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econ21
07-06-2005, 17:53
At the request of Morat, I am opening this thread to research into the causes of rebelliousness.

Among the factors I have heard mentioned are:
- town loyalty: on claim is that if loyalty is 100% or higher (and there is no unrest) there will be no rebels in the province
- unrest
- presence of the "fog of war": it is claimed that rebels spawn out of sight; having a wider field of vision (e.g. through watch towers) reduces the likelihood of rebels spawning.

Morat is also interested in what types of rebels are spawned.

Mongoose
07-06-2005, 18:36
Im my campaign with the SPQR mod, i noticed that having two forts in every province seemed to stop them completely.

In fact, it seemed to have more effect then having more units in the city...

In my experience, rebels appear randomly even if the city has a high happiness rating. The only thing that stops them is forts...

As for the type of units, simply look at descr_rebel_factions.txt.


rebel_type Brigantes //Britons
category peasant_revolt
chance 0
description Brigantes
unit barb peasant slave
unit barb peasant slave
unit barb infantry slave
unit barb infantry slave
unit barb infantry slave
unit barb infantry slave
unit barb chariot heavy slave
unit barbarian rebel general

rebel_type Trinovantes //Britons
category peasant_revolt
chance 0
description Trinovantes
unit barb peasant slave
unit barb peasant slave
unit barb infantry slave
unit barb infantry slave
unit barb infantry slave
unit barb infantry slave
unit barb chariot heavy slave
unit barbarian rebel general

rebel_type Suebi //Germans
category peasant_revolt
chance 3
description Suebi
unit barb infantry slave
unit barb infantry slave
unit barb peasant slave
unit barb peasant slave
unit barb fanatics slave
unit barb cavalry slave
unit barbarian rebel general

rebel_type Saxones //Germans
category peasant_revolt
chance 3
description Saxones
unit barb infantry slave
unit barb infantry slave
unit barb peasant slave
unit barb fanatics slave
unit barbarian rebel general

rebel_type Gepids //Germans
category peasant_revolt
chance 3
description Gepids
unit barb infantry slave
unit barb infantry slave
unit barb peasant slave
unit barb peasant slave
unit barb fanatics slave
unit barb cavalry slave
unit barbarian rebel general


Setting the units to 'barb peasant slave' will make them nothing but peasants.

Simetrical
07-07-2005, 02:37
I remember reading a dev statement that watchtowers didn't help against rebels, but forts did.

-Simetrical

locked_thread
07-07-2005, 22:43
1) Loyalty has no effect.
2) Fog of war has no effect.
3) Unrest appears to have no effect.
4) The "chance" parameter in descr_rebels.txt seems to have no effect.

Forts do seem to have an effect. But rebels still pop up even if you have 2 well-placed forts per province. I tried building a fort at every place I found rebels. Mostly they appeared on roads near borders. However, I saw repeated instances of rebels popping up in the narrow space between fort and city.

My current approach is to edit descr_rebels.txt to eliminate all rebel types other than peasants. With only peasants, they don't try to conquer my towns. This allows me to simply ignore rebels for the most part, though they still impose a massive trade hit. Also, peasant-only rebel stacks can be killed via auto-calc. Note that heirs of dead factions still appear in rebel stacks; this seems hardcoded in v1.2.

Krauser
07-08-2005, 00:26
Could difficulty have something to do with it too?

Playing on Very Hard/Very Hard they sprung up here and there but on Easy/Easy I only faced rebels a few times at the begginning. They still appeared around my borders but never inside.

Maybe it's just plain luck though.

Carth
07-08-2005, 00:28
Why are people trying to remove rebels? I always thought they were good practice, and they've never been a threat. I like to take the smallest army I can against them and see if I can win, and then your units get experience and your general gets command stars.

locked_thread
07-08-2005, 00:44
It's no big deal when you have 5 cities. But when you get around 40 cities you can spend nearly all your time fighting rebels. It's incredibly boring, and campaigns take forever to finish.

I normally play on Hard/Normal, but I'm currently playing on Normal/Normal. I'm still experiencing hordes of self regenerating rebel stacks.

Edit: And why fight rebels? They massively cut into your economy. In v1.2, they constantly move around, lay ambushes, and even lay seige to your towns. In one campaign I commited several stacks to actively hunt down rebels; yet I would frequently find one or even two(!) of my cities beseiged.

Carth
07-08-2005, 01:04
Oh, well I've not got very far in the game so far. I imagine it would be tedious if I had a lot more territory to defend and there were one or two rebels appearing in every province. I'll probably want to disable it then too.

I don't know about cutting into my economy, so far I haven't spent any more money to defend against them. Granted I lost a few troops, but not many. For example there was a unit of hastati and some other random troop like peasants or town militia and I just took my general's bodyguard unit and attacked. Because they were slow I attacked (for the charge bonus) and then retreated, again and again. I lost one man, because he got a bit stuck in the hastati after a charge.

locked_thread
07-08-2005, 02:34
Rebels cut your economy by blocking trade routes. You can see the effect by comparing the city's economy before and after killing a nearby rebel stack. I once saw a city's trade leap by 900d after I killed nearby rebels.

Krauser
07-08-2005, 05:09
It's no big deal when you have 5 cities. But when you get around 40 cities you can spend nearly all your time fighting rebels. It's incredibly boring, and campaigns take forever to finish.

I normally play on Hard/Normal, but I'm currently playing on Normal/Normal. I'm still experiencing hordes of self regenerating rebel stacks.

Edit: And why fight rebels? They massively cut into your economy. In v1.2, they constantly move around, lay ambushes, and even lay seige to your towns. In one campaign I commited several stacks to actively hunt down rebels; yet I would frequently find one or even two(!) of my cities beseiged.

But by then don't you have a large enough army to defend your settlements? I mean you only need a few large armies for conquest. You could spend the rest of your money on more troops to defend settlements. It will keep your treasury low and reduce corruption.

econ21
07-08-2005, 08:59
1) Loyalty has no effect.
2) Fog of war has no effect.
3) Unrest appears to have no effect.
4) The "chance" parameter in descr_rebels.txt seems to have no effect.

Interesting, but it would be useful to indicate the source/status of these statements. They could be hearsay - like the hypotheses I started this thread with. They could be casual observation from gaming experience. They could be inside information from game designers, like what Simmetrical aluded to. Or they could be observation from tests based on modding the game. It's be useful to know what kind of statements you're making, as it affects how much weight readers will attach to them.

One casual observation from my current Rome RTR campaign is that I've had no rebellions from a long time in Italy, the long pacified homeland, whereas the odd one or two are popping up on the fringes of my lands. There's virtually no fog of war in RTR Italy and I suspect no unrest now, so I am a little sceptical of claims (2) and (3).

player1
07-08-2005, 09:39
Well my experience (but no real proof) says that provinces that have green loyalty AND zero unrest will gain no rebels.

For example in my last Julii campaing I don't remember having any rebels in my central italian provinces (which had green loyalty and no unrest).

player1
07-08-2005, 09:41
Could difficulty have something to do with it too?

