I want more aggressive rebels!

[MiniKiller]

neway to make em more aggressive?

[Jeanne d'arc]

I think they are very aggressive, not in means of making war but at the rate they show up sometimes .In some of my campagnes they pop up everywhere and in others they are nowhere to be seen???

[Spino]

I agree in principle but I don't know this would turn out in practise. It has been my observation that other than the different unit types that comprise rebel, slave & brigand armies behavior wise they all seem to be lumped into one category. Tweaking brigand armies to be more aggressive would make them even less of a nuisance than they are right now. They would constantly be marching for the nearest city and like many small AI armies that foolishly besiege enemy settlements, get pounded by the garrison when it sallies forth and shot full of arrows by the towers. Right now you must actively march out and engage these types of armies on the map thus making them a much bigger hassle than if they came straight for you.

I don't have much experience dealing with rebel or slave armies so I don't know just how dangerous the average one is.

So if it is possible to change the non-faction army behavior I think it best if rebel and slave armies become somewhat aggressive (so long as they are sizeable) and brigands remain as they are.

I'd love to hear what CA has to say about rebel/slave/brigand behavior.

[Basileus]

Lately in all my campaigns all the ai are after me so my best friends and allies seem to be the rebels so i´ll keep em passive for now :D

[khelvan]

Go into data/world/maps/campaign/imperial campaign/descr_strat.txt

Find the slave faction. Give them a lot of denari (at least 150,000). Change their ai to something like fortified genghis. That should make them nice and nasty.

[Akka]

Their agressivity should be scaled according to their type.

Brigands are perfect as they are : their goal is not to burn down cities or start war, their goal is to ambush merchants, steal goods and so on. That they stay in place, cut trade and cause devastation, represent exactly what brigands are.

Revolted Slaves could look for weakly defended cities, and should roam the countryside, possibly becoming bigger and bigger each turn from the new freed slaves. Spartacus style ^^

And the "rebels" that own cities, well, they should be mainly on the defensive, and attack only when they see a good opportunity. Kind of raiders.

[Jeanne d'arc]

I seen brigand armies with heirs also but they also sit there stationary, perhaps if they would move around to attack provinces then it would make the game more interesting.

[Spino]

Revolted Slaves could look for weakly defended cities, and should roam the countryside, possibly becoming bigger and bigger each turn from the new freed slaves. Spartacus style ^^

And the "rebels" that own cities, well, they should be mainly on the defensive, and attack only when they see a good opportunity. Kind of raiders.

Excellent ideas Akka. In keeping with your idea slave armies should literally absorb local slave populations into their ranks from nearby settlements, with greater numbers of slave coming from settlements with lower tech walls. The Slave resource that is next to settlements that were recently conquered and enslaved should be depleted by a random amount or completely when a slave army is in the province.

[Red Harvest]

Yes, they are often very passive. However, on VH/VH they are often much larger and more powerful than my garrisons in backwaters, so I leave them alone until I have time to send housekeeping armies through...(usually a new faction member needing some stars.) I shudder at the idea of these guys becoming aggressive and sieging my small towns. They already attack lone units in their view range.

[andrewt]

In my Julii game, rebels would pop up in the lands of the Brutii, Germans, etc. and move straight to my lands. I guess they would rather fight urban cohorts than anything else.

[Red Harvest]

In my Julii game, rebels would pop up in the lands of the Brutii, Germans, etc. and move straight to my lands. I guess they would rather fight urban cohorts than anything else.

Happened to me as Scipii as well. Brutii seem to produce brigand armies as their major "export." It was a great way to train new family members...

[Oaty]

Here's a little on there behavior. Once they have devastated a tile 100 percent or close to it they move to a new spot to scorch that section. When they roam into your territory it is usuall because an A.I. faction attacked it and chased it into your territory. Either that or they just got done scorching.

The funny thing is usually the A.I. will chase this brigand army everywhere until it is defeated even if they chased it out of there territory. The reason they do this is an A.I. army seems to be programmed to have a goal with that army and will never stop until that goal is completed or gets interupted by an enemy army.

Funniest one I saw was I had just taken a Numidian province but since the A.I. was already on the case it harassed that rebel army forever. doing me the favour of hunting down that rebel army.

For the sake of helping out the comp rebels should not have the withdraw option unless it has a rebel general in it

[andrewt]

In my experience, they don't chase. I have to kill the rebels or else they will devastate larger tracts of my land.

[MerLock]

Just a quick question. Do the areas they devastated eventually return back to normal after you kill dor drive off the rebels?

[mfberg]

Your lands return to normal after awhile. There is a devastation cost on the detailed view of your income, the amount slowly changes until it disappears

mfberg

[Kraxis]

I noticed something this afternoon...
I had a massive army in a city for many years, the city itself was small (well I had depleted the parent faction of population during the war). Suddenly I had to send a lot of troops out of the region, BAM, for the first time in 30 years rebels popped up, and right next to the city.

So apparently they are also dependant on garrisons.

[Ziu]

Excellent ideas Akka. In keeping with your idea slave armies should literally absorb local slave populations into their ranks from nearby settlements, with greater numbers of slave coming from settlements with lower tech walls. The Slave resource that is next to settlements that were recently conquered and enslaved should be depleted by a random amount or completely when a slave army is in the province.

Thats good. Also a nearby slave army should affect public order. The city slaves seeing, or hearing of, their free and rebellious brethren would become much more troublesome.

[Ar7]

Thats good. Also a nearby slave army should affect public order. The city slaves seeing, or hearing of, their free and rebellious brethren would become much more troublesome.

Well that is what the devastation factor slightly represents as it also affects public order, but a different icon in the details page would be nice.

I also like the ideas of more aggressive rebels, let's hope it might be added somehow

[Darius]

I wouldnt suggest giving the slaves all that much denarii. If you do, they end up creating these massive garrisons and upgrading the hell out of their stuff...then they just sit there in their citadel of gray doom and go bankrupt from upkeep. If any slave cities arent taken within the first few turns, they become incredibly difficult to take for the human, and near impossible for the other factions.