Ok, I've ruled out the mod as the cause. I reinstalled the game, after deleting local content in Steam and renaming both the steam directory for ETW and the directory in the users directory (so that anything in either should now not be visible to ETW unless it does a full hard drive search). I started up an Austrian campaign, and again played the first few turns, same plan as before. Again I get nailed by the -50 dishonoring treaty thing after DoWing Venice.

Repro steps: Start Austrian campaign in normal difficulty level. Get trade agreements with all land-based trade partners you can, and trade with England. Poland should counter-offer you for a military alliance. Move the army near Vienna to vienna, and build 6 line infantry over the next two turns. Then move the entire Vienna army towards Vienna and attack. As a result of the Vienna DoW, the Italian states will declare war on you. You might have to click turn or fight a battle for the diplomacy screen to get updated (an unfixed bug), but rest assured, most of the major nations will have a -50 hit.

It seems that ETW still has some bugs in the diplomacy system (or at least needs to tell us *why* these massive penalties get slapped on you).

It seems that unless you declare war on Venice at turn 1, you might as well not bother. It just isn't worth the diplomacy hit, especially since you can no longer get a +100 bonus for a state gift (which was useful in 1.3 to counter some of the mysterious massive diplo hits you would get then too).

Anyone else got a big "dishonoring treaty" on their diplomacy screen? Or am I the only unlucky one?