Occupation should not be free.

[unmerged(25612)]

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.

True to some extent, but then again the costs for an "irregular" division can be made to correspond a 5,000 men "regiment", but that can be mobilized for fighting if needed. Also It might be best to largen the states in order to keep the air raids and occupation armies to a reasonable size.

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.

I had the excact similar problem. But the numbers still exceeded large numbers, large enough not to be left without representation.


In any event I think the whole issue is pretty much circling around the sizes of the states. Whole of France would have to be made into eight provinces or so...


But I strongly disagree with people Gunnl. With the current state of things you can start with a country with very small population (Estonia for example), conquer your small neighbours (Latvia, Lithuania), proceed with even bigger and bigger ones, and ultimately take down majors (Poland, Slovachia, Czech and eventually Germany). Could this have happened in any way in real life at least in such a small time? No it could not have. The occupation of Poland alone would have brought the Estonian economy down to its knees.

It is just plain ludicurous that I can create two strong army groups and roll over Russia, without any limitations what so ever. In reality the German troops had to leave forces behind to guard the taken areas. Normally when an area was kept long anough a "militia/irregular" - type of unit came to relief the army holding the area. (SS and Wermacht attack an area, and Volksturm occupies, as in France for example..)



And to Gunnl:

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 ...

If it only was that easy in reality.

Civilians given a gun and told to "shoot the bad guys and stuff" won`t work. You have to build and most of all train the army and then order it to the area.

Taking area under occupation does slow down the army, this is a fact, and a fact that was one of the major reasons why Operation Barbarossa failed (Along the reasons of Winter, Mud, distances and the Russians).

You have to remember that when an area is occupied, the people have to live on! The life can not just stop because there is a war. Especially due to the misery caused by the war, thieves and other such criminals become a huge problem. And then we have spies, resistance... Also those ports are not going to operate on their own...

like if u had a special force/unit to do that job!

You mean as in Volksturm or the home guards? Or any other Irregular/Militia type of army?


If you only make it so that some abstract manpower maluses and strange IC costs are tied to the occupation of ones territory you are going to lose, not only historical accuracy but also protection from illogical abuses:

You can not, and I say again this time with a more loud voice, you can not conquer the world as Estonia! At least not with a war of conquest, and at least not in 10 years, that is.

 

[unmerged(20852)]

Could occupational forces be represented by events after conquest. CORE has some events that take this into account. We would select a policy that includes how brutal you treat the country and that gives the level of production(ICs) and the amount of manpower required for the country. The event could also allow for recruiting in the conquered territory if desired.
I personally like this idea as policy is determined shortly after conquest and then you can more or less 'forget' about the place (until another event comes up).

 

[unmerged(25612)]

Could occupational forces be represented by events after conquest. CORE has some events that take this into account. We would select a policy that includes how brutal you treat the country and that gives the level of production(ICs) and the amount of manpower required for the country. The event could also allow for recruiting in the conquered territory if desired.
I personally like this idea as policy is determined shortly after conquest and then you can more or less 'forget' about the place (until another event comes up).

Events are always a bad option. They should be used only when no other way of representing the issue is available, or if historical accuracy is the only thing we are searching. Events, even if done a gazillion of answers and event chain possibilities, can not represent a game with almost endless amounts of possible outcomes.

 

[Landa]

I think a good way of representing occupational forces would be to use units to 'pacify' groups of provinces, as somebody suggested earlier.

Either group the provinces into larger 'territories' (maybe one to five provinces per territory depending on their size) or simply let garrisson divisions exert control over the province they are in and the adjacent provinces.

Provinces that are national provinces and provinces the aggressor has claims on (e.g. Danzig for germany) shouldn't need garrissons.

That way, the player can decide which units he wants to use and this would be an incentive to build militia units as second line garrissons. Altough I think that the militia should get slightly more boni from technologies then.

