Revolting Islands

[King Kurt]

In my current VI Early Bysantine hard campaign all is going well. The Turks, Egyptians and Hungarians have been subdued, my empire stretchs from Egypt to Kiev via the Balkans. I have lost Naples, but once the fleets are built up, I will be off to sort the Scillians out. The one nusance at the moment is that my Islands - Crete, Rhodes and Cyprus keep revolting. I have reasonable garissons, I am on auto tax and all have ports with ships forming contact with the mainland. The revolts are never very big, so I just ship in a force to wipe them out, but they are a pain. My thoughts are to build some happy buildings like town watch and churchs - any ideas??

[matteus the inbred]

i'm finding similar with Sicilians...no island province (except Sicily) is entirely loyal despite low(ish) tax rates and fairly big garrisons (c. 200 men) unless the king is there personally.

basic loyalty apparently takes a hit when your king is overseas or a long way off...so yeah, i built inns, taverns and churches and tried to appoint high dread governors or high piety governors for zealous (about +50% zealous i reckon) provinces. you might try bunging spies in too. are your islands still mainly/partly Christian? unlikely as they're original Byz possessions aren't they?
obviously your king and his loyalty boost can't be everywhere at once, but i don't know if having a royal prince in a province has a similar but reduced effect on loyalty?

[King Kurt]

Greetings Matteus - Happy New Year

They were among my original empire - not sure on the religious mix - will check next time. Spies might be an idea - I am also thinking watchtowers. They all have a garrison of 200 plus. the only other thing is that the wet link to Constantinople has been occasionaly broken by the Scilians, so it could be their influence. These islands are important as they are/will be my dockyards for producing my navy, so i would like to keep them revolt free if possible.

[Matty]

Spies and emissaries in the first few years and a boat link to the mainland and your king. Also keep the garisson small so if there is a rebellion, its not too significant. Put in a 3-4 star general and repeated bashing of revolts can be a good valour generator. I use them to valour up cannons, personally.

[matteus the inbred]

and a happy new year to you!

sea links are a bugger, as we can see from the many many frustrated threads all over the forums!!!
i find inns definitely help (5-10% usually), as suggested by the description on their build panel...i assume taverns do as well, being similar. not sure about brothels, i'm innocent and fastidious and don't build naughty buildings like that

watchtowers will prevent the AI from using spies to foment discontent (which it does do) but i don't know if they improve loyalty of themselves. 2-300 peasants are dead cheap (support costs 20-odd florins each or something?) and perfectly good for garrisons. it's worth spamming them until you get a good governor (if you can be bothered...i gather from your auto-taxing that fiddling the micro-details are not your favourite pastime!).

dunno, i never seem to have much revolt trouble except in newly captured fractious places like Portugal, but then i get paranoid if my province loyalty goes below 150%...i'm such a people person

[Procrustes]

Watchtowers, border forts, and the militia buildings all increase happiness. Also, check the traits your govenor has - pick a different one if you want. Finally, try to get the populance converted to your religion. A spy will also reduce rebelliousness - more stars mean they work better, but it doesn't matter how many you have there as only the one with the most stars is counted.

(Personally, I like rebellious islands - I put a small force there and see how long they can hold on. Sometimes you can "grow" some awesome generals that way.)

HTH,

[matteus the inbred]

aha, all very useful.

didn't know about the spies. not that i use them much, i don't like their long frock-coated sense of fashion, it's so 1650s Moscow, know what i mean?

i tend to send my less talented heirs on suicide/anti-rebel missions and see if they're good enough to survive! no survivors so far.

[King Kurt]

The exercise of military muscle and broader strategy is more my bag. I do auto tax for convience I must admit. I assign my own governers, but don't resort to spaming as I am usually happy if I have found at least a 2 feather governer. Also, I am not sure on how you strip a governer of his title - don't you need an emissary? The agent, princess, diplomacy etc part of the game is an area where I need to improve. I tend to concentrate on building troops, ships and teching up. My empires tend to grow quite quickly - my current Byzantine effort has got to where I am now by about 1130 - , but I do keep getting the odd surprise. However the great thing about the game and this forum is that you can rectify anything as you go along - when ever I run into a problem, I ask the forum for advice and they always come up trumps. Problems tend to be just that - something to solve while continuing the game - not a game ender.

[matteus the inbred]

emissaries can strip titles, but you can also just disband the unit and reassign the title, not a problem if you have peasant units. i tend to do that if the governor develops negative traits like alcoholism or inbreeding. at least four feathers is my minimum for governors...but then i confess to preferring 'florin-pinching' factions like Denmark and Poland, where every little helps. Byzantium is such a big bad trading and resource monster that it doesn't really reward micro-managing!
princesses can help...don't bother marrying them to foreigners, marry them to governors and non-royal generals instead, to improve loyalty. grab as many alliances as you can, both for princesses to marry to your heirs and the ability to choose between factions at opportune strategic moments, as attacking your allies affects your influence, even if you win.

and the best thing is...there's always an answer on these forums!
except to pressing the 'Windows' button while fighting crucial battles. i must glue a pin to it or something, i've got a bad habit of missing 'Ctrl' in all the excitement and minimising the battle at a critical stage...

[Roark]

To echo what has already been said (and adding a couple of other factors):

- Spies
- Appropriate governor, ie: If you have conquered an island with high zeal in another religion, it is best to assign a low piety governor. Your governor should also have a high dread rating.
- Shipping link to your faction ruler
- Happiness buildings (Inn, Watchtower, Border Fort, Guard/Militia, Church/Monastery/Ribat/Cathedral etc)
- Convert the population using either a big initial garrison or religious agents

[antisocialmunky]

Train your generals there.

[King Kurt]

Followed your advice loads of happpy buildings - all is sweetness and light. God bless these forums.