Peace Conference: Puppet vs ??? Advice

[MR2]

I'm often flummoxed with the peace conference and generally confused with choosing annexation, vs. puppeting, or reichswhatever, etc.

It's Sep. 4, 1940 and the Allies have capitulated (usual suspects except the US). I'm fascist Germany. Romania and Hungary are satellites, Netherlands and Poland have 30% collaboration, while Free France and Denmark have 9% collaboration, and Yugoslavia (98% compliant) has been annexed. The axis includes Republic of China and so we are at war with Communist China.

Plans include bringing Finland into the axis so I can invade USSR this winter... Go to war with Japan when they DoW one of my subjects in South East Asia; while building up infrastructure in South America and Canada for a DoW against the USA.

Out of the peace conference I know I need access to Western USSR, Indochina and/or the Malaya, East Indies, and a jumping off point in Northern South America. My Chinese allies will feed my garrisons well and I'd also like to retain as many Civ/Mil factory's and dockyards as possible to expand my military while laying the infrastructure needed to invade the USA.

The wiki describes advantages/disadvantages of annexation, vs. puppeting, or reichswhatever - but I'm confused as to what strategy I should be employing. So any advice on initial selection would be welcomed and strategy/timing for transitioning these puppets into actual German owned territory.

In the peace conference, if I puppet the UK or France there are a host of other countries that need liberating or satelliting, puppeting Australia results in only one province becoming a puppet. WTF? Every British Raj choice appears result in a random result. WTF?

Thanks for reading...

 

[Sbrubbles]

Huh. Even when I sealion effectively, I can never end the war against the allies before the US comes in. This probably has to do with whatever mod I'm currently using though.

Anyway, in your situation: if you're at the peace conference and the game isn't over, annex everything unless it's some place out of the way you don't want to deal with. Do this because the AI is bound to fuck things up, so it's better to have everything under your control.

 

[Orbs]

This is what I like to do, maybe it can help with your decision making.

First the advantages of puppets in my style of warmongering is 1) they give much more access to industry near-term if I don't have compliance already built up (50% or higher), 2) I can steal their navy if they have a decent navy, 3) If it's not a piece of land that I can easily defend or even care about I can just make them a puppet and never call them to war and lastly 4) if I want that piece of land later I'll just lower the autonomy of the puppet and annex it later (hence points #2 about stealing their navy).

The advantage of annexation is 1) great if you already have decent compliance, 2) great if you don't have compliance but can wait for compliance to slowly build-up along with repairing damage done to your stuff through resistance, 3) great for making the map look slick when you zoom out and your country that you run is dominating the globe and 4) great if it allows you expansion to reach key strategic areas that you want for additional warmongering or for support of the warmongering efforts (adjacencies for example). But with the new compliance system, annexation isn't as good as it used to be but sometimes we as egomaniac warmongers really love #3

As far as peace conferences, whenever possible I don't allow my allies to fight with me, meaning I never call them to war. Thus no matter what I end up deciding, I don't have to worry about a critical country or piece of land getting sniped by some fool who most likely didn't actually help me at all in the war efforts.

However in some cases you just get sucked into a multi-faceted war and get stuck at the peace table with countries that don't share the same goal of your global domination (read: the USA). In these cases, read the room. Who has the most points? Who has second most? What territory is most important to you? Prioritize. Can you pass on a few of the starting rounds to build up a war chest of points? Who is 2nd in war score? Do they have enough points to grab things immediately or will they pass with you (allowing you to potentially get enough points to lock everyone else out)? What do you think their priority is? If their priority is your priority then you have to puppet because you won't have enough points to annex all those pieces before your points run out.

Bitmode actually wrote me a very nice explainer HEREEEE on how the AI "thinks" during a peace conference. I found this immensely helpful (thanks @bitmode ) for how to manipulate their goals vs. my own goals when trying to grab land.

And if all else fails, save the game right before capitulation and practice different techniques until you get the outcome you love. Good luck!

 

[Áurum]

I'm often flummoxed with the peace conference and generally confused with choosing annexation, vs. puppeting, or reichswhatever, etc.

It's Sep. 4, 1940 and the Allies have capitulated (usual suspects except the US). I'm fascist Germany. Romania and Hungary are satellites, Netherlands and Poland have 30% collaboration, while Free France and Denmark have 9% collaboration, and Yugoslavia (98% compliant) has been annexed. The axis includes Republic of China and so we are at war with Communist China.

Plans include bringing Finland into the axis so I can invade USSR this winter... Go to war with Japan when they DoW one of my subjects in South East Asia; while building up infrastructure in South America and Canada for a DoW against the USA.

Out of the peace conference I know I need access to Western USSR, Indochina and/or the Malaya, East Indies, and a jumping off point in Northern South America. My Chinese allies will feed my garrisons well and I'd also like to retain as many Civ/Mil factory's and dockyards as possible to expand my military while laying the infrastructure needed to invade the USA.

The wiki describes advantages/disadvantages of annexation, vs. puppeting, or reichswhatever - but I'm confused as to what strategy I should be employing. So any advice on initial selection would be welcomed and strategy/timing for transitioning these puppets into actual German owned territory.

In the peace conference, if I puppet the UK or France there are a host of other countries that need liberating or satelliting, puppeting Australia results in only one province becoming a puppet. WTF? Every British Raj choice appears result in a random result. WTF?

Thanks for reading...

I usually roleplay and only annex lands which the country would realistically claim. Everything else is a puppet.

If you don't puppet, it's better if you have high compliance. If you don't have any, maybe you should puppet. Puppets give most of their factories at zero cost for you. Having resistance will damage you long term even if you don't notice.

 

[brainiac1530]

Puppets can provide a lot of manpower, via colonial division templates, or for garrisons. Good puppets are countries with lots of manpower who don't have bullshit national ideas and focuses, especially (but not necessarily) if they have relatively little industry. That's becoming a rare combination these days, unfortunately. (You can probably get more manpower by occupying the Raj rather than puppeting it thanks to its nerfs national ideas, for example.) That's where collaboration governments can come in handy. So, I think you should add "annex with the intent to release a collaboration government later," to the list of possibilities.

In very long wars, it may be possible to get collaboration governments while still at war, which bypasses the need to claim them during the peace conference. Preparing collaboration governments expedites this process considerably, though due to the way compliance builds up, probably not as much as you would think. (I did the math, and the formula for the time to reach a target compliance given an initial value is a logarithm of a ratio of differences ... dependent on a defines value not directly visible in the game anywhere.) If you're planning on releasing a collaboration government, the second preparation operation is more valuable than the first in terms of time. If you intend to maintain occupation indefinitely, the first is more valuable in terms of reduced resistance.

One-province puppets can be useful in peace conferences, if only to block others from getting that nation. You can also return their territory to them later in the peace deal, at a reduced cost relative to taking states for yourself.

 

[eastcoastceojam]

I'm not all that skilled in peace conference mechanics, so forgive me if this is a dumb question.

When I puppet a nation, I can't seem to use my remaining war score to feed land to that puppet without ending my turn. This is the case even if I have enough war score left over to annex more states. But I don't want to annex the states, I want to give them to my new puppet.

If you're the only nation with war score, this doesn't matter- you simply grab states for your puppet on the next turn. But if other nations have significant war score, you risk them grabbing states before your turn comes up again.

I am doing something wrong, or is just how it works when puppeting in a peace conference?

 

[GrandVezir]

When I puppet a nation, I can't seem to use my remaining war score to feed land to that puppet without ending my turn

That is correct: you cannot transfer war score to your new puppet during the same turn you puppet them.