I don't think that the current system in HOI works very good. It reduces the amount of resources the occupating country gets, but it doesn't use any of the nations original resources (esp manpower). So a small nation could control a huge area without any real drawbacks (apart from the fact that they don't get as much production and resources from the area than the original owner did).

A possible way to do it:

There are four occupation levels
uncontrolled -> no IC / resources
lightly controlled -> 1/3 of the max IC /resources
controlled -> 1/2 of the max IC / resource
heavily controlled 2/3 of the max IC /resources

If a division is garrissoned in a province, the province's occupation level is controlled.
If more than one division is garrissoned in a province, it's level is raised to heavily controlled.
If a province is adjacent to a controlled province, it is lightly controlled.
If a province is adjacent to two (or more) controlled provinces, it is controlled too.

Provinces the attacker has clains on are treated as heavily controlled before and like national provinces after the nation has been annexed.

Annexed provinces are one level higher (e.g. heavily controlled with one division and controlled with at least one division adjacent).

Hm.. I'm not quite sure if I used the right terminology, I hope this makes some sense...

 

[unmerged(25612)]

Ermhhh.. Landa, good post, that pretty much had only everything we had already said earlier, did it not?

Either group the provinces into larger 'territories' (maybe one to five provinces per territory depending on their size) or simply let garrisson divisions exert control over the province they are in and the adjacent provinces.

If with "territories", you mean "states", as in Victoria, then that is excactly what we just said.

That way, the player can decide which units he wants to use and this would be an incentive to build militia units as second line garrissons. Altough I think that the militia should get slightly more boni from technologies then.

Same goes here, that is excactly the same as said earlier. Although in slightly different words.

I don't think that the current system in HOI works very good. It reduces the amount of resources the occupating country gets, but it doesn't use any of the nations original resources (esp manpower). So a small nation could control a huge area without any real drawbacks (apart from the fact that they don't get as much production and resources from the area than the original owner did).

And here again. I used Estonia as an example, and said the excactly same thing...



Or have I missed something new, groundbreaking and crucial in your post?


The only real difference with these two posts, if I understood them correctly, is that I suggested that the army unit goes into a different "mode" if it is wanted to occupy a territory. And during this mode the army group will cost less to upkeep, is able to counter attack any invasion to the state, and as it is no longer mobile, it should not appear on the map... At least not the same way that a "normal", mobile unit does.

 

[Satcho]

My apologies if this has already been said, I'm too lazy to read everything.

When you conquer/occupy a new province, it can just take something in the range of 1-10 manpower from your manpower pool, and perhaps some supplies as well. The player won't have to do anything extra and the cost of maintaining a garrison (or occupying troops) would be simulated.

EDIT: Woops, Gunnl said this already. So I'm just seconding his idea.

 

[loki_poki]

idealist i just thought he was your alter ego trying to rephrase for those of us who didn´t like the way you word things!!!

I stongly advise that you play the game, not because i think your ideas aren´t good, just that i think you would get that extra insight.

And of course because this is without a doubt one of the best games out there.

 

[wuban]

The game is war at a divisional level, What people suggest here is micomanaging of a single province.

Province a provide the owner with xx supplies, an occupier of the same province just recieve a percentage of that what a owner would. The difference is the occupier have to spent some of its gain back to the province to secure it.

The game allready do it for you calculates the province losses from each province you occupies, its neat that way so you can focus on the game at a divisional level instead of worrying about individual Battalions, Companies or even squads. All you have to do is move the Division or even a number of divisions even entire Armies in to a new province and all those invisible individual soldiers around doing all the micro-managing for you so that you can still keep the focus at the big picture and not worry about the Alfa company's next weeks menu. even better is that when your army moves on it leaves behind the soldiers needed to secure the new gained region long enough for your securty forces to move up from behind the lines, All those wounded soldiers from the previousdays battles are left behind as well and replaced with fresh soldiers from the reserves, when they are all patched up they join the reserves as well so that they can take the place from the soldiers that are going to be wounded in the next battle, This is called usually for supply lines, and if that line is cut for some reason well then the Main army will notice and suffer from it.

