Faction Reappearances

[Despot of the English]

I read quite a lot on several Total War forums about how much people hate faction reappearances. Some people feel that once a faction is destroyed it should stay that way and never come back, while others feel that they're okay but only as long as they don't appear in their territories. But faction reemergencies should never occur in your own empire because it's pretty easy to ensure that your loyalty is at least 120% and therefore clamping down on any possible rebellion (using spies, garrisons, buildings etc, to increase loyalty.)

I personally love factions coming back because it reinvigorates the proceedings and you can also use them to your advantage, for example you can use them as a buffer between yourself and an enemy (it also helps, though not always possible, to ally yourself as soon as you can with the re-emerging faction.) It's great seeing a faction suddenly reappear and then having it attacked by one of your enemies. This is why I never use the tactic of keeping a faction down to one province where it can do no harm and, ultimately, it cannot re-emerge Factions popping back from the dead can make the game more challenging and gives any factions currently in play something else to worry about.

[massamuusi]

I conquered the entire bloody map, 100%, not 60, not 70, but 100%. Did I get faction reappearances? YES half of the map to be exact. But such is life. If you can't keep them content, they will revolt. Simple. If you can't take the heat, step down from the throne. Any decent ruler should deal with the problems instead of complaining about them, that is my opinion, be it right or wrong.
Yes, it takes loads of extra time to vanguish the factions that reappear, but that makes it ever more challenging. I didn't buy MTW in order to play easy risk-style who gets the world fastest games. I wanted a game in which I had to do my best in order to win, and even then be challenged.

[dessa14]

my spies always keep the provinces under control.
thanks,
dessa

[Armchair Athlete]

Love 'em great for GA play, once, when playing as the Danes, I had the French destroyed and then re-emerge in Antioch (high period). Conquered the entire Middle East, getting rid of the Eggies, Turks and Byzantines who can ammass rather large GA scores without scoring any points for homelands at all It is fun to manipulate faction re-emergences like this, although I must say the have a nasty tendancy to always attack the human player (ignoring other provinces nearby that are almost totally underdefended).

[The_Emperor]

I love them because when a faction reappears you actually get a tough fight on your hands

Here's what happened to me,

When my English king got excommunicated the Germans sent a Crusade into my territory from Friesland (aiming for Wessex), so I withdrew to the castle in Flanders and sent a strike force over the seas to knock out the Friesland chapter house, the Crusade moved into Wessex and was disbanded and I had a lot of prisoners who were not ransomed... Lovely.

However when the Crusade moved out of flanders and my troops regained the province the French decided to reappear in that province... Suffice to say I had a major fight on my hands as King Richard the Lionheart put down this little rebellion of quality troops

[Despot of the English]

It would be quite funny if a Human player could re-emerge. It wouldn't take long I'm sure because the AI doesn't always ensure that loyalty in its provinces are high enough to stop rebellion. Plus it would be a lot of fun attempting to rebuild your faction.

[Drake]

Hate them because yes, the odd occurance is grand and keeps the game interesting, but it suusally happens that about 5 emerge at once and you end up losing with only 3 years to go before winning And it really POs me when it's a reoccurance from a faction that you have wiped out up to 4 times My French campaign saw the Spanish re-emerge 4 times. Now, how exactly do you manage to miss one heir 4 times? What do they do, clone the buggers? It must come down to the stage that the re-emerging person is like an 8th cousin twice removed from the former King's dog. Honestly, it's just nuts. Once or twice, fine, but it just gets ridiculous eventually.

[Ludens]

I like them. They add spice to the game. But sometimes they are just bloody stupid. I once saw the Almohad Kalifah reappear with 2 units of Ghulam bodyguards and three stacks of Archers.

Quote[/b] (Drake @ July 20 2004,15:40)]My French campaign saw the Spanish re-emerge 4 times. Now, how exactly do you manage to miss one heir 4 times? What do they do, clone the buggers?

Whenever there is a reappearance, the leader of that faction will get an heir next turn. Even if you crush that rebellion, sixteen years later there will be another heir who can start a reappearance.

[Sociopsychoactive]

I love em, and feel they make the game more true to life than most people think. Very often a nation has been all but wiped out save for one prince, who was deemed to young to worry about, or couldn't be found. Then they come back when they are 18, rally the population to their banner and storm the nearest castle.

Some re-apearances can get annoying, like when you hit the 60% mark and often every single dead faction pops up again, but I've had some great faction re-apearences happen.

I was fighting a war of atrition against the french with byzantium, taking it slow as they were the oly other real power left in the game. Un-noticed by me their king is completely barren of children for his whole life (must have been shooting blanks) and then dies of an illness leaving the entire kingdome, all of france, germany, northern spain, parts of hungry and poland, northern italy, ALL of it to rebel. Over 25,000 troops who now are just sitting there.

A whole two years later, the kings nephew emerges with 20,000 troops of his own, and rallies all of the rebel french to his flag, INCLUDING all of rebel england, who had been rebel for yonks without re-appearing. Suddenyl my war with rance gets even more interesting and alot more fun...

[katank]

love to hate em.

they are good for providing a challenge but also hate them for the disruption if they occur deep in my territory.

[Sarnaen]

Quote[/b] (Drake @ July 20 2004,08:40)]And it really POs me when it's a reoccurance from a faction that you have wiped out up to 4 times My French campaign saw the Spanish re-emerge 4 times. Now, how exactly do you manage to miss one heir 4 times? What do they do, clone the buggers?

Come on, we all know what those damn Spanish royals are like.

