Bug or design decision about AI unrest ?

[Akka]

In my game as Scipii, I'm trying to play the sneaky backstabber, preparing the civil war by limiting the Julii and Brutii as much as I can.

To do that, I invested quite a lot in spy and assassin, to spread revolt and wreck havoc on their family and cities and keep them busy calming it all down.

For the assassins, all's right. I murder, sometimes I miss, sometimes I success (I heard it was possible to start a civil war by attempting an assassination but failing it, so far it's not been the case).

But for the spies, it just doesn't work right. I put them by truckload in Julii cities they just conquered from the Gauls, the loyalty drops to the pit, but then... Well, nothing happens, and the loyalty start to increase again. It's just strange. I'd got Mediolanium down to 25 % loyalty, and still no revolt :dizzy2:

Is this a bug, am I missing something, or is this a design decision ?

[Akka]

Just to illustrate...
I'm trying to start a revolt at Lugdunum.

First turn :

http://zanath.free.fr/RTW/bug05.JPG

45 % loyalty. Largely what's needed.
But still, next turn :

http://zanath.free.fr/RTW/bug06.JPG

Nothing at all had happened. Not even riot. So I sabotage the Teutatis shrine (the building is still here, so culture penalty, but it's damaged, so no bonus). Hence the fall to 40 %. I think that maybe, the next turn...

But...

http://zanath.free.fr/RTW/bug07.JPG

Still nothing. And the population continue to increase, which means still no killed due to a riot...
But I'm stubborn, so...

http://zanath.free.fr/RTW/bug08.JPG

I manage to assassinate the faction heir. Loyalty to 10 %. No one could hold a city with a 10 % loyalty, could he ?

Wrong.

http://zanath.free.fr/RTW/bug09.JPG

The Julii seems to be particularly charming. They barely put a single unit, which made the loyalty goes to 35 %, and still no riot.

This same turn, I lost Carthage to a rebellion, because it slipped down to about 70 % loyalty... Gah...

[The_Emperor]

Yeah it really sucks that we have to deal with massive unrest due to squalor but the AI gets almost none of it.

When as the Brutii I captured that Carthaginian town in Sicily, I decided it was not worth holding. Most of my army was eager to get back to greece and continue the war against Macedon, and the settlement was near revolt due to unrest and culture penalty.

So I took all my troops out, scrapped what buildings I could then my Diplomat had words with the Scipii and offered them the settlement, the Scipii gladly bought the empty yet rebellious town... My army then boarded ship and continued the war in Greece.

The Senate was very impressed by my selfless act of selling the town tot he Sicpii for a huge sum of Denarii, and they threw games in my honour.

But the thing is over 10 turns later, the Scipii still have yet to put a SINGLE unit into the town to act as garisson, and still no revolt. (I know because I can see what they see as allies, and they had an army nearby)

The level of unrest we have as players is stupidly high, forcing us to leave most of our troops home to manage the Plebs... While the AI is free to empty its towns and run around the map.

[Dark_Magician]

This is outrageous.

[Jambo]

How easy do you want to make the game? The AI in RTW is already fairly easy to beat, making it succomb to the troubles we have to deal with would be ridiculous. Anyway, from those screen shots, I'd argue that the populace are revolting judging by the increase in the damage done to the buildings (other than the shrine).

By the way, you never mentioned what difficulty level you are playing on? It's almost certain that at the higher difficulty levels the AI gets bonuses to these factors.

[Kekkonen]

They *are* revolting. Isn't that what the little symbol above population figures means?

What they aren't doing is rebelling and taking over the settlement.

[Bob the Insane]

By the way, you never mentioned what difficulty level you are playing on? It's almost certain that at the higher difficulty levels the AI gets bonuses to these factors.


I second that question. On my H/H game as the Scipii I had to take a Gaul town for the Senate, failed to get it quick enough but when I did I did not really want it so I sold it to the Senate faction (immediately after capturing it)... Dispite having no troops as a garrision for 4 turns it never revolted, even the wandering Gaul armies ignored it to dispite us all being at war!!!!

[Akka]

They *are* revolting. Isn't that what the little symbol above population figures means?

What they aren't doing is rebelling and taking over the settlement.
No, they AREN'T revolting. The icon shows they SHOULD, but neither are they revolting (taking over the settlement), neither are they rioting (no damage to the units nor the population).

Basically, it says : "normally, this settlement should revolt, but well, it's the AI, so nothing will happens".

By the way, you never mentioned what difficulty level you are playing on? It's almost certain that at the higher difficulty levels the AI gets bonuses to these factors.
Medium/Medium
I HATE to have different rules for AI and player. I want everyone on the same world.

