World tension

World Tension represents the overall level of fear and anxiety that exists among the nations of the World. The number displayed can be between 0% and 100%. Total World Tension can be higher than 100%, but there are no additional effects beyond the 100% limit—the overflow instead acts as a “buffer” against events that decrease Tension.

The level of World Tension has several impacts on gameplay, in particular allowing or limiting political decisions, national focus, and more. It is shown as an icon depicting Earth, with flames engulfing it more fully the higher current World Tension is. Generally, the higher the World Tension, the more popular support nations have for taking belligerent actions.

Impacts on World Tension

Increase in World Tension

The following increases the level of World Tension:

Declaring war
Puppeting, Satelliting, Annexing, or taking land without claims
Sending volunteers
Joining a faction
Justifying a Wargoal
Certain Focuses

Decrease in World Tension

The following can cause a decrease in World Tension:

Decay over time
Peace treaties where nothing is taken or enforced
Guaranteeing a nation’s independence (Democracy)

Decay over time

World Tension is the sum of every positive and negative event that has occurred to date reduced by their decay. Each completed individual event will gradually decay toward 0 at .1 per month. Note that this also affects events which reduce World Tension, e.g. peace treaties reduce World Tension, but their effects decay just like aggressive events. World Tension from Declarations of War appear to be considered incomplete until the associated war has ended.

For example, if your current World Tension list has:

2% Germany Demanded Sudetenland
16.7% Treaty of Valencia ending Spanish Civil War
-1.4% Italian Peace Treaty w/ Ethiopia
0.6% Militarization of Rhineland
Total: 17.9%

The next month, World Tension will change to:

1.9% Germany Demanded Sudetenland
16.6% Treaty of Valencia ending Spanish Civil War
-1.3% Italian Peace Treaty w/ Ethiopia
0.5% Militarization of Rhineland
Total: 17.7%

Ideological effects

Different ideologies have different effects on World Tension—both in terms of generation and in terms of how much World Tension is needed to take certain actions.

Tension required

Some national focuses can lower the threshold. Below you find the base threshold without any modifiers.

Communism

World Tension threshold:

Comintern impact on tension threshold: -50%

Communist countries are not limited by World Tension.

Democracy

Democracies cannot justify wargoals against other democracies.

Democracies have the most restrictive tension thresholds:

Allies impact on tension thresholds: −10%
Guarantee independence: 25%
Send volunteers: 50%
Join faction: 80%
Declare war: 100%
Send Lend-Lease: 50%
Fascism

Fascism

World Tension thresholds:

None.

Fascist countries are not limited by World Tension.

Non-Aligned