Can it get any worse?

[Haethurn]

After fighting a long and brutal war with the Germans, my Muslim fighters penetrated deep into Europe, getting as far as Wessex and Champagne. Finally, with more than 50% of the map under my control, I thought I could rest for a little bit, maybe build up my armies and upgrade the provinces. I looked at the map, gloating over the massive green provinces that were mine.

Then, the very next turn, Wallachia, Rum, Edessa, Georgia, Livonia, and Champagne rebel. In Livonia an army of six hundred Saracen Infantrymen besiege my force of about 100 or so woodsmen. None of my provinces are prepared to fight the rebels; all of my forces went into Europe to crush the Germans and the Danes. Even as I was beginning to despair more terrible news was bound to come. The next turn, the Golden Horde re-emerged, invading Khazar and Armenia. Soon my empire was nearly cut in half.

What's next? Are the Italians going to invade Prussia and the surrounding provinces and will the Spanish and French join a crusade against me?

I can't believe those ungrateful rebels would dispute my rule...I mean, come on, they were part of the biggest empire in the world What do they have to complain about? Jerks. And the Golden Horde? Excuse me? The last time those guys tried to mess with me I sent 3000 mercenaries and crushed them completely, killing Genghis Khan in the first five minutes of the battle. Then they think that just a couple of decades later they can try the same thing? Cause they did, and I must admit it is working this time.

How could it get any worse?

[ichi]

Sure it can get worse. As your King loses influence you can have a civil war, lose all your navy, and find out your oldest son has the perversion vice.

ichi

[Tricky Lady]

Quote[/b] (Haethurn @ April 10 2004,05:59)]I can't believe those ungrateful rebels would dispute my rule...I mean, come on, they were part of the biggest empire in the world What do they have to complain about? Jerks.

LOL.
Isn't it human to revolt against everything that stands for power?
So now get a grip on your armies again, and kill those stupid rebels to the last man. It'll teach them Ha Revolting against a major world power...

[Lord Ovaat]

Sigh. You won't be a major world power after the revolt.

[Haethurn]

Quote[/b] (Tricky Lady @ April 10 2004,03:28)]

Quote[/b] (Haethurn @ April 10 2004,05:59)]I can't believe those ungrateful rebels would dispute my rule...I mean, come on, they were part of the biggest empire in the world What do they have to complain about? Jerks.

LOL.
Isn't it human to revolt against everything that stands for power?
So now get a grip on your armies again, and kill those stupid rebels to the last man. It'll teach them Ha Revolting against a major world power...

Well, maybe I DID raise the taxes a bit, but come on...surely they understand that you have to pay a little more to live in the greatest empire in the world Besides, I looked at my opponents' provinces and they all do the same thing. Why can't they just accept these outrageous taxes as part of medieval life? I bet England's peasants aren't so rude...they should try to be more like England's peasants.

[Accounting Troll]

The civil wars and the worthless son are only the beginning of your problems. You can expect all the AI factions to pick a fight with you and a couple of respawnings.

Then, if you obliterate your enemies in an epic three hour battle, you can expect a CTD before you save.

Then the government increases your tax bill because all those cruise missiles cost money, and you get the Caledonian Cremona just before you are about to get married...

And people in England are ALWAYS rebelling against tax hikes.

[makkyo]

If you can get your hands on some mercs you'll be fine... depends on where and when and how much though...
You my want to suck up to the peasentry by lowering taxes.. to gain some favor w/ the masses... build some churches/ mosques too

[Haethurn]

Well, I managed to deal with most of my problems using a very strategical manuever that I like to call reloading to a previous save and hoping things turn out differently. It worked, and the Golden Horde has not reappeared yet. Also, none of my heartland provinces have rebelled.

However, Wessex and Wales are perhaps my most rebellious provinces. Almost every year they rebel against me with an army of several hundred feudal sergeants and other such units. I sent at least twenty imams and alims to those two provinces to convert them to Islam, since the popups said that religion was the main cause of their uprisings. While this seemed to placate Wessex, Wales responded to its conversion to Islam by rebelling with about 800 muwahid foot soldiers.

I had a wonderful king once who made everyone happy and boosted agricultural income throughout the empire, but when he died at the age of 72, he was succeeded by a rather mentally disturbed young man who the people hated. I thought an end to my troubles was in sight when that king died of an illness just a few years later, but then he was replaced with yet another loony. I haven't checked, but I'm afraid that mental illnesses may run in the late Sultan's family.

The French have reappeared in Wessex and have allied themselves with 1000 revolting peasants. Probably Wales is going to rebel also, so I am in danger of losing those provinces.

The Egyptians have attacked me by surprise, taking Constantinople and Syria. I have very few troops there that could hold them back.

It's getting pretty desperate here. If things don't turn around soon, I may be forced to try my strategic manuevers again.

[DeadRunner]

Haethurn hi
never leave a frontier without a guard army(powerfull enouth to persuad your enmy to dont atack)
Try to make buildings in new terrain that you conquer(buildings that boost hapness some farms help church are fine too)
dont forget that you are in catoliks region send priest to see the light of the true god control the taxes to see if they get unhappy .
when you remove the army of that land is usually to lose some loyality to you check the loyality when you remove a army.

Be carefull of civil wars that is the bad thing m8 , once i was atacked and get 2 civil wars one after the other check our sons and general´s m8

[katank]

dude, you shoulda wiped da eggy off like 100 years ago. you want the fat ransom right? you hate those idiot camels, right?

