Those Rebels are doing something right...

There is something very interesting happening in my current game (Byz, Early, Expert): the year is 1229, and the rebels on the Eastern Plains are the most developed nation on the map (besides me). Basically, I turtled after taking out Turks and Egypt, while Neither Poland nor Novgorod were able to make a meaningful land grab (Rebels still control the Prussia-Volhynia-Moldavia line, AND they have knocked PoN out of Novgorod and cornered them into Finland.
Now, the funny thing is that almost every rebel province has a citadel in it, as well as a whole bunch of men (in the hundreds). They have yet to put a ship in the sea though.
All the while most of Europe has been ravaged by non-stop warfare as powers rise, fall, only to re-emerge and repeat the cycle.

I'm sitting tight in Constantinople ready to take on the Horde, and needless to say, the situation is rather amusing.

start bribing people and meddling in politics! i can never resist bribing and corrupting rebels...presumably as a 'turtled' Byzantine leader with no wars on the go you are currently rolling in vast piles of gleaming cash?

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Originally Posted by matteus the inbred

start bribing people and meddling in politics! i can never resist bribing and corrupting rebels...presumably as a 'turtled' Byzantine leader with no wars on the go you are currently rolling in vast piles of gleaming cash?

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Hehe, not really. I spent all my cash on Fortresses + 9999999999999 Varangs (hopefully enough to last me thru the ages). I *have* been severely restricting my trading though (making just enough to maintain a positive cash flow).

Anyhow, after Mongols are dealt with, I guess I'll just kill all the Rebels.


Speaking of Trade: it's a real game spoiler.

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Originally Posted by rvg

Speaking of Trade: it's a real game spoiler.

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how d'you mean? not a big fan?
surely more money would be good?
all those nice shiny Varangs need lots of armour polish i expect!

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Originally Posted by matteus the inbred

how d'you mean? not a big fan?
surely more money would be good?
all those nice shiny Varangs need lots of armour polish i expect!

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If fully taken advantage of, it will bring in more money than you could ever hope to spend, making the game impossible to lose (it's difficult to lose battles if you are not VASTLY outnumbered, as the computer is a moron in tactical combat).

i gots to admit, i get bored with having so much money after a while, especially as really expensive buildings take an age to build. it's worse in VI, even fewer exciting and expensive things to build, and cheaper troops too. trade does give people an excuse to commit piracy, which in turn gives you an excuse to kick hell out of them. not that i need an excuse, but i like to feel morally justified.

attempting to bribe someone's level 9 Man of Principle general while he's leading 2,000 elite troops can take care of the surplus though!

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Originally Posted by rvg

If fully taken advantage of, it will bring in more money than you could ever hope to spend, making the game impossible to lose (it's difficult to lose battles if you are not VASTLY outnumbered, as the computer is a moron in tactical combat).

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I highly recommend downloading the XL mod. It greatly reduces trade income, although it's still worth setting up a trade network. It also improves the value of land and farming upgrades, which helps the AI-controlled factions keep up with you.

You know something I noticed is when I put in the showmap cheat .matteosartori. on the campaign map thus revealing the entire map the rebel provinces all over the map start acting like actual factions.

Units are trained, castles are upgraded, provinces become extremely developed, infact ive seen provinces like Norway build a citadel controlled entirely by rebels. A province which starts out with nothing of value in and was never conquered by a proper faction.

On expert I did this as the Byz and starting noticing thousands of steppe tribesmen, namely the Khazars raiding my territory like any other faction would. In the end it became a full blown invasion.

To the extent where the Khazars totally overran the Turks and then fought a major war with steppe tribes to the north until eventually the Khazars ruled a large empire which was basically much of the north eastern part of the map.

I'm not sure why this happens, ive never noticed this kind of intelligence by rebels when I havent revealed the map, they just sit around doing next to nothing when I dont reveal the map. But when I do the rebels go nuts.

I always reveal the map and I've never seen that... although I play in normal.

Also, I haven't seen the rebels invading a province which wasn't theirs.... is this normal? (I've just recently got MTW 2.1).

If so, I might start seeing the rebels as something more than totally neutral and harmless trade partners...

Rebels will invade when they have at least a 2 stack army in the starting province and they think they can win the battle. They will only attack factions and not each other. I have seen fortresses built up in the NE with armouries, master horse, master spear and master seige engineers.

They seem to be better at handling funds than any faction, but that may be because they get large infusions of cash and men any time a civil war starts.

mfberg

Using the -ian switch I've noticed they're almost always broke. Maybe rebels don't need money. I'll test that later.