War escalation allows a main belligerent to pursue multiple casus-belli within a same war. By declaring an escalation casus-belli, the war will switch to the selected escalation casus-belli instead of auto-ending upon victory.
Escalation allows a defender in a War to then push for its own objectives if they successfully repel the agressor: for example going for a Punishment War after an attacker betrayed a previous armistice by attacking again.
Choosing an escalation[]
In the war UI of ongoing wars, main belligerents can choose to escalate the war to a different casus-belli that will trigger if they win the current one.
Only the main belligerents of an ongoing war may select an escalation casus-belli by clicking "edit" next to the escalation section of their team in the war UI. This will show a popup listing available escalation casus-bellis excluding the current one.
The Politic Points cost for the escalation Casus-belli must be paid when the Escalation is declared, and the escalation is visible to all belligerents of the war.
Some war types do not allow for escalation by the agressor (defender can always escalate):
Some war types do not allow to be escalated to:
Escalation trigger[]
- Escalation triggers if the main belligerent who declared an escalation wins the current war either because its main foe reached a War Morale of 0 of willingly capitulated.
- If the war ends through manual negotiation, the escalation will not be triggered and the war will actually end.
- In the particular case of Raiding campaigns, Escalation is immediate for the agressor as soon as it is declared.
Escalation effects[]
When Escalation happens, the war type is changed to the escalated casus-belli. If the defender is the one that escalated the war, the teams are switched and he becomes the agressor of the new war type.
- Victory Effects of the previous casus-belli are applied (such as Politics Points gains), but any auto-generated treaty that would normally become active remains "war pending" instead: it remains pending until the war is actually ends. If the previous casus-belli was an annexation, the territory is however immediately transferred (and any enemy on it auto-withdraws).
- The new War Morale is based on previous War Morale (so 0 for the losing side in most cases) to which is added a bonus of 25 for the aggressors (winners escalating) and 35 for the defenders (who lost the initial war).
- War participations are preserved
- Co-belligerents are unchanged (and eliminated ones remain eliminated).
Capitulation[]
Capitulating in front of an enemy that has chosen an Escalation will not end the war. As it is equivalent to War Morale falling to 0, the escalation will trigger in the same way. However it is possible for the defender to capitulate twice in a row as well, preventing infinite escalations from the attacker. This means that a capitulating State in front of an escalating one will have to concede 2 objectives (such as annexations) at worst.
Chained escalations[]
There are no limitations to the amount of times a war may be escalated from either side other than the Politics Points required to escalate, running out of War morale, or the other side choosing a double capitulation to end it immediately.
It is therefore possible to pursue multiple annexation claims within the same war.