Playing on Very Hard/Very Hard they sprung up here and there but on Easy/Easy I only faced rebels a few times at the begginning. They still appeared around my borders but never inside.

Campaing difficulty level DOES have effect on rebels.
It's even stated in readme.

player1
07-08-2005, 09:43
Well my experience (but no real proof) says that provinces that have green loyalty AND zero unrest will gain no rebels.

For example in my last Julii campaing I don't remember having any rebels in my central italian provinces (which had green loyalty and no unrest).

But I do remember getting rebels in provinces with yellow loyaly, or in province that are green but have unrest levels.

Jambo
07-08-2005, 10:00
I'm almost certain unrest levels are related to rebel uprisings.

locked_thread
07-08-2005, 22:42
Interesting, but it would be useful to indicate the source/status of these statements.
Personal research....

1) Loyalty has no effect.
I've repeatedly seen rebels pop up in provinces with loyalty above 150%.

2) Fog of war has no effect.
I spent two very long campaigns researching this premise. I rigorously built watchtowers everywhere. Not one scrap of my land was invisible. Yet rebels would pop up, even on top of watchtowers.

3) Unrest appears to have no effect.
I've seen rebels appear in provinces with no unrest - provinces which were stable and happy for years. I specifically checked for unrest/devastation. It just doesn't seem related in the long run.

4) The "chance" parameter in descr_rebels.txt seems to have no effect.
I've personally experimented extensively with this field, it doesn't work the way one would expect.

Rebel popups are highly variable. After a few lucky years it's tempting to conclude that a particular solution is working. You might have to play another 50-100 years to see if the theory holds. On various occasions I myself subscribed to Fog-of-War theory, the Unrest theory, the Loyalty theory, etc. Yet each theory was blown away in turn, as additional gameplay disproved it.

Some more ideas I've tested:

5) family members prevent rebels?
No. I once had a rebel pop up 2 times in 4 turns right beside a city containing a family member. In both cases the rebels immediately lay seige to the city!

6) Troops in the countryside prevent rebels?
Not necessarily. I've repeatedly seen rebels pop up rather close to my big intimidating armies. I speculate that a grid of troops could surpress rebels by simply denying them places to pop up. This may work similar to planting forts, but cheaper.

Really, the only luck I've ever had was with extensive fortification of the "countryside". But it was time consuming and I couldn't figure out how to plug all the gaps in the dike.

econ21
07-08-2005, 23:32
Thanks, CyanCentaur. So from what we know so far, only the difficulty levels and fortifications both definitely affect rebellions (because CA have said so and it fits people's observations). The other possible factors seem disputed.

player1
07-09-2005, 00:48
1) Loyalty has no effect.
I've repeatedly seen rebels pop up in provinces with loyalty above 150%.

3) Unrest appears to have no effect.
I've seen rebels appear in provinces with no unrest - provinces which were stable and happy for years. I specifically checked for unrest/devastation. It just doesn't seem related in the long run.

And combo of these two?



EDIT:
Make notice that some province could look fair and safe (green loyalty, plu no unrest), but then comes the governor with trait that add jus +1unrest and makes rebellions problem again.

locked_thread
07-09-2005, 02:41
And combo of these two?
Yes, rebels even pop up in provinces with no unrest and very high loyalty.

Other theories I've discarded:
- squalor
- cultural unhappiness
- duration of control
- presence of enemy spies
- distance to capital
- presence/absence of specific city improvements
- recent battles in the area
- death of faction leader
- influence rating of faction leader
- influence rating of city governor
- transition between city sizes
- trade volume on local road network
- city population
- city growth rate
- rate at which troops are trained.
- size of total city garrison
- size of nearby friendly armies
- size of nearby hostile armies

Yes, I've been studying this problem for some time...

Given the extensive and redundant overcomplication of other game features (ex VnVs), it wouldn't surprise me if the code references 10 or more hidden triggers for rebel popups.

Or rebel popups could be purely random, hard as that may be to accept.

Big-T
07-09-2005, 05:00
Yes, rebels even pop up in provinces with no unrest and very high loyalty.

Other theories I've discarded:
- squalor
- cultural unhappiness
- duration of control
- presence of enemy spies
- distance to capital
- presence/absence of specific city improvements
- recent battles in the area
- death of faction leader
- influence rating of faction leader
- influence rating of city governor
- transition between city sizes
- trade volume on local road network
- city population
- city growth rate
- rate at which troops are trained.
- size of total city garrison
- size of nearby friendly armies
- size of nearby hostile armies

Yes, I've been studying this problem for some time...

Given the extensive and redundant overcomplication of other game features (ex VnVs), it wouldn't surprise me if the code references 10 or more hidden triggers for rebel popups.

Or rebel popups could be purely random, hard as that may be to accept.


Wow, that's quite a list!

If I may add my .02, I recently noticed an increase in rebel activity when I started turning down a bunch of suitors. (Normal/Normal, v1.2) I wish I could remember where, but I seem to recall reading in a guide or readme that when they are turned down the potential suitors "become" rebels. The meaning I understood when reading it was that it significantly increases the chance for a rebel horde to pop up in that area on that next turn.

Anyone else notice this??

-T

Oaty
07-09-2005, 11:05
From my observations, rebels seem to be like bunny rabbits. If you don't supress the rebels in 1-2 turns the chances for more rebels seems to increase. I believe there is a factor in the game that takes into count how many rebels you have on your lands and if theres quite few rebel armies they will multiply quickly. As soon as you supress all rebel armies the rate of thier appearance seems to go down too.

Also the northlands seem to be a natural breeding ground for them. I rarely ever see rebels in Africa but quite often in the barbarian lands. Maybe the starting descr strat has a factor in there wether the land is of barbarian origin.

locked_thread
08-03-2005, 02:35
I think I finally discovered what triggers rebels/brigands: peace.

I recently played a Brutii campaign, tallying battles fought. I hunted every bandit I spotted, and tracked those battles in a separate column. To my surprise very few bandits appeared. When I quit the campaign, I controlled 40 cities; I had fought roughly 60 battles against factions, but only around 20 against bandits.

This seemed different from my experiences playing Julii and Gaul. Yet my Brutii had built not one single fort, and only a modest amount of watchtowers. Population happiness was mediocre at best; I even enslaved entire populations.

The campaign was characterized by lots of hard fighting against Macedonians, etc, with few breaks in between. Late in the campaign I got bored storming walls and let starvation do the work. Bandit popups increased during that period. Coincidence?

Then I started an Egyptian campaign, and again I tallied battles. This time the bandits were back with a vengeance. Right away I fended off around 20 bandit stacks, one after the next. In about 20(?) turns I was hit with roughly the same number as the entire Brutii campaign. Then the Seleucids invaded... AND BANDITRY CAME TO A SCREECHING HALT. Woah! I was still fighting about 1 battle per turn, but against Seleucids instead of bandits.

I only noticed this pattern because I tallied every battle I fought. Previously I speculated that battles trigger banditry. The opposite is true. BATTLES SCARE BANDITS. The fewer faction battles you fight, the more bandits you will see.

