Shouldn't inflicted casualties matter more than sustained casualties for the war score?

[kettyo]

Occupation is really worthy if you're not a satellite in a big faction because then your occupations are easily stolen.

 

[Caeric]

Not true, occupation is rewarded. You also get reductions to your demands based on what you occupy.

That still wasn't my damn point but sure, if that is the hill you want to die on.

 

[Fulmen]

The Moscow Declaration only stated that Austria would become independent from Germany once again, but there was nothing specific about the occupation.

Hmm, the German Wikipedia page on the Allied occupation of Austria claims the following:

"The zones of occupation and the joint administration of the City of Vienna were established in the Agreement on Allied Control of July 4, 1945 and in the Allied Agreement on the Zones of Occupation of July 9, 1945. The approximate borderline of the zones had already been decided in the Moscow Declaration of October 30, 1943. This division only experienced small changes and shifts with the arrival of France as an occupying power."

(Browser translated from: "Die Besatzungszonen und die gemeinsame Verwaltung der Stadt Wien wurden im Abkommen über die Alliierte Kontrolle vom 4. Juli 1945 und im Abkommen der Alliierten über die Besatzungszonen vom 9. Juli 1945 festgelegt. Der ungefähre Grenzverlauf der Zonen war aber bereits in der Moskauer Deklaration vom 30. Oktober 1943 beschlossen worden. Kleine Änderungen und Verschiebungen erfuhr diese Einteilung nur durch das Hinzukommen Frankreichs als Besatzungsmacht.")

Btw, it does seem there was some idea by the Russians of establishing a communist or at least pro-Soviet puppet, hence the creation of the Provisional Government behind the backs of the Western Allies, that ended up under Karl Renner, but didn't really work out the way the Russians presumably wanted. Probably largely also due to there being few Austrian communists left at that point.

 

[Volodio]

That still wasn't my damn point but sure, if that is the hill you want to die on.

Your point was that casualties is valued but strategic successes are not, which is not true considering there is a part of the war score literally called "occupation", gained from the conquest/liberation of victory points. If a country sits at the border taking very high amount of casualties while another actually conquers, the latter will get more war score because of the occupation.

Here's a an example:

I (Mao), because I'm a player, have been at the origin of almost every major Chinese offensive, most of the time with no support from Chiang Kai-shek. We're going to win the war and it's without a doubt thanks to me, as I've made the most advances and made almost every encirclement (more than half the Japanese casualties were caused by me). Without me, China would have lost in 1939. But it had been rewarded, I have nearly 50% of the war participation despite having 4 times less casualties than the nationalists. Because of most of the war participation is from occupation. I have around 1200 of it, for 200 from casualties. Even China has more from occupations than from casualties.

But at the same time, China has 3 times more divisions than I have, far more manpower, twice more factories and lost far more men than I did. Thanks to all that, they held the front, including my flanks and my own territory, while I was doing the major offensives. They defended the encirclement that I've made, sometimes supported my attacks, sometimes even made attacks of their own, captured the difficult terrains like the mountains, etc. While I was focusing my forces to capture one or two cities, the nationalists held the front everywhere else in China. Sure, without me, they would have collapsed in 39. But without them, I wouldn't have survived either. The war participation is actually a realistic representation of what happened in that game.

If the war participation was based on inflicted rather than sustained casualties, then my score would have gone from 50% to more than 75%. I would have been rewarded twice for my offensives. First by the occupation, then by the inflicted casualties from the encirclement. It wouldn't have been a realistic representation of the war effort in my game, instead it would have unfairly favored me, the player, while I was already favored by simply not being an AI.

As you obviously noticed, the game is modded, and maybe the war participation was tweaked a bit, but still without replacing sustained casualties by inflicted casualties. At worse, the vanilla game would just need to make its own tweaking, but there is really no need to introduce inflicted casualties in the game.

