User Guide

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selecting one of these, a term will be added
whereby the loser will agree to relinquish its
core claim on the province.
Relinquishing a core claim does not transfer
the ownership of the province if the peace pro-
posal is accepted. If the province remains un-
der enemy ownership, then at some point in the
future (usually in about 50 years) it will likely
become a core province of that country once
more. This term is more often used to force
an enemy to relinquish its claim on a province
that you or an ally owns, since this removes the
casus belli that a core province provides for a
future declaration of war.
Because no territory is actually changing
hands, the war score value of this term is much
lower than the value of ceding a province and
there is no damage to the victor’s reputation.
Vassal Terms
Clicking the “vassals” tab will display a list of
the loser’s current vassals. By including one
of these as a peace term, you are negotiating
the release of that vassal as a free, independent
country in its own right. This will occur im-
mediately if the peace offer is accepted. Neither
the vassal nor the former overlord will receive
the normal effects of the diplomatic action of
releasing a vassal. The vassal-overlord relation-
ship will be broken with no other effects.
This term is often included as a means of
weakening an enemy by depriving it of its vas-
sal’s economic tithe, and possibly its military
support as well. It also prevents the future dip-
lomatic annexation of the vassal by its over-
lord.
New Nations Terms
When we looked at the domestic overview in-
terface, there was an option for a country to
release a portion of its territory as a vassal if
it owned a group of provinces that would nor-
mally form a smaller country. The “new na-
tions” tab allows you to propose a term where
a country that could be released as a vassal is
immediately released as a free, independent
country instead. Although it usually involves
a high war score value, this peace term is often
an excellent choice if you are on the winning
side in a war. You do not gain any territory so
you will not tarnish your reputation; however,
your enemy will be permanently weakened
since he will no longer be able to draw tax in-
come or manpower from the provinces he has
been forced to give up.
Special Terms
There are a variety of special terms that appear
as buttons near the bottom of the interface.
Most of these have a very high war score value,
are usually only included when you are the vic-
tor in a war (you would not normally volunteer
to sue for peace under these terms), and some
may not always be available.
• Force Religion:
If accepted, this term
forces the enemy to convert its national re-
ligion to match your own. Unlike voluntary
conversion, this is not accompanied by a -5
stability drop. You may only force the con-
version of a country that has a national reli-
gion that is within the same major religious
group as yours.
• Force Vassalisation:
This term forces the
loser to become the vassal of the victor. This
is the only way to obtain a vassal if the con-
ditions required for diplomatic vassalisation
cannot be met. You can force a republic or
theocracy to become your vassal, which
would otherwise be impossible since they
can never enter into a royal marriage. You
can also force a religious enemy to become
your vassal which would also be impossi-
ble due to the religious requirement. If this
term is accepted, it will in no way improve
the relationship between your countries, so
do not be surprised if your vassal attempts
to declare independence at some point in
the future unless you are prepared to invest
heavily in diplomatic gifts to improve your
relationship.
• Force Union:
This option will only be
available if you are fighting a succession war