User Guide

70
Diplomatic Actions
This section contains a complete list of diplo-
matic actions, their requirements, and their ef-
fects. Although the first option on the list in
the menu is “Declare War,” we’ll save that one
for last since it is somewhat more complex than
the others and has certain aspects that depend
on other diplomatic actions that you might
have taken.
Offer Royal Marriage/Break
Royal Ties
In the Europa Universalis III time period, it was
fairly common for dynastic ties to be formed
between the nations’ powerful ruling fami-
lies. These ties helped to form bonds and ce-
ment relationships, avoid undesirable wars,
and generally help the geopolitical stability
of both realms. Unfortunately, sometime this
would lead to unforeseen problems in the fu-
ture, where questions of succession could lead
to unexpected conflict. This is represented in
the game by the diplomatic action of forming
a royal marriage.
There are several criteria that must be met be-
fore you will be able to offer a royal marriage to
another county:
• You cannot already have existing royal
ties to that country.
• Both countries must have a state religion
that is part of the same religious group.
You may arrange a royal marriage be-
tween Protestant and Catholic realms,
but not between Protestant and any non-
Christian nation.
• You cannot be at war with that country.
• Both countries must have a form of gov
-
ernment that allows a royal marriage to be
created. You will not be able to offer a roy-
al marriage if either country is a merchant
republic, an administrative republic, or a
constitutional republic. Theocracies and
the Papacy are also prohibited from form-
ing royal marriages, for obvious reasons.
If the "Offer Royal Marriage" button is high-
lighted in gold, you may click on it to send a
diplomat from your pool to propose the mar-
riage. After a brief delay, you will receive the
other country's reply. An AI-controlled coun-
try will base its decision of whether to accept
your proposal primarily on your existing rela-
tionship, your ruler's diplomacy attribute, and
your country's reputation and prestige. A refus-
al causes a slight reduction in the relationship
between your countries. Acceptance results
in large one-time increase in the relationship
between the realms, and there is also a slight
monthly increase in the relationship for the
duration of the dynastic ties. During this time,
the countries are much less likely to go to war
with one another as the country that declares
war will be given a -1 stability penalty.
A royal marriage can come to an end in several
ways. The most direct of these is for one of the
countries to arbitrarily decide to end the ties
by selecting the "cancel royal ties" diplomatic
action that will replace the royal marriage but-
ton once the tie is created. Doing so will result
in a -1 drop in the stability of the country that
cancels the marriage, and will seriously dam-
age the relationship between the two realms. It
will also be cancelled automatically -- without
penalty -- if either country changes its form of
government to one of the types listed above
where royal marriages are not permitted.
In all other cases, a royal marriage ends when
the ruler of either country dies. As we saw
when we talked about succession, there are sev-
eral things that can happen if there is an exiting
royal marriage:
• In most cases, the royal marriage will end
without penalty, and a new ruler will as-
cend to the throne.
• There is a small chance that one of the
two countries involved in the marriage
will be "inherited" by the other, merg-
ing both realms into one. While a play-
er's country can inherit an AI-controlled
country, a player can never be inherited
by another country since it would result
in the end of the game.
• There is also a small chance that two