Making the Rebels aggressive?

Is there an easy way to make the rebel faction act aggressively, i.e. building up their forces and attacking other factions and improving their settlements? In essence it would be great to have them just like any other faction you're at war with, the only difference being you wouldn't be able to have the normal diplomatic interactions.

Well the 1 big thing affecting the rebels probably is the fact that they can't recruit ANY units, allt he units they get are spawned. Just check the edb, no units can be recruited by the slave faction, and most buildings can't either.

Then you would probably need to edit the descr_campaign_ai_db file to make it so the slave faction invades other nations.

I might be getting mixed up with rome here but ive known Rebel Factions to act in that way. Generally if they have a lot of land (and i mean 30 settlements plus) they do begin to talk in diplomatic terms. I remember a game once, Where i made myself allies to the Rebels and even had trade rights with them but as said, I cannot if this happened in Medieval or not, Im pretty certain it was Rome.

Originally Posted by Jambo

Is there an easy way to make the rebel faction act aggressively, i.e. building up their forces and attacking other factions and improving their settlements? In essence it would be great to have them just like any other faction you're at war with, the only difference being you wouldn't be able to have the normal diplomatic interactions.

The main issue is that you would to make EACH rebel province a separate faction. Just making the "slave" faction able to build and recruit would mean that they would be pooling all of the resources from all of the rebel controlled territory into one bank account and have one central military control.

I think they'd even have almost enough provinces to win a standard campaign right off the bat

I guess the fact they get units through spawned rebellions means that it doesn't really matter that they can't build their own. Plus, that looks a mammoth task to mod. Maybe looking at the descr_campaign_ai_db file to make them actively invade is the best option.

Well, I've had a huge rebel stack turn around and siege me at Antwerp.

As they have done this, there must be something in the files controlling when they should be attacking and not. So, it should be possible to tweak that so that they are more aggressive.

Post-patch rebels are in general a lot stronger, btw. In the start of my turkish campaign, the rebels had 1 full rebel stack outside jerusalem, 1 full outside damascus, as well as almost full garrisons. This stalled expansion there for both me and egypt for about 30 turns... I wasn't able to take jerusalem until I had finished off the Byzantines...

Lucky guy, I've only ever had the Rebels sit and ambush me really. Never noticed them being aggressive. They have always just sat there and let me level my assassins up on them.

Originally Posted by HoreTore

Well, I've had a huge rebel stack turn around and siege me at Antwerp.

As they have done this, there must be something in the files controlling when they should be attacking and not. So, it should be possible to tweak that so that they are more aggressive.

Post-patch rebels are in general a lot stronger, btw. In the start of my turkish campaign, the rebels had 1 full rebel stack outside jerusalem, 1 full outside damascus, as well as almost full garrisons. This stalled expansion there for both me and egypt for about 30 turns... I wasn't able to take jerusalem until I had finished off the Byzantines...

You know, I've had similar experiences, but not quite sieging me.

I've noticed that, when huge stacks of troops from other factions go rebel, they WILL move and help the local rebel town/castle if it is under siege. I've had times when I thought I was in the clear and overwhelmed the enemy, and then a full stack of English Knights and other English units that I had seen not too long ago flying the red banner come from behind the fog of war decked out in their new grays and attack my sieging army.

Two things you need to do to make slaves a challenge:

1. In the descr_campaign_ai_db.xml copy all decision entries from <faction_ai_label name="default"> (except the cases concerning slaves) into the section where it reads

Code: [View]

	/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
	// SLAVE FACTION AI PARAMS.  THEY DON'T REALLY DO ANYTHING //
	/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

2. Edit the export_descr_buildings.txt so that slaves can build buildings (i.e. add slave into most of the buildings) and train troops (add slave into the units you want them to be able to build)

Originally Posted by FactionHeir

Two things you need to do to make slaves a challenge:

1. In the descr_campaign_ai_db.xml copy all decision entries from <faction_ai_label name="default"> (except the cases concerning slaves) into the section where it reads

Code: [View]

	/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
	// SLAVE FACTION AI PARAMS.  THEY DON'T REALLY DO ANYTHING //
	/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

2. Edit the export_descr_buildings.txt so that slaves can build buildings (i.e. add slave into most of the buildings) and train troops (add slave into the units you want them to be able to build)

Nice one! Thanks. Just out of interest, have you done this? If so, what's your thoughts? Is it worth the effort?

If this is implemented well, this can actually make the campaign alot harder since it would make players think twice blitzing and leaving their inner cities nearly unprotected with half stacks of rebel troops roaming about ready to besiege any weak city they encounter

Another question, why should I care about Rebels being around my territory? I always eliminate them but I often see the Computer not doing anything with them. I know they block my movement often but their has to be a better reason to take them out.

The devastation gets you right in the wallet, and, if they're sitting on a road, they block trade as well.

Originally Posted by Jambo

Nice one! Thanks. Just out of interest, have you done this? If so, what's your thoughts? Is it worth the effort?

Nope haven't actually tried it yet. Not that much time to play these days either, so mainly working on minor moddings. Its easy and quick enough to change though, so try and see if it works :)

I should note that there is no way to make the rebels gain family members/generals btw as thats probably hardcoded in terms of who can get them. You could add general's bodyguard as a recruitable unit to one of the buildings though.

Originally Posted by doorknobdeity

The devastation gets you right in the wallet, and, if they're sitting on a road, they block trade as well.

The trade block becomes very significant when they are sitting on the road to your port, as it affects all the seatrade.

It would be nice if this could be made into a self-installing mod for us non-technical types. I would really love to see a "Difficulty" mod come out after the official 1.2 is released that includes a script that gives more money to the AI and active rebels.

I actually finished earlier to set up said aggressive rebels but didn't notice much in my current scot campaign as all territories have been taking by true factions already.
If someone wants, I could email them the files...

Originally Posted by FactionHeir

I actually finished earlier to set up said aggressive rebels but didn't notice much in my current scot campaign as all territories have been taking by true factions already.
If someone wants, I could email them the files...

Haven't really noticed the rebels doing anything with your new files either... maybe it's not so simple...?

Well they still seem rather passive, but at least they are building now and recruiting the occassional militia unit or two :)