Engineering Civil War

[caravel]

It's easy as a muslim or crusading catholic. Just build a chapter house/ribat then 'train' 3 crusade/jihad markers and then just destroy the chapter house/ribat. Instant civil war.

As the Orthodox or non crusading catholic the best way to get a crusade going is not to separate your king from the mainland, as that way you will get revolts in many of your provinces. This is not a civil war. The most expedient method is to repeatedly send a few peasant forces into battles they cannot win, then try your loyal generals for treason to reduce their loyalty.

In either case once you're ready, the loyal and disloyal need to be separated into two camps in order to influence who controls which provinces when the faction divides. The king should be in a province on his own or perhaps with some of the other loyalists, as the units in his province won't defect. The loyalists need to be dvided and placed in situations where they can't win or take control of any decent provinces. It's not easy to get it perfectly right but you can do a better job of it than just leaving the AI to it.

I had to do this once with my 60 year old heirless king. Racing against the clock to try to precent my faction from dying out.

[Roark]

How to Engineer a Civil War

Step 1: Play as the Germans

THE END




But seriously, Caravel's tips above are solid...

Strip your spies from your provinces and give all of your armies to your most disloyal generals. Bribed Muslim/Orthodox rebels are perfect. Strip any governorships they may currently have and try them for treason repeatedly with zero star spies. Try your sons for treason too.

Keep your king in a far corner of your empire, away from your disloyal generals, and commanding a stack of the MOST loyal generals. Fail at everything. Go into battle and fight like a pansy.

[Kralizec]

Strip your spies from your provinces and give all of your armies to your most disloyal generals

I thought that regardless of the general, stacks will break up with units siding with both loyalists and rebels?

[danfda]

I thought that regardless of the general, stacks will break up with units siding with both loyalists and rebels?

Actually, so did I, but I've only had a civil war once, due to a failed crusade. It was wicked...

[Martok]

I thought that regardless of the general, stacks will break up with units siding with both loyalists and rebels?

Not in my experience. Stacks remain intact when a civil war breaks out (unless of course you'd split them up beforehand). That's why generals are so key; whoever's in charge of the stack will dictate way the entire army goes (loyalist or rebel) in case of civil wars.

[Empirate]

Everything that lowers your king's influence is important for triggering the civil war: Losing battles (though preferably no provinces...), betraying allies, losing battles, failed assassination/spying attempts, losing battles, and of course pissing off the pope. Try to get excommunicated! I had two civil wars the moment I was excommunicated in two games I played a while back.

[professorspatula]

Don't forget to burn and assassinate your own king and princes every now and again - that seems to lower loyalty nicely. I'm actually addicted to killing off any princes I take an instant dislike to. And Kings. And why not - my assassins and grand inquisitors get fed up working away from home. In my last campaign I don't think a king ever had more than one son alive at a time. The poor monarchs Still, the weaklings must be eradicated from the gene pool for the good of the people!

[Jxrc]

Something that happened last Saturday... Not really engineefing but could perhaps help ...

Playing as the Sicilian. Despite a slow start, everything going ok (Malta, Sicily, Naples, Corsica, Sardigna, Rhodes, Chyprus, Crete, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, ships in every square).

Egyptian a bit too strong for my liking (starting invading Venice, Muscovy, etc) so build two crusades in Corsica and Sardigna) and plan to sink their ships.

Plan put into motion, all their ships are sunk except one near Malta. Complete fortress in Malta, king dies, new king pop up in Malta ... Cut out from the rest of the realm. Rebellion in Norway, Corsica and Naples. Side with the loyalist and rout all rebels ... In Corsica they retreat to the keep and kaboom I loose the two crusade markers

Second civil war in a row ... Side with the rebels this time ... Get rid of the loyalist everywhere but in Sardigna they retreat to the keep .... Two more crusades markers down the drain ...

Third Civil war ... Could only keep Rhodes and Malta because the AI factions had grasped the pattern and taken all the rest from me ... One star king, two poor island, four units of peasants and one feudal seargeant ... Plenty of ships (but nothing to trade ), loads of cash.... World conquest does not seem an option