Rebellious Cities

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11-12-2017, 19:33
weejonnie

Rebellious Cities

An interesting situation occurred in my current Numidian Campaign.

Tarsus (that hotbed of rebellion) was accidentally infected with plague and that seemed to send the public order into freefall (70% rebellion).

So I decided to minimise the rebellious forces and basically demolished all military buildings. Good idea?

Actually NO!

When I was kicked out it replaced me with 22 (twenty two) units of peasants, each of offence 12 and defence 13.

This got me thinking - what is the algorithm the AI uses to create rebellious forces. (NB it is not guaranteed, I have had cities rebel that when I loaded the game in again and did nothing did not rebel in the 2nd version - so presumably it is probability generated.)

Current thought

1) The total strength of the rebellious forces must be greater than the garrison. AND
2) The total number of units is based on the amount of money that the city generates in absolute terms - the wealthier the city, the worse the rebel stack.

if that is the case then the best procedure when a city is expected to rebel would be to destroy the wealth-creating buildings rather than the lower-grade military ones.

Anyone got any corroborative data?

Addenda

When adding to the recruitment queue of a certain town, I noticed that a symbol underneath the city suddenly appeared - first it was red, then amber, then green. I hadn't noticed this before but I suspect it indicates what the public order of the town will be next turn (or possibly when all the units queued are trained. This is different from the immediate public order that appears when you look at the city details.
11-13-2017, 20:05
Ludens

Re: Rebellious Cities

Quote:

Originally Posted by weejonnie

When adding to the recruitment queue of a certain town, I noticed that a symbol underneath the city suddenly appeared - first it was red, then amber, then green. I hadn't noticed this before but I suspect it indicates what the public order of the town will be next turn (or possibly when all the units queued are trained. This is different from the immediate public order that appears when you look at the city details.

Could that be due the the town population declining due to the recruitment (thus reducing the citizen/garrison ratio). Or was the town too big for that to have an effect?

As for the composition of the rebels; I don't think it is known for certain. I do know that in the EB mod you'd get weird units (like Parthians in Gaul, or visa versa) during rebellions if the rebelling city was designated as the "capital" of the rebel faction (something that apparently happened instantly upon rebellion, even before the rebel units spawned), and particularly if you demolished recruitment buildings. So my guess is that the rebels get a "budget", which they have to spend recruiting units from the existing infrastructure. If you delete that infrastructure, they can spend it on any "rebel" unit.

There is also some research in the old Ludus Magna forum, but it relates mostly to "bandits" rather than rebelling cities.
11-13-2017, 20:40
Vincent Butler

Re: Rebellious Cities

Quote:

Originally Posted by weejonnie

An interesting situation occurred in my current Numidian Campaign.

Tarsus (that hotbed of rebellion) was accidentally infected with plague and that seemed to send the public order into freefall (70% rebellion).

Weird. It seems with me, a plague increases public order because it wipes out the population. This is even in places like Patavium. And Patavium seems to get a lot of plagues, as does Syracuse. Unless I am hurting financially, I don't mind a plague in places like Patavium or Corduba or the other rebellious cities.

Quote:

As for the composition of the rebels; I don't think it is known for certain. I do know that in the EB mod you'd get weird units (like Parthians in Gaul, or visa versa) during rebellions if the rebelling city was designated as the "capital" of the rebel faction (something that apparently happened instantly upon rebellion, even before the rebel units spawned), and particularly if you demolished recruitment buildings. So my guess is that the rebels get a "budget", which they have to spend recruiting units from the existing infrastructure. If you delete that infrastructure, they can spend it on any "rebel" unit.

If somebody from CA knows the answer to this, it would be greatly appreciated.
11-13-2017, 22:07
weejonnie

Re: Rebellious Cities

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vincent Butler

Weird. It seems with me, a plague increases public order because it wipes out the population. This is even in places like Patavium. And Patavium seems to get a lot of plagues, as does Syracuse. Unless I am hurting financially, I don't mind a plague in places like Patavium or Corduba or the other rebellious cities.

If somebody from CA knows the answer to this, it would be greatly appreciated.

Public order will eventually increase as a plague works its way because the %ge garrison value will increase (up to 80%). However when this happened that was an increase in the 'rebellion' indicators (the flames), from 30% to 70%. It is possible that this was caused by a Spy but I don't think a spy can increase rebellion by that much.

