effect · add_legitimacy

Hands-On Usage

add_legitimacy is commonly used in mods featuring monarchies or imperial government systems. It rewards legitimacy when players complete a focus or trigger an event, or deducts legitimacy via punitive events after civil wars or coups to simulate regime instability. For example, a historical coronation event can max out legitimacy directly through this command:

country_event = {
    id = monarchy.5
    title = monarchy.5.t
    desc = monarchy.5.d

    option = {
        name = monarchy.5.a
        add_legitimacy = 25
        add_stability = 0.05
    }
    option = {
        name = monarchy.5.b
        add_legitimacy = -15
        add_political_power = 50
    }
}

Synergy

• [add_stability](/wiki/effect/add_stability): Legitimacy and stability are narratively intertwined—both typically increase together when consolidating power and decrease together after coups or military defeats.
• [add_political_power](/wiki/effect/add_political_power): Regimes with high legitimacy often possess greater administrative efficiency; these two effects are commonly paired in the same option as reward or penalty packages.
• [add_popularity](/wiki/effect/add_popularity): In faction-based mod systems, rising legitimacy typically correlates with increased ruling party support, creating logical reinforcement.
• [has_country_flag](/wiki/trigger/has_country_flag): Used to check whether a legitimacy-altering event has already fired, preventing duplicate legitimacy rewards within the same sequence.

Common Pitfalls

1. Out-of-range values silently clamp without error: The game enforces a 0–100 range; if stacked effects exceed this limit (e.g., multiple additions totaling over 100), the game silently clamps rather than throw an error. New modders often assume the effect failed when it actually hit the ceiling.
2. Effect does nothing under non-monarchic/imperial governments: add_legitimacy only functions on government types with legitimacy mechanics. If the target country's current government lacks this system, the command is silently ignored. Always verify the target nation's government type during debugging.