Mass revolt

So there I am , conquered the british Isles , Scandanavia,western Europe,spain and africa all the way to syria. All the loyalty levels are within 120% or higher.I have a garrison watch towers , an inn and in many cases a castle and church in all of my provnces and what happens ....A huge number of provinces decide to revolt all at the same time. England ,France , Germany, Spain and Portugal all have revolting provinces.Ive tried going back and putting the taxes down to vl but it makes no difference. Is this just a spanner in the works wrote in to the game to sting you when you get to far to fast ?

Hi Fester.It's hard-coded into the game to start giving you trouble when you get too powerful.I'm sure you have noticed that your kings and generals are getting bad vices as well like "odd number of toes".It's the AIs way off trying to hamstring you when you're winning.If you keep putting down the rebellions they will stop within about 5-8 years.

I had the same problem. I went on a peasant building spree for 5 years and making sure to have a bishop and spy in every province. After a few years the problem went away, so I disbanded most of the hastily built peasants. The "mass revolt" problem will strike when you have conquered about 60 percent of the map.

Mass Rebellions:
Don't get too frustrated. Just as you think you understand the game, you realize there's a whole new layer to learn :b .

Here are some important points:
--- excommunicated? lowers loyalty.
--- build border forts, church/mosque, town watch for +loyalty
--- convert the people to your religion
--- spies - one in each of your provinces (pre-VI, multiple spies work, with VI only highest valor spy matters)
--- garrisons - at least 100 men (peasants are as good as royal knights) as a rule of thumb, more when needed.
--- build, build, build! Build alot and your ruler will pick up great builder (+10 happiness) then magnificent builder (+20 happiness). Quantity, not quality matters, so go for the cheap/fast buildings.
--- province loyalty - If u have VI use auto-tax to help keep things under control. With plain MTW it doesn't work really well and you need to keep an eye on things
--- shift key: shows the loyalty of your provs - green:loyal, yellow:wavering, red:rebellious. This just shows loyalty -at-that-moment- , but if you get excomm'd or your ruler gets disconnected from your empire, all hell can break lose, even if last turn everything was green.
--- your ruler: keep him connected to your empire. This is usually the cause of 90% of mass rebellions. Don't get him stuck on an island with no port. If he gets disconnected due to sea blockades ('v' will show status of seas - red is blockaded. only with MTW 1.1 and higher) expect a drop in province loyalty. The further inland your ruler goes, the more loyalty drops in the more distant provs. Best to keep your ruler in a coastal prov, with port, connected via ships to the rest of your empire, also with ports on their end.
--- # of provs: once you hold 60% of the provinces, the "bloated empire" penalty kicks in - prov loyalty takes a *small* dip, govs start picking up more negative income/happiness vices which can lead to revolts.
--- Some provinces are naturally rebellious:
Rebellious ratings (0 = lowest, 4 = highest)
Ireland = 1
Khazar = 1
Lithuania = 3
Livonia = 4
Pomerania = 1
Portugal = 4
Prussia = 2
Scotland = 2
Serbia = 1

Excellent post motorhead cheers. Where did get access to those stats ???

some from the game files (unit_prod and building_prod), some from developer posts, some from testing, some from other's posts (and verified by tests).

If yuor expanding quickly, then you will tend to overstretch yourself. Try leaving a few people in each provence as you go, I tend to leave a melee and a ranged unit behind. They can generally deal with any rebellion if it happens, and they will generally stop it.