BTW, build hapiness buildings. watch tower+border fort almost a must in newly taken provinces. town guard is cheap too.

then go with mosques and taverns to keep em really happy. station some agents and they are as loyal as they can be.

BTW, force some provinces to rebel and launch a batch (4+) jihads at it will improve your sultan's influence greatly and you'll get decent princes.

[Haethurn]

I tried to fight the Egyptians, and for a moment I thought I could get a ceasefire while at the same time seizing Tripoli, Palestine, Arabia, and Antioch, but that is not the case. Every turn the Egyptians sends armies into all of those provinces and into Constantinople, Khazar, and Greece, as well as sending massive armies into my European provinces. I can not hold them off, and even though I killed one of their kings, they stubbornly refuse to sign a treaty.

I'm going back to a previous save from about when I defeated the Germans. I'm going to abandon Wales and Wessex, because it took thousands of soldiers to deal with the constant rebellions there, and I'll spend most of my time building up my defenses and upgrading the provinces. Perhaps if I do a good enough job of this, the Egyptians will not attack.

[katank]

just massacre them. eliminate them is the easiest thing.

never got eggy to not lust after my lands.

maybe MUSLIM_EXPANSIONIST behavior might be why?

just killing them saves you trouble in the long run.

[son of spam]

hmm...I think the game would be a lot more fun if u made everyone [insert religion here]_STAGNANT.

[Maedhros]

I think the bestway to master the game is to play through the rough spots.

Every story has a few plot twists. You haven't lived until you have held off an army of more then a thousand Russions with a wonderful invention called five canons pointing at a romantic little bridge. Heaped high on, and on both sides with victims of my heavy crossbows and gunpowder.

Until that battle my defeat was assured. But after? their mighty king died when a canon ball got very lucky and removed his annoying head. His sone was worthless. His provinces suddenly guarded by disloyal demoralized, and thinned garrisons.

A few well placed bribes and I was quickly remodeling his castle. From the outside.

As your power grows rebellions, even large scale may be unavoidable. Think of them as training opportunities No better way to elevate a mediocre general to grand status, and raising large sums of cash than stomping a few peasants.

As your realm spreads, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain power and influence over everyone. Every great empire has experienced this. Even today.

[Mouzafphaerre]

-
That's a known hidden feature of the game, although has never happened to me.

See voitgkampf's great story for what may be the worse:

The Longest Year
_

[katank]

it's a good hidden feature though as it allows for some suspense at to the outcome of the game in allowing for a mongol invasion type of mess on an epic scale

BTW, for me occasionally it's even better since in a civil war, my former troops were even better equipped and hence a joy to face

[Bezalel]

Yes, it can get worse.

[Haethurn]

Well, I quit the game because I could not deal with the Egyptians. I started a new one as the Danes, and I just concluded a very long war with the Almohads. I conquered all of their European provinces except for Genoa and all of Spain up to Granada. Then I tried to hold on to them as I was constantly bombared by a thousand-man army every three or so turns. I sent at least twenty emissaries to the Khalif in order to sign a treaty, but the khalif had an annoying habit of leaving the province right when my emissary reached him. Most of the time my emissaries had unfortunate accidents on the way over to the khalif, and I was beginning to despair the situation when the khalif approached me himself with an offer of an alliance, right when I was about to send a few more emissaries to inevitably be killed by assassins.

So, with that war finished, I now have all of Spain except for Grenada over my control, and am getting over 1000 florins every year. I suppose I'll upgrade all of my provinces to have castles and citadels, take Ireland, and start a war with the Polish or Germans. Most likely, though, the game will find some other disaster to throw at my way and keep me busy on the military front.

[Grand Warder of the Kremlin]

There's always the possibility of losing, although that does tend to have a relaxing, albeit unnerving, finality. At least when you lose you can shut down the computer, stew for a while, do productive-ish things, then come back and play a custom battle on easy to let out the rest of your frustrations. Annoying setbacks tend to draw you in further, so I would say, in my expert opinion, that (except for the whole son-being-a-pervert thing) things could not have possibly gotten any worse.

[katank]

it can always get worse.

try HRE medmod expert with nuttermode and no starting money.

trust me, you'll learn the meaning of horror at your empire splitting apart into civil war frequently after about six friendly neighbors gang up on you

[BrianBoru]

must the province has a percent chance of rebeling in order for a faction to reapear, or is this just by chance and iw can happy in a province even were the people are 150% loyal to you?

[SpencerH]

For me, the problems you describe with the muslims are one of the best parts of the game. They're not random and can be controlled to some extent but sometimes they do seem to have a life of their own. My 1st Byzantine empire went the same way and I'm not sure there was anything I other than micromanaging the traits of the royal family (which I aint gonna do).

[mfberg]

Unmodified it looks like the loyalty has to be below 120 for their to be a chance for a re-emergence.

I think they will only re-emerge in their original provinces, but I may be wrong on that (it may be that as homelands change over time they can re-emerge in those new homelands france in tripoli for example).

mfberg

[Bhruic]

AFAIK, a faction can re-emerge in any province they owned in the game. So if, for example, the Turks took Ireland at some point in the game, it's possible for them to re-emerge in Ireland.

But yes, I haven't seen any re-emerging factions in provinces with 120+% loyalty.

Bh