Rebellions and Peasant revolts

[King Kurt]

In my current Early English Hard campaign(Vanilla MTW) it is 1221 and, despite being the largest power, I keep getting revolts - mainly peasants - pop up all the time. Up to now I have tended to jump on them - good for income! - or bribe if they have troops I want - I have picked up some Varangians and a host of Armenian HC this way. My current focus is on getting ready for the Horde - I have driven the Novos back across Europe with a Crusade - target Kiev - supported by several other stacks and they have just linked up in Kiev with my forces coming up from Constantinople etc. However I have about 4 or 5 peasant revolts in the Spain/France/Germany area. I also have a Novo army floating about in Germany - it got left behind in my general european sweep.

My inclination is to leave them all to their own devices, build up the British defence at home - I produce a longbow, a bill, a gallowglass and a feudal knight every year at home - and prepare for the Horde. what do people think?

For the future, what can I do to stop these revolts? Every province has at least 100 troops in and I am not excommed.

[Weebeast]

Check your tax level on those provinces and put some decent amount of garrisons. One hundred isn't enough sometimes, especially on big cities. Peasants will do just find as long as the general is loyal. They're cheap. Make them happy by building stuff. I think that works too. You can always right-click on the provinces and watch out for revolts.

I've never faced the Horde in campaign before. Well, I've battled them, it's just that I never intentionally get in between europe and the mongols. I always preserve Byzantine and the Russian so that they can enjoy playing with something thousands of Mongol Horses. Well, I'm just not a fan of total domination. I like my empire to be small therefore I never get that far east.

[Budwise]

Stopping a Revolt

A simple guide

Build Happy Providences like Churches
Don't get Excommed
Make sure King has good virtues and very few vices
Keep + 100 unit in Garrison (I never needed this but I hear others do)
Get some more Influence for the king by doing more conquering, crusading, ect.
Spys in every provience you own.
Assassinate/take his title every non loyal general
Don't attack allies.

There are more but thats just a quick short list.

[King Kurt]

Interesting stuff - Tax is low - I am on auto tax, I am not excommed, influence is high due to conquest, crusades etc, haven't attacked allies - cos I haven't got any!! In general, garrisons are at least 100 people.

I shall have to check vices and virtues - my king is new - build a few churches and look at loyality. These revolts are mainly peasants - the exception are loyalists in recently conquered provinces.

Also - am I wise to ignore? - have peasants started trying to conquer the world?

[yesdachi]

This has probably been covered in another thread but it has been awhile.

I would focus on happy buildings like watchtowers, border forts, militia buildings and churches; each one adds 10% to happiness. Also the builder virtues add happiness and you will almost certainly get them by building the above. I would also manually assign titles to make sure they are going to governors that don’t have vices that harm the happiness. I would also re-conquer a peasant province or 2 and “release all” until I get the occasional mercy virtue which adds 10% to happiness. And then a couple more and “kill all” until I get the +1 dread vice.

That’s all I can think of right now.

[King Kurt]

This has probably been covered in another thread but it has been awhile.

I would focus on happy buildings like watchtowers, border forts, militia buildings and churches; each one adds 10% to happiness. Also the builder virtues add happiness and you will almost certainly get them by building the above. I would also manually assign titles to make sure they are going to governors that don’t have vices that harm the happiness. I would also re-conquer a peasant province or 2 and “release all” until I get the occasional mercy virtue which adds 10% to happiness. And then a couple more and “kill all” until I get the +1 dread vice.

That’s all I can think of right now.

I don't tend to build those, so I will give it a go. As I tend to execute all, perhaps I should let a few go as well. I always thought that a bit of ruthlessness helped - perhaps I was wrong!!

[Mr White]

I got a question about rebellions. I know that you can engineer a rebellion but can you also control the size and type of the rebellion? This would be very handy to build up some command stars for my crap heir.

[lilljonas]

Mr.White: your garrison decides the size of the rebellion. The more troops in the territory, the more rebels. A rebellion in a province with a single unit of spearmen rarely attracts more than an unit or three of rebels. That is, unless it's a reemergence...

[English assassin]

have you checked your king isn't cut off from the rest of the empire sitting in Britain with no sea connection, or a long way away from the rebellious provinces through land connections? IIRC the distance from kingy to a province in terms of number-of-turns-to get-there has a big impact, so maintain good sea power (after all, you are British) and keep him in a province with a port.

I got a question about rebellions. I know that you can engineer a rebellion but can you also control the size and type of the rebellion? This would be very handy to build up some command stars for my crap heir.

