Garrison Divisions

What garrison divisions are

In HoI, people mix “garrison” with the army order Defense — that one sits on the map and watches ports, borders, air bases. That is not this garrison. A garrison division for occupation is different: a template you assign to captured foreign land. The divisions “appear” in the garrison calculation. You do not train a hundred of them in the deployment queue.

The game looks at the template’s Suppression and how much garrison Occupation Laws demand. Weaker Suppression means the rear “eats” more divisions. A template with Suppression 0 will not be accepted for garrison at all.

The stockpile is live: Manpower in garrisons and equipment tick away constantly. Resistance hits the garrison — you lose rifles or tanks as if someone quietly raided the warehouse while you stared at the front.

Why you need garrison divisions

Take a slice of someone else’s country — Resistance from the population shows up. Without a garrison, Occupation Laws do not run at full strength, factories and resources from occupation leak, and the rear starts living its own life. Ugly.

You can park real divisions on it, say Combat Width 14–18. It works. Economically it is fixing a wooden fence with gold: divisions that should punch the front sit in the rear and still want proper supply. Hundreds of games taught me: the front is always hungrier than partisans, so occupation needs its own cheap templates.

• The front stays the front. Combat divisions are not smeared across occupation.
• The rear is cheaper. One Cavalry or Light Tank battalion eats less than a full fighting template.
• Occupation works. Laws scale with how fully the garrison is filled.

How to assign a division to garrison

First, in the division designer, make a separate cheap template — not the one on the line. Then you go to occupation, not to an army on the map.

1. Click the country flag. You get your country’s politics screen.
2. In the middle, find the Occupied Territories tab and open it.
3. Top left is the current garrison template icon — click it and pick the one you want.

After that the game fills the garrison from stockpile. If equipment or people run short, you get a warning: some Occupation Laws will not have their full effect until their Garrison needs are fully satisfied. Do not panic — you did not forget to click attack. The rear just has holes.

What the garrison template should be

One rule: few battalions, lots of Suppression per cost. Combat Width barely matters here — the garrison is not holding a line against tanks. Two setups players actually use:

For a minor: 1 Cavalry battalion

Cavalry — 1 battalion

• 120 Infantry Equipment, 1000 manpower, Suppression 2 (Infantry is 1.5 per battalion).
• Cheap to stamp. The stockpile stays calm. Classic for small countries.
• Almost no Hardness — Resistance will knock out rifles, but the rifles themselves are cheap.

For a major: 1 Light Tank battalion

Light Tank — 1 battalion

• 60 Light Tank, 500 manpower, Suppression 2.5.
• Use the cheapest vehicle you can spam. The point is not breakthrough — it is Hardness.
• Occupation also calls this the template’s Hardness: higher Hardness, fewer losses to Resistance. A major idea, for factories that do not count every rivet.

A tank garrison is usually early for a minor: Light Tank costs more than a horse, and chassis belong on the front. A horse still works for a major — if you have cheap Light Tanks, the rear just bleeds quieter.

FAQ