Rebels- how to deal with them?

I've played england/france/spain and really not had much trouble with them.Just sent the locals to deal staightway with them.

However as Russia(VH) I spend more time getting rid of these pesky trade hampering guys than trashing the opposition. Leaving them really knock your trade.

So Russia in particular is susceptible to these because of their large distances involved and multiple turns necessary to assemble a suitable source.

Novorogod is a case in point, 100% orthodox , no unrest well managed city(I think) > 3k income , still gets lots of rebels to deal with.

I love Kazaks as they are cheap and fast and deal with most rebels though they need to be played not autocalced for some reason otherwise you largely loose on autoclac. Nevertheless endless kazak battles is bit tiresome and a more permanent solution would be good.

In RTW I think forts reduced rebel spawning, is this the case in MTW2? If so will more than 1 fort do better?. I've tried this but my numbers are too small to yield a definite result.

Anyone else have ideas (apart from modding of course).

spam watchtowers in your lands with your generals? Think rebels can't spawn in your line of site, might cost a few gs, but nothing compared to maintaining/using a kazakh army for a long itme

No watchtowers don't work, infact they probably attract them, also leaving fog of war means that rebels may be present and you don't detect them.

I've also had rebels ambush me, (quite often in fact) though they usuaully appear and dissapper each turn. Spies will reveal them.

An interesting way to use watchtowers is as a rebel attractor, place the watchtower near a choke point and your opponents don't like to take out your rebels for you to get at you, hence they serve as protection albeit costing you in trade.

No watchtowers don't work, infact they probably attract them, also leaving fog of war means that rebels may be present and you don't detect them.

I've also had rebels ambush me, (quite often in fact) though they usuaully appear and dissapper each turn. Spies will reveal them.

An interesting way to use watchtowers is as a rebel attractor, place the watchtower near a choke point and your opponents don't like to take out your rebels for you to get at you, hence they serve as protection albeit costing you in trade.

I usually mod brigands away completely. They pop up so often, completely without warning (not even a message box), that many times I'm left wondering why I'm not earning as much money as I should be, only to realize that there's a unit of peasants right outside my capital cutting off trade. Brigands should be more of an 'event'; a big thing like an attempted coup or major rebellion, rather than just a constant annoyance that forces you to scan the entire map every turn to make sure your trade routes are intact. Tedious micromanagement, just to eliminate several cheap units in pointless battles. Currently, brigands are like weeds, and weeding has to be one of the most uncool activities in history.

@dopp - i'm forced to agree.

I just ignore them entirely, and take them out when i have 5 generals to lose :)

I'm happy to deal with a few rebel, particularly as they can be used to get Man of the hour and experience upgrades for your troops, so I don't want to eliminate them, just come up with a strategy to control them , which is why I would like to know if Forts work in this capacity in MTW2.

I guess if no-one knows I'll have to figure out a way to test this hypothesis, which occurs to me a difficult thing for a 'random?'event.

I liked rebels in MTW 1 much better, they only pooped up when happiness was below 100% in an province. That made sense, and the appearance of rebels predictable and controllable. RTW did away with that and MTW 2 continues in the same way, with their completely random rebel spawn. Off they go, I say.
I´ve got no problems with cities rebelling due to bad management, but I hate things I have no influence whatsoever on, and those road brigands show up no matter what.

Theoretically, you could cover your lands with peasants so that teh 'area of effect' around them stopped rebels spawning, as well as hostile agents walking in :laugh4:

power up your diplomats by bribing them. It can be eye wateringly expensive though...

What, people in a Total War game complaining about having to fight battles? You want small, easily defeated rebel stacks roaming your territory. You need them to valor up your generals and troops. Just assemble some flying columns (cavalry) and build a few forts and instant experience! Why do you think rebel farming is so important in M1?

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Originally Posted by sapi

Theoretically, you could cover your lands with peasants so that teh 'area of effect' around them stopped rebels spawning, as well as hostile agents walking in :laugh4:

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Good luck doing it in Russia :dizzy2:

I usually attack them with whatever I have on hand in the area.

If it's a little stack of rebels, the nearest garrison of militia will usually suffice.

If it's a big enough stack I will order up some better troops first. If I happen to have a general around I'll let him fight. But then I'll usually send those troops up to the front. The new ability to build multiple units per turn eliminates the need to keep an army back to deal with rebels. You can raise as big an army as you need in a couple turns.

No need to rush, but it's too expensive to leave them around for the long term.

I build forts and arm them with basic armies. Mostly militia but also cavalry. These forts are placed in regions I have pacified (not near my borders) and serve the various cities near them. Normally its 3-4 cities per each fort. They will take on rebels that appear but also allow me to keep my garrisons to a minimum because if the enemy does land a war party and try to attack my fort garrison can intercept them or, at worse catch them at seige and attack their rear. I've found that to be useful. If I was russia of course I would up the amount of forts to cover the distances. Plus I would use forts to stuff up access to the Eurasian steppes by the turks and mongols.

