User Guide

59
its political stance towards two opposing points
of view. Most domestic policies have incremen-
tal penalties and rewards that become greater
as you approach the minimum or maximum
settings of the slider. As you move towards an
extreme, you will gain a greater benefit in one
area of your country at the expense of a cor-
responding penalty on another. As is the case
with most fundamental decisions in Europa
Universalis III, there is no “right” or “wrong”
domestic policy. You should pursue the policies
that best meet the needs of your realm and the
type of game you wish to play.
You can review the effects of your current
policy setting by hovering your mouse any-
where over the slider; and you can preview the
effects of changing the policy by one step in
either direction by hovering over the arrows at
either end of the bar. There is a table in Ap-
pendix H that provides details of the effects of
each slider.
To change your domestic policy, first decide
which policy you would like to change and in
which direction; then click the arrow at the ap-
propriate end of the slider to move it one step
in that direction. A change of policy is disrup-
tive to the realm, so you will lose one level of
stability each time you adjust your policy and
you cannot adjust it if you are currently at -3
stability.
You may only change your domestic policy
by one step once every decade or two, so rapid
shifts of policy are nearly impossible. The ex-
act period of time between changes will depend
on your current form of government and is in-
cluded in the information displayed in the tool
tip that appears when you hover your mouse
over the form of government button. Once you
have changed your domestic policy, the tool tip
for each slider will also indicate when you may
next change your domestic policy. If you forget,
an alert will appear at the top of the Main Map
to remind you that you can make an adjust-
ment. Domestic policies may also be changed
as a result of random or historic events. Some-
times, these will allow you to make large shifts
in policy without incurring as great a stability
loss as would be the case for doing so via nor-
mal means. Any changes to policy made by an
event will not affect or reset the period of time
you must wait until your next regular policy
change interval and the event’s tool tip will in-
dicate whether there will be any loss of stabil-
ity for making the change (the event overrides
the normal stability loss for changing domestic
policies).
Some forms of government will place a lim-
it on the minimum or maximum allowable set-
ting for one or more of your domestic policies.
This is shown on the slider as a red arrow that
points towards the range of acceptable settings.
If you exceed this range -- either voluntarily
or as a result of an event -- every province in
your realm will receive a +1 risk of revolt for
each policy step beyond the limit. This revolt
risk will continue to be in effect until you have
either adjusted your policy back within the al-
lowable range, or have changed to a form of
government that does not impose a limit.