Monarch power

Monarch power is a measure of a ruler's influence and ability to govern their country with the help of advisors. It is a central mechanic in Europa Universalis IV, influencing how effective a country is at technological improvements, diplomatic relations, and infrastructure investments.

There are three types of monarch power:

• Administrative power represents the internal organization and development of a country.
• Diplomatic power represents the external influence of a country, including diplomacy, naval power, trade, exploration or colonization.
• Military power represents innovations and leadership for armies.

Uses of monarch power

The following actions cost monarch power. Note that many of these costs can be decreased by appropriate ideas and some will be temporarily changed by events.

Action	Power type	Base cost	Notes
Develop a province	Varies	50	If the nation is not up to date on institutions, developing a province can jump-start the presence of the institution in the province.
Discover an idea	Varies	400
Add a policy	Varies	1st free then 1 per month
Discover a native idea	Varies	500
Research a technology	Varies	600
Boost faction influence	Varies	10	Adds 10 influence to a faction. See Merchant Republics, Celestial Empire, Revolutionary Republics. Note that Celestial Empire does not have factions if Mandate of Heaven DLC is active.
Core a province	Administrative	10 per development	Base time of 36 months, reduced by modifiers that also reduce cost.
Move capital	Administrative	200	See article for details. The cost can vary up to 500 if moving capital to a low development province.
Raise stability	Administrative	100	+1 stability. Cost is increased by +50% for going from +1 to +2, and +100% for going from +2 to +3.
Reduce inflation	Administrative	75	−2% inflation.
Raise tariffs	Administrative	50	Subject interaction increases the tariff level of a subject colonial nation by +5%.
Decrease tariffs	Administrative	25	Subject interaction decreases the tariff level of a subject colonial nation by −5%.
Create trade post	Administrative	50	Creates a trade post in the province. Only available to merchant republics.
Seize clerical holdings	Administrative	50	−15% Construction cost. Government action available to feudal theocracy.
Unjustified (non-wargoal) demand for a province in peace treaty	Diplomatic	50	Cost decreased for taking from rivals, for having a claim, and by some ideas.
Change culture of province	Diplomatic	10 per development
Promote a culture	Diplomatic	100	Removes non-accepted culture penalties for the promoted culture.
Demote a culture	Diplomatic	10	Removes culture from promoted cultures and reinstates non-accepted culture penalties.
Recruit naval leader	Diplomatic	50	Admiral or explorer.
Invite minorities from abroad	Diplomatic	50	−20% Local development cost. Government action available to feudal theocracy.
Reduce war exhaustion	Diplomatic	75	−2 war exhaustion.
Remove rival	Diplomatic	100	Can only remove nations that have been rivals for 25 years or more. If a rival becomes ineligible (due to being too big, too small, or not independent), it is removed automatically for free.
Promote mercantilism	Diplomatic	100	Promote Mercantilism by 1%. This can be done from the trade tab.
Move main trading port	Diplomatic	200
Annex vassal or personal union partner	Diplomatic	8 per vassal development	Diplomatic power is spent towards the total cost each month while annexing; how much depends on various factors (see Vassal § Annexation for details), but will not cause the country's stored power to drop below 0 (if it would, no progress is made instead).
Maintain diplomatic relations	Diplomatic	1 per month	For each country one has treaties with above the relations limit, which is a base of 4 countries. Not all treaties require maintaining relations.
Military action: Seize colony	Military	25	Gain ownership of an occupied enemy colony during a war. Original culture and religion do not change (unless a colonist is sent).
Military action: Burn colony	Military	5	Destroy an occupied enemy colony entirely.
Harsh Treatment	Military	2 per development	−30% revolt progress for a rebel faction. Minimum 50 cost, maximum 200 cost.
Military action: Artillery Barrage	Military	50	Creates a breach in the fort walls. Only possible if number of full strength artillery regiments is equal to or greater than fort level.
Military action: Assault	Military	5	Makes the army attack the remaining defenders. Only possible if walls are breached and not recommended unless the province has few defenders.
Military action: Attack Natives	Military	10 per 1000 natives	Order a standing army on a colony to attack and reduce the natives' numbers, even to the point of killing them all. It causes a native uprising, but reduces the number of natives in the province as well as its development.
Military action: Forced March	Military	2 per province traveled	+50% overland speed, no morale recovery. Requires ADM tech level 15
Military action: Scorch Earth	Military	5	+25% defensiveness, −50% supply limit, −50% tax, −33% goods produced and +0.05 monthly autonomy change for 5 years. Only doable in own provinces.
Military action: Sortie	Military	5	Only possible in controlled fortified provinces. When under siege, a province's garrison will attack the besieging party. If defeated, the remaining soldiers, if not shattered, will re-garrison; if the garrison completely shatters, the siege will be automatically complete.
Raise War Taxes	Military	2 per month	−20% land and naval maintenance for 2 years. Must be at war.
Recruit army leader	Military	50	General or conquistador.
Maintain leader	Military	1 per month	Per leader over the "leaders without upkeep" limit. Counts both land and naval leaders, but not a ruler and/or heir.
Increase militarization	Military	50	Increase militarization of state by +10. Unique to Prussian monarchy.
Sanction Holy War	Military	50	Government action grants a claim on all non-allied non-(own)subject bordering provinces which are owned by a nation who is not the Feudal Theocracy’s State Religion. Only available to feudal theocracy.
Strengthen government	Military	100	Increases legitimacy, horde unity, meritocracy, or devotion by +10, and republican tradition by +3 depending on government type and if in Age of Absolutism or Age of Revolutions, increases absolutism by +2.

