Civil War!?! :furious3:

[EatYerGreens]

@ Ludens

thanks for your replies, which cleared up some questions I raised.

We can't have rampant speculation floating around unchallenged - it ends up being 'I'm sure I read this somewhere' type pseudo-knowledge.

[antisocialmunky]

By the time you are able to build inquisitors and assassins, you really should be able to afford more units.

Besides, if the army is that critical, then a higher rank general, even a low loyalty one is worth the risk.

Just seperate him from his stack, sit him in the same provence. He'll still command your armies, but he won't have anyforces to rebel with since he's a one unit stack.

A sure fire way of preventing civil war is to not stack your army, just 16 seperate units in a provence. No one will be able to rebel.

[Productivity]

By the time you are able to build inquisitors and assassins, you really should be able to afford more units.

Have you ever tried a mod (or even the orignal) with a microstate? When you have two superpowers trying to eat up your grand total of three (3!) regions, you can't afford to lose anyone.

Just because you are advanced doesn't mean you have money to throw around or troops for that matter.

[littlebktruck]

The simplest way to deal with disloyal generals in the short term: don't stack them with any other troops. Find the highest loyalty unit with no command - put them at the top of a stack, then check that stack. You should find that unit in command of the stack. With 900+ men under a loyal commander, the isolated disloyal general will be very reluctant to rebel - he only has his single unit under his command, and can't win a battle against the hundreds of loyal troops.
You _do_ have to be careful when moving the loyal stack - sometimes a less-loyal unit will end up at the top. Just reshuffle to put the loyal unit back above any others.
Your general will still command any defense - or attack (he just has to be moved seperately).

Does your army still get command-based valor bonuses in that situation?

[antisocialmunky]

Have you ever tried a mod (or even the orignal) with a microstate? When you have two superpowers trying to eat up your grand total of three (3!) regions, you can't afford to lose anyone.

Just because you are advanced doesn't mean you have money to throw around or troops for that matter.

Well yes, Sicily, the Danes(only if oyu're not early), and Aragon. I've never had luck with Aragon on expert campaigns.... You're right about the microstates, but I don't usually get rid of generals, I just leave them sitting by their stacks.

[DensterNY]

Dang! that really stinks, especially the grizzled high quality veteran
troop part. Do you know anything you could have done to prevent that ?

Well dgfred I should have paid attention to the Princes that I had in line for succession because the new king was not a particularly good one especially since his father ruled during the golden age of my empire. Second, I had no alliances, zero, zip, zilch since I'm playing for total domination it doesn't make sense to break alliances as you lose influence. Third, I was fighting too many wars and spending too much time, energy and resources churning out troops for my war engine.

However, its not all bad though because its certainly made things interesting

[Geezer57]

Does your army still get command-based valor bonuses in that situation?

Yes, although you sometimes have to remove the general from the stack again after the battle. The general (with the highest star rating) still commands, as long as he's still in the province involved.

[EatYerGreens]

Yes, although you sometimes have to remove the general from the stack again after the battle. The general (with the highest star rating) still commands, as long as he's still in the province involved.

There's only one exception to that rule and that is when the king is in the same province but the king's star rating is somehow lower than that of what would otherwise be the best general in the stack.

[EatYerGreens]

Well, it seems my own first taste of Civil War can't be that far off now and I'm not looking forward to it, especially since things were only just getting good (comfort-level, shall we say) in my latest campaign.

The situation:-
Byzantines, Early, Normal Difficulty, default unit size, M+, F+, LA+, BTL+

The good news:-
It's 1148; the first Emperor took Serbia, Rum and Armenia. The second Emperor turtled, built stuff but let his brothers look after the battles. Briefly took Syria without a fight but then deliberately left it undefended in an attempt to get the Turk-Egypt alliance to break in a fight over it and thus split up the 3-stack Eggie Ghulam/peasant-horde in Antioch, which only resulted in the Eggies getting a 'freebie'. Nevertheless, this helped trap the remaining Turks in Edessa without using my own forces. Although the Eggies had attacked first, some of my allies preferred to side with them but the Emperor retained 9-influence in spite of it all. After some years, a twin assault resulted in Egypt's Antioch and Edessa falling to sieges in the same year, spelling the end for the Turks. The third emperor is looking after the border in Bulgaria but Syria fell this year and is under siege, with their Ac-8 Qadi-Al-Qada trapped. The fleet is gradually expanding; Antioch now trades to 4 destinations, easily doubling its worth; overall profits are around 2200 per year, with 8000+ in the coffers, including the latest ransom money. This in spite of extensive (and expensive) ongoing building projects.

