Random unhappiness

[eadeater]

I have been playing Medieval for a long time, and i used to play Shogun a lot, and I now play the Viking Invasion expansion, and there is one thing about it that confuses me as much as it annoys me. One things always happens after i've been playing for ages, conquered half the world and have a profit of 30,000 or so florins every turn; mystery upsets. Every single province apart from those that have a few completely full up armies in them (ie the recently conquered border provinces) become red, with 0% loyalty or there abouts, for no reason whatsoever. I didn't just get excommunicated and my king is still the same and generally nothing has changed since the last turn, when theywere all very happy even though I only staff the provinces with 100 peasants. I always have competent nobles and auto tax, but for some reason this stuff happens. Can anyone explain please?

[Blodrast]

welcome to the Org, eadeater !
Don't worry too much about that, it is a known and unavoidable phenomenon, and there are two stages to it:

1. when you own roughly 40% of the provinces, your governors start getting bad vices at an accelerated rate. That is more or less bearable and acceptable, depending on how tolerant you are.
2. when you reach 60%, however, all hell breaks loose. You will get countless bad vices (and I mean really bad ones this time, too) to lots of governors and generals, and, consequently, loyalty will decrease throughout your empire. It is in no way money or income related.
By this time you'll have a really hard time making new alliances, and likely you'll be at war with everybody else (which means mostly no trade income, which means you may get in the red with money).
Most important thing to look out for, though, is loyalty in provinces (hold shift to have a quick look at your provinces; green are ok; yellow and red, well...) and in your generals, because civil wars are so much easier to come about at that time...

There are many ways to prevent massive drops in loyalty, though, and here are only some of them:
- build happiness buildings:
Watch Tower + 20
Border Fort + 30
(these two do NOT stack; all others do)

Town Watch / Town Guard /
Town Militia / County Militia + 10
Brothel / Brothel2 / Brothel3 + 10

Church + 20
Monastery + 10
Reliquary + 30
Cathedral + 40

Mosque + 20
Grand Mosque + 40

College of Surgeons + 40

- have a spy and an assassin in each of your provinces
- keep your king in a coastal province and make sure you have unobstructed sea access to all your provinces (i.e., there are no enemy ships in any sea squares that are part of the sea route between your king and one of your provinces).
- never ever assault/attack with your king/only heir on an island (port might get destroyed and he'll be stranded).

Good luck, and enjoy your stay around here !

Edit: Oh yeah, about autotax: original MTW sets autotax such that loyalty stays above 100%. This is good enough for usual rebellions, but not for re-emergences. You need at least 120% for that, and some more than that is helpful to absorb occasional drops (influent king with good virtues dies, heir doesn't have them). Autotax in VI sets the tax such that loyalty is at least 120% (i.e., better than MTW).

[eadeater]

Thanks Blodrast, I know about the vices that generals get, and the buildings that help loyalty and so on, and the trade, and in most of my games I do keep to these guidelines and generally rebellions are very rare. What bothers me is the completely spontaneous change. The most recent example, which urged me to seek help: I am playing on expert, with english and rule from one end of Spain to Hungarian lands, as well as some islands, and in 1212, everything is peachy. All provinces are green, and high tax, with an average of 150% or so loyalty. Turn ends, nothing specific happens, a few bad vices as usual, but nothing on the king, and 1213 begins, and suddenly ALL my provinces bar a few are at 0% loyalty! None of the happiness building were destroyed, no re-emergences and my king didnt move from Wessex. No-one declared war and I didn't get excommunicated.

[massamuusi]

My advice is, stop when you've reached one third of map, build economy and loads of money. Then advance and try to keep as much money in the coffers as possible. That's all.
I had gathered something 40% of map, and had massed over 300000 florins. You know, it wasn't enough for 90% of the map, at this time I had to disband 10000 florins worth of upkeep of troops. Not something you feel like doing, but had to. Then again, they had already served their purpose, I still got a lot of men left, and it just showed how flexible leader I am

[eadeater]

True, you do need a lot of money to go for the complete conquest, but in this example I already have over 300000 florins as well as a ridiculous annual income, but you can't really do anything when all your provinces have had rebellions.... Actually, this is another thing. The provinces are meant to have peasants revolting, and it says so in the messages as well. But what units do I get? Feudal and chivalric men-at-arms, pavise arbalesters and feudal knights! Peasants that can afford a war horse, armour, sword, arbalest etc?

[Blodrast]

ok, i get the picture. This has been reported before, on occasion, but I have yet to see that happen in one of my games. Truth is, I don't know how to help you in this case, or whether a solution exists.
Just to make sure, it's not a civil war, right ? It's just some rebellions.
I've never seen any explanation for this kind of event, and some people consider it a bug.
Does lowering the taxes a bit in 1212 make any difference ?
I mean, a drop in loyalty may be understandable, but 0% loyalty is extreme...

Other than that, I'm sorry, I have no idea.

[Sir Toma of Spain]

[QUOTE=eadeater]True, you do need a lot of money to go for the complete conquest, but in this example I already have over 300000 florins as well as a ridiculous annual income, but you can't really do anything when all your provinces have had rebellions.QUOTE]

I think you need about 500000 florins to make it as that is how much i lost in the last 60 years of the game as the Spanish