Agent Smith: Do you know what the best thing about being me is?
[All the doors open, lots of Smith clones step out]
Agent Smith: There's so many of me

[Sun Tzui]

They do spice up the game, but i hate having to reorganise province production and rebuild lots buildings that cost me so much time and money

However i love when they don't affect only my faction, but attack 2 or 3 factions simultaneoulsy

[katank]

I've had cases in which a remerging faction wiped out another only to have the second reemerge on them. it's hilarious.

[Tricky Lady]

I don't like factions reappearing. Especially when i.e. Spain reappears in Georgia, so silly... (I know a faction can reappear in a province they held for only one turn, but still...). I guess I would 'appreciate' them better if they were to reappear in their home countries only.

I must confess that I enjoyed the Papal reemergences (for the few times I saw this happen in my games). The Pope's armies are really good and hard to beat...

Quote[/b] ]I've had cases in which a remerging faction wiped out another only to have the second reemerge on them. it's hilarious.

Something similar happened to me once too... English reappear in Saxony and chase French, only to fight a re-emergent HRE army the next year. The English won it in the end though, and established a nice North-German Empire...

[lonewolf371]

What really gets me sometimes is you may destroy a faction in the early age, and then right after the high age begins they reappear with 220 chivalric knights, chivalric men-at-arms, chivalric sergeants, and crossbows.... when every one else is still building peasants

[G-Con Daniel]

I absolutely hate 'em, i could have won a single player campaign as the Italians if the Papacy had not reappeared He wiped out my armies

[katank]

that's why against the papacy, containment and not attack should be the priority.

[Kenseu]

I'm for faction reemergences, but I've got a few qualms with them. Mainly the fact that they come out of no where and many times have high quality if not elite troops. It's not terribly believable. What I want to know how they get some troops that the provinces they rebel in can't even produce (Wasn't that supposed to be fixed by some patch?). I wouldn't mind if it was peasants, and cheap infantry in large numbers, and maybe a few knights signifying ex-lords or something, but 3 stacks of Chivalric units in the 1220's is a little much.

[Despot of the English]

Maybe in cases where rebels have outrageously good equipment, far more than the province can produce, they were funded from the outside.

[katank]

they have connections. be thankful that their martian relatives were miffed due to a family feud or else they might have photon cannons and phasers too

[Al Khalifah]

I'm divided in opinion in terms of faction reappearances.

On the positive side if you play the game because you enjoy the strategic battles, faction reappearances can be quite a breath of fresh air in the campaign games, due to the fact that many battles see you battling away against masses of spearman and other low level units. Faction reappearances give you the chance to go up against some of the games more advanced units, especially when they appear in high and late. The re-emerged faction is normally led by a 3 or 4 star King, which also gives a reasonable challenge.

The problem with this is that the armies can often be quite imbalanced and can often contain too many good units to make them practical. In a sense the army is too good for its own good. A re-emerged army can often contain up to 8 units of feudal knights and about 2 royal knights. Like the French often found in the Hundred Years War, armies like this can often be defeated by lesser men who act more professionally. Armies are not always like this, however, especially for factions where ranged troops are elite. English re-emergences are normally a pain because they can have a fair few longbow units later on.

The re-emerged factions would be better too if they also appeared only in their own homelands. I once had a Sicilian re-emergence in Wessex because they held the region for a few turns once. What would've been more exciting and perhaps realistic in the game for re-emergences would have been if the rebellion was comprised of the troops trained by the conquering faction in the conquered provinces and then a few simpler base units in the homelands. As it stands, the game seems to allow the re-emerging faction to train advanced units on little more than hope and prayer while established ones can take decades building up the required facilites. This way it would be like a true revolt of the people. In Medieval times, the nobles were normally happy to accept new masters as long as taxes remained the same and they were allowed to keep thier lands.

[Ecthelion]

I don't mind them too much, they do keep things interesting at times when you think there's not a lot of challenge left in your campaign, sometimes they provide a bit too much challenge, especially that pope

[lonewolf371]

The Papacy can certainly be a pain. They re-emerge about 5 years after they're destroyed, and often times with elite units. While if you're fighting the Papacy a lot of times containment is best, most of the times that I destroy them is if they excommunicate me. Excommunication can be a real pain if you're trying to launch a crusade.

[Al Khalifah]

Quote[/b] ]The Papacy can certainly be a pain. They re-emerge about 5 years after they're destroyed, and often times with elite units. While if you're fighting the Papacy a lot of times containment is best, most of the times that I destroy them is if they excommunicate me. Excommunication can be a real pain if you're trying to launch a crusade.

The problem with the Pope is that even when you contain him, sometimes his eyes just seem to glaze over with visions of glory and he attacks you for no reason. In situations like that, you're bound to get excommunicated if you try to save yourself.
Its amusing that the Papal armies use crossbows when the Papacy actually tried to have them banned as a weapon in Christendom... hipocrisy in the Church??? Never...

[Sarnaen]

As is historically accurate. He deemed it as a cruel and unfair weapon, banned it, and promptly equipped his own armies and personal guard with them.

[Al Khalifah]

What a great guy.

[gaijinalways]

Yeah, the papal reemergences I try to avoid, but when you get excommed and don't have high level assasins around, it's tough luck, though keeping the provinces open and letting rebels take over for the papacy to start when they reemerge is a good idea.

I find that the loyalty level and spies in the province doesn't always prevent a faction's reemergence. The Swiss came back 3 times in my last Byz campaign on Expert

[G-Con Daniel]

Yeah... that kinda got me too. In the game and in my troop's head