Generating monarch power

Monarch power is generated at the beginning of each month. There are four sources of monarch power: ruler, country, advisors, and power projection. Based on these factors, the monarch power gain of each type can range from 2 to 18 (up to +6 from ruler, +5 from advisor, +2 from national focus, +1 from power projection, +1 from estate and +3 base value) a month.

By default a country can only store an amount of monarch power of each type equal to 999, increased by unembraced Institutions and by Corruption.

Advisors

A country can have an advisor for each power type. Each advisor starts by providing 1–3 monarch points each month. An advisor's maintenance cost starts at 1 ducat a month for a +1 point advisor at the game's starting date. The cost increases quadratically with advisor skill level, and slowly inflates by 0.5% per game year. It is also modified by inflation.

Advisors can be promoted for 5 years' of their salary to increase their monarch point generation by +1 up to a max of 5 monarch points.

Power projection

Having at least 50 power projection provides an extra +1 points a month for all monarch power types.

Increasing monarch power

There are no percentage modifiers to monarch power, though there are effects that modify the cost of specific actions that require monarch power. The most flexible of these are advisor choices; a rich country could temporarily hire an appropriate advisor to get a discount on an immediate purchase.

Monarch power gains are much more independent of the size of a country than other resources such as monetary income and size of military, but large countries often require expending more power on additional provinces and military maneuvers. However, there are a few ways of increasing a country's monarch power, particularly if the country has some other resource to spare:

• Hiring more skilled advisors increases monarch power production at the cost of ducats.
• Many random events have an option to gain or lose monarch power. Often (but not always) this is offset with a corresponding loss or gain of some other resource.
• Republics can re-elect leaders to gain skill in each category at the cost of republican tradition, or elect a different ruler for a different distribution of skills. With the tier 2 reform "Political Dynasties", one can elect a ruler with random skills that are worse than a monarch on average, but may be better than a normal starting republican ruler (requires Dharma DLC). Other types of government can try to manipulate the heir mechanics through random events, or in the extreme case, arranging for the death of an unwanted ruler or heir in combat.
• Increasing and maintaining power projection of at least 50 by maintaining and acting aggressively towards rivals provides a bonus, at the cost of long-running and often bloody feuds.

• Steppe nomads can gain monarch power by razing non-core provinces, reducing its development. This gives +25 power of the appropriate category for each point of development lost.
• Most estates can be granted privileges that increase monarch point generation at the cost of -5 loyalty equilibrium and -5 crownland. Clergy estates or their equivalent grant +1 administrative points, Burghers or their equivalent grant +1 diplomatic points, and Nobles or their equivalent grant +1 military points.

• Great powers gain a diplomatic option called Influence Nation that allows them to pay one year's worth of income to grant +1 monarch power to a target independent non-great power nation in their weakest category for 10 years.
• Monarchies can abdicate (in favour of a better heir) at the cost of 50 prestige and 20 legitimacy (requires Rights of Man).

• Promoting your advisors increases monarch power production at the cost of ducats.

Some situations can cause a monthly loss of monarch points:

• Too many diplomatic relationships: having treaties with more countries than a nation's diplomatic relations cap will result in a monthly loss of diplomatic power, equal to the numbers of relations above the limit. The number of diplomatic relation slots can be increased through selecting idea groups, national ideas, or other modifiers.
• In the same way, having too many military leaders will also result in a monthly loss of military power, equal to the number of leaders above the limit. The number of military leaders without upkeep can be increased by ideas, traditions, and policies, by embracing Feudalism, by increasing and maintaining power projection of at least 25, by increasing government rank to Empire with Common Sense DLC, and other factors.

National focus

Countries can set a national focus on any of the three monarch power types. The chosen monarch power type receives +2 per month (added to the base gain), while other two monarch power types decrease by −1 each month. A focus does not change the overall amount of monarch power generated per month, it merely redistributes it. How often the national focus can be removed or changed depends on the country's Government rank: Duchy = 25 years, Kingdom = 20 years, Empire = 15 years.

This allows a country to catch up faster if behind in a specific technology (especially with Military technology, which has a huge impact) or to fill out ideas more quickly. Always be aware of the country's ruler though, because they still play an important role. For example, the current ruler may have very good administrative skill, whereas the heir may be unbalanced and only have 1 or even 0 administrative skill. Due to this, and particularly since changing the national focus takes a long time, planning ahead is essential.

Monarch power cap

The amount of each type of monarch power that a country can have at a given time is limited by a cap. This cap is the same for all power types ( Administrative, Diplomatic and Military). The default value for this cap is 999 power; however, not having embraced Institutions will increase the cap's value, to 999 × (100% + current tech penalty from institutions).

Mechanics

Customization

Nation designer • Random New World

Ages and Institutions

Ages • Institutions

Innovativeness and Technology

Innovativeness • Technology

Defense

Fort • Zone of control