Rebellion, what decides a city's fate ?

[Chris1959]

I am currently plowing my way through my first Romani campaign, 230BC, with all upgrades, and it is excellent.

However, I have come up against the Germans and from previous short campaigns and reading the forum I want to keep them at bay.

My policy was to bribe their armies off when they threatened the Volcae etc.

Eventually they attacked my frontier forts and I am at war.

In earlier games I launched punative strikes, pillaged cities and left, every time a city rebelled in went straight back to the Germans with a nice fat stack of troops.

This time round the first city to fall to me rebelled back to the Volcae, other cities back to the Germans.

How is the loyallty decide of a city that rebels against you decided. I would like to create a buffer of independent states so I can expand my Empire in a more historical fashion. I don't want to to have to campaign to the Baltic to destroy the Germans so early on.

[I of the Storm]

I suppose it's determined by the dominant culture of the settlement (building culture) and the faction that owned it previously. So in case of the cities you are talking about the buildings would be predominantly germanic and the previous ownership was sweboz, so the probability of the revolting city becoming sweboz again is quite high, I think.
It's never fully predictable though.

[atheotes]

AFAIK if a faction owns a settlement for even one single turn... it has a % chance of gaining it when it rebels. I guess culture and no of turns the faction held it would improve the % chance... But dont think it is an exact science.

[bovi]

I had thought for a long time that native culture and owner decided this, but then a settlement way up north decided to rebel to romans in Juvenal's game. TA's theory is that if a faction has built an improved palace, they gain the loyalty of the populace. Might be right. The slowly converting culture might also make a difference. I don't know.

[Thaatu]

How about when Galatia rebels from Seleucids or Pontos. It sometimes goes to Aedui, sometimes to Arvernii. Is there roughly a 50/50 chance or..?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Three things decide who get a settlement (and who need a recruitable unit to prevent CTD). The first two are owner and founder tags that are placed in files for the beginning of the game. One determines what the settlement looks like at the start and who it goes to when it rebels. The other determines what it looks like when it upgrades (when owned by rebels) and who it will go to after upgrade. The third is tied to number two: Whoever the designer of the palace structure is, is who it will rebel to. So, when a town upgrades to a different faction that it started with, it won't go to the starting faction, but the upgrade faction. This is why some rebel towns change who they rebel to. This is why towns that aren't the same starting culture as someone, but have been been upgraded by them will rebel back to them.

Why they go to rebel sometimes and their base faction other times is a complete other story...

[Chris1959]

So the best way to have the highest chance of rebels being independent is to encourage rebellion before another culture has upgraded the Govenor's residence ?

Or is there still a chance of being independent but it becomes lower and lower the more a settlement is upgraded.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

No, even before they upgrade the city, it is most likely to rebel to the faction labelled as the founder or creator.

The only way to make sure it rebels to rebel is to destroy the faction it wants to rebel to, then it will go to rebel instead.

(I one time wanted some buffer states, like it sound like some people want. Here's what I did: Pontus was down to one town with the only family member left inside the town. I was besieging the town, but a single unit was wandering the countryside. So, I conquered all to towns that I wanted as buffer states. Then, I gave all of the buffer states to Pontus [one at a time, with 10000 each]. I immediately attacked the one original pontus town and killed the last family member. All the towns I had given Pontus reverted to "slave". Now I had buffer states. This can be difficult because you don't always have a dying faction to use this way. Also, there is a chance this will cause the rebelling city CTD.)

[madmatg]

anyway to make an announcement on the beginning turn announcements to say that a city has rebelled? i had a black sea city rebel to me from epieros and i didnt know for at least 2-3 turns, is it aready there and i just missed it?

[bovi]

I'm not sure if we can detect that, but it's a good idea for sure.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

They should give you an annoucement, something like, "Loyalist Uprising", but they often don't. Just watch and see if you suddenly go to war with someone, that may mean a town rebelled from them to you.