rebels keep bribing away my armies

[Mikeus Caesar]

This is really starting to . Countless times i have built an army, only for it to turn to the rebels once i have finished it. A shining example would be just now where i was playing as Venice.

The Mongol Hordes are banging at the gates, laying siege to Durazzo, and my large army of Venetian Archers, Venetian Heavy Infantry, Feudal Knights, Dis Men-at-Arms and the crowning glory, three Bombards and a Mortar had finally been completed to face up to the threat once and for all. So the turn i had finished them i set them off from Ragusa to go and fight the Mongol Leader and his mighty army at Durazzo, and what happens next turn?

THEY GO OVER TO THE REBELS AFTER I SPENT WHAT LITTLE MONEY I HAD LEFT ON BUILDING THEM!

Now the campaign is as good as lost, but this isn't the first time it's happened. It happened in my Danish campaign, when i was about to stand up against Poland and HRE, it has happened in more than half the campaigns i have done, and it is bloody well making me lose my rag with this game.

And don't tell me this is a 'feature' of the game. I have tried bribing over rebel peasants with no loyalty only to be told they won't, or if they will it will cost 10000 florins, so then the bankrupt rebels manage to get my army first time round and can somehow afford it.

I'm sorry, but this doesn't add-up, and if it happens one more time, i can tell you this - MTW2 had better be good for firewood if not for playing!

[Lusted]

They're not being bribed, they're rebelling. Armies not led by a general have a good chance of rebelling, and if your leader has low authority an even greater chance.

[Mikeus Caesar]

They're not being bribed, they're rebelling. Armies not led by a general have a good chance of rebelling, and if your leader has low authority an even greater chance.

Either way it's annoying

[Zarky]

Why do you hire so expensive armies and then set them off without general?
I always keep General with important troops, just for occasions like that.
And good generals help in battle giving +morale to help your poor troops surviving intimidating charge of the enemy and their dreadful generals.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Why do you hire so expensive armies and then set them off without general?
I always keep General with important troops, just for occasions like that.
And good generals help in battle giving +morale to help your poor troops surviving intimidating charge of the enemy and their dreadful generals.

The spare generals i had were stuck on Crete due to a naval blockade, and if i hadn't stopped the Mongols at Durazzo my empire would be split in two.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

If you don't want armies to rebel simply add ; in front of rebelling characters active in descr_strat (located in data/world/campaign). This will stop any army to rebel.

Doing this will have two advantages.
First; this will help the AI. I had many AI armies led by a captain rebel. This can be very annoying because they even rebel during sieges or after a long march. It is very stupid to have an enemy army wandering forty years through the desert (coming from Cairo) to attack Tripoli only to rebel the next turn.

Second; I can have a army guard a river crossing without being at risk that the complete army suddenly rebels. I haven't changed my stile of playing because all my armies are still commanded by a loyal general.

Before I changed the descr_strat I have had only two armies rebellions ever. One was a lone general that I was moving to a other castle and I forgot him. The other army was an elite army (with a very loyal general) waiting next to Caen that I just had formed and that rebelled after only one turn

[Daveybaby]

Either way it's annoying

Its a feature of the game - learn to deal with it.

(1) Keep generals with your armies.
(2) If you have a 'supply route' where youre regularly ferrying fresh troops out to the frontlines (and cycling depleted units back for retraining) then it can be worthwhile building a chain of forts to give your troops safe stopping off points along the way.

[Doug-Thompson]

If I was shipped off toward an invading Mongol horde, I might rebel too.

Anyway, ditto on Daveybaby's advice. Just be sure and garrison the forts or they go away. I use cheap, depleted units, leftovers from sieges. Leftover bits of religious fanatics from Crusades/Jihads work nicely, since you can't rebuild them anyway.

Also, units being transported by ships don't rebel.

[Stuperman]

will such armies rebel if they are in a fort?

as Monsieur Alphonse pointed out this 'feature' makes gaurding river crossings and bridges basically impossible.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

will such armies rebel if they are in a fort?

No. But forts are deathtraps. If an army is inside a fort there is not enough space for them so enemies outside a fort have easy pickings with siege equipment/archers.

[HoreTore]

The solution is extremely simple: increase the authority of your king. I never have a king with less than about 6-7 authority, and I've never been bothered with rebellions. The second thing I do, is as far as it is possible, always have a general leading my stacks.

[TosaInu]

Hello,

Sorry for having your posts appear to be edited. The topictitle needed to be adjusted, and so all re: posts. Post 2-11 only have adjusted titles.

Please continue the discussion.

[Doug-Thompson]

Re: forts as deathtraps.

