The Pickaxe of Politics

[PershsNhpios]

Aye, the Pickaxe of Political Perversion, a prickly pinch we use to pressure a pasty prince from his place of pride!

How sharply does this tool strike in Medieval: Total War?

Is it possible to create a cave of turbulence within the chest of a kingdom, that will burst through the ribcage of it's king?

As a technicality, I am talking of the disappointing account of Rome: Total War, in which you could assassinate, or defeat in battle, far over thirty successive rulers of a particular cultural idiom, and unless you poached their territory and relieved them of provinces, such a thiefdom would never suffer unrest.

I know that, politically, nations in MTW are far more tottering and unstable, which I love the sound of - that civil wars are very much an active occurrence and that they can destroy any province.
But I wish to know the different ways such evil treachery can be machinated.

As an example, if Rome: Total War had the workings of MTW to show, and I, as the Antigonid dynasty, made a punitive drive into the Seleukid Empire by landing in Syria, and pushing east of Antiocheia through Parapotamia and finishing in Lesser Armenia - would I, by splitting the empire in two - throw everything into great chaos and destory this faction?

In RTW, the faction still having over ten provinces on either side of me, would simply overwhelm my expedition, and even if I destroyed everything of worth and exterminated the entire population before retreating from the provinces - the Empire would recover almost immediately, with no apparent damage..

In fact, the game would probably create 5 full stacks of well experienced freedmen - as well as immediately recreating all lost buildings.

That is where I lose my immersion - one of the main reasons I have deserted to MTW.
Which thankfully, after a long fight, I will have tomorrow!

Could someone put my fears and curiosity to death?

[Tratorix]

Civil unrest in MTW basically takes 2 forms, rebellions and civil wars. A rebelion has a chance to occur whanever a province's loyalty drops below 100%. This is contained within a province and can take the form of a peasant uprising, religious revolt or loyalist rebellion. This is contained within one province. Civil wars are a much larger problem. A civil war is triggered when a number of the factions generals have low loyalty. If there are enough low loyalty generals, they will split away from the faction becoming rebels. This usually happens when the faction leader has low influence or if the leader has just died and a weaker king has taken the throne. Civil wars vary in size depending on how many generals rebel against the crown.

As an example, if Rome: Total War had the workings of MTW to show, and I, as the Antigonid dynasty, made a punitive drive into the Seleukid Empire by landing in Syria, and pushing east of Antiocheia through Parapotamia and finishing in Lesser Armenia - would I, by splitting the empire in two - throw everything into great chaos and destory this faction?

The scenario you describe here wouldn't necessarily destroy the faction entirely, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it at least cause some rebellions. Province loyalty is determined by several factors, garrison size, tax levels, the provincial govenors stats and proximity to the faction leader. That last factor is particularly important. By cutting your enemies provinces off from their leader, you make the chance of rebellion in these provinces far higher, especially if your opponent has a particularly large empire. Loss of provinces to these rebellions would drive down the leaders influence, causing his generals loyalty to drop and possibly even causing a civil war. In this way, MTW gives you a lot more options then RTW. A few quick strikes against even a much larger enemy can cause large amounts of unrest, weakening your enemy and pulling their attention away from you.

[Martok]

A civil war is triggered when a number of the factions generals have low loyalty. If there are enough low loyalty generals, they will split away from the faction becoming rebels. This usually happens when the faction leader has low influence or if the leader has just died and a weaker king has taken the throne. Civil wars vary in size depending on how many generals rebel against the crown.

A quick addendum: A civil war can also occur if your faction leader dies without a direct heir (i.e., he has no sons or brothers over the age of 16), but has two (or more) "royal generals" running around the kingdom -- this represents multiple claimants trying to sieze the now-vacant throne. Good times for everyone.

[sharpshooter]

Rebellions and civil wars are a common feature of MTW, especially with factions such as the HRE, the Islamic factions, and any empire that's grown very large. There are a variety of ways you can encourage this, and I predict you will be satisfied by MTW on this score.

