Wiki

effect · hold_election

Definition

  • Supported scope:COUNTRY
  • Supported target:THIS, ROOT, PREV, FROM, OWNER, CONTROLLER, OCCUPIED, CAPITAL

Description

Immediately holds an election in the target country

Hands-On Notes

Hands-on notes are AI-generated and checked against the vanilla command vocabulary — treat them as a starting point, not authoritative reference. The definition above is the game's own documentation.

Hands-On Usage

hold_election is commonly used in political events for democratic nations to simulate periodic elections or snap election scenarios—for example, triggering an immediate election to change the ruling party after a player completes a focus. It is also suitable for scripted moments such as civil war conclusion or puppet independence, allowing forced elections to legitimize the new regime.

# Immediately hold an election after a nation completes a focus
focus = {
    id = GER_hold_snap_election
    ...
    completion_reward = {
        hold_election = ROOT
    }
}

Synergy

  • [has_elections](/wiki/trigger/has_elections) — Use this trigger first to check whether the target nation has elections enabled, preventing logic errors from calling hold_election in non-democratic systems.
  • [add_popularity](/wiki/effect/add_popularity) — Adjust ideology support levels before the election so that results align with the intended narrative rather than being entirely random.
  • [add_political_power](/wiki/effect/add_political_power) — Elections often involve expenditure or gain of political capital; using these together simulates the political cost of elections.
  • [country_event](/wiki/effect/country_event) — Trigger follow-up events after an election to handle the branching outcomes of "who wins the election," forming a complete election event chain.

Common Pitfalls

  1. Calling on non-democratic regime nations: hold_election only has actual effect on nations with election systems enabled. If the target nation's current government form has elections disabled, the command will silently fail without error messages, leading newcomers to mistakenly believe the script is working correctly. Always use [has_elections](/wiki/trigger/has_elections) as a prerequisite check.
  2. Misusing scope levels: This effect operates on COUNTRY scope; if written directly under STATE or CHARACTER scope without switching back to country scope, the game will ignore the command or report a script error. Always verify that the current execution block's scope is the target nation.