Love thine enemy or ten reasons to rebel

Ah Rebels. What are they good for:
1: Rebel family members are good source for generals if your faction has a tendency to keep it in their pants (sexual innuendo).
2: Hitting them with a large stack might push them into your enemys territory, now they are their problem.
3: Glean much needed re-enforcements by bribing (if same unit type).
4: That no star general, easy promotion using the rebels as a sparring partner.
5: What harm are they doing standing out there in the desert?
6: Enough spies in your enemys town and the rebels may take over, stomp the rebels inferior troops.
7: Hey that rebel stack is completely immobile, get the onagers out.
8: Grey is the new black (its to do with fashion, never mind).
9: They have better flag icons than us!
10: Keep you on your toes.

number 4 is about the only usefull reason to have rebels in your provence.
But watch out for those heavy british chariots, there crap! & you can lose your general to a bunch of peasants. :embarassed:

I always wondered what the deal was with rebel town owership at the start of the game. Its obviously meant to induce a rush for territory.
The main ones are Halicarnassus if playing Greek cities or Seleucid, Palmyra if Egypt or Seleucid, Kydonia (Crete) if Greek cities or Mecedon. Can anyone name them all? Bet you 1000 denarii you can't. ~:)

To win my own 1000 denarii the answer to this is:
Themiskyra (Amazons) - Scythia
Domus Dulcis Dornus (Gepid Rebels) - Scythia
Bordeshlom (Saxone Rebels) - German
Tara (Hibernian Rebels) - Briton
Vicus Gothi (Goth Rebels) - German
Vicus Venedae (Venedae Rebels) - Scythia/German/Dacia
Lovosice (Boii Rebels) - German/Dacia
Aquincum (Scordisci Rebels) - German/Dacia
Luvavum (Helvetii Rebels) - German
Lugdunum (Aedui Rebels) - Gaul/German
Massila (Voconti Rebels) - Gaul
Segesa (Ligurian Rebels) - Gaul/Roman
Segestica (Illyrian Rebels) -Gaul/Roman
Salona (Illytian Rebels) - Gaul/Roman/Macedon
Apollonia (Epriot Rebels) - Roman/Macedon/Greek Cities
Athens (Athenian Rebels) - Macedon/Greek Cities
Byzantium (Sithone Rebels)- Thrace/Macedon (wondered who the Sith were)
Chersonesos (Bosphoran Rebels) - Scythian
Phraaspa (Mede Rebels) - Armenia/Parthia/Sythia
Nicomedia (Bithynian Rebels) - Armenia/Thrace/Greek Cities/Seleucid
Ancyra (Gakatian Rebels) - Armenia/Greek Cities/Seleucid
Palmyra (Palmyran Rebels) - Egypt/Seleucid
Bostra (Nabataean Rebels) - Egypt/Seleucid
Petra (Nabataean Rebels) - Egypt
Dumatha (Nabataean Rebels) - Parthia/Seleucid
Cyrene (Libian Rebels) - Numidia
Lepcis Magna (Poeni Rebels) - Numidia/Carthage
Nepte (Gaetulian Rebels) - Numidia
Kydonia (Cretan Rebels) - Macedon/Greek Cities

So rush for those cities whilst you have the chance.
:charge:

Almost forgot Halicarnassus (Lycian Rebels), might be another one out there, but I'm bored with this now. ~:)

About nº 5. be careful that they disrupt your trade and the resources you gain from that piece of land!!! Don't know if they blockade your sea trade when they appear in your ports. I've seen this many times in Rome port (Ostia I believe)

Diego, from Argentina

PS: I see rebels in a good way, they give you experience, they are fun to battle (special those naked ones) and from time to time they provide you with a cousin for your heir :)

I haven't come across that yet diego, but I'll keep it in mind. Does anyone else have any rebel stories or bugbears?

On the upside, rebel stacks provide good training grounds for assassins before they head off to kick some bigger butt.

ive yet to have an assasin who doesnt get killed himself on his 1st go!

