Discord and rebellions

I'm reading M.A. Robb's book "Beyond Populares and Optimates", and I was wondering how you will represent the internal discord and rebellions in the game. The FAQ says

Quote:

---

Internal conflicts can and will be represented, however, with scripting and the loyalty feature of M2TW, for many factions.

---

Would you be willing to disclose something for us? This mechanic could be the most interesting which M2TW has to offer, to prevent the grey/yellow death and assure challenging and immersive gameplay until the very end. I presume you guys will do a better job than Rome 2 as well. But, well, I'm just very curious about how you will use it, because I've got lots of possibilities in my head but have no idea about the possibilities of the M2TW engine.

Since there has been no response: one interesting thing I think is the possibility to script mass rebellions. For example, as the Arche Seleukeia you have a disgruntled governor who also has the title of satrap of region X. If he rebels, perhaps the entire satrapy could turn rebel, with only loyal family members/generals being ousted from the settlement they were in, all armies in the region joining the rebel. Perhaps if this region belonged to a faction you destroyed (Pontos, Pergamon, ...) these factions could re-emerge under the leadership of the rebel (I don't know if this is possible). Perhaps there should by Y% chance that other disloyal governors seize the opportunity and rebel too.

I have especially thought about the Romans though. The same applies for their province system. But there could be possibilities that encourage rebellion, such as the factiones that were in EB (although perhaps with other names than 'populares' and 'optimates'). If the faction leader is of an opposing factio, high authority could actually make the discontent and risk of rebellion go up instead of down. The players could be given pointers that perhaps the dominant factio is too strong, by having different titles (pauci, potentates, ...).

Of course this could encourage players not to put generals with a low loyalty in provinces at all, nor give them armies. No idea how this could be prevented, but I guess there should be ways. Anyone else got thoughts about this?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ailfertes

Of course this could encourage players not to put generals with a low loyalty in provinces at all, nor give them armies. No idea how this could be prevented, but I guess there should be ways. Anyone else got thoughts about this?

---

i have given it some thought and considering that your amount of generals is limited to your amount of provinces if you refuse to put disloyal generals in cities then you just don´t have enough governors wich means far away places will be uncontrollable

also loyalty should be dinamic the more time you spend with the king or in the capital or in provinces adjacent to the king and or capital the more your loyalty would growth the more time you spend away from "home" (home provinces so to speak) the more your loyalty decreases as you get accostumed to diferent people costumes and cultures and can look back at your own birthplace with critic eyes

if this was modable like the batle comand stars it would be awesome particularly on one aspect depending on what kind of king the loyalty gain could be faster and higher or slower and lower (it could even be negative for particularly bad bad kings and amongst the barbaric factions it could mean the dismemberament or the entire federation into several diferent factions if you didn´t took out the king like what happened to aravistius once he had defeated the romans)

so grabbing again on my 1st argument except for particular caracthers (who get the governor status or satrap or stuff ) it would make sence to move your generals around alot beteween homeland provinces and conquered territories to keep remembering them why they are fighting maybe even moving the capital city around (like the sassanids did ) having a winter and summer capital or do like the seljuk turks did and move the capital as close as possible to the "batlefront" to keep the generals in the frontier loyal

also having the king and the heir apparent moving around the kingdom would keep loyalty at acceptable levels (province where the king is at and neighbouring regions ) and ofc the great twist not having the king or heir apparent in the capital or adjacent provinces could mean bad traits (like the seulekid monarch not being at the new year festival in babilon ... )

hope i raised more questions then answers

had almost forgot i still think that every province capital should have some sort of assembly made up of retinues and auxiliary caracthers and each one should give advantages and disadvantages (like you conquer a region and put in a priest of ceres in a carthaginian town to serv as a council member you can bet your ass the carthies are going to complain on religious grounds )
this could be used as a repository of retinues (so all councils would end up having clerks librarians geomancers veterans warheros wich would lend advantages and disadvantages on how the province perceives the rullers)
also the size of the council would ofc be determined on the size of the setlement so once a boy was born in rome he could imediatly get the best tutors military advicers drill sargents to shape him into a proper roman (or proper judge if he was born in bibactre )
it would just be a matter of adding another button on the city army and so forth bar

if those retinues remained more then x turns in the council they would retire so you would just have to juggle them around beteween setlements and caracthers as not to loose them (gawd i hate loosing a few retinues )

On the one hand, I think that rebellions as described by Ailfertes would be a good idea from a historical perspective, as well as for the AI. However, a big problem would be the (relatively) low speed of armies. For instance, in EBI, it might take a year for an army from southern Spain to reach Italy, or for an army in western Asia Minor to reach Syria, much less Egypt or western Iran. Not to mention, starving a city out (to avoid the horrible siege battles) takes two years by itself. Ideally, one would be able to march through friendly territory much more quickly than one does enemy territory, but the game isn't built to do that.