Comments?

pezhetairoi
08-03-2005, 04:06
in the absence of any other possible reason I could possibly come up with that holds water, I can only say you've probably hit it on the head.

sunsmountain
08-06-2005, 18:42
I've noticed that closing up your border to your neighbours with forts has a side effect that rebels no longer appear. I've only tested this with the seleucids so far, simply building up their empire to level 5 before conquering.

But it may also have been due to the fact that i didnt conquer a lot of new settlements. Perhaps that has something to do with it, also consider the possibility that the influence of unrest doesnt have to be local: If one your towns suffers unrest, another can suffer the rebels caused by that.

Hope this helps.

gardibolt
08-09-2005, 20:02
I haven't done any rigorous testing so this is all anecdotal, but the campaign I'm playing would support CyanCentaur's theory. I've been fighting as the Julii with waves of attacking on three fronts, then consolidating my gains for 2-4 turns and then attacking again.

In turns where I consolidate and when I'm only besieging but not actually fighting battles, rebels appear in what were Gaul and Spain, and less frequently Asia Minor. In turns after I've been fighting and exterminating, the rebels don't tend to show up much (though I'm not sure I've ever had a turn with zero rebels, there are noticeably fewer). Maybe the game is trying to make sure you have someone to fight every turn?

locked_thread
08-09-2005, 22:24
I just finished my Egyptian campaign. (Well ok I quit after 47 territories). Throughout the campaign I continued to track battles vs bandits separately.

So far, my theory seems to hold up. During any lull in the fighting, bandits would pop up like crazy. But as long as the fighting was continuous, banditry was held to a minimum.

Bandits seemed to be randomly allocated across the entire map, without regard to happiness, governor, growth, buildings, etc. Thus large sprawling provinces tend to get extra bandits. I expect there's a bandit generation routine that gets called every turn. Bandits are randomly strewn across the map as a whole. Before placing a bandit, it notes the province containing the bandit's pending location. If the province's owner fought a battle this turn, the new bandit is cancelled. The bandit would also be cancelled if the location is illegal - ie any location on/adjacent to a unit. Since forts contain units, they block bandits over a 3x3 grid. This has practical significance only if your empire is small.

PS: I sincerely hope the developers correct this annoyance in future releases.... or maybe retitle the product line "Total Banditry"? ~;)

womble
08-23-2005, 15:22
Totally anecdotal, I'm afraid, but my experiences in a Julian Imperial campaign are contrary to CyanCentaur's theory of idleness/peace. I had a long period of peace with very infrequent Rebel appearances, which I put down to stringent policing efforts, having suspected that rebel begat rebel early in the campaign. I had *never* managed to eradicate all rebels, however, with at least one new one popping up far enough away from ny reaction force that I couldn't kill it before the next one spawned.

Then the Civil War started, with at least one battle or siege a turn, and the rebels started getting out of hand again... Partly because my reaction forces had been sent to the front, I guess, but they seemed to realise I was stretched and tried to take advantage.

locked_thread
08-23-2005, 22:43
"I had *never* managed to eradicate all rebels, however, with at least one new one popping up far enough away from ny reaction force that I couldn't kill it before the next one spawned."
-- Nonetheless I predict you would have zero if you fought a faction battle every turn.

"....at least one battle or siege a turn, and the rebels started getting out of hand again..."
-- Unfortunately, seiges have no effect on brigand popups. And, with a big empire, it only takes a single turn to spawn multiple brigands. After a couple turns of seige warfare, you can easily get 10 or 15 brigands, especially if you don't start hunting them down immediately.
Hmm, I should take more data and post it....

Ness
08-24-2005, 08:05
Hello.

I remember first campaign with 1.2 patch playing parthia, I been in peace with all faction and long time no see any rebels, later they start to popping out but I think AI faction declares war on my first then rebels emerge. Ok, now playing rtr with romans, conquer only Italy (without Sicily) in 60 years (120 turns) and only war with gauls. Rebels popping out every turn (all towns above 100% h., no fog on my territory). 3 roads connect my provinces with gauls provinces, 2 roads connect my provinces with Ilirians provinces. I going to build forts in roads who connecting my provinces with gauls and leave alone roads who connect to Ilirians. Now I going to test if I can stop or reduce frequency of rebels with forts.

SMZ
08-24-2005, 08:45
Just throwing in my input:

I have been playing a campaign marked by extremely rapid expansion. The year is 259 BC (21 or 22 turns I believe) and I have conquered 39 provinces and fought 70 some battles. Thus far I can only recall about three rebels popping up. I had attributed this to my lowering the Campaign Difficulty to Hard instead of Very Hard. This may however be viewed as supportive data for CyanCentaur's theory. I have not kept track of the number of rebels, but I am sure that it has been a bare handful. I am having a difficult time trying to think of more than three instances.

Hope this is of some assitance in your research. Pz.

Ness
08-30-2005, 15:55
Hello.

I want to ask 2 question. Is it ok for my to post here my research because I wos not a pearson who start this topic and I don't want to hijack this thread? Is it worth to investigate this matter now when ex is right by corner and who know what CA can change in BI?

econ21
08-30-2005, 16:23
Hello, Ness. Of course, people can post their research in any Ludus Magna thread, regardless of who started the thread. On your second question, I doubt we can alter BI at this stage. However, there are likely to be other bites at the cherry. BI may be patched. And apparent at least one more game is in the works, which will use the RTW engine. Besides, knowledge has an instrinsic value, at least to the curious! ~:cheers:

Magraev
09-07-2005, 07:26
One thing that must be a factor is the level of development in the cities. I've noticed few rebels in greece and italy, dropping away to nothing as the cities are developed.

As barbarians or conquerors rebels are a constant occupation.

locked_thread
09-07-2005, 22:34
I've noticed few rebels in greece and italy, dropping away to nothing as the cities are developed.
I've seen that effect too. But I've also seen the opposite effect: fully developed huge and happy cities with bandits popping up all over.

locked_thread
09-24-2005, 02:09
Well.... I'm not sure anymore.

I played campaigns as the Carthaginians and Greeks and my theory seemed to hold up. But my current Gaul campaign is utterly jam-packed with rebels in spite of frequent battles. Possibly the bandits are popping up en masse during those turns without fighting? But I can't tell since in v1.2 they are constantly moving or hiding.

I'm also seeing large bandit stacks led by family members... but from what family? No factions have been wiped out, and my own faction accepts every suitor/adoptee that's offered.

locked_thread
09-28-2005, 02:08
For those who have played campaigns lasting 300 turns or more: Do bandits ever stop popping up? (Assuming you actively hunt them down)

I'm wondering if each area has a "quota" of rebels that eventually runs dry.

GreatEmperor
09-30-2005, 20:03
I remember first campaign with 1.2 patch playing parthia, I been in peace with all faction and long time no see any rebels, later they start to popping out but I think AI faction declares war on my first then rebels emerge.
I think he's right. If you're at peace with all factions and there are no Rebel cities near, no rebels will pop up.

