Conflicting Wargoals
The HRE asked me to join in their war. I refused and then looked at who they were attacking and I noticed there were trying to claim an independent county somewhere in the Alps (forget the name). So I thought, why not. I found a claimant for the county, invited him to court, gave him a spare city I had and declared war on the same county myself. This made HRE hostile to me because of conflicting wargoals. Fair enough. We ended up fighting each other instead of the county (I eventually snuck one stack in to seige the county and used another to run interference and stop HRE from doing the same).
Later, I noticed BE was waging a holy war against an independent pagan country somewhere around Hungry. So, again, I thought why not and declared my own holy war against the same. But in this case, BE did not become hostile and we both laid siege to the same county (BE occupied 2 of 4 holdings, I took the other 2, but BE ended up winning the war - they had a head start).
So why did I get the hostile due to conflicting war goals in the first case, but not in the second? How can I tell when being opportunist and trying to declare war on a county already at war if I'm going to set off a massive conflict with another neighbor?
Best Answer
It's pretty straight forward.
In the first case, you declare war on "County", because you have a claim to press. As does the HRE. Your specific war goal is that you both want the county for yourself. Of course, only one of you can achieve that goal, so naturally there is a conflict here. Had you joined their war, you would have fought for their cause – regardless of your claim/claimants in your court.
In the second case, both you and the Byzantine Empire agreed that "Country" needed to be taught a serious lesson. Your war goals are not at conflict, thus you remain neutral/friendly to eachother, as you are working towards the same end.
Simply put, if you are declaring war for a title, you will be hostile to anyone with an ongoing dispute for that title. Should someone else win their dispute and achieve their war goal, all other disputes for that title will automatically end.
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