Hmm, the German Wikipedia page on the Allied occupation of Austria claims the following:

"The zones of occupation and the joint administration of the City of Vienna were established in the Agreement on Allied Control of July 4, 1945 and in the Allied Agreement on the Zones of Occupation of July 9, 1945. The approximate borderline of the zones had already been decided in the Moscow Declaration of October 30, 1943. This division only experienced small changes and shifts with the arrival of France as an occupying power."

I admit that I'm far from an expert on post-war occupation, but Wikipedia is a dubious source at best. Even the article on the Moscow Declaration doesn't say anything of occupation zones, only that it would be independent from Germany after the war. Several books on the Eastern Front, such as Glantz's When Titans Clashed, say that the Soviet Austrian campaign was politically motivated by the unclear state of post-war Austria and a desire to force it to their side.

 

[Ketchup & friends]

Why not both?

Alternatively, make different ideologies value one thing more than the other. E.G. Fascists could get more say from inflicting casualties (this would encourage an aggressive playstyle) and democracies more from suffered casualties. Communists and non-aligned would be in-between.

 

[Caeric]

Well, occupation works, assuming you're the one who got handed the territory to hold in the first place. If you don't share a direct border that's far harder to achieve. For example any other Axis member than Ger, Fin, Hun and Rom vs the Comintern or otherwise somehow get some territory via a naval invasion. And no, I'm not arguing that casualties shouldn't matter but if you have less raw manpower to throw into the meatgrinder even if you in fact contributing more than the AI by for example breaking up and repeatedly encircling the front or dominating the air you simply just cannot compete effectively in war score.

In fact unless I'm mistaken, other than strategic bombing, the rest of all air operations don't exactly contribute much even if they are vital to success. And I feel the same in many ways about naval warfare. It's just not proportional to the amount of effort it takes compared to just throwing infantry into headbutting the enemy front.

 

[XselenS]

+1

 

[Spelaren]

Let's say you are playing Portugal, you singedhandedly wipe out the allies from Africa, singlehandedly invade Britain, and all land you really want is some of morocco, south africa and the other land there and some islands in the pacific. And what do you get? Nothing, not a sliver. Should make it so that whoever justifies a wargoal against a province should get that province no matter what, unless someone else has a claim or core on it.

 

[kettyo]

Should make it so that whoever justifies a wargoal against a province should get that province no matter what, unless someone else has a claim or core on it.

Isn't it this way already? At least the AI tends to respect the claims of it's allies.

 

[Zeprion]

Why not both?

Alternatively, make different ideologies value one thing more than the other. E.G. Fascists could get more say from inflicting casualties (this would encourage an aggressive playstyle) and democracies more from suffered casualties. Communists and non-aligned would be in-between.

I can see where you're coming from, but I think this will only make it extra confusing gameplay-wise, especially when you have countries of different ideologies in the same faction.

 

[Paul.Ketcham]

Your point was that casualties is valued but strategic successes are not, which is not true considering there is a part of the war score literally called "occupation", gained from the conquest/liberation of victory points. If a country sits at the border taking very high amount of casualties while another actually conquers, the latter will get more war score because of the occupation.

Here's a an example:

View attachment 605605

I (Mao), because I'm a player, have been at the origin of almost every major Chinese offensive, most of the time with no support from Chiang Kai-shek. We're going to win the war and it's without a doubt thanks to me, as I've made the most advances and made almost every encirclement (more than half the Japanese casualties were caused by me). Without me, China would have lost in 1939. But it had been rewarded, I have nearly 50% of the war participation despite having 4 times less casualties than the nationalists. Because of most of the war participation is from occupation. I have around 1200 of it, for 200 from casualties. Even China has more from occupations than from casualties.

But at the same time, China has 3 times more divisions than I have, far more manpower, twice more factories and lost far more men than I did. Thanks to all that, they held the front, including my flanks and my own territory, while I was doing the major offensives. They defended the encirclement that I've made, sometimes supported my attacks, sometimes even made attacks of their own, captured the difficult terrains like the mountains, etc. While I was focusing my forces to capture one or two cities, the nationalists held the front everywhere else in China. Sure, without me, they would have collapsed in 39. But without them, I wouldn't have survived either. The war participation is actually a realistic representation of what happened in that game.

