Unrest in a province causes a variety of effects, which are detrimental in most situations. In particular, province Income and Resources are reduced.

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

Unrest is modified through random events, various rituals, blood hunting, pillaging, patrolling, 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 diminishes in three sub-steps during Turn Order Step 36:

• Subtract (1+(1 for each full 10 PD)+(Dominion/2, round up)).
• Subtract ((unrest/(10-Order), round down)
• Patrol

Hostile Dominion may add unrest in the first sub-step.

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.