Netherlands declares independence - how do I tell them NO? (2024)

I'm playing as France and have some Dutch possessions. They decide that they don't like being French after all and want their own country. So much so that they fire "Netherlands declares Independence". There is skating on the canals and much herring consumed.

However, I want that they remain French citizens so I send in the troops and fisticuffs ensue. How do I actually say "Independence has been denied!"?
It would appear that however I say "No" and however much I bash them, they still become independent.

Any ideas?

Background:
it is 1505 and the age of discovery will end in 68 months
I am fighting in one war: "Dutch war for Independence, Started 1502"
I have occupied all Dutch territory and destroyed all their armies (they do have ships). They have no allies in the war (or otherwise).
I have 100% warscore and the Netherlands has declared "Unconditional Surrender".

I only had to deal with this event chain once (in a Burgundy -> Lotharingia campaign). Supressing the rebels can be painful cause they get huge numbers but the price you pay for losing the low countries is steep cause it's top tier land. I fortunately didn't get the conditions that make them declare independence, which is as follows:

If you have to fight the war regardless, I -think- that peacing them out under any conditions would make them your subject since it's an independence war. But this is what I found from a quick google search, this should be the way to do it since vassalizing/taking provinces are not an option in the peace deal. If you happen to have gone with administrative and influence ideas (my opening ideas of choice for France) you can probably cope with having to diplomatically annex the Netherlands as your vassal.

But the ideal situation besides just dealing with the revolt without triggering independence is to prevent the disaster altogether. There's a couple ways to go about it, but the most convenient one would be to move your capital to the Low Countries (preferably to a province in the English Channel node and not in Champagne). This is also useful for your trade situation, you should consider going from some Dutch possessions to taking it all.

Thanks everyone, it's looking like there is no real solution. ie. if the Netherlands declare this independence war, then they WILL become independent, even if they lose the war. Further, if you (as defender) want to reestablish ownership over any of the provinces you had before the war started, you're going to pay a high price in AE.

A shame, and even if it is working as intended. it is frustrating. Anyway, thanks for the suggestions - I've now reloaded an old save (ten years prior!) and have moved my capital to a Dutch province. Fingers crossed!

@nobodyinparticular the biggest problem is that you can't subjegate them in independence war and you can't take all provinces because of development.
If vassal, junior partner or colonial nation loses independence war it stays subject. When Netherlands loses war they lose provinces but remain independent, just smaller.

I don't like that autonomy needs to be at least 90, this makes problem if you get burgundian inheritance as nation with capital in eastern europe and you want TC dutch provinces. I would change it to autonomy needs to be over 90. Small difference that would help a lot

The fact that The Netherlands declared independence means that you either never moved your capitol to the Lowlands, never stated those provinces and reduced the local autonomy below 90% or the Dutch revolts event happened and you granted them local autonomy instead of fighting the rebels?

There are 2 types of independence in the game. 1 where a subject PU, colonial nation or vassal declares independence and if the overlord wins they remain as a subject. The other independence war is vs nations that don't currently exist and are spawned by event (such as the Netherlands one) and this event will unless fully annexed make that nation independent.

The first event the Dutch revolts will always happen if you have not culture converted the provinces to your culture or moved capitol there, this event will show as a disaster and you will know when it fires. The event will give you a stab hit and spawn 2 stacks of 20k+ rebels that you need to move your troops there ready to put them down as soon as they spawn and you will have random rebel events for the next 20 years where they demand local autonomy or will spawn rebels. Just keep 1 stack of troops nearby and spawn the rebels every time one of the events appear to kill them off.

The second event The Netherlands declares independence will always fire if you either have 5 provinces or more with over 90% local autonomy or you just keep granting them local autonomy via the events. This event can fire while you are still in the Dutch revolts disaster if the autonomy of 5 or more provinces goes over 90%.

I might be wrong on some of this. If so someone correct me?

Richard-monagha said:

The fact that The Netherlands declared independence means that you either never moved your capitol to the Lowlands, never stated those provinces and reduced the local autonomy below 90% or the Dutch revolts event happened and you granted them local autonomy instead of fighting the rebels?

Click to expand...

