User Guide

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will gradually forget the times of adversity and
the war exhaustion will recede, although it may
take many months to do so if it has reached
very high levels.
Reputation Effects
Declaring war is a hostile act, and the other
nations in the world will become increasingly
suspicious and resentful of you if you do it of-
ten. Each declaration of war will damage your
country’s reputation, although the damage will
be greatly reduced if you have a casus belli to
justify your actions. Many peace terms that
you demand will also damage your reputation,
particularly if you force a realm to cede terri-
tory to you, or if you annex a realm outright.
While your reputation will slowly recover
over time, it is generally best to wait until you
have a casus belli or to “manufacture” a claim
via one of the other diplomatic options first. If
you allow your reputation to sink too low, the
nations of the world may begin to view you as
too serious a threat to their security and may
unite to rid the planet of your existence.
Alliance Considerations
While you will obviously want to consider
whether you actually have the military mus-
cle to prosecute a war with a potential enemy,
you should also carefully consider whether
there are other countries that might add their
resources to either side of the conflict. Allies
are usually somewhat less inclined to support
an aggressor of a conflict, and are considerably
more inclined to come to the defence of nation
upon whom war has been declared. You should
carefully check to see if your potential target
has any powerful friends that might come to its
aid and you might also want to consider wheth-
er your own allies might be inclined to involve
themselves in a war. We’ll talk more about al-
lies in war in a moment.
Declaring War
If, after considering all of the factors above,
you decide to declare war on a country, simply
choose the “declare war” button on the diplo-
matic interface. You will then be given a sum-
mary of any stability disruptions you will expe-
rience, and you will be asked to confirm your
intentions. After doing so, any stability and
reputation penalties are applied immediately,
and your nations will be in a state of war. You
will then be free to send your military forces
into your enemy’s territory, defeat his armies,
and attempt to seize control of his provinces.
The war continues until both sides agree to
cease hostilities either by one side surrendering
to the other, or by agreeing to a “white peace”
where the war is concluded without a victor.
Allies and Alliance Leaders
Once war is declared, any allies of either coun-
try will be notified of the hostilities and be
given a choice of whether or not to involve
themselves in the conflict. This occurs auto-
matically, even if the nations involved in the
war do not necessarily desire their allies’ aid.
Refusal to support an ally will terminate the
alliance, while agreeing to do so will incur the
same stability penalties that would apply if the
country had made the declaration itself. This
is a factor that you should carefully consider
before supporting your ally, and is a compo-
nent of the decision-making process of the AI
in such situations.
Only the direct allies of the two countries
involved in the initial declaration of war will
be notified of the war and be asked to decide
whether to join in the conflict. If an ally de-
cides to join the war, this will not result in any
of his other allies being asked to join as well.
Unlike a normal declaration of war, a dec-
laration in support of your ally is not restricted
by your current stability level. You are permit-
ted to support an ally even if your current sta-
bility is at -3. Also, any conditions that must
be met (such as cancelling military access or
breaking another alliance) will occur automati-
cally as part of the declaration. All of the cor-
responding penalties will be applied, but they
will happen immediately without the need to