Peace, Indemnities & Truces

Most wars do not end by conquest. Thirty to forty won battles is a very long campaign, and the side that is losing usually has a cheaper option: buy its way out.

Peace in A House Divided is a bilateral deal between two countries, not between two sides. You are ending your own participation in a war. Everybody else keeps fighting.

Who negotiates#

Peace is not the defence seat's job.

Two offices, no precedence between them: either may act. This is a deliberate constitutional split: the minister who takes you into a war is not the minister who takes you out of it.

Where to click:

What an offer contains#

The three terms#

A settlement carries exactly one term. Not two, not none: you choose what this war was for.

The white peace#

Status quo ante. Neither side is recorded as having won, no money moves, no government falls, and no army is barred from re-arming. Everybody goes home and the truce runs.

It is not the same as an indemnity of zero. That is a settlement one side imposed and chose to take nothing from, and the war record still names a winner. A white peace names none. If you are choosing between them, ask whether you want the history to say you won.

It is available even to a side that has won outright. Running your front to the end of the track and then signing a white peace is a real choice: you take nothing and the record shows nothing was settled.

Where a war was being fought over a question, a white peace hands the question back. The German Question is the case that exists today: a war fought over Germany that ends in a white peace does not decide it. The crisis comes off ice and resumes on the diplomatic track exactly where it stopped, with the same index, the same institutions and the same ladder position it had when the shooting started. Win that war and you take the settlement outright; draw it and you are back to arguing.

The indemnity#

Either party may be the payer. This is not a formality: both directions are real plays:

• The losing side pays to get out. The obvious case: buy your way out of a war you are losing.
• The winning side pays to disengage. Less obvious and just as legitimate. If you are winning a war you no longer want (because the real threat is elsewhere, or the grind is costing more than it is worth) you can pay your opponent to let you leave.

An indemnity of zero is a clean white peace. Same mechanism, dialled to nothing. Everybody walks away, no money moves.

Amounts are always quoted in the payer's local currency, and converted on the way to the recipient. Every treasury is denominated locally, so moving the raw number would invent or destroy value at the exchange rate.

There is no affordability check. A payment can push the payer into the red, which is what national debt is. Requiring a surplus would mean a country already in debt could never buy peace, which is most of the countries that would want to.

An indemnity is capped at twice the payer's annual GDP. A reparation can be ruinous; it cannot be arbitrary.

Regime change#

The country changes its system of government. A one-party state becomes a democracy, or a democracy becomes a one-party state: the conversion runs both ways.

Its legislature is dissolved and fresh elections are called. The sitting government falls with it. There is a short interregnum before the campaign opens, so the fall is visible rather than instant.

A crown survives. A parliamentary monarchy that loses a war loses its government, not its monarch. A settlement can also never install a monarchy: there is no dynasty for a treaty to seat.

The rest of the calendar is left alone. The dissolution brings one election forward. Every later election stays on the date it already had, and where that date now falls too close to run a nomination period, that election waits for the following cycle instead.

Demilitarisation#

The country may award no new defence contracts, and no company may accept a new order from it, for a set number of turns.

What it has already bought still arrives. Live contracts keep delivering and orders already placed can still be wound down. This is a bar on re-arming, not a teardown: the army decays through ordinary upkeep while nothing new comes in to replace it.

The bar is visible to the country under it, with the turn it lapses named, rather than being discovered by a refusal.

Asking the other side to leave#

An offer does not have to be about your own withdrawal. You can ask a country on the other side to leave the war while you stay in it.

They still have to agree. No government is ever removed from a war without its own consent. What changes is what you may put on the table: normally you would pay them to go.

This is how a coalition comes apart. You do not have to beat an alliance. You have to make its cheapest member leave, and now you can ask.

A country dragged in by a treaty may also buy its own way out. Mutual defence pulls an ally into the war, but it no longer holds them there until the member they came to defend settles. They can negotiate their own exit, at whatever price the other side will take.

The one thing you cannot simply buy#

A withdrawal that would end the war outright needs the ground to justify it. If the country you are asking to leave is the last one on its side, or takes its treaty allies with it, then its departure hands you the war. You may only demand that once the front has moved well into their territory, at the point the war is already visibly winding down in your favour.

Short of that, you are not negotiating a settlement, you are buying a victory, and the answer is no.

A white peace is always allowed, whatever the ground looks like. It records no winner and moves nothing, so there is nothing to buy. A war fought over an open question ends with the question still open.

The rules an offer must clear#

1. The war must not already be over.
2. Neither side may be a generated force. You cannot negotiate with an insurgency: there is no government on the other end to address an offer to. The panel says exactly that rather than a confusing "must be a belligerent" message.
3. Both countries must be belligerents in that war, by explicit roster membership. Bloc affinity is not enough: a country pulled toward a side by its alliance has not declared war on anyone, and cannot be offered a settlement for a war it never joined.
4. You must be on opposite sides. You cannot make peace with an ally.
5. The term must be valid. A white peace carries no fields and is always valid. An indemnity must not be negative, must not exceed twice the payer's annual GDP, and its payer must be one of the two parties. A regime change must name a system the country does not already have, and cannot install a monarchy. A demilitarisation must last at least one whole turn.
6. A withdrawal you are asking of them must not end the war, unless the front has moved well into their ground, or the term is a white peace.
7. The war must not already have been won outright. Once a front reaches the end of the track there is nothing left to negotiate: the victor is choosing what to take.

The 72-turn window#

An offer stands for 72 turns (three real days) then lapses.

