Occupation

Occupation is how a war changes the map. A province has an owner, the country it belongs to, and a controller, the country actually holding it. In peacetime these are the same; in wartime an enemy army can take control of a province while its legal owner remains unchanged until a treaty or the war's end decides its fate.

Taking control

In wartime, Brigades standing unopposed in an enemy-controlled province begin occupying it. Once they have held it uncontested for 15 days, control passes to the occupying side.

Winning a battle for a province is itself the contest: when the victors march in after defeating the defenders, the province falls on their first day there. Any change of control resets the war's border-change clock, which otherwise ends a stalemated war after 24 months (see Wars).

Only enemy ground can be occupied. Troops standing in their own country, an ally's, a subject's or a neutral's province take nothing, even while their country is at war. Land that an ally occupies passes to the leader of its side when the war ends, not to the ally itself.

What occupation denies

An occupied province still produces, but it pays its owner nothing:

• its GDP drops out of the owner's tax base, arms procurement and spending budgets (see Money & the Budget);
• its people drop out of the owner's Manpower ceiling;
• its owner can no longer deploy brigades there.

This lasts until the province is retaken or ceded. Occupying an enemy's industrial heartland is therefore one of the surest ways to weaken its war effort, and the reason the AI weighs capitals, large cities and strategically important provinces so heavily when placing garrisons.

The fighting that comes before occupation leaves its own mark: battles cause Devastation and civilian deaths in the contested province, which outlast the occupation itself.

Occupation and the peace

Occupation is the strongest source of leverage in peace negotiations. The GDP-weighted share of a country's territory held by the opposing side counts directly towards leverage over it, with allied occupation counted together, and an enemy that has lost all of its land concedes the maximum regardless of its remaining armies.

How the war ends decides what happens to occupied provinces:

• Ceasefire. Every contested province passes to whoever controls it in every practical sense, taxes, manpower and map colour included, while the original owner keeps its legal claim. If fighting resumes, ownership follows the front immediately with no 15-day wait.
• Peace. Occupied and disputed provinces return to their rightful owners, unless the treaty cedes them through a province cession, annexation or puppeting clause.
• Stalemate. A war that ends after 24 months without the front moving leaves every occupied province to whoever holds it.

See Treaties for how these clauses are negotiated.

Annexation and occupation

When a country is annexed, its annexer takes control of everything it held, including ground it had occupied in other wars, while an enemy's occupation of the annexed country's own land is kept. A movement fighting a guerrilla war never accepts annexation however much of its ground is occupied; it fights on until it wins, negotiates or is driven into the open.