The Stability and Expansion Interface focuses on one key question: how comfortable your people are with the way the things are going in your country.
The top part of the interface deals with how well you are doing in keeping your people comfortable and happy. On the left side, you have War Exhaustion, a measure of just how tired your subjects are of your endless wars, how weary they are of seeing their friends and neighbors mowed down on the battlefield. The arrow shows what direction your war exhaustion is tending, and the number to the right anticipates next month’s change in exhaustion.
High war exhaustion leads to armed peasants and others seeking alternate ways to halt your endless wars. Ironically, their first choice is usually to launch a civil war to get rid of you.
But high War Exhaustion not only increases the chances of rebellion; it also raises the cost and build time of new units. This makes it more and more difficult for you to fill the ranks of your armies. However, if your War Exhaustion rises higher than 2, you can click the Reduce button to see what options are available for lowering this number.
Stability, located underneath War Exhaustion, is a measure of how calm and settled your people feel, and how trusting they are in their leaders. Stability is measured from +3, a Utopian society, to -3, Somalia with muskets. 0 is the default and confers no benefits or penalties, but a high Stability will reduce the risk of revolt, add tax bonuses, and increase the effectiveness of your missionaries. Negative Stability increases revolt risk, reduces Legitimacy, and raises interest rates on any loans you may take. Clicking on Boost will raise your Stability, but this costs Administrative Power. The right side of the interface deals with newly acquired territories. The top portion identifies areas you can colonize, and beside this are the bonuses or penalties affecting the growth of your settler rate. Finally, you can see the bonuses or penalties affecting the travel time of your colonists.
Before you establish a core of control in a nearby land, your presence there will increase the next number on the right: Overextension. This reflects the additional security, espionage, troops, and other costs of maintaining a population that does not, frankly, feel like they belong to you.
Clicking on Manage will open the list of provinces which are making you overextended, and you can either view your progress in establishing a core there, or you can choose to stop establishing a core on the territory.
One common effect of overextension is rebellion. Rebels will trample your lands and spoil your war efforts, thwart your attempts at tax collecting, bemoan your abuse of their constitution. Each type of rebel appears in their own bar, each with their own emblem. Thus, they can be easily identified on the Main Map. Underneath this is a bar which fills up as they grow closer to achieving their aims.
You also can see how many provinces they command, the likelihood that more of your people will join their cause, and the number of armies they command. Hovering your mouse over the number of armies will open a tooltip that indicates the composition and size of each rebel army. If you are unable to defeat the rebellion on the battlefield, you will need to find another way to cope with the uprising. Clicking on Handle them! opens a new option that gives you the option to Accept demands after they have achieved their goal. The possible consequences of such a capitulation to the rebels will be shown on the left. Another way to help calm the rebellion is to Boost stability, as most rebellions will occur when your society is destabilized. A quick link to boosting your stability is located here, so you do need not jump between interfaces when managing this task. You may wind up totally overrun with rebellion, as your control over your lands and government slips away. If your country is completely overrun, you will be forced to surrender to all the rebels and meet all of their demands. A handy bar fills up as they grow closer to this goal.
To be honest, if you find yourself in this position, abject surrender will probably come as a relief.
If you think that’s depressing, prepare yourself for Reformation Era religion!
