Spawning Rebels

[Kugutsu]

Yeah I noticed that. I am playing a Hayasdan game, and sent an army to check out Trabezond (sp) near the start - it had about 5 units, but a notice popped up telling me I would start a war with KH if i attacked, so I decided not to bother. I came back about 20 years later with an army of 6 units - 2 generals, a mad asabara, 2 steppe horse archers and an armenian horse archer, to find that the city had been busy building units like the apocalypse was coming (which it was ). Tons of peltasts, slingers, milita hoplites, classical hoplites, pontic spearmen, thanvabera archers, pantopodai of course and even some helenic cavalry. To the extent that a second stack was sitting next to the city. Ok, my thoughts at this point were along the lines of 'Oh c***', but since I had sent my army right up without checking, I couldnt run away, so I attacked anyway. And won! Not only won, I got a heroic victory, killed about 1600 with only about 70 losses.

Anyway, my point is the AI seems a lot better at building a range of units now. But its still not very good with them. If you have vast numerical superiority, it makes no sense at all to spread them out and send them one by one when you are defending against an enemy with superior manouverability. If they had sat still and waited, supporting their ranged units with their spearmen, I would have been wiped out. My horsearchers wouldnt have had the ammo to even make a dent in an army that size. As it was, they sent in their slingers first - alone, which my mad asabaras and generals took care of. Then a few pantopodai and pontic spearmen, while the helenic cavalry tried to flank me - my archers took out the spearmen, while my generals took out the cavalry. That left a load of peltasts and a couple of units of thanvabera archers, which I could also deal with piecemeal. Oh, and the hoplites were just running in circles in phalanx mode, trying in vain to catch my cavalry... Im not complaining, I got a nice victory, and it was a fun battle, but it seems a bit dumb of the AI...

[Arawn]

The stacks that are all one type of unit especially. These are much more likely to be rebel-city recruited stacks than pop-up rebels as the pop-up rebels are spawned from a list with a variety of units the game randomly picks.

Even when they appear out of thin air in the middle of your territory?
In my experience, rebel village produced armies are more varied.

[Obelics]

well rebel are usefull at the starting of your game to train your troop and get chevrons, i like the actual rebels spawning.
again they add a strategic point to your game, you have to build watch towers to trace them, and to control they dont obstruct trade routs. And they also often block your path, so this is another strategic nice point to manage with.

i think no rebels = more boring campaign map.

they are in th EB features, and you have to take them as they are. (i consider to reduce rebel spawning as to cheat...)

[Foot]

You must remember that rebel spawning drastically increases when you put up the taxes. Only put up the taxes of your cities when you are gearing up for war and need to support a larger army. When I have my cities all on normal taxes I hardly every get rebel spawns.

Foot

[Arawn]

Oh bloody marvalous. As the cassae (sp?) i get a fat 7 unit stack of skirmishers, and the Cassae don't appear to have a viable counter for them.
Why are the spawend armies overwleminly skirmishers?
What determines the sort of armies that are spawned? Vanilla seems to produce much more balanced ones.
Or at the very least give the Cassae some sort of basic cavalry to counter them. The general chariots drop dead before they get their first round of missiles off.

i think no rebels = more boring campaign map.

Couldn't agree more, they are a part of the game, they add flavour and are historicly realistic. But at the moment it seems broke somehow. I mean skirmishers all the time is boring, and a royal pain in the arse if you don't have a decent counter.

[Fleeb]

Or at the very least give the Cassae some sort of basic cavalry to counter them. The general chariots drop dead before they get their first round of missiles off.

Quoted for extreme truthification. Casse generals are beyond useless.

[Dayve]

Quoted for extreme truthification. Casse generals are beyond useless.

Of course they are... They were useless in real life too back then, just like every other unit they had, using outdated weapons and no armour, except for rich nobles which might have had a shirt of chainmail and a decent helmet... Much the same as every other barbarian in Europe, they made a line of men and charged it at the enemy with no thought of real tactics, which is why it was the Romans, Greeks and Carthies who had the most influence on the ancient world, and not the British, Gallic, Germanic or Spanish.

Having said that though, rebels in my Roman campaign are actually quite balanced... In southern Italy anyway. In SI, when they pop up, it's usually 6 units of Samnites, which are a pain in the behind, and even some cavalry or skirmishers... Northern Italy is different however... When they popup here it's ALWAYS 3 units of velites and one unit of Polybian equittes, which is funny considering the year is only 255BC.

[Slider6977]

Oh bloody marvalous. As the cassae (sp?) i get a fat 7 unit stack of skirmishers, and the Cassae don't appear to have a viable counter for them.
Why are the spawend armies overwleminly skirmishers?
What determines the sort of armies that are spawned? Vanilla seems to produce much more balanced ones.
Or at the very least give the Cassae some sort of basic cavalry to counter them. The general chariots drop dead before they get their first round of missiles off.



Couldn't agree more, they are a part of the game, they add flavour and are historicly realistic. But at the moment it seems broke somehow. I mean skirmishers all the time is boring, and a royal pain in the arse if you don't have a decent counter.

Suprised no one suggested this yet, but if you go to the descr_rebel_factions.txt in the data folder, you can adjust what type of rebel units spawn in which area. You can get rid of all those skirmisher armies and make them infantry-based spawning rebels.

I use this to get rid of Carthaginian citizen militia spawning in the my Kart home provinces, as I find it unrealistic that my Carth citizens are revolting, and more realistic that it is my iberian units (essentially mercenaries from historic perspective). Therefore the rebel armies in carthage are a mix of numidian cavalry (as much as I may want to, I wont remove these for history's sake) and skirmishers, and iberian milites and caetrati.

[Conqueror]

You must remember that rebel spawning drastically increases when you put up the taxes. Only put up the taxes of your cities when you are gearing up for war and need to support a larger army. When I have my cities all on normal taxes I hardly every get rebel spawns.

Foot

But then how do you prevent massive population explosion? I didn't build any farms upgrades in Kart-Hadast and the city still went all the way up to 40,000+ before the growth finally stopped. If it wasn't for the fact that I have taxes to the max, it would prolly be 60,000+ by now. Granted, it's my capital so not a problem to control but there are other cities getting way big, such as Syrakousai.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

But then how do you prevent massive population explosion? I didn't build any farms upgrades in Kart-Hadast and the city still went all the way up to 40,000+ before the growth finally stopped. If it wasn't for the fact that I have taxes to the max, it would prolly be 60,000+ by now. Granted, it's my capital so not a problem to control but there are other cities getting way big, such as Syrakousai.

I agree. I have taxes at very high at all times. And I don't do it to be oppressive, or even for the money. I have to do all I can to stop population growth and squallor.