Too many dam rebels!!!

I'm playing as Germania and pretty much all my cities have either got green or yellow faces and yet I keep on getting all these rebel Brigands popping up. I have to leave a half stack of troops in the homeland just to keep on killing rebels, literally after I kill one stack of rebels, another stack or 2 will pop up the next turn and most of the time with a rebel General!

These stacks are mainly conisting of Barbarian peasants,warbands, naked fanatics and Generals so i can't wipe them out with my garrisons of barbarian peasants!

Anyone else getting fed up with these rebels? because I'm certainly getting really annoyed having to leave an army in Germania to constantly kill rebels, instead of sending it somewhere more usefull like the western front. :furious3:

Build Watchtowers, this will reduce the amount of rebel bands popping up.

Just before i quit the game a Rebel army popped up right next to my watch tower....I don' think they do much more then what they're supposed to.

Thats odd I was of the opinion that they did reduce the amount of rebels appearing. Maybe it is just the area of the map is more succeptable to Rebels, I have only played as the Romans and didnt take much of Germania as i was the Scipii.

I usually keep a big cav only stacks as they are fast and useful at mopping up the small rebel bands.

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Originally Posted by King Edward

Thats odd I was of the opinion that they did reduce the amount of rebels appearing. Maybe it is just the area of the map is more succeptable to Rebels, I have only played as the Romans and didnt take much of Germania as i was the Scipii.

I usually keep a big cav only stacks as they are fast and useful at mopping up the small rebel bands.

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It's not that easy in Germania, I'm trying to build up my cities population so I can't make big Calvary armies and even if I could, Barbarian Calvary probably won't last to long against Warbands and such anyway.

I'm starting to hope I can edit out the Brigands cause they are really just tedious

I usually just bribe them- i really cant be bothered fighting tons of rebels.

It is one of the few things CA got spot on IMO. Brigands were a constant threat to trade in this time period and I think this is reflected in the game. If you build forts in areas with large gaps between settlements, you should find the numbers reduce, and you will also have troops close at hand when they do appear.

One thing they should have carried over from MTW is loyalty of Generals. If the player’s armies rebelled from time to time the game may not be so easy!

I recognise this very well... I'm currently also playing as Germania and Rebels just keep appearing, even though by now my lands are teeming with watchtowers. Typically enough, there are actually more rebels in my eastern holdings, which have most of the watchtowers, then along the western front.

I think it is actually cheaper and easier to send around some diplomats to bribe them than to keep an army in the field just to kill rebels. Most rebel armies will be bribed for less then 300d, which is easily exceeded by an reasonable army each turn... And really, there's no use in using rebels to boost your general's experience when they are in Tribus Marcomanni and you need your general in Gaul...

I LOVE Germania's troop mix, but the geography (impenetrable forests, long distances between settlements, etc.) is just too frustrating from a gaming perspective. I spent 10X as much time marching as I did fighting. Bleh. Same with the Scythians. Maybe I should learn to mod and figure out how to give them paved roads (or even highways!). Not realistic, maybe, but it would make them more fun.

At any rate, I don't think that watchtowers decrease rebel activity. A series of garrisoned forts is the best way to minimize the appearance of bandits. Bribing works too, of course, though I have a self-imposed "no bribing" rule when I play R:TW (as opposed to R:TR) because the game makes bribing WAY too cheap and easy. For example, it makes NO sense for it to be cheaper to bribe/buy a rebel army than to train that same army on your own.

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Originally Posted by unseen11

Barbarian Calvary probably won't last to long against Warbands and such anyway.

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With training, I've been able to use armies of 3-4 roman equites + 0-1 general's unit for wiping out all types of rebel armies I've seen so far, and I believe barb cavs are much stronger than equites. Some feinting, isolating of the enemy units etc. and trying to kill their cavalry and archers (isolated from the rest of their troops of course and charged from all directions) first, makes it quite easy in vanilla R:TW to kill the rest. If you charge 4 barbarian cavalry units into a unit of warband or naked fanatics you'll take 0-5 casualties if you master all the cavalry techniques (and the pause button lol). If you don't master all the techniques completely you can still kill most standard brigand armies with less than 40-50 casualties with your army of 4 barb cavs. Trust me, those cav only armies have a lot more power hidden in them than one might think at first, it took me some time to discover how powerful equites could be. One problem with low morale cavs is that they tend to rout when you send them around a flank. That's not a problem if you send two units put on top of each other or two units very close together. They'll then not get scared of being outflanked (which they otherwise for some strange reason can get even when THEY are outflanking the ENEMY!).

