Civil War And How to Prevent It

[Cowhead418]

GOOD CIVIL WARS-

I have actually found that sometimes civil war helpes me. With a low trait King in the early game on hard/expert, provinces can be rebelious. The best way to fix it is to try to make civil war and get a new strong leader in charge. This saved a Sicilian campaign of mine.

It saved a Scottish campaign of mine. My king was a worthless piece of crap and I was relatively bored, as the Mercians were too strong to take on and there was not much going on. My king had no heirs that were come of age but I decided to assassinate him anyway. I expected to lose but was surprised to see a civil war had broken out. I backed the rebels, who were led by a kick-ass prince who had long ago been in line for the throne himself. For the rest of the game I had decent-to-great kings.

[Betito]

And don't forget this kids: Sending your king to conquer that small, abandoned island with no port is a very bad idea. In advanced campaigns it could mean instant civil war.

[gaijinalways]

Sometimes this comes down to some micromanagement;

checking general's loyalty
checking your king's influence and making sure he is not too far from the center of your empire

checking your cash flow, sudden shifts due to war with a big trading partner will affect some provinces, especially if almost all your income is from trade

checking ths size of armies under your princes and your king (bigger is better)

[Ludens]

And don't forget this kids: Sending your king to conquer that small, abandoned island with no port is a very bad idea. In advanced campaigns it could mean instant civil war.

Even with a port it is still a bad idea. The port will often be destroyed after taking the castle.

[Ciaran]

4. DONT LOSE A CRUSADE!

There´s a nasty experience I made here: If target province of a crusade is taken by another Catholic faction the crusae is considered as lost as well! Mine (HRE, what else ;) ) was still miles away from its destination (as I assembled it in Swabia - my provinces at the time had sky-high zeal, so that made sense, with gathering up new units on the way) or any fighting, but the sneaky English took the target province, my crusade was disbanded and half of it decided to join the rebels.

[Horatius]

Why does sending your King to take the abandones/unconquered place hurt your king/you?

I would think that the easy victory and newly gained glory would advance your cause.

[Ludens]

Why does sending your King to take the abandones/unconquered place hurt your king/you?

I would think that the easy victory and newly gained glory would advance your cause.

There seems to be a bug which causes a king invading enemy territory is considered cut-off from his own countries (even though he just in the province next door): this can cause a big loyalty drop if your king has high influence. It is especially bad, when invading an island province because oftentimes the port gets destroyed so the king is completely severed from his homelands. Many an English king lost his kingdom to rebellion while he was stuck on Ireland (in game, not in history).

[Betito]

Even with a port it is still a bad idea. The port will often be destroyed after taking the castle.

Amazing: Lack of practice has made me forget that... I'll better reinstall MTW

[hlawrenc]

All of this discussion on Civil Wars got me wondering if rebels ever have problems with civil wars or rebellions? I had a theory that if rebels could have "rebellions" in their provinces it would be a free way to gain extra troops.

I decided to test they hypothesis in BKB, playing rebels, knew that a cheat allows you to play rebels .conan. so tried. Hypothesis proved incorrect, rebel lands all have 100% loyalty, no more no less even at very high tax and even with no units in the province at all. BUT... since I was there thought would try playing rebels and see what happened.

If you like playing desperate defensive battles and get bored with your usual factions try playing rebels once. EVERYBODY hates you and comes after you. Obviously you have no faction leader but can pretty much raise decent armies if you can survive. Oh... and don't wipe out a faction if you can help it. They always come back in massive numbers! Have to run them into some corner province, beseige them till you get the message that the last fort is about to fall, then back out, let them have the province back and then re-invade every couple of years to keep their numbers down! Ended up having to manuever Novegrods into Finland then let them rot. Same with Kievens in Crimea.

Other bad point is that rebels start at 2000 florin so you are pretty poor initially. Have only played about 15 years playing BKB early but it is one tough fight after another.

On the positive side, in addition to the existing rebel lands you start out with at the beginning of the game, anytime any other province rebels you suddenly become the rebel leader.

Most of the early rebellions are impossible to fight... you get two archers and a vanilla spearman against a full stack of opponents, but a couple actually had a decent numbers of troops in the rebellion stack to have a good fight. Plus if you lose it doesn't matter that much because you did not have that province in the first place.

I can't see playing it too much further without having to do some serious modding (no shipping, etc. ) but can tell you from a defensive battle standpoint it is awfully challenging. AND... no rebellions or civil wars or princes to try to marry off!