OK, so I was taking some time out from Ancient, and thought 'Persia looks interesting'..... Don't open the spoiler if you haven't played this faction yet!!!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This faction is obviously set up for an automatic civil war on the first turn (like, a jihad with no ribat in the startpos )... and there is an obvious hero to lead the rebel faction... BUT I can NEVER get Abbas to LEAD the rebels, he is always only a supporter. My Abbasid dynasty is strangled at birth every time. What does it take to get him on to the throne???? I can get every single stack under a 0-loyalty general, do the stupidest things with the Shah, and whenever a civil war erupts, it's always some no-account nobody who leads it and never the obvious high-dread, high-command, low-loyalty Abbas. It's almost as if the AI knows I'm trying to engineer the perfect palace coup! Mind you, it is great great fun watching the Georgian king repeatedly commit suicide at the gates of Yerevan )