Ways to improve rebellions....

[+DOC+]

Personally i'm not overly bothered by the unit composition or strength of the rebellions per se. However, i do appreciate why many people are and in fact i do think there are better ways to handle rebellions especially with respect to the AI. I think the AI deals poorly with rebellions because of the lack of units at the start of the game. For example, taking a rebel province like Sweden with say 200 troops can lead to a rebellion whereby the province now has thousands of troops... this is compared to the 120 housecarles that Sweden had initially.

So my idea for making rebellions more appropriate involves two changes:

1. The rebellious units should be comprised solely of units from the current era.... i.e. no crossbows or Lancers in the early period.

2. The rebellion should be more geared to the size of the attacking force. For example, if myself or the AI were to take Sweden with 200 troops and it rebelled, then maybe the troop composition should be more in the range of 600-1000 (i.e. no more than 3-5 times the number of invading troops). Maybe a little more if it were a peasant rebellion. To me it seems daft that rebels composed of 2-4 stacks should rise against an invading force of only 200 troops?

Now if the invading force was 1000 troops then the rebellions should comprise of larger numbers/stacks with the basic theory that for a successful and worthwhile rebellion more rebels would need to rise against more invaders. This way the smaller AI factions like Denmark, Poland and Novgorod wouldn't get so heavily penalised at the start of the campaigns.

Don't get me wrong, i want it to remain a challenge, it's just the AI often causes its own downfall because of such huge stacks arising against such small invasion forces. For myself as the human player i can cope with these rebellions, in fact the harder they come the more i like it. Maybe then the Ai shouldn't get as heavily penalised as the human? Or maybe the huge stacks should only appear for loyalist rebellions (ones pertaining to other factions) and not for the standard "grey" non-faction rebels.

I dunno, maybe these idea are pants? What do you lot think?

[Spetulhu]

I just want to know who pays the upkeep for those huge rebel armies.

[The_Dude]

I agree, I have seen Italy lost one of his province early in the game, with a huge army of FK 8 unit, it's a bit to much as the AI controlling italy as no "real" army to counter that. Then he try to attack, his king die, finish...

[Teutonic Knight]

a huskarl was a Saxon military unit, not a Viking http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Kraxis]

Quote[/b] (+DOC+ @ Nov. 22 2002,07:01)]1. The rebellious units should be comprised solely of units from the current era.... i.e. no crossbows or Lancers in the early period.
They have units outside the scope? I thought people were complaining it was units they couldn't produce... which might still be Early.
Well, I have never experienced 'unlawful' rebellions.

Peasant Revolts should stay as big as they are, perhaps not for the AI.
Bandits... DAMN They need to be 2-4 times larger than the garrison, with a least of about 300 (in case it is a province with no garrison or such). This would also make it more relistic. We are talking about bandits... it is hard to combine that many criminals under one leader.
Religious Revolts, they hit Excommed Catholics like a wildfire, need to be not much larger than a Bandit Revolt. But in reality I like the big RRs.
Loyalits... well, Loyalits are the former factions troops to command and they are usually quite good, so I would not want the m to be too large. It could shift the balance of power drastically. I wouldn't want to see the most powerful, by far, faction get killed because the reeling faction got a single very big Loyalist Revolt.

[Al Qasim Hussein]

Quote[/b] (Kraxis @ Nov. 22 2002,09:02)]Loyalits... well, Loyalits are the former factions troops to command and they are usually quite good, so I would not want the m to be too large. It could shift the balance of power drastically. I wouldn't want to see the most powerful, by far, faction get killed because the reeling faction got a single very big Loyalist Revolt.
Let me tell you about shifting the balance of power w/ loyalist revolts I was playing HRE and had conquered Denmark, oh, 50 years before. While my Emperor was off in France whupping up on fellow Catholics and uniting the world under the mighty German standard, Denmark had a 'lost heir' loyalist rebellion (ignoring the two bishops and 200% loyalty there, which is fine, I mean it was their country first...)

First off, king whoever-it-was couldn't produce a single heir without eight toes, two great-grandparents, and a yellow streak down his back a mile wide, but this bad boy 'lost heir' had six stars and made his living chewing up iron and spitting out nails when he wasn't trouncing neighboring countries. Where did this guy come from? Not form the Danish royal line, let me tell you

Ok, I could get past the super-heir problem, but the fact that he had about 2000 troops made up of various knights, men at arms, etc. that the great nation of Denmark had never seen HIDE NOR HAIR of as they were taken over 2-3 turns into the game (and which I had no bldgs. in the province to provide these guys for them to train oh-so-sneakily) really got me. Basically, I sold every building and retreated my garrison to Saxony and Sweden in anticipation of reconquering the land later.

But no, oh no. This super-Dane had a temper too, and I haven't seen the mighty fjords of Sweden and Norway ever since. Or Saxony and Friesland for that matter. What gives? Had this happened 20-30 years earlier I might have wound up losing the game Although I can probably get this under control now that he's spread himself so thin (I own everything from the Polish border to the Emerald Isle, so I've got some production capabilities thank god.)

This wound up being longer than I intended, sorry http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif I'm just righteously angry. So I had to go kill the Pope. I mean, SOMEONE had to pay as a result of this crap

[Lord Romulous]

I hate the super rebellions with unrealistic numbers and troop types.

can we cut the numbers down please and have no situations like the above denmark scenario.

[Azrael]

Hey Guys,

I think it's wrong when rebellions include troops that are out of region or appear in an area that doesn't have the capacity to build the Unit.

I had a loyalist rebellion in Aquitaine. It included Billmen. Aquitaine doesn't have the capacity to produce Billmen.

As far as the numbers go, I disagree with lowering them.

It's a rebellion. If it was a bunch of peasant troops the size of your army, it wouldn't be a problem. Rebellions are supposed to be something to panic about. The whole Province is rising up against you, not a single disgruntled landowner.

There are ways to prevent rebellions. More time should be invested in watchtowers and then borderforts. Watch your religion ratios and be aware that excommunication can provoke rebellions in high zeal provinces.

As fun as it is to roll accross Europe, you can't just expect to leave 100 peasants manning a newly conquered province. The people need time to become loyal.

Watch your vices as your governer could be plummeting the happiness of a province.

A number of different factors can provoke rebellion and that's part of the challenge of the game.

Just like analysing a battle you've lost on replay to find out where things went wrong, if one of your provinces rebels, it's best to understand why that one did and the others didn't.

That's my opinion on rebellions.

Azrael

[Ogre de Warrior]

I like the numbers, thats fine with me. The thing that gets me is that my 200 viking army in Sweden, on turn 4, is facing an army with at least 200 hobilars and 400 Italian Infantry, not to mention the footknights.

[+DOC+]

Hey guys don't get me wrong here, i like the rebellions as they are, it's purely for an AI point of view that i'm questioning them The AI more often than not self destructs under the pressure of these large rebellions, especially if they are a samll starting faction like the Danes and Novgorod for example.

For the human player i think the rebellions are more than satisfactory. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[pithorr]

Rebellions are upsetting the force balance:
For instance when I expanded My Polish Kingdom from HRE to the Eastern edge of the map the best way for expansion westward not provoking the Emperor was invading rebelled German provinces like Bohemia, Brandenburg etc. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
However I consider it as cheating...

[monkian]

I don't mind the numbers- just the troop types.

Peasants/woodsmen/urban miltia - fair enough but not advanced units that the region doesn't even have the capacity to build.