 

[Gwalcmai]

The game is war at a divisional level, What people suggest here is micomanaging of a single province.

No, what people suggested is managing your conquests. As it happens, the proposed solution uses grouped provinces to cut down on the amount of garrison troops and management. The management of conquered land after it has been taken and the front moves on is lacking in HOI. Germany did have to keep troops stationed in areas that had little chances of suffering allied invasions, simply because the local population might decide to nasty things, like blow up the trains carrying supplies to front line troops.

Your idea is not bad at all, idealist. I'd just make one remark: if you're going to Victoria for inspiration, remember the "province control" delay. That tends to slow down invasions a bit, and if the provinces must be controlled to trace supply lines, it slows conquerors down even more.

 

[unmerged(21104)]

wuban ... indeed ... but they want to see some mapower hit to represent the man devoted to guard the province ... not just the resources used.
---
btw ... why u guys keep talking about states ??? this aint victoria !!!
See Satcho had the same ideia: 2 posters cant be wrong
"eat sh*t, 100000000000 flys cant be wrong!" just remebered ... lol ... ahahahah
note to self: avoid doing that in the future

 

[Gwalcmai]

People keep talking about states because they wish the states will make it into HOI 2, I guess. We aren't discussing HOI 1, after all. And as states are quite an interesting feature of Victoria, I don't know if I disagree too much. They could certainly be used to reduce management problems. For example, wouldn't it be nice if you could just hit "state-wide industrial development plan" instead of having to go to every province to do it? The states wouldn't have to be the same size as Victoria, you could have about eight in the whole of France, for example. But having a maneuver division of terrain and an economic division of terrain definitely allows using a great number of provinces without so many micro-management problems.

And btw, you haven't been dropping by the "Fórum Lusófono" lately, have you?

 

[unmerged(21104)]

humm ... i honestly dont see how they would fit into HOI 2 ... :| ... humm well now that i think of it i do see ... placing HQs into states instead of individual prov. .... hummm ... well anyway... looking at the screenie i wouldnt count much on it ....

and btw, i actually have ... just dont have nothing special to say

 

[Landa]

Ermhhh.. Landa, good post, that pretty much had only everything we had already said earlier, did it not?

Hm... after reading it again, I must admit that the amount of new information is a wee bit tiny o

If with "territories", you mean "states", as in Victoria, then that is excactly what we just said.

I didn't play Victoria so I don't know how the states there work.
What I meant was that while one division for every province seems to much, I don't think splitting them up in smaller subunits is a good idea.

Multiplayer games of HOI allready run rather slow (at least the ones I played) and subdividing and reassembling divisions would further slow it down.

And here again. I used Estonia as an example, and said the excactly same thing...

Bad wording on my part. I didn't intend to steal your idea. I basically wanted to agree with you
Maybe I shouldn't post when I'm too tired

Or have I missed something new, groundbreaking and crucial in your post?

Well, I suggested a system that would work even if Victoria style states aren't included in the game (with the adjacent provinces).

 

[unmerged(25612)]

Again, some replies:

Landa: Ahh.. Okay I now see what you mean. I apologize for being such offensive. Good to see someone agree with me

The idea of having all adjacent provinces work as kind of state, sounds great.



Wuban (And some others): About manpower and/or IC costs working the same, but in abstract level:

No. You seem to fail to realize the issue I am hunting here:

Let`s take an example, as we all love examples:

I play as Finland. With the beginning of Barbarossa I quickly attack and seize control of Leningrad. Sounds cool, huh? Nothing to worry about, I just got a nice little industrial base... What could possibly be wrong?

