A Question About Raiding

[Kommodus]

Hi everyone

First let me say that I'm not much of a raider at all. When I invade, it is nearly always for the purpose of permanent conquest. Nevertheless, there have been isolated instances in which I've taken a province with no intention of keeping it, but rather of razing it to the ground and taking everything of value. There have also been less-planned instances in which I've taken a province only to realize that I could not hope to maintain loyalty in it, and thus abandoned it, leaving only charred remains in my wake.

However, sometimes this seems to go horribly wrong, as the loyalists in the province rebel the following year with a huge, well-equipped army. Such armies may take considerable time and resources to deal with, setting back my plans of conquest in unwanted ways.

Do you guys think raiding is worthwhile? If so, how do you go about doing it effectively? Do you face the same problems I have, and if so, how do you deal with them?

Thanks a bunch

[gaijinalways]

Sometimes it depends on how long that province has been held by the last faction, are there any respawning factions returning there, what the manin religion is in the province, and the number of spies that you have based there. I do it simply to cripple factions income making and troop making ability, but I do sometimes get hit with some unwanted loaylists.

I know some of the gamers with the org (from previous threads) use planned rebellions for training troops, but this assumes you can somewhat reliabilly predict the kinds of loyalists or rebels you will be facing.

Also too, you may attack some provinces for ransom money with no intention of retaining the province(s).

[Kristaps]

Note, that rebellions have been singnificantly tuned down in the VI expansion. In the case a faction is still alive, I rarely get more than a unit of two of archers/spears in any loyalist rebellion. Faction reemergencies are a different matter but those also are a significantly reduced version of what they used to be before the expansion. Actually, lately, I've taken liking to using the 'old_rebels' switch at the startup. :)

[motorhead]

I agree with Kristaps, post-VI rebellions are generally much tamer.

- if i'm doing just a quick 2 or 3 prov raid, i'll often follow up my initial raiding army with an occupation army of pure peasants to keep a lid on any re-emergence (which can get quite ugly). If any neighboring enemy attacks, i just withdraw the peasants from the prov.

- Do a real scorched earth raid. If you leave any infrastructure in place (armorer, swordsmith, etc) any rebelling/re-emerging army will appear with better equipment and/or upgrades. Don't want to see silver shielded rebels? Blow up that armorer's guild.

[squippy]

Quote[/b] (Kristaps @ May 25 2004,11:58)]Faction reemergencies are a different matter but those also are a significantly reduced version of what they used to be before the expansion. Actually, lately, I've taken liking to using the 'old_rebels' switch at the startup. :)
Ah, I didn't know that. This might explain why I have seen fewer of late than expected. I'll give that a try.

Yep, as far as I can see the key to raid is to do a smash-and-grab. As motorhead says, the rebels that spawn will take advantage of facilities in the province, so wipe 'em ALL out. Secondly, a bona fide rebellion produce troops proportional to your occupying army - so if you leave it completely empty, usually the rebellion will just be the bandits that appear for un-held territory.

[Kommodus]

Ok, I see. Right now I don't have VI, so my rebellions are still pretty nasty. If I decide to get VI, raids might prove more useful.

By the way, with faction re-emergences, it seems to me that although the enemy armies may be huge and well-equipped, the AI makes very poor use of them. In my recent campaign as the English, the Spanish reappeared in rebel-held Navarre with enough troops to conquer all of my weakly-defended Spain. After a number of years of peace, they finally attacked, but sent their troops out in a peacemeal fashion that made it rather easy for me to defeat them in detail. They had so many powerful troops that they did a good deal of damage anyway, but they could've done a lot more.

I think it would be quite cool if my faction would re-emerge some years after being wiped out. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-glasses2.gif I'd show 'em how to re-emerge properly...

[Ulair]

In vanilla MTW 1.1 you can reduce the size of a loyallist rebellion by withdrawing all your troops from the province. It can still be pretty beefy, though...

I actually had a loyallist rebellion in my favour the other day - HRE failed to garrison Lithuania properly and those fine Lithuanians rebelled on behalf of their true Byzantine masters http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif . Got a neat stack which whipped the Germans out again.

A reemergence in my favour would be cool http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif .

[katank]

that always bugs me. I woudl love it if I reemerged with several stacks of high tech troops and 20k florins if the game would just zoom forward like a few decades in case my king isn't very fertile etc.

[mfberg]

I encourage rebellions in border regions that I don't want to hold. I make sure the loyalist are beaten and the rebels hold. This gives me a nice buffer that will last a few years.

mfberg

[katank]

yep, beware of loyalists as they can be nasty.

even small ones could be free knights for the enemy.