(I used two full stacks of troops to retake the town - by starving it out. I didn't want to meet peasants on steroids when trying to storm the place. Anyway - Pontus is now no more - and Tarsus has a population of about 800.)
11-15-2017, 01:16
Vincent Butler

Re: Rebellious Cities

Quote:

Originally Posted by weejonnie

Public order will eventually increase as a plague works its way because the %ge garrison value will increase (up to 80%). However when this happened that was an increase in the 'rebellion' indicators (the flames), from 30% to 70%. It is possible that this was caused by a Spy but I don't think a spy can increase rebellion by that much.

(I used two full stacks of troops to retake the town - by starving it out. I didn't want to meet peasants on steroids when trying to storm the place. Anyway - Pontus is now no more - and Tarsus has a population of about 800.)

Unless finances or Senate mission demand, I prefer to starve the rebels into submission. I also maintain garrisons large enough to retake a town (provided it is not the insane upgrades). More expensive, yes, and if I can't afford it I will use as few troops as I can. If it is not likely to come under attack I will use weaker units. Now, the cities that like to rebel get full garrisons of good troops. That way, if I get kicked out and they attack in that turn, I can defend myself, defeat the rebels, and take the city quickly. By full garrison, I mean a standard field army for me, usually around eight to ten units of line infantry (if a phalanx faction, large Greek/Roman city gets only six units of phalanx), two or three archers, and three or four cav units, plus one or two onagers. Corduba and such may get extra troops as well.

What I do sometimes (especially if I am a phalanx faction) is pull my troops out of a rioting town and station at a bridge or river ford. They will kick me out and hopefully attack me right away. The bridge will negate their numbers, and a phalanx faction owns at a bridge. Jerusalem, Patavium, Corduba, and Londinium are all conveniently located near river crossings. Tarsus, Tanais, and Dimidi, not so lucky. These seven are my major headache cities. Jerusalem usually just riots without kicking me out. Patavium seems to get plague quickly, so it alternates between plague and rioting.
11-15-2017, 15:42
weejonnie

Re: Rebellious Cities

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vincent Butler

Jerusalem, Patavium, Corduba, and Londinium are all conveniently located near river crossings. Tarsus, Tanais, and Dimidi, not so lucky. These seven are my major headache cities. Jerusalem usually just riots without kicking me out. Patavium seems to get plague quickly, so it alternates between plague and rioting.

Jerusalem is a pain as it is usually so far away from a capital. Patavium is close to my current capital (Syracuse) and now I have upgraded it to a huge city there is no real culture penalty - still needs a big garrison though. I have lost (and regained) Dimidi and Tarsus - Playing Numidia Dimidi is not really a problem.

(I tried to get a lot of places to rebel to see what troops they produced (having recorded population etc) - they wouldn't. :no::wall:
11-15-2017, 20:21
Vincent Butler

Re: Rebellious Cities

Quote:

Originally Posted by weejonnie

Jerusalem is a pain as it is usually so far away from a capital. Patavium is close to my current capital (Syracuse) and now I have upgraded it to a huge city there is no real culture penalty - still needs a big garrison though. I have lost (and regained) Dimidi and Tarsus - Playing Numidia Dimidi is not really a problem.

(I tried to get a lot of places to rebel to see what troops they produced (having recorded population etc) - they wouldn't. :no::wall:

One thing I have noticed; as Rome, if you have an Arena or better, you will virtually always get a Gladiator Uprising as the rebellion. Usually it is Peasants, Velite Gladiators, and Samnite Gladiators. Those are better than the other type (also Gladiator Risings), where you might see chariots, Amazon Chariots, Yubtseb Elephants, rebel generals, Pontic Heavy Cav, and such like.

If no Arena present, you will either probably either get the faction that by default owns that settlement (usually the starting faction for that city), or rebels of that region (for example, Londinium may breed Iceni Rebels, Lugdunum may get Aedui Rebels, etc). I may have the region/tribes wrong, but you get the idea. Again, only revolts against Rome will create Gladiator Uprisings (as far as I have seen).

Since Numidia is the default owner of Dimmidi, it is no surprise that you have no problems there. Built-in unrest does not affect (I think I have read this) the default owner.