Insurrection

[Marauder]

I sent two stacks over to the New World and took the northern-most Aztec city. That was the easy part. Now I'm trying to hold it and having troubles. Obviously there are no buildings so I have to build them (playing vanilla so it takes forever) and I start at 0% catholic. I have 4 priests there and a full garrison with a reasonably high authority leader. Every couple turns the city revolts and kicks my army out, replacing with a huge rebel army! Is there a way to keep the city from rioting until I can tech it up a bit with the city hall-type buildings? Taxes are low. There is an enemy stack in my province, could that affect the city revolting?

[FactionHeir]

It wouldn't affect your loyalty percentage as you wouldn't be trading with the aztecs anyway. However, I suppose you could move your capitol closer to the west to help the PO problem.

Outside of that, high authority does nothing. You need someone with low unrest, high law, high happiness and high chivalry as well as many non-peasant unit numbers.

ou can of course exterminate/sack, but then you'll take forever to build anything decent.

[Marauder]

1. If I move my stack out of the town and let it rebel, will the rebel garrison be smaller?
2. Does having the enemy stack in my territory increase the chance of rebelling?

[FactionHeir]

1. Nope.
2. Already answered.

[Marauder]

I replayed the turn prior the insurrection multiple times to see if I could stop the revolt. I never got it. I did find that if I waited another turn the AI solved the problem for me: By taking my entire stack out of the city and letting it revolt, I lose no men in the insurrection and the rebel garrison took over. The Aztec stack that was marching for my city continued to march towards my city (right past my armies) and seiged it. They're currently in seige and will hopefully assault the rebels next turn. Either way I benefit since the rebel garrison will do some damage to the aztec army!

[TheLastPrivate]

High authority doesn't do jack, it doesn't affect settlements except a small global bonus (I think). If he has high chivalry or dread it helps alot.

To prevent such issues, you should exterminate those populations if your governor isn't up to snuff.

[Proserpine]

You don't say what the diffulcty settings are, but here is some general advice.

If I remember correctly your city will rebel, i.e. kick out the garrison, if it has a RED face for 2 (or more?) turns. Build happiness improving buildings, e.g. chapel, church, city hal (& walls!). Improve %age of catholics in the region as much as possible - the more priests the merrier!

I usuall ship a one or two priest across first to up the catholic population. Also distance from your capital city increases unhappiness from corruption, you could try moving your capital to an Atlantic seaport to minimise this.

[mousestalker]

I'm afraid I always take the construction hit and exterminate the native population for cities that aren't co-religionists. The optimum solution for peace in the New World is a tag team of bishops if possible, priests if that's all you have and extermination after the city falls. That gets you massive conversion early and paicifies the remaining population. Admittedly the city won't be any good for a while, but you can maintain a minimal garrison there for quite a long time.

[A Nerd]

Whenever I take a city, if the face is red...I just sack it and turn down taxes...it usually works.

[PBI]

Whenever I take a city, if the face is red...I just sack it and turn down taxes...it usually works.

That's pretty much the approach I go for too, although in the Americas the unrest is so bad it might be better just to exterminate by default.

Also, bear in mind governors can make a big difference. High Dread or Chivalry both help, and an unpopular governor can really boost unrest, so it's worth just moving the governor out of the settlement to see if he is being more hindrance than help.

Unfortuantely though it is pretty much the whole point of the Americas; the instinct is to emulate the Conquistadors and bring a small force of elites to crush the Aztec hordes, but what you really need is numbers to combat the massive unrest, which is a more formidable opponent than the Aztecs.

[_Tristan_]

One thing to consider also is the Piety level of the governor with cities from a different religion.

The least pious generals make the best governors of "heathen" cities, by reducing the religious unrest...

So the best option to govern such settlements would be a high Dread/Chiv + Low Piety combo :2thumbsup:

[Marauder]

Good advice. I think the "two turns w/ a red face = rebellion" is true now. I've got 4 bishops in the area now, so they're converting very quickly. When I retook the city from the weakened Aztec army and built a town hall, it moved into the blue. The general I took had very high command, but no chivalry. If I play another campaign where I go to the America's I'll bring a crusader with me and I won't have any of the same problems.

Has anyone else tried the low piety governor thing? That would also help a lot in the holy land.