Unrest

[artaxerxes]

What really causes unrest? I mean, does unrest have a chain-ability - does it spread from town to town. Cos' I'm playing Seleucids, and even in 190 BC, Ecbatana, Apameia, Hecatompylos, Asaak and Zadrakata all SUDDENLY go red with unrest, even though they have been happy for the last three decades??? One of them could be explained by the death of a nice governor, but all of them? Hardly... Also, Ecbatana once simply REVOLTED with no warning - no previous turns of ordinary riots. Now it may have been in the red for a few turns (ruling from Cyrene to Gava-Haomavarge on a slow computer, you don't check every city every turn, but merely fix the rioting ones), but it definently HADN'T been rioting - it just SUDDENLY expelled my garrison - and that despite being a province I had had all game long, posseissing a rather large garrison and being located much closer to my capitol than cities like Gava-Haomavarga, Chach and Axum, all of which remained perfectly obedient.
So for some reason 'unrest' just suddenly flares up in the middle of your empire. Now all other complaints (cultural penalty, distance to capitol, etc.) I can see the explanation for, just like unrest in newly conquered places makes sense. But is unrest within your boundaries just completely random or is there some reason why a city like Ecbatana just gets 80% unrest out of the blue (of course, it might have gotten it over a few turns, seeing as I didn't keep an eye on it, but WHY did it get it)?

[johnhughthom]

Enemy spies perhaps, or governors traits may have changed over those turns.

[artaxerxes]

Hey, hadn't thought of that... Will put up some spies. Well, Apameia, Zadrakata and Asaak didn't even HAVE governors - they were all yellow or green and doing fine and all my FM's are off doing stupid things like marching for decades into Arabia or Armenia and then never bothering to go home again. But it just occurred to me that unrest might be able to spread. It feels like there's decades where NOBODY riots, and then there's decades where EVERYBODY riots (and we're not talking newly-conquered, but the same people who didn't riot in the previous decade and whose conditions haven't changed very much). Also sometimes, when a newly conquered province riots, I get the feeling that it spreads to nearby not-so-nearly conquered provinces.

But all this may just be coincidence and me being paranoid

[bovi]

Actually that would be awesome and realistic. But it doesn't work that way in RTW, you can see a breakdown of unrest causes in the settlement details. You're going to get occasional problems from population size, and sometimes it happens several places at once.

[QuintusSertorius]

As a matter of course, you should have at least one spy in every settlement. Even moreso those bordering enemy territory, or those desired by certain factions.

[artaxerxes]

Well, it happens to ME and I can tell you, it AINT awesome

[woirble]

One potential cause of a major sudden increase in unrest that I noticed playing as Seleukia was a bad trait that a governor can get. I don't remember the exact name but it was "Worships other gods", or something to that effect, and it causes a massive increase in unrest.

[Conqueror]

artaxerxes: You can check the happiness status of all your provinces easily without moving the camera view all over the map. Right-click on the "city" tab of the bottom-screen GUI and it will open a scroll showing all settlements of your faction. You can quickly scroll down to check whether or not there are any red faces (they are pretty easy to spot).

[artaxerxes]

Uh I'll remember that :)

[bovi]

You can also sort by happiness level, so you don't have to scan through the list.

[Cambyses]

Unrest itself should remain the steady once youve held a territory for a few years. The only reason it would go up is governor's traits and enemy spies. Quintus' suggestion of a spy in every town is a great idea if you can afford to do it.

On the other hand public order is affected by a whole host of things, most of which im sure you are well aware of. But in my experience suddenly changing to riots tends to be caused by.
1. Changing tax levels
2. Garrison size
3. Moving the capital
4. Population growth over time = more squalor
5. Knocking down that annoying wonderous temple which was giving you a culture penalty...
6. The governor dying / unable to return to the settlement in a single turn after fighting some rebels

[QuintusSertorius]

Spies are cheap; they only have an upkeep of 100 which is less than any of the garrison troops you might have, and more than worth it in the number of enemy spies you uncover.

[konny]

One potential cause of a major sudden increase in unrest that I noticed playing as Seleukia was a bad trait that a governor can get. I don't remember the exact name but it was "Worships other gods", or something to that effect, and it causes a massive increase in unrest.

When he is worshiper of another god than the primary deity of that settlement he can get the "unhappy people" trait in several leves. To get rid of that you might let him build the next level of the local deity and hope he starts worshipping it, tear down the existing temple and erect one the governor likes or send him to another settlement with the "right" faith and replace him with a governor who either worships the local god or is not biased towards any godness.