As Martok noted, conquering provinces from another faction reduces the Influence of the King, which is a key component in the loyalty of generals and the loyalty of provinces. I have seen Kings reduced to an Influence of 1 or 0 after a succession of losses, and that Influence won't recover unless they conquer in turn, or mount a successful crusade, or some such.

That said, a civil war in these circumstances still requires a low loyalty general, ideally a member of the royal family, but not in line for the throne. Rebellions may anyway occur.

Loss of influence from a failed crusade may also cause civil war like this.

Killing a rival factions agents - emissaries for example - also causes a one point Influence drop, though by itself usually isn't enough to cause civil war.

Key provinces for a faction frequently cause civil war when conquered - e.g. Arabia for the Egyptians, Austria or Burgundy for the HRE, Flanders for the French.

Excommunication is another frequent cause of both civil war and rebellions. This usually comes about from prolonged attack on another catholic faction - the Pope will first give a warning - or invading a Papal province.

The death of a King is another cause - usually because the new king, again, has low Influence. Character flaws from the v&v's (vices and virtues) such Strange, Drinker, Chinless Wonder or 0 Acumen will further reduce Influence.

Spies placed in unprotected provinces will produce rebellions sooner or later, which may be loyalist rebellions in favour of the previous owner of the province.

In short, yes, MTW does give full reign to corrupting and pulling down another faction through civil war and rebellion, fomented in a variety of ways. Often a series of conquests against another faction if it is large will produce just the effect you desire.

Be warned - all these things can happen to your faction!

[King Kurt]

Inducing civil war is a favoured tactic of mine. Check the faction leader's influence - if it 3 or below, try to hit at least 3 provinces at once. That is often all you need to tip the faction over into civil war. This seems particuarly effective after the death of a leader - the new boy often has a low influence. Once the revolt starts, look to bribe some rebels - usually a cheap source of good troops.

[caravel]

Inducing civil war is a favoured tactic of mine. Check the faction leader's influence - if it 3 or below, try to hit at least 3 provinces at once. That is often all you need to tip the faction over into civil war. This seems particuarly effective after the death of a leader - the new boy often has a low influence. Once the revolt starts, look to bribe some rebels - usually a cheap source of good troops.

Any rebels resulting from a civil war are your former units. No new rebels are created in the provinces by the civil war.

[macsen rufus]

One other thing (if anyone has mentioned it already, blame my speed-reading ): faction re-emergences can also occur. Generally speaking any province a faction had owned before being wiped out is a potential site for a re-emergence if its loyalty drops below 120% (note 120 NOT 100 for re-emergences - so always allow a margin). This is worth remembering when you are trying to foment rebellion in a large enemy empire, as you may not get what you expected! It's one thing making a single stack of peasants crop up to give your enemy a hard time, but when instead there are 5 stacks of top-flight troops in a faction re-emergence, your plans to quickly snap up the province can be thwarted.

Another useful trick - depending on whether you're already at war with the faction you're trying to destabilise, and whether the opportunity presents itself - is to isolate the enemy king by sea blockade, as this gives a huge "communication" penalty to his empire (he can't reach it, so the loyalty plummets). Even if it's only for a single year, the damage can be severe. This is but one of many reasons not to send your own king on an all-expenses paid, self-catering holiday in Malta

[King Kurt]

Any rebels resulting from a civil war are your former units. No new rebels are created in the provinces by the civil war.

Carvel

The civil wars I am inducing are in another faction not my own - I work very hard to avoid those!!

Just noticed - post 700 - so nice to do that on the boards looked after by my old friend Martok

[caravel]

Carvel

The civil wars I am inducing are in another faction not my own - I work very hard to avoid those!!

Just noticed - post 700 - so nice to do that on the boards looked after by my old friend Martok

*slaps self*

Sorry King Kurt, I wasn't paying attention. Good to see you back again btw.

[Ironside]

Inducing civil war is a favoured tactic of mine. Check the faction leader's influence - if it 3 or below, try to hit at least 3 provinces at once. That is often all you need to tip the faction over into civil war. This seems particuarly effective after the death of a leader - the new boy often has a low influence. Once the revolt starts, look to bribe some rebels - usually a cheap source of good troops.

New leaders also lack things like great builder and the like.

Also breaking an alliance thruogh war costs 1 influence. Always fun when the AI falls into civil war because they fail that cheap attack on you.

[sharpshooter]

Breaking an alliance through war costs 1 Influence?

I never knew that - was always annoyed that the AI factions seemed able to do this without penalty.

[Martok]

Carvel

The civil wars I am inducing are in another faction not my own - I work very hard to avoid those!!

Which is both funny & ironic, as I personally enjoy deliberately triggering civil wars in my own kingdom. Whenever I've reached that "steamroller phase" (where your faction has become huge & nigh-unstoppable), it's not uncommon for me to end up with a low-Influence "do-nothing" faction leader who's just resting on the laurels of his forefathers. I find this is often a good time to find a low-loyalty general who might decide to usurp the throne for himself, as I'm then able to replace my crappy king with a good one. Besides which, it also helps spice up a game that has grown boring and dull -- there's nothing like having a good civil war to force you to re-conquer half your empire (and sometimes having to deal with faction re-emergences as well)!

Just noticed - post 700 - so nice to do that on the boards looked after by my old friend Martok

Congrats, mate.

[Martok]

Breaking an alliance through war costs 1 Influence?

Correct -- the penalty applies to the human player and AI players alike.

On the flip side, your influece goes *up* by a point when relieving an ally's province under siege.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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As a technicality, I am talking of the disappointing account of Rome: Total War, in which you could assassinate, or defeat in battle, far over thirty successive rulers of a particular cultural idiom, and unless you poached their territory and relieved them of provinces, such a thiefdom would never suffer unrest.

Faction leader/Faction heir is an unfeature in RTW. They could be made into a feature by traits and scripting but I couldn't persuade even the best mod team to do that.
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[caravel]

Some of the biggest flaws of RTW (dodgy AI and diplomacy aside for the moment) are it's lack of the loyalty, dread and piety stats for generals, as well as the lack of civil wars and individual generals with manually assigned titles for the governorship. They should have left it as it was in MTW.

[Bregil the Bowman]

Not being a player of RTW, I am guessing, but I would think religion is less of a factor in rebellion. In MTW you can de-stabilise a province by converting its citizens and/or raising zeal if the governor is not a co-religionist (or not a good one anyway).

[caravel]

Not being a player of RTW, I am guessing, but I would think religion is less of a factor in rebellion. In MTW you can de-stabilise a province by converting its citizens and/or raising zeal if the governor is not a co-religionist (or not a good one anyway).

There is no religion in RTW, only temples that have numerous effects but none of which are religious.

Religion was implemented in BI but I haven't much experience of it. BI puts me off as it just looks like a cheap RTW mod. Also there are catholic priests units in BI that actually go to the battlefield and chant (like the druids in RTW), which I find nothing short of ridiculous.

[sharpshooter]

Re Religion in RTW BI - it does have big impact. I don't know about RTW vanilla - maybe they added it in.

Having a ruler or governor with a different religious culture - e.g. Roman, Barbarian, Zoroastrian, produced religious unrest - sometimes severe. When a territory was conquered the original temple remained. The unrest intensified if you demolished it and built a new temple from your own culture straight away so there was a quandary about unrest and conversion rates.

It was a bit tricky to manage, and took longer, I recall, to reach a conversion level that lowered the unrest. However, the AI took into account the number of family members (generals) and agents you had in a province to modify unrest generally. There were no separate priest agents.

So, all those untalented family members ended up standing around behind the main army - while being careful their v&v's didn't upset things more. At least they had something to do ...

[caravel]

Re Religion in RTW BI - it does have big impact. I don't know about RTW vanilla - maybe they added it in.

It was not added into Vanilla. It is possible that the developer saw religion as less relevant in that period compared to the age of Christianity.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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I suppose many of the left out features of vanilla RTW were result of mere forgetfulness.
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