Uriel
10-03-2005, 15:47
I'm wondering if there are paticular rebel spawn points? There's a particular spot just west of the Julii capital where I've had rebels appear several times. Quite often it's been similar types of rebels. At least 3 or 4 times in one campaign I've had one unit of warband and one peasants appear in that spot.

Another possible trigger I'd suggest is a lack of governor, or maybe an inept governer, in the province. In my current Julii campaign I'm campaigning in Gaul, North Africa and Greece. So far I've taken got about 27 settlements. In North Africa and Greece every town has a governor and the only rebels I've seen are a former Macedonian family member that got caught outside their last settlement when I took it.

In Gaul and Northern Italy I only have one family member for every 2 or 3 settlements (sometimes less) and rebels are popping up all over the place.

locked_thread
10-03-2005, 22:50
I've seen the same rebel pattern with the opposite allocation of governors.
Former Gaul territories are perpetually infested with rebels, regardless of governorship.
North Africa simply receives a smaller share of rebels.

I saw a map somewhere that showed rebelliousness. At the time I didn't think it referred to bandit popups, but the correlation seems high. Anyone else seen this map, and know where it is?

afrit
10-03-2005, 23:00
I think the brigands/rebels are independent of city happiness.

My hunch is that there is a random chance of spawning in any particular tile, with the chance being higher the farther away the tile is from any garrisons (cities of forts).

afrit
10-04-2005, 03:07
This should be so obvious that it would have been noted by now. Still, could it be that the total number of rebel armies on the entire map is a fixed number? (or at least linked to some slowly changing value).

I did an experiment on Med/Med, playing huns but doing absolutely nothing besides hit End Turn. With toggle_fow I counted each turn the total number of rebel armies on the map.

This is the breakdown per turn:
0
3
10
10
13
13
13
13
13
12
12

and then I stopped following. I noted the pattern at each turn that when a rebel army has been destroyed, another will spawn elsewhere. And if I noticed a new one, almost always there was a corresponding disappearance.

So I tested by loading an old campaign map and found that the total number of rebel armies is 10, BUT that map had 4 rebel pirates in addition (total=14) while the other experiment above had only 2 pirate fleets (total 12+2=14).

I would like to know if others can confirm this. It would explain why rebels keep popping as long as we destroy them!!

RETRACTION: after further testing, the constant number theory is wrong. On another run with similar settings I got totals of: 0 (1st turn), 9, 13, 16, 13, 15 , 15 , 12, 17, 17, 19, 20, 20, 21, 19, 20, 16, 18, 19, 16, 16, 18 (these include admirals)


So if there is a steady state, it is not fixed.

Hollerbach
10-04-2005, 04:26
I have been following this thread for a while, being somewhat confused by my own observations compared to the theories presented here.

I play on VH/VH and usually take my time with campaigns, preffering to set up a strong economy and large population before significant conquest. Because of the Senate (when playing romans) I still have to be at war, but I usually do the bare minimum required until I've built up my main cities. So what surpised me is that I very rarely see rebels pop up in my own lands. The theory that rebels will generally pop up more often if you haven't fought any battles didn't seem to hold.

Then I realised the difference between my playstyle and that mentioned in this thread. Despite not conquering many provinces very quickly, I do like to control the sea, blockading constantly as many enemy ports as possible. This leads to a lot of sea battles, which leads me to think that sea battles may be as usefull in preventing rebels as lands ones.

This could be a good strategy, even for those not trying to dominate the sea. Boats move a lot more freely, so it can be a lot easier to make sure you have that 1 battle per turn. Just keep throwing single boats at a large enemy navy nearby.

I havn't done any rigorous testing, but I have completed several campaigns to the full 50 provinces, and numerous short campaigns or longer ones where I got bored before reaching the 50 mark, and I have never had any real problems with rebels, contrary to the issues that others seem to have with them. The only difference I can see is the many sea battles I end up fighting.

Hope this is usefull ~:cheers:

locked_thread
10-04-2005, 22:35
Hollerbach: I usually have hundreds of sea battles per campaign, regardless of faction played. I've seen no correlation vs banditry.

In fact, if I played defensively as Romans, I would expect few rebels. Roman lands produce rebels at a slow rate. Barbarian lands produce alot more (Gaul, Germania, etc) even after they are captured.


Afrit: interesting observations... I wonder if this explains the pattern I saw before - where rebels stopped popping up after I went to war. Perhaps the true cause was.... the rebellion quota was filled by brigands in other faction provinces?

BTW I recently watched 2 rebel armies merge together into a single big stack. Woah. I wonder if this allowed another to spawn...

afrit
10-05-2005, 03:59
After retracting my view that there is a fixed number of rebel stacks (see my post above), I did further experiments. I am starting to believe rebels are RANDOM.

To rule out other effects , I used somewhat artificial conditions for my "experiments".

Settings were:

-toggle_fow ON: to see the entire map and placement of all rebels
-Hard/Hard
-Faction: Huns

Procedure:
Launched new campaign.
disabled the ai (~ disable_ai)
Hit end turn.
Count all rebel stacks, noting name, location and size.
Quit game.

I repeated the above 11 times. So each time this was done, the rebels were given (as far as I can tell) the same conditions to spawn. If there is any pattern to spawning, it should show.

Here are the number of spawned stacks per turn (includes pirates):
8 8 6 7 4 2 4 4 9 8 8 :average=6.2

Looks like a uniform distribution from 2 to 9 (i.e pick a random number from 2 to 9).

Here are the numbers of spawned units per experiment:
30 26 16 16 13 5 7 13 29 28 24 :average=18, giving 3 units per stack

Here is the distribution of number of units per spawned stack:
1: 8 times
2: 17 times
3: 18 times
4: 13 times
5: 10 times
6: none
7: 1 time

Looks like a bell-curve centered around 3 (i.e most likely stack size is 3, and chances get smaller as we get farther away).

Here are the number of spawns per province:
Provinces that spawned 6 stacks: 1 (Sahara)
Provinces that spawned 5 stacks: 2 (Sarmatia and Tribus Lombardi)
Provinces that spawned 4 stacks: none
Provinces that spawned 3 stacks: 2 (Assyria and Cyrenaica)
Provinces that spawned 2 stacks: 8 (too many to list)
Provinces that spawned 1 stack: 23 (plus 7 pirate fleets=30).

To me this looks like a Poisson distribution (i.e there is a small chance of spawning per province per turn. For a province to spawn more than once becomes rarer as the number of spawns increase).

I could not detect any linkage between the "chance" parameter in descr_rebel_factions.txt and the above results.

While I cannot rule out a possible reason that Sahara is predisposed to rebellion, my hunch is that it was pure luck (i.e if there were certain provinces predisposed to rebellion, I would have seen more than 3 provinces scoring high on rebellion number).

The big caveat to this is that it is done under artificial conditions.

The fact that there is no consensus on the causes of rebellions, even after a year of extensive playing, makes me think they are truly random.

