What controls recruitment for rebels?

[Monkwarrior]

In the preparation of the campaign for Iberia:TW (the conquest of Hispania) I have been eliminating all the useless (apparently) units and finishing the export_descr_buildings file. The recruitment system is similar to ZoR (from RTR), but I am finding some CTD (without error message) and they seem to happen in the turn of the rebel faction.

I wondered if this problem can be due to some mistake in the recruitment, but I cannot find the system the AI uses to recruit rebel units.
In the original export_descr_buildings for the imperial campaign, the slave faction is not mentioned in any building requirement. However, in the ZoR system it is named in ALL the recruitment buildings for ALL the recruitment zones.

Does anybody know how the AI decides which unit will be recruit in each rebel region?

[Epistolary Richard]

Have you looked at descr_rebel_faction.txt?

[Monkwarrior]

Have you looked at descr_rebel_faction.txt?

Ooooops I edited this file so much time ago that I didn't remember it (even I wrote a "how to" about it ). Thanks for remembering me.

Now my question is: are all the rebel armies as described in that file?
With respect to buildings, do the rebels build any building? Isn't a recruitment tree for them?

Cheers.

[Epistolary Richard]

Thanks for remembering me.

Actually, Simetrical mentioned its existence in another thread. I know nothing (at least about rebels).

[Simetrical]

The buildings are a bit strange for rebels. They seem to be tied to region somehow—perhaps the culture type in descr_regions.txt or descr_strat.txt (they don't have to be the same for a given region). There are rebel subfactions, one per real faction. I don't know how this all works, exactly, but the way to check is to start up a game as the rebels (after editing descr_strat.txt—and keep in mind that if you have more than twenty playable factions, you won't be able to play any after the twentieth, so you can't have all factions playable at once).

-Simetrical

[Encaitar]

In descr_regions.txt there is a line missing from the format explanation at the top. It should read:
; region tag
; settlement tag
; default culture tag
; rebels tag
; map RGB value
; comma-seperated resource list
; triumph point value
; base farm level

The rebels tag (e.g. Brigantes, Trinovantes, etc) for each region links to descr_rebel_factions.txt. This file then defines what units can appear for a particular rebel army. It also defines non-region based rebels (Brigands, Pirates, and Gladiator Uprisings). Each entry has a 'description' value, which links to text\rebel_faction_descr.txt, where the localisation text for each rebel group is given.

[Monkwarrior]

Well, I don't know if it is still interesting, but I've been researching a little bit the question of construction and recruitment of rebels.

export_descr_buildings
The first finding that shocked me was that the term slave in

requires factions {slave, }

has no effect.
The rebels recruit the troops and construct buildings following the indications of the culture assigned to them in each region.
But, where is the assignation?

descr_rebel_factions
This file is only important (apparently) for the rebels that appear in regions controlled by named factions. The units assigned to the rebels will appear in the rebellion, although I'm not sure if ALL the units appear ALWAYS in each rebellion.

descr_regions
In this file, the name of the rebels that appears in descr_rebel_factions is assigned to each region.
It is also assigned a culture tag to the region, which is used in case of a rebel region, but only for the initial buildings.
Example: the culture tag is gauls, the buildings will have barbarian style.

descr_strat
This file is very important to control the construction and recruitment of rebels.

faction_creator

controls the building tree and the recruitment system of the rebels in that settlement.
Example: if the region with a culture tag gauls (descr_regions) has faction_creator seleucid, the rebels will construct seleucid buildings and recruit seleucid units.
But, which units?

This point was also difficult for me. I tried to put the slave units (those included in descr_rebel_factions) in export_descr_buildings, but those units didn't appear as recruitable units when playing with the rebels.
Fortunately, there were still some remaining units from the original game and I found that in two regions was possible to recruit greek hoplite militia (thrace).
This made me look at export_descr_unit and descr_model_battle.

export_descr_unit
When I looked at the entry for greek hoplite militia, I had

owner greek_cities, thrace, slave

I imagined that the rebel faction recruited those units belonging to the faction_creator (thrace) that were also assigned to slave faction.
I had several units of different factions, included in export_descr_buildings, with textures also assigned to slave faction in descr_model_battle.
Thus I put slave as the second owner in export_descr_unit and... voilà, the units were recruitable in each settlement with a muster_field, depending on the faction_creator.

I hope that with a complete recruitment tree, and perhaps a higher initial treasure, the rebels will be more challenging in the campaign.

Sorry if it is difficult to understand my poor English.

[khelvan]

I have found that faction_creator has no effect on rebel unit recruitment. I am 99% certain that the faction listed as default culture is what determines rebel unit recruitment.

The recruitment is quite simple. When the rebels control a given province, if the buildings/resources/etc. in that province allow the slave faction to meet the unit recruitment requirement for a given unit in that province if the slave faction were actually the "default culture" faction, then you may recruit the unit in that province.

Thus, if I am playing as the slave faction in EB, and I hold the Hibernian provinces (pre-Ireland), as the default culture is briton I may build any units available to the briton faction (with ownership slave as well, of course), including Goidilic (pre-Irish) units, in Hibernia.

It gets more complicated, but I suggest playing with "default culture" and "faction_creator." I think you will find that if you make the default culture the faction from which you want to pull units off their list for the slave faction, you can build those units, given you meet all other building/resource/etc. requirements. If you make faction creator something else entirely, it should still work. Reverse it and make faction creator correct, but default culture not, and you should not be able to build the correct units there.

I have found that faction_creator only affects two things: Whether or not the controlling faction gets the unrest penalty as defined in descr_rebels for the rebels in the province, and which faction the province will rebel to, if it has a true rebellion.

Adding requires faction slave to the unit recruitment lines does nothing, IIRC.

[Encaitar]

What if you set the default culture to "slave"? (This is possible, I've done it). Would that then mean they recruit units with the required faction slave?

[Monkwarrior]

Thanks for your replies.
I will follow the research, starting with the default culture slave.

[Monkwarrior]

What if you set the default culture to "slave"? (This is possible, I've done it). Would that then mean they recruit units with the required faction slave?

Hi again (back from holidays),
the solution of default culture slave has a small problem, all the rebels seem the same, in Asia, Africa or Europe. Playing with default cultures gives more "flavour" to the settlemenst and armies in slave regions (African buildings in Africa, Roman buildings in Italy and so on).

One curious thing: the building tree shows the "slave" building tree (those with the requirement {slave, } in export_descr_buildings. But in each settlement the faction is using the building tree of the default culture (clearly shown in the style of buildings and the temples).

Regarding the recruitment problem, effectively rebels recruit those units belonging to their default culture with the owner slave in export_descr_unit. The problem can come if there is no slave texture defined in descr_model_battle, when the battle takes place. Thus it is necessary to define the slave texture and then rebels will be able to recruit exactly the same units as the playable factions.