The Cost of Occupation

[Kovax]

I don't think that there should be random partisan spawns at all. Major open rebellions should be triggered by the player/the AI controlling the UR cells and by coups. Various abstract negative modifiers can be far more dangerous and far less annoying to the player than pointless random partisan spawns.

That's the point. Realistically, there would be partisans and revolters, but not in the concentrations or quantities to pose a military threat, EXCEPT potentially in the urban centers. If you suppress those urban centers even modestly, any remaining activity is going to show up as small individual actions or isolated bands being a nuisance at a scale far below what HOI models, but certainly not fighting battles. That can easily be abstracted into reduced productivity and/or some form of manpower and supply cost, not as annoying spawns of weak militia brigades at irregular intervals.

I do think that some actual garrison force SHOULD need to be maintained, to prevent the whole country from declaring independence and breaking into one massive uprising, otherwise we'll have a repeat of the tired old wargame formula where countries snowball in an ahistorical manner, rather than stretching themselves progressively thinner with each advance.

 

[Secret Master]

I do think that some actual garrison force SHOULD need to be maintained, to prevent the whole country from declaring independence and breaking into one massive uprising, otherwise we'll have a repeat of the tired old wargame formula where countries snowball in an ahistorical manner, rather than stretching themselves progressively thinner with each advance.

Of course, I remember the reactions of some players to mechanics that prevented snowballing in other games. It was unpleasant, to be sure.

 

[Cybvep]

I do think that some actual garrison force SHOULD need to be maintained, to prevent the whole country from declaring independence and breaking into one massive uprising

You said it yourself - massive uprising. Massive. Uprising. Not some random partisans spawning in the middle of France that can be defeated in 1 hour. And massive uprising are rare and need to be properly prepared. Most of the time there should be no uprisings, only negative modifiers based on partisan activity.

The question is why should I care whether partisans rule the mountains or the forests that have 0 IC and 0 resources. You need to adopt the mentality of a Starcraft player here, which means no role-playing (which is optional) and 100% gameplay-based thinking.

 

[Secret Master]

The question is why should I care whether partisans rule the mountains or the forests that have 0 IC and 0 resources. You need to adopt the mentality of a Starcraft player here, which means no role-playing (which is optional) and 100% gameplay-based thinking.

Isn't this where logistics comes in? You might not need to occupy province X because of resources, but surely you need to adequately police 90% of France to ensure supplies flow properly.

 

[Cybvep]

The infra there is high and the forces stationed in France are usually not very significant when compared with max supply throughput. And if you DO have significant forces stationed there, then you will not have partisan problems at all, because all these units have suppression values, so...

 

[tommylotto]

Well, if "garrison" is a mission instead of a unit and the mission of garrisoning is not in a province but a state or even region, then the random partisan spawns should not be the hassle that they were in Hoi3. A division garrisoning the state could execute its mission by automatically (AI-controlled) tracking down and destroying the partisans -- assuming the garrison is strong enough. So, you could have both effects -- abstract reduction of IC and supplies as well as actual partisan rebellions, and both could be easily alleviated by assigning a proper sized occupation force. But if you skimp, you suffer.

 

[Dysydent]

I agree wholeheartedly with these ideas. HoI really lacked a proper system that would simulate partisans. The one presented in this thread is propable the best one that was ever presented.

 

[Kovax]

The problem with partisan spawns in HOI3 was that they occurred at random intervals in random locations, even if you garrisoned the entire country to a fairly high level. The amount of Military Police brigades required to STOP partisan spawns completely, even with the mildest occupation policies, was absurd. You just can't afford to put GAR+3xMP in every single province (other than in tiny states like Luxemburg), and you'd probably have to double up on THAT to use anything but a Collaboration Government. To make it worse, in most cases you couldn't specify individual provinces or regions to control or annex, and hand the rest over to a puppet government; the Wargoal system was only half implemented at best.

The only time you should ever see a partisan uprising is if you leave a major occupied or annexed urban center and/or VP location totally unguarded for too long. Any residual activity in the hills and forests by small dissident groups is simply far below the scale and scope of this game: a "police" matter, not an army one. If there's no significant population or industry, there's little or no chance for an organized rebellion to form, although partisan units organized in the cities could and did flee to such areas if driven out of the cities, where they were difficult to track down and eliminate. The vast majority of their effects outside the urban areas was to attack supply trains or trucks, rip up rails, and perform other acts of espionage or sabotage to increase the costs and attrition for the occupier. If there's any kind of actual military garrison present, it's not likely that a bunch of malcontents are going to risk taking on a combat division in a direct firefight. The revolt in Warsaw only happened because the local underground believed that the Soviets were about to drive the Germans out at any moment, otherwise they would have continued to confine their actions to occasional acts of sabotage and espionage in support of the Allies.

I don't want to see the return of partisan "whack-a-mole" annoyances, but I DO want partisan attacks or national independence uprisings to be possible if you don't bother to garrison the key locations, otherwise there's no limit to how much territory you can take over and directly control. Limiting partisan spawns to unguarded cities and VPs seems like the easiest way to handle it, so there's a definite "cost" to garrison, without the tedium and absurdity of dealing with partisan units all over the place.