Welcome to the 5th devdiary for March of the Eagles! Today we will lay the cards on the table and talk about the essence of the game. War, peace, occupation and sieges. All that makes life in a Paradox Development Studio game worth living!War is what drives March of the Eagles forward. You will need to fight wars and battle for the dominance of Europe, whether you declare war to attack another country or are simply defending yourself from an attack. Because March of the Eagles starts with Europe already on a knife's edge and full of tense relations, you will not need a Casus Belli (a just reason for the war) in order to open hostilities. You can declare war on almost any other country. This will inevitably make things very dangerous and force you to adapt to quickly shifting military and diplomatic situations. Coalition members cannot declare war on each other, and vassal states can only declare war on their master state to break the vassal relationship. But otherwise, anything you can see, you can attack.Wars of this era were very costly, both in gold and men, and it might come to a point where one party must sue for peace in order to avoid total destruction or bankruptcy. Any time during your war with another country, you can try to sue for peace. But there are no guarantees that your opponent will agree to peace terms that work in your favor. They will evaluate your offer based on their understanding of how the war is going and their own likelihood of meeting triumph or disaster.Annex your enemies' provinces –If you have won a complete victory over your opponent, you can annex them outright, bringing all of their provinces into your empire.If adding all of your enemy's provinces to your empire is a bit too much for you to swallow at once, you can just demand tribute from your defeated foe. If you do demand tribute from your enemy, you can make it cede specific provinces you want, revoke claims on provinces that it considers its cores, remove vassal nations from its sphere of influence, release nations from its own territory, annul treaties with rival states, force it to become your vassal or, if you are generous, merely concede defeat.A white peace means that neither side claims victory, therefore territory and prestige will remain unchanged. If it looks like neither side can force the other side to its knees, but the war looks like it might drag on, this is often a good path to take.If you are losing the war, however, and the other country won't accept a white peace that restores everything to how it was before the battles started, - you can offer to pay tribute. It does hurt, because you will have to give up the same sorts of things that you would demand of a defeated enemy - territory, claims, vassals, diplomatic relationships or even your own independence. But if you think that you can withstand a little humiliation now to preserve the chance to come back later, it might be worth the short term pain.You can occupy any province by walking through it, but cities and forts require sieges. Occupation is shown by stripes of occupier on both the terrain map mode and the political map mode. Unoccupied forts will take back adjacent territory automatically if there is no enemy present to hold it. In this way, an unoccupied fort will remove the “occupied” status from its own province and also neighboring ones inside the same country. This reflects the importance of forts and similar strongholds in maintaining control over a territory.This ability can easily destroy supply lines if an intruding army fails to occupy all forts along its path. Fortunately, there's a button in the unit interface that lets you split off a small part of your army to guard the supply linesSieges in March of the Eagles work very similar to those in Europa Universalis III. The besieging forces gets a chance to advance the siege at regular time intervals, depending on the defensive power of the enemy, whether the fort is coastal and not under naval blockade and other factors. Forts of higher level are naturally harder to besiege and larger armies are of course better at laying siege.Artillery gives a bonus to the attacker and can cause breaches in the fort walls. Certain cities, like Gibraltar, have special island fortresses that can withstand sieges for years and cannot be assaulted unless the fort is under a naval blockade.If you choose to assault the fort, the attackers fight any troops and garrison in the fort in a normal combat. There are two special terrains used for assault, one used when the fort has suffered a breach in its walls and one when there is no breach. Assaults are risky business without a breach, and cavalry is especially bad during assaults in all conditions. With no breach, the attacking forces will take even more damage and the defenders will be safer, but even a breach is no guarantee of success if you don't have the manpower to overcome the enemy's strong position. But assaults are faster than waiting out a siege, so sometimes you may make the calculation that it is worth the losses.Certain units are designated as garrison units. They consist of ordinary brigades, but cannot be moved from the fort and are stationed there only to strengthen the fort and make it less vulnerable to sieges and assaults.That´s all for now, stay patient until next week when we delve deep into the military.Cheers!ps.Check out the March of the Eagles interview at GRTV: