A great roll in the medieval hay,....

[Natus]

but after a few passionate nights, I'm wearied by the constant rebelling, rebuilding due to rebelling (my infrastructure is being rapidly destabilized!), and absolutely amazingly armored/weaponed rebels that seem to pop out of provinces.

I know you've all heard this "song" before, but this one reason explains why I have never finished a game of S:TW, the Mongol expansion, or now M:TW. Believe me, I'm all for realistic wargames and I would not appreciate a cakewalk in any case. But when events occur in a game such as this where you have NO idea what is going on, the replay value goes way down, as much as I love and recommend this series of games.

I have, however, read many cogent analyses of rebellions, retreats, etc. in these forums, and I must protest that a lot of this information never made it into the rulebook. I'm sure that I'm dealing with a situation presently that, had I read up on every thread here, could have easily been avoided. And smothering constant rebellions becomes mere drudgery after a while, and that's where the game usually gets saved and tossed in the "when I'm bored from taxes" pile.

In case some of you may have answers to this Strategic Stalingrad, I'll explain briefly my situation:

I'm Poland (Normal/Early) and have conquered all Russia and Germany. The French launched a crusade into Novgorod that died years ago, and we have been warring since. I have stopped my hostilities, but in Novgorod there are French loyalists that every year reappear with chivalric knights, m@a's, trebuchets, mangonels, etc., no matter how often I win. The Pope has excommunicated me for making war upon the French (!) and my armies are constantly weakened by revolt after revolt (yes, every territory I pull an army from revolts too!) I have reduced taxes considerably but my treasury is in a shambles and some of the native rebels are more advanced arms-wise than I am! I have no idea how to get re-communicated, either. Soon, I simply won't have any armies to fight with, and needless to say, this is NOT fun!

Last word: I sure don't mind a challenge, but I'd really appreciate knowing the parameters in which I have to work and it needs to be logical. Heavily armored French knights and artillery appearing out of the ground (ground I repeatedly conquer!) every season makes no sense to me, and it's worse than frustrating! Please give me a hint before I give this game the kick. I love it desperately, but it's giving me high blood pressure. Thanks!

Nate

[hrvojej]

The pope or your king must die to recommunicate.

Win battles, gain land. This will increase your king's influence, and raise loyalty.

Release rebels to get +happiness V&Vs. Assign people with high dread & good V&Vs as governors. Strip titles of the bad ones. Build up the provinces to get good V&Vs.

Build border forts, town guard, and religious buildings in troublesome provinces.

Keep provinces garrisoned. Upgrade castles. Lower taxes.

Place agents in the provinces to weed out enemy agents. Convert provinces to your religion.

Keep your ruler at the minimum distance from all provinces. Watch out for cut off sea routes.

Some provinces are more of a pain than others. Keep an eye on the newly conquered & notorious ones. Micromanage to get most out of everything.

Start a new game if all these remedies aren't possible any more. Start on lower difficulty.

[This message has been edited by hrvojej (edited 10-26-2002).]

[Lord Nap]

I'm still a bit of a noob at this, but here's a few suggestions that may be obvious but maybe you haven't tried:

1. Build churches in each province, it increases loyalty.

2. In the late stages of a game, as long as a province's loyalty is near 200% (max), you need only 100 soldiers and a small fort to prevent rebellion (barring outside mitigating forces).

3. If you have less than 200% loyalty, keep a MUCH larger force there until it hits max. I'd say at least 300 solid.

4. Spread your leader and heirs around to cover a lot of ground. Their proximity GREATLY affects happiness. I had to keep my top prince in Scotland for several years just to avoid rebellion, even though my army was vastly superior.

5. Like HRV said, don't execute rebels or their leader when you reclaim a province, it makes martyrs out of them. Release them all, lower taxes, and garrison a castle. Then after a few years, barring catastrophe, you should be okay.