Instant Loyalty drop

[AMLord]

Hi all,

I recently went back to MTW after playing RTW for a while now.

I'm playing a campaign with the Spainards and have conquered the vast majority of Europe. I'm mopping up the remains of the Byzantines (who had reached the North Sea while I was crushing them in Asia Minor).

I started in the Early Age and now it is 1324.

I ran into a problem that has never occured before.

The vast majority of my provinces have high loyalty. I like to build churches to keep loyalty high. Anyhow, in one turn, all of my loyalties suddenly dropped from the mid 100s to 50 or less. Many are at 0. All in one turn.

I had revolts in 20-30 provinces all in one turn, along with the re-emergence of the Italians and the HRE.

Does anyone know if there is a bug with loyalty looping around from 200% to 0% such as I have heard with high faction leaders popping out lowly heirs?

I tried reloading this game a few times and the same thing occurs over and over. I simply cannot contend with 2,000 enemy troops popping up simultaneously in two dozen provinces all over the map.

[matteus the inbred]

Something must have happened along the lines of:
Your king being separated from most of his provinces by a sea link (especially one that's temporarily been broken)?
Your king dying? (I assume it's not this, as if you keep reloading he probably doesn't die every time, and it's a bit obvious anyway)
Widespread enemy spies?
Small/no garrisons?
I also assume it's not a disloyal general starting a rebellion; I think it would tell you if it was this factor, but it might be worth checking the loyalty of your generals and governors.
Losing battles, and even your king being in a battle (which I've read can reduce loyalty on a temporary basis) could be a factor.

However, by the sounds of it, it is a bug, unless it's a hidden event or something peculiar to the Spanish faction...unfortunate but interesting. I've obviously never encountered it myself, and one of my games currently has a similarly large Turkish empire in around 1335...

[AMLord]

Hmm...

Now that I think of it, I did take my Ruler to put down a re-emergence of France...in Ireland. Ireland has no port, so the King was stuck there.

Could this be the source of my troubles?

[matteus the inbred]

I rather suspect that you have put your chainmail clad finger on it there old chap.
When one has a very very big empire, it's best to sit the king in the middle of it and never ever send him overseas...massive loyalty drops ensue when the ruler is overseas and the temporarily unable to get back. Hence, historically, the Scottish tendency to invade England every time the English king led an army into France...
Use heirs to lead military campaigns unless they're very close to home, or generals (preferably ones married off to your daughters). Perhaps keep the ruler 'on tour', so to speak, so provinces with low loyalty can bask in the sunshine of his august royal presence for a bit. If you're concerned about his collection of unhealthy and probably sociopathic vices or want to get him some fighting experience, manufacture a very small rebellion by being very nasty to a backwater province somewhere until it rebels, then let him deal with it personally.

[AMLord]

After testing, this indeed was the problem.

Taking my ruler to the Emerald Isle lead to revolts in provinces previously at the 200% loyalty mark.

I had a save game on that term (luckily) and sent a Prince to whack Louis VII's re-emergence...

Voila, no revolts.

Thanks matteus the inbred.

[Zain]

I wish I had seen this earlier.... I did the exact same thing with my Danes campaign the other day.

I save every 10 minutes, and my loyalty dropped after I used my king to attack the Irish, and without fault I had loyalty drops and a civil war.

Interesting we had that same problem at the same time nearly, except mine happened about a week ago.

I'm happy you figured it out, I did after pondering for a while.

Welcome to the Org!

[Vlad The Impala]

I had the same problem whern my Sultan attacked Serbia. According to another poster (my thread should still be around in the MTW forums), attacking with your faction leader sets off a bug that will make your provinces think the King is at maximum distance, which, in the case of Ireland-with-no-port, is actually true.

[matteus the inbred]

After testing, this indeed was the problem.

Taking my ruler to the Emerald Isle lead to revolts in provinces previously at the 200% loyalty mark.

I had a save game on that term (luckily) and sent a Prince to whack Louis VII's re-emergence...

Voila, no revolts.

Thanks matteus the inbred.

my pleasure

I had the same problem whern my Sultan attacked Serbia. According to another poster (my thread should still be around in the MTW forums), attacking with your faction leader sets off a bug that will make your provinces think the King is at maximum distance, which, in the case of Ireland-with-no-port, is actually true.

ah, there we go, i couldn't remember it exactly, thanks Vlad.