I'm playing as Spain right now and who knew that it would be this hard :dizzy2: Moors are every where, ImaNNNNs, and unrest, I have small army of spies and assassins running around every where "NIGHT MARE":furious3: Now all of a sudden Rebels are pop, pop, pop all over my lands and i'm at war with France, Moors, and on the verge of EXCOM from my own pope!!!! But yes rebels are a necessary evil they give are Generals ****** and who can pass up "Man of the hour" no matter how many turns and Capt. you fight with. You will have to hunt them down and kill them all/all of the time :smash: I only use forts in choke points or when I want to re rout an enemy army. Watch towers are ok but I rarely use them only early in a game or on my most frontal boarders. To my knowledge I have never known either to stop the spawning of rebels.

I often keep a general with an all horse army around just to take out rebels. Horse archers work especially well, along with some light horse. Works especially well in Russia, where you do come across a staggering amount of rebels. Also this way you'll typically gain a rather uber stack of elite horse with a good general, who can be a real help in a sticky situation (enemy stack appearing out of nowhere, spies causing revolt etc)

An alternative is to keep a castle here and there, and station an emergency army inside to charge out to protect the nearby cities from rebels. Doesn't work so well in large countries though, but it also adds a fallback position to increase security for your country.

I usually take a look at any rebel armies that show up. If they're a decent looking full stack I'll ignore them completely. If they're a small band of trash troops I'll use them to train up some HA's or cavalry. Good for getting new generals too.

In my Moorish campaign I eliminated Portugal on turn 3 and Spain on turn 11 and their field armies were left to sit around for the next hundred turns getting older.

I usually use my generals for this purpose. I go next to the rebels, buy all the mercs I can get kill the rebels with autocalc and then disband the mercs and go home with the gen. This works all of the time, though I have never played with russia It could work there also.

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Originally Posted by ASPER THE GREAT

I'm playing as Spain right now and who knew that it would be this hard :dizzy2: Moors are every where, ImaNNNNs, and unrest, I have small army of spies and assassins running around every where "NIGHT MARE":furious3: Now all of a sudden Rebels are pop, pop, pop all over my lands and i'm at war with France, Moors, and on the verge of EXCOM from my own pope!!!! But yes rebels are a necessary evil they give are Generals ****** and who can pass up "Man of the hour" no matter how many turns and Capt. you fight with. You will have to hunt them down and kill them all/all of the time :smash: I only use forts in choke points or when I want to re rout an enemy army. Watch towers are ok but I rarely use them only early in a game or on my most frontal boarders. To my knowledge I have never known either to stop the spawning of rebels.

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I'm playing as portugal and found an effective tactic was to build a fleet and block the straits at Gibraltar. This kept the moors from sending imams and armies north while I conquered and converted Cordoba and Granada. Then I sent my assassins and priests across the straits (keeping the fleet there) and starting converting and assassinating. Crusaded against Algiers and then eventually assassinated the moors out of existence.

Rebels in large territories like Russia are always a problem. There are a couple ways to deal with them.

1) watchtowers. Know where they are at. Remember that rebels are drawn to watchtowers, so place them OFF the road a couple steps so that they won't linger on your roads and hurt trade like they would otherwise. Your watchtowers will either spot rebels, or the greyed-out map area around a watchtower will let you know you've got some sitting on a watchtower you own. I like to place redundant watchtowers so that I can spot rebels sitting on another watchtower to estimate their strength.

2) Diplomats bribing. Only for the rich, bribing in this game is insanely expensive.

3) Roving generals. Make sure to use an all-cavalry stack so you can move around quickly to eliminate rebels. An up-and-coming general gets a lot of excellent commanding practice from leading around 6 other cav stacks in a rebel hunt. If it's only one unit of rebels, have your general take them on alone so he can get some bravery traits, and perhaps some chivalry.

4) Ignore them. If they've been drawn off to out-of-the-way watchtowers, then you can just ignore them for a while until it's convenient.

The rebels in Russia are mostly pushovers. A three squad stack (bodyguards,
Kazaks, and Boyar sons) can take care of most rebel stacks. If you are like
me, and don't let a settlement build or recruit without a governor, you will
usually have a general nearby. As a rule, I have four governors managing
the Russia homelands, one each for the Novgorod, Moscow, Vilinius, and
Bulgar regions.

In my current game, at about turn 50, I have lost one or maybe two of these
governors to rebels, but now their escorts are fully trained, and they do not
age. It is amazing what damage a team of archer and javelin cavalry can
do to a stack that's composed mostly of infantry. Just have enough towers
to detect rebels, and send a spy when there is unrest from a unknown source.