How easy do you want to make the game? The AI in RTW is already fairly easy to beat, making it succomb to the troubles we have to deal with would be ridiculous.
I don't care with that. If I want a harder game, I'll take the higher difficulty levels. If I'm playing on medium, it's PRECISELY because I want the AI and me submitting to the SAME rules.
Yes, I find the game easy, but I care much more about being able to actually have fun, than simply have enemies immune to anything in order to make them tougher. I wanted to wage a undercover war. Well, I can't, because the AI is seemingly immune to riots, revolts and unrest. THAT is not increasing my game pleasure.

Anyway, from those screen shots, I'd argue that the populace are revolting judging by the increase in the damage done to the buildings (other than the shrine).
No, these ones are made by my assassins.
I've four of them in the stack, they have to pass time.
And again, I wish to remind everybody that, during a riot, both the garrison and the population take losses, which DOESN'T happen here.

[Slaists]

Well, I believe, when loyalty is low enough there is a CHANCE the city will riot/go into a rebellion. It's not a sure thing. In my campaign, I was successful in using spy/assasin combo to take practically all provinces from the spanish with whom i was allied with military access at the same time... It took quite a few turns for the cities to go rebellious with lower than 75% loyalty, but with the passage of time they sure did...

[Akka]

Well, I wonder if there is a hidden factor here, then.

Because on the screenshots only, the town has spend four turns with a loyalty below 50 %, and not even a riot.
And as I continued to play, nothing changed in more than ten turns.

So...

[Slaists]

Hmm, never had it in my campaigns... The longest "surviving" streak I've seen is 5 turns with below 50% loyalty. After that, the city rebelled.

Note, that the AI is likely to change their tax regime given the sudden drop in loaylty. That might be enough to bring the loyalty back to a tolerable level.

[The_Emperor]

My Brutii Campaign was Normal/Normal. At such a level I don't expect the AI to be given an unfair advantage.

Normally whenever the loyalty levels in my tows drops to just below 70%, I get that pitchfork Icon. Which incidentally means "the peasants are revolting".

Now if I end the turn on that I will almost always have a city Riot if I am lucky... If I am unlucky I will lose the city and my garisson will be ejected.

Now that Carthaginian town I sold to the Scipii had the revolt Icon, but as I say has no garisson. (and it still doesn't in my Game) and I have yet to see a riot let alone an attempted rebel takeover!

I am most angry about this because of the vast amount of Squalor-related unrest I have to deal with... Putting up taxes and forcing negative growth with an oversized garisson & praying for an outbreak of plague seems to be the only way to deal with it!!

This is Normal difficulty, if I wanted the AI to be cheating I'd play on V hard/V hard.

This needs to be addressed with a patch... I seem to recall reading in the manual that Spies are used to create unrest in enemy settlements, Victoria also said the same thing as I recall.

[Bob the Insane]

I will add that I have seen a revolt against the AI, in my Scipii game when Egypt took a city on mine in north africa (the one just south of Carthage). I had previously held that city for a long time and I was surprized that the turn after I lost the city to them it was mine again and packed full of troops!!! Bet that came as a surprize to those Egyptians!!

I didn't check but I wonder if the troops that appear after a rebelion and subtracted from the city population??

Personally I have held onto towns (not cities) with really low public order (like 30%) with only a unit of peasants but you get a lot of rioting...

But there are some wierd things going on I think...

[Akka]

In this very game, then, everything is strange...

Because Julii and Britons are massacring the Gauls, and only leave ONE unit in each of their conquered province. All these provinces have a horribly low loyalty, but not one revolt nor riot. I'd been obliged to cancel my undercover war :-/

[MonocerosDragon]

It would seem that the Roman factions are handled differently to the others. I have seen revolts and been able to cause them with other factions. But no amount of sabotage and spies (even when you bring the loyalty down to 0%) will cause another Roman faction to revolt.

I can understand them making the senate a special case - it would make things rather easy if you could mass spies and assassins and get Rome via revolutions, but to do the same to the other roman factions as well seems a bit much.

[zarkis]

In my campaign game (hard/hard) I witnessed several rebellions against the AI player. I remember that Scipii lost half of africa at one time due to rebellions, and egypt lost Alexandria (!) recently to rebels (I guess because of overpopulation and squalor). However I also think that Ai players are basically more resilient against rebellions, because I have spies in many cities with happiness values below 50 (because I took out some temples there with my assassins), which are in a state of constant revolt, but no rebellions happen so far.

So there is either a hidden factor, which we don't know of yet, a bug or an intentional advantage for the AI, which is clearly less good in population management then a human player.

[Ulstan]

I would say, try it again after you have declared war on them.

If CA was smart, they'd prohibit the players rome faction from hurting the computer rome factions like this before the civil war, as the computer rome faction is a nice little ally and doesn't try to react.