The bad news:-
Nicephorous IV was around 35 when he came to the throne and the remainder of the heirs parchment went blank as the previous Emperor's brothers converted to royal-blood generals - the Comnenus brothers. Nicephorous is now about 47 but the heirs sheet shows him to be childless. This is very mysterious, since he has long since been married and does not suffer from any perversion vices. What's the oldest you've seen your king be when his first child is born? Does campaign activity, or lack thereof (attacking versus turtling), somehow affect their fertility?

To cap it all, four of the Comnenus brothers have now died of old age (I'm new to VI, in this respect), with two more soon to follow, though I'm fortunate that their successors seem to retain their high command ratings.

Some of the generals on my borders are acquiring vices which lose them 2 command stars in one fell swoop. What once looked secure now requires some shuffling about of general's units to fix. I'm lucky the neighbour factions in the west have yet to capitalize on these changes as the bulk of my strength is in the east.

Worst case scenario:-
I lose the game completely when the king dies because his marriage means my territory is inherited by whichever faction the princess I'd married him to came from (and I've forgotten which prince married who back then!!!). Or is it the other way around and it's down to a princess of mine, which I married off?

One possible upside is that the 'King of Naples' got V&V's which pushed his acumen up to around 8, so I married him to a daughter who'd been turned down by other factions. Necessarily, he doesn't have royal blood, so does this mean he has no right to take over as faction leader when/if Nicephorous dies, childless?

Fighting against my own troop types will be, err, novel, to say the least, should this be resolved by civil war. I have to echo a question I saw asked elsewhere, which I've yet to see answered - who gets control of the fleet?

I expect financial, rather than military collapse. I might be lucky and find the loyalists in core trritories and strong rebel holdings at the borders, which may buffer the other factions for long enough to stage a recovery. If it ends up being a patchwork, then there's going to be trouble...

Similar to the fleet question - how is the faction bank balance dealt with in a civil war situation? Do you retain the previous year's balance in toto (but likely with strongly negative cashflow from lost provinces) or is it split in proportion to territories held by each sub-faction?

[EatYerGreens]

Does anyone have answers to those questions? It's been a couple of days...

The good news is that Nicephorous now has an heir but that has only raised another question.

What happens if the faction leader dies but his eldest son is still under age? Is that still 'game over'?

[antisocialmunky]

Well... I rant into that situation before, I autosaved/loaded a few times with varying outcomes.

1. Lost the game.
2. Since my Comnenus were still around(though ancient farts), they tried to take the throne.
3. My king lived the two years it took to get Prince John to King John. Oddly, the King lived to a ripe old age of 87 and had a few kids.
4. My favorite one of all was the King John event. My king died and his 14 year old son was crowned king. This is the rarest varient of the no valid heir event.

The fleet goes to your side since the rebs can't have ships.

[Roark]

Underage heirs?

My delusions of having any knowledge of this game are shattered...

[Ludens]

4. My favorite one of all was the King John event. My king died and his 14 year old son was crowned king. This is the rarest varient of the no valid heir event.

Odd, I once lost a game because prince Alexius was only 15 when his uncle died (his father having impaled himself on a Turkish spear a couple of years before). I considered it very unfair since uncle wasn't that old and it would have taken only one turn more before my line was secure.

I guess it is my punishment for radically pruning the family line.

Edit: Oh, know I see it: you are listing different outcomes. Did the young king appear as a unit immediatly, or when he came of age or not at all?

[DensterNY]

I have another easier solution that works sometimes with reducing the damage a disloyal general can do... and that is simply strip him of his troops and drop them onto another, more loyal, general's unit. Often times when a general is that good that he deserves this kind of consideration he has some hard-core veteran troops around him which you don't want to disband so just put them under someone else's command. You can disband him afterwards or like someone else said take him off your stacks.

[antisocialmunky]

He is crowed a king instantly, my King John spawned in Naples though. If oyu look back a few pages, I made a thread all about this called Byzantine Succession. It seems like 14+ princes can become king in rare cases. It's an undocumented feature. You'll get it if you reload and play out a no heir situation enough times.

It could be undocced because it's a reemergence related thing where your king dies and his heir reemerges on the same turn.

[EatYerGreens]

The fleet goes to your side since the rebs can't have ships.

Okay, thanks for resolving that.

I could be barking up completely the wrong tree but I recall seeing a recent posting from someone about being presented with a screen, at the outbreak of civil war, whereby they were given news of the relative numbers on each of the two sides and were expected to choose who to back, with no detailed knowledge of what units were on which side. Plumping for the side with the largest number of troops - logical enough thing to do - apparently left him with all the naff units...
My worry was that one's own ships would either take sides and start sinking each other or else there's a chance that you lose the lot, if you pick the wrong side.

Underage heirs?

My delusions of having any knowledge of this game are shattered...

Well, it does warn you not to risk your ruler in battle when he comes to the throne still heirless and, IIRC, it's only the message when the third son comes of age that starts using wording like 'your line is now secure and you can risk your king in battle'.

