effect · set_country_leader_ideology

Hands-On Usage

set_country_leader_ideology is commonly used in national focus trees or events to dynamically shift the ruling leader's sub-ideology. For example, you might convert a leader initially aligned with the "Nationalism" faction to "Fascism" to match the story progression of political realignment. It's also frequently employed in civil war or coup events to instantly refresh the leader's ideological stance, ensuring both AI and player diplomatic behavior aligns with the new ideology.

# In focus completion effects, switch the current leader's ideology to fascism
focus = {
    id = MY_FASCIST_COUP
    ...
    completion_reward = {
        set_country_leader_ideology = fascism_ideology
    }
}

Synergy

• [has_country_leader_ideology](/wiki/trigger/has_country_leader_ideology): Check the current leader's ideology before executing the switch to avoid redundant triggers or logical conflicts.
• [add_popularity](/wiki/effect/add_popularity): After switching the leader's ideology, you typically need to simultaneously boost support for the corresponding ideology to maintain political consistency.
• [add_country_leader_trait](/wiki/effect/add_country_leader_trait): Following an ideology change, it's often necessary to add or replace character traits that align with the new political stance to strengthen narrative coherence.
• [country_event](/wiki/effect/country_event): Trigger a follow-up event after the ideology switch so players perceive the cascading effects of political transformation.

Common Pitfalls

1. The target is the "active leader," not all characters: This command only affects the currently ruling state leader. If no active leader exists at that moment (e.g., the character hasn't been created via create_country_leader or activated by a focus), the command silently fails without throwing an error or producing any effect—newcomers often mistakenly believe this is a script bug.
2. The ideology token must exactly match the ideologies definition: The value you provide must be a sub-ideology token defined in common/ideologies/ (such as fascism_ideology), not an ideology group name (such as fascism). Misspelling the name won't raise an error either, but the switch won't take effect.