GAME MANUAL - Steam

HEARTS OF IRON DARKEST HOURby a loser, and may only beimposed upon the nation withwhom you are directlynegotiating and not one of hisallies. If the enemy agrees tothis, he will be forced todisband his entire military.• Military Access: This isanother term that may only bedemanded by a victor. Ifagreed to, this will give thevictor unrestricted access tomove through the loser’sterritory.• Make Puppet: If you have ahigh enough war score,usually because you controlmany of the enemy’s keyprovinces (identified by a redstar in the victory pointsmapmode), you may demandthat an enemy submit to youand allow the establishment ofa puppet regime in his nationthat is loyal to yourgovernment. If accepted, theenemy will bequeath allterritorial claims to your nationand a new government will beinstalled that is of the sametype as yours. The new puppetwill leave any of its currentalliances and will join youralliance instead. It willautomatically grant yourcountry military access to theirlands and the surplus of thepuppet’s resources will also betransferred to you. This is afairly hostile action, althoughnot as belligerent as outrightannexation, and will probablyonly be accepted if you enjoyvast military supremacy andthe target nation feels that ithas little or no chance ofsurvival otherwise.Once you are satisfied withthe terms, click the OK buttonto send your offer. I shouldcaution you that an enemy isunlikely to agree to a proposalthat is close to the exactwarscore value and is muchmore likely to accept it if thereis large benefit to doing so.Certain nations will also behighly resistant to acceptingany peace terms beyondoutright annexation withcertain other nations,particularly the faction leaders.As with any diplomatic option,it may take a day or two toreceive a response and youwill not be able to initiatefurther diplomacy with thatnation until at least one weekhas elapsed. If the peace isagreed upon, all nationsinvolved in the deal will signthe peace treaty which will bein force for the subsequentfive years, but it is no morebinding that was the case withwhite peaces. Any territorythat does not exchangeownership as the result of theterms will be returned to itsrightful owner.Annex NationIf you are at war with a nationand have achieved a crushingvictory (you must occupy all ofits key provinces identified bya red star when viewing themain map in the victory pointmapmode), the annex nationoption will become available.Annexation is the mostdevastating demand that youcan impose and is treated as aseparate diplomatic peaceoption due to several specialconsiderations related to itsterms. The target nation mustlay down its arms and dissolveits government, surrenderingownership of all of itsterritories and for all intentsand purposes becoming partof your nation. This is alwayshandled as separate peace,so even if the defeated nationis an alliance leader it is in noway binding on any of itsalliance members. There is nocost to offer this “peace” but itis a demand that will removethat nation from the gameunless it later reforms as aresult of partisan uprisings,and is considered the mosthostile and belligerent actionpossible. If you enjoy this higha margin of victory, you maywish to consider the “puppetregime” peace term instead,one that will be considerablyless damaging to yourreputation, or some othercombination of highly punitiveterms.If an alliance leader isannexed, then a new leaderwill be chosen from amongstthose nations that remain andthe state of war will continueto exist with that alliance. Ifthere are no remainingalliance members, the war willbe over.86