If the war participation was based on inflicted rather than sustained casualties, then my score would have gone from 50% to more than 75%. I would have been rewarded twice for my offensives. First by the occupation, then by the inflicted casualties from the encirclement. It wouldn't have been a realistic representation of the war effort in my game, instead it would have unfairly favored me, the player, while I was already favored by simply not being an AI.

As you obviously noticed, the game is modded, and maybe the war participation was tweaked a bit, but still without replacing sustained casualties by inflicted casualties. At worse, the vanilla game would just need to make its own tweaking, but there is really no need to introduce inflicted casualties in the game.



I admit that I'm far from an expert on post-war occupation, but Wikipedia is a dubious source at best. Even the article on the Moscow Declaration doesn't say anything of occupation zones, only that it would be independent from Germany after the war. Several books on the Eastern Front, such as Glantz's When Titans Clashed, say that the Soviet Austrian campaign was politically motivated by the unclear state of post-war Austria and a desire to force it to their side.

Although your argument is fair for the most part, it also is entirely missing the point:

1.) Casualties inflicted would apply to everyone, making it indicative of actual combat at least as much as casualties sustained (particularly with both represented). In your example, presumably the Nationalists have killed their fair share of Japanese; if not, while they may have been a valuable contributor towards distracting the Japanese, then it is implied that their attacks were mostly ineffectual by comparison. See Austria-Hungary in WWI assaulting the Serbians without meaningful impact versus Bulgaria actually breaching into the country (as well as Romania); the Bulgarians will have lost far fewer men than Austria-Hungary, but also achieved more without those losses. See also the impact of the Somme offensive compared to the Brusilov offensive; the British made virtually no territorial gains and inflicted significantly fewer losses than the Russians did (in the south) blasting Austria-Hungary. Even within that same offensive, the attacks in the south overrunning Austro-Hungarian units threatened to knock them out of the war entirely, while the attacks in the north just fizzled out at an enormous cost in Russian lives.

2.) Occupation and casualties inflicted are not the same thing. Saying that you're being rewarded twice for invading land and killing enemy soldiers encourages players to attack where no soldiers are present and just overrun empty lands (while not a bad tactic, few would argue that it represents the same contribution to the war effort), which apparently is equally-impactful as taking the same land against serious enemy opposition. To clarify, occupying lands is strategically-significant for crippling enemy resources and reducing their operational environment (fewer airfields, fewer fronts to attack from, etc) while actually defeating soldiers prevents them from attacking elsewhere and forces the enemy to spread their existing forces more thinly.

3.) Occupation is itself already somewhat broken since it repeatedly rewards players for doing the same things over and over (taking your own land back can earn you points multiple times), which plays into the casualty-focus of the warscore system (back-and-forth fighting and attrition is worth more than overruns and quick victories).

4.) To give a simplistic example of the comparison between casualties inflicted and casualties sustained, imagine an Italian offensive on a French alpine fort sees a million casualties, but only inflicts about 50,000 losses on France. Does Germany care about the Italian offensive in the subsequent peace deals? Casualties sustained doesn't argue how many men you're absorbing, it actually argues the opposite: how many men of yours the enemy is absorbing. Italy got little out of WWI due to the fact that, while a large number of their troops were contributing against Austria-Hungary (plus the Macedonian front, but that was all of the Entente powers), the Austro-Hungarians actually contributed very few. Similarly, Germany wasn't impressed by Austria-Hungary's defense when they broke that same force in a single offensive (making more ground in the Battle of Caporetto than Italy did in 9 Battles of the Isonzo).

I'm fine with casualties being counted towards warscore, but casualties inflicted should also be counting, and should count for more.

 

[Volodio]

1.)

