Ally conquered but no call to arms?

[Blazingflame]

Hi, I'm a newbie and something just happened in a game which I can't quite explain, I've tried searching for an answer to no avail. Basically I'm France and am allied to the Native American nation Isleta, which borders my colonial nation of Texas. Isleta borders Zuni, which is my vassal. I got distracted by a European war that went badly, then after it's over I look back at North America and to my shock the colonial nation Portuguese Mexico has annexed all of Isleta, and even more annoying Portuguese colonies now surround Zuni. So my plan to eventually peacefully vassalize and diplo-annex Isleta, at which point Texas would border Zuni and I could then diplo-annex Zuni is now ruined.

I can tell Portuguese Mexico conquered Isleta rather than diplo-annexing it themselves because every one of the formerly Isleta provinces has devastation. What I can't quite figure out is why I didn't get a defensive call to arms - isn't that supposed to be automatic? Is it maybe because it was only Portuguese Mexico, and not Portugal, that declared war, as I know that in some cases a colonial nation can declare war on a Native American nation without its overlord getting involved? Does that maybe also not trigger a defensive call to arms? And Portugal wasn't involved in that European war I mentioned, on either side, so it isn't that, I don't see why I didn't get a defensive call to arms. It's an Ironman game so I don't have previous saves to look at to try and work out what happened. Thanks in advance.

 

[Guibou]

Maybe Isleta declared an offensive war on Port-mexico and lost badly. Sometimes they declare because they have 20k unit but their technology is really laking so they lose the the colony 5k army.

Even if Isleta declared on the colony, and Portugal wasn't called in the war, Portugal can still get in the war of his colonies with the call for peace mechanic, might have turn the tide.

Check the province history to check what year the war happened, then go in the log box. rafinate search with only those 2 nations as ''favorite'', you might be able to scroll back to the war declaration.

 

[Blazingflame]

Yeah maybe that's how it happened, but if so that was a daft thing for Isleta to do as Portugal's colonies collectively are huge, but maybe it declared war on one of Portugal's colonies and only took into account the military of that one colony. I had forgotten about the province history, so checked that and it confirmed that some of the provinces had been occupied by Portugal proper, not just her colony, confirming Portugal was in the war, thanks for the tip! Unfortunately the log box is no use, as I had saved and quit after this happened and the log box seems to only record messages from the current session.

 

[MK1980]

perhaps the native country was allied to another local country and the colony declared war on that other country. so your ally was called into that war as defensive ally, but not as a co-belligerent.

you can still take lands from a war ally even if they aren't co-belligerent - it's just more exepensive.

in fact, when i play a colonizer and start conquering new world provinces, it's quite common to separate peace their allies and annex as much land as allowed. that behavior can quickly end in a coalition war if you pull that off in europe or india for example, but who cares about coaltions of native tribes that are 10 tech levels behind and can be snuffed out with no effort

 

[Blazingflame]

perhaps the native country was allied to another local country and the colony declared war on that other country. so your ally was called into that war as defensive ally, but not as a co-belligerent.

you can still take lands from a war ally even if they aren't co-belligerent - it's just more exepensive.

Yeah that makes sense, that's probably what happened - I'll have to avoid getting distracted by one war and keep an eye on all my interests in future! Thanks for the advice!