Recently I have seen two instances of morale manipulation that are perfectly legal by the rules but which give unintended (I'm sure) results:
1. A country declared war on almost every country in the game on day 1 just to give everyone but his friends a 5% morale hit. He never made any attacks, apparently didn't move any units, but kept logging in to the game to preserve the war status with everyone. This lasted until his country was obliterated by several nearby who didn't like the tactic.
2. Two countries who were beat convinced others to transfer them a territory across the world, secure within an opposing coalition so that their conqueror would never be able to eliminate the 5% morale penalty for still being at war with them. Again, they log in every day to preserve the morale hit on their erstwhile enemy.
I have seen debate over the merits of declaring war in advance of conflict vs surprise attack, but this is an obvious manipulation of the war declaration mechanic, both in it's initiation and continuation past reason. Perhaps a fix would be for the 5% war penalty to not begin with war declaration but instead with the commencement of actual combat. Similarly, if a certain amount of time passed without combat the 5% penalty should stop until/if combat resumes. This would require disconnecting the morale penalty from the political status and basing it instead on combat.
1. A country declared war on almost every country in the game on day 1 just to give everyone but his friends a 5% morale hit. He never made any attacks, apparently didn't move any units, but kept logging in to the game to preserve the war status with everyone. This lasted until his country was obliterated by several nearby who didn't like the tactic.
2. Two countries who were beat convinced others to transfer them a territory across the world, secure within an opposing coalition so that their conqueror would never be able to eliminate the 5% morale penalty for still being at war with them. Again, they log in every day to preserve the morale hit on their erstwhile enemy.
I have seen debate over the merits of declaring war in advance of conflict vs surprise attack, but this is an obvious manipulation of the war declaration mechanic, both in it's initiation and continuation past reason. Perhaps a fix would be for the 5% war penalty to not begin with war declaration but instead with the commencement of actual combat. Similarly, if a certain amount of time passed without combat the 5% penalty should stop until/if combat resumes. This would require disconnecting the morale penalty from the political status and basing it instead on combat.