Autonomy

As the swedish weather takes a turn for the worse it's time to huddle up around the tent heater and type up another diary. Today we will be talking about Autonomy which is a new concept replacing the old master-puppet relationship in previous Hearts of Iron games coming in the Together for Victory expansion.

Instead of either being Free or Puppet nations can now live on a scale with fixed steps. The idea here is that we wanted both to flesh out relations between nation and give new gameplay abilities to gain freedom when playing as a puppet.

Free

• Well, nothing much to say here, it's how nations normally are.

Dominion

• Master may trade a bit above trade law limits

• Master gets somewhat cheaper trade

• Can not declare wars on its own (goes for all subject levels below also)

• Can not refuse calls to war (goes for all subject levels below, but can be modified by actions in focus trees)

• Get full technology sharing bonuses

Colony

• Master can trade more above law limits and cheaper than for Dominions

• Colonies get less effect from technology sharing (master gets full bonus from you)

• Master can recruit subject troops. We will cover details on this in next dev diary.

Puppet

• Master can trade more above law limits and cheaper than for Colonies

• Puppets get less effect from technology sharing (master gets full bonus from you)

• Subject troops can be recruited like for colonies (see above), but easier.

Integrated Puppet

• Master can trade basically for free and without restrictions.

• Master automatically gain control of deployed forces if player.

• Subject troops can be recruited like for puppets (see above), but easier.

• 25% of their civilian industry and 75% of military industry is controlled by master.

Diplo annexed

• Country stops existing and is swallowed up by master.

To move up or down a level master or puppet need to pay Political Power, but that can only be done once you fill the autonomy bar to max for your side. To actually fill it up there are several things you can do depending on which side of the power you are sitting in the tug-of-war relationship:

• When master is building buildings or infrastructure in a subject nation it reduces their autonomy.

• When a master recruits or uses troops from a subject it increases their autonomy.

• Lend lease of equipment affects autonomy (when sending to master you need to send up to date stuff for it to increase your autonomy).

• A subject can use the Increase Autonomy continuous national focus to slowly gain autonomy.

• A master can use the Suppress Subjects continuous national focus to suppress its subjects towards lower autonomy.

• There are also a lot of national focuses in the new focus trees affecting autonomy.

• Gaining warscore increases autonomy for a subject.

• Trading resources from a subject increases their autonomy.

To put things simply, helping subjects lowers their autonomy and taking things, or getting help from subjects increases their autonomy. Being a subject, or having subjects isnt always bad. Technology sharing for Canada & Friends is quite potent, although of course it restricts their diplomatic powers. On the flip side being able to recruit forces, gain industry and manage subjects further down the scale can often be a better choice than annexing outright. Building things in subjects is done as normal through the construction interface, and indicated with a flag:

As a