Quick Questions - Quick Answers

[unmerged(110255)]

This is embarrassing but I'm just realizing I know next to nothing about how victory conditions, war goals, and contested territory works.

Background: still playing as Germany, it's August 1942 now, only my second game (gave up on my first one in 1939). When going to war with Poland I took the liberty of not adding a war goal since I assumed my territorial gains would be covered by the scripted event same as in HoI 2 (of course a bad analogy since that game didn't have a war goal feature in the first place). When Ribbentrop-Molotov fired I got my cores and just assumed the striped color scheme of non-core provinces was irrelevant here. I also didn't add war goals for France, Netherlands (in this case I didn't even attack them myself), Belgium and Luxembourg and the situation was largely the same, meaning all my territorial gains were striped.

As we fast forward to 1942 and my conquest of the UK - where I actually was lucid enough to add conquest as a war goal - my territorial gains are not striped. Meaning, by analogy, that the striped territory is contested.

I can see no way to fix this, as I am unable to add the conquest war goal after said countries already surrendered their territories on the mainland. Am I missing something here?

Or does this have anything to do with the government in exile feature I've been hearing about, and I shouldn't be able to fully annex these territories in the first place? That wouldn't explain why I annexed India and half of Africa from the UK after barely reaching Lancashire.


EDIT:

I don't think I'm going to be able to defend all of the UK's former colonies. How much sense does it make to release some of them as puppets?

 

[shierholzer]

Or does this have anything to do with the government in exile feature I've been hearing about, and I shouldn't be able to fully annex these territories in the first place?

Yep. Kill of the last major in their faction (probably USA), and they'll start surrendering completely.

I don't think I'm going to be able to defend all of the UK's former colonies. How much sense does it make to release some of them as puppets?

Marginal. If you cannot defend them, a puppet with three infantry brigades per VP province (base tech, no upgrades) shouldn't be able to defend it either.

 

[Pro_Consul]

Marginal. If you cannot defend them, a puppet with three infantry brigades per VP province (base tech, no upgrades) shouldn't be able to defend it either.

One caveat there: if you cannot maintain a force there to even combat partisans, then a puppet is your solution. You may still lose it to invasion, since as Shierholzer points out, that puppet won't field much in the way of a defense force. But at least you won't lose it to partisans.

 

[unmerged(110255)]

I'll consider releasing UK as a puppet then.

Regarding the GIE thing, is the chance of them getting this random? I mean, how else am I supposed to understand that Poland and Benelux have it but not the UK. If it isn't random then it would be nice to know how to avoid it in the first place (defeating all majors in a faction is a very long-term solution).

 

[shierholzer]

[...] is the chance of them getting this random?

Yes. A country which has at least 15 base IC overseas at the day of their surrender will go GiE each time (unless there's no major left in their faction), also smaller countries (base IC) are far less likely to go GiE than larger ones. Faction leaders will never go GiE (which is probably not wad, it's due to the way the mechanic works internally).
--
Also, unless you're in a desperate need for better supply throughput, annexing territory (without your cores) is actually worse than just occupying it.

 

[unmerged(110255)]

Guess I was unlucky then to have gotten both Luxembourg and Poland, states with no overseas holdings whatsoever, go GiE. If that's even what happened here, I mean, I didn't get a message confirming this or anything.

Regarding what's better or worse, I've already noticed the higher revolt risk for annexed lands. Kind of ridiculous, on the face of it.

 

[shierholzer]

Kind of ridiculous, on the face of it.

Actually realistic. Most minors like Denmark/Norway/Benelux had quite small insurgency IRL, cause they viewed the German presence as a thing related to war tactics and not to actual ambitions to end their independence (or rip larger parts out of them).

both Luxembourg and Poland

Poland is quite large btw (afaik the largest european minor), while Luxembourg is indeed bad luck.

