The focus of Victoria 3 is creating your own country from scratch. This includes establishing a thriving economy, enhancing trade, enacting laws, fighting a war, and having your constitution. While a time of peace will allow you to concentrate more on the growth of your country, you will ultimately need to use force to repel an enemy invasion, subdue an adversarial neighboring state, or start a war of your own to enlarge your borders.
War should be the last thing you do, but you will have no other option when necessary. This guide will explain everything you need to know about starting a war in Victoria 3.
Exhaust All Diplomacy Plays: The first thing to realize is that a lack of successful diplomacy leads to conflict. So you use diplomatic play to declare war. You will start diplomatic attempts as soon as problems arise with a specific nation. There is no assurance of war here unless all diplomatic means are exhausted. Only nations whose political objectives touch your special interests are eligible for Diplomatic Play. These are frequently close neighbors with a long-standing rivalry. Warfare against any country is only conceivable until your nation has expanded to the point that it can be regarded as an empire; up until that point, the only choice is Diplomatic Play.
War Events: If any bordering nations do any of the following acts, it will be considered a war event that allows you to declare war.
- Independence
- Annex Subject
- Ban Slavery
- Humiliation
- Liberate Subject
- Make Vassal
- Regime change
- Transfer Subject
- Return State
- Take Treaty Port
- Make Puppet
- Conquer State
- Cut Down to Size
When any of the aforementioned war events happen, negotiations between the two nations will begin If negotiations fail or you ignore their calls to negotiate, both countries will go to war. You can use the Escalation stage of diplomatic play to trigger a war.
Other diplomatic plays include winning the backing of other countries or declaring oneself neutral in a conflict involving other countries. All of this is accomplished through political strategies. A full-scale war could start if everything goes according to plan after this Escalation phase. Start gathering resources for war if war is your end goal.
That’s everything you need to know about declaring war in Victoria 3. If you need more help, here are more Victoria 3 guides you may like: