Rebel insane

[NightStar]

I have never had so much Rebel activity since I got EB 0.73
Right now I am playing the Romani and have gotten 11 turns into the game and it seems to me that a 1-2 stack of rebels spawn each turn....some of them have up to 8 units. Right now in my game Arretium, Rome, and Capua are besieged by rebels. My rebel cleaning army just doesn´t have the time to fight and retrain, the rebels spawn so fast.

I have 2 armies, one to fight rebels and one to fight Epeiros....so far the rebels have been more of a challenge and I have had to face 4 rebel stacks with 8 units....mostly hvy samnite infantry and samnite spearmen.

I think it is odd, I have never had such rebel activity before, not when I played EB 0.72

[Danest]

I haven't looked into it enough to say that I'm certain, but I'm pretty sure misery factors in my own towns, as well as these negative factors in even rebel towns are often the problem. With the casse, I made sure all my towns were happy (with no unrest or anything either, not just a high happiness rating)... still rebels were appearing. I'm almost certain they were coming from an irish rebel town that for some reason was being led into the ground. Once I took that town and fixed it up, the rebel onslaught stopped. So, it's possible (if I'm right) that it might not be your towns, but might even be an epeirote town or or other neighbor accidently pumping out these guys too. SPy on your neighbors and see if any are miserable or suffering from unrest, maybe that can help to find the problem.

[khelvan]

Well, we have given the "slave" faction lots of extra cash, and reduced its expenditures, so actual rebel provinces will build units now. That may be where you see this coming from.

It will help to note -who- the rebels are. You can tell by their names which province they are coming from. Note the province they're in and their names, and I'll tell you where they come from.

[NightStar]

Well these rebels are just popup rebels, that spawn on various locations in my 5 provinces....it could be a freaky coincidence that they spawn this fast as it has never happened to me before...

[khelvan]

Well, I'm still curious as to what they're called in game. We've changed certain names around in this version, and so I want to know it is working properly.

[GMT]

Try playing as Arche Seleukeia. I have at least 5 new rebel stacks per turn and let's not forget the usual rebelious provinces

[Trithemius]

Well, I'm still curious as to what they're called in game. We've changed certain names around in this version, and so I want to know it is working properly.

I've had a similar experience to NightStar - although my rebels and brigands just mean that my junior family members frequently pick up a Corona Civica and Corona Ovalis and spend less time with the rhetor. I did get some really scary armies of rebels in northern Italy though - gesaetae and brihentin, etc.

Mine were all "Aphistomenoi" I believe, or something very similar.

Relating to the rate at which independent towns build troops, it might be a good idea to tone this down a little - or perhaps change the rates for spy-mission success as it seems impossible to spy on towns with large garrisons which sort of seems counterintuitive to me (larger numbers of troops should not really mean that it is harder to infiltrate the city afterall, or to try and get close to the general for that matter.)

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I haven't looked into it enough to say that I'm certain, but I'm pretty sure misery factors in my own towns, as well as these negative factors in even rebel towns are often the problem. With the casse, I made sure all my towns were happy (with no unrest or anything either, not just a high happiness rating)... still rebels were appearing. I'm almost certain they were coming from an irish rebel town that for some reason was being led into the ground. Once I took that town and fixed it up, the rebel onslaught stopped. So, it's possible (if I'm right) that it might not be your towns, but might even be an epeirote town or or other neighbor accidently pumping out these guys too. SPy on your neighbors and see if any are miserable or suffering from unrest, maybe that can help to find the problem.

Oh fine, blame it all on the Irish! As though we haven't heard that before. Bloody English always thinking they're b....

Sorry, got a bit carried away.

[GMT]

I haven't looked into it enough to say that I'm certain, but I'm pretty sure misery factors in my own towns, as well as these negative factors in even rebel towns are often the problem. With the casse, I made sure all my towns were happy (with no unrest or anything either, not just a high happiness rating)... still rebels were appearing. I'm almost certain they were coming from an irish rebel town that for some reason was being led into the ground. Once I took that town and fixed it up, the rebel onslaught stopped. So, it's possible (if I'm right) that it might not be your towns, but might even be an epeirote town or or other neighbor accidently pumping out these guys too. SPy on your neighbors and see if any are miserable or suffering from unrest, maybe that can help to find the problem.

I'm actually quite sure that this is not the case. In my current Seleukid campaign I've still got rebel stacks popping up right next to Seleukeia and Antiocheia while the public order level is like 150% or more. They couldn't come from any nearby rebel town because there simply isn't any rebel town anywhere near these cities.

I really don't mind that much any more about the rebels though. It makes the campaign more realistic, especially as the Seleukids plus it gives me a chance to let my generals pick up some experience.

[Aut Nihil]

might help if you edit the starting treasury of the rebels no?

[khelvan]

No, brigands spawn independent of the slave faction's wealth level.

[pezhetairoi]

I suppose it would be about right to let the brigands at least have no experience, even if it harms them. Brigands were not supposed to be awesome fighting forces, and only got together for plunder. And it would balance things a little, since historically the Romani at least never lost even 10% of their army fighting a mere band of brigands as the game seems to suggest they do.

[Ludens]

1.5 will surely improve things here. However, I was wondering about the announcements to decrease the rate in which experience was gained. The proposed solution was to give each unit a starting experience of three and reduce their stats so that they end up being equally strong. Won't this tactic hurt the spawning rebel stacks? IIRC brigands always spawn without experience, making them weaker than normally produced units.

[khelvan]

Yes, reducing the experience scale will likely harm brigands.

[econ21]

I've been facing masses of rebels too as Rome since the 0.73 patch - I'll check the names.

What is frustrating are the pop-up ones - not coming from rebel cities. I have to have permanent army on stand by as a fire brigade to rush around squishing them. I don't think it is realistic and it is boring as anything. 1.5 should solve it, but I am curious what affects their spawn rate more generally? The Ludus Magna thread on this does not seem to have positively identified anything that affects their spawn rate.

The other rebel masses are coming from the towns, but I don't mind that so much. Taking a province should be hard work and those that stray into your land you can think of as raiders. As long as they don't stall the AI factions too much, it is good (Dacia was hacking into them thanks to its mine income, dunno how they will cope with 0.74).

I wonder what the problem is with experience? I operate a "no-retraining" policy and so attrition means that only my general units (which regenerate anyway) accumulate very high experience. I don't know where the AI gets the very high experience it has on some of its units. But the proposed change sounds interesting - I would not worry about it weakening the rebels. The game should be focussed around the named factions.