Upkeep!

[Babblearossa]

I'm not terribly far into my first post-patch campaign, but I've taken to keeping taxes up (instead of exempting for a few turns, another option ) and letting them rebel while keeping a 1/2 stack in the city. The rebels so far are always a few milita and maybe a gun or two, ez pz. Then I get the 5 point military crackdown bonus.

[Fisherking]

I think population size has an impact but eliminating the faction seems to have some positive results on it also.

This is a some what new problem and the best methods may yet to be discovered.

I know that the worst place I have captured so far was Brandenburg as Austria. I went through 3 full cycles and started on a fourth before it subsided when East Prussia fell. I kept the school and had religious differences of course, but I did build a pleasure town.

Places like the Rhineland and Hanover had it before the patch. I shudder to think of what it will be like now.

If you have the funds you can tare out a town and build one of the happy places.

It is meant to slow your progress but with Prussia I didn’t have any long protracted unrest. I was able to take all the required areas in 10 years. I left Poland with one region and made them a protectorate and that also brought me Coreland as a protectorate.

Once you have dragoons it will be much less of a problem.

[Sic semper tyrannis]

Dragoons provide a bonus to keeping civil unrest down? If I remember correctly, the narrative mentions this but I didn't know it would be reflected in-game. By far the worst for me was Vienna. I had to keep a full stack there for ~18 turns and a half stack for another 10 to put down the continuous rebellions. When I captured it the plebs were at -30something happiness. I have never seen the occupation figure shrink by more than one per turn, regardless of how many troops I keep there. You would think a brutal peacekeeping force led by a decorated general would have a long term impact by influencing the rate in addition to the per-turn garrison.

[Fisherking]

Dragoons do double the amount of any other units. 20 dragoons would be the equivalent of 40 of any other troops. That is both dragoons and light dragoons that get the bonus.

There upkeep is more but not so much as two line infantry.

[Babblearossa]

You would think a brutal peacekeeping force led by a decorated general would have a long term impact by influencing the rate in addition to the per-turn garrison.

You would think, but there were still rebellions against rome, and really there ain't much in history to compare to rome's brutality when it came to keeping a population in line.

[Vlad Tzepes]

What I mostly hate is the inequity. Let me explain:

As United Provinces I took (and eliminated) France. The discontent level was so high that even with tax exemption and a full stack left as garrison I couldn't hold the province. Then I gave it to the Spanish in exchange for peace (secretly hoping for a revolt and a new France, maybe a new trade partner?). For the next 15 years, Spain/AI had no problem holding France with a minimal garrison (2 or 3 units).

I took it again. It is rioting again, even though Paris it's now garrisoned with a full stack of light dragoons and militia. I decided to keep France, no matter what, just to see how long it will take for it to calm down. It's like an experiment now. 8 turns later it's still tax exempted and still in the yellow/red. It costs me a lot of upkeep. Next time, I'll just sell those nice juicy fat national provinces I take.

If there's a secret on how the AI suppresses so efficiently newly conquered regions, I would love to find it out.

[FactionHeir]

A gifted province automatically loses all unrest from foreign occupation, even if it is at max currently. A bit silly if you consider that you and your ally are at war with someone, you take their province and sell/gift it to your ally and he has no problems at all.
Works the other way around too of course, but unrealistic.

[Fisherking]

What I mostly hate is the inequity. Let me explain:

As United Provinces I took (and eliminated) France. The discontent level was so high that even with tax exemption and a full stack left as garrison I couldn't hold the province. Then I gave it to the Spanish in exchange for peace (secretly hoping for a revolt and a new France, maybe a new trade partner?). For the next 15 years, Spain/AI had no problem holding France with a minimal garrison (2 or 3 units).

I took it again. It is rioting again, even though Paris it's now garrisoned with a full stack of light dragoons and militia. I decided to keep France, no matter what, just to see how long it will take for it to calm down. It's like an experiment now. 8 turns later it's still tax exempted and still in the yellow/red. It costs me a lot of upkeep. Next time, I'll just sell those nice juicy fat national provinces I take.

If there's a secret on how the AI suppresses so efficiently newly conquered regions, I would love to find it out.

With France from the UP the religious problem will multiply the problem. Also the churches that are in the province have to be torn down and rebuilt to your religion. Move in all the priests you can muster as Catholics and Protestants don’t convert very quickly. Anything you can convert to pleasure centers work better. One or at most two churches and two or three pleasure centers should ease the problem quickly, but the unrest will die down after the third cycle anyway so in another four to six turns they should get better.

[Babblearossa]

Also I think the discontent keeps dropping by one per turn, without resetting to max, if a province changes hands again before discontent reaches zero. Been playing hot potato with austria and berlin as the potato and now it's down to a manageable 15. Could be confused about this though, I often am.

[Sic semper tyrannis]

Move in all the priests you can muster as Catholics and Protestants don’t convert very quickly.

I have never seen religious unrest higher than 2, which is pretty laughable when you are in the red by 30 (good ol' Vienna).