Pacific States and MC

[Elegant Caveman]

So I noticed that the Pacific States start with 3 regions, each with an MC cap of 3, and that seems insane.

Basically triple the MC cap of any other country I've looked at with a single control point.

Of course, the downside is that it's easy to lose, having only one control point and being quite poor.

So I was wondering... how best to leverage this...?

My "primary" nation is the US (playing Resistance). I've also got Kazakhstan, Israel, and New Zealand, with a couple of other little things here and there (executive in Sweden to be able to buy/equip an org I wanted, and executive in Guatemala, to potentially go after the Central American Confederation, both with their other controlled points nominally in my name, but abandoned).

I've got Australia for now, but abandoned and on crackdown. Was thinking of trying for Republic of the Southern Cross later, but I'm not close to being able to do that.

Southern Cross gives Australia claims on some of the Pacific States regions, but not all (missing Weno), so how would that work exactly?

It's got Auckland, so I could merge New Zealand, but how would bringing the Pacific States under Australia's umbrella work? Would Weno be lost, or would it come with the package deal?

Noumea's still France/EU, and I could conceivably do something with that later, but for the time being, I'm trying to focus on simpler things.

Protectorate has executive in France, as well as one other, and the other two are taken by the Academy and Humanity First, so it's a bit of a mess over there.

I thought of maybe having the Pacific States foolishly start a war with the US so they could be absorbed, but that seems pointless... the US doesn't need MC cap, and that's not my focus there anyway.

The whole point is to try to capitalize on the Pacific State's 9 potential MC, while being able to defend it a bit more easily, and having at least a slightly-better economy to actually build them.

Would love to just invade with New Zealand, but it looks like I can't even build an army in NZ...

I'd also love to get the Biak region from Indonesia, since I have a claim, but I'm not sure how I could do that without taking over Indonesia and ceding it (Indonesia's presently owned by the Academy, with one slot for Humanity First).

[Ericus1]

So, if you unify by warfare/conquest you only get the regions you have a claim on.

If you unify by diplomacy you get everything, with the caveat that if their cohesion is below 5 there is a rapidly increasing chance that those regions you don't have claims on break away instead. You're usually good as long as cohesion is above 4, but anything lower than that is danger territory. You also need to have a claim on their original capital region.

So, the only real, less-expensive route you have is to fold them into Kangarooland, but yeah, unlocking that meganation path for Australia is gated behind some pretty expensive techs. Since their original cap is Port Moresby, you're good to go there.

It's also important to note that as far as I can tell you don't even get the option to research a meganation tech until/unless that primary nation/meganation exists, which seems like a change I encountered in my more recent game I don't remember from my earlier ones. So, for instance, you cannot research the "Greater Austronesia" tech (which, not so coincidentally is the only one that gets a claim on Weno, IIRC) if you've already folded Indonesia into the Southeast Asian Alliance.

edit: Nope, Japan can get a claim on Weno through the 30K research Pacific Defense League, but that would require both the 50K research Pan-Asian Combine first AND that you have NOT folded Japan into said Pan-Asian Combine.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

So, if you unify by warfare/conquest you only get the regions you have a claim on.

If you unify by diplomacy you get everything, with the caveat that if their cohesion is below 5 there is a rapidly increasing chance that those regions you don't have claims on breaking away instead. You're usually good as long as cohesion is above 4, but anything lower than that is danger territory. You also need to have a claim on their original capital region.

So, the only real route you have is to fold them into Kangarooland, but yeah, unlocking that meganation path for Australia is gated behind some pretty expensive techs.

It's also important to note that as far as I can tell you don't even get the option to research a meganation tech until/unless that primary nation/meganation exists, which seems like a change I encountered in my more recent game I don't remember from my earlier ones. So, for instance, you cannot research the "Greater Austronesia" tech (which, not so coincidentally is the only one that gets a claim on Weno) if you've already folded Indonesia into the Southeast Asian Alliance.

Good to know about warfare vs. diplomacy, and cohesion. Thanks.

Pacific States are at 4.8 now, so I should be fine for that.

Seems like my best/only option here is to go for Southern Cross.

