions will reduce the revolt risk, and increase the production efficiency.

-Divisions guarding a state cost less to upkeep than those mobilized for movement and attack.

-In the phase of an attack by invaders, the guarding division becomes a mobilized ( = normal) one.

-Guarding divisions can also be placed into home states (National provinces) and during those times, smaller bonus for production efficiency will be granted. (Soldiers help with field work?)

-Soldiers changing from Guarding/Occupation duties to normal mobile duty or vice versa will have very low organization. However during the mobile or stationary (Guarding/Occupation) the organization will rise. Also when attacked, the organization will not drop even when the troops go mobile. A time of one week is required to change between Guarding/Occupation and mobile states, and after that the organization will begin to accummulate. (This to represent leaving the areas and sharing responsibility, or as in vice versa; organizing the guarding/occupation.)



Also imagine the invasion of Normandy. How is this represented in most war games? By having a minium strenght guards division in every coastal province of Normandy. Is this realistic or acceptable in any respect? No it is not.

Having to watch over for the areas one has conquered will not only make ahistoric and illogical conquests impossible (Sorry, no more conquering the world alone as Estland), but also it will enable the more correct representation of invasions.

How big will the states be? Northern coast of France would be divided to three states. (Bretagne, Normandy, Calais). Holland would be maybe in two or three...




I am most terribly sorry if something similar has already been introduced to the game, but I have not had the privilidge of playing the first HOI.

 

[J.J.E.]

Some are good suggestions, but FEWER provinces - no!

You ought to try HoI first though, it makes it a lot easier to judge HoI2 and make suggestions.

 

[Cpack]

I agree, but a whole Divisions for every province would be to much (also in case of numbers of provinces increase).
So for this, we should have Regiments, or at least cheaper militia divisions, or "Garrison" troops.

I also agree, that ungarrisoned provinces have a reduced IC and rawmaterial output, reduced infrastructure and also a higher risk of revolts.

This would make it much harder to controll big conquered areas (as it was for Germany with Yugoslawia, France, Poland and the Sovietunion....)

 

[Cpack]

Note to garrison troops:

They should be much cheaper, with a good defence value, but poor attack values and lower Organisation

 

[unmerged(14683)]

I wonder if some sort of partisan-occupation policy can't be based on the Victorian system of fighting crime.

Based on the one slider (occupation force level/first line troops vs. second line troops - whatever name is suitable) values plus some other modifiers, it would determine level of resistance in the province. Level of resistance would affect IC/resource production there (maybe even it would lower infrastructure to slow down movement?) by triggering various "effects". Those effects would vary from low level resistance (smuggle, propaganda warfare) to middle (diversion, sabotage, small partisan action) and high (coordinated partisan attacks, uprisings).

EDIT: I really like those small icons in Victoria - especially "Mafia" and "Terrorist(Anarchist) Cell". It should not be hard to implement...

 

[Cpack]

I have an idea in abstracting the garrison occupied provinces problem:

How about an additional option (AA, IC, Infra, Coastalfort, Landfort) which is called "garrison" ?

You can reinforce an occupied province from 1 to 5 garrisons. The number of garrisons is an index on how is the IC and raw material output, the infrastructure and the revoltrisk will be handled. Also a defence bonus (like landforts) against attacking troops will be added, also if there're no own troops in it.

This would make it also harder for attacking units to conquer all around if there're no defending divisions available.

 

[loki_poki]

Some are good suggestions, but FEWER provinces - no!

You ought to try HoI first though, it makes it a lot easier to judge HoI2 and make suggestions.

He didn´t say they should have fewer provinces, just that they should be within states as they are in Vic.

 

[unmerged(21104)]

humm i dont like the ideia of losing divisions to occupied territory ... how about each annexation/conquest makes u Lose some manpower ... representing the police of that province ... maybe even a slider to control the ammount of power lost reducing/increasing the revolt risk / attrition due to partisans etc.

 

[unmerged(25612)]

Some answers:

Some are good suggestions, but FEWER provinces - no!

As Loki_Poki said: "He didn´t say they should have fewer provinces, just that they should be within states as they are in Vic."

So for this, we should have Regiments, or at least cheaper militia divisions, or "Garrison" troops.

I agree that there should be some cheaper units to do the job, but as far as I know, there are already some sorts of "irregular" troops in HOI. (Volksturm, Homeguard...) And I am not so sure if we should have regiments, because these are states we are talking about, and not just provinces.

To achieve the greatest realism one would first occupy the state he captures by the closest division available (The one that captured the area in the first place) and then relief this division by a weaker one. (Militia, irregular...) This is how it was done in reality. (Take France for example..). This way one cannot have two strong spearheads which he uses to eat the USSR alive, suffering from minimal casualites. One always has to leave forces behind to secure the captured areas.

Having a system like this would actually make sense in freeing countries during an occupation if that is made an option.