Thank's "Caz Brick" that is short for your name. Cool avatar too!!! Yep i'm flooding Africa with spy's in cites, and assassinating any Moor, that comes my way. The priest is that a pack, flock, herd, swarm, ect... i'm not sure but I hope to have the Cardinalship all mine.:yes: :yes: :yes:

Has anyone else had a problem with units going rebel. I would guess that about 1/4 of my armies without a 6+ loyality general, spy, or assassin are going Rebel? Does the current leader have an affect on this? I just had one large army go rebel with a spy in it. At least the unit it had a spy in it last turn. Don't see him around now? My guess is that the spy died, although I don't remember the message for his death? I had noticed in RTW that armies or cities with an assassin in them were never bribed, and have never in any total war game seen a unit go rebel (except due to squalor in RTW), or be bribed with an assassin it. On another post someone made that same claim for spys. They do seam to cut the odds of amies from going rebel way down. Still wondering about that one time though? The rebel thing was the last straw on that campaign. I was steamrolling and getting tired of micromanaging stack movements due to the rebel issue. Time for a new game.

I really think rebel spawns need to be far, far less often. Most rebel spawns should only happen with low happiness. Brigand spawns to rob trade should happen maybe a third or quarter as often as they do now.

But really, I think the brigands and such should be something considered "already handled" by my garrison in the province. I mean, I expect my garrison in the province is busy keeping the peace, right? If there are enough of them, this should just be considered covered, part of their day to day activities that I don't have to see. If I have my province being run right, it should just be taken care of.

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Originally Posted by DukeKent

Has anyone else had a problem with units going rebel. I would guess that about 1/4 of my armies without a 6+ loyality general, spy, or assassin are going Rebel? Does the current leader have an affect on this? I just had one large army go rebel with a spy in it. At least the unit it had a spy in it last turn. Don't see him around now? My guess is that the spy died, although I don't remember the message for his death? I had noticed in RTW that armies or cities with an assassin in them were never bribed, and have never in any total war game seen a unit go rebel (except due to squalor in RTW), or be bribed with an assassin it. On another post someone made that same claim for spys. They do seam to cut the odds of amies from going rebel way down. Still wondering about that one time though? The rebel thing was the last straw on that campaign. I was steamrolling and getting tired of micromanaging stack movements due to the rebel issue. Time for a new game.

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You need a king with high authority. That will keep your generals in line. If you've got a low authority king, keep generals with low loyalty in a settlement as I don't think they can desert if they're part of a garrison. To increase your king's authority, send him into battle and try to accumulate dread. Also, use assassins quite a bit, as he will gather dread from that as well. Keep spies in your cities/stacks to stave off enemy assassination attempts...nothing better than watching the enemy fail miserably at killing you.

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Originally Posted by Vladimir

What, people in a Total War game complaining about having to fight battles? You want small, easily defeated rebel stacks roaming your territory. You need them to valor up your generals and troops. Just assemble some flying columns (cavalry) and build a few forts and instant experience! Why do you think rebel farming is so important in M1?

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I agree with this post, and would add that you can get "Man of the Hour" opportunities, too. Gets the generals out of the towns where they can pick up some merc captains and other battle-related retainers.

Well if you find out that one of your family member has become useless due to bad traits, send him by himself off to the nearest rebels. If he dies, you get another spot for another man while if he lives he might get some good command skills

I hate fighting rebels as much, or more, than I am fighting other factions. It's not "Total Rebellion".

You should only get rebellions if things are being run wrong. Besides, as for using them for something... there's no reason you can't just run a region wrong if you want. Rebellion farming in STW/MTW was fun.

And as to the need to create new generals, I'm not terribly fond of the current absolute requirement to have a general somewhere to get something done there. It feels like an artificial and unrealistic constraint. You'd think anyone of decent official-ness could see to the king's demands. It seems to me like diplomats and princesses should be able to carry out your orders in a settlement... they wouldn't have all the advantages of dread/chivalry but they ought to be able to cue up construction and recruit units. They DO represent the king after all.

So how can I cut down on rebel spawn? I remember seeing a post on that in RTW, not sure how to do that in M2TW.

its seem like a silly ecploit to be able to gain experience by random 3 miltia spear rebels who pop up in a province u controlled since the begining of the game and which is 100%+ loyal. i wouldnt mind occasional rebellions that mattered like a full stack of avaragr to good troops renbelling in some province so u had a real battle in your hands once in while. but this piddly rebel stacks are just annoying i just send an army that can crush them and autocalc

If you want to strengthen your army and have your army gain more experience for the future fight the rebels when they have a reasonable size army to fight.

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Originally Posted by DukeKent

So how can I cut down on rebel spawn? I remember seeing a post on that in RTW, not sure how to do that in M2TW.

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There´s a tool for that, which inserts no_brigands lines in each regional entry of descr_strat, therefore removing the random rebels. I´m not entirely sure where to find it, though.

I´ll certainly use it in my next campaign, for I don´t mind rebels if they can be explained (like those of MTW 1), but I hate, with a passion that makes the fires of Hell a paltry campfire in comparison, everything that is nothing but a mere annoyance and not down to any of my actions. And randomly upspringing rebels fall into that category.