Republic of the Southern Cross isn't too bad, as far as tech goes, which is why I'm eyeing it.

Arrival International Relations (5k) -> Unity Movements (10k) -> Southern Cross (10k).

It's not for right away, but it's one of the more accessible unifications.

This would let me merge Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific States. Nothing too huge, but a decent block to work on boost/MC.

Any idea on how miltech gets calculated in diplomatic merges (I read somewhere that you don't lose miltech when you annex through warfare)? Is it a straight split between nations, with Pacific States' measly 3 bringing down the other two hugely, or does size/economy matter?

If the latter, it won't matter too much, but if the former, that would hurt.

Then again, I've got the US, so I'm not too worried about Southern Cross having weaker military.

Greater Indonesia/Greater Austronesia is far away, but that's not a major concern.

As long as I form Southern Cross diplomatically, I shouldn't lose Weno, so it doesn't matter if there's no claim.

Do I understand correctly that if I merge the three peacefully, I keep all regions, and thus full MC cap?

Originally posted by Ericus1:

edit: Nope, Japan can get a claim on Weno through the 30K research Pacific Defense League, but that would require both the 50K research Pan-Asian Combine first AND that you have NOT folded Japan into said Pan-Asian Combine.

Yeah, that's far, and doesn't touch Australia or New Zealand.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

Any idea on how miltech gets calculated in diplomatic merges (I read somewhere that you don't lose miltech when you annex through warfare)?

That's old info, it's not true any more.
How it works is that it sums up the number of regions, armies, and navies, and uses that as the basis for a weighted average.
new miltech = ((R+A+N of country 1) * miltech1 + (R+A+N of country 2) * miltech2) / (R+A+N total).
If territory is conquered or diplomatically transferred, only taking part of the country instead of all of it, then only add up the parts that changed hands for country2 instead of all of their regions, and do the same for the summation on the bottom.

[Ericus1]

Oh, and as for the armies thing, both armies and navies have minimum conditions you need to meet before you can build them. For armies, it's:

• 5 Mn Population (minimum for the first one)
  
• 25 Mn Population per army (for additional ones, regardless of number of regions)
  
• 1 region per army (regardless of population, so Bangladesh despite having a population of 168 million can't have more than one army.)

NZ is just shy of the required population to support their first army, at 4.9 million.

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

Do I understand correctly that if I merge the three peacefully, I keep all regions, and thus full MC cap?

Provided Weno doesn't break away, yep. I'm not sure how the mil-tech merge works, as that has been constantly changing and I don't know what the formula for it is anymore. I would assume though that is scaled like most of the others against population size and number of existing armies each country has. I.e. if you are merging a high miltech nation with no armies into a low miltech nation with 4, you'd assume there would be a more heavily weighted penatly to miltech than in the reverse situation, but I don't know for sure.

Yeah, that's far, and doesn't touch Australia or New Zealand.

One of the reasons I mentioned the Greater Austronesia tech, is because it is the only path for a full East Asian/Pacific merge. The only way to get Australia/NZ into the rest of Pan-Asian is the Southern Cross (technically not needed, but you'd probably pick it up on the way) -> Greater Austronesia -> Southeast Asian Alliance -> Pan Asian Combine.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

That's old info, it's not true any more.
How it works is that it sums up the number of regions, armies, and navies, and uses that as the basis for a weighted average.
new miltech = ((R+A+N of country 1) * miltech1 + (R+A+N of country 2) * miltech2) / (R+A+N total).
If territory is conquered or diplomatically transferred, only taking part of the country instead of all of it, then only add up the parts that changed hands for country2 instead of all of their regions, and do the same for the summation on the bottom.

Oof, if economy/population doesn't factor, then the Pacific States' 3 regions at 3 miltech are gonna hurt... lol

That should give ~3.6 for Southern Cross.

Good to know things have changed and it doesn't matter how they get annexed, though.

Originally posted by Ericus1:

Oh, and as for the armies thing, both armies and navies have minimum conditions you need to meet before you can build them. For armies, it's:

• 5 Mn Population (minimum for the first one)
  
• 25 Mn Population per army (for additional ones, regardless of number of regions)
  
• 1 region per army (regardless of population, so Bangladesh despite having a population of 168 million can't have more than one army.)

