In Hearts of Iron 4, players will get to control a country of their choice during the Second World War and change their future by altering history.
You can do this either by doing a different path politically or by being a military genius winning every fight.
One of the problems that come with defeating and conquering enemy lands in Hearts of Iron 4 is the Resistance of the occupied states, as they can start a rebellion to liberate their cores.
Recommended Read: Hearts of Iron 4 – Japan Guide
The way you would handle this is by changing the occupation laws and using effective garrisons to police the state, but do you actually deploy these garrisons?
To garrison occupied states in Hearts of Iron 4, you don’t actually need to deploy any extra visible troops in the territories. The game automatically garrisons occupied states, and you just need to open the Occupied Territories menu to manage them.
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How to Garrison Occupied States in HOI4
To garrison occupied states to handle Resistance in HOI4, you do not need to send any troops into the land. You don’t have to see any divisions standing there to control the population.
The game will automatically assign garrisons into the territories off-screen that will help control the population. For this reason you will lose Manpower and equipment based on the division template selected to handle the occupied territory.
To manage the garrisons for occupied states, here is what you need to do:
- Press your country’s flag in the upper left corner of the screen or Q on the keyboard.
- Under Territory management, press the division icon and select what garrison template you want to use.
- Next to that button you’ll also have your default occupation law. Change it to fit your needs.
By looking at the occupied states in the Occupied territories menu, you can see the target Resistance for them. This means that, in time, that land will reach that level of Resistance. As long as the target Resistance is under 90%, you have no risk of an independence war.
To lower the Resistance target, just select a different occupation law which combats Resistance.
The best template to select for the garrisons is a Cavalry division with a single battalion (2 width). This is the best one in terms of Manpower and equipment loss since you don’t really care how powerful the garrison division is.
Since they aren’t real troops that you can use to fight, you should just think of them as a constant loss of Manpower and equipment and do your best to lower the cost.
You can see exactly how much you lose from garrisons in the Recruit & Deploy menu.
Resistance
Here is how Resistance works in HOI4:
When you conquer a state, Resistance in that region will start at 0%. However, based on a lot of factors, the state will get a target Resistance that it will reach in time. You can lower that Resistance target by selecting better occupation laws.
The garrison itself doesn’t matter that much. As long as you provide the necessary Manpower and equipment, they will do the job assigned to them.
This Resistance has a base maximum daily growth of 0.2%, while it can only be lowered daily by 0.1% if the right occupation laws are in place.
Resistance is only relevant once it reaches certain thresholds:
| Resistance Level | Resistance threshold | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Organized Resistance | 25% | Garrison Penetration Chance: +50% |
| Emboldened Resistance | 50% | Damage to Garrisons: +100% |
| Uprising | 75% | Divisions speed: -50% (Only for the controller)Strategic Redeployment Disabled: YesLocal Supplies: -50% (Only for the controller)Division Attrition: +30% (Only for the controller) |
| Uprising | 90% | Local Factories: -3% Resistance will declare independence on the core states that are being occupied |
How to Garrison Troops
If you do want to garrison troops in ports or important cities to protect them rather than control the population and Resistance, you just need to put them all in an army and select the Area Defense order.
Click on the states you want to defend and then click on the little icons that appeared above the order to select if they should defend every victory point, ports, coastlines, forts, ari bases, or supply hubs.
The menu will tell you how many divisions you need to protect all of the things you’ve selected there, allowing you to garrison all the important parts of your country efficiently.
That’s everything you need to know about how to garrison occupied states in Hearts of Iron 4!
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