It seems like 14+ princes can become king in rare cases. It's an undocumented feature. You'll get it if you reload and play out a no heir situation enough times.

It could be undocced because it's a reemergence related thing where your king dies and his heir reemerges on the same turn.

If it was documented, players would only come to expect it and feel cheated if it didn't. Since it seems to be probability related (equivalent of a die-roll), it's probably best left unsaid.

Actually, I think it's quite cool that so much variability is encoded into the game. No two players' experiences of the game can ever be completely the same. Naturally that also means that one player gets to see different things happen when they play multiple times which, I suppose, is the whole point.

Historical footnote:
I'm going to have to Google this to get the name and dates right but one of the English kings (Edward the something-th??) came to the throne at age eight. Obviously, the nation couldn't literally be ruled by a child of that age, so it meant that various court advisors and maybe an uncle were able to wield power for a number of years. The game doesn't emulate this in a way that the player can ride it out, since the uncles become generals. So, instead, you get situation (2), as in antisocialmonkey's previous post.

I hope my terminology is right if I refer to this as a protectorate (or am I confusing that with the Cromwellian interregnum? By contrast, a regency is where the heir rules in lieu of a living, though incapacitated, monarch (e.g. George III).

[Ludens]

Historical footnote:
I'm going to have to Google this to get the name and dates right but one of the English kings (Edward the something-th??) came to the throne at age eight. Obviously, the nation couldn't literally be ruled by a child of that age, so it meant that various court advisors and maybe an uncle were able to wield power for a number of years. The game doesn't emulate this in a way that the player can ride it out, since the uncles become generals. So, instead, you get situation (2), as in antisocialmonkey's previous post.

That must be Henry the third, son of John Lackland (Richard Lionheart's 'evil' brother). I did think of him when I wrote that a child could not rule, but since they had to change the law to get him on the throne, I considered this an exception. England was in urgent need of a king at that time: they had crowned a French prince, but he turned out to be more generous to his French followers than to his English supporters, so they turned back to their own monarchy. After Louis was driven out, everybody agreed that nothing happened and because of this, Louis is never mentioned as a King of England even though he was crowned.

[EatYerGreens]

After Louis was driven out, everybody agreed that nothing happened and because of this, Louis is never mentioned as a King of England even though he was crowned.

Interesting stuff. But if it was all supposedly hushed up, how did you get to find out about it and share this with us? Is this coming from one of those 'shocking truth finally revealed' type books?

Speaking of which, I recently saw a repeat of an interesting documentary in which Tony Robinson (of UK Channel 4's Time Team fame) runs us through some research done into the English line of succession. I forget the exact names and details but it had to do with Henry Tudor's already oblique claim on the throne all falling back on a distant Royally-connected ancestor, whose date of birth implied a conception date which coincided with his father being on a campaign in France at a time when his mother was back home in England. The birth of the couple's second son was marked with feasting and celebrations worthy of a firstborn, by contrast to events after the previous one. A convoluted way of saying that every royal down the line since the Tudors is decended from a.... err, 'someone of illegitimate birth'.

He proceeds to track down a living Plantagenet, to give him the news that he is the rightful king of England but he's been living in Australia for nearly fifty years (a 'gap year' in his twenties never actually came to an end) and, to everyone's amusement, is a staunch republican (to Ozzies this means pro-Ozzie republic, not republican as per US political party). They finish the program with an amusing 'what if' situation, in which a look-alike for HM Queen is seen portrayed as an ordinary German housewife, popping into a supermarket to buy some bratwurst... LOL

[Ludens]

Interesting stuff. But if it was all supposedly hushed up, how did you get to find out about it and share this with us? Is this coming from one of those 'shocking truth finally revealed' type books?

No, I got this from a BBC documentary by Terry Jones. The series was called 'Medieval lives', and in it he strove to put right some myths about the Middle ages. So, in a way, it is a 'shocking truth finally revealed' and not quite as respectable as a true history, but I think it is more reliable than the kind of book you had mind.

Jones devotes an entire chapter to the lives of Medieval Kings. Off course, given his Monty Python background, this happens in a rather silly way, and one of the Highlights is the King of England that no one has ever heard of. King Louis is not mentioned in the roll of Kings, but he did rule for a year and received homage from the citizens of London, most of the English and Welsh nobles and the Scottish King. He was not crowned (I got that wrong in my last post), but then the crown had been lost by the King John and at least two kings that do appear in the roll of Kings weren't crowned either.

Anyway, the documentary is quite interesting provided you can stand silly humour. I don't know if they'll run it again, but like all BBC documentaries there is a book available that contains most of the information in the series.

[EatYerGreens]

The really daft thing is I know I watched the series you're talking about but either my attention slipped during that bit, or I missed an episode or, worst of all, the memory's going. They forgets, you know... [creak]