Well... One of the biggest reasons why Finland did not capture Leningrad, although the Germans insisted, was because The Finnish population was around 3 million those years, and the population of Leningrad alone was 3 million. Finland would have doubled its population.... Now the big question is: How to feed them all? How to feed 3 million Russians? Leningrad, along with most of Russian cities were fed with the grain of Ukraine (And anything South of Moscow).

How does the game represent this fact? Some absurd increased food demand, not even on a notable level.

What you are suggesting is that I don`t have to give a damn about Leningrad, I can just push on, losing manpower not even equal enough to build a division. What I am saying is that Finland should lose at least three divisions to keep the people of Leningrad taking up arms.

Which scenario is closer to truth? Could Finland have just ignored 3 million Russians, not to tie any forces down, just push on?



Another example which I am glad to represent you with is the Estonian question:

If I play Estonia, field a few divisions, attack and conquer both Latvia and Lithuania, reconstruct my army, change a few techs with Germany attack and annex Poland... Sounds cool, huh? Nothing to worry about... I just get more IC, right?

If only it was so easy

In reality all of Estonian resources would go to the occupation. Estonian economy could just and just survive the occupation of the other Baltic states (Latvia and Lithuania), but Poland? Never.



This is a fact that most war games, including those of Paradox Entertianment fail to represent. Conquest is not cheap, and most of all it is not profitable. It takes years, if not decades, to grow the people together, to create united countries that all play together... War of conquest against a nation of almost similar size is never profitable. (Annexation of Kuwait by Iraq, or annexation of Slovachia by Germany, is not hardly annexation of a country with similar size...)

Making the creation of occupationary forces is a small step towards the correct representation of the downsides of war, but it is a step that has to be taken. It is plain ludicurous that one can conquer the world with Estona, it is a pure example of the failures of the game engine. It is an exploit that must be fixed, it is a failure, a bug...



Why in my opinion is it not enough that some obsecure IC hit is given?

Because that way we would not represent the need to build forces who go behind the main forces (Volksturm), we would not represent the need to build occupationary forces diverting funds from the building of the troops of conquest, we would not represent the possibility of reinforcing the occupation if needed (Yogoslavia). We would not represent the freeing the forces from occupationary duties and using them for attack (As in retreating from the Karelain Isthmus by Finnish troops, or from the gates of Leningrad by the Russian troops.)

Propably 50% if not more, of all retreats during WWII were not caused by a direct attack of an enemy force, but by reorganization, by revaluation of fronts. And this is amongst the issues, that such a simple fix could help to represent in a better fashion.

 

[mvsnconsolegene]

I guess that is the problem with having occupation result in decreasing the ratio of present IC's that you get, perhaps an actual penalty per province? But then that is hard to do if each province doesn't have it's own population...

- MVSN

 

[Landa]

Landa: Ahh.. Okay I now see what you mean. I apologize for being such offensive. Good to see someone agree with me

No problem, my post was worded a bit strange...

The idea of having all adjacent provinces work as kind of state, sounds great.

Thanks
Simply patrolling adjacent provinces instead of fixed states would give the player more freedom how to position his garrissoning troops at works if states are not incorporated in HOI2 (AFAIK there was no official comment on that yet).

How does the game represent this fact? Some absurd increased food demand, not even on a notable level.

There is no representation. The only thing that changes (apart from your resource income, IC and manpower, all of which can only increase) is the amount of IC necessary for consumer goods. But as this amount is allways a fixed percentage of the total ICs, this doesn not represent anything like that.

This is a fact that most war games, including those of Paradox Entertianment fail to represent. Conquest is not cheap, and most of all it is not profitable. It takes years, if not decades, to grow the people together, to create united countries that all play together... War of conquest against a nation of almost similar size is never profitable. (Annexation of Kuwait by Iraq, or annexation of Slovachia by Germany, is not hardly annexation of a country with similar size...)

At least not in the short run.

Making the creation of occupationary forces is a small step towards the correct representation of the downsides of war, but it is a step that has to be taken. It is plain ludicurous that one can conquer the world with Estona, it is a pure example of the failures of the game engine. It is an exploit that must be fixed, it is a failure, a bug...

