Something sort of interesting

[Kull]

This is definitely a kick-ass new feature. It may seem like "mere" eye candy, but the ingame effect is to individualize the rebels in a way never seen before in RTW. You guys are so going to love this!

[Puupertti Ruma]

This looks really awesome! It's just the thing I've wanted since first realizing what the EB had done with the rebels (besides having diplomacy with them, of course).

There is one thing I'dd like to ask though. What kind of written information can be found in EB about the different rebel factions? Lack of written data is a thing that has bugged me quite, since my own knowledge about the various tribes, greek colonies and some such is very limited.

Also, as a side note, I think all factions should start in peace with the rebels. This would mean there is a possibility to live in peace with your neighbors, instead of just conquering them.

[Slartibardfast]

EB just gets cooler and cooler.

[Obelics]

if it is what i have understand, it is great, so for example the Pergamon rebel stack has its own banner and color when you attack that city?
if so, this extetical change, is how to have a real faction, and changes a lot your view of the game, hope we can see it in the new version!

[Teleklos Archelaou]

There aren't unlimited numbers of these. Not sure if folks know it, but every rebel city has what we call a faction owner, that has to be a rebel faction (you have to put a captain in that city, or a general rather in EB to keep them immobile, who has an appropriate name for his faction). Some factions wind up with a rebel sub faction that is vast. The Aedui and Arverni rebels fill up a lot of provinces from the English Channel to the Bosphoros almost. And there are a lot of KH rebels in greek cities across the map. But some don't have any at all, like Pontos. There aren't any Pontic rebel provinces at the start of the game I believe. Very few Epeirote ones too if any. So Pergamon would have a KH rebel sub faction set of banners. The Ammonion would have a Ptolemaic set, the Numidian provinces a set of Carthaginian ones, etc.

For some we have clearly tried to make a rebel "faction" out of them - like the Carthaginian rebel ones are really just inland African ones so we made them look Numidian. The Makedonian ones we made "royal pretenders", so they have an alternate royal makedonian set of standards. That goes for Baktria too, their rebel provinces are mostly in India, so we gave them an elephant and a royal Baktrian insignia to serve as a sort of "royal pretender" also. For the Seleukids, where rebels pop up for them, they have old Persian banners, so that you are fighting armies that look like uprisings that are attempting to restore the old rule. The Ptolemaic ones look like a traditional Egyptian eye of Ra, so it looks like a native uprising when you fight against them. Saka and Sarmatian rebels just look like other Steppe factions' banners might. Roman rebels have the Italiote bull, that you sometimes see charging the wolf on coins. I believe Epeiros' subfaction just has alternate royal banners too to represent a royal pretender. Parthian rebels look like another eastern horse faction set. Hayasdan rebels have another set of traditional Armenian symbols, so it seems appropriate when you are conquering those other armenian and iberian territories in the region.

[Obelics]

that's very interesting, especially if you can see a banner of a different colour on the battlefield... that make you think you are fighting that or this rebel/indipendent faction in a way more easy.
And it is even more interesting if you can see the different colour banners even on the Campaign Map as i see on your picture.

[oudysseos]

This seems as good a place as any to post something I've been meaning to suggest as it fits in very well with the (amazing!) work that you have just previewed. What I'm talking about is the campaign map characters themselves- I've been browsing through other mods just waiting for EB 0.8 to come out, and many of them have some very nice little touches that I think EB should have a look at (how presumptuous of me!). In particular the latest release of Chivalry TW has very nice campmap characters that would fit in with the work ye have done on the banners. Instead of gargantuan titans striding over the landscape, ChivTW has subtle little characters that fit in very nicely with the scale of the map. The armies are little colums and squares of miniscule marching men, the spys are teeny little guys on horseback and the diplomats get little wagons to drive all over. A picture is worth a thousand words, so take a look if you have the time.
It takes a little getting used to but I felt that it made a huge and positive diffrence to the campaign map. This would fit in with the individualized banners that ye have done, as the little squares of marching men are culture neutral- eveyone looks the same from that height, so to speak, so the fact that all the characters for the 'rebel' armies look the same wouldn't be a problem- they'd be meant to look the same. Make a virtue out of necessity, as it were.
If you really wanted to get fancy you could have one character for the 'civilized' factions that's orderly and compact(Rome, Carthage, Diadachoi etc.) and another character for the 'barbarian' factions that's more messy and dispersed.

I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find out how ChivTW did it or even (if we all asked reakky nicely) to import the characters. Whaddya think?