Taking territory in BI

[mrbigglesworth]

I've played a couple of campaigns with RTW and just bought BI. I started as ERE, fought back against the Persians, took a city, and did what I always did in RTW: exterminated the people, lowered the tax rate, destroyed the temple, and built a Christian one. Happiness went down to 20% because most of the city is zoroastrian. Predictably they riot on the next turn, lose a couple soldiers. Then on the next turn they rebel, turn to ERE rebels, and the whole stack of 20 of my most advanced units, including the family member, go to the rebels.

What happened here? There was no message that I saw. Was it a normal rebellion? I expected a rebellion, but not to have the whole stack go to the rebels. Was it not a rebellion, rather did the family member defect (his loyalty was 4)? What should I have done differently? How can I take Persian cities without losing them immediately?

[Aetius22]

Interesting, what difficulty level were you playing? I did the same thing you did and didn't experience that problem. His loyalty was high enough, the only time I had a general rebel he had no loyalty.

Maybe you should wait a bit before destroying the Zoroastrian temple? I had to do that with a couple of barbarian provinces to wait till the governor and the surrounding provinces had some conversion effects. Was it a full stack garrisoning the city?

[mrbigglesworth]

It was my first campaign on BI, so I was only in M/M. I had 20 units garrisoning the city, though some were half-full archer units that the city was not able to reinforce, and a couple cavalry units. All of them now belong to the rebels.

This might be a complete coincidence, but on the same turn I had a Persian city that rebelled and became part of my empire. This was a typical rebellion though, where peasants showed up in the city and the garrison was kicked out into the country side. There was not a message for this though, either.

[Aetius22]

Probably Kotais, right? It rebelled fand came over to my side as well. The city is Christian IIRC and as soon as the Sassanids take it over, if they don't have a big enough army it rebels towards the ERE side.

Very strange, I think you were just a victim of bad luck. You have to really micromanage the cities in BI to keep them happy if they are a different religion than the governor and/or the King/Emperor. Fortunately both the walls and the academies give you happines/law bonuses.

I would check the guide section. There is a lot of good information there.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I've played a couple of campaigns with RTW and just bought BI. I started as ERE, fought back against the Persians, took a city, and did what I always did in RTW: exterminated the people, lowered the tax rate, destroyed the temple, and built a Christian one. Happiness went down to 20% because most of the city is zoroastrian. Predictably they riot on the next turn, lose a couple soldiers. Then on the next turn they rebel, turn to ERE rebels, and the whole stack of 20 of my most advanced units, including the family member, go to the rebels.

What happened here? There was no message that I saw. Was it a normal rebellion? I expected a rebellion, but not to have the whole stack go to the rebels. Was it not a rebellion, rather did the family member defect (his loyalty was 4)? What should I have done differently? How can I take Persian cities without losing them immediately?

Easiest way of warfare is: occupy, tear down all troop buildings (and sometimes also most other buildings), then immediately abandon the city with your fighting army while building a christian shrine, then upgrade it to a christian church if you can before it rebels. Perhaps build some peasants for the garrison before it revolts. Take one city at the time this way, conquering most of the sassanids, then see all cities revolt. ERE rebels will take care of the conversion for you, and if all military buildings are destroyed their rebel stacks only contain peasants and possibly one or two generals, and sometimes one or two mercs. You can either move in a circle and start over when you've conquered all cities, or you can train a secondary, half-full army, for retaking the cities you've lost, moving them in as a "second wave". They stay in the cities they conquer, and can bring a prepared stack of peasants so you can occupy immediately. I personally used this vs the sassanids as the ERE. First few turns I assembled the best troops I had in the area, then went on the offensive. By the time I had taken half of their cities I sent a secondary stack to retake the cities that went rebels.