Civil War!?! :furious3:

[Superztygg]

What do I do to prevent civil war... everytime when I get to powerfull there is a civil war within my realm... and always my largest army/armies have desided to join the rebels.

[Marcellus]

Welcome to the Org, Superztygg!

I don't think I've ever had any civil wars, but the best thing is to only use generals with high loyalty. Giving people titles boosts loyalty. Don't put unloyal generals in charge of large armies and don't make them governors.

[antisocialmunky]

Get rid of your craptastic pedophile kings and don't get loyalty below 100%.

[Joshwa]

Don't let your king get stranded away from your main empire either (i.e. over water with no port/ship link, or in an isolated province. I think it also helps if you kinda keep your king in the 'middle' of your empire, not out in some backwater, but don't quote me on that. Also, keeping spies in your provinces is meant to help.

[PittBull260]

clik on "set automatic taxes" it keeps all your provinces above 120%, and that means no civil war, also keep ur king in the center of ur empire

[Roark]

Get rid of your craptastic pedophile kings

LOL

What about strange & obese chinless wonders?

[antisocialmunky]

Pedophiles, lardmunkies, and the emotionally disturbed should be used as throw away knights when they are princes.

[Superztygg]

Thanx alot... I've always considered autotaxing a bit of at cheat but I think I have to reconsider. When my kingdom is about half the (medieval)world it takes around an hour to make a move just adjusting the taxes to keep loyalty above 100. I just havn't put much time into evaluateing my kings, princes and generals personalities.

From now and on... autotaxing and deep psycoligical examination of any person with military ambition within my realm. Thanx again.

[King of Atlantis]

try to get ships in every sea province. This will give you good income(if you build traders) and increade every provinces loyalty signifigantly. If you do this chances of a civil war will be reduced and you chances of fighting it will be increased.

[Budwise]

Well, this always works for me. You might loose some income due to bad vices later but who gives a crap about 10% anyways.

1. DON'T USE YOUR KING, let him stay in the capital on THE MAIN LAND.
2. Auto Tax
3. Keep Large Armys EVERYWHERE toward the end of the game and lots of spies in your homelands help too to end the mass rebelion bug toward the endgame.
4. Don't fight unless you can win, that includes defence.
5. Excoms are a bitch. Avoid them.
6. Check loyalty on every major general with an army and inquis/murder the bad ones.

[DensterNY]

Wow... Thanks guys on the heads up about civil war. I've been so busy making war to expand my empire that I forgot about scrutinizing the men I have leading my armies... I've just assumed that they are my men and they'll fight when I tell them too.

Well, I better review my generals and fire up the Inquisitors...

That's usually the way most empires end not from the enemies without but from the enemies within.

[EatYerGreens]

Hmmm. Inquisitors can start burning the local populace if they don't zap their target on the first attempt, or worse - they may find him innocent (disloyal, yet still has high piety rating, so it's not the inquisitor's 'area', so to speak).

You can try using an assassin but high-star generals get good survival probability and you're more than likely to lose your top assassin, which would be a lot of effort down the drain, plus I hear the general gets 'security network' V&Vs and becomes ever harder to bump off the more times you fail. A potential side effect of merely attempting this a few times may be that loyalty of all other generals is boosted, since they suss out what's in store for them if they don't play their cards right...

Best option of all seems to be to drop a spy on him.
I don't think I've had cause to do this in anger myself but I have tested it to see what happened, since it was described in the game manual.

As you may know, if it's an enemy general, the spy will attempt to reveal a compromising secret about him, which his own faction leader may take a dislike to and bump him off for you.

For all we know, it could be that bad V&Vs we find in our own generals have actually been turned from 'Secret XYZ' to full-blown XYZ as the result of action by an enemy agent, who passed through our lands without being intercepted.

Anyway, if you drop a spy on one of your own generals, the result is different. It asks you 'Do you want to try this general for treason?' That's as far as my experience with this feature goes, so I'd love to hear tales of what happens when this succeeds. Does the spy get killed if it fails? Also, does the loyalty of other generals respond to a successful trial?

If he doesn't die, it sounds like an ideal way of training a spy to get his first two or three valour stars, after which he'll be fairly safe in enemy territory, even in border-fort territories. Two birds with one stone!

[DensterNY]

A potential side effect of merely attempting this a few times may be that loyalty of all other generals is boosted, since they suss out what's in store for them if they don't play their cards right...

Is this a definite thing, EYG? If it would improve the loyalty overall of my other generals I wouldn't mind losing a few assassins over it.

Actually, the threat and fear of a civil war has made me paranoid purging anyone without substantial loyalty to my throne. One very good general with low loyalty I sent off to join the army of an excellent general getting ready to invade a region. The disloyal general I had in the forefront of my line and made sure he was smackdab in the middle of action and ordered him to attack the enemies strongest unit. His unit was decimated and he routed saving him but during the subsequent siege I made sure he didn't survive.

[dgfred]

Wow... Thanks guys on the heads up about civil war. I've been so busy making war to expand my empire that I forgot about scrutinizing the men I have leading my armies... I've just assumed that they are my men and they'll fight when I tell them too.

Well, I better review my generals and fire up the Inquisitors...

That's usually the way most empires end not from the enemies without but from the enemies within.

Same here, I need to look over my generals too .

Thanks to all for the excellent tips .

[EatYerGreens]

Is this a definite thing, EYG? If it would improve the loyalty overall of my other generals I wouldn't mind losing a few assassins over it.

I'm not a great one for categorical statements and usually cloak much of what I say in riders, if's, but's and's and general fudge, to minimise on comebacks if I do happen to dish out ****ed-up advice...

