City Rebellions... anyone ever asked why?

[Jacque Schtrapp]

You are the unlucky sod tasked to govern the fair city of Jerusalem. You have yourself a bit of wine and toddle off to bed content with the position that the Gods have seen fit to reward you with.

The very next morning you hear a knock at the door:

"What is it Lt. Sebastian?"

"It's just the rebels sir.... they're here."

"My God man! Do they want tea?"

"No sir, I think they're after rather more than that... they've brought a flag."

"Damn! That's dash cunning of them!"

At this point you and your entire garrison (whatever size and composition it may be) decide to play the gracious host and exit the city in order to allow the Judean People's Front (or was it the People's Front of Judea?) have their way with the town. No arrow shots exchanged, no swords crossed, nary a harsh word to be heard. On what planet in what universe does this make scenario make sense?

Let's say that the the purpose of a rebellion is to serve as a punitive consequence to either actions taken or not taken by the player. If that be so, then by all means inconvenience the player. Instead of forcing the player to hand over the keys to the Imperial Palace before the stucco is even dry and then head out the gate without the governor's golden chamber pot or new four door chariot, make it a challenge. Place all of the player's troops in, or as close as possible, to the city's center; then surround the center with the units spawned in the rebellion. Instant ambush and another bad day at the office. Any player worth the salt in his saddlebag can siege a rebellious city or starve out the pitiful rebel units. Place those same pitiful rebels in position to ambush the city's garrison and as often as not the governor will likely end up deciding to seek employment on the other side of the Urals where no one has ever heard the word "splitter!"

Just a thought.

[nidpants]

i think it was more of a cop-out sort of thing. obviously the way it ought to have worked is the way it worked in M:TW, to an extent anyway, (the countryside spat forth a few decent warriors and they sieged the castle). i guess the Rebels are practiced in college-style practical jokery, and the governor, his advisors, and the entire city's garrison wake up in the morning outside the city walls in a little rebel-built castrum and nice little cots.

i think it'd be more realistic if there was a chance for the plebs (or the slaves) to storm the governor's villa and drag the greedy b*stard out into the street by his throat and hang him. or something.

[Colovion]

Rebels should not just be a thorn in the side of a leader, they should also, at times, make a leader incredibly fearful that these rebels might spark a whole revolution and overthrow you! As they are in RTW, they are incredibly impotent. One thing that makes it this way is because it assumes that all of the factions have easy reign on their dominion with only a few random tribes pestering them here and there, and it never accelerates beyond that point.

I'd like to see rebels become their own faction, attept to overthrow cities from inside, siege settlements - as long as the unrest in a province is great enough to warrant such actions.

[screwtype]

I've never seen a better way of handling rebellions than in the old game Lords of the Realm II (the Amiga version is much better than the PC version BTW, although they share similar mechanics).

In that game, you had to maintain a province's happiness level above 5 hearts or you'd get rebellions. Each turn a province started below 5 hearts, it would trigger a rebellion and you'd lose HALF your remaining province's population to a rebel army. So, if you started out with a rich province of 4000 people, one turn below 5 hearts would result in 2000 peasants becoming a rebel army, a second turn you'd lose another 1000 in another rebel army, then 500 and then 250. So your province would go from a wealthy 4000 pop province to a 250 person basket case in just four turns if you couldn't get the hearts back up. Finally if you couldn't get the hearts back up above 5 for several turns running, you'd lose control of the province altogether and it would revert to a rebel province which would require reconquering.

There were all kinds of reasons that would cause a province to lose hearts, but the main one was lack of food, which could be caused by overpopulation, natural disaster, or the presence of armies (enemy or friendly) in a province which would eat as much as the peasants themselves. In other words, prolonged warfare in a province would be absolutely devastating to a food supply and therefore population, so you had to try and beat an enemy army quickly and then get your own army out into a province which could support it. You also had to try and build up food reserves in your provinces ahead of trouble.

I can't describe all the nuances of the game system here, but it was logical, elegant and beautifully balanced. I wish they would make an updated version of that game, it would beat RTW hands down.

[Colovion]

I've never seen a better way of handling rebellions than in the old game Lords of the Realm II (the Amiga version is much better than the PC version BTW, although they share similar mechanics).

In that game, you had to maintain a province's happiness level above 5 hearts or you'd get rebellions. Each turn a province started below 5 hearts, it would trigger a rebellion and you'd lose HALF your remaining province's population to a rebel army. So, if you started out with a rich province of 4000 people, one turn below 5 hearts would result in 2000 peasants becoming a rebel army, a second turn you'd lose another 1000 in another rebel army, then 500 and then 250. So your province would go from a wealthy 4000 pop province to a 250 person basket case in just four turns if you couldn't get the hearts back up. Finally if you couldn't get the hearts back up above 5 for several turns running, you'd lose control of the province altogether and it would revert to a rebel province which would require reconquering.

There were all kinds of reasons that would cause a province to lose hearts, but the main one was lack of food, which could be caused by overpopulation, natural disaster, or the presence of armies (enemy or friendly) in a province which would eat as much as the peasants themselves. In other words, prolonged warfare in a province would be absolutely devastating to a food supply and therefore population, so you had to try and beat an enemy army quickly and then get your own army out into a province which could support it. You also had to try and build up food reserves in your provinces ahead of trouble.

I can't describe all the nuances of the game system here, but it was logical, elegant and beautifully balanced. I wish they would make an updated version of that game, it would beat RTW hands down.

Yes, that sounds excellent. Something which constructs the way that armies were incredibly dependant on food and water supplies. Something like this would be amazing to also add not just the facet of the provinces being direly affected by outside influences, but armies being affected by the amount of food in a given area - allowing to begin running devastating armies through enemy provinces. This also would translate into needing those Watchtowers (see thread) so that you could control enemy troops, or allied troops, entering your domain. Rebels would also steal food when they crop up so they would be more annoying than presently.

Wow, some good ideas swirling around the Org lately.

CA can we have something like this?

heelllllooooooo?

[Brutus]

You are the unlucky sod tasked to govern the fair city of Jerusalem. You have yourself a bit of wine and toddle off to bed content with the position that the Gods have seen fit to reward you with.

The very next morning you hear a knock at the door:

"What is it Lt. Sebastian?"

"It's just the rebels sir.... they're here."

"My God man! Do they want tea?"

"No sir, I think they're after rather more than that... they've brought a flag."

"Damn! That's dash cunning of them!"

At this point you and your entire garrison (whatever size and composition it may be) decide to play the gracious host and exit the city in order to allow the Judean People's Front (or was it the People's Front of Judea?) have their way with the town. No arrow shots exchanged, no swords crossed, nary a harsh word to be heard. On what planet in what universe does this make scenario make sense?

Let's say that the the purpose of a rebellion is to serve as a punitive consequence to either actions taken or not taken by the player. If that be so, then by all means inconvenience the player. Instead of forcing the player to hand over the keys to the Imperial Palace before the stucco is even dry and then head out the gate without the governor's golden chamber pot or new four door chariot, make it a challenge. Place all of the player's troops in, or as close as possible, to the city's center; then surround the center with the units spawned in the rebellion. Instant ambush and another bad day at the office. Any player worth the salt in his saddlebag can siege a rebellious city or starve out the pitiful rebel units. Place those same pitiful rebels in position to ambush the city's garrison and as often as not the governor will likely end up deciding to seek employment on the other side of the Urals where no one has ever heard the word "splitter!"

Just a thought.

Maybe they should have got the Govewnow's fwiend Biggus Dickus fwom Wome to help them. Just make the Webels laugh to theiw deaths...

[pezhetairoi]

LOL! Love the writing, Jacque. Most droll. You make a good witty writer/jester ^_^ That aside, I hate city rebellions. We ought to be able to fight rebellions as and when they happen, not after we've been ejected as if our garrison'd been carried out the gates on stretchers one night while they slept.

