Stability

This article is accurate for the latest versions of EU3, Napoleon’s Ambition, In Nomine and Heir to the Throne 4.1b.
Please help update this page to include information on the DW expansion.

Stability (often shortened to Stab) represents the social stability of your realm and is shown as a value from -3 to +3 (positive being better). This number will change through actions that you make especially when declaring war, through choices you make with events, as well as events that you are forced to accept. Your stability level is increased depending on how much you pay into the investment sliders.

At high levels you will receive more income from your taxes and at lower levels you will experience a greater risk of revolt across all your provinces. The importance of keeping your stability at least above negatives is paramount in your goal to keep your realm productive.

Diplomacy & Stability

Actions that affect your stability are cumulative. So if you declare war against a country that you have military access with and is the same religion, the total stability hit will be -6.

• -1: Declaring war against a country of the same religion (IN: same religious group).
• -1: Canceling a royal marriage.
• -1: Moving any domestic policy slider in any direction (IN: some slider changes have a chance).
• -1: Declaring war against a nation with whom you have a royal marriage.
• -1: Declaring war against a nation with whom you have good relations (100-149).
• -2: Declaring war against a nation with whom you have great relations (150+).
• -2: Declaring war without a casus belli.
• -3: Declaring war against a nation which is your vassal.
• -3: Going Bankrupt
• -5: Declaring war against a nation with whom you have a truce.
• -5: Declaring war against a nation with whom you have military access to.
• -1 to -7: Changing your form of government, this depends on what form of government you currently have and what you are switching to.
• -3 to +3: As a result of some event options.

Stability Cost in HTTT

The cost of acquiring an additional stability point is based on the sum of all base stability costs of a country's provinces multiplied by the national stability cost modifier. (Note that 'Flag' subscripts in the equations that follow denote a variable that takes 1 (true) or 0 (false) depending on whether a country or province meets that condition.)

The following equation is the National Stability Cost for a country with $n$ provinces:

${ \mbox{National Stability Cost} = \left( \sum_{i=1}^n \mathit{StabilityCost}_i \right) \cdot \left( 1 + \mathit{StabilityCostModifier} \right) }$

Note that there is no distinction between normal and overseas provinces. Both of these terms will now be reviewed in more depth.

StabilityCost

This equation describes the basic provincial stability cost of a province:

${ \begin{alignat}{2} \mathit{StabilityCost} & = 5+ \mathit{ProvinceReligionCost} - 5 \cdot \mathit{Temple_{Flag}} - 5 \cdot \mathit{LocalMarch_{Flag}} + \mathit{EventEffects} \\ & \quad + 10 \cdot \mathit{NonAcceptedCulture_{Flag}} \left( 1 + \mathit{Republic_{Flag}} \right) + 10 \cdot \mathit{NonStateReligion_{Flag}} \cdot \left( \mathit{NegativeTolerance_{ProvinceReligion}} \right)\\ \end{alignat} }$

• The ${\mathit {ProvinceReligionCost}}$ is the basic cost based on the religion of the province. These are:

+ 10 for Animism and Shamanism

+ 15 for Orthodox and Shinto

+ 20 for Catholic, Sunni, Shiite, Buddhism and Confucianism

+ 25 for Hinduism

+ 30 for Protestant and Reformed

• The ${\mathit {Temple_{Flag}}}$ is triggered by building a temple in the province.
• The ${\mathit {LocalMarch_{Flag}}}$ is triggered by enacting the provincial decision Local March.
• ${\mathit {EventEffects}}$ are other changes based on some random events which may occur, both nationally and locally. The possible country events are Oppose Monarch, Suppress Free Thinkers, Bureaucratic Expansion; there's also the random provincial event Benign Neglect.
• The ${\mathit {NonAcceptedCulture_{Flag}}}$ is triggered if the province has a culture which is neither accepted nor part of the primary culture's culture group.
• The ${\mathit {Republic_{Flag}}}$ is triggered if the state government is of Republic type.
• The ${\mathit {NonStateReligion_{Flag}}}$ is triggered if the province's religion does not match the state's religion; there's an additional modifier to this based on the tolerance your country has for the province's religion (this tolerance can be found in the Religious Decisions Window). Note this tolerance modifier can't be positive (it can be zero though).

StabilityCostModifier

This equation describes the national ${\mathit {StabilityCostModifier}}$ which applies to all provinces. Note that this equation represents percentages as decimals. ALSO: Beware that the actual computation of the ${\mathit {StabilityCostModifier}}$ in the game is a bit strange: rather than using the exact numbers for national parameters (e.g., Prestige) from the savefile, the in-game computation instead simplifies them first and then performs the calculation. These simplifications are noted below. (Also, the War Exhaustion term appears to have an off-by-one bug in its calculation.)

