Developer Diary | The Republic of Indonesia and the National Revolution

Selamat siang to you all once more. This dev diary is once again brought to you by Pdx_lily, and this time I’ll be showing you all the revolution content for Indonesia. As per usual, everything here is still in development and may change.



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Due to the historical four-year length of the national revolution, the international involvement, political infighting, and the many hooks for alternate-history content offered by the national revolution; We decided to base the Indonesian experience around the revolution, and have prioritized making the revolution itself fun, rather than something you want to get over with as quickly as possible.

The revolution is split into three stages:

The Underground Revolution: You are still the Dutch East Indies, while building up a network of underground revolutionaries to prepare.
Skirmishes/Rising Tension: You are now independent and control some Indonesian states, but the Netherlands does not recognize your sovereignty.
War: Self explanatory. Depending on how you play, you may or may not reach this stage.



After beginning the Underground Revolution branch, you will select a few states to establish militia bases, of which one will be your headquarters. These states will be under your control once the revolution starts. The exact number of bases is dependent on the states you select. Putting an HQ in Java is more costly than Sulawesi, for instance.

Once you’ve set everything up as you want it, you can declare independence and move to the second stage of the revolution.




The second stage of the revolution begins after establishing all militia bases and finishing a focus. You are now independent, but the Netherlands does not recognize Indonesian sovereignty, instead seeing the Republic of Indonesia as rebels and criminals.

Narratively, you have de-facto control over these states, but not de-jure control. Mechanically this is achieved by you having ownership of any state where militias hold authority, and the Netherlands owning states where the police hold authority.


This revolution historically lasted for four years, with lots of infighting in the Indonesian government, and multiple global powers getting involved (in fact, monitoring the 1947 ceasefire in Indonesia was the first major diplomatic mission by the UN). Because of this, we decided to focus on the civil war, and make it a central part of the Indonesian experience.

But that raised the question of how we were going to make an interesting and fun civil war that lasts for many years, and is split into stages of conflict that slowly escalate?



…Until we remembered we already have a system in the game that does pretty much exactly that. The Italian/Ethiopian Escalation System from By Blood Alone is perfect for Indonesia, so we decided to repurpose it.

For those unfamiliar, a quick recap: There are ten stages of escalation, which slowly increase over-time. Both sides can take actions that either increase or decrease the escalation. For example, launching a skirmish in an enemy-controlled state is going to escalate the conflict, but settling a peace agreement will deescalate the conflict.

The main difference with Indonesia’s escalation system is that the two countries are not at war at first. However, once escalation gets high enough, the Netherlands can launch a full war. The higher the escalation tier is, the easier it will be for the Netherlands to declare war as there will be less international pushback.




During this stage of the revolution where Indonesia and the Netherlands are not yet at war, Indonesia will have Land raids available to them which can be used to take control over Dutch-controlled Indonesian states.

If Indonesia successfully executes a land raid, then the state will be annexed by Indonesia. However, every time a state is annexed this way the escalation will increase by one step. If Indonesia is too aggressive, and lets escalation get out of control too fast, then the Netherlands will be able to declare war on Indonesia without any penalties, starting the third stage of the revolution.


…But Indonesia is an archipelago, and there’s no way that a young Indonesia could build a navy strong enough to seriously compete with the Dutch navy.




Our solution for this roadblock is Marine Commando Raids. Indonesia can use them similarly to the land raids to annex a state, however, they are extremely risky. A singular Dutch destroyer could easily take out the whole raiding fleet without effort, and therefore they require very careful planning and must be executed covertly, with raiding vessels being disguised as fishing boats.




There are many armed militia groups of various sizes across the archipelago, known as Laskar. They are mostly autonomous and sometimes rival the government. Indonesia has focuses available to form alliances with these militia units, allowing them to be deployed as fully-manned, fully-equipped divisions.

The Indonesian government at this point is very unstable and disorganized. Manpower is a very limited resource despite Indonesia’s high population, because of how weak the government is. These militia divisions will be Indonesia’s biggest source of manpower until a stable government can be formed.



Each group of Laskar have their own ambitions, demands, and political ties. Their focuses tend to be quite powerful, but each comes with a demand, which if not met, will give Indonesia serious penalties to stability and political power.


More examples



Historically, when the People’s Security Army was formed in 1945, a vote was held on who should become the Commander. This was an extremely close vote, requiring three rounds as in the first two they tied evenly. In the third round Sudirman won by a singular vote (22 to 21).