Pode
10-05-2005, 22:51
Afrit, did you note the rebel spawn and pirate spawn values in the BI descr.strat file? The default value for reble spawn is 10, which seems to me to support your observation of a distribution of spawns per turn from 2 to 9, i.e. number of spawns per turn is random number between 1 and rebel_spawn, not inclusive.

afrit
10-05-2005, 23:03
Pode,
thanks for the tip. I'm gonna mod the value and repeat the experiment.

magnum
10-05-2005, 23:26
CA did mention that the variable in BI was a divisor, thus you can enter a value between 1 and whatever the size of the variable they used is. As such larger numbers reduce the frequency of rebels appearing while smaller numbers increase the frequency. No mention was made of this being added to RTW. He did say that other variables factored into the appearance of rebels. Mentioned forts. Didn't mention any of the other possible variables.

locked_thread
10-06-2005, 00:31
Really...!!!
Well that does it, I'm buying BI. ~:cool:

afrit
10-06-2005, 19:15
CA did mention that the variable in BI was a divisor, thus you can enter a value between 1 and whatever the size of the variable they used is.

I sensed as much with modding trials. Decreasing the spawn value actually increased the frequency of spawning. The effect of increasing it was not as clear, which is unfortunate, since I really want to get rid of rebels altogether. I am planning more testing.

Do you have a pointer to the thread from CA ? was it here on the .org?

Since this is Ludus Magna, and not just modding, I want to confirm a few observations I made yesterday:

1. Brigands never spawn in rebel controlled provinces.
2. Brigands do not spawn in a province that already has a brigand stack. However, 2 brigand stacks may spawn simultaneously in the same province in a single turn.
3. The total number of brigand stacks on the map may be limited. In other words, once a certain number is reached, no more are spawned. In my testing, I never counted more than 40 brigand and pirate stacks. The maximum theoretical number, 1 per province per rule 2, is obviously much higher.
4. Brigands never die. After 20 or so turns, their name may change (i.e Captain X become Captain Y), but the number of units does not. Brigand stacks are only eliminated by merging with other stacks, or by the action of another faction. In my testing on Med/Med and Hard/Hard, brigand stacks did not increase in size either. However, I definitely remember seeing stacks grow in my regular campaign games. And CA said they do grow in size.
5. Brigands almost always spawn on road tiles. I saw exceptions, but they were rare.
6. There are no particular provinces that are more likely to get brigands (assuming other things being equal).


If you know one of the above rules is correct, or incorrect, please post.

magnum
10-06-2005, 19:23
I'll look for it. I'm kicking myself for not having marked it. I read 3 different RTW boards, all of which threads drop pretty quickly. If I can find it I'll link it here.

--edit--
Found it. It's over at the com.

http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm7.showMessage?topicID=30038.topic

locked_thread
10-06-2005, 22:33
...I want to confirm a few observations I made yesterday:
#2: I'm sure I've seen additional brigands spawning in provinces that already have brigands.
#6: I think Gaul and German provinces spawn rebels at a much higher rate. However, it could be that these are simply big provinces with more room to spawn?

If you are right about #5, maybe building a string of forts WOULD do the trick.

afrit
10-06-2005, 23:38
CyanCentaur,
thanks for the feedback. I also seem to recall rebels spawning in provinces that had a rebel before when playing regular campaigns, but after observing with fow off for 100+ turns, and never seeing 2 in the same province, I'm starting to wonder.

magnum,
thanks for the pointer. The CA developer (Granville) said that the spawn_value is a divisor, the higher the lower chance for spawning. Current value is 10. So CyanCentaur's prayer has been answered: brigands can be modded out!!

I wonder whether this will mean the AI factions expand faster? I always believed that brigands hampered the AI more than the human player.

Also, we can mod MORE brigands to research what affects their appearance and how forts influence that.

econ21
10-13-2005, 13:05
To expand on what Afrit has said, here's what Jambo has posted on the Colesseum patch sticky:


Near the start of the respective descr_strat files there's a value for brigand_spawn and pirate_spawn. In BI they are 10 and 12 respectively and in RTW they are 10 and 28.

Essentially these numerical values are divisors and therefore, the lower the number the more rebels/pirates will spawn, the higher the number the less likely they'll spawn. For example, a value of 20 for brigand_spawn will reduce the likelihood of rebels spawning by a half.

mike10
10-24-2005, 12:19
Well my experience (but no real proof) says that provinces that have green loyalty AND zero unrest will gain no rebels.

For example in my last Julii campaing I don't remember having any rebels in my central italian provinces (which had green loyalty and no unrest).


in my latest campaign all my provinces that are green have no rebels what so ever

Epistolary Richard
10-31-2005, 23:25
I saw a map somewhere that showed rebelliousness. At the time I didn't think it referred to bandit popups, but the correlation seems high. Anyone else seen this map, and know where it is?

I think you're probably referring to this map, which I did just to show the base unrest in the various provinces (yellow being moderate and red being high). Base unrest is highly moddable, but I'm not aware of any correlation between base unrest and spawning rebels.


http://www.totalwar.org/strategy/frog/rtw/unrest2.jpg

Breeze
11-02-2005, 01:46
This is my first post here I have to say I really like this site alot. Very good job and really informative posting. I was very turned off by midevil total war because of these rebels I thought it was just plain stupid and didnt find any realism in a bunch of rebels just popping up I stopped playing the game 1 week into it one of the posts you guys have here has made me try the rome version and now understanding much more I really love the game.

However my hatred for these damm rebels still is alive and well If they can be modded out as I read above I want to put my name on the list to get this somehow.

I think they ruin the game


thanks

Breeze

econ21
11-02-2005, 02:26
However my hatred for these damm rebels still is alive and well If they can be modded out as I read above I want to put my name on the list to get this somehow.


I suspect the best thing to do is to follow Jambo's instructions that I quoted and mod them to be less likely yourself. The descr_strat.txt file you need to edit is a text file, so it is easy to change with notepad or something similar. It is in:

C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome - Total War\bi\data\world\maps\campaign\barbarian_invasion

and changed "brigand_spawn_value" to "80". I still get a few rebels but they are very rare. I think I'll mod the pirates down too, as they seem to stack and get too powerful over time.

Obviously make a copy of the original just in case something goes wrong, but it should not.

Razor1952
11-02-2005, 05:22
Breeze there are several ways to approach the problem of rebels including several postives.

1. Usually rebels are easily beaten and add valuable chevrons to your troops, so they can seen as a training exercise . Try to use only a few units to get maximum value , when these units are retrained you get new higher chevron troops to fill out your depleted unit!.

2. Some provinces have such poor trade that its not worth eliminating them anyway.

3. They serve as a type of defense in border provinces, the ai will rarely(if ever?) attack them in your province. Place watchtowers which attract the rebels to them at choke points and you have instant cheap defence.


4. Alternatively you can mod them as above or you can mod the rebel units so only unique very low cost rebel units will appear, these can then be bribed.(because they have a very low cost base in the relaevant txt files).