So I won't go as far as to say it's a definite thing but, at the same time, it's not a wish-list item either.

I forget if it's something lurking in the game manual. If not, then I've picked it up from reading the forum. Try using the search facility to pick out assassin threads from the past 12 months or so.

If it can do complex searches, try 'assassin + loyalty' and see if it helps whittle out all the amusing tales about maltreatment of interfering popes...

[jsadighi]

Did it ever occur to you that may be it isn't disloyal generals that are the problem, but in fact you have a crappy ruler. You can probably improve the loyalty of your generals by sending an assassin (preferably a high star one) to murder your ruler and thus have a strong heir take the throne. Make sure one of your heirs is a strong (High command, high valour, one that doesn't have any vices but has good virtues) otherwise it would be pointless to use this technique. I've found that this strategy is a lot more efficient that tracking down a bunch of disloyal generals and flogging them off.

[Roark]

Yeah, once your generals/monarchs have the "Paranoid Security" virtue, they're virtually impossible to kill...

[antisocialmunky]

You know, losing too many kings starts rebellions.... Never kill your king when you're HRE until mid game..

[Ludens]

Hmmm. Inquisitors can start burning the local populace if they don't zap their target on the first attempt, or worse - they may find him innocent (disloyal, yet still has high piety rating, so it's not the inquisitor's 'area', so to speak).

If you keep ordering inquisitions, the target will end up being a heretic or an atheist, thus getting a severe penalty for their piety. Seems a bit stupid really: you know the Inquisition is out to get you, so this is not the moment to openly start doubting the church, but I guess these inquisition trials mainly prove how corrupt the church had become. By the way, you can prevent Inquisitors from burning the populace by giving them an assignment or moving them to another province, or simply picking them up and putting them down again. The presence of bishops and cardinals also slows them down.

You can try using an assassin but high-star generals get good survival probability and you're more than likely to lose your top assassin, which would be a lot of effort down the drain, plus I hear the general gets 'security network' V&Vs and becomes ever harder to bump off the more times you fail. A potential side effect of merely attempting this a few times may be that loyalty of all other generals is boosted, since they suss out what's in store for them if they don't play their cards right...

'Security network' is I believe related to spies attempting to reveal secrets, with or without success. (I had a list of V&V's, but it went missing when I got a new computer. Anyone know where I can find it again?) I am pretty sure that assassination attempts on other generals, whether successful or not, do not improve the loyalty of other generals.

Using a spy against a general is great in early stages of the game, but if it goes wrong the general will be even less inclined to support your regime, and he gains a 'security' vice. As a result of the trumped-up charge, other generals will also lose loyalty. On the plus side, I understand that there is a loyalty bonus for the other generals if the suspect general is convicted, but I have never seen it.

[yesdachi]

I would say to eliminate CW you should continue playing the way you are but pay more attention to your generals V&V’s and build happiness buildings. Watchtowers, Border Forts, Churches, Town Militias, etc. all increase happiness and they could give your King a builder virtue which adds happiness. Building the farm upgrades could get your king the steward virtue that also increases happiness. When the people are happy no CW.

[antisocialmunky]

You don't have to pull out all the stops to get rid of generals, just disband them.

[Productivity]

You don't have to pull out all the stops to get rid of generals, just disband them.

That's not allways an option if you are involved in a serious fight...

[bretwalda]

A few questions:

1. Are CW more frequent in the XL mod? They seem so to me but I have only played to campaigns.
2. What happens to the ships in an event of a CW? Do they go to the side you have chosen?
3. In CW the "other" side always 'rebel' or sometimes another faction emerges?
4. Joining the rebels or the loyal side is decided for each stack according to the loyalty of the leader of the stack?
5. What was the smallest rebellion that you have seen? I guess the "biggest" is when the empire is split in half... (otherwise you chose the other side)

Thx for the answers!

[antisocialmunky]

That's not allways an option if you are involved in a serious fight...

I was refering to people wanting to use assassins and inquisitors.

[DensterNY]

I hate civil wars as much as the next player but say what you will it has a hell of a way of keeping the game interesting. Well into my English campaign I had my economy well tuned to feed my unending wars as I fought on three different fronts then !!!WHAM!!! my king dies and the succession is not smooth.

I guess the strain of war and my slightly green new king were not enough to hold the empire together so several generals broke off. I had to surrender many of my borders and draw back to regroup... now I'm forced to sit back and plan a way to take back lands occupied by 1200+ men armies of grizzled high quality veteran troops.

[dgfred]

I hate civil wars as much as the next player but say what you will it has a hell of a way of keeping the game interesting. Well into my English campaign I had my economy well tuned to feed my unending wars as I fought on three different fronts then !!!WHAM!!! my king dies and the succession is not smooth.

I guess the strain of war and my slightly green new king were not enough to hold the empire together so several generals broke off. I had to surrender many of my borders and draw back to regroup... now I'm forced to sit back and plan a way to take back lands occupied by 1200+ men armies of grizzled high quality veteran troops.

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

[Productivity]

I was refering to people wanting to use assassins and inquisitors.

That doesn't change the fact. Sometimes you can assassinate a single general, where you can't take a full unit off the front line just to get rid of one general.

[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.

[LoboSoulman]

Hmmm if i have disloyal general/units i either disband them or make them one big army and send them on a destructive killing spree on my neighbours.
Strangley if they start to win they start getting more loyal.
This seems to work for me, maybe because all the disloyal units loaylty 3 or less are all together and they dont spread there influence?
Worse comes to worse i sack a few provinces and loot before they loose. I ransom back no one from such an army.
If its a disloyal prince i normally send them off on there own to rampage

[Geezer57]

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).