We decided to base the army branch on the outcome of this vote, via a mutually exclusive focus. Sudirman’s branch prioritizes building a large army, with focuses to drastically increase manpower. Oerip’s branch prioritizes building a professional army, with bonuses to production and research.



The Indonesian naval branch begins with two mutually exclusive focuses. “A Cheap Navy” is a 35 day focus which does not lead to any other unique focuses, and “Divert Army Funds to the Navy” is a 70 day focus which leads to several other focuses.

“A Cheap Navy”, on its own, is going to give you much more bang for your buck. It seizes Dutch ships docked in ports you currently occupy and gives you a small navy immediately. However, it offers little room for expansion, making it worse in the long run. Which focus is going to be better depends on how much you’re willing to invest into the Navy.



In order to help manage the flow of the conflict, we decided to add a small joint focus tree which is separate from the one found in the Loyalist path. Unlike other JFT’s, this one is focused on sabotaging each other rather than cooperating. Some focuses will give bonuses to the originator and penalties to the member.

This tree is also where you’ll find alternative ways of ending the conflict, such as the two state solution where the war ends but the Netherlands maintains control over certain territory (historically Papua).



Another example is the focus “No Compromise, No Surrender”, which can be taken by Indonesia as a reaction to the Netherlands declaring war, giving them a set number of days to occupy all of Java and shut down the Dutch East Indies government to win the war.




Historically, the Indonesian government at the time was quite hectic and a lot of infighting occurred. This is represented in-game via events that will fire periodically and as a result of escalation increasing. These events will have varying effects, which can be good or bad (usually both). Examples include stability loss, ideologies gaining or losing support, and unlocking new characters, depending on the option you choose.


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Indonesia begins unaligned with high support for all four ideologies. To stop the chaos events from firing, you need to consolidate power under one party through political chaos events, decisions, and advisors. This unlocks the first focus of your chosen ideology's political branch.



The Guided Democracy path requires unaligned support and will keep Sukarno as the country's leader. It contains focuses to militarize the nation as well as focuses to cooperate with Japan. This branch prioritizes playing tall rather than wide, and gives you several major economic bonuses.


Shared with the communist branch are two mutually exclusive focuses to either go for a secular state or integrate the Islamic parties.



The Indonesian administration at the time was made up of the President, and the National Committee, which was an advisory council at first. However, after facing resentment and demands for a more even distribution of power, President Sukarno and Vice President Hatta signed the 10th Vice Presidential Edict, granting legislative power to the committee. This led to Indonesia having both a President and Prime Minister simultaneously, which were not necessarily from the same party.

The democratic path is based on this event and the power balance between the Prime Minister (who is now the country leader) and the President. This goes on until the power balance is settled by completing either “Dissolve the National Party” or “Continue the Hybrid Politics”



If you decide to continue with hybrid politics, Sukarno will be permanently locked as an advisor, giving you stability penalties. However, this also gives you access to some of the focuses in the unaligned path.



If you dissolve the national party and abolish the presidency, Sukarno will be removed, and you can hold Indonesia’s first democratic election. Each leader has his own mini-branch based on his policies.



The communist path is based around the question of “What if one of Tan Malaka’s many attempts of taking over the government worked out?”, and begins with supporting his coup attempt.



When the National Revolution is over, you will be able to spread it further, and declare the pacific revolution. This is done with decisions that let you focus on one country at a time, and help its local communist movements. Once the communist party has high enough popularity, you can call a revolution, and then move on to another country.



Tan Malaka is an interesting character to say the least. He is an anti-stalinist and a visionary. He has grand plans for a united pacific country called “Aslia”, which quite literally means “asia australia”.

He is opposed by Musso; A veteran of the Indonesian communist movement, who recently returned to Indonesia after living in the Soviet Union for many years. Unlike Tan Malaka, Musso is a Comintern ally with strong connections to the Soviet Union.

The power balance between these two leaders is a central part of the communist branch, and the outcome will dictate whether you go on to join the Comintern and be a loyal ally to the Soviet Union, or if you begin the long journey to unify “Aslia” as one nation.



If Tan Malaka successfully ousts Musso from the party, Indonesia will be able to subjugate countries that join the pacific revolution.

And that’s all for today! As per usual, I’ll be monitoring this thread closely for feedback and questions.

(oh, and one last thing before I go, since I know this will inevitably be asked; no, Indonesia will never have to go all the way to the Netherlands to finish the revolution)