One of the mechanics that can ruin empires such as Germany and Italy in Hearts of Iron 4 is Resistance. If you don’t take care of your conquered territories properly, you will likely have a lot of problems.
Resistance will slowly increase if you don’t have the right Occupation Laws, which can result in independence for those territories.
Recommended Read: How to Annex Puppets in Hearts of Iron 4
Though most players won’t even get close to a rebellion, you will still likely get a lot of debuffs if you don’t place the right Garrisons and Occupation Laws for the conquered country.
In this guide, we will show you exactly how to deal with Resistance in HOI4 by lowering it and completely stopping it with a great Garrison division and the right Occupation Law.
Table of Contents
- How to Deal with Resistance in HOI4
- Best Garrison Template
- How to Choose Garrison Template and Change Occupation Laws
How to Deal with Resistance in HOI4
The best way to deal with Resistance in HOI4 is to use the right Occupation Law in the conquered territories.
There are a lot of factors that can lower Resistance in HOI4, but the best one is Occupation Laws.
These laws will allow you to control the exact amount of Resistance that provinces have. Considering that the harshest Occupation Law will lower Resistance by 75%, it seems that these can easily fix your problem.
However, the harsher the Occupation Law, the larger the amount of Garrison you have to place in those territories.
Here are all the positive modifiers you can get to lower Resistance in rebellious provinces in HOI4:
- Controller has a claim: -5%
- Controller is at peace: -10%
- Compliance in state: -0.5% per percent of Compliance, up to -50%.
- Occupation Laws: -75%
- Continuous National Focus “Resistance Suppression”: -5%
Even with all of these modifiers, the minimum Resistance you can get is 10% unless you lower it by increasing Compliance. Also, Resistance can only lower by 0.1% every day.
You can see in the Occupied Territories menu exactly what Resistance you will get depending on your Occupation Laws.
You can find this by pressing Q and then pressing the Occupied Territories button under the image of your country’s leader.
In theory, to lower Resistance in HOI4, all you need to do is change the Occupation Laws to something harsher.
However, this will increase the amount of Garrison that you need in those territories, which will also increase the amount of Manpower you can’t use for your armies.
This is why you need an extremely efficient Garrison template ready to select in the Occupied Territories, that won’t eat up a lot of Manpower.
Things that Increase Resistance
There are also a lot of modifiers that can affect how much Resistance you have in your provinces in HOI4. The base number for Resistance will be 35%.
However, here are all the other things that can increase Resistance in HOI4:
- Conquered Country has Government in Exile: +2% to 20% (based on Legitimacy)
- Victory Points in Province: +5% to 20%
- Stability below 100: +0 to 20%
- Occupation Laws: Can get up to +45%
- Enemy Intelligence Operations: +10% to 20%
Resistance can only grow by 0.2% per day, which is good news if you have provinces with a huge possible Resistance, and need some time to figure things out.
Best Garrison Template
Depending on your production capabilities, Army Experience, and Manpower, there are four very powerful Garrison templates you can use in HOI4 to control your occupied territories:
- 2 Width Cavalry
- 2 Width Armored Car
- 50 Width Cavalry with Military Police
- 50 Width Armored Car with Military Police
2 Width Garrisons
At the start of the game, and through most of the game really if you don’t care a lot about Manpower, using a 2 Width, single Cavalry battalion division will be more than enough to suppress the populace and lower Resistance in HOI4.
Cavalry are the best solution for suppression in HOI4 if you have the necessary Manpower.
A single 2w Cavalry division will be more than enough to keep your territories safe, and it will be much more efficient, Manpower-wise, than your normal war divisions.
If you would rather use your military production instead of Manpower, you can opt in for a 2w Armored Car division.
These will use half the Manpower and will be better at suppression than Cavalry. However, you will have to produce a lot of Armored Cars, which is not viable for most countries.
50 Width Garrisons
MPs increase the suppression of a division by 20% (or 50%, at maximum tech level).
This bonus is not worth it if you have a small, 2 width division, like the ones we mentioned earlier, which have 2 or 2.5 suppression.
However, a 50 width, full Cavalry division will have 50 suppression. Here, that 20 to 50% bonus will make a huge difference.
If you make one of these divisions, you will see that most of your territories will only use a fraction of the division to control the territories.
You can also change the Cavalry in this unit with Armored Cars, and you would get even more suppression with less Manpower. However, you will need a lot more production power.
If you were to make a 2w Cavalry division with a support MP battalion, you would lose a lot of resources for no reason.
The difference between a 2w Cavalry division with MP vs a 50w Cavalry division with MP is that you will have to use around 30% less Manpower, 50% less Infantry Equipment, and 95% less Support Equipment.
This is because the game would need to use more 2w Cavalry divisions, which would result in creating more MPs, which would lose you all of those resources.
How to Choose Garrison Template and Change Occupation Laws
Now that you have your perfect Garrison division template ready, here is how to use it in HOI4:
- Press Q to open the Political menu (or press on the flag in the upper left corner).
- Click the Occupied Territories button under the portrait of the ruler of the country.
- Press the button that shows a division with two green arrows next to it, under Territory Management, at the top of the menu.
- Select the division you created.
You can also find the country you conquered in this menu and press the little arrow under their flag to get more details about Resistance in the territories.
From here, you can also change the Occupation Laws and see exactly at what point Resistance and Compliance will grow and stop.
Generally, you can choose the same Occupation Law for all the territories of a conquered country, since they will have similar Resistance stats.
That’s everything you need to know about how to deal with Resistance in Hearts of Iron 4!
Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.
