Volunteers & civil wars
You can bleed into someone else's war without officially joining — send volunteers to a defender, or intervene in a civil war, at strict caps that turn into a quagmire.
How it works
volunteer() lets you send up to VOL_CAP (2%) of your army to one side of an active war — but only to a defender, never to back an aggressor. Doing so marks the war as 'limited' (non-escalating) and shifts relations: +6 with the side you helped, −12 with the side you opposed. It carries a long cooldown of 3 years (VOL_CD 48×3).
Civil wars have their own channel. interveneCivil() lets you back the government or the rebels with up to CIVIL_CAP (5%) of your army — more than volunteers, because it's internal participation rather than a limited war. Government support gains +6 relations, backing rebels costs −12.
The catch is the quagmire: committed volunteer forces take attrition each tick (enemyPower × 0.022 × intensity) and are never reinforced, so they simply grind away until they're spent and withdraw. It's a way to influence a war cheaply, not to win it outright.
Formulas
cap = army × VOL_CAP (0.02)cap = army × CIVIL_CAP (0.05)force −= enemyPower × 0.022 × intensity (no reinforcement)Key numbers
How to play
- ▸Volunteers are a limited, deniable lever — use them to prop up a defender you like without triggering full escalation.
- ▸You can only send volunteers to defenders, so you can't use them to spearhead your own aggression.
- ▸Civil-war intervention lets you commit more (5%), making it the stronger tool when a neighbor is tearing itself apart.
- ▸Never expect volunteers to win the war for you — with no reinforcement they bleed out; send them to tilt, not to conquer.