Regarding Moonburn's loyalty system, wouldn't that just result in the player having to spend a lot of time and effort mechanically rotating family members from one city to another? Is there any actual challenge to doing so? It would be fairly easy for a player to come up with an "ideal" rotation of governors, but they would have to move each individual family member back and forth, probably over multiple turns, for in-game decades or centuries! It's mind-numbing enough distributing governors among a 50-province Roman Republic, without having to send them all back to Rome every so often (a trip that in-game could take eight to twelve turns of marching! And because of the "Forced Marching" trait, you have to move them just slightly less than the maximum each turn, or they start getting bad traits.) Also, I'm pretty sure that the council idea is impossible, because you can't add another button to the UI, or have independent Ancillaries.

I am sorry that there has been no response until this point, but most of the team are busily working away at the moment. I will try to answer this question, but please bear in mind my lack of technical knowledge.

Unfortunately, due to my aforementioned lack of understanding, I cannot detail specifics. Nor indeed, is the exact system finalised, so I cannot even present a 'this is what happens' scenario. On the other hand, I know that we are aiming to highlight the importance of internal conflict to the political dynamic of this period.

As regards specfic points raised, a repository of ancillaries, to my understanding, would not be possible because of the way the system works. Lowering loyalty for those generals away for the capital/court is an interesting idea, which might have some potential. Scripts to force larger rebellions triggered by smaller ones are also a possibility, though we have to weigh the length of any potential script against its value.

Certainly, the Romani will eventually have a dynamic system of internal conflict, eventually. My own understanding of this issue is that optimates and populares are convenient labels for individual's political views. 'Factiones', though I have some issues with the terminology, certainly formed, but as to their size and stability, that is open to question. My personal preference would be to avoid simple dichotomies, but it is dependent on the overall complexity of doing so.

The only discord and rebellions present and planned are those within the EB team itself. Please consider joining if you are bitter and disillusioned! ~D

The Team has always been evil - it just gets evil-er! :evil:

Another April will be upon us soon. We must prepare...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

http://conzervative.files.wordpress....ide-parade.jpg

RAWROMNOM Stop posting pictures of me.

With regards to the Celtic factions there is currently an ongoing discussion of using a government option to breed inherent instability, thereby making larger empires much more difficult to maintain control of, especially with weak leaders.

The make-up Brennus used in the picture above was the same design Vercingetorix wore when leading his forces against Caesar. If a unit was based off the Vercingetorix's bodyguard, the trait "frightens nearby enemies" would be used.

i have given it some further brain cells and the loyalty could be tweaked in several ways such as loyalty loss would be smaller then loyalty gain (something like someone as 10 loyalty in 2 years he could drop to 8 fast but after it until he dropped to 3 loyalty it would/could take 10 years but in 10 years alot can happen a marriage could influence loyalty or how you respond to a rebellion would determine if the other governors increased their "respect for you or lost more respect trigering more rebellions the way you dealt with eleutheroi bandits showing up in your lands and so forth)

loyalty wouldn´t be much an issue for most factions since it´s rare for them to have regions more then 2 regions away from the capital also until they have to move their capital city around to prevent rebellions in no homeland regions ...

another way to tweak it it would be to create family nucleous where the pater famili would determine 50% of all of the clan loyalty and until he died all his sons and grandsons wouldn´t dare to rebel (except ofc for the rotten ones wich should always be a very rare ocurrence except in depraved places with more wine gold and women then good sence ) this way aslong as the family head survived and was kept close enough to the capital or king or heir apparent his part of the family would be kept in check

besides even if the family head rebelled against the basileus if one of his children was loyal enough and was inside/close to the capital or was a "brother to the basileus" or the heir apparent (close to them when the rebellion ocurred) he could refuse to join the rebellion and we could see the son leading the army of the greeks against his kre countryman to restablish the rightfull ruller power in crete

another very important point in such a sistem of family nucleous is that you could assassinate pater familii to create dissent amongst your enemies just imagine in a place like the seulekid empire 4 of the 5 top clans leaders die you risk having 20 30 generals and governors rebelling (i mean his sons and grandsons won´t respect the basileus much if their daddy died in an homeland state by an assassins blade it´s his job to protect his people )

another important aspect of such a sistem is how you marry your daughers around getting them to marry cousins could help keep the loyalty of the cousins but breed the insatisfaction of a few client rullers and 2nd line governors

we can play alot with such a sistem if it was ever created