Warscore is the means of measuring whether a war is going in the favor of the aggressor or the defender. But the achieved warscore is also used as the means to "pay" for obtaining provinces when the war ends! The game maintains a warscore for each side in each individual war that is going on.
The scale ranges from +100% (a complete victory for the offending side) to −100% (complete victory for the defending side).
The Warscore is calculated using a number of different parameters:
- Number of occupied cities
- Battles won or lost, to some maximum (of ±40%?) in either direction, see How a battle affects warscore
- Blockaded ports
- Met war goals. A met war goal will cause warscore to gradually tick up for whichever side has met it, to a maximum value (of ±25%?) As the war goal is diametrical for both participants, as soon as it it met, the warscore goes up for the achiever and at the same time down for the side failing.
Warscore as payment
In Imperator: Rome, a party can conquer much more provinces that only the province the war was declared about.
For a province to be even eligible for annexation,
- its capital city must be occupied
- the province must be adjacent to a province already owned by the annexor
- the province upon which the war was declared on costs 25% less warscore
- in case the attacker has claims upon multiple provinces, he can still only to choose one province because of which he goes to war for
- provinces upon which the annexor has a claim, might cost less as well
Then the provinces price in warscore must be paid. The price is calculated by the provinces size (in cities) and its total inhabitants. The price may include other values as well, such as buildings, civilization level, etc.