undocumented loyalty factor

[aldarion]

My manual states, "the loyalty of a province's people is affected by the following: taxes, harvest, the governor, occupying armies, spies, the faction leader, famine, floods, earthquakes and pestilence, watchtowers and border forts, religion, previous loyalties."

I'm playing english/domination/early. It's 1167 (got 60% victory a couple of years ago) and apart from half a dozen 1 or 2 province nations, the Byz own the rest of the map. Needless to say, nearly all my trade income comes from Byz. Byz have just decided to attack me and now I see that around half my provinces are in the red/yellow for loyalty (they were all green before).

Would I be correct in assuming that this massive change in loyalty is due to the loss of trade income (even though trade income isn't mentioned as a loyalty factor)?

Also, how can you tell whether your harvest was good or bad? In Shogun you were explicitly informed, but Medieval doesn't seem to say.

Thanks for any insights.

[A Glittering Gem of Hatred]

The most likely cause of the sudden loyalty drop is Byzantine ships, now at war with you, disrupting your trade routes by capturing/contesting sea zones and so cutting part of your empire off from its king. If that is the case the best solution is to destroy all their ships or just make peace. Or wipe the upstarts out of course.
As far as I know trade income doesn't affect the happiness of a province.

[phred]

A bad harvest is when you get a popup saying there's a famine in one of your provinces. It's not nationwide like in Shogun.

press the "v" key to see which naval regions are occupied by enemy ships.

[Togakure]

I too have experienced this situation very late in the game--where, as soon as my massive trade network was disrupted, loyalty dropped across my entire empire. In a recent game, I had a minimum garrison of 120 men in every province, and a spy in every province. My front line provinces all had large armies in them. My King was not cut off from my empire. I came to the same conclusion that you did--that the loss of trade goods caused the severe drop in loyalty. My ruler had been campaigning and had maximum influence at the time. The only factor that caused me to question my assumption was that inner provinces--ones that didn't benefit from the trade route directly--also became rebellious.

I managed to stave off actual rebellions by reducing my front line armies, moving troops from them back to bolster garrisons, pushing troops inward so that all provincial garrisons were increased. I then produced a large number of garrision troops, increasing the average garrison to a minimum of 240 men. I don't think this was ultimately necessary however, as loyalty returned to the previous level within a turn or two. I'm not sure whether it repaired on its own, or whether my elimination of the enemy fleet and reestablishment of the trade route (which yielded far less in income as I only had a few provinces left that were not enemy with which to trade) was responsible for the return to stability.

I find this "feature" to be an annoying one, as it seems to happen in most of the campaigns that I play. Now, not only do I garrison each province, I also maintain large regional armies in provinces that touch on a large number of other provinces (described as a "star pattern" defense in the old Shogun manual, I believe). When this "feature" occurs, I simply distribute the units in the regional armies to the rebellious provinces and lower taxes for a few turns (I always have taxes at maximum unless province loyalty won't allow it; I do not use the tax governor). This seems to deal with the "feature" well. These regional armies usually consist of Urban Militia and crossbowmen, which have low support costs (30 and 22 florins per year per unit, respectively). As rebellions do not actually occur if I manage things correctly, a balanced combat-ready army is not really necessary. I also stack extra spies in the "hub" regional provinces as well, in preparation for the seemingly inevitable drop in loyalty.

[Eternal Champion]

If you experience a loss of trade then your king is also cut off from provinces by the same sea routes. The sea lanes are blockaded by enemies and thus your kings transport. If there is ever a doubt try and move troops in or out of the area in question. I've found emissaries, holy men, and princesses are not always affected.

[Procrustes]

One of the big factors affecting province loyalty is "distance from your king" - the number of turns it would take your king to move to that province. If your shipping lanes are cut then the number of turns the King would take to move overland can be quite great, so the more distal provinces experience large drops in loyalty.

My biggest gripe about this is the poor way naval combat is handled in MTW. I seem to never win a naval battle in turns I engage in land battles, so even though I may have vastly superior navies they can all be sunk unless I refrain from all land combat in the turns I attack with them. And even then naval combat results seem pretty random. Guess it adds to the challenge, though....

[aldarion]

One of the big factors affecting province loyalty is "distance from your king" - the number of turns it would take your king to move to that province. If your shipping lanes are cut then the number of turns the King would take to move overland can be quite great, so the more distal provinces experience large drops in loyalty.

Thanks to you and the others. I'm now pretty sure it's the increased "distance" from my King which has caused the downturn in loyalty.

My biggest gripe about this is the poor way naval combat is handled in MTW. I seem to never win a naval battle in turns I engage in land battles, so even though I may have vastly superior navies they can all be sunk unless I refrain from all land combat in the turns I attack with them. And even then naval combat results seem pretty random. Guess it adds to the challenge, though....

I've found naval combat to be pretty random - if there is any logic, I haven't worked it out yet.

As a result of my faction's loyalty change, I received 2 faction re-appearances (with BIG armies) and half a dozen minor peasant revolts. That, and the Byz King being a 9* Katatank and his sons all being 7*+, what I thought was going to be a 60%->100% domination walk in the park has turned decidedly uncertain. What a great game!

[Organ Grinder]

I read this thread yesterday and experienced something similar last night.

I am not convinced that being cut off from the king is the answer.

I'm playing Danes and own Denmark, Swe, Nor, Finland, Prussia, Livonia and Lithuania. My king was based in Lithuania at the time and at all times was connected by ships (unmolested by any enemies) with all of his provinces.

I accidentally had a fight with the Almohads in Morrocco. This affected trade as my ships stretch down from the Baltic to the Med, but it also affected the loyalty of some of my provinces. These provinces were still in touch with the king, the ships were not being attacked by Almohad ships and I am at a loss as to explain. I can only assume that the drying up of trade revenue brings about unhappiness and a downturn in loyalty.

[Eternal Champion]

Did you lose any battles? This will cause a hit on your king's influence and effect loyalty.

[lilljonas]

Nah, a loss or two won't give mapwide effects. It's propably just bad placement of your king, combined with contested trade routs. I also sat with a high bloodpressure and torn hair during the endgame because of those "random mapwide rebellions", but once you learn how they work, it becomes second nature, and you can fulfill a 100% domination victory without any rebellions. Just takes a bit of care, and to wage naval war against other naval powers before you grow too big. You don't want that war with the italians or the sicilians once your empire spans from norway to Egypt...