What makes rebellions begin?

[Maeda Toshiie]

I'm talking about the kind where it spans your entire empire. In my current game I control almost all of Europe and to make things interesting again, I want to basically self-induce a rebellion and split the empire. I think it tends to happen if I lose a major battle on my own ground? Any other ideas?

1. Raise taxes to max and dismiss all peasant garrisons.

2. Get your king stuck on his Ireland resort and cut his links from the mainland.

3. Lose multiple big battles and provinces to go along with that.

4. Strip all your general's titles.

5. (Catholic only) Have a chapter house (along with as many crusade markers as possible) lost/destroyed.

6. (Catholic only) Get excom.

ie have your ruler's influence go on a free fall trip down to zero.

[bretwalda]

Good one! I am interested in what splits the empire at a given point. So what determines if this is a 50-50% split province and army wise or a huge rebel and small loyal or vice versa? Any thoughts?

[Marquis de Said]

If you have a civil war, stacks led by loyal generals will take the king's side, while the disloyal ones will side with the rebels.

The number of rebels and troops loyal to the king depends on the number of disloyal generals and the size of their stacks. If, say, you have a stack led by a disloyal general, all the troops in it will back the rebels regardless of their loyalty to the king and vice versa.

That's why if your king has very low influence and you don't want a crushing civil war, make sure that every large stack is led by a loyal general and the disloyal generals are isolated by themselves. On the other hand, if you want to start a civil war to get rid of your king, make sure all your stacks are led by generals with 1-2 loyalty, and put all the loyal units in one stack and preferably in a worthless province (an island like Crete, Cyprus or Ireland is ideal). That way, you can back the rebels who will get most of the provinces and you won't have to fight many of your own troops.

Marquis

[henoch]

in case of a "newer" province to your empire.

-burn buildings! burn their castle! burn their housing! they will come.

(mean teutonic knights do so)
-keep the taxes "hopping" from sky high to none, and up, and down..
-rare: give the province a gouverneur with alot of "counter" piety.

oh, you asked how to prevent.. no idea