How To Gain Favors in Europa Universalis IV

In EU4, there are four ways to gain favors from other nations:

1. Passively accruing favors with an alliance
2. Using the “Curry Favors” diplomatic action
3. Actively participating in an ally’s war
4. Awarding provinces in a peace deal

Note: Favors with non-allied nations decays by a fixed percent per month. If you’re at war with them, all favors are instantly erased.

Method 1: Maintaining an Alliance

By default, you automatically gain favors from your allies each month.

The amount is based on your combined allied strength and your contributed portion to that total.

Having a stronger military than your ally means you’ll accrue more monthly favors. This simulates the real-life concept of a superpower’s ability to influence weaker nations more frequently.

Method 2: Currying Favors

This is the simplest and most reliable way of gaining favors. You’ll need a diplomat to actively generate favors with your target.

To do this:

1. Open the Diplomacy tab of your target
2. Click Influence actions
3. Select Curry Favors

The amount gained depends on your diplomatic reputation, the target’s opinion of you, and your relative military strength.

Method 3: Helping an Ally in War

You gain favors after helping an ally in a defensive or offensive war. The base amount earned is 20 favors — modified by your war contribution.

Winning their war doesn’t matter.

As long as you’ve made an effort toward their cause, you’ll still gain favors from them.

You can increase your war contribution by occupying/liberating forts and fighting battles.

Note: For some nebulous reason, you can get more war contribution from battles by losing soldiers.

Method 4: Granting Provinces after a War

When negotiating peace, you can earn favors from either of these two terms:

1. Returning cores – This can also apply to nations who didn’t join the war or even those who aren’t allied to you.
2. Awarding a province to a participant in the war – If your ally hasn’t occupied any province that they can core, you’ll first need to occupy one. You then give them control of the occupied province via the “Transfer Occupation” button in the Province UI. This province can now be selected during the peace deals.

The favors gained here depend on your ally’s war contribution and the war score cost of the provinces that were given.

Note: You won’t gain as many favors if you had promised land to your ally at the onset of the war. You’ll actually lose trust if you don’t fulfill this promise.