NZ is just shy of the required population to support their first army, at 4.9 million.

Ah, good to know!

At the current rate, it'll get there in... 25 years. lol

Originally posted by Ericus1:

Provided Weno doesn't break away, yep. I'm not sure how the mil-tech merge works, as that has been constantly changing and I don't know what the formula for it is anymore. I would assume though that is scaled like most of the other against population size and number of existing armies each country has. I.e. if you are merging a high miltech nation with no armies into a low miltech nation with 4, you'd assume there would be a more heavily weighted penatly to miltech than in the reverse situation, but I don't know for sure.

Good enough for my immediate (well, relatively-near-term) purposes at least.

Originally posted by Ericus1:

One of the reasons I mentioned the Greater Austronesia tech, is because it is the only path for a full East Asian/Pacific merge. The only way to get Australia/NZ into the rest of Pan-Asian is the Southern Cross (technically not needed, but you'd probably pick it up on the way) -> Greater Austronesia -> Southeast Asian Alliance -> Pan Asian Combine.

I mean, sure, one day, ideally... that would be nice. But I'm looking at more immediate goals.

Though if I form Southern Cross, would that get in the way of a possible Greater Austronesia in the future?

I have no specific plans to expand into Asia any time soon, but who knows what the future holds.

As far as "big unifications" are concerned, I'm more interested in United North America/Greater United North America, maybe with a dip into Central American Confederation on the way, if that's possible?

I guess that's a similar question to Greater Austronesia & Southern Cross; can I add the Central American Confederation into the Greater United North America, or do those nations need to be independent?

I think it's just a matter of claims on capitals, no, for diplomatic unification? So even if those capitals now encompass more regions/countries, as long as my cohesion's okay, I should be fine?

I'm not sure about bringing Central America into United North America, though... that would be a considerable hit on military.

I wish I could do something else with Mexico, other than just Greater United North America.

It could be fun to "fix" Central America, but I'm probably better off focusing elsewhere. I guess I'll see how the geoscape changes...

But again, that's why I'm interested in Southern Cross. That's "close enough" to being something I can actually plan around, where I'm at.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

I think it's just a matter of claims on capitals, no, for diplomatic unification? So even if those capitals now encompass more regions/countries, as long as my cohesion's okay, I should be fine?

Yes. Also, the cohesion thing causing breakaways is for regions that the country that's annexing the other doesn't have claims on. Since Greater North America gets a claim on everything that Central American Confederation can get, it won't get breakaways.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Yes. Also, the cohesion thing causing breakaways is for regions that the country that's annexing the other doesn't have claims on. Since Greater North America gets a claim on everything that Central American Confederation can get, it won't get breakaways.

Ah, good point, thanks!

That does make things a lot easier.

Still concerned about the military dip, but I'll take a closer look at that when it's closer to a potential reality.

[Ericus1]

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

I mean, sure, one day, ideally... that would be nice. But I'm looking at more immediate goals.

Though if I form Southern Cross, would that get in the way of a possible Greater Austronesia in the future?

No, with the caveat that you have to merge in the right order, and can't be part of multiple federations/unifed federations at the same time as the non-primary member. It's complicated. Let's look at a more concrete example I ran into in my last game, and take the case of the Caliphate, African Union, and the rest of the Middle East.

The Caliphate can invite all the various Muslim nations into its federation, because it has claims on them. It can also join the African Union, provided the African Union is the only nation in its federation, as it now longer counts as a "federation". If the Caliphate does it no longer controls its own federation but is a member under the African Union, but it would bring any of its Caliphate member nations with it despite the fact that the African Union wouldn't have been able to invite those same nations in itself. The Caliphate can still unify, i.e. merge with any nations in the overall federation it has claims on, so if Iran was previously a member of the Caliphate federation, and thus is now under the African Union-led federation, the Caliphate could still unify with it. However, you couldn't bring in any NEW countries into African-Union led federation because the African Union itself doesn't have claims on.

