Casus Belli
To go to war without your population going OMGWTFBBQ, you need a good excuse. That is, a Casus Belli.
You get a casus belli if another nation has:
- a border dispute with you (the two nations must
claim the same piece of territory, see Expansion, above)
- declared war on your allies
- embargo you
- blockade you
- deny you access to a sea or ocean tile.
- a large difference in religion or form of government. This is a special CB in that you have to ask the GM to grant it to you.
If you attack without a casus belli, you suffer a -50% income loss for every turn you’re at war.
Units
Your main units are armies and fleets. These are physical entities on the map.
- Armies will be represented by a golden dot.
- Navies will be represented by a dot in the sea which the same color as their nationality.
Each one costs x20 times the number which you already own (so if you own 6 armies the next one costs 6*20 = 120 gold – the first army and fleet you build is free). Additionally,
each army and each fleet also costs 2 gold/turn of upkeep. This will be subtracted from your income at the beginning of each turn. If upkeep > income, then the economy GM will helpfully randomly disband your armies and fleets until your income is back in the positive.
When you recruit an army or fleet, you choose where they start. Every turn, you may reposition all your units.
- Armies may move through up to 10 land territories in friendly territory (all sea crossings together costs a flat fee of 1 movement point, ocean crossings cost 2 points - it doesn't matter how many seas or oceans you travel through), and only one army may exist in a province
- Fleets may be reposition anywhere you have ports or can access allied ports, and the number of fleets in a sea/ocean tile is unlimited.
The strength of your unit is equal to your military tech level. At level 5, the strength of each of your armies and navies is five, at level 8, it’s eight, and so on.
Land Battles
An attack will cost a flat fee of one expansion point. Any army may be used to attack a province as long as they can reach that province by land or sea. An attack count as a move by an army.
You may have several armies attacking a single province from many directions, but only one may occupy the territory afterwards.
The defenders has a number of advantages.
- First, a province, when attacked, is considered its own army (that is, it has a fort, with the strength of one army), which the attacker must overcome.
- Secondly, any armies bordering the province being attacked, if not being attacked themselves, will also contribute to the total number of defending armies in the battle.
In battle:
- the total strength of all units on both sides are added up.
- An Random Number Generator (
like this one) will generate a number between 0 and 50. This will add anywhere between 0-50% to the strength.
- The side with the highest RNG-modified strength wins.
- The losing side loses any armies they have in or attacking that province (for defenders, armies in adjacent provinces will survive).
- If both sides end up with the same strength, the RNG is run again until one sides emerges victorious.
Navies
An army may move across seas and oceans to attack a province. While at sea/oceans, armies will be treated as unarmed transports. If the route to the target is blocked by enemy fleets, they can simply sink your transports and you'll lose the army.
A naval battle ensues if two opposing naval forces are moved into the same ocean/sea tile. Naval battles are calculated the same way as land battles.