Conquering lands in the 20th century isn’t as straightforward and easy as it might have been in the past. Paradox Interactive has done a decent job of showing how hard it might be to pacify newly conquered realms during this time period.
In Hearts of Iron 4, players will do their best as a country of their choosing before and during the Second World War. This will prove relatively hard, as you will have to learn many of the game’s mechanics and use them to your advantage.
Recommended Read: How to Release Puppets in Hearts of Iron 4
One mechanic that not many players like is Compliance. When you obtain a territory in HOI4, to actually use its resources, you will need to increase its Compliance. However, there are no magic points that can instantly fix your problems, like in Europa Universalis or Stellaris.
To increase Compliance in Hearts of Iron 4, you will need to set up gentle Occupation Laws that don’t lower default daily Compliance gain and wait. There is no button you can press to instantly raise this number unless you use cheats.
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How Compliance Works
All territories in HOI4 that aren’t your core states will have a Compliance score. Normally, your core territories give you 100% resources, manpower, and factory output.
With non-core states (usually territories that you didn’t have at the start of the game or colonies), you will only get a very small percentage.
Most countries that have non-core states at the start of the game will have around 70% Compliance in those territories, which gives you access to a decent size of Manpower, resources, and factory output.
However, when you conquer a state through war, you will start with 0% Compliance in that territory.
This makes that conquered state relatively useless at the moment, but you can fix that in time by increasing Compliance.
At some points in the Compliance percentage slider, you will gain various bonuses in those provinces:
- Informants (Compliance 15%) – Enemy operative detection chance offset: +25%
- Local Police Force (Compliance 25%) – Required Garrisons: -25%, Recruitable Population: +0.5%
- Reorganized Workforce (Compliance 40%) – Local Resources: +10%, Local Factories: +10%
- Volunteer Program (Compliance 60%) – Recruitable Population: +20%
- A New Regime (Compliance 80%) – Can form a Collaboration Government
To make everything easier to understand, here are the bonuses you receive from a non-core state at Compliance 0% and 100% in HOI4, using the basic Civilian Oversight Occupation Law, using the buffs from above:
| Compliance | Manpower | Factories | Resources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0% | 2% | 25% | 35% |
| 100% | 20% | 95% | 105% |
How to Increase Compliance in HOI4
There are two ways to increase Compliance in HOI4:
- Use lenient Occupation Laws
- Preemptively set up a Collaboration Government
Occupation Laws
The normal way you will most likely increase Compliance in states in HOI4 is by setting up gentle Occupation Laws. By default, Compliance will increase daily by 0.075%.
If you are at peace, you also gain a 10% bonus to that 0.075, which means you will gain 0.083% Compliance daily.
There are various heads of states or modifiers from focus trees as well that can increase the daily Compliance gain, but those are very dependent on circumstance.
There is also a decay factor that will appear once Compliance increases, which is -0.00083% per Compliance percentage, which can reach a maximum daily -0.083% at 100% Compliance.
If you wouldn’t have any other buffs/debuffs influencing these two Compliance increase/decrease factors, you would get to a stable 90% Compliance.
However, most Occupation Laws will decrease daily Compliance gain, making the maximum Compliance you can get relatively low.
The only two Occupation Laws that don’t lower the daily Compliance gain are No Garrison and Civilian Oversight. However, these are prone to increase Resistance.
Collaboration Government
Players who don’t have a lot of experience in using Intelligence Agencies will likely think that Collaboration Governments are the puppets you can create when you get 80% Compliance.
However, you can actually work to get a Collaboration Government in a country before conquering it.
If you use your spies to Prepare Collaboration Government in a country, you will get a Collaboration Government percentage. That percentage will actually turn into a Compliance percentage in that country’s conquered states.
This means that if you can get 100% Collaboration Government with a country through the Intelligence Agency menu, you will get 100% Compliance when you conquer them.
This is why the best way to increase Compliance in HOI4 is to create a Collaboration Government before conquering territories.
However, don’t create a Collaboration Government once you take that land over!
This will make those territories a puppet that will give you a lot of advantages in the region.
However, as you can see from the stats above, you almost get the same advantages as a core state from a non-core province if you have 100% Compliance.
The Prepare Collaboration Government costs 3 Civilian Factories for 120 days and 1k Support Equipment.
To start the operation, you will need at least 2 operatives and 60% network strength in the country you want to conquer.
The operation can give from 30% to 90% Collaboration Government each time you attempt it successfully.
Usually, you will have to do the operation 3 times to get around 90% Collaboration Government, which will result in 90% Compliance when you take over.
Best Occupation Laws for Compliance in HOI4
When it comes to Compliance, the best Occupation Laws in HOI4 are No Garrison and Civilian Oversight since they don’t lower the daily Compliance gain in any way.
However, No Garrison can significantly increase the amount of Resistance you have in the states, which can cause a lot of problems.
This is why Local Police and Liberated Workforce can actually be some of the best choices when it comes to Compliance. They do a good job of combating Resistance while also giving a high Compliance daily gain rate.
Liberated Workforce is an Occupation Law only available to Communist countries, and it is probably the best law you can use in the game since it gives big advantages.
This Occupation Law has a low Compliance daily decrease, low Manpower requirements, a good anti-Resistance buff, and really powerful resources and factories bonuses.
With the Liberated Workforce and Local Police Occupation Laws, you will likely get around 60% Compliance and won’t advance more than that.
If you want more Compliance than that, you will have to use No Garrison or Civilian Oversight.
That’s everything you need to know about how to increase Compliance in Hearts of Iron 4 (HOI4)!
Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.
