The politics of World War 2 can be relatively hard to understand if you are new to Hearts of Iron 4. One of the most common ways to make a state follow your orders without directly annexing them is to puppet them.
When you have a puppet in HOI4, you generally have huge control over their territories and government, allowing you to use them as your personal AI helpers.
Recommended Read: How to Produce Guided Missiles in Hearts of Iron 4
However, there are many moments where you can end up with territories without wanting it or where you want to get rid of one of your puppets due to them bringing you into annoying wars without your consent.
To release territories as puppets in Hearts of Iron 4, you will need to open the Occupied Territories menu and press the “Release Nation” button. There, you will have the option to release them as a puppet.
If you just want to release a puppet from your service and make them independent in HOI4, you will need to increase their Autonomy until they declare their independence themselves.
Table of Contents
How to Release Puppets in HOI4
When players talk about “releasing a puppet” in HOI4, they can mean one of two things:
- Release conquered territories as a vassal state x
- Release a puppet from under your control, allowing them to be independent y
Here is how you can do both of these things:
How to Release Puppets From Occupied Territories
First of all, it is impossible to free some of your conquered territories and make them puppets in HOI4 if you don’t have the Together for Victory DLC. All you can do is free those states as independent nations.
If you do have the Together for Victory DLC, then here is how to release puppets from your conquered states in HOI4:
- Press the flag of your country in the top left corner of the screen to open the Political menu (or just press Q on your keyboard).
- Under the portrait of your head of state and under the icon for your ruling party, click the Occupied territories button.
- Here you will see a list of all the countries under you that could be liberated. Find the nation you want to release as a puppet and press the “Release Nation” button.
- You will now see a pop up where there will be three options. The “Release as puppet” option will be ticked automatically, but, if not, make sure to enable it.
- Press the Release Nation button in the pop up and the country will now be “free” under your rule.
If you don’t have the Together for Victory DLC, then you won’t see the option to release those territories as a puppet, and you will only be able to release free, independent states.
The puppets you release in HOI4 will start as close as possible to the middle of the autonomy levels, depending on your government type.
Generally, it shouldn’t take long to turn them into an integrated puppet shortly after release, allowing you to use most of their Military Factories.
How to Release Puppets From Under Your Rule (Make Them Independent)
Luckily, as opposed to the previous goal, you don’t need any DLCs to release puppets.
The Autonomy system used to be stuck together with the Together for Victory DLC, but things have changed. You can release and annex puppets in HOI4 without the TfV DLC.
To release puppets from under your rule in HOI4 and make them independent, you just need to increase their Autonomy and let them advance to the next Autonomy level.
The best ways to increase their Autonomy is to do some of these things:
- Allow them to join your wars.
- Accept lend-leases from them.
- Import resources from them.
The most efficient way to increase the Autonomy of your puppets in HOI4 is to allow them to contribute to a war.
Since the AI likes to send troops to their death and planes to die over enemy air regions, they will easily increase their contributions, allowing them to gain Autonomy.
They might also occasionally offer lend-leasing opportunities for you, which you have to accept to increase their Autonomy. Each time you get equipment from them, their Autonomy will increase.
The last thing you can do is import resources from them using the Trade menu, which will significantly increase their Autonomy over time.
Once you manage to increase their Autonomy to a certain level, which you can check by opening the Political menu (click the flag in the upper left corner of the screen or press Q on the keyboard) and pressing the “Manage subjects button,” they will increase their own Autonomy level, without your help.
Depending on their Autonomy level, it might take a while until they are independent since they need to reach the “Free” Autonomy level.
Without the Together for Victory DLC
If you don’t have the HOI4 Together for Victory DLC, then you will only likely have one Autonomy level, which is “Puppet.” If you lower Autonomy, you can directly annex the puppet, or you can release it by increasing Autonomy.
The mechanics are the same, but there aren’t as many Autonomy levels as there are with the DLC.
That’s everything you need to know about how to release puppets in Hearts of Iron 4 (HOI4)!
Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.
