Unrest in a province causes a variety of effects, which are detrimental in most situations. In particular, province income and resources are reduced:

Income is divided by 1 + (unrest*0.02).

Resources are multiplied by 100/(unrest+100).

Additionally, units cannot be recruited if a province has over 100 unrest.

Unrest is modified through random events, various rituals, blood hunting, pillaging, spies instilling uprisings, units with the cause or reduces unrest abilities, and battles in the province. Certain magic sites also affect unrest: those which increase it are often blood sites, while those that reduce it tend to be holy sites. Additionally, some global enchantments such as Fata Morgana and Dark Skies affect unrest globally.

Unrest reduces "naturally" on its own, which occurs before patrolling:

• First, unrest falls by 1 + province defence unrest reduction + ceiling(friendly dominion score / 2). If the dominion in the province is hostile, it is treated as a negative dominion score.
• The remaining unrest is divided by floor(10+order).

Units with chaos power can additionally use 15 points of unrest in place of a point of turmoil for the purposes of calculating their bonuses.