[andrewt]

In my game, Alexandria, Memphis and Thebes all revolted against Egypt one after the other. Fortunately for them, they were able to reconquer Memphis before Thebes revolted. They were sending everything they had after me and had ultra small garrisons on them.

[Mori Gabriel Syme]

At various times I've seen AI factions racked with rebellions, especially Egypt & the Greek cities. When the Britons & Brutii took the last three Gaul cities on the same turn, the next turn the Brutii city rebelled. I haven't been able to figure it out.

But the unrest in my cities has meant that I have been unable to have a sustained campaign under one general. He ends up spending most of the rest of his life as governor of the first city he conquers, unless I can come up with a decent son to run up after he comes of age & relieve erstwhile conqueror. This is on Normal/Normal.

[khelvan]

I tried the old MTW "send a stack of spies to the enemy's province and make them revolt" trick. I had so many spies in an AI city that a little spy scroll slider appeared in the city. I believe that the percentage of public unrest shown is much like that shown when I march my governor out of a city and the unrest drops like a rock - at the end of the turn the AI adjusts taxes and such to make the order higher.

Anyway, to make a long story short I WAS able to get the city to rebel. The problem is, the AI immediately beseiged the city, and all the spies were stuck inside. Once the city fell, all my spies disappeared. I assumed that was a feature, and not a bug, so I now no longer use the massive spy attack trick.

[Akka]

It would seem that the Roman factions are handled differently to the others. I have seen revolts and been able to cause them with other factions. But no amount of sabotage and spies (even when you bring the loyalty down to 0%) will cause another Roman faction to revolt.

I can understand them making the senate a special case - it would make things rather easy if you could mass spies and assassins and get Rome via revolutions, but to do the same to the other roman factions as well seems a bit much.

I would say, try it again after you have declared war on them.

If CA was smart, they'd prohibit the players rome faction from hurting the computer rome factions like this before the civil war, as the computer rome faction is a nice little ally and doesn't try to react.
I thought about something like this, but as I said, the Britons are also taking the Gaul's lands, and they have the same one-unit garrison, with a constant 30-40 % loyalty, and neither riot nor revolt here...

I believe that the percentage of public unrest shown is much like that shown when I march my governor out of a city and the unrest drops like a rock - at the end of the turn the AI adjusts taxes and such to make the order higher.
I'm pretty sure it's not that : as the pictures shows, there is a constant 40 % loyalty level over several turns.

[japinard]

Well ironically I have the opposite problem. I send a spy to a Gaul city for testing purposes and it immidiately revolts.

The game is already way too easy and the AI can't keep towns under control as it is. If the player can make the AI revolt even more with spies, the game will be idiotically easy. As it is, I'd like to have the AI not have to worry about revolts. Then maybe it can hold it's intermediate and distant territories.

[Oaty]

I've only read half the post but heres what happens.

First of all the A.I. rarely or never does repair forts.

I had a mission to blockade Alexandria. I did'nt want a war with the Egyptians because I had problems elsewhere. But I was still messing with the Egyptians via spies and assassins.

I had Alexandria at a low public order. next turn I get a message that the mission is no longer relevant. I look at Alexandria and is still owned by the Egyptians. So apparently the city revolted, and the Egyptians took it back immediately due to there being breeches in the wall.

And if you look at your pic the city walls are damaged. So end turn order from my observations. Cities revolt and rebels show up, income from cities comp makes there moves and then evryone gets there new recruits and it is now your turn again.

So the damage is happening it just looks unnoticable because they are retraining there troops

[Akka]

And if you look at your pic the city walls are damaged. So end turn order from my observations. Cities revolt and rebels show up, income from cities comp makes there moves and then evryone gets there new recruits and it is now your turn again.

So the damage is happening it just looks unnoticable because they are retraining there troops
The wall has been damaged since day one. They have been damaged when the Julii conquered the town, and never repaired.
And please, one single unit of hastati retaking the town EACH TURN ? With the population growing continously ?
And that in each town previously occupied by the Gaul, each turn ?

Seems definitely far-stretched for me.

The game is already way too easy and the AI can't keep towns under control as it is. If the player can make the AI revolt even more with spies, the game will be idiotically easy. As it is, I'd like to have the AI not have to worry about revolts. Then maybe it can hold it's intermediate and distant territories.
As I said :

I don't care with that. If I want a harder game, I'll take the higher difficulty levels. If I'm playing on medium, it's PRECISELY because I want the AI and me submitting to the SAME rules.
Yes, I find the game easy, but I care much more about being able to actually have fun, than simply have enemies immune to anything in order to make them tougher. I wanted to wage a undercover war. Well, I can't, because the AI is seemingly immune to riots, revolts and unrest. THAT is not increasing my game pleasure.