[phred]

IIRC there was a preview of RTW that quoted someone from CA saying that if you had a rebellion, then you would have to fight the rebels in the city streets.
I'm not sure why it didn't make it into the final version.
I suppose they did it to decrease the number of battles a player has to fight.

edit: or perhaps they ran into deployment issues/bugs; a rebellion would be like a siege battle but with both armies deployed inside the city. I could see that being a problem that didn't get fixed for the release.

[BobTheTerrible]

I'd like to see rebels become their own faction, attept to overthrow cities from inside, siege settlements - as long as the unrest in a province is great enough to warrant such actions.

This is exactly what I want to see. Things such as a few adjacent rebel territories banding together to create its own nation, and nations collapsing into civil war a la MTW, only have the rebels become their own faction.

I'd especially like to see a battle when a rebellion occurs, in which the rebels are attacking the Governer's building or something, and the player's units start out either near the governor's place or near the barracks of the city. Rebellions should be a very real threat, and not just some easy experience for generals.

[King Henry V]

Rebels should not just be a thorn in the side of a leader, they should also, at times, make a leader incredibly fearful that these rebels might spark a whole revolution and overthrow you! As they are in RTW, they are incredibly impotent. One thing that makes it this way is because it assumes that all of the factions have easy reign on their dominion with only a few random tribes pestering them here and there, and it never accelerates beyond that point.

I'd like to see rebels become their own faction, attept to overthrow cities from inside, siege settlements - as long as the unrest in a province is great enough to warrant such actions.

What could be fun is if you fail to crush a rebellious city within 10 years, other cities in the region become less loyal and might even rebel, since they see that you are not invincible after all. If several cities rebel and they were all owned by a common ruler before coming under your control, they might declare themselves loyal to that faction even if it is extinct (re-emerging faction).

[Mikeus Caesar]

On the little side-topic of rebels making their own faction, maybe CA could have put in 5 extra slots for rebel factions which might appear during the game?

[Craterus]

Maybe a different rebel faction could emerge and re-emerge when rebellions happen in certain areas of the map.. So you have a rebel faction for the east, africa, asia minor, europe etc. maybe a few more slots are needed..

[Titus Livius]

"No sir, I think they're after rather more than that... they've brought a flag."

LOL. Loved the Eddie Izzard reference. I wonder how many other folks caught that one.

Regards

[Dooz]

I don't get it, but would like to. Care to explain? (I know I'd probably be pissed if someone asked the same to me, but hell... worth a shot)

[Slug For A Butt]

Ah yes, we conquered the globe by the cunning use of flags.

"Do you have a flag?"
"um...No"
"Sorry then, no flag...no country! Those are the rules, that I've just made up"

Something like that anyway. Long time since I've seen that one. Still nice to meet another Python/Izzard fan that isn't afraid of plagriasm
Nice points though (as the Bishop said to the actress ).

[pezhetairoi]

Ah yes, we conquered the globe by the cunning use of flags.

"Do you have a flag?"
"um...No"
"Sorry then, no flag...no country! Those are the rules, that I've just made up"

Something like that anyway. Long time since I've seen that one. Still nice to meet another Python/Izzard fan that isn't afraid of plagriasm
Nice points though (as the Bishop said to the actress ).

Never heard of Eddie Izzard, but i'm a fan of Monty Python. My classmates all know I have this annoying habit of bellowing out the Philosopher's Drinking Song (and various other more irreverent ditties) with my fellow Python fan at strange periods of time, for example, we sang our lecturer out the lecture theatre with it when he finished his lecture XD

But yeah, back to the game, there could be some hardcoding problems, but I guess you could make the objective to rout the rebels out of the city, regain control of the gates, and perhaps pursue them. And if you fail to pursue them, then you'll have a rebel army outside your city on your campaign map and another battle to fight.

I don't see why we can't fight these rebellion battles... isn't that the point of war?