Why should one bother killing rebels at all? Are they really such a threat?

I myself only finds rebels annoying!

They Cause Damage to the provence reducing trade income, and also block the paths of your armys and agents if left unchecked.

I have seen many rebels playing the Seleucid. I will fight them or I will give the generals money to come to my side. I also have had a rebel army take control of my watchtower and so that area you were seeing is now covered till you get rid of the rebels who took control of the tower. ~:cool:

Yeah that was one nice addition to 1.2, that rebels can take over your watchtowers. Also they're much more expensive to bribe now so bribing is no longer cost-effective. It's now cheaper to hire an army of mercenaries than it is to bribe the same number of rebels. This makes sense.

Germania has it rough though. Your roads suck, so you have to keep a larger force of anti-rebel troops around to cover all that area. Plus income is very low and population is also low so raising troops is hard to do, hiring mercenaries is very expensive and bribing is just completely out of the question, way to expensive. If you try to bribe as Germania, you're inviting bankruptcy from which you may never recover.

Romans have it easy. Lots of cash flow, plus paved roads and highways which allow the same number of troops to guard a much larger area against those rebels.

People tend to be in one of two camps concerning rebels. For some they become a boring nuisance. For others they are a chance to bloody new leaders, gain experience for troops and level up assassins and spies.

As the game continues and the frontier expands, rebels allow for action in what would otherwise be a passive backwater of our empires. I enjoy occasional punitive expeditions. Sometimes rebels actually manage to spoil or delay other strategic plans. That’s a good thing.

BTW, I have seen no evidence that watchtowers inhibit rebel appearances.

Watch towers have no affect on Rebel appearances, although it doesn't matter how many times that is said, the urban myth returns.

I don't mind rebels for the most part - depending on where I'm campaigning at the time. Some regions are worse than others. They're more a nuisance than anything else, and they tend to niggle at your patience. In Germania you can kill two or three rebel armies in one turn, only for them to return the next. Manned forts on the roads can help reduce the rebels, or at least create a buffer between your settlement and the rebels, but they keep coming. Sometimes I wonder if it would be better if they turned up less frequently, but every now and again a larger and more organised force turned up - one that really would challenge your control of a region, at least for a few turns.

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Originally Posted by Viking

Why should one bother killing rebels at all? Are they really such a threat?

I myself only finds rebels annoying!

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As noted above, they cause Devesation to the province, which will severely hamper your income in left unchecked. They are also useful for attempting a Man of the Hour event, or getting a general's first star

But if you kill a rebel army, then it will be replaced by a new army within a few rounds. So therefore i don`t bother to attack them.

And after all, they`re not that expensive.

Rebels are just something i got used to and im afraid that you will have to do the same.

Rebels stacks get more numerous with the difficulty level - or to me it seems to happen this way. Some say you can use them to increase your general's qualities. IMHO there's no need to - you can squash the AI by simple maneuvering, no matter how bad your general is...

On the other hand, rebels seldom put any problems in battle, so I think having to wipe them out everytime takes a lot of time and it's a fatigue. If you autocalc, you get an unrealistic number of casualties and you have to retrain.

In vanilla, I used to just bribe them. In 1.2 it's no more an option.

So the now the algorithm is "1. God, not another stack? 2. First attack. 3. Rebels retreat. 3. Second attack. 4. Load the battlemap screen. 5. Run towards the rebels. 6. Contact + rout. 7. Reload the campaign map screen. 8. God, not another stack?"

It's like shooting dead ducks in the dirt - where's the fun in it?

As mentioned, after 1.2 bribing is not an option any more, especially with poor factions. One thing I noticed though, was that the appearance of rebels is not really based on the happiness level of your cities, rather they tend to appear when the number of the troops in the city is low, even though that is not true every time so increasing your garrison size does help.

re: "I keep on getting all these rebel Brigands popping up... certainly getting really annoyed having to leave an army in Germania to constantly kill rebels, instead of sending it somewhere more usefull like the western front." Welcome to Empire, son, I'm sure the Romans felt exactly the same! The rebels feature seems well modeled on historical reality. One thing, you'll get many more rebs on hard levels; maybe drop back to medium?