${\begin{alignedat}{2}{\mathit {StabilityCostModifier}}&=0.02\cdot {\mathit {Badboy}}+0.01\cdot {\mathit {Inflation}}-0.001\cdot {\mathit {Prestige}}-0.002\cdot {\mathit {Monarchy_{Flag}}}\cdot \left({\mathit {Legitimacy}}-50\right)+0.05\cdot {\mathit {WarExhaustion}}\\&\quad +{\mathit {Sliders}}+{\mathit {NationalIdeas}}+{\mathit {LuckyNation}}+{\mathit {GovernmentEffects}}+{\mathit {CuriaController}}\\&\quad +{\mathit {DecisionEffects}}+{\mathit {EventEffects}}+{\mathit {TriggeredEventEffects}}\\\end{alignedat}}$

National parameters:

• Badboy gives +2.0% per unit of Infamy.

The number used in the calculation is the same as that in the main interface window; the computation only uses it to 1 decimal place.

• Inflation gives +1.0% per unit of Inflation.

The computation takes this number to 1 decimal place. This might not be the number in the Budget Window, however, since that window rounds all of its figures. To get this number without opening the savefile, if you hover over your inflation you'll see in the tooltip a list of "inflation effects"--the effects listed are those from taking the inflation to one decimal point. You can infer from these pretty easily what the unrounded decimal point actually is.

• Prestige gives -0.1% per unit of Prestige.

The number in the calculation is the same as that in the main interface window (ignore the decimal you may see in the tooltip).

• Legitimacy gives -0.2% per unit of (Legitimacy - 50).

The number in the calculation is the same as that in the main interface window (ignore the decimal you may see in the tooltip).

• War exhaustion gives +5.0% per unit of War Exhaustion.

There appears to be a bug in the calculation with respect to this number. The WarExhaustion used is actually "WarExhaustion - 0.01", where WarExhaustion is the same as that found in the Military Window to 2 decimal places. (If WarExhaustion = 0, then it's just 0 though.)

Other factors:

• Slider effects are +5.0% * Serfdom v. Free Subjects and -5.0% * Innovative v. Narrowminded.
• The national idea Church Attendance Duty gives a -33.0% bonus.
• Lucky nations (AI only!) get a -50.0% bonus.
• Certain governments will get effects: +50.0% penalty for Tribal Federation, and bonuses of -25.0% for Tribal Democracy and -20.0% for Bureaucratic Despotism.
• The controller of the Papal Curia gets a -5.0% bonus.

In addition, there are many decisions and events which give various effects; most of these are small but can add up to be significant.

Note that among all the contributing factors to this modifier, only Badboy is "unlimited" in the sense that it can go up infinitely. This means that this term will tend to be the largest factor in the modifier for conquest-oriented players.

Tips for reducing National Stability Costs

If you're having trouble with high stability costs, consider doing a few of these 12 things:

1) Actively manage your Inflation, Badboy and War exhaustion. Keep these things as low as possible. This is usually the most important thing to do. (The national idea Cabinet is essential in this).

2) Build temples everywhere.

3) Convert all owned provinces to state religion. (You could also alter your tolerance of any non-state-religion province to be zero, but you'll still get a tax penalty so it's better to just convert them.)

4) Convert all owned provinces to an accepted culture.

5) If you're a Republic, switch to Monarchy. Monarchies get a boost from high legitimacy and don't suffer the extra culture penalty of Republics.

6) Take the Church Attendance Duty national idea.

7) Move sliders to pick up bonuses to your stability cost.

8) Take control of the Papal Curia for a minor bonus.

9) Enact decisions which reduce stability costs.

10) Raise your prestige to get a bonus to stability costs.

11) Release as vassals very stability-expensive provinces (if possible).

12) If you have lots of provinces that aren't state religion and don't have the time, interest or ability (i.e., no missionaries) to convert them, taking the Liberté Égalité Fraternité national idea will often eliminate the religion penalty to stability cost from them. This idea comes late, though, so Humanist Tolerance and Ecumenism should be substituted if needed; you'll have to take both of these to get the same effect, but depending on whether heathens or heretics predominate in your country, you can get by with one.

Stability Cost (before HTTT)

The cost of recovering stability is mainly a function of how many provinces you control (enemy owned temples help, colonies are included), but also note that it costs twice as much to reach Stability +2, and three times as much for +3, versus the cost to increase from -2 through +1.

Cost of a stability point = [ SUM( province_cost + Province_Religion_Modifier + event_triggered_province_modifiers ) - 5 * temples ] * Level_modifier * ( DP & other %modifiers )

The level modifier component of the cost is:

• 1 for stability -2 through 1
• 2 for stability 2
• 3 for stability 3

Province cost is determined as follows:

• base 25 (IN: 5)
• same religious group +25 (IN: 5)
• other religious group +50 (IN: 20)
• non-accepted non-group culture +50 (added in NA v2.1, removed in IN)

Province Religion modifier is determined as follows:

• Catholic 20
• Protestant 30
• Reformed 30
• Orthodox 15
• Sunni 20
• Shiite 20
• Buddhism 20
• Hinduism 25
• Confucianism 20
• Shinto 15
• Animism 10
• Shamanism 10

Other modifiers include Events and Decisions such as Westernisation. In addition Domestic Policy Sliders have an impact on the price of stability in your realm.