effect · remove_ideas

Hands-On Usage

remove_ideas is commonly used in events or decisions to revoke a national idea/spirit attached to a focus, such as removing a wartime mobilization idea after war ends, or removing a sanctions idea after successful diplomatic negotiation. Below is a typical event option example:

option = {
    name = my_event.1.a
    # War ends, remove wartime mobilization spirit
    remove_ideas = war_mobilization_idea
    add_stability = 0.05
}

To remove multiple ideas at once, pass them as a list:

remove_ideas = {
    war_mobilization_idea
    economic_crisis_idea
}

Synergy

• [add_ideas](/wiki/effect/add_ideas) — Remove an old idea and immediately replace it with a new one, implementing logic for idea "upgrades" or "switches"; this is the most common pairing pattern.
• [add_stability](/wiki/effect/add_stability) / [add_political_power](/wiki/effect/add_political_power) — After removing negative ideas, resource compensation is often applied to simulate the benefits of policy removal.
• [has_country_flag](/wiki/trigger/has_country_flag) — Use a flag check before executing remove_ideas to verify whether the idea was added by a specific process, avoiding script errors or logic confusion when the idea doesn't exist.
• [amount_taken_ideas](/wiki/trigger/amount_taken_ideas) — Used in trigger conditions to check the current number of ideas held, determining whether batch removal is needed; commonly seen when cleaning up accumulated temporary buff/debuff ideas.

Common Pitfalls

1. Removing a non-existent idea produces no error but silently fails logically: If the target country doesn't actually have that idea, the game won't throw an error, making it difficult to detect during debugging that "the removal didn't actually happen"; it's recommended to use a protective check with the has_idea trigger (or related flags) before execution.
2. Confusing ideas with advisors: Advisors are a special type of idea at the script level, but some advisors activated via activate_advisor require deactivate_advisor rather than remove_ideas to be removed; using remove_ideas directly on advisor-type ideas may cause slot residue or UI anomalies.