Hearts of Iron IV: La Resistance guide – Recruiting spies and succeeding in espionage

Hearts of Iron IV: La Resistance offers numerous espionage mechanics such as an intelligence agency, spies, operations, cryptology, collaboration governments, and resistance movements. It’s one of the most jam-packed expansions for the game as mentioned in our official review. Our mini-guide helps you understand its features and reworks that come with a free update.

The first part of our Hearts of Iron IV: La Resistance guide tackles reworks to resistance movements and occupied territories, as well as how to form collaborationist governments. The second part is all about the espionage and intel systems added by the expansion. If you’re already familiar with the reworks, you can skip to part 2 here.

Hearts of Iron IV: La Resistance guide – Resistance vs. Compliance

The most impactful change in La Resistance actually happens under the hood given the reworks to occupied countries and occupation forces. Previously, Hearts of Iron IV simply relied on having enough divisions assigned to fully suppress an occupied country, and the game’s wiki even has tabulated information on how many troops you need.

Now, it’s all about balancing resistance vs. compliance. Provinces in Hearts of Iron IV have resistance and compliance values if they’re occupied by a foreign power. These include those captured during the war and those that are occupied by colonial or hostile powers at the game’s start.

Here are some tidbits from my campaign as Germany after trouncing the Soviet Union. First, here’s a look at the Low Countries using the resistance map mode. Notice how one of the provinces in the Netherlands has 96% resistance?

The “Uprising” status creates penalties for your deployment and logistics, and the “Emboldened Resistance” modifier means higher damage to any garrisoned forces. Garrisoned forces will act as a shield first against sabotage attempts, and they’ll take losses before resistance damanges infrastructure.

Next, have a look at the compliance map mode and take note of Czechoslovakia and the Baltic States. Even though resistance still exists in these regions, compliance levels are higher. Compliance counters resistance, working in your favor as a conqueror. Additional levels improve your production and logistical throughput.

Battling resistance, increasing compliance, and forming collaboration governments

Combating resistance used to be a passive affair in Hearts of Iron IV. The La Resistance expansion, however, lets you have more control at your fingertips. Ideally, you’ll want to assign garrison templates that include the newly-added armored car divisions. The units are useless in massive battles, but they’re helpful for policing duties.

As for compliance, this is greatly improved if you do one of La Resistance‘s espionage operations:

• Have spies build an intel network in a target country.
• Once you have enough intel network strength, use the “prepare a collaboration government” operation.
• Keep successfully repeating this; the operation adds an extra 10% compliance once a country is under your rule.
• Conquer the country and take note of compliance levels to ensure that it’s increasing until you get the highest level (80% compliance). This will give you the modifier called “A New Regime.”

Check your Decisions panel to form a collaboration government that works in your favor. Though it’s a slow process, it’s worth it. Collaboration governments will handle resistance activities on their own, they’re also compliant, and you gain the benefits of being their overlord.

Note: You need to use the collaboration government operation early. If you already took over a country, those lands will be considered as controlled by an “ally.” This would prevent you from building an intel network and, subsequently, using the operation. It’s also possible to have the modifier and the collaboration government option after two successful operations (such as when Germany takes over Poland), though this might be a bug.

Likewise, there are occupation laws that you can enact. Below, you’ll see a wider view of Europe. Take note of the occupation laws in place.

By default, you’ll have “Civilian Oversight” in occupied territories and colonies. Switching to harsher laws does provide you with additional benefits to manpower and resources, but resistance levels will skyrocket and compliance will drop. Friendlier occupation laws will offer no resource benefits, though it can slightly offset resistance that continues to rise and compliance won’t be gravely impacted.

Next up, it’s time to learn about the espionage and spying mechanics introduced in Hearts of Iron IV: La Resistance.