Treaties

A treaty is a lasting, named agreement between two countries, or, when drafted inside an international organization, among all of its members. It is a bundle of clauses: recognition, non-aggression, mutual defence, military access, free trade, technology sharing, arms limitation, a ceasefire, a peace, a province cession, and many more. Alliances, guarantees, access and non-aggression exist only because a live treaty (or a mutual-defence organization) establishes them; there are no free-standing buttons for them.

Treaties persist indefinitely, with no term and no renewal, until a signatory secedes or the relationship collapses. Each country's Treaties tab lists every treaty in force with it.

Clauses

The scenario's catalog holds 44 clauses, grouped on the negotiation screen into Security, Economy, Territory and War categories. Some are symmetric (both sides get the same thing, as with non-aggression or free trade); others are directed, with a grantor and a beneficiary (military access, basing rights, a province cession). Examples:

Each clause carries a political capital cost charged to the proposer: for example 1 for recognition or friendship, 2 for non-aggression or open borders, 4 for free trade or a guarantee, 5 for military access and 8 for mutual defence. Peacetime clauses are hidden while the pair is at war, and war clauses (ceasefire, peace, annexation, cession, puppeting, arms embargo) are hidden outside a war or ceasefire.

Treaties are named when they are signed. A single clause gives a descriptive title ("Non-Aggression Pact between the United States and France"), two clauses combine their categories ("Treaty of Friendship and Commerce"), and three or more take the name of a city in one of the signatories: "Treaty of" followed by that city. Six ready-made templates are offered as starting points: Mutual Defence Treaty, Bilateral Security Pact, Guarantee of Independence, Treaty of Friendship and Commerce, Standstill Agreement and Border Recognition.

Acceptance

Every clause is worth a number of points to each party it affects, judged from that party's own position: its bloc, its opinion of the other side, its threat, its economy. A bilateral treaty is acceptable only when each signatory's total is positive. There is no dice roll in this valuation.

• Non-negotiable clauses. Some terms are simply off the table for a given country, whatever it is offered: a great power will not be annexed, a country will not bind itself to open its border to someone it already loathes (opinion below -50), and a government running mass surveillance will never send its elite to study abroad. These count as an overwhelming negative that no compensation or leverage can cross.
• Asking is free. A rejected proposal costs nothing and no opinion.
• Players are never blocked. You may offer or accept a deal that is bad for you; your own valuation is shown as advice.

Compensation

When a deal is close, either side can add a one-time sweetener: money from the treasury (you may go into debt to pay it) or arms from the stockpile (never more than you hold). The receiver values it relative to its own situation: money by its size against the receiver's economy, weighted up for an indebted receiver and down in a boom; arms more highly by a receiver that feels threatened. Occupied provinces can also be offered back in a peace. Compensation changes hands only when the treaty is signed.

Leverage

Leverage is a directional 0-100 measure of how much one country can force out of another. It is built from:

• Occupation of the other side's territory in a war, weighted by GDP, with a bonus for holding its capital. Complete occupation is full leverage.
• Backed factions inside the other country, by their influence, agitation and arms (see Foreign Backing).
• The military balance, including allies committed against the other side.
• War exhaustion of the other side while the two are at war or in ceasefire, and a blockade of its ports.
• Intelligence: a successful diplomatic intercepts operation grants 15 leverage over its target for a year (see Espionage).

Outnumbering a peaceful neighbour is not by itself coercion. Outside a war, the military balance only counts after the stronger side has used the Threaten Sovereignty action against the weaker one, and then for a year, fading to nothing; the negotiation screen shows any "untapped" edge you could unlock. Leverage reduces a grantor's resistance to concessions, shared across all the concessions in a draft so that piling on demands cannot multiply it. It can never cross a non-negotiable clause.

Negotiation

Treaty talks are carried by a diplomat. The proposer picks one from a dropdown (the screen recommends the same diplomat the AI would choose, by live Treaty Acceptance bonus and then mission speed), pays the draft's political capital up front, and the negotiator is reserved from the moment the offer is sent. Talks require mutual recognition and ambassadors posted in both directions.

1. Consent. The recipient agrees to negotiate or declines. Agreeing to talk is not signing.
2. Cycles. Talks advance in cycles, 30 days by default, shortened by the country's and negotiator's Diplomatic Mission Speed. Effective acceptance N gives an N% chance per cycle of gaining N progress; at 100 progress, or at once if acceptance reaches 100, the treaty signs automatically. The negotiator's Treaty Acceptance adds flat points.
3. Stalls. If acceptance falls to zero or below, talks stall without losing progress. An AI party withdraws after 90 stalled days.
4. Revision. Only the proposer may revise. Revising resets progress to zero, requires fresh consent, and charges only any increase in cost over what has already been paid.
5. Ending. Either side may end talks; any unsigned ending refunds the proposer's political capital in full.

Signing awards the finishing negotiator 4 Ambassador experience. If the negotiator dies, retires, defects or is declared persona non grata, talks pause until a replacement is chosen. Only one negotiation may run between any pair of countries, and only one per organization.

Ceasefire and peace

Making peace is a negotiation like any other.

• A ceasefire freezes a war: battles stop, the front holds, and every contested province passes into the holder's practical ownership (taxes, manpower, map colour) while its pre-war owner remains its rightful one. Ownership of such disputed provinces follows the front if fighting resumes. Ceasefires do not expire. The AI may break one when its odds look better; a player currently cannot.
• Peace formally ends the war and returns every occupied or disputed province to its rightful owner, except provinces explicitly settled by a cession, annexation or other territorial clause in the same treaty.
• A minor participant may sign a separate peace with the enemy war leader and leave the war, at a cost of 15 prestige and lasting resentment from its own side's leader.

See Wars for how wars themselves are fought and ended.

Breaking treaties

A country may secede from a bilateral treaty at any time, which voids it for both sides and leaves the other party with a slow-fading Treaty Broken grievance, larger the more it gave up. Declaring war on a treaty partner, or any act a live clause forbids, secedes first and pays the same price. AI countries re-value their treaties monthly and secede when one has turned clearly against them. Organization treaties cannot be left individually; leaving the organization is the only way out.

Notable clauses

• Non-interference. Both sides pledge not to meddle. While the pact stands, diplomat missions that interfere in the partner's politics (faction propaganda, funding, arms, advisors, regional agitation, election organization, military liaison and backchannels) cannot be sent at all; signing ends any already running. Espionage and goodwill work are not interference.
• Open borders. A binding commitment to keep a frontier open; while it lasts the grantor cannot close that border.
• Elite scholarships. The grantor's future elite study on the sponsor's scholarships. The grantor's goodwill toward the sponsor grows by a net 5 opinion a year while the treaty stands, up to +50, and fades by 2 a year after it ends.
• Shelve the claim. Freezes a dispute: nothing is ceded, but its tension falls to zero and stays low (see Stand-offs and Flashpoints).

Crisis settlements that move territory or money are signed as treaties between the two crisis leaders, and appear on both countries' Treaties tabs like any other.