5 There are also apparently new mod options in 1.3 but I'm no guru here so someone else may care to comment.

x-dANGEr
12-27-2005, 19:16
I will just post this for now, don't have much time to catch up with all posts before me.

Taxes, in my cities with low tax rate, I had no 1 unit of rebels popping out. Though, while high/very high tax, every 2 turns I might get one.

I play on VeryH/VeryH.
Will give you more clarification tommorow.

x-dANGEr
12-28-2005, 09:56
As you all may now, I play the Saissaidn Campagin. Till now, I have these provinces:

Hatra, Dumatha, Selucia, Arsakia, Pharaasba, Artaxarta and Kotais.

In Selucia (Ex-Capital), the tax is set to very high, and every 2 turn I get a rebel army door to door with the settlement. It's garrisoned by 2 ele, 2 catas, 1 cilib and 3 generals along with soem Spearmen and Archers (High Garrison).

In Hatra, the tax is set to high, and I the average of rebel armies is around 2 per 10 turns. High Garrison.

In Dumatha, low tax rate, no rebels.

In Arsakia, when it was set to very high, I had had many rebels. But now as low, no rebels.

In Artaxarta, same as Arsakia.

Kotais, low tax rate, no rebels. No Garrison (Only 1 uper-general).

The thing annoying is those rebels in both, Seleucia and Hatra, they keep cutting the trade bad.

Togugawa
01-04-2006, 18:25
I put Forts on every roads next to the borders, and rebels didn't appear very often in a Normal/Normal game. They still spawn once a while but didn't cause serious problems for me.

Orvis Tertia
01-05-2006, 04:19
I have done no testing on this subject, but from my observations during play and from reading this thread, I suspect that the problem lies in looking for only one or two triggers for rebels.

Does it not seem likely that there is a variety of factors that all increase or decrease the likelihood of rebels?

One factor that I have not seen mentioned here, but I always assumed was of high significance, is the length of time you have held a territory. It seems that I most often get rebels in my starting territories early in the game, but as time goes on they disappear from there and begin appearing in newly acquired territories.

There seems to be a high level of confidence that forts reduce the chance for rebels. I would not be surprised if unrest, tax level, enemy spies, religious differences (in BI), proximity to your armies, squalor and even trade (might more brigands be attracted to high-trade routes) are all factors affecting rebel spawns. Think in terms of each of these adding or subtracting percentage points to the spawn chance. Of course, if this is the case, it would make it very difficult to pinpoint the variables at work. But since there seems to be great difficulty in pinpointing the variables at work...

Another thing that I have observed is that rebels seem most often to spawn in the most inconvenient spots. Rarely, if ever, do they pop up just a short stroll from my heavily garrisoned city. Most often, they pop up in just the spot that is going to take me two turns to travel to. This makes me think that there is some connection to physical distance from your armies. Either that, or there are hardcoded hot spots that were selected because of their inaccessibility from towns.

econ21
01-05-2006, 10:22
One factor that I have not seen mentioned here, but I always assumed was of high significance, is the length of time you have held a territory. It seems that I most often get rebels in my starting territories early in the game, but as time goes on they disappear from there and begin appearing in newly acquired territories.

Yes, I was about to post something similar. I'm playing the EB mod as Rome and had rebels turn up about every turn at the beginning of the game. Now it's 248BC and they are nowhere to be found. I thought it might be because I had pacified Italy simply through holding it for a long time.

But that does not explain why I am also not seeing many rebels in newly conquered Illyria and some Gaulish towns. Perhaps the fact that there are less rebel towns near me (they all belong to factions) is significant?

Teleklos Archelaou
01-05-2006, 21:34
Does anyone know if there's a separate thread or discussion about what exactly causes rebellion to another faction? Vs. rebellion to a rebel province.

I thought I knew that it was always either to rebel or faction_creator, but I've now seen them rebel to faction_culture if the attacking (and temporarily possessing faction) was the one specified as faction_creator. I still have no idea why it sometimes goes to just plain rebel though.

Avicenna
02-26-2006, 15:02
Why are people trying to remove rebels? I always thought they were good practice, and they've never been a threat. I like to take the smallest army I can against them and see if I can win, and then your units get experience and your general gets command stars.

getting more generals is probably the main benefit from rebels: nice easy heroic win without many losses, close to city to retrain.

Severous
02-26-2006, 16:46
I run my towns with highest taxes I can without causing riots. I will run at 70% and red faces if thats what it takes to get more tax.

I dont detect any link to rebel units appearing.

Pity. Im quite happy fighting rebels.

teja
03-03-2006, 21:25
I did no special research, but some times rebels are really annoying. So I made operations big enough to conquer many provinces to kill those scum.
I am pretty sure that at least unrest does affect rebels. If you send in spies into enemy cities and turn them rebellous, rebels often pop up. That is the effect of unrest.
I think that loyality do affect rebels too, but only at a much lower rate.
I found not may proves that forts do help to calm down potential rebel behavor. They often appeared close to my forts, so I stopped to use this costly tool.
Watchtowers do not affect rebels. But I use to cover my main routes by towers to SEE any rebels there and to kill them with some forces as soon as possible.
If rebels are in a province unharmed over a longer time, the unrest ist raising in their cities and make it more likely that further rebels will pop up.
I got the intention that rebel armies that are unharmed over a long period do gain experience in BI 1.6.
One very important point concerning rebels is the provinces you own. There are several provinces with a high chance to see them rising. As for example in Germany, Ukraina and Judea.

Yes, I do hate rebels but the poor peasants to train my general. I hope my post helps a bit to research a proper solution.

Diurpaneus
03-10-2006, 21:54
:balloon2:

Severous
03-11-2006, 12:27
Quote:
"If rebels are in a province unharmed over a longer time, the unrest is raising in their cities and make it more likely that further rebels will pop up."

I tend to kill rebels as soon as I can. To prevent the devastation they do to the land which costs you money.

But do rebels left in your lands really cause unrest in your city ? Ive not seen this but maybe because I do kill them quick. Will rebels attract more rebels ? Has anyone else seen this and is it something we could exploit in some way?

gardibolt
03-14-2006, 18:11
There seems to be some kind of radius effect. I had a group of rebels spring up near Dimmidi (RTW 1.5 playing as Carthage) and it appeared to change what I believe had been a yellow face into a red one. They were very, very close to the city (though not besieging).

TheViking
03-16-2006, 13:57
just found this thread. i dont cope to read thru all posts

i just wonder if the rebels standing on roads stops the trading for the city?

econ21
03-16-2006, 17:55
i just wonder if the rebels standing on roads stops the trading for the city?

I believe they do - it may be shown in the city details as a faded and/or flashing trade icon, I forget which.

Severous
03-16-2006, 22:06
Hi

We are going a little off topic.

But...

Rebels appeared in the Apollonia region. They did not stop land trade...but then there were no roads in the province at the time.

Macedonian army arched on Thermon. They stopped on the road between the city and the port. This stopped the sea trade Thermon had been engaged in.

Its a definate yes that rebels will stop trade if they are on the road. The animations moving along the road, that signify trade, will stop.

