Offensive War Penalty

[Jebediah 'The Beaver' Beaver]

How can I get around the offensive war penalty without being full warmonger?

[Duilf]

The offensive war penalty gives an opinion penalty based on how long you have been in your own offensive wars. It kicks in at about month 6 and it is there every month in your own offensive wars will add -1 to the penalty, and not being in an offensive war will remove -1 per month. This means the best way to combat the offensive war penalty is siege equipment the faster you siege the shorter your wars the less offensive war penalty you will gain. Secondly you do not get the buffer window until the penalty is fully gone wait a month or 2 extra just to be safe. Third like with many opinion buffs/penalties it is your current ruler's offensive war penalty so you can save your largest wars for when your current ruler is going to die near the end of the victory.

The at piece opinion of warmonger is much worse for one key detail. It applies to everyone of your realm with a religion that includes it. Meaning your vassals ether need to consistently go to war, regularly raid, or will constantly be attacked by peasant factions.

[Transylvandrei]

You can be at peace (or exclusively in defensive wars) for at least as long as you are at (offensive) war, e.g. one year of peace for every year of war, or you can just stack enough positive opinion modifiers to negate the offensive war penalty.

Note however that the opinion penalty gets reset on succession so it is beneficial to switch rulers frequently. If you really want to get rid of it you can try to trigger an early succession by provoking a revolt and surrendering to it forcing you to abdicate.

If you are your heir's heir you can just do the same thing again to get your previous ruler back. All tyranny and offensive war penalties will have been reset back to zero, but you may get some negative opinion of previous ruler penalties applied.

[spasti696969]

Just kill the peasants when they rise up. They're nothing. When I formed a holy order I got 1500 free troops. Whenever a 200 or 400 peasant rabble pops up I just raise them instantly and throw a 25 marshal on top, takes out the peasant rabble only losing 5 or 6 guys. I'm down to 1134 from 1500.

When you take out a peasant rabble the rebellious county gets a modifier called "Locals Pacified" which gives +50 opinion. Locals Pacified stacks. So if Offensive War gets really bad just stack Locals Pacified 3 or 4 times. Problem solved. That's how you see those guys with screenshots where they've taken over 2/3 of the map.

[The Former]

Originally posted by spasti696969:

Just kill the peasants when they rise up. They're nothing. When I formed a holy order I got 1500 free troops. Whenever a 200 or 400 peasant rabble pops up I just raise them instantly and throw a 25 marshal on top, takes out the peasant rabble only losing 5 or 6 guys. I'm down to 1134 from 1500.

When you take out a peasant rabble the rebellious county gets a modifier called "Locals Pacified" which gives +50 opinion. Locals Pacified stacks. So if Offensive War gets really bad just stack Locals Pacified 3 or 4 times. Problem solved. That's how you see those guys with screenshots where they've taken over 2/3 of the map.

The real issue is that rivals often like to strike while you're addressing the rabble... Or worse, the rabble might happen to rise up as you're locked in a heated battle abroad.