A valid point, but Daveybaby was arguing for a chain of forts useful for relaying troops, not as a place to put a large army without a general.

For instance, I have a fort between Bran and Budapest in my current Hungarian campaign. Castle units from Bran get to Budapest in two turns with no desertion risk. The chances that this fort in the middle of the empire will get attacked are slim and none.

[rvg]

I agree that the rebelling army feature is retarded. Personaly, I edited it out long time ago.

You'd think a captain should be capable of guarding a friking bridge without rebelling, no?

[Daveybaby]

@Doug - yeah, i'm purely talking about shuffling small support stacks back and forth, if its an actual combat stack then it will *always* have a general with it.

No. But forts are deathtraps. If an army is inside a fort there is not enough space for them so enemies outside a fort have easy pickings with siege equipment/archers.

I've never really found this to be the case. There's nothing stopping you from charging out of the fort and taking it to the enemy, and if you out archer/siege them anyway its hardly an issue. Theyre only deathtraps if youre outnumbered, and you sit there and wait for them to come to you.

Regardless, if you have a large stack guarding a critical location then it should have a general with the stack. Full stop. While HoreTore's approach of having a high authority king sounds workable, its not my cup of tea, partly because i cant be be bothered to micromanage my king's/general's personalities, and partly because your king could die at any time, and if his successor has low authority, then you could suddenly find yourself in a very deep mess indeed.

@rvg - i guess you could edit out every aspect of the game that forced you to plan your strategies, but then it wouldnt be much of a strategy game. I dont supposed its occurred to anyone that one of the probable reasons CA introduced this feature was precisely to stop people from doing boring things like sticking a full stack in every easily defended choke point around their empire?

Actually, the biggest problem i find is, say, when youre a far western nation, trying to take over the middle east. It can be quite a pain to keep enough generals over there, since all of the new ones tend to appear in your home provinces - every now and then i have to ship over 3 or 4 generals to top up due to deaths from old age or combat. Quite a trek even by ship. At one point in my spanish campaign i somehow managed to lose all of my generals in the middle east, which stopped my expansion over there dead, and severely limited my ability to defend myself by taking out incoming eggy stacks at tactically favourable locations - at least until i could ship more generals out there.

Personally, i look on these sorts of problems as 'fun gameplay'.

[Didz]

You'd think a captain should be capable of guarding a friking bridge without rebelling, no?

No! history is full of stories of Captain and their equivalent who decided that it was in their best interests to sell the bridge rather than waste their lives defending it.

The period of history we are trying to simulate was particularly renown for betrayals, double crosses and sensible decisions on the part of various trusted minions.

Some of which cost Kings their crowns.

Personally, I'm really fussy about who I trust in my games, I'd rather my daughter died an old maid than let her marry a man with low loyalty, and if I get a guy with low loyalty he goes nowhere without an escort and he certainly never commands a key army or garrison.

Basically, he's just a unit of heavy cavalry as far as I'm concerned no matter how clever he is, in fact especially if he's clever.

[andrewt]

I've rarely had armies rebel. It's usually near the endgame when I'm sending troops from the back lines to the front lines. I usually just reload. The end game in the TW series is just a bit too tedious.

I rarely have a problem with not enough generals at the late game. I usually have stacks of 3-5 generals in my homeland to attack bandits and auto-resolve. They self replenish so I don't have to bother bringing them up to full strength after auto-resolving a battle. They also move fast so they get to roam and kill bandits quickly. I just put all the new generals I get to a stack like this and pull one out (preferably young) when I need somebody to lead an army. I don't get to be bothered fighting bandits for half an hour every 5 or so turns at the end, either.

[rvg]

...i guess you could edit out every aspect of the game that forced you to plan your strategies, but then it wouldnt be much of a strategy game. I dont supposed its occurred to anyone that one of the probable reasons CA introduced this feature was precisely to stop people from doing boring things like sticking a full stack in every easily defended choke point around their empire?...

RTW didn't have that feature and it didn't make RTW any less of a strategy game. Sticking a full stack into an easily defended chokepoint is simply playing smart. In fact, if the chokepoint is important enough, I'd even stick a general in that stack. Anyhow, that feature adds nothing to the gameplay. In all the time I played M2TW I only lost a captain stack to rebellion once or twice, but the very idea that a captain on my payroll would randomly desert out of the blue is just stupid. Anyhow, the main beneficiary of removing this advanced, highly realistic and crucially important feature is the A.I. who happens to love captain stacks.

[HoreTore]

While HoreTore's approach of having a high authority king sounds workable, its not my cup of tea, partly because i cant be be bothered to micromanage my king's/general's personalities, and partly because your king could die at any time, and if his successor has low authority, then you could suddenly find yourself in a very deep mess indeed.