I said in my post that if the war score was determined according to inflicted rather than sustained casualties, then Chiang war participation would drop from 50% to 25%. As I said, it's not an accurate representation of their part to the war effort. Yes, it shows that their attacks were less effective, but it's not a fair view considering that war is not just about attacking all the time and that I led most of the offense while he led most of the defense.

2.)

Attacking empty lands pretty much never happens unless you're backstabbing someone or you destroyed the divisions defending these lands. The first case is often the result of an "exploit" or a bug. The second case, however, is closely tied to the casualties you made. You encircle the divisions, destroy them then advance until the enemy brings reinforcements. So yeah, you're being rewarded twice with inflicted casualties.

3.)

It's not broken, it just represents the war lasting some time with back and forth, as well as the liberation of conquered territories. Without it, the US would get as much war participation from occupation as the Soviet Union, maybe even more.

4.)

Again, you're taking your examples from the wrong war. During WW2, Italy did attack France. It was the battle of the Alps. The French had less than 500 casualties while the Italians suffered nearly 5000 losses. Germany did care and forced France to sign an armistice with Italy. In it, Italy received a few small cities and a HoI4 state size occupation zone. Not a lot (especially considering Mussolini wanted the French colonial empire and 1/4 of France), but something suited to the shitty war participation they had (very few casualties and no occupation). It did serve to tie down 170 000 French soldiers who didn't fight the Germans though. However, if what had mattered was the number of inflicted casualties, Italy would've received nothing at all.

 

[Paul.Ketcham]

I said in my post that if the war score was determined according to inflicted rather than sustained casualties, then Chiang war participation would drop from 50% to 25%. As I said, it's not an accurate representation of their part to the war effort. Yes, it shows that their attacks were less effective, but it's not a fair view considering that war is not just about attacking all the time and that I led most of the offense while he led most of the defense.



Attacking empty lands pretty much never happens unless you're backstabbing someone or you destroyed the divisions defending these lands. The first case is often the result of an "exploit" or a bug. The second case, however, is closely tied to the casualties you made. You encircle the divisions, destroy them then advance until the enemy brings reinforcements. So yeah, you're being rewarded twice with inflicted casualties.



It's not broken, it just represents the war lasting some time with back and forth, as well as the liberation of conquered territories. Without it, the US would get as much war participation from occupation as the Soviet Union, maybe even more.



Again, you're taking your examples from the wrong war. During WW2, Italy did attack France. It was the battle of the Alps. The French had less than 500 casualties while the Italians suffered nearly 5000 losses. Germany did care and forced France to sign an armistice with Italy. In it, Italy received a few small cities and a HoI4 state size occupation zone. Not a lot (especially considering Mussolini wanted the French colonial empire and 1/4 of France), but something suited to the shitty war participation they had (very few casualties and no occupation). It did serve to tie down 170 000 French soldiers who didn't fight the Germans though. However, if what had mattered was the number of inflicted casualties, Italy would've received nothing at all.

I don't want this to become a complete back and forth, but I really want to stress a few points again.

First off, I'm not suggesting removing casualties sustained as a factor of warscore; however, the AI is sufficiently inept with regards to losing far more men than makes sense that rewarding that ineptitude makes less sense than rewarding actual successful attacks or at least posing a threat to the enemy; casualties inflicted is a far better measure of back-and-forth fighting than repeat occupations or casualties sustained, and to be blunt the Allies generally believed (partly due to the ridiculously high numbers, and partly due to their prejudicial view of Russian capabilities) that the losses sustained by the Russians--and the Chinese--were due in large part to their own mistakes or recklessness rather than entirely to hostile action. This reduces the actual value that casualties pose on the postwar claims (again, not eliminates entirely).

Second, the point on empty lands was hard to explain, but the point is that the game already does reward--to a degree--fighting to occupy lands rather than simply driving into them. However, pushing through an exposed front is something that does happen a lot, and "Gallipoli logic" of simply invading a vulnerable area with high victory points (like Konstantiyye in WWI, or Wilhelmshaven in WWII) is encouraged by this. The AI also frequently leaves gaps in its lines or fails to fill them fast enough, leading to back-and-forth fighting happening where exposed territory is invaded but immediately lost.