Same with pirates at sea?

Im still interested in the recent question. Will rebels attract more rebels.

TheViking
03-17-2006, 09:01
Im still interested in the recent question. Will rebels attract more rebels.

im almost sure its like that. if i leave rebels alone for to long there pop up lots of the rebel armies

Diurpaneus
03-17-2006, 15:03
I think rebel appearance has something to do with the years....like eveniments are....because several times rebels appeared on the same year....egg in Julii campaigns...rebels almost always appears in the Arimium provence ,after 4-5 turns

x-dANGEr
03-17-2006, 15:44
I will say this, try to play your whole campaign with Low Tax Rate and you'll see how many rebels you get..

Severous
03-18-2006, 17:18
Hi

x-danger...are you saying low tax affects rebels appearance ?


Rebels and Trade routes:

https://img469.imageshack.us/img469/1430/brutii260s0nz.th.jpg (https://img469.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brutii260s0nz.jpg)

This rebel unit is on a road. It halved the value of land trade that was passing between Tarentum and Capua. There was no effect on trade along other routes..no effect of Croton to Capua for instance.

Once the rebels were killed trade income doubled back to normal.

You can also see a pirate ship right near Croton port/sea lanes. It is not affecting sea trade income.

Rebels and City unrest:

I also had a rebel unit right next to Tylis when I captured it from Thrace. Unrest in Tylis was 45%. I immediately attacked the rebels..who retreated away from Tylis. Unrest remained at 45%. Then wiped out the rebels. Unrest remained at 45%. So those rebels didnt have any effect on unrest in Tylis.

x-dANGEr
03-25-2006, 09:32
Yes, I'm saying that taxes effect the chance of rebels appearing. Their will always be a chance of them to appear, but it's quite low when low tax rate is the one hanging.

Severous
04-02-2006, 09:51
Hi

RTW V1.5 No Mods

Playing on H/H difficulty and Large unit settings. Brutii Campaign

https://img162.imageshack.us/img162/6721/brutii257s32hh.th.jpg (https://img162.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brutii257s32hh.jpg)

Unusually I had two towns with no troops in them. Tax on very high and 0% public order. I couldnt control them so I though I might as well screw as much tax as I could. Both towns had riots and both had rebels appear in the region.

I thought there might be a link between those circumstances and rebels so came looking for research..and found this thread. I see theres no hard facts on cause of rebels.

Ive looked back over my battle records to see how many rebels fought.
- Its summer 256.
- Logged 90 wins and 6 defeats.
- 68 land battles involved combat

41 against factions

7 against rebel towns

20 against rebels

Fighting factions most turns yet still have rebels appearing...near battles and far from battles. Conclusion...expect rebels anywhere.

teja
09-09-2006, 13:12
Hi
Rebels and City unrest:

I also had a rebel unit right next to Tylis when I captured it from Thrace. Unrest in Tylis was 45%. I immediately attacked the rebels..who retreated away from Tylis. Unrest remained at 45%. Then wiped out the rebels. Unrest remained at 45%. So those rebels didnt have any effect on unrest in Tylis.

I am not that sure about all of your conclusion. You only proved that loyalty is not directly affected by rebel armies. You have to differ between “unrest” and loyalty to find the facts!

I my theory, relating to my post above is the following: I am talking about those "unrest" icons in the city details. The more "unrest" icons you have in your city details, the more rebel armies are likely to appear.

1st Some ways to raise “unrest”:
Same with foreign armies: Huge, unallied stacks for foreign armies raise the number of "unrest" icons too. This must not happened in the same turn armies pop up or move into a province, but you can track it in upcoming turns. Rebel armies are always hostile and do similar.
A spy inside of a foreign city improves the same "unrest".
All this affects the chance that rebel armies will pop up in your province.

2nd When will “unrest” affect the loyalty of a city?
Only when the city details show that any bad affects (high taxes, bad traits of leaders, penalties for the wrong culture, corruption, waste and what else is showing in these details) are bigger but the positive affects (loyalty buildings, law, big garrisons....), the loyalty will fall down and the chance of rioting citizens INSIDE of a city will is improving.

3rd Random Rebels:
I always thought that when provinces are not very loyal or close to rebel it will only affect the city where it happens and the province alone. That is not completely true. I made the experience that if you have several “close-to-rebel” cities, the chance for new rebel armies in all of your empire gets higher.
Those rebel armies elsewhere will following the same rules of “unrest” I showed up earlier in this post under my 1st point.

In conclusion the best you can do against rioting citizens apart of good governors and big units (the more men are serving, the better they work = mass, not class is working best here) is to work with own spies inside your towns. “Counter-spies” will affect both: Calm down unhappy citizens from rioting and to decree the chance to see pop up some rebel armies in your province.
Meanwhile I changed my mind about the use of Forts. No matter how big the army garrisoned there is, they do some minor effects in preventing to let rebel armies appear. But I still think that the other measures I wrote will work better.

Relating on RTW 1.5 & earlier versions - no mods

GottMitUns
10-06-2006, 05:31
A humble and fairly ignorant hunch-

I am wondering if the hiring of mercenaries could in any way affect the number of rebels that pop up in a given province. If you trot a family member out of a city regularly and hire every mercenary there is to hire could that possibly reduce the number of rebels that will/could pop up in that province?

Thinking in real terms rather than game terms, it seems if you put as much of the overall population (urban and the 'uncounted' rural people) to some productive use, you will have less of a problem with them. eg. less squalor, less banditry outside city walls.

I game terms, perhaps there is a base "hidden" pool of rural population that is always there and each turn there are triggers which will increase the chance of the appearence of rebels/availabilty of mercenaries for hire. The family member triggering an increased chance of hiring from the pool, other factors triggering an increased chance of the appearence of rebelion, a fort generaly balancing both merc/rebel chances out. For example, a fort could increase the chance of mercs for hire naturaly decreasing the possibility of a rebel appearence.

Rebels as the rural version of squalor.

Any thoughts?

Severous
10-06-2006, 12:57
Hi

Usually I hire all I can. Rebels still appear. In my current campaign I rarely hire mercenaries. Rebels still appear.

It doesnt feel that there is any correlation between rebel appearance and the number of mercenary hires.

Any one else?

Biggus Diccus
10-09-2006, 23:05
In my current VH/M Alexander campaign I had multiple large battles every turn until turn 20 (80 turns left) and I saw no rebels appearing in my territories during this time. When I took a break to retrain my troops and bring up reinforcements 3-5 stacks of rebels popped up every turn in my provinces. It was so annoying that I stacked some generals together and used unlimited movement cheat and auto_win to autocalc them all to death. It was just too boring to hunt them all down.

Too bad you can't remove or tone down the rebel appearences in this game. Fighting 4-5 battles against rebels every turn is just plain annoying and boring.

bedlam28
10-13-2006, 11:54
Hi all.

A very long thread to read through, but I've gleaned some good ideas from the comments.

