Treaties

Diplomatic treaties are agreements that can be created either by players or automatically through the resolution of a war. Each treaty involves 2 States (players) and a list of terms such as transferring payments, ideas, knowledges, giving trading or passage rights, or joining a Nation.

## Engagement period

Treaties all have an engagement period, starting from the moment they are signed by both parties and take effect. This engagement period can be customized when setting up the treaty, but it has built in max and min values. In persistent mode it can go from 7 days to a maximum of 30 days.

* During the engagement period, breaking the treaty might result in triggering it's breaking clauses depending of the context and breaking clauses conditions used by the treaty.
* After the end of the engagement period, the treaty remains active but it can be terminated at any time without triggering breaking clauses.

## Triggering the breaking clauses

The breaking clauses are penalties that apply in the case of a treaty member illegally breaking a treaty.

### Breaking clauses modes

There are 2 breaking clauses modes that can be set for each member of the treaty and which define how the breaking clauses are triggered:

* **direct mode**: *breaking clauses will trigger if the member breaks this treaty during its engagement period by terminating it or by declaring war to the other party as main belligerent.*
* **indirect mode**: *breaking clauses will also trigger if the member declares a war that includes the other party as forced co-belligerent.*

This means that in direct mode if a player attacks an ally of the other party (such as another Nation member) causing the other party to auto-join the war as a co-belligerent, it will end the treaty ***without*** triggering the breaking clauses unlike in indirect mode. Indirect mode is to be used for important treaties such as armistices, while direct mode is better for small treaties such as trading rights or passage.

### Other factors

* Treaties with "Inactive" characters never trigger their breaking clauses, even if they are within their engagement period.
* Joining a war as an automatic co-belligerent does not trigger breaking clauses of the treaties being terminated as a result. However this does not apply for players willingly entering a war through a call-to-arms!
* Treaties whose engagement periods are over never trigger their breaking clauses.

## Breaking clauses

### Politics Points engagement

Treaty members have a forced Politics Points engagement, which can be customized from 25 to 200. If the breaking clauses are applied, the member breaking the treaty will lose the amount of Politics Points define in his breaking clauses.

### Casus belli

Treaty members can have a "casus-belli" breaking clause. This means that if that member triggers his breaking clauses, it will give the other party an automatic casus-belli. There are 2 different ones:

* reparations: this casus-belli allows the other party to start a war to ask for reparations for breaking its engagements.
* punishment: this is a very strong casus-belli that allows the other party to start a punishment war. Such war will result in the permanent death of the character and the subjugation of its State if it is won by the attacker.

## Treaty terms

The treaty terms are the actual content of the treaty.