Third, the point on back-and-forth occupations is down to the fact that it accumulates a ridiculous amount of warscore. China can annex Japan without even invading any Japanese territory simply from casualties and occupying their own lost victory points repeatedly (and fighting in their own territory). Given the AI habit for attacking with badly-understrength divisions, the score that accumulates from several hundred divisions assaulting an entrenched opponent is entirely out of proportion to its value (as often 1 full-strength division can hold off 5 understrength divisions attacking into poor territory, but the game is still rewarding all those divisions for their attempt).

Lastly, I'm referencing WWI all the time because the AI acts like WWI generals rather than WWII ones (it fails to react to problems quickly enough and can't recognize the situation on the battlefield accurately, much like WWI generals out of contact with their troops launching miserably-ineffectual assaults). You'll also notice that WWI-style attritional fighting is what is rewarded most by the game's warscore system, and the massive casualties sustained are also in WWI levels. All that is besides the simple fact that there were only 2 world wars, and referencing the previous one doesn't seem so irrational when it comes to determining how a peace conference should be led.

And Italy was given parcels because Germany wanted to give them enough to save face without rewarding their obvious opportunism; the bulk of Italian claims were entirely ignored (Savoy, Corsica, Tunisia). The Italian attack on France was generally considered ineffectual. That's why I referenced Italy in WWI instead, since the massive fighting on the Austrian border far better represents the question of warscore than a border skirmish that hardly constitutes a war.

 

[Senor Bigbits]

Rhetorically speaking, wanting repayment for lives lost is worth more than insisting on a reward for having been the best at killing the enemy, especially if said killing didn't include occupying enemy land.

 

[Volodio]

I don't want this to become a complete back and forth, but I really want to stress a few points again.

Tbh it is already a complete back and forth. I understand your point, you want to reward the player more for his successes. But I don't think we should penalize the AI even more, while it's already penalized by the fact that it's an AI and that these war participation points are gained at a very high cost. And I'm not convinced by your historical justifications, especially as those are taken from the wrong war.

So we can agree to disagree and simply leave it at that. Because I'm not sure one of us will convince the other and that we'll leave this back and forth. But you wanna give it a try, tell me and I'll make a more detailed answer to your points.

There's just one thing I want to address:

Lastly, I'm referencing WWI all the time because the AI acts like WWI generals rather than WWII ones (it fails to react to problems quickly enough and can't recognize the situation on the battlefield accurately, much like WWI generals out of contact with their troops launching miserably-ineffectual assaults). You'll also notice that WWI-style attritional fighting is what is rewarded most by the game's warscore system, and the massive casualties sustained are also in WWI levels. All that is besides the simple fact that there were only 2 world wars, and referencing the previous one doesn't seem so irrational when it comes to determining how a peace conference should be led.

There are plenty of examples during WW2 of generals completely out of contact with the situation on the front. For instance with the Soviet orders given to units which had already been destroyed during Barbarossa or Hitler's ordering the defense of indefensible cities during 1943-1944. The casualties in WW2 were by far superior to those of WW1 and finally WW2 was definitely a war of attrition.

The treaties signed at the end of WW1 were very different from those signed at the end WW2 or those which could have been signed. The goals when each country went to war were also vastly different compared to WW1. These wars were different enough that most of the mechanics were made with WW2 in mind and wouldn't apply to WW1. I don't think the peace conference system is one that can apply to both, especially when it can't even properly apply to WW2 in its current state.

 

[bitmode]

But I don't think we should penalize the AI even more, while it's already penalized by the fact that it's an AI

Peace conferences are imho one of the last places where AI needs a buff. They often mark the (near) end of a game and skewed outcomes rob the player of a sense of accomplishment. It is the thing you work towards throughout the whole game and the AI coming out strengthened from a peace conference is too late to give it a tangible advantage (unless going for WW3 perhaps).