One thread on this that I havent seen mentioned but I have experienced - just through gameplay not experimentation =

when I take a city and massacre it I dont seem to get rebels near my home cities, but when I keep the populace alive for slavery I seem to get more; this just seemed to me to be a realistic add on
ie: a train of slaves are now crossing my territories to go to my cities to be added to the population; unfortunately not all of them stay in line and some escape to become rebels.

how does this fit in to the model everyone is working here????

HighLord z0b
10-18-2006, 10:13
A friend recently played RTW for the first time and the first time he saw rebels the advisor came up saying that a good way of decreasing the chance of rebels is by building forts nearby.

I know this is just one of many factors but I figure if CA programmed it to tell you it must have a fairly significant effect. I wouldn't know because I never bother building forts.

shizzernockers3
10-24-2006, 02:15
you can limit how often they apear

Pannonian
11-02-2006, 17:25
Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but there are certain spawning spots for rebels. Build a fort on that spot and no more spawns. This doesn't work for spots next to cities or other landmarks, since forts cannot be built on precisely those places, and precision is necessary. Bad luck if you've built a watchtower on the spot or nextdoor, since this will also prevent the building of said fort.

One tactic is to wait for rebels to appear, then attack with a much larger force, making the rebels retreat and leaving you in control of the spawning square. Before doing anything else, build a fort where you stand, then moving on to fight the rebels. If you keep the fort garrisoned (with the cheapest possible unit in upkeep terms, possibly understrength since the intention is to occupy rather than fight), no more rebels in that spot for the rest of the game.

Crash
11-09-2006, 18:32
Good tip! I had suspected that there were spawning spots and had considered building a fort on one precise spot that I had discovered but never got around to it until last night.

I also suspect that the bigger and richer your empire gets, any unrest due to high taxes will contribute to increasing rebel appearances but that's only my anecdotal experience, not based on any scientific investigation.

Miloshus
11-13-2006, 20:51
The best cure for rebels is exterminating every city when you capture it. You get money, people get killing even outside arenas and everybody is happy.
But the problem appears when your capital is going to riot- in that case you just move your army out of the capital, and you try to recapture it (dont try it if you have a small army), when you recapture it, you exterminate three quarters of population, and again-everybody is happy!
A nother option is construction of forts,
I always use the first one, even on hard difficulty.
So I have collected about 190.000 denarii.

Miloshus
11-14-2006, 15:48
Oh, and I forgot to say, dont mind about Rebel armies, all they do is just a little devastation, so building forts just for stopping the Rebel armies to spawn is a bad Idea, you could use that money for recruting new units, but if you hate rebels more than anything else then be more than happy to build the fort.

lottrbacchus
02-03-2007, 13:55
i read most of the post fairly closely, but only skimmed some, so i hope i'm not just repeating information.

i got this information from a thread in the modding section where they were experimenting with map changes on what they ai would chose to do. they posted their observations on rebels, even though it wasn't the main point of the thread.

anyhow- the setting in descr_strat is inverse and does matter. that means the higher the number, the less frequently rebels will spawn. i think on 1.5 the initial setting is 10, so if you change it to 99 then you should get rebels very infrequently. please note there is a separate entry for pirates (the initial value is 28 (luckily i have a shortcut to descr_strat on my desktop, what a geek!))

it was noticed that fertile tiles in a province also matters, which explains why some areas get more rebels than others with everything else being equal.

rebels never spawned in a province that had existing rebels.

but as i said, testing about rebels wasn't the primary purpose of their tests, so they didn't really go into too much depth trying to get different results (like changing conditions to see if you could get more rebels to spawn where some already exist). the exception being that they changed the amount of fertile tiles and found that it did matter.

Ludens
02-03-2007, 14:44
it was noticed that fertile tiles in a province also matters, which explains why some areas get more rebels than others with everything else being equal.

rebels never spawned in a province that had existing rebels.
That's interesting information. Can you provide a link to that thread? Incidentally, many of the threads in the Ludus Magna were started before the 1.3 patch, hence they are outdated (for example, the rebel settings weren't functional in 1.2, but they became so in 1.3 onward).

lottrbacchus
02-03-2007, 15:04
gah! i was afraid someone would ask for the link. this forum is so huge so i knew it would be a trick to find it. but i did.

now- make yourself a cup of tea or coffee or whatnot, cuz this is a looong discussion and the bits about rebels are secondary and so are only discussed here and there in the thread:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=63614

JOYA
04-20-2007, 08:35
I have read this thread carefully and I have edited the descr_strat file. I changed both rebel spawn values to 99 in the middle of a campaign. This has had no noticable effect on the campaign. Do I need to start a new campaign to see the effect?

I of the Storm
04-20-2007, 13:39
Yes.

JOYA
04-22-2007, 04:15
Im my campaign with the SPQR mod, i noticed that having two forts in every province seemed to stop them completely.

In fact, it seemed to have more effect then having more units in the city...

In my experience, rebels appear randomly even if the city has a high happiness rating. The only thing that stops them is forts...

As for the type of units, simply look at descr_rebel_factions.txt.



Setting the units to 'barb peasant slave' will make them nothing but peasants.

I'm going to try this aswell. But with the 'chance' lines wouldn't making the chance 0 increase the numbers seeing as the higher the number the less chance of rebels appearing? Or is that only the case in the descr_strat file?

Hastrubal
12-31-2013, 18:43
Hey guys, i have to tell you what i heard.
If you make a camp, less rebels will spawn in the area.

I hope it will help with these pesky rebels

P.S. I had a campain where a uprise took over their final town/city it happend two times the numbians and the scipii.

Good luck with you total war;)

williamsiddell
07-24-2014, 13:59
I haven't checked further back than this page because there's every chance settings have changed over the years.

Apart from having read it somewhere, experience suggests it's true: If a city's population is boosted via enslaves elsewhere, then there is a significantly higher risk of rebels. I find that rebels rarely (if at all) appear in long stable provinces. Plus I've read elsewhere that unrest increases the likelihood.

Vincent Butler
01-31-2017, 09:12
I know it's an old thread, but I want to continue on the fort line. Does the number of units in the fort make any difference? I have also had an army wipe out a rebel army, then two turns later another one was back in the same spot. Wiped them out, then saw another one near same place around three or four turns later. Wiped them out, no more problems. Of course, it could have been a rebel army moved from somewhere else, though the first two were identical.

What I do is hire Scythian Mercenaries (Bedouin Archers work too, but are slower, I think), and just send them around to wipe out rebels. I may or may not have a general, if I get one who is not much good I may use him there, and he gets better, but the general is optional. Something I am doing in the east, I had some armies of elephants who I was using to restock the ones in my main armies. My pace of advance is a bit slow at the moment in Turkey and Africa, so I decided to hit some rebels with them. They work very nicely, and better than the Bedouin Archers because the Bedouins are more vulnerable to return archer fire. Also, no worries in melee combat with War Ellies.:2thumbsup: I added a Militia Cav unit to run down routing enemies, keeping them away from the main fighting. The missiles of the War Ellies can dispatch of any hoplites the rebels have.