That annoys me too. At the moment I have a Numidian spy sitting outside the gates of Alexandria. He just will not go away. I've popped him out on his ear twice. I've tried assassinating him on several occasions but he must have a trait giving him added protection and my assassins die. I have tried to spy on him but my spies also end up dead. Who is he, the Numidian version of James Bond!. I am hoping the very fact I know he is there (being visible on the map/sending agents against him) will render the spy inoperative, i.e not allow him to re-enter the city while he is visible. Is this a fact or am I just spewing rubbish again.

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Originally Posted by rebelscum

Vicus Gothi (Goth Rebels) - German

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I for one was disappointed not to see black eyeliner and nail polish as tradeable goods here.

hmmm...looks like the ppl at CA decided to downgrade the abilities of the dark arts, namely spying and assassination, since they thought that spies and assassins are 2 powerful...in STW, i like it when i mass shinobi on one province, make them rebel, let the enemy faction leave the province, and take it for my own, without being at war! and adding to that, fervent loyalty as well! ~D

diplomats in STW and MTW where too easy to kill. now that RTW's diplomacy is much much better and complex, it compensates for the limited abilities of the spies and assasins.

Thats not quite true. I am currently engaging in a project to assassinate all the other Roman family members in order to take over their land without civil war. I am using Scipii VH/M and am pleased to report excellent progress. There are only 2 surviving senators who are too tough to touch and 3 Brutii, of which two have somehow gotten themselves infected to plague which leaves their heir for me to kill. My master assassin is about to move into Julii lands and beat the pulp out of them. And he isnt even fully trained yet. I'll probably start a thread about it once ive succeeded but it kinda take a bit of patience to sit around waiting for their faction leaders to die while killing all the whelplings appearing at the capital. Reminds me of the time i crushed a french reappearance by subterfuge for fun. Cheers

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Originally Posted by LordKhaine

I for one was disappointed not to see black eyeliner and nail polish as tradeable goods here.

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The Eggies looted it all. At least the eyeliner.

Perhaps assassin effiency is very dependant on campaign difficulty. On medium I get a lot of killing done. Generals are hard, but training on captains gives traits and ancillaries. In my previous Spanish campaign I knocked off most of the Gaul leaders and sabotaged their capital forward to the Dark Ages.

i have noticed that kings and faction leaders are untouchable. i had this one master assasin in the middle of egypt, and i made sure he had fun on his egypt vacation. i killed 12 family members almost all of them were a 100% success rate but there faction leader (pharoh ptotsom serefilites weird name even for an egyptian)always had a 3% rate i never lety my assasin touch him in the end when i beat that campaign (first one H/H) egypt and me were at a standstill and there pharoh had no family ~D

_______________
to king Darius III
yes your army is great
rich in purple in gold rocking the land as they march
one thousand deep and a tribute to your wealth
but send back your purple and gold send away your riches
for there stands then army of alexander
when they march the mountains crumble
when they sleep the earth is there bed
when they fight none can stand against them
darius take back your purple and gold send away your riches and bring forth real warriors!
this man was sent to death

Those faction leaders with single digit percentage chances of being assassinated can be killed, if you're willing to use reloading of saved games. Chances of assasination also seem to improve after a previous successful assassination in the same turn.

Yes, if you can't win .. cheat! ~:)

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Originally Posted by KiOwA

Those faction leaders with single digit percentage chances of being assassinated can be killed, if you're willing to use reloading of saved games. Chances of assasination also seem to improve after a previous successful assassination in the same turn.

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I noticed I got worse results on successive savegames actually, on a first attempt I killed a general but then I made a stupid movement error (RTW should have a take back option...) and reloaded the autosave, next time my assassin failed, I reloaded more to see if I could reproduce the result and after a while he got killed everytime I tried.

RTW probably use the "save seed" feature, like Civ3.
It means that, if you do the exact same sequence of action, you'll get the exact same result on an autosave.
If chances seem to improve after a previous assassination, it's probably because, many times, your assassin get an improvement in stats and/or an ancillary with a successful mission.

Perhaps. I've noticed that if my assassin fails to nail a character, upon reloading and immediate re-trial of the deed, the exact same result will occur. But if I do something else before re-attempting assassination (especially killing other characters, those with a 100% chance to kill), the results may be different.