You can a bit. You get more rebellious troops if the garrison they are rebelling against is bigger. Of course the trouble is a bigger garrison also increases happiness, so you will have to set taxes sky high, destroy all happy buildings, give the governorship to the worst candidate you can find, and hope they rebel against your larger than normal garrison. Doing this in a naturally rebellious province (Portugal, Scotland, there are others) would also help. if you were really keen I suppose you could set up an island as a rebellion farm and trigger rebellions by moving ships around to make and break a connection with the king. You'd have to be careful not to get your heir stuck on the island with a destroyed port, your king dies and the heir inherits, and your whole empire go up in rebellion though...(although in a way that would be mission accomplished)

Contriolling the type of rebellion is harder. If you use a recently conquered province you are quite likely to get a loyalist rebellion which will be bigger and have much better troops than usual. I don't know any way to make it more likely that a "vanilla" rebelion will be catholic bandits or what have you (except Rome and the papal states usually seem to go that way. Once I spammed Rome with imams and got a muslim rebellion when the pope eventually respawned which I thought was quite funny, especially as it kicked his bottom, but I was bored at the time...)

[Mr White]

Thanks for the answers. I engineerd a rebellion once before in Scotland ( it was very early in the game) but it was to big for me to handle ( my 1 stack against 3 full stacks of italian infantry, hobilars, clansmen and royal knights).

[King Kurt]

[QUOTE=English assassin]have you checked your king isn't cut off from the rest of the empire sitting in Britain with no sea connection, or a long way away from the rebellious provinces through land connections? IIRC the distance from kingy to a province in terms of number-of-turns-to get-there has a big impact, so maintain good sea power (after all, you are British) and keep him in a province with a port. QUOTE]

I wonder if this King separation thing might be a factor. My King, who had never moved from Wessex, recently died and the Hier - despite being in Wessex as well, promptly poped up in Constantinopole. I had revolts before this happened, but mainly in Asia Minor. Now they are in Europe. Despite ruling the seas, I don't have a direct link to Constantinopole. Might be a factor. The exception is Portugal - I have owned it for ages, but I reckon I have had about 8 or 9 revolts there. They are a pain, but they are a good source of income - usually raise about 3000 florins a pop.

The other interesting factor is that the Pope is begining to become quite powerful. He has had a long running war with the Italians, who are nearly wiped out - so he owns nearly all of Italy. Recently he bribed one of my rebels in Burgandy - who were beseiging my fort there. I basically removed myself, as I did not want to get excommed at the moment as I want to concentrate on the east. If western europe gets into a bit of a turmoil, perhaps he might expand more - stil, gives me something to do after the Horde.

[English assassin]

My King, who had never moved from Wessex, recently died and the Hier - despite being in Wessex as well, promptly poped up in Constantinopole. I had revolts before this happened, but mainly in Asia Minor. Now they are in Europe. Despite ruling the seas, I don't have a direct link to Constantinopole. Might be a factor. The exception is Portugal - I have owned it for ages, but I reckon I have had about 8 or 9 revolts there.

There's your answer. Link to constantinople and you will have far fewer revolts. As for portugal, its just naturally rebellious.

[bretwalda]

The new king pops up in the most developed province - assuming that is your capital. Now, usually that is one of your core homeland provinces but Constantinopole quite often the most advanced (if it wasn't sacked constantly by eastern/western/southern/northern/catholic/moslim/fellow orthodox hordes)

[King Kurt]

I should be playing a bit more over the weekend, so I will report on progress on Monday. getting a wet link to constantinople is a bit of a problem as the Byzants still have a few fleets about, despite me keep jumping on them. And remember it is 9 years to Horde time.

[yesdachi]

The new king pops up in the most developed province...

This is totally correct and has screwed up my plans a few times when my king appears in a province that is cut off from the rest of my kingdom. One time my new Italian king got popped up and stuck in, my recently conquered via crusade, Egypt, two turns later I lost Egypt and had to pay a “kings ransom” for my king.

[King Kurt]

Weekend up date!
I have established a wet link for my King in Constantinople - hasn't seemed to make much of a difference. The plus side has been a lot of the provinces which went rebel had loyalist uprisings, so i have gained a load of troops for nothing just where I need them!! Admittedly theu are mainly peasants and vanilla spears, but there are some royal Knights and longbows sprinkled in. In Mercia the rebels were lead by Richard of Loxley, a 4 star Hobilar unit - shouldn't it be a longbow!! - still I drove them into Northumberland, then got beat by Robin and his boys. Better get him sorted before Sherwood progaganda machine gets going.
2 years to Horde time.