Quote Originally Posted by Papewaio
Plague...

I don't even own MTW yet but this sounds plausible to me. A nice touch if it has been made integral to the game.

Unfortunately, my historical knowledge isn't good enough to know whether the date is accurate but 1213 does ring a bell. And, if it is accurate, maybe it's hard-coded into the game?

Presumably, it isn't possible for you to see if the remaining factions are having the same loyalty problems as yourself?

If not, maybe it's the fact that you have a large domain, with extensive trade and shipping routes which makes it all the easier for plague to spread so widely and rapidly. The population is too busy dying to have any time for loyalty or, since you're the one in charge, they're blaming it all on you?

If you want to look up more of the backround to all of this, try a search on 'Wat Tyler' and/or 'the peasants revolt', which came not long after. Basically, so many people died that farm labourers became scarce, so they began to demand higher wages. Landowners had a simple choice - cough up or watch them walk off to help the farm next door, whilst their own crop threatens to rot in the field. Really hard-up owners may have had to make payment in land rather than cash, hence areas given over to strip farming by small-holders or designated as commons, for grazing etc.

Obviously, this only persisted for a generation or so, or as long as it took for the population level to recover and it was them having their wages, freedoms and 'rights' being squeezed back towards feudal standards that triggered the revolt.