All I can add to this is:"I just HATE those rebels

My main problem with the rebels is that there doesn't seem to be anything you can do about them. I mean, I've tried watchtowers, I've tried forts, neither seem to help. Having a game element like rebels is fine - as long as the player is presented with a means of affecting it. But constantly killing stacks only to have another reappear isn't terribly fun, imo.

Bh

Is rebel appearance tied to unrest in your cities?

here's the unrest thread in Ludus Magna
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=40421

Once you own a territory long enough, and if there are no enemy agents or armies around, the number of rebellions seems to fall. I can't tell that watchtowers do anything. Back when I played RTW I saw many rebel stacks appear AT my watchtowers. I never did find that loyalty had much to do with it, (much to my dismay.)

What causes rebels? My guesses:
1. The rebellion stat in the regions or stat file.
2. Enemy agents in the region.
3. Enemy armies in the region.
4. Recent change of ownership (perhaps tied to the unrest stat)
5. Lack of rebels in the area--if I killed one stack, one often appeared the next turn.

I got into the habit of leaving small rebel stacks alone if the were not causing much damage to my income.

Killing rebels is unfortunately another way for the player to build command stars rapidly. Why "unfortunately?" Because traits and combat traits are so badly bugged that the player gets an inordinate advantage from this. It only hurts the AI in comparison.

CA actually did the right thing in making rebellions frequent from an historical sense. However, the bugged traits and the problematic autocalc, mean that the player is stuck fighting many quite boring battles. Perhaps it would be better to reduce the frequency, but increase the *quality* and size of the rebel armies. Make them a real threat that must be dealt with, rather than an annoying source of lopsided battles that must be fought.

does anyone have a link to a mod making all rebel armies comprise of only peasants? I also don't like the pointless and repetitive fighting of neverending rebels.

If you turn Fog of war off, you'll also notice the AI often struggles against rebels too. It has a tendency to send one or two units at a time against the rebels, lose, then send another one or two from the same place the others came from. Sometimes it loses again. This can really hurt the AI and reduce its military force in an area, and all because it expects to beat the rebels easily so sends in a minimal force against them, instead of using an a stronger army. Later on, when the AI's forces are stronger it won't struggle so much, but early on the AI factions are hindered by them - more so than the player perhaps. And your suggestion Red Harvest is pretty much the same I said: better to have a proper force to fight occasionally than loads of pointless tiny ones. Battles where you are caught off-guard and have limited forces to respond with are often the best ones. But just having 2 rebel peasant units and some cavalry wandering around your back yard all the time is no fun.

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Originally Posted by Vlad Tzepes

On the other hand, rebels seldom put any problems in battle, so I think having to wipe them out everytime takes a lot of time and it's a fatigue. If you autocalc, you get an unrealistic number of casualties and you have to retrain.

In vanilla, I used to just bribe them. In 1.2 it's no more an option.

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Exactly. The thing I hate most about rebels is that the auto-calc feature is so nonsensical that I have to fight every little battle personally to keep from losing too many men, particularly if they are out on the frontier with only a very small town nearby and must make a several-turn march to be retrained.

And unless you have a huge bankroll and income, bribing is out of the question. Often it is still out of the question even when you have these two factors, as rebels (especially rebel family members) ask for insane prices to go home. Once I had about 80000 denarii, and a rebel general with 4 or 5 other units asked me for 71000 denarii. Please.

Personally, I don't think that enemy stacks of one or two units should be able to stand against a full-stacked army unless under very specific circumstances, like holding an extremely narrow mountain pass. A good feature to have would be that, if these circumstances aren't met, the player or AI gets a message stating "your forces are too few to stand against an army of this size," or something, and be forced to automatically retreat. Annihilating several single-stack armies in one turn, or having these somehow block your progress on the open field gets uber-tedious.

Oh i may of forgotten to mention that I'm only playing on medium/medium and right now i can count 4 rebel brigands (3 of which have generals in them and 2 of them are at least half stacks) and as has been mentioned before, I can't seem to get my army to the rebels quickly (maybe i will give second thought to the calvary only army)

It seems Germany and Armenia get way more rebels than Romans, Greeks, etc.

Anyone else have experience?