The simplest way to have provinces with 90% autonomy
- conquering new provinces - before coring it will be territory so it will have 90% autonomy - Netherlands declares independence
- integrating subject - it can be vassal or just integration of junior partner on monarch death - also you don't have time to state because the Netherlands will declare independence immediately

There should be some other way to avoid this other than moving capital. There are some reasons you may want to have capital in another region and sometimes there won't be enough time to culture convert e.g. because of separatism

Thanks again all - my actual question was "how do I crush the independence movement out of existence once it fires?" as opposed to "how do I not be here?"

The answer to the first appears to be that I cannot (though I see that at least one person disagrees!).

There seem to be a number of answers to the second and I thank you all for your thoughts on this. I have now gone back in time by ten years and moved my capital to the Netherlands. It is now 1513, a decade after the question was first put and there has been no rebellion, so I'll continue merrily from here.

InvisibleBison said:

The best solution is to either mod out the disaster or just use the console to bypass it. There's no need to contort your gameplay experience to accommodate incorrect design decisions.

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Except that this isn't possible in ironman/achievement runs.

zinho said:

Thanks again all - my actual question was "how do I crush the independence movement out of existence once it fires?" as opposed to "how do I not be here?"

The answer to the first appears to be that I cannot (though I see that at least one person disagrees!).

There seem to be a number of answers to the second and I thank you all for your thoughts on this. I have now gone back in time by ten years and moved my capital to the Netherlands. It is now 1513, a decade after the question was first put and there has been no rebellion, so I'll continue merrily from here.

Click to expand...

Sollutions describe how to avoid Dutch revlot disatser completly.

You may trigger this disaster without meeting conditions for Netherlands declare independence event, after that you need to wait 20 years until disaster ends.
During disaster every few months there will be event when you can give autonomy to the province or spawn rebels. If you give autonomy to at least 5 provinces or rebels occupy 5 provinces Netherlands will declare independence but you can defeat rebels earlier, one strong army nearby + few forts will help with that

If you fulfil conditions for Netherlands Declare Independence event it's too late

I wonder if it might make sense to change the CB the war uses so it's like the custom CB England and France use for the Surrender of Maine.

The Netherlands see it as an independence war, and the original owner of the land sees it as a reconquest war, where upon independence the original owner loses any cores they had on the Netherlands.

Edit: This would also be useful for event revolters such as Habsan or Zulu.

Nwaij said:

Except that this isn't possible in ironman/achievement runs.

Click to expand...

Which is why I think it's a bad idea to play ironman.

zinho said:

I'm playing as France and have some Dutch possessions. They decide that they don't like being French after all and want their own country. So much so that they fire "Netherlands declares Independence". There is skating on the canals and much herring consumed.

However, I want that they remain French citizens so I send in the troops and fisticuffs ensue. How do I actually say "Independence has been denied!"?
It would appear that however I say "No" and however much I bash them, they still become independent.

Any ideas?

Background:
it is 1505 and the age of discovery will end in 68 months
I am fighting in one war: "Dutch war for Independence, Started 1502"
I have occupied all Dutch territory and destroyed all their armies (they do have ships). They have no allies in the war (or otherwise).
I have 100% warscore and the Netherlands has declared "Unconditional Surrender".

Click to expand...

Yes, I am correct.

While you will not avoid the preconditions, if all of the provinces are an accepted culture, state religion, and you are not emperor (with some other stuff), there can be no disaster progress.

To be safe, stamp out centers of reformation quickly.

Much easier to accept dutch and flemish than convert everything and move capital.

@agonistes and how can you be sure you will destroy all centers before one of them converts one of your provinces? There is always some risk - e.g. center of reformation spawns in the junior partner of another nation. You can't force religion on that nation, when you conquer the center you can't convert because of religious zeal. You would need multiple wars and it would take time or you have to truce break in the HRE.

Conquering and culture converting also may not work - after conquering there is 30 years of separatism when you can't change culture. Changing culture in 20 dev province will take 200 months. Add to this 36 months of coring and this means you need to conquer the province 50 years before reformation starts.

zinho said:

I am fighting in one war: "Dutch war for Independence, Started 1502"

Click to expand...

according to this he would need to conquer all before 1452