Rebelling Armies of Epic Slaves

[Snite]

Okay, playing as Sweboz and I'm currently at war with the Adeui and the Romani. The Romani have way too established of an economy for me to try to grind through them since it takes so long to pacify a settlement sufficiently enough to move my army on to the next, and during that time they can easily replace fallen soldiers through new recruitment.

Solution: Move my faction leader and his army of expensive mercenaries to the under-defended southern cities, storm said cities, then destroy everything that is destroyable with the exception of the region's specific 'wonder', then move entire army to the next. Even if the city rebels and goes back to the Romani, they can't use it to recruit their excessivley armoured, oh-so-hard-to-kill units to carry on the war.

First to fall is Arpi which was defended only by their faction leader. Destroyed everything, then moved on to Tarentum. As I was besieging, Arpi fell to rebellion and turned Romani again. The next turn, an army of freed slaves(about 6 units), medium to pretty good mercenaries(majority), and triarii(2 units), and Pedites Extrordinarii(sp?)(3 units) all with 8 exp and improved armour and weapons, attack me from the rear. The casualty report after the slaughter shows that even my 7 exp Faction Leaders bodyguard had a casualy ration of 1 enemy kill to every 3 friendly casualties.

Before I try this strategy again, is this a game mechanic? Rebelling armies are made to be excessivley epic like this? Or was this a freak accident?

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

The slaves should rout easily, even with the random armor and weapons upgrades. If you don't destroy the barracks, the units recruitable in that settlement might appear after a revolt. Sometimes mercs also appear in revolts but this is rare.

[Ludens]

Before I try this strategy again, is this a game mechanic? Rebelling armies are made to be excessivley epic like this? Or was this a freak accident?

Yes and no. My hypothesis is that a revolting town gets a virtual budget to spend on units. Unit type is limited to the units that can be recruited given the infrastructure*, but experience and weapon upgrades aren't. So when you tear down the barracks, the revolts will consist of many apeuletheroi, but there's a lot of money left to spend on upgrades.

* However, since I take it you did raze the barracks, I cannot account for the trairii and the Pedites. Maybe the computer had money left over after recruiting all mercs and upgrading all apeleutheroi, so it gets to buy more expensive units? The army-generation algorithm is strange.

[XSamatan]

Game related.
The engine will create an army in a revolted settlement depending on barracks (local and factional) and government building.
If there are no barracks (as you destroyed them) the engine sometimes spawns mercs.

So an absolute natural behavior.

XSamatan

[Snite]

So it's something that could happen everytime. Thanks for the answers, guess I'll have to try a new strategy.

[Ruepelheinz]

I have a suggestion. Maybe some view it as cheating - i dont. In my campaign with the sweboz - the averni are my ally and they are on the roman peninsula my block - they own bononia, the city southwest from bononia and i think i gave them rome as well, against roman incursions which means i give them the citys I take and dont want to keep. Sometimes I have to offer them a certain amount of money and then gift the city but who cares. Its not my problem anymore. ;)
In the South of Italy, you could gift some citys to carthage oder taras even to epeirus. The they will join the war against Rome, too.
In Spain i use Carthage an Averni against the Lusotann because I got tired of fighting stacks and stacks of Lusotann near the former Averni capitol which I now possess due to the inability of the Averni to defend it.

[Rahl]

So it's something that could happen everytime. Thanks for the answers, guess I'll have to try a new strategy.
In my experience the strength of the rebell armies depend on the public order. If they hate you really much then they will levy more troops. If you set the taxes to low and don't destroy every building with bonuses to public order (some don't bring much money when destroyed) the rebell armies will be smaller/less experienced.

[Captain Pugwash]

its a tactic i use to slow span armies however i adopt hit and run. Sail up and take the town with a few spies - trash everything for cash and kill everyone - use a selfish general as he picks up good traits. Leave two units of crappy troops to prevent ctd on revolt, and sail away. next turn repeat to the next city. slaves for ai are very expensive for what they are and thus i dont fight them as it drains cash from the faction - similar price to elite troops!