Roman Civil War

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Rebels in all my games, depending on the difficulty, tend to be very aggressive if their odds are favourable. And generally because my cities are lightly garrisoned, a big stack of rebels that spawns in a turn will be besieging it on the next, even if they are not relatively close. A scripted eleutheroi army with a large size will most certainly become aggressive and try to take the player towns, that is if he plays on the recommended levels; would be moot to have any "civil war" if he chooses M/M instead of H/M, when rebels actually do something and are stronger.

On the question of universality, this could be a good generic model for representing civil wars scripted for all factions.

The implementation of a Civil War for the Romans particularly is a very interesting prospect: not only it adds a lot of challenge to the late Romani player, but it is also historically plausible given the context of the Marian Reform and its full political effects, as well as the disintegration of a late Romani Republic, paving the way to the Augustan Reforms being implemented by the right characters on the right violent circumstances.

And BTW, if you read Rubicon, by Tom Holland, you will almost certainly wish that you could recreate these epic fights within the realism and gameplay opportunities that the EB platform offers :D.

[Atilius]

A scripted eleutheroi army with a large size will most certainly become aggressive and try to take the player towns, that is if he plays on the recommended levels; would be moot to have any "civil war" if he chooses M/M instead of H/M, when rebels actually do something and are stronger.

I have spent countless hours experimenting with huge spawned eleutheroi armies in EB. They are ridiculously passive regardless of battle odds or difficulty level; I usually used VH. Even when spawned near lightly garrisoned settlements with no defenses, they would attack it only 5-10% of the time - this is in literally hundreds of trials.

And BTW, if you read Rubicon, by Tom Holland, ...

The guy writes like he's hyperventilating.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

I have spent countless hours experimenting with huge spawned eleutheroi armies in EB. They are ridiculously passive regardless of battle odds or difficulty level; I usually used VH. Even when spawned near lightly garrisoned settlements with no defenses, they would attack it only 5-10% of the time - this is in literally hundreds of trials.

Well, here I beg to differ. Eleutheroi are often a constant problem in my campaigns, and I so far the "passive" model only applies to a minority. If you play a barbarian faction especially they tend to spawn a lot and they will besiege towns with 100% certainty if their odds are good enough and they are in the same province. Even if they don't, the threat of a massive eleutheroi stack devastating the territory, cutting trade and ambushing passing armies is not remotely neglectable.

Funny thing is that I thought EB turned Eleutheroi stacks into aggressive folks. They are far more aggressive than in vanilla, for sure. There is also good ol' Satres, and he is very active in defending his territory, so IMO it is one big reason why it should be possible to implement them.

BTW I play on H/M, since I read that VH is possibly bugged.

The guy writes like he's hyperventilating.

That's where the emotion of reading is .

[Atilius]

... Eleutheroi are often a constant problem in my campaigns, and I so far the "passive" model only applies to a minority. If you play a barbarian faction especially they tend to spawn a lot and they will besiege towns with 100% certainty if their odds are good enough and they are in the same province.

Eleutheroi spawned by script behave much differently than the eleutheroi rebels and brigands which appear periodically - there is no comparison.

Funny thing is that I thought EB turned Eleutheroi stacks into aggressive folks. They are far more aggressive than in vanilla, for sure. There is also good ol' Satres, and he is very active in defending his territory, ...

Satres is defending eleutheroi territory. For some reason, eleutheroi stacks will defend their own territory agressively, but spawn them in a province they don't control and they do almost nothing. Even back when Moskon was spawned outside of Numantia (at a younger age) and bedeviled the Lusotannan for 10 years or so before dying, I never saw him actually capture a town.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

As for the Eleutheroi behaviour, I am really not familiar enough with the M2TW engine to comment about it. But about RTW EB strangely I still must disagree: in every campaign of mine randomly spawned eleutheroi stacks often attack if the odds are on their favour. I am often attacked because I tend to keep my towns lightly garrisoned and any small stack of brigands that spawns will besiege it, so we are really into two different worlds here. Not that I've never seen completely passive eleutheroi behaviour, but on a fair share of times with the appropriate conditions and at least Hard difficulty the brigands are aggressive and poise a constant danger. I'm sure that others would agree with me on a fairly consistent basis and on their own experiences; if not, there is always the tightly scripted "Satres" option tied with certain Marian and Augustan Reforms effect at least.

Anyway I think the point is done and discussed. It would be really a welcome feature if they implemented Civil strife on a certain basis in EB, and for the Romani it would be more than a matter of just steamrolling the world as they already do if the player doesn't place constraints on himself.

[Atilius]

But about RTW EB strangely I still must disagree...

How can you disagree? I doubt you've ever seen it happen: it's only done once in RTW EB, and very few people ever encounter the circumstances under which it occurs. Even then we have to give it lots of help. If it actually worked, we'd use it for a lot of things.

Perhaps I could have expressed myself better, so let me try again:

Eleutheroi armies spawned by script in non-eleutheroi territory are very passive, regardless of odds or difficulty level. Their behavior is very different from that of normally occurring rebels or brigands or even eleutheroi armies spawned by script on eleutheroi-held territory.

That makes spawning eleutheroi armies by script useless for simulating a civil war, because the eleutheroi would have to be placed in player-held regions.

[Leão magno]

Believe MTW2 Kingdons is a much better engine for this...

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Eleutheroi armies spawned by script in non-eleutheroi territory are very passive, regardless of odds or difficulty level. Their behavior is very different from that of normally occurring rebels or brigands or even eleutheroi armies spawned by script on eleutheroi-held territory.

That makes spawning eleutheroi armies by script useless for simulating a civil war, because the eleutheroi would have to be placed in player-held regions.

Sorry but I still beg to differ . Another clear example is the "Caledonian Invasion": regardless of the circumstances, Camulosadae will always be attacked by a scripted Eleutheroi army in the early Casse game. Non-scripted Eleutheroi bands still attack me at favourable odds for them and act aggressively if i play on Hard, so there is nothing conclusive for now because our experiences are very different .

Anyhow, if the problem is still specifically about spawning scripted guys on non-eleutheroi lands, an easy workaround would be to spawn them on eleutheroi territory then move them to Roman lands. My two cents.