How to cause a war/civil war between nations?

[Jotbe83]

For example, if i wanted to start a war between kingdom a and kingdom b, how do i do so? Is there a agent that does that?

[Lactose Intolerant Volcano God]

There are many approaches you can use.
It might be easier to start by selecting a city and viewing the National Actions tab. These are the actions the King or Queen can take. Check the motivations for the various actions. You should see some actions that are relevant to war, such as "Worsen Relationship with...", "War: Invasion of..." and "War: Crusade vs...".

You'll notice that Kings and Queens are more motivated to take these warmongering actions if they like ambition, combat, cruelty and danger, or they dislike the foreign ruler, their house, their society, or their species. So often the easiest way to start a war is to manipulate these likes or dislikes. The most useful agents might be The Courtier and The Hierophant, but I think any agent with high Intrigue can stir up trouble to start a war.

Another option can be to increase the menace of a point of interest, such as a Coven or Desecrated Holy Site. Kings and Queens have a national action to Raze POIs with high menace and they will invade foreign societies to do so.

[timlagor]

Several agents have their own special options for stirring up strife
You can also use Religion or racism or good ole madness

Anything that makes people hate each other can get them into a war.

Have you been trying something in particular and finding it difficult?

[yeknod]

First game. Watching the Alliance shaping up quickly. Understanding I needed to get The Courtier into play. I may have to suicide one of my agents to free up a slot.

[Jotbe83]

Originally posted by Lactose Intolerant Volcano God:

There are many approaches you can use.
It might be easier to start by selecting a city and viewing the National Actions tab. These are the actions the King or Queen can take. Check the motivations for the various actions. You should see some actions that are relevant to war, such as "Worsen Relationship with...", "War: Invasion of..." and "War: Crusade vs...".

You'll notice that Kings and Queens are more motivated to take these warmongering actions if they like ambition, combat, cruelty and danger, or they dislike the foreign ruler, their house, their society, or their species. So often the easiest way to start a war is to manipulate these likes or dislikes. The most useful agents might be The Courtier and The Hierophant, but I think any agent with high Intrigue can stir up trouble to start a war.

Another option can be to increase the menace of a point of interest, such as a Coven or Desecrated Holy Site. Kings and Queens have a national action to Raze POIs with high menace and they will invade foreign societies to do so.

How do i use the courtier to do so?

[OverlordMae]

You use Courtiers action steal memorabilia from ruler 1 and use plant scandal on Ruler 2(or a hero connected to ruler 2, while increasing his menace/profile with combat or other actions), preferably selecting a targets that are naturally inclined to hate each other.

[The Grand Mugwump]

Step 1 is almost always to infiltrate one of the capitals, which is a bit of a pain. Then you can use the Courtier to steal stuff and cause a scandal with the ruler of another kingdom to cause them to start worsening relations and eventually start warring on each other. And it has to be a ruler. One ruler hating another ruler's subject does nothing to international policy. However, making a subject hate their ruler is how civil wars happen.

You can also use the Heirophant to preach the gospel of envy and violence to increase their odds of being warlike. And any agent in a fully infiltrated capital can cause that nation's relations with others to plummet to further increase the odds of war.

You can also target mourning people with courtier to make them declare vendettas against the killer's entire family. Instead of infiltrating a capital, you can target the ruler's family members instead. Blood magic or corrupting the relatives of rulers into an agent does wonders to cause unfortunate deaths at the hands of another ruler's relative.

[Lactose Intolerant Volcano God]

A few other ideas:

* If you form a dark empire, The Monarch can simply declare war on a society.

* If you're playing with elves on the map, Drive Xenophobia provides motivation for war between neighbouring humans and elves. Setting the Xenophobic Condemnation tenet to -1 or -2 also promotes war between species. Once the tenet is set, you can then cause dislike between species by having agents gain menace. As an example, in human settlements using The Dissident (an elf) to Rob the Treasury, would cause the human ruler to dislike elves. Increasing Elven Arrogance via Temptation of Eternity or Elder Birthright can also be helpful.

* If you're playing with holy orders on the map, Undermine Religion provides motivation for kings and queens to declare war against a holy order society (those smaller nations that are ruled by a Brother or Sister instead of a King or Queen). Setting the Intransigent Faith tenet to -1 or -2 also promotes war between holy orders.

* The Aristocrat has Crisis Vote challenges that can cause rulers to dislike each other, but map locations may be limited if you want to try to affect two foreign rulers (as it has a hex range, so does not automatically involve neighbouring rulers/societies).

* The Trickster's Misleading Clues can start interpersonal conflicts that may eventually lead to war. If a hero gains enough menace, they'll be targeted for attack and if they are killed (perhaps after being weakened by Snake Oil), surviving members of their house may dislike the killer. (However, it's easier to set this up in conjunction with The Courtier, as their unique challenge can directly target rulers and cause vendettas.)

* The Dissident's Separatism increases political agitation and can trigger a civil war. I think this can combine well with The Hierophant's Preach Gospel of Envy and The Aristocrat's Crisis Votes.

[timlagor]

Originally posted by OverlordMae:

You use Courtiers action steal memorabilia from ruler 1 and use plant scandal on Ruler 2(or a hero connected to ruler 2, while increasing his menace/profile with combat or other actions), preferably selecting a targets that are naturally inclined to hate each other.

You can do that and it's not useless but finding someone who's mourning because their family member got killed and making them start a Vendetta is a far more potent effect. Finding* such people is a bit harder (and you'd like them to have a decent sized family) but it's very easy when they exist.

The murders you need tend to happen in wars and executions if you are looking for a way to generate some. You an also murder people yourself with an agent who's in a family.

* having them exist -you can find the mourning people with the filters.