Reducing Chance Of Civil War.

I have no problems with Civil War and rarely suffer from it, however I find my CPU counterparts to get it far to much, it destroys the game for me, when the challenge of conquering a would be empire is dissolved, just because half of there land rebelled to disloyal generals. I'm well aware that Faction Leader influence affects loyalty and therefore chance of civil war, but how do i increase the starting influence of faction leaders? (since high influence seems to be past on to future leaders, to some extent, at least).

The Byzantines start at 6, everyone else starts at 4, hence why they rarely suffer from it. I'm guessing the answer is in the startpos files, if so, please direct me appropriately!

While you can change the starting influence in the startpos file, I don't believe this is the main cause of the problem you are seeing. Use the -loyalty .exe switch to set the default target province happiness to at least 140%. This should get the AI factions to garrison properly which should prevent rebellions.

Thank you very much for the reply drone. :yes:

I'm not familiar with the -loyalty .exe switch I'm afraid, but I was under the impression that civil wars were the product of excess disloyal generals within a faction (rebel forces) against those loyal to the king (loyalists), so how would altering province happiness stop this from happening so frequently? I don't mind if my CPU counterparts receive unrest if there province is below 100% happiness, I'm just solely concerned with the civil wars that disloyal generals (princes in particular) seem to incite.

Not sure how to reduce it but it seems related to losses; a few defeats seems to embolden those tending to disloyalty.

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Originally Posted by LordK9

Not sure how to reduce it but it seems related to losses; a few defeats seems to embolden those tending to disloyalty.

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That is true. I observed it quite often when I win a couple of battles against a pretty large (territorially) faction. Some province garrisons rebel causing more problems to my adversary.
As for forestalling civil war: even during the first dozen turns (when you are not likely to produce spies) you are informed of the existence of some generals with low loyalty (if there are any). Just figure out who it is (in the warning message the province is indicated) and disband the unit headed by him. It doesn't work with princes' units, though. To keep those from rebelling put them in the same stack with your faction leader. The last advice is also useful for other would-be rebellious generals if you don't want to lose the useful unit by disbanding it. And try to keep such generals out of stacks: thus if they do rebel you will face a one-unit mutiny.

When you increase the target loyalty with the switch, the AI will garrison provinces better and generally become more stable. Not only will this reduce the chance of rebellions, but it will make it harder for the various AI factions to beat each other up. The 2 main causes of influence drop are losing provinces and attacking allies, more stability will keep this from happening as often, and this will last throughout the game. Changing the faction leader stats in the startpos file just changes the stats of the king at the start, heirs will quickly revert to the mean as the game progresses. Except the Byz, they get a built-in bonus so they will usually be higher.

I see, I didn't realise that the Byzantines' Influence consistence was hardcoded into the game :sad:

Well, in that case, the loyalty exe switch is probably better than nothing then! How do I implement this feature? Do I have to add something to my games shortcut?


@ Gilrandir & LordK9
Indeed, I noticed the same. But since it is CPU influence I want to maintain and not my own, this doesn't help me very much!

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Originally Posted by Brickfaced

Well, in that case, the loyalty exe switch is probably better than nothing then! How do I implement this feature? Do I have to add something to my games shortcut?

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Yes, you would change the shortcut. Something along the lines of

Code:

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"C:/games/Medieval - Total War/Medieval_TW.exe" -loyalty:130

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Thank you drone. :bow:

I have only tested it out briefly, but the typical offenders such as the Holy Roman Empire haven't dissolved into civil war once and I'm 65 turns in, by now it usually would have happened twice in my experience! Although after checking their loyalty, it does look like their on the edge of having one...

Either way, the only faction that has had one is the Almohads so far, so unless it is a coincidence it seems to have helped. :2thumbsup: