Civil War (playing as Rome)

[glyphz]

Backwards Logic and glyphz, did you have full control of Singidum's and Pella's provinces, respectively?

All of Macedonia was Roman, completely Latin-ized and no unrest.

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After playing some more, I'm thankful the CW triggered at Pella. I had recently got rid of the Odryzian(?) Kingdom, and kicked the Tribalii off of Thrace and forcing them into becoming a client-state by surrounding their last settlement in Dacia (where I didn't want to expand yet). Pergamum was my next target in the East since it had the other settlement in Thrace, and has carved itself a nice and secure kingdom in most of northern Anatolia (w/ their forces busy w/ Armenia). Since I was in the midst of pacifying my holdings in Thrace, I happen to have 2 legions there at Navissos and Pulpuduvum(?), plus one at Athens, one at Illyria in the midst of recruitment, and one army and fleet near Rhodos.

Positioned my 2 legions in Thrace to just the north of Pella, with the southern legions and fleet sailed in haste to secure Athens, and the one in Illyria to Apollonia. As for enemy movement, one loyalist army took Larissa easily, 2 stopped further south in sight of Athens and Sparta, one also went south, but then curved west towards Apollonia, and the last sneaked around the NW mountains and stopped at the border of Illyria and Thrace. The navies went south near Athens.

The hostile armies in Greece were still close enough to reinforce each other, so 2 N armies secured Pella, while the Athenian division (2a,1f) ganged up on and decimated as much of the enemy fleet as they can before quickly regrouping in Athens. The western legion chased after the enemy army in the mountains, but could not force an engagement, so I had a spy take out its general at least. End of turn, their army at Larissa left and besieged Athens by itself but didn't attack. The 2 armies that stuck together took Apollonia, while in the northern front the enemy army engaged mine in the field. Since the Illyrian army was in the midst of recruitment, they were near equal in number, and I had to manually assume control of the defense (this is where my first crash happened). It was my first time controlling gladiators, and they did impressively well as flank troops as well as ambush troops, suffering little casualties compared to my heavily-battered frontline legionnaires. The enemy fleets remained nearby in the Aegean, thankfully, and were duly sunk next turn. The next 2 turns were summarily used to gang-up on the remaining rebel armies and mopping-up the survivors. I feared the remaining armies in Apollonia would, after realizing that they were cornered, would sail to Italy, which was empty of any troops, but the campaign AI proved itself incompetent.

First impression, the CW in Rome 2 feels like a downgrade, if not short, compared to Rome I CW (or perhaps I prefer the bigger scope in the former). With other Houses not having established their own empires in other parts of the world, like in Rome I, the CW feels constrained, and very short once you're able to bring back your legions to take control. The silly campaign AI doesn't seem to help at all. Though they do try to expand rapidly, they didn't defend their settlements. A few extra loyalist stacks will perhaps help them balance offense and defense, or perhaps giving them the whole province, or both, or ...nevermind

[Backwards Logic]

I did not have the entirety of Pannonia (Singidun's Province); I was missing Akink. I did have full Latin Culture and my public order was at +100.

[Seyavash]

Just got my CW as Carthage. I have only 6 armies, 26 regions and 6 provinces thus I am only at start of 3rd imperium. The other's family overall influence was 46% and mine a mere 18 with fairly low gravitas for my family. However I noticed that one of the rival families had a general with a gravitas of 51%. I reloaded and confirmed that if I weaken the individual general's gravitas I postpone the CW. I did not touch the Other family's influence so I am thinking that the trigger is a combination of family influence and individual gravitas, probably as others suggested a proportional calculation between your family and all of the others.

[Quillan]

I suspect that the game adds up a total of "civil war points" every turn and compares that to a trigger number to see if the war triggers. I'd imagine that several things combine into that total: imperium, family influence, the influence of the other families within the faction, and probably ambition, but I can't say for certain what is most important. Here's a bit of a breakdown on my current game. It is 50 BC, and the civil war has not occurred yet.

Game is normal/normal, as this is my first full campaign and I've been taking it very slowly learning about everything along the way. Most of the territory I've picked up has been from snagging rebellious provinces while the few war declarations have mainly been at the request of military allies or client states. I'm playing as the Julii, my current senate influence is 61% (down from 74%), my two good generals are rank 3 and 2 with gravitas 79 and 58 respectively. The Cornelii are at 11% influence, the Junii are at 10% influence, and the other houses are 17%. The drop in senate influence has come from several adoptions and a couple of promotions, trying to trigger the war. I've got 44 regions at the moment (like I said, taking it very slowly). I am into the fourth imperium level, but I've been there for 20 years plus at this point.

The slow pace of this campaign has had a couple of consequences, one being that nobody has gotten huge amounts of gravitas/influence and no general has been beyond rank 4 to date. Since they've mainly been dying of old age (very old age sometimes, one general was still leading his army in the field at the age of 92) those who do get high gravitas tend to die shortly thereafter. Only now have I been pushing it; my leading family general is making 4 gravitas per turn and is only 37 years old. I've decided to finally conquer Iberia and he's leading the charge, taking all the glory himself. The thing is, he is ambition 2, while my other guy getting 3 gravitas per turn is only ambition 1. I could not adopt any ambition 3 generals who didn't have any negative gravitas per turn traits.

[Quillan]

Ok, update. The civil war finally kicked off in 39 BC. My leading family general is 4 stars with a gravitas of 154 and ambition of 2. The turn before I took my 47th region. My family influence had fallen from the previous 61% down to 57%, and just climbed back up to the 60% mark this turn when the war triggered. All family members from the other two houses have left their posts and become generals or admirals; they chose as their capital Tarraco in Hispania, and there are presently 6 armies and 4 fleets next to it. All are 12/20 in size, but I don't have a spy close enough yet to get a composition.

In this game, my standard army composition is as follows: general on horseback, 1 first cohort, 1 veteran legionaries, 8 legionaries, 2 equites, 4 velites, 2 Roman ballistae, and one other unit which is generally another legionary. I do have one legion with war dogs instead for that last slot, and everyone who says they are broken is correct. On the first turn, two armies headed overland from Tarraco toward Numantia (I had Legio II Italica parked on the road between Arse and the bridge; in hindsight I should have fortified at the bridge instead). The fleets all headed south towards Arse (I have three fleets there), but while mine are close enough for mutual support theirs are a bit scattered. The other four armies hopped on transports and sailed southeast. Whether they intend to go to Africa or Sicily remains to be seen, but they left Tarraco completely undefended and I can snag it this turn putting them all into attrition.

Edit: Forgot agents. I mysteriously lost 2 champions, 2 dignitaries, and 1 spy when the civil war triggered. The champions could have been in armies training (most were), but the spies and dignitaries were standing in the open, none in Tarraco (dignitary in Arse, dignitary and spy in Judea). There were no messages about deaths or woundings, so they apparently just absconded. I hope they don't show up with the loyalists, that spy was pretty badass.

[Hooahguy]

So my question is, when the civil war starts, does a portion of your forces go over to the rebels, or does a bunch of rebel stacks just appear?

[Quillan]

So my question is, when the civil war starts, does a portion of your forces go over to the rebels, or does a bunch of rebel stacks just appear?

None of my armies vanished. I was at 11/12 armies at the time (11 was just formed and still recruiting). All armies and fleets maintained the exact composition they had before. All the formerly Cornelii and Junii generals were replaced, however. 6 Loyalist armies and 4 loyalist fleets appeared instantly at their chosen capital. Their composition does vary, however. Here's what I can see at present:
Legio II Martia: General, 8x legionaries, 2x equites, 1x Roman ballista
Legio III Veneria: General, 2x First Cohort, 3x legionaries, 1x equites, 2x Roman ballista, 3x velites
Legio V Victrix: General, 4x legionaries, 1x equites, 3x Roman ballista, 3x velites
Legio I Hispana: General, 1x veteran legionaries, 3x legionaries, 1x equites, 5x velites, 1x ? (just too far away with the spy).
Classis IV Fretensis: Admiral (tower hexareme), 1x ballista quinquireme, 2x missiles quincs (velites), 3x fire pot biremes (legionaries), 3x assault biremes (legionaries), 1 ea pursuit and raiding trihemiolia (leves)

[Bramborough]

So my question is, when the civil war starts, does a portion of your forces go over to the rebels, or does a bunch of rebel stacks just appear?

Yep, I had pretty much identical experience as Quillan. Lost my other-2-families generals, a few agents, none of my forces. Based on what Jacque Schtrapp posted, it appears you won't lose an army even if it is actually stationed in the Loyalists' spawn region.

@Quillan, nice detail in their stack composition breakdown. Strongly supports (to the point of seeming to confirm) the idea that Loyalist troop composition will closely mirror the player's, and depends on what unit types the player has actually recruited, rather than the highest tech level to which the player has access.

It would be interesting to see what happens in some sort of artificially exaggerated case...like perhaps the player has Level III barracks built, but hasn't upgraded the units in the field, which remain hastati/principes.