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Originally Posted by Rapidly

re: "I keep on getting all these rebel Brigands popping up... certainly getting really annoyed having to leave an army in Germania to constantly kill rebels, instead of sending it somewhere more usefull like the western front." Welcome to Empire, son, I'm sure the Romans felt exactly the same! The rebels feature seems well modeled on historical reality. One thing, you'll get many more rebs on hard levels; maybe drop back to medium?

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Real rebels often required several legions to beat. The brigands that can be slaughtered with 4 units of cavalry are just ridiculous. I'd say: make 'em more powerful but more rare.

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Originally Posted by iostream

does anyone have a link to a mod making all rebel armies comprise of only peasants? I also don't like the pointless and repetitive fighting of neverending rebels.

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There is a txt file which seems to consist of predefined rebel armies. Just replace all of them with an army consisting of one peasant unit, and it should work. But backup the file first, I haven't tried it out myself so I can't guarantee it works. I believe you can also change chance of appearance in that file. I've been thinking about modifying that file myself, to increase strength of rebels and decrease chance of appearance.

How about a rebel army like this in Gaul:
4 chosen swordsmen
8 swordsmen
4 barbarian cavalry
2 foresters

And in Rome:
6 samnite gladiators
6 samnite mercs
2 peasants
1 rebel general
2 militia cavalry

And in Germania:
2 berserkers
4 chosen axemen
4 axemen
2 spear warband
2 chosen archer warband

And in Dacia:
6 falxmen
4 swordsmen
1 onager
1 rebel general
2 peasants

Etc. etc. Maybe I'll actually release a mod like that in the forge...

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

CA actually did the right thing in making rebellions frequent from an historical sense. However, the bugged traits and the problematic autocalc, mean that the player is stuck fighting many quite boring battles. Perhaps it would be better to reduce the frequency, but increase the *quality* and size of the rebel armies. Make them a real threat that must be dealt with, rather than an annoying source of lopsided battles that must be fought.

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Agreed. And once in a while one of your generals should rebel against you, after all it happened all the time during this period but all we get in one civil war between the Roman Factions :dizzy2:

Many Romans went renegade and served Eastern leaders...in fact Pontus had a whole unit of them.

I still wonder why Pontus didn't get Pontic Legionaries like Armenia does.

I'm all for less rebels but more powerful stacks. I hope this is the way it goes in the expansion pack. I want a challenge, not an annoyance.

Unfortunately you can't mod the pop-up frequency. The vairable in the rebels text file (I forget its name) is the base unrest in a province and doesn't affect the chance of rebels appearing (certainly not to any noticable degree anyway!).

For example, Londinium has 6 in that variable, and you'll see that they give 30% unrest to any non-Briton owners. This is in addition to 'newly-conquered' and 'enemy spy' unrest penalties.

You can mod the file to only have peasants in rebel armies, but you must be very careful. Putting tabs or returns in the wrong place will cause a CTD.

Get the rebels text file from the "no anxiety" mod at TWCenter if you want all the rebels to be peasants. I did this because I was gettig ridiculously huge rebel armies at the beginning of my Selucid campaign which outnumbered all the other armies on the map! (rebels seem much nastier on hard mode, and get reinforced if you leave them alone!).

Why not play Spqr mod. The rebels have diplomats and if you smash them hard enough they will sue for peace! You still have rebels all over the map , just not ones which you have to worry about.(You can only get peace with them)

i'm with Nelson on this one. And i have a question for the "not another battle map rout" camp: Don't you find the constant micromanagement on the campaign map tedious and time consuming? Seriously, how much time to you spend between battles? And the followup: ever try to field an antirebel force that can totally eliminate the routers before they decide to flee/retreat?

And believe me, the current system is alot more managable than the boring Shogun 200 stack reinforced army that spend 30 minutes cycling it's reinforcements to the red line and routing instantly. Currently, if you're in such a state that the enemy will retreat instantly (possible in rtw?) then why not simply autocalc using easily retrained troops?

• use cavalry and seige gear or any other low soldier class unit and try to kill as many as possible before they rout off the map...i'd use autocalc, but it doesn't gain me experience ranks for troops quite as efficiently

And, yes, the fact that the AI has a real problem dealing with rebels is shocking. you'd think it would be the best way to level up their troops/generals as well?

:bow: