Empire Rebelled!

Hey all,

I just started playing MTW recently as my good computer got destroyed and I was too young to fully understand this game when I got it about 3 years ago.

So, I installed it and gave it go, and now I'm addicted. I've never seen a game with so much depth and replayability value. I'm hooked!

Anyhoo, being kinda new to the game, I decided to amble over to some forums and I've read a lot of beginners guides after I experimented a bit and realized that there's probably a good deal of info in the manual that I lost. My problem is this:

I've dealt with faction re-emergences before, but in 1147 the Danes suddenly decided it was time for them to hop back on the stage and attack my Holy Roman Province of Denmark. Which is fine, except that I lost ALL of my provinces (read: all provinces rebelled) except for a few of the Northern Italian ones which I was currently besieging. Everything I ousted from the Poles and the French and everything I started with disappeared. Here's a brief list of what I was doing:
- Playing as HRE, diificulty Easy, period Early, type Conquest
- All provinces 100%+ loyalty (everything green when I held shift)
- War with Italy
- War with England
- War with Papacy
- War with Poland
- Excommed (no idea why lol)
- 1147
- Held most of central Europe

Thank God for autosave! Guess I'm j/w, has anyone else had this happen to them before? And if so, can anyone tell me what I can do to prevent it when I load? Sorry if this has been brought up before, I'm new :D.

Thanks and a Happy Easter to all!

Welcome, Necrotherion, to the .org and to the Main Hall in particular. I hope very much that you are enjoying playing, what is in my opinion still, the very best of the Total War series. :bow:

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Originally Posted by Necrotherion

Hey all,

I just started playing MTW recently as my good computer got destroyed and I was too young to fully understand this game when I got it about 3 years ago.

So, I installed it and gave it go, and now I'm addicted. I've never seen a game with so much depth and replayability value. I'm hooked!

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This is one of those games you'll keep coming back to. The replayability is there due to the sheer flexibility of the thing. There are so many different ways to approach this game it's unreal.

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Originally Posted by Necrotherion

Anyhoo, being kinda new to the game, I decided to amble over to some forums and I've read a lot of beginners guides after I experimented a bit and realized that there's probably a good deal of info in the manual that I lost. My problem is this:

I've dealt with faction re-emergences before, but in 1147 the Danes suddenly decided it was time for them to hop back on the stage and attack my Holy Roman Province of Denmark. Which is fine, except that I lost ALL of my provinces (read: all provinces rebelled) except for a few of the Northern Italian ones which I was currently besieging. Everything I ousted from the Poles and the French and everything I started with disappeared. Here's a brief list of what I was doing:
- Playing as HRE, diificulty Easy, period Early, type Conquest
- All provinces 100%+ loyalty (everything green when I held shift)
- War with Italy
- War with England
- War with Papacy
- War with Poland
- Excommed (no idea why lol)
- 1147
- Held most of central Europe

Thank God for autosave! Guess I'm j/w, has anyone else had this happen to them before? And if so, can anyone tell me what I can do to prevent it when I load? Sorry if this has been brought up before, I'm new :D.

Thanks and a Happy Easter to all!

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Try to keep loyalty above 120%, not 100%. This will stop those faction reappearances.

:bow:

Ah, I shall do that. Thanks very much for the advice!

Oh and thanks for the welcome, lol. Where are my manners? Anyways, I shall be doubtlessly be back, look forward to checking out some of the mods. Off to the game!

The HRE in particular seems to be very sensitive to military failures. If something goes wrong then everything goes wrong. Also, the bigger you get, the more prone to rebelling and re-emergances the AI gets.

And welcome to the .org!

The default loyalty that your auto-set taxes function keeps your loyalty at can be adjusted with the command line -loyalty:x where x is the value you want loyalty at or above. This is useful when you have a large empire and don't have time to micro everything. Autoset taxes can lower efficiency slightly when you're playing on high difficulty trying to fight your way out with a small faction though.

When loyalty is concerned 100% is 100%. However, various little things can suddenly lower loyalty at turn end, so having a buffer is safe. Personally, I keep x at 105 and I've never had an unexpected rebellion on Hard or Expert in VI or XL.

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Originally Posted by Maloncanth

Personally, I keep x at 105 and I've never had an unexpected rebellion on Hard or Expert in VI or XL.

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Then you must be lucky, I have seen rebellions in provinces with 118% loyalty:dizzy2:

I deem Necrotherion's case could have another reason. A rebellion of this extent is unlikely to be caused by 'regular' loyalty issues, it isn't too probable that all provinces start rebelling and all wiped-out factions re-emerge the same turn just because loyalty was below 120% (and still in the greens).

To me, it seems more likely that the cardinal sin with large empires has been committed here - namely, attacking with or isolating the Emperor. IIRC an attack may result in him being considered 'cut off' for a short span of time during two turns, usually enough to trigger rebellions in a large empire. As Innocentius has mentioned, the HRE additionally seems to be particularly weak in this respect.

Hi Necrotherion and welcome to the Org :bow:

The purists might frown on restoring from the autosave and, instead would relish the challenge of rebuilding the empire, starting from the two provinces you still hold (once the sieges are over that is), then chastising those rebels mightily (before other factions get to them first) and quickly - before you slip too deeply into the red (which will prevent you building and training fresh troops).

However, since you're still learning the game, I think it's a perfectly legitimate thing to do. I actually make incremental gamesaves: one at the close of every session (*), whatever the year is and additional ones every 5 or 10 years. This is really for archival purposes only (in case of irreversible save-game corruption) and I've never actually felt the need to back-track and re-play a series of turns because things went bad.

(*) Press "End turn", fight the battles, read through the event messages, wait for control to be fully returned to me, THEN press escape to get to the menu to make the save, before exiting to desktop. This is BEFORE any pieces on the board have been moved. Some have connected saves containing 'pending moves' with gamesave corruption. This is rare, whatever causes it, but I've never had any problems by using this technique.

If you do feel the urge to begin again from scratch, try 'Normal' difficulty next time. You won't really begin to learn worthwhile battle strategies until you start to lose battles, occasionally and realise what it was you did wrong (beyond simply being outnumbered, or 'out-qualitied'). I gather that the Easy setting also gives an artificial morale boost to your troops, which can only give a false sense of how successful your methods really are.


As for the rebellion itself, it might aid the diagnosis if we had a few extra bits of information: -

1) Right click the Emperor's piece and note down his Influence, Dread and Command ratings.
2) Similarly, check your remaining generals. Right click on each of the unit icons, in the info panel window, for each of the army stacks still under your control (it's already too late for the stacks which have turned rebel but try checking these, back in the gamesave before they've rebelled). Check their loyalty ratings (number of shields).
3) Has the current Emperor only recently been elected (no time yet to earn the 'Builder', 'Steward' virtues)? These "VnV's" boost both province happiness rating and the loyalty of generals but are lost when the old leader dies.
4) Were the rebelling provinces empty of your troops at the time (ie did rebel stacks pop up out of nowhere) or did they have garrison units stationed there and it was the garrisons turned rebel? Or a bit of both?

Irrelevant to the rebellion itself but useful to know before anyone dishes out advice on what to do next:-
5) How much money in the Treasury?
6) What was the cashflow (ie NOT the gross income), pre-rebellion, if you can remember?
7) What is the cashflow post-rebellion?

The excommunication will not have helped with province happiness as it means your citizens are also excommed (akin to 'guilt by association').

You should have had a dialogue, with a message from the pope to "return conquered lands within 2 years and not attack again for 10 years", at some stage. If you failed to comply, you would have a second message from him, announcing your excommunication (for aggression towards fellow Christians).

If, on the other hand, you declare war on the Pope (or, regrettably, if he declares war on you!) then you are excommunicated immediately and unconditionally. Papal re-emergences are nasty, so make him the very last faction you wipe off the map.

A ceasefire with the Pope may be achievable but you will not shake off the excomm until either your Emperor, or the Pope, dies.


Lastly, visit the Org's downloads section and get the Medieval Total Subterfuge guide (pdf file). Spies are useful to have, stationed in your own provinces, as it means you can use minimal-sized garrisons in non-frontline provinces yet retain full happiness (loyalty).

Wow, thanks for all the help everyone! I was half expecting my plea to go dead lol!

Deus ret, I did indeed attack with the emperor, and while I suffered a few defeats (NOT with the emperor hehe) the overall situation seemed very positive. What happened was I got a message informing me the Danes re-emerge (in Denmark, which had either 107 or 113%) while my Emperor is besieging N Italy somewhere...suddenly, I am given control, and all my provinces are gone! I was left with the 2 I had assaulted last turn!

I've restored the game from autosave but only played one turn, because speak of the devil we went to go see a medieval castle some rich dude here in toronto recreated in the 19th century (Spanish design, "Casa Loma" if anyone's interested lol).

Anywho, I had 40 000 fl and was generating ~4.3k/d, dropping fast because I was creating large garrisons of feudal knights and sergeants with which to attack Italy with. I had citadels in two provinces and was building fortresses (halffinished). My emperor had 6 inf 3 dread I remember. Post rebellion I was generating -200 or so, because I hadn't toppled the castles yet. I had garrisons of 1 militia + 1 archer or 1 peasant on most of my non-troop-producing provinces.

I admit that this was an extremely interesting yet frustrating situation to be placed in, I just didn't feel up to rebuilding everything from scratch while I was at war with 3 or 4 countries.

Thanks for the recommendation EYG. I shall definitely take a look at that. Yesterday I read all of frogbeastegg's excellent beginner guide, hehe.

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Originally Posted by Innocentius

Then you must be lucky, I have seen rebellions in provinces with 118% loyalty:dizzy2:

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It could be my playing style. I value stability more than anything and I always keep at least 100-120 men in every single province no matter how minor.

Hey Necrotherion! Glad to see you found your way here. ~:cheers:

I would say that in your particular situation, the odds are very good that the reason you suffered sudden mass rebellions is because of your Emperor personally leading the invasion of northern Italy. Once your kingdom reaches a certain size (around a dozen provinces or so), you faction leader will be treated as being "cut off" whenever he is commanding a battle where you're the attacker. The effect is virtually identical to when your faction leader gets stuck on an island with no port -- spontaneous rebellions everywhere.

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Originally Posted by Martok

Once your kingdom reaches a certain size (around a dozen provinces or so), you faction leader will be treated as being "cut off" whenever he is commanding a battle where you're the attacker.

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It is certainly an annoying game feature, considering how most people start off with the impression that, in this era, armies traditionally went into battle led by their king, so this is what they do.

Of course, anyone who, like me, began with Shogun, quickly discovered that putting your Daimyo or General right at the very front of your attack was more or less fatal - they'd collect an arrow before they'd even swung their sword the once.


I still think this is all very suspect, especially since you can watch an AI-controlled Byzantine emperor leading attacks, collecting provinces like nobody's business, with no trace of rebellions back home. (Maybe he's a bad example, given the massive influence ratings they get, either from birth or by conquest?)

If it has happened to you consistently at 12 provinces but regardless of which faction you were, the leader's influence rating, or the geography, then disregard this next bit...


I'm speculating that it may have been to do with the geography, closely followed by a 'chain reaction' effect. Necrotherion only said 'Northern Italy' but, for the sake of argument, let's say the Emperor's stack invaded Rome and his other stack invaded The Papal States. Assume Naples is still held by A.N. Other faction.

All it would take now, is for the movement of troops from Genoa, Milan and Venice - to participate in these two invasions - for a sudden loyalty dip(*) in those three provinces. If they had all rebelled simultaneously, on that basis, THEN the Emperor is cut off from the rest of the empire and you get the 'chain reaction'.

It could also be the case that a province with a siege in progress isn't counted as a valid connection-path back to the remainder of the empire. So the Emperor could be besiegeing Rome, another army besieging Papal States (discounting it as a 'valid path') and it would only take a single rebellion in Tuscany to cut the emperor off and thus trigger the chain.

If I'm right then, provided you always ensure that there's at least two possible, valid, connection paths back to your domain, in case one of them rebels, then you should be able to fight battles, with your king in command, without this kind of collapse.


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(*) Footnote:-
In case anyone hadn't noticed, you can see loyalty ratings (province happiness) change in real time, as you move army pieces about and 'rehearse' your moves. Watch very carefully what happens in the province your invasion army moves out of and leave behind enough troops to keep it above 120%. Check the loyalty of the garrison stack leader, too.

Use extra caution when the dropping of your army piece on another faction's province will be the move which brings up the "Declare War?" dialogue. If you change your mind, because of a problematic loyalty dip and move your army back to where it came from, I think the declaration of war still stands and you will have lost the initiative. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong, please.) This situation can only be rectified by restoring from an earlier game-save, which could be highly awkward if it back-tracks by several turns.

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Originally Posted by EatYerGreens

It is certainly an annoying game feature, considering how most people start off with the impression that, in this era, armies traditionally went into battle led by their king, so this is what they do.

Of course, anyone who, like me, began with Shogun, quickly discovered that putting your Daimyo or General right at the very front of your attack was more or less fatal - they'd collect an arrow before they'd even swung their sword the once.


I still think this is all very suspect, especially since you can watch an AI-controlled Byzantine emperor leading attacks, collecting provinces like nobody's business, with no trace of rebellions back home. (Maybe he's a bad example, given the massive influence ratings they get, either from birth or by conquest?)

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I agree it's rather irksome that your faction leader may not command invasions once your empire reaches a certain size. I could understand if there was a modest drop in loyalty while he was off campaigning, but not to the point where half your provinces spontaneously rise up in rebellion. :wall:

And as you've already noticed yourself, I've never seen the AI-controlled factions experience this phenomenon. I've fought enough battles against armies directly commanded by kings, sultans, and emperors to know that they don't appear to suffer from mass rebellion problems, even when they're a powerful faction with a lot of provinces. I can only suppose that this double standard is to help balance things for the AI factions, but I confess I still find it rather annoying.

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Originally Posted by EatYerGreens

If it has happened to you consistently at 12 provinces but regardless of which faction you were, the leader's influence rating, or the geography, then disregard this next bit...


I'm speculating that it may have been to do with the geography, closely followed by a 'chain reaction' effect. Necrotherion only said 'Northern Italy' but, for the sake of argument, let's say the Emperor's stack invaded Rome and his other stack invaded The Papal States. Assume Naples is still held by A.N. Other faction.

All it would take now, is for the movement of troops from Genoa, Milan and Venice - to participate in these two invasions - for a sudden loyalty dip(*) in those three provinces. If they had all rebelled simultaneously, on that basis, THEN the Emperor is cut off from the rest of the empire and you get the 'chain reaction'.

It could also be the case that a province with a siege in progress isn't counted as a valid connection-path back to the remainder of the empire. So the Emperor could be besiegeing Rome, another army besieging Papal States (discounting it as a 'valid path') and it would only take a single rebellion in Tuscany to cut the emperor off and thus trigger the chain.

If I'm right then, provided you always ensure that there's at least two possible, valid, connection paths back to your domain, in case one of them rebels, then you should be able to fight battles, with your king in command, without this kind of collapse.

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Well I rarely let my faction leader personally prosecute sieges, so I'm not in a very good position to comment on whether your hypothesis holds any water. (It wouldn't surprise me if you were right, though.) All I can say for certain is that if my faction leader is personally commanding a field battle where I'm the attacker, I often see multiple provinces rebel the very next turn, regardless of whether I was victorious in said battle. :shrug:

Why would you risk your king in battle? Just keep him in bed with the Mrs. and use the boys for war.

Well, maybe because all his boys are crap. Nothing is more frustrating than to lose your best general because he's the first son of his father.

Also in the beginning of the campaign, your king/emporer/sultan can be the key to some quick conquest and the spearhead of any military action. The game accomodates this but, like others have said, when your territory reaches a decent size a warking isn't the best of strategies.

All in all, it is wise councel to leave your king somewhere in the middle of your kingdom/empire/sultanate and far away of any battle or raid.

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Originally Posted by Vladimir

Why would you risk your king in battle? Just keep him in bed with the Mrs. and use the boys for war.

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Also, to raise his stats, thus raising the stats of his immature offspring.

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Originally Posted by Necrotherion

Hey all,

I just started playing MTW recently as my good computer got destroyed and I was too young to fully understand this game when I got it about 3 years ago.

So, I installed it and gave it go, and now I'm addicted. I've never seen a game with so much depth and replayability value. I'm hooked!

