armies rebeling too much?

[lalartu]

I was playing as russians after completing dane and english campaigns and I noticed a weird trend with russian forces of going rebel for no apparent reason way too much.

generals would betray me every 10 turns or so and then sometimes whole armies go to a rebel side (once while I was sieging a rebel town and half of my force turned rebel, so I had to face twice as much with half as much force....)

now I thought maybe someone's just buying them off, but there's never a princess or a diplomat around. can enemy spies do that? I mean can they influence a general to betray the king?

or is it just a sequence of very random events happening way too often?

I've never had these problems with the catholic factions, is that just an orthodox thing?

[KARTLOS]

ive noticed it happening to and it has left me kind of paranoid. it does seem to happen when no diplomatsar close, and i have pletny of cash so iti is not an upkeep problem. its not restricted to non-catholics though as it has happened to me as the sicilians and poles. ive lost a several units of super experienced cavalry units in this manner. you can replace the units ok, but losing your most experienced units is an ass.

[econ21]

Are you noticing any pattern with the general's loyalty stat? In MTW, loyalty less than 4 would cause me big concerns.

(In M2TW VH/VH as English, I've never encountered a rebellion or worried about loyalty stats.)

[NightStar]

I had a captain that rebelled when the king died, else I have never had armies rebel

[lalartu]

well thing is I'm very short on generals with Russians mostly due to Mongolian onslaughts, so I grab any general I can get no matter the loyalty. but it just happens randomly it seems.

once, I had an army without a general moving to replace forces that were guarding the bridge and they rebelled within one turn of being sent.

other time I had a general that married my princess rebel the next turn with 5 units that I gave him.

it's fun and it does add to difficulty, but sometimes it's just too annoying simply because you don't expect a 5 star general that's been with you for 20+ years and who you really depend on to defend a bridge from mongols suddenly rebel...

I'm not sure if it's really loyalty or not, i myself thought loyalty only played role when a diplomat is trying to buy you off, but i guess I should take a look at my forces and see how they are on the loyalty meter then see which ones rebel.

it's weird that you're even rarely being told when they do rebel. sometiems I had whole armies just vanish and when I wanted to get some reserves going, they were no longer there. it's just kinda weird

[Somebody Else]

As I have a thing about not adopting/allowing anyone to marry in to my family, I generally have very few family members running about. If I'm lucky, I have my king, prince and a spare (Worst was when I had a 60 year old king with the next in line being about 12 - damned assassinations). Current game, England VH/VH. I have... er... everything. Except the Americas because they haven't appeared yet. Occasionally I'll lose a captain-led army to rebellion. Slightly irritating, means a lot more work for my king. In general, if I send a full stack army into enemy territory, about 5% of the time it goes rebel on me. Not a major bother, to be fair, but irritating nonetheless.

I suppose the authority stat of my king might have something to do with it.

*edit* Sometimes it would be nice to know just where it is the army that's gone rebel is. In a large empire, it can be irritating having to search for a half-forgotten stack of soldiers...

[BigTex]

I kind of like the rebeling armies. Makes the game more challenging, and helps prevent having captian lead armies. I've only twice notice an army rebel with a family member in it. But their loyalties were both below 2. It also makes it hadder for diplomats to bribe loyal generals, very fun addition.

[andrewt]

I found it annoying. When your empire gets big, it's annoying to have to micromanage reinforcements already without this adding to it. I've had captains leading reinforcements just leave my army. It becomes like civ where you spend turn after turn pressing end turn doing nothing just waiting for your reinforcements to arrive. If they rebel, then you buy some more and wait some more.

[TheImp]

It depends on who is rebelling. Because of rebelling armies, i remember my first campaign pretty well actually.

When coming of age, my general was 4 stars already. I sent him to spain to take some towns assigned by the noble council. He became a real good 8 stars general in like 5 turns. After that, a huge army from Milan (the strongest faction at the time) was coming to siege Marseille. So i decided to dispatch him straight away to take the besieging army from the rear. But for no special reason, he rebelled while crossing the pyrenees so i got 2 huge armies to deal with at once and the south of France became a nightmare to manage for like 15 turns

Since that day, i'm always worried when a new member of the family turns out to be 4 stars after coming of age

[Longjohn4]

The most important thing you can do to stop generals rebelling is to build up the authority of your king. No-one wants to serve a ruler they don't respect, and in the middle ages respect was earned by battlefield success. So get your king out of his castle, and get him kicking some butt, and your loyalty problems will disappear.

Of course you may still get problems when you have a new king, and haven't had time to build up his authority yet. Deciding whether to undertake major operations during this time, is part of the strategy of the game.

You will also face more rebellions when you get excommunicated, or the king dies.

[lalartu]

i've noticed there are two kinds of rebellions:

1) religon related, which Ithink has to do with piety of a general (higher piety more chance to rebel) is when your general tells you so and quits after you get excommunicatd for a few turns. it happened to two of my generals when I was playing as aggressive dane.

2) random silent rebellion - which can be either general (and all his forces), general alone or forces alone (I even had forces disappear from the castle...go figure). this is I believe related to both your king's authority and your general's loyalty. I took someone's advice and stopped adopting, marrying into generals under 4 loyalty and my generals stopped leaving me. so I guess to improve the rebellion situation, give your king a huge army, make him your top general (since he already probably starts with 5 stars anyway) and do not hire anyone under 4 royalty, even if they're 6 stars.

so far after I've started doing that, I only lost a few normal units here and there, but I'm also trying to limit how far I take my reinforcements

[lalartu]

also another thing is that apparently AI's armies rebel too and I've noticed that it happens a lot.

I was awaiting an army approaching toward the egyptian lands playing as egypt and it turned into rebels the next turn thus saving my city.

so i guess it's somewhat fun after all