 

[Janty]

I played as USSR in my recent game and after I reached end date (1.1.1950), I decided that I want to continue playing. However when I change end date in defines.lua (for example to 1.1.1960), save the changes and start the saved game (I’m using my autosave from December 1949), the game still ends in January 1950 and I can’t continue. Am I doing something wrong or is it impossible to go beyond 1950 (or to change end date for games that were already started)?

 

[shierholzer]

<snip>

defines.lua date changes only affect new games. Old games are to be changed in the save file itself (same style, use a advanced editor like notepad++).

 

[Janty]

Thank you. I tried to change the save file, but I couldn't find the end_date there. However it turned out that I need to change defines.lua both in"common" and "tfh/common" folder I'm now in February 1950, so I guess it's working .

 

[Pro_Consul]

However it turned out that I need to change defines.lua both in"common" and "tfh/common" folder I'm now in February 1950, so I guess it's working .

You don't need to change both. The one in \common is for the FTM version of the game, \tfh\common is for the TFH version. But that separate folder structure for TFH trips people up for any kind of edit, e.g. events, units, techs, etc.

 

[unmerged(110255)]

Actually realistic. Most minors like Denmark/Norway/Benelux had quite small insurgency IRL, cause they viewed the German presence as a thing related to war tactics and not to actual ambitions to end their independence (or rip larger parts out of them).

I guess that makes sense in those cases, but the way it's being applied to all countries leaves something to be desired.

Poland is quite large btw (afaik the largest european minor), while Luxembourg is indeed bad luck.

I guess I was going on what you said about overseas holdings and overlooked the rest.


This reminds me of a question I was going to ask earlier: how much sense does it make to send spies to GiEs? Would I theoretically be able to get them to surrender if I dropped their NU low enough?

 

[Pro_Consul]

how much sense does it make to send spies to GiEs?

Depends on the mission, but mostly not much sense in it. GiE countries still have whatever techs they had when they went GiE, so if they were ahead of you in one or more areas, then tech espionage could still get you some useful hits. And I suppose that you might be able to coup such a country if you raised your own party's support, but I honestly don't know if that would work on a GiE nation, nor what useful benefit you would get from it even if it worked since they are already factioned.

Would I theoretically be able to get them to surrender if I dropped their NU low enough?

No. That already happened; it's how they became GiE in the first place. The one and only way to make a GiE finally and completely surrender is to bring down every remaining member of their faction.

 

[shierholzer]

[...] bring down every remaining member of their faction.

Small corrections: Every major. TFH changed that.

[...] since they are already factioned.

(Successful) coups defaction you - that's why faction leaders are immune to coups.

 

[Pro_Consul]

Cool corrections. Thanks, dude.

 

[ThatStrategyGuy]

Playing as Rep Spain just won the civil war late Jan 1937, planning to join up with the commies, what should Divisions should I build to defend against GER, and what provinces should i be building forts in?

 

[Opanashc]

Once France falls, only border with Germany Spain has is 2(?) provinces on the western side of Spanish-French border. Its mountainous, but Germany has good armor.

 

[unmerged(110255)]

Can I get some clarification on how prioritizing intelligence missions works? With there being four priority levels from, presumably, none through low, medium, and high it superficially appears as though you're supposed to set one mission type as high, one as medium, and one as low priority and that's it. But the game allows you to set everything to high priority at once. Does this mean that I should just set everything I want to do to high priority (for example: all domestic missions, or in a foreign country targeted for a coup, presumably covert ops and support our party) and not worry about the details?

 

[Opanashc]

Think about it this way: sum up all the priorities (low=1, medium=2, high=3, none=0), divide total amount of spies by the sum, multiply by priority level of the mission. That's how many spies will be allocated to that particular mission. If you have 10 spies, with 2 missions, one at high, one at medium, then the high priority mission will be done as effectively, as if you had only 6 spies, and only had that mission prioritized (with rest having 0 priority), and the medium one 4. Thus, if you are running only one mission, it does not matter, if you set it as high or low priority - all spies will be working for it, since they don't have to do anything else.

 

[unmerged(110255)]

Right, that makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.