Why does my prestige keep plummeting?

[gman551]

I play as either Portugal or England and I mostly stay out of wars, but it seems unless Im winning wars which becomes pretty hard in Europe as the game goes on my prestige just keeps plummeting into the negatives!

Even though I start colonizing I thought that would help, its killing my country, so what;s the deal? It is incredibly stupid if the only real way to keep prestige above zero is to win wars constantly

 

[Nunn45]

Hover over your prestige to see if you have any factors acting negativly on your prestige, other then that their are other situations that can lower prestige such as refusing a call to arms.

 

[Contiguous]

It decays naturally on it's own, but there are certain things that make it decay faster, like uncontested cores and excommunication. If you want to increase it, do what I do - royal marriage spam with all 'likely' and above countries. You can also hire philosophers or adopt the Patron of the Arts NI.

 

[Caewil]

You could try crushing some asian/native american countries for prestige.

 

[Dustman]

Several decisions can help as well, like Glided Iconography for Catholics/Orthodox from Church Attendance Duty, or Judiciary Act from higher Government tech. Constitutional Monarchy reduces prestige decay.

Normally, prestige decays at 5% annually. But these 5% are of your CURRENT total, meaning every 1% increase in prestige generation can be used to stabilize it in 20% increments. For example, you have Statues of Restrains of Appeal and Trading in Fur, giving 2% annual growth. In a war you got good deal and now your prestige is 45%. It will decay monthly, but will stabilize at ~40% in few years.

Constitutional Monarchy, who is Papal Controller with 3 controlled cardinals, have Trading in Fur and Conquest of Jerusalem, and one uncontested claim, has 3.3% annual growth and 3.3% annual decay, effectively staying at 100% (when it gets there).

 

[cywang86]

If it's 'plummeting' instead of slowly going to 0, you probably missed a call to arms or two from your allies.

There's also the case where you have unclaimed core provinces, probably still in the hands of France, either grab those lands by beating France, or throw the cores away in a concede defeat peace deal.