Well, as long as the AI can cope with garrissoning, I'm all for it.
It would ad another level of strategy to the game. Until now, all you had to do was build an army that is strong enough to win your battles but with the need for garrissoning the Hinterland, you'd have to decide on wether to build cheaper second and third rank units to keep the populace in check or more front units to win your battles.

A typical attack on another nation would look something like this then.
Just as before, your armies attack enemy key positions, trying to break through the enemy lines to encircle the defenders.
After you've achieved breakthrough and are pocketing enemy divisions and seizing enemy provinces, you have to make decisions:
Do I leave behind divisions to control the area until my second rate garrisson troops (maybe what's militia in HOI?) arrive or do I press the attack and suffer the delays of my supplies because I do not fully control supply routes?

Why in my opinion is it not enough that some obsecure IC hit is given?
Because that way we would not represent the need to build forces who go behind the main forces (Volksturm), we would not represent the need to build occupationary forces diverting funds from the building of the troops of conquest, we would not represent the possibility of reinforcing the occupation if needed (Yogoslavia). We would not represent the freeing the forces from occupationary duties and using them for attack (As in retreating from the Karelain Isthmus by Finnish troops, or from the gates of Leningrad by the Russian troops.)

I agree with you. If the occupation is totally abstract (loss of supplies and manpower), the used resources are totally lost when you have to retreat from the area and you'd have to spend them again to regain control if you manage to retake a province.
When using regular units (either full grade front units or cheaper militia) they can also defend the area against attack and can be redeployed if necessary (retreat them from a lost territory, fall back to a new defensive position or spread your occupation forces too control more area at a reduced efficiency).

Just a minor nitpick. I don't think that the Volkssturm is a good example for occuptational forces. IIRC the german Volkssturm was a desperate attempt to form citizen militias from old men, women and children to defend core Germany when the war was all but lost.
AFAIK Volkssturm units were never used to control occupied areas and I don't think that they would have been very effective (training for the Volkssturm more or less consisted of basic training with oneshot anti tank weapons and the question wether the applicant can use a gun).

Propably 50% if not more, of all retreats during WWII were not caused by a direct attack of an enemy force, but by reorganization, by revaluation of fronts. And this is amongst the issues, that such a simple fix could help to represent in a better fashion.

Maybe, but I think that the current province size is a bit too large in most parts of the world to really do that.

 

[Dievs]

Well... One of the biggest reasons why Finland did not capture Leningrad, although the Germans insisted, was because The Finnish population was around 3 million those years, and the population of Leningrad alone was 3 million. Finland would have doubled its population.... Now the big question is: How to feed them all? How to feed 3 million Russians? Leningrad, along with most of Russian cities were fed with the grain of Ukraine (And anything South of Moscow).

It would be solved simply by adding food as a major resource.
Importance of Ukraine and other things would automagically appear, if food was treated as a neccessary resource in HoI 2.

 

[Landa]

It would be solved simply by adding food as a major resource.
Importance of Ukraine and other things would automagically appear, if food was treated as a neccessary resource in HoI 2.

So, let's hope then that food is one of the new resources.

 

[The historian]

I agree with this thread occupation should not be free but not to expensive either i think that around 500 men per province in hoi size prov should keep things to a good level maybe as a division pases by they could leave behind a garisson of men.

 

[vertinox]

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!

Apparently it wasn't that easy on OstFront... The Wehrmacht actually used entire front line divisions to assault partisan amries in combat engagments. Of course Partisans in Yugoslavia and Russia are quite on a different scale than France.

In Russia they often diverted Armies from the front lines because the Russian resistance had been organized to an extreme size. Because of the large landmass many Soviet troops had not surrendered but fled into heavily forested and swampy areas later to regroup via commanders and coverts sent in to organize them.