So, to avoid sticky wickets the general rule is don't join another "federation" nation until you've fully unified your own federation first. Hence the unification path I gave of Southern Cross (which, again, technically isn't needed since Austonesia can unify all its members directly) merges into Greater Austronesia under Indonesia, who merges into the Southeast Asian Alliance under Thailand, who merges into the Pan Asian Combine under China.

I have no specific plans to expand into Asia any time soon, but who knows what the future holds.

As far as "big unifications" are concerned, I'm more interested in United North America/Greater United North America, maybe with a dip into Central American Confederation on the way, if that's possible?

I guess that's a similar question to Greater Austronesia & Southern Cross; can I add the Central American Confederation into the Greater United North America, or do those nations need to be independent?

I think it's just a matter of claims on capitals, no, for diplomatic unification? So even if those capitals now encompass more regions/countries, as long as my cohesion's okay, I should be fine?

I'm not sure about bringing Central America into United North America, though... that would be a considerable hit on military.

I wish I could do something else with Mexico, other than just Greater United North America.

It could be fun to "fix" Central America, but I'm probably better off focusing elsewhere. I guess I'll see how the geoscape changes...

But again, that's why I'm interested in Southern Cross. That's "close enough" to being something I can actually plan around, where I'm at.

Yeah, planning for the long-long term is definitely something you're going to do a lot of in this game. But yes, you can (and probably will want to) eventually go for the Greater United North America route, and you can merge the Central American Confederation into a United North America, but you have to be careful about order and pay attention to that example I described earlier. Provided that either the CAC or the UNA are the only nations left in their federation, they can merge together, and then UNA can unify CAC under the GUNA. But if you leave someone out of the CAC you can't get them in once you join the UNA if the UNA doesn't also have claims on them.

In this particular case, I think you're okay because anything the CAC gets claims on, the GUNA gets claims on too so the UNA could bring them in directly. And if there were any regions in CAC that UNA didn't have claims on, provided cohesion is good they should still get folded into the GUNA, but again I don't believe there are in that case. It does matter though for that Pan-Asian Combine route getting all of what it can.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

[unification stuff]

Excellent, thanks.

So as long as I keep an eye on what projects affect which claims, and cohesion where it matters, I should be fine.

Sounds like Southern Cross is fine for the short-medium term, and if/when I go for a broader Asian unification, it would mostly be grabbing Australia and whatever comes with it, at that point.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

However, you couldn't bring in any NEW countries into African-Union led federation because the African Union itself doesn't have claims on.

Yes you can. The requirement to join a federation is that any federation member has a claim on any of the joinee's territory, or the joinee has a claim on any of a federation member's territory. It doesn't matter if it's not the leaders' claim.
For instance, you can federate Canada and the US without the project that gives the US claims on Canada by just getting First Nation, releasing them from Canada, and then federating them with the US, and then Canada with that.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Yes you can. The requirement to join a federation is that any federation member has a claim on any of the joinee's territory, or the joinee has a claim on any of a federation member's territory. It doesn't matter if it's not the leaders' claim.
For instance, you can federate Canada and the US without the project that gives the US claims on Canada by just getting First Nation, releasing them from Canada, and then federating them with the US, and then Canada with that.

Oh, wow, so you can basically get a United North America for a fraction of the tech cost...?

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Yes you can. The requirement to join a federation is that any federation member has a claim on any of the joinee's territory, or the joinee has a claim on any of a federation member's territory. It doesn't matter if it's not the leaders' claim.
For instance, you can federate Canada and the US without the project that gives the US claims on Canada by just getting First Nation, releasing them from Canada, and then federating them with the US, and then Canada with that.

Oh, wow, so you can basically get a United North America for a fraction of the tech cost...?

No. You can federate, but you can't Unify, because that requires a claim on the capital.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

No. You can federate, but you can't Unify, because that requires a claim on the capital.

Ah, gotcha, thanks.

[gimmethegepgun]

You CAN use First Nation to give Alaska and Greenland to Canada though XD

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

You CAN use First Nation to give Alaska and Greenland to Canada though XD

Sneaky!