 

[Ketchup & friends]

Peace conferences are imho one of the last places where AI needs a buff. They often mark the (near) end of a game and skewed outcomes rob the player of a sense of accomplishment. It is the thing you work towards throughout the whole game and the AI coming out strengthened from a peace conference is too late to give it a tangible advantage (unless going for WW3 perhaps).

The examples refer to early or midgame situations like the CUF defeating the Japanese.

 

[MagnusStultus]

I said in my post that if the war score was determined according to inflicted rather than sustained casualties, then Chiang war participation would drop from 50% to 25%. As I said, it's not an accurate representation of their part to the war effort. Yes, it shows that their attacks were less effective, but it's not a fair view considering that war is not just about attacking all the time and that I led most of the offense while he led most of the defense.



Attacking empty lands pretty much never happens unless you're backstabbing someone or you destroyed the divisions defending these lands. The first case is often the result of an "exploit" or a bug. The second case, however, is closely tied to the casualties you made. You encircle the divisions, destroy them then advance until the enemy brings reinforcements. So yeah, you're being rewarded twice with inflicted casualties.



It's not broken, it just represents the war lasting some time with back and forth, as well as the liberation of conquered territories. Without it, the US would get as much war participation from occupation as the Soviet Union, maybe even more.



Again, you're taking your examples from the wrong war. During WW2, Italy did attack France. It was the battle of the Alps. The French had less than 500 casualties while the Italians suffered nearly 5000 losses. Germany did care and forced France to sign an armistice with Italy. In it, Italy received a few small cities and a HoI4 state size occupation zone. Not a lot (especially considering Mussolini wanted the French colonial empire and 1/4 of France), but something suited to the shitty war participation they had (very few casualties and no occupation). It did serve to tie down 170 000 French soldiers who didn't fight the Germans though. However, if what had mattered was the number of inflicted casualties, Italy would've received nothing at all.

1. You mean like the way Chiang absorbed a massively larger amount of the Japanese force than the United States or the UK and had massively higher casualties but also had much lower war score historically compared to both nations? The battle of Midway+Island Hoping to avoid Japanese forces is actually penalized not rewarded under current system. Furthermore nobody thinks that it was nationalist China (the nation that lost by far the most troops) that defeated Japan which really is ultimately what war score means. People think it was the United States and UK because it was. Avoiding casualties while inflicting the maximum to the enemy is how a successful modern general operates.

2. The point still stands that inflicting casualties that helped make occupation possible doesn't matter. If I as Greece inflict 1 million German casualties and tie down a German Italian Bulgarian Hungarian encirclement of Greece the casualties inflicted and divisions staring at me are not available to defend that land. Not to mention equipment lost. Historically speaking if Greece was to inflict over a million Italian casualties and hundreds of thousands of Germans in a process of losing their country their contribution would have been much more valuable than the French one even though the French would still have lost more troops. Casualties sustained but not inflicted would say otherwise. Of course Germans didn't sustain much loss in the battle of Greece and historically Greece had low war score. If I manage to do much better in game why shouldn't that be reflected?

3. Soviets would also benefit from millions of casualties inflicted. Historically they inflicted the most casualties in a not even close way. Estonia isn't worth much war participation for occupying, historically it was worth the encirclement of Army Group North and one of the major contributions to the war effort (everyone encircled in Army Group North along with their experience and equipment was unavailable in Germany).

4. The Germans didn't care at all about the Italian casualties there was political reasons to give them something such as Germany not wanting allies to be fighting among themselves. Hungary in game terms had zero war participation, no casualties inflicted, no casualties sustained, no occupation and it got a fair bit of land from the fall of France. Bulgaria gave nothing in the battle of Greece and got to annex significant territory afterwards.

Counting casualties sustained is fine but not counting casualties inflicted isn't.

 

[Zeprion]

Rhetorically speaking, wanting repayment for lives lost is worth more than insisting on a reward for having been the best at killing the enemy, especially if said killing didn't include occupying enemy land.