EDIT (Post was made during I typed the above):

humm i dont like the ideia of losing divisions to occupied territory ... how about each annexation/conquest makes u Lose some manpower ... representing the police of that province ... maybe even a slider to control the ammount of power lost reducing/increasing the revolt risk / attrition due to partisans etc.

That does not make much sense, because in reality you would lose troops to the occupation. You can of course use those weaker irrelugar forces coming behind your main groups to take the responsibility and free your main task force again. This is not only realistic, but it also removes many exploits from the game. (No way to conquer all of Europe as Estonia).

 

[Orthank]

Just make a limit of min. divisions that have to garnizone in occuppied country. For example 2 for Belgium/Netherlands 12 for France. Otherwise the country might uprising.

 

[unmerged(21104)]

i dont see how it doesnt make sense ... to me doesnt make sense to grab a few Divisions and put them on babysitting mode :|. Its far easier to go into ur resource pool ... grab a few vonlunteers ... give them guns .. teach them how to be a good policeman like shooting spyes ... and assign them to some enemy province. Consider it like you've been traning them and assigned them into the guard dutys ... like if u had a special force/unit to do that job!

 

[Orthank]

millitia...

 

[unmerged(16875)]

Isn't the "cost of occupation" already accounted for in HOI by giving the occupier only a fraction of the province's ICs? The idea being, I assume, that the reason you don't get the full allotment is because there's an inefficiency to running a conquered province and part of that inefficiency is keeping the locals under control.

 

[unmerged(14683)]

Isn't the "cost of occupation" already accounted for in HOI by giving the occupier only a fraction of the province's ICs? The idea being, I assume, that the reason you don't get the full allotment is because there's an inefficiency to running a conquered province and part of that inefficiency is keeping the locals under control.

Nah, it's whole different story... IC/resource cap is very useful to simulate limited efficiency of the occupied country economy. As I understand whole discussion above, we are back to the "how to introduce partisans" topic, but this time we start it from different angle - occupation forces.

 

[Dievs]

Actually, you need very little divisions to garrison countries IRL.
This topic has been discussed to death - I am to lazy right now to find the figures, but the thousands of people used to garrison/police the whole conquered 3rd reich is much, much, much less than 10.000 per Vic state.
When looking at the numbers from france, don't forget that some sources include the battle divisions that were there to prevent allied invasions in the coastline - the forces involving in keeping the country conquered were much less.

 

[Rommel22]

It takes a lot of manpower (divisions) to keep a country secure and garrisoned. Many divisions were used as garrisons and police at the same time in occupied countries. Yugoslavia was the most trouble some with all the partisans.

One division, the 132nd was stationed in Yugoslavia from May 1941 to about May 1942, taking part in all kinds of operations. Anti-partisan, garrison duties, police duties and training.

France wasn't as hard, but there was still the French underground they had to worry about, but they weren't as open or organized as the yugoslavs and russian partisans.

In Norway alone, Germany had 100,000 troops as garrisons. But thats because Hitler was worried the allies would land there.

I think something needs to be done. It took a lot of resources, men and material to garrison an occupied country. Either for police duties or for defense against invasions. I wish there were exact figrues somewhere on how many troops were used for garrisons in France and Yugoslavia.

I am not exactly sure how to implement this. I would think the system in EU2 or Victoria would work the best. Rebels/Partisan revotls. That way you need to keep troops back to keep those rebels down and keep control of the provinces. There should also be a garrison type unit. Kinda like militia I guess...

At the same time, there should also be a way to reduce the agressivness or the revolt risk of the partisans. Say, good occupation policy or something to that affect.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[unmerged(16031)]

No forces occupying the province=no resources or IC

 

[Tamerlan]

Isn't the "cost of occupation" already accounted for in HOI by giving the occupier only a fraction of the province's ICs? The idea being, I assume, that the reason you don't get the full allotment is because there's an inefficiency to running a conquered province and part of that inefficiency is keeping the locals under control.

I think this way too. Cost of occupation is already taken into account and abstracted.

But maybe a less abstract model might be good .

 

[unmerged(21104)]

Nah, it's whole different story... IC/resource cap is very useful to simulate limited efficiency of the occupied country economy. As I understand whole discussion above, we are back to the "how to introduce partisans" topic, but this time we start it from different angle - occupation forces.

ahahahahah ... good point of view ...
...
Well i keep with my ideia of removing some manpower for each province conquered/maybe with the province slider to adjust the number ... its abstract enough and keeps both sides happy.

 

[mvsnconsolegene]

Some are good suggestions, but FEWER provinces - no!

You ought to try HoI first though, it makes it a lot easier to judge HoI2 and make suggestions.

Well, in HoI you should note that you do not get as much manpower or IC's out of a province you are occupying. So it's not like there is absolutely no penalty.

It would have been neat if they kept some of the Eu2 culture stuff, though.

- MVSN