User Guide

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ship between the realms, the strategic value of
supporting the ally, and on the reputation and
prestige of the protagonists. If one of your al-
lies goes to war, you will receive a notification
to this effect and will be required to make a
decision as to whether you wish to support your
ally. If you choose to do so, you will be making
a declaration of war which could result in a loss
of stability (see the "declare war" diplomatic
option below).
When an alliance is cancelled, either by
refusing to support an ally or by selecting the
diplomatic action to terminate it, there will be
a large drop in the relationship between the
two realms. In addition, both the reputation
and the prestige of the country that breaks the
alliance will suffer.
When one or more allies join a war, a tem-
porary "grand alliance" is formed -- even if all
countries are not allied to one another -- with
the largest and strongest of these becoming the
"alliance leader". There are two exceptions to
the alliance leader rule:
• In a succession war, the two countries vy
-
ing for the crown will always be the alli-
ance leaders.
• If a player declares war or is the subject of
a declaration of war, he will always be the
alliance leader of his side, even if a more
powerful AI-controlled ally joins the war.
However, if a more powerful player-con-
trolled ally also joins the war in a multi-
player game, this country will become the
alliance leader. This is designed to prevent
an unexpected and undesired peace being
negotiated by an AI ally. The player will
not become the alliance leader if he joins a
war in support of an ally unless the player
is the most powerful member of that side
of an alliance.
We will discuss the importance of the alliance
leader later in this section when we discuss
peace negotiations.
Issue Embargo/Revoke
Embargo
Your merchants enjoy a bonus when competing
for business in centers of trade that are part of
your realm, but there may be other countries
that have domestic policies or ideas that given
them an even greater advantage and who seem
to be pushing your merchants out of business.
When this happens, you have the diplomatic
option available to you to issue a trade embargo
against that country.
A trade embargo is an action that denies a
country the right to send merchants to com-
pete in any center of trade that is part of your
realm. Any existing merchants that the coun-
try has in place prior to this edict will continue
to ply their trade, but if they are lost due to
competition, their country will not be allowed
to send any new merchants to the center to re-
place them.
Issuing an embargo causes an immediate
drop in the relationship between your two
realms, as well as a small monthly reduction
in your relationship. Furthermore, denying a
country the right to trade in your realm gives
it a casus belli against you for as long as the em-
bargo remains in place. Be sure that you are
able to back up this diplomatic action with
steel, if need be.
An embargo remains in place until the
country that issued it decides to revoke it as a
diplomatic action, or the revocation may be de-
manded as a term in a peace treaty if the two
countries are at war. Once revoked, the casus
belli is removed and the monthly relationship
loss is discontinued, but the relationship isn’t
improved in any special way by taking this ac-
tion.
Offer Trade Agreement/Cancel
Trade Agreement
A far less disruptive option exists when trying
to resolve issues of trade competition: the trade
agreement. This diplomatic action proposes
an agreement whereby neither country’s mer-
chants will compete with one another in any of