Anyhoo, being kinda new to the game, I decided to amble over to some forums and I've read a lot of beginners guides after I experimented a bit and realized that there's probably a good deal of info in the manual that I lost. My problem is this:

I've dealt with faction re-emergences before, but in 1147 the Danes suddenly decided it was time for them to hop back on the stage and attack my Holy Roman Province of Denmark. Which is fine, except that I lost ALL of my provinces (read: all provinces rebelled) except for a few of the Northern Italian ones which I was currently besieging. Everything I ousted from the Poles and the French and everything I started with disappeared. Here's a brief list of what I was doing:
- Playing as HRE, diificulty Easy, period Early, type Conquest
- All provinces 100%+ loyalty (everything green when I held shift)
- War with Italy
- War with England
- War with Papacy
- War with Poland
- Excommed (no idea why lol)
- 1147
- Held most of central Europe

Thank God for autosave! Guess I'm j/w, has anyone else had this happen to them before? And if so, can anyone tell me what I can do to prevent it when I load? Sorry if this has been brought up before, I'm new :D.

Thanks and a Happy Easter to all!

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I had the same problem with rebellions when I invaded Ireland with the Aragonese through controlling the seas as Ireland didn't have a port as soon as I won the battle I had rebellions in almost every province..Luckily I had troops in almost all of them(the governor usually) and managed to contain it. I had to wait until I built a port to finish them completely...Also the religion and zeal of the province might be an issue aswell it was for me

In my original Aragonese attempt, I managed to conçuer Ireland. But subseçuent attempts were met with a rebellion and a massacre of my forces there.

And it´s a pity, because it can make a very nice fall back position in case you start getting mauled.

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Originally Posted by The Unknown Guy

In my original Aragonese attempt, I managed to conçuer Ireland. But subseçuent attempts were met with a rebellion and a massacre of my forces there.

And it´s a pity, because it can make a very nice fall back position in case you start getting mauled.

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I only invaded Ireland because it was a rebel province really, and the gallowglasses......, by the time I invaded I already had control of France, Spain, Africa and the holy lands...but damn those rebels they caused me a lot of bother not building a port........that's just plain inconsiderate

In one of my Aragon attempts I lost my entire royal family in my confidence that they could hold back the rebels

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Originally Posted by The Unknown Guy

In one of my Aragon attempts I lost my entire royal family in my confidence that they could hold back the rebels

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I know how it feels!!!!!! Now I try only to have one royal in one battle at a time and if I can it will be as the general..when royals play as a normal unit its hard to keep track of how well he's doing and it seems to me that he has a higher chance of dying than as a general, who seems to always be one of the last to die in his unit...also as a general I tend to commit him to deliver the "coup de gras" rather than a central fighting unit

Agreed. Early royal knights are fairly good, but not good enough so that their small number is still able to perform adeçuatedly, so I use them as assistance cavalry, rather than a pin up & smash role (althrough they can still do this at a pinch). Problem is, it´s easier to reach the building reçs for Royal knights (And replenish your offspring´s bodyguards) than the actual feudal knights. Hence it´s not that easy getting heavy cavalry. Which is precisely the strong point of catholics, and one I´m not able to exploit properly, besides. Right now I have a HRE game in the pocket mod where I´m trying to tech up, while disencouraging attacks at my borders with small garrisons in forts, and three huge armies that are nonetheless composed mainly by "scratch" troops, AKA: Urban Militia in the west, and Slav Warriors in the East. (They´re led by the Emperor´s family, however)
I enjoy playing Byzantium more. Breaking the enemy with projectiles and using Byzantine heavy cav as projectile support fits more my kind of game.


I´m thinking on switching my HRE game to an Italian one. Shipping lines might help me keep more in check the effects of my nerfing of Spanish Jinetes on the economical side

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Originally Posted by The Unknown Guy

Agreed. Early royal knights are fairly good, but not good enough so that their small number is still able to perform adeçuatedly, so I use them as assistance cavalry, rather than a pin up & smash role (althrough they can still do this at a pinch). Problem is, it´s easier to reach the building reçs for Royal knights (And replenish your offspring´s bodyguards) than the actual feudal knights. Hence it´s not that easy getting heavy cavalry. Which is precisely the strong point of catholics, and one I´m not able to exploit properly, besides. Right now I have a HRE game in the pocket mod where I´m trying to tech up, while disencouraging attacks at my borders with small garrisons in forts, and three huge armies that are nonetheless composed mainly by "scratch" troops, AKA: Urban Militia in the west, and Slav Warriors in the East. (They´re led by the Emperor´s family, however)
I enjoy playing Byzantium more. Breaking the enemy with projectiles and using Byzantine heavy cav as projectile support fits more my kind of game.


