Pest Control

[Naughtius Maximus]

I am playing with patch 1.2 - so far I have very mixed feelings about it.

What I want to know is, how do I control the # of seemingly endless rebel armies popping up in my otherwise well - run provinces?

Do watchtowers or forts have any effect at all?

[Kekvit Irae]

None whatsoever

[sapi]

You can just ignore them for the most part

[Conqueror]

My solution is to build half-stack armies of only scythed chariots and use them to eliminate rebels. Chariots have cheap upkeep and they are extremely good in autocalc, so there's no need to bother playing out the battles and they will beat most rebels easily. I have 4 chariot groups roaming around my lands looking for rebels to kill. They got up to gold chevrons quickly and with gold weapons/armor they are now an unstoppable force. I never use them against non-rebels though.

As much as I hate chariots in battles, it's nice that they can be used for destroying those annoying brigands in auto

[Wishazu]

Forts do help to stop rebellions, by making them less likey, if you have a rebellious province just set a family member to build a fort in it and station a unit of your factions basic militia in there. also i allways keep small 6 unit armies in all of my towns as a defensive garrison. When i play as the Greeks, which is most of the time, my garrisons are made up of 4 Militia Hoplites, 2 Archers and occasionally a family member governor. if after making the fort another rebellion crops up, just quickly crush it with your town garrison.

[Bhruic]

When playing as Germania, I used a bunch of stacks of Warhounds. Very cheap, almost never take casualties, can kill any rebels out there. I had 3 stacks of 10 units stationed around. Rebels only survived as long as it took me to get to them.

Bh

[Miletus]

Don't complain about the huge amount of rebel armies, because they are actually more a blessing than a curse.
As Sapi said, if you don't have the manpower you can just ignore them for the most part because they are quite passive (playing on normal, not sure how they behave on higher difficulties).
What I did in my julii campain was that I had a couple of anti-rebel armies spread across my empire, one for the iberian peninsula, one for northern italy, two for gaul, one for brittania etc.
My plan was that that they should just keep order in my provinces, but after a while i discovered that the troops in the anti-rebel armies quickly became some of the most experienced troops in my empire! (It was just after the marian reform).
Because of this I see the rebels as a blessing because they can turn green recruits into hardy veterans, which can then be tranferes to other regions where they are reailly needed. Especially in the civil war, the experience makes a huge difference.

[Craterus]

Welcome to the org

[Miletus]

Thanks!

[Kekvit Irae]

Ignore rebel bands at your own risk. The more they stay in your land, the more Devesation they cause, ruining your province's economy. Unlike Corruption which can be stamped out with +Law buildings, there is nothing to cure Devesation except waiting a long time for it to heal.

[dragons622]

The devastation imposed by rebels is minor, no more than 3% of your total income. You'd need an army that would cost 10 times the amount of devastation to protect against rebels and so unless the rebels are interfering with traffic it's unnecessary to hunt them down.