The duration is fixed and not negotiable. One less thing to argue about, and a window nobody chooses cannot be chosen badly.

Expiry is lazy: an offer that has passed its window is dead whether or not anything has got round to marking it so. It cannot be accepted, rejected or withdrawn after the fact.

Answering an offer#

Three responses, and who may take them is strictly assigned:

You cannot accept your own offer.

Everything is revalidated at acceptance, not just when the offer was made. An offer sits for up to three real days while the world moves: the war may have ended, or either party may have already left it. A stale deal is refused rather than moving money over a war nobody is fighting.

What acceptance does#

In order:

1. The offer is claimed. This is what makes a double-accept impossible: two simultaneous requests can both pass validation, but only one can move the offer off "pending," and the loser applies nothing.
2. The indemnity moves: debited from the payer as quoted, converted, credited to the recipient. A white peace moves nothing.
3. The leaver stands down. Their general postings at that conflict are dropped, and every unit that was there returns to reserve.
4. The leaver comes off their side's roster. The war continues for everyone else.
5. A 240-turn truce is recorded between the two parties.
6. If the leaver was the last country on their side, the war ends outright: the other side wins, and every remaining cross-side pair is truced too.

That last point is how most negotiated wars actually finish. A two-country war has one country per side, so the first accepted peace offer ends it.

Winning outright: dictating terms#

A war does not only end by agreement. If your front runs all the way to the end of the track, you have taken every inch of contested ground and the war is won.

Winning does not end the war on the spot. The fighting stops, every unit goes back to reserve, and the war moves into a state where it is waiting on one thing: your terms.

You get 24 turns to name them. The same three terms are available, and you still pick exactly one. The difference is that nobody has to agree: a country with no ground left is not in a position to refuse.

If the window lapses, the war ends with nothing taken. Miss it and you get the victory and the truce, and no term at all. The war record will say so.

Only one country can impose. The country that started the war on the winning side is the one that names the terms, and they land on the country that started it on the losing side. Allies who joined a war somebody else began get the truce and nothing else. A coalition of five does not get five settlements.

Where to do it: the war's own record page, at World → Conflicts. A banner appears under the navigation on your country's pages while the window is open, counting down the turns.

There are two exceptions, and in both the war simply ends the moment the front runs out, exactly as it always did:

• An insurgency. There is no government on the other side to impose anything on.
• A war whose founder already left. If the country that started the losing side has already taken a separate peace, nobody is left holding the claim, and it does not pass to whoever joined later.

Why it is country-by-country, not side-by-side#

Whole-side peace has a fatal failure mode: one inactive country on a roster could never consent, and would freeze the war permanently for everybody.

Bilateral peace also follows the consent rule the rest of the system uses: no player commits another player's army. Your ally can leave a war without your permission, and you can stay in one they have abandoned.

The practical consequence: a coalition can be dismantled one member at a time. Buying out the weakest member of an enemy alliance is a real strategy, and cheaper than beating all of them.

The 240-turn truce#

Every war ending, negotiated, conceded, or won outright, records a 240-turn truce (about ten real days) between the parties. Neither may declare war on the other until it lapses.

It is not a negotiated term. Neither party can trade it away, shorten it, or refuse it. It is a consequence of the war ending, not a clause in the deal.

It exists to stop a country that has just been beaten from being re-declared on the moment the attacker's 120-turn declaration cooldown lapses, at the point it is least able to resist. The truce deliberately outlasts the cooldown by 120 turns.

Truces are recorded for every cross-side pair when a war ends, not just the principals: otherwise an ally who did the fighting would be free to re-declare while the principal waited. Same-side pairs are never truced; they were not at war with each other.

Your declaration panel lists your live truces and greys out the countries you cannot target, so the bar is visible before you plan a campaign around it.

Timing: when to sue for peace#

Watch the war's status. A conflict flips to Winding Down when the front has travelled about three-quarters of the way from where it started. That is a public signal:

• If it is winding down against you, your offer is about to get much more expensive. Move now.
• If it is winding down in your favour, you can demand more, or refuse and finish the job.

Watch your own attrition. If your veteran formations are being ground down and rebuilt with conscripts, you may be losing the war you are technically winning. Cheap peace now can be better than an expensive victory in twenty turns.

Watch the whole board. A war you are winning still consumes upkeep, manpower and ministerial attention. Paying to disengage from a won war so you can face a real threat elsewhere is a perfectly good use of money.

Remember the truce is an asset. Ten real days of guaranteed non-aggression from a rival is worth a great deal. Sometimes a white peace exists to buy the truce, not to end the fighting.

Practical guidance#

Make sure your foreign minister exists. A country with no head of government and no foreign seat holder cannot negotiate peace at all, and a defence secretary who filed the declaration cannot fix that themselves.

Offer early in a losing war. Territorial position is public. Once you are visibly winding down, your leverage is gone.

Use white peace liberally. A zero indemnity that ends a stalemate and buys a 240-turn truce costs nothing and is often the best available outcome.

Buy out the coalition's weakest link. You do not have to beat an alliance. You have to make the cheapest member leave.

Pay to leave a won war. Winning is not free. If a war has stopped serving your interests, an indemnity you pay to disengage may be far cheaper than the upkeep of continuing.

Do not expect to negotiate with an insurgency. Generated forces have no government to address. Those wars end territorially or not at all.

Track the 72 turns. An offer that lapses has to be re-made, and in the meantime the front may have moved against you.

Next#

• Occupation, Territory & Victory: the other way wars end.
• Declaring War: the cooldown and truce bars, from the other side.
• A War, Start to Finish: a negotiated ending in context.