Of Assassins, Spies and Unhappiness

1) Do your Assassins and Spies reduce the possibility of revolt/uprising in your settlements if they are in them?

2) Do your Assassins and Spies increase the possiblity of revolt in your enemies' settlements if they are in enemy settlements?

3) Playing as the Turks, I've just launched an invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (that's Spain and Portugal for those of us who are geographically-challenged, hehe) in response to a Jihad on Cordoba (declared by the Moors)...

Having captured Cordoba, Toledo, Valencia and finally wiping out the Spanish in Leon, my meagre invasion force is now beset by possible uprisings in these captured cities, especially Leon.

I've got a full stack of troops; I'm building masjids, town halls and shisha dens as fast as possible; I've even got imams converting the locals; but it just isn't fast enough to make the populace happy. Any suggestions on how to quell the unhappiness?




Alternatively, I could let the rebels take over and re-capture the city but that's such a chore... :)

1. Directly, no. They do however increase the chance of catching enemy spies which do decrease disorder.

2. Yes

3. Large Garrisons, ever think about using mercs?

Get all the mercs you can and hope for the best.

Spies and assasins do not help your settlements but they do make the settlements of other countries revolt.

If you are playing as the Turks then the major cause of unrest in your towns could be the distance to capital penalty as well.

Can you move it to a town/city closer to Iberia??


ED

Thanks guys.

Well, that certainly puts to rest the Assassins and Spies questions for me.

As for the unhappy cities, I did use mercs after I occupied the city. Luckily there were 4 Merc Crossbowmen and another 4 Merc Spearmen for hire around Leon. Hired every last man. Put me back 6000 Florins!!! I was looking for a cheaper alternative...

Even then, the public order of Leon was around 60%. And there were riots the next few turns... Stabilised after that... And suddenly spiked up again!

Sheesh...

Distance to capital is your main problem here...

Iberia is about as far as you can go as the Turks (barring England and Denmark perhaps...)

As stated above, try to move your capital closer to your newly acquired province.

A quick check on the sttlement scroll should also give you some hint as the main threat on your public order...

Do you have governors present in those cities ? If so, If they have a high piety rating, they may lower public order through religious unrest... Better take them out of the cities...

As for the cycling rhythm of the riots you noticed (riots then calm then riots anew) it might be due to the amount of population present in the city... Riots kill a percentage of the population thus raising public order which increases pop growth and you're back to where you started...

Spies are good for detecting the spies that the AI sends into your cities.
I dont have solid proof of it, but I think they also help your officers from getting assasinated if you combine them with the stack.

If you have the civil unrest problem you can do a few things.

1) Exterminate the pop. when you take a city. Esp if you are Muslim vs Catholic you will most likely need to do this to get some order going.

2) You may find it expedient to exterminate the pop. and if necessary allow it to rebel and exterminate again.(This would only be for VERY large cities usually being a diff. religion Antioch Cairo Etc)

3) Build only "happiness/order" buildings in your new cities when you capture them, until the loyalty is up.

4) Preempt some civil unrest by sending priests/Imams to your target well before you attack to get some of the pop on your side.

5) Try to have a spy in every large city you capture to flush out the AI spies, which will often try to sneak in.

6) If your front line is large and many cities are rebelling then you just need to concentrate on keeping what you can,typically garrison your front line and if cities behind your front line rebel, you can always get them back with the reinforcements you are sending up already.

And of course lower the taxes

Excell-ent.

Finally got the public order up to 85% and holding (I stuffed the city with as many large units as possible e.g. Spear Militia instead of Sipahis) while I built a Dar al-Imara.

Am gonna build masjid's and shisha dens and send the populace to a kind of shisha-haze-filled state of spiritual meditation... Hehe.

Thanks for the feedback and support everyone!

-mir-