The reason sustained casualities are rhetorically more powerful than inflicted casualities is because:
- (a) They are closer to concrete facts. When the Soviet Union says that it lost 20 million people, they can provide hard evidence that they lost about 20 million people, but if the Soviet Union claims they killed 10 million German soldiers, it's difficult for them to find hard evidence for that.
- (b) The other nations usually don't argue who lost the most troops. If a nation claims that they did most damage to the enemy, obivously there are going to be arguments. If the Soviet Union claims they killed 10 million German soldiers, US and UK would likely immediately object as they want to be the ones who defeated most German units. Sustained casualties is a matter of tragedy, inflicted casualties is a matter of pride.

But the key word here is rhetorically. Talking about your sustained casualities is more impressive as far as making other people sympathize with you goes. But that doesn't mean you contributed the most to the war effort. Or that talking about sustained casualities will convince the right people.

It may convince civilians who knew little about the inner workings of the war, but you will have a hard time convincing generals and politicians who've seen how the war went. Therefore the real life examples I offered in the original post.

At the end of the day, who has a bigger says at the peace talks depends on military power. Stalin may have used the sustained casualities argument to impress people, but the reason he got the deal he got had nothing to do with sustained casualities, and little to do with inflicted casualities. The reason he got the deal he got was because he had a huge army. This is also the reason why UK, US and France were the big 3 of the Entente. US barely had 117,000 sustained casualities in World War I.

 

[Daniel_Vanciae]

I heartily agree with Zeprion on this. The game also quotes Patton on this subject, after all:

"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. "

Yes, casualties taken should count for something. But casualties inflicted should count for more. (Also, strangely enough, using nukes *doesn't count* toward the Bombing contribution to warscore, regardless of the effect on enemy War Support.)

Moreover, the Soviet Union and China should never be allowed to claim overseas areas conquered and occupied by the Western Allies (particularly core* territories which have been returned to French control but to which, for some reason, France no longer has cores!). Why the heck should I (as the UK) have to sit back and let the Soviets claim most of the Italian and French possessions in Africa even though they've been under my occupation for 2+ years and I'm still ruling the waves? It's bad enough that I have to put up with the Soviets claiming what they conquered and occupy, at the expense of the Poles (who lost 20% of their entire prewar population!).

The starting points should be (1) who, on the winning side, owned what in 1930**, and, for territory originally belonging to the losers, (2) _uti possidetis_ (in other words, the occupying power should have first claim about what happens to occupied enemy territory). Enemy territory not occupied at the time of capitulation should be up for grabs at the peace table, and it's reasonable to have scripted events (e.g., Yalta) rearrange some cores to meet the historical outcome.

* It's bad enough that this happens to the French colonies in the Med. It's completely ridiculous that France loses its cores on Provence and Savoy when Vichy hands them over to the Italians.

** This way China can reclaim Manchuria. This assumes, of course, that the outcome is roughly the historical one: the Allies and the Comintern beat the Axis, and the
Allies and the Chinese United Front--possibly with some help from the Comintern at the end--beat the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

There may be something I'm missing, but doesn't it make sense for inflicted casualties to be more important than sustained casualties for war score?

If you play as France and lost 500k manpower and only inflicted 30k manpower, you did pretty much nothing for the war effort, but still, you got a lot of war score.
If you play as Yugoslavia and lost only 30k manpower and inflicted 500k manpower, you did a lot for the war effort, but still, you barely got any score.

When you defeat fighters or sink ships you also basically inflict manpower casualties, but they don't count for the war score because it counter-intuitively only matters the sustained casualties.

I believe the developers got the idea that sustained casualties matter for war score from this loading quote:

"I only need a few thousand dead so that I can sit at the peace conference as a man who has fought." - Benito Mussolini

But, can you really take Mussolini's word for it? He wasn't exactly the most competent commander, and that's mildly put. If you want advice on how to bake a cake you listen to a good baker, if you want advice on how to best run a state you listen to a good statesman, not Mussolini.