I´m thinking on switching my HRE game to an Italian one. Shipping lines might help me keep more in check the effects of my nerfing of Spanish Jinetes on the economical side

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Urban militia can be decent defence troops, ironically when the attacking troops are amoured alothough weak to Spanish jinetes for example..I've won some up hill battles with them...Personally no matter what faction I play I always try to control the shipping lines, it stops your enemies from moving their troops except by land which is time consuming which in turn allows you to move your troops much more freely...I took over Portugal originally held by bandits,as caravel ships built there have +1 valour, its worth considering...the economical benefits are great I've over 500,000 florins, 8,000 profit per turn and a huge army (its important to upgrade merchant buildings though, I also control constantinople which is loaded)
P.S what does HRE and IIRC stand for, I've seen them in posts but not sure what they mean

HRE = Holy Roman Empire. The Germans, in the faction selection menu. I think it would be prettier if they were displayed as "The Holy Roman Empire". For that matter, I also think that Italy should be Venice instead, and the Doge ellected if no heirs are present, as in the HRE.

IIRC, I have no idea what it means. In fact, I´ve seen in çuite often, but I simply ignored the term and kept reading.

Constantinople is a cash-monster in Vanilla MTW:VI. Caravel/Cambryses II's pocket mod reduces the trade bloats problem.

Just a quick note on the Ireland Rebellions problem, When I invade I usually Build a Fort, Watch towers, Inn a POrt in that order with about 400 spear men, this seems to curb their rebellius intentions quite well, sorry a little off topic i know.... My game stylee relies very heavily on Loyalty in my provinces so i always aim for 200% I get this by adding a church a Bishop, an inn watch towers the brothel and a Spy and Assassin in every province I have very rarely seen mass rebellions on the scale being descrbed since using this formula.... Oh yeah And Naval superiority also helps I never start a war without being able to crush all ships from Norway to Tripoli... unless I dont start the war that is lol then above formula usually helps a Million

I think you are exaggerating a little, gaijusjulii. 400 men should be enough to keep any province calm. Even Estonia, The Evil Province of Ignorant Liberals and Free-Thinkers will remain loyal as long as you have 400 guys with cheap, pointed sticks there to convince them that your taxation system is just fine.

My experience with the Irish says that it isn´t.

In fact, I lost a huge army composed of spearmen, Royal Knights, and jinetes, because the troops that survived the original assault (which were still a lot) were destroyed by the second one (Ireland=No retreat)

I didn´t even have time to build a port. And in the Pocket Mod, ports are two turns, not 4.

Sorry Innocentius, but I have to disagree with you as well. I've also had major problems with Ireland in the past, although maybe not to the extent that The Unknown Guy has. Heck, even Portugal often forces me to maintain an overly-substantial garrison there -- more that 500 men isn't that uncommon in my campaigns. (For that reason, I often let the Almos exhaust themselves by invading Portugal and putting down the constant rebellions there. ~;))

Now, I do agree that a garrison of 400 troops *should* be enough to keep any province quiet. But is it actually enough in practice? Not always, at least in my experience. :shrug:

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Originally Posted by Martok

Now, I do agree that a garrison of 400 troops *should* be enough to keep any province quiet. But is it actually enough in practice? Not always, at least in my experience. :shrug:

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Hmm, that's true in my experience too, although I have had very little of it so it could just be an irregular occurace. The English controlled the whole of France and then they were ex-communicated by his most holiness. At this point most of their provinces had at least one three-quarter stack in them which certainly was over four-hundred men. That very turn the French re-emerged with up to three epic and full stacks in every province in Southern and Eastern France, their reason for this rebellion was due to the English leader's excommunication. The English were almost totally removed from France, losing battle after battle, as they lacked the troops to prevent them from re-taking complete control. This could be an exception, however, so it can't really be considered to be a completely perfect and definitive record.