Treacherous captains - over the top?

[Roy1991]

Anyone else thinks this feature is a bit over the top sometimes?
I've had several full stacks of elite troops who betrayed me
My standing with the pope was pretty good, and there were no enemies near them.

If your general dies in a battle, and it takes a while for another one to get to the front, then the army will more likely betray you than not :(

[Warluster]

Well if you were stuck in the middle of nowhere and with no person leading you, I'd rather betray to the local Nation around there as well.

[Roy1991]

Well if you were stuck in the middle of nowhere and with no person leading you, I'd rather betray to the local Nation around there as well.

I'd understand it if lonely stacks did that, but things like this just shouldn't happen...
https://img241.imageshack.us/img241/4319/capteb6.jpg
That's the 3rd FULL stack that deserted in 73 turns.

[Warluster]

Ah, well, I dont have an answer to that, maybe they fill sick,

[HaroldVonBraver]

Anyone else thinks this feature is a bit over the top sometimes?
I've had several full stacks of elite troops who betrayed me
My standing with the pope was pretty good, and there were no enemies near them.

If your general dies in a battle, and it takes a while for another one to get to the front, then the army will more likely betray you than not :(

This has happened to me too, a lot. I found that leaving them alone without anything to do does cause them to betray the faction. I keep them moving around and it seems to keep it at a minimum.

[PaulTa]

Anyone else thinks this feature is a bit over the top sometimes?
I've had several full stacks of elite troops who betrayed me
My standing with the pope was pretty good, and there were no enemies near them.

If your general dies in a battle, and it takes a while for another one to get to the front, then the army will more likely betray you than not :(

Gee, sounds like you should be a bit more careful with your generals in battle.

Wow, another element of realism in this game. How unfortunate.

[Kobal2fr]

It's true to history.

Idle men-at-arms without a nobleman to keep them in check turning brigands and ravaging the countryside were the reason for the Papal ban on crossbows - his Holiness didn't want the nobles to die out so easily at the hands of rabble, because it meant much, much more suffering for the people than winning a battle was worth . Not that anyone listened to him of course.

Likewise, mercenaries with nothing to do usually went a-pillaging just to survive, they didn't have any other means to eat but their battle wages to pay for their food, and no homes to go back to... Some wars were fought just to get mercs away from the lord's lands

And of course, your own vassals turning against you was pretty much what the feudal system was all about

[Kralizec]

Try including agents in your stack and see if that has affect- it helps against bribing so I wouldn't be surprised if it helps against desertion as well, at least for spies.

https://img241.imageshack.us/img241/4319/capteb6.jpg

Is that a stack of Aztec rebels in Flanders?

[LorDBulA]

Never happened to me. I guess you must be lousy leader.

[Fisherking]

Good lord, I have had them do it when parked next to a city with the general and strong troops inside. I even had a strong stack do it on the last turn of a siege against a rebel castle. This and some of the crusades desertions have been puzzling to me.

[Faenaris]

Losing a stack is indeed a pain in the backside, but as others have pointed out, it is realistic. Some factions were even known for it: if you look at Byzantium's history, you'd see that there was LOTS of civil war and betrayal. And in my Byzantium campaign, I have lost a couple of stacks.

Then again, when I played England, Denmark and Sicily, I NEVER lost a stack. As Spain, I lost one in about 200 turns. So, I don't think that the problem is that bad, Roy1991, but you are just having lots of rotten luck.

[Bullethead]

Losing a stack is indeed a pain in the backside, but as others have pointed out, it is realistic.

It would be more realistic if disbanded units turned bandit on you than for gainfully employed troops.

The VERY first time I tried to move some un-generaled units from City A to City B just 2 turns' march away, they rebelled where they ended the 1st turn's movement. So moving them around doesn't help

[Darius]

Maybe its just my bad luck but it seems its only the larger armies that go rebel, so when I want to send a non-general lead army anywhere I do it piece by piece, if they want to go rebel, they get killed by the swarm around them. Eat it.

[Von Nanega]

From what Ive noticed, in general the AI does not spend as much $$ on high leval troops and settlement upgrades. Viola! More money to bribe away your troops. For grins I tested by giving myself an insane amount of cash, and was able to bribe away other factions stacks.

[sapi]

I've never lost a stack to bribery but conversely i've never been able to bribe an enemy stack (though i've mostly been trying on papal troops that are besieging rome :P

[Sir Moody]

i have this problem too i cant leave any units alone without a general or they betray - and i found out why my current king (a lame excuse of royalty) has a influence of 1... basically everyone agrees he sucks at being king and so if left alone they switch sides ... hes 45 too so long wait till he drops off im kinda glad its a 0.5 time scale campaign as this period where im handicapped wont leave me with no turns left

[Shahed]

Anyone else thinks this feature is a bit over the top sometimes?
I've had several full stacks of elite troops who betrayed me
My standing with the pope was pretty good, and there were no enemies near them.

If your general dies in a battle, and it takes a while for another one to get to the front, then the army will more likely betray you than not :(

I'm at turn 30-35 or so. Between turn 10 and 20 I lost a few stacks like this. Actually I had to fight some of them too, as they went grey, rebels. Now I never move an army without a family member as leader. It is a bit over I think, playability-wise. BUT it is GREAT because it actually makes you pay attention to loyalty and traits.

[Lochar]

I am only playing default and hardly have this happen but for fun , lately I take a general with 1 unit of foot and make a fort reststop between cities that cant be travelled in 1 shot.

I was going to see if this would prevent single stack units or anything else from going bad.

The other thing is, alot of my towns are green but settlement details show unrest at times. If I removed my 80% garrison bonus I would have some unhappy towns.

Since my money is halfway decent now I been stacking spys in all my towns to counter any enemy spies from causing problems. Wether this helps or its just my default setting, I very rarely lose a troop to rebels (it should actually be outlaws). The few times I do is for single ones that were wounded that I was sending to a further town.

[darsalon]

Anyone else thinks this feature is a bit over the top sometimes?
I've had several full stacks of elite troops who betrayed me
My standing with the pope was pretty good, and there were no enemies near them.

If your general dies in a battle, and it takes a while for another one to get to the front, then the army will more likely betray you than not :(

Kind of works both ways I've found. Have had it when I was besieging a rebel town and my army turned rebel which meant it joined up with the people in the town. Made it an absolute swine to take the settlement. On the other hand I've seen the English have a full stack of troops turn rebel which really helped in a conquest of the British isles.

One of those ones which has the possibility of being annoying but when I see it happen to the ai as well as me I don't tend to mind so much.