Having high authority isn't hard at all. You have 2 from the faction leader trait, you'll get 2 more from either honourable or merciless leader(depending on whether you're dreadful or chivalrous), which is easy to get by either joining a crusade or building some spies and assassins. I use my king often as a general, and that will inevitably lead to some scars, giving him another point. And finally, you'll usually have the 6th or 7th point from some random trait, like anger or political promise. I start training him when he becomes the faction heir. Also, due to his huge bodyguard, he rarely dies in battle, and the age is pretty easy to figure out, after he turns 60 I just presume him dead.

Also, I don't leave a lot of stacks without generals, of course... I usually only do it when I'm moving troops about, and sometimes when I send a small raiding party.

[WesW]

If you don't want armies to rebel simply add ; in front of rebelling characters active in descr_strat (located in data/world/campaign). This will stop any army to rebel.

Doing this will have two advantages.
First; this will help the AI. I had many AI armies led by a captain rebel. This can be very annoying because they even rebel during sieges or after a long march. It is very stupid to have an enemy army wandering forty years through the desert (coming from Cairo) to attack Tripoli only to rebel the next turn.

Second; I can have a army guard a river crossing without being at risk that the complete army suddenly rebels. I haven't changed my stile of playing because all my armies are still commanded by a loyal general.

Before I changed the descr_strat I have had only two armies rebellions ever. One was a lone general that I was moving to a other castle and I forgot him. The other army was an elite army (with a very loyal general) waiting next to Caen that I just had formed and that rebelled after only one turn

Thank you for the outcommenting tip. My last game was the first with the 2nd patch, and there was a time when my second king had just come to power where the game was almost unplayable due to units constantly "going native", as I called it. And, as funny as it was when that 12-unit Spanish army went native on Corsica, I don't figure that this feature is very good for the game overall, since the AI seems to use mostly captains for its attack stacks, much less for chasing down brigands (which can take several turns since autoresolve usually leaves enough escaped soldiers to flee without routing).

[ergothead]

Actually, the biggest problem i find is, say, when youre a far western nation, trying to take over the middle east. It can be quite a pain to keep enough generals over there, since all of the new ones tend to appear in your home provinces - every now and then i have to ship over 3 or 4 generals to top up due to deaths from old age or combat. Quite a trek even by ship. At one point in my spanish campaign i somehow managed to lose all of my generals in the middle east, which stopped my expansion over there dead, and severely limited my ability to defend myself by taking out incoming eggy stacks at tactically favourable locations - at least until i could ship more generals out there.

Personally, i look on these sorts of problems as 'fun gameplay'.

Send a general over who has a lot of sons. I try to send at least 2 generals on my first crusade... if I can spare them.

added after edit:
I also don't want too many generals over there as I tend to give some of the lands to the pope as a buffer/relations things.

[Ars Moriendi]

I don't think I have had armies rebelling more than 2-3 times per campaign until now, so I tend to look at this feature as "random harmless fun". I don't go out of my way to take preventive actions, it's just that having armies go to frontline without generals doesn't feel right so I don't do it ; try to camp in forts - just for the historical make believe ; and I make a point to send my heirs crusading or at least being heroes on the front which I guess helps with their authority.

Now, for some "we were poor" monty python flashback...
"try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe you"
Complaining about a mere annoyance like this, we seem to be forgetting the really nasty penalties in MTW for lack of leadership and low loyalty : civil wars, where half of your empire will turn against the other ; loyalist rebellions, where 2-3 of your provinces will turn to some long dead enemy of yours, spawning several stacks of elite troops (2 tiers above the current tech level) ; and some added fun for the influence of your king , where cutting him of from the rest of the empire would result instantly in half of the map rebelling...

[Monsieur Alphonse]

If you edit the feature out is a personal taste. I did it to try if it worked. As I wrote in my first post I almost never lost armies through a rebellion. My armies that guard the river crossings were full stacks under the command of a very loyal general. Besides that I like to fight the enemy in the open. The guards at the river are there for stopping the AI strolling through my country side. For me the benefit is:

1. Having a large empire can cause a human player to forget about a small stack or lone general. If you don't move the general or the stack for too long there is a possibility for them to rebel.

2. And this is the most important. It is helping the AI. Before I removed this feature I had numerous AI attacks by captain lead armies that rebelled after the first attack. This means that you are at war with an enemy that has lost its army that attacked you. An army that is besieging one of your towns and that rebels, stops the siege and just sits over there.

So in the end it is just a matter of taste.