"Rebel" City States becoming allies

[Macilrille]

I am sorry if this has been adressed elsewhere, I do not seem to be able to find the "Search" option for the forum, if indeed there is one.

Historically many of Rome's neighbouring tribes and city states from even the struggle for Latium to the time of Trajan, became allies and slowly annexed into the Pax Romana without being warred. And the last King of Pergamon passed his realm on to the Romani...

In EB all these city states and tribal territories are represented by Rebels and has to be fought to submission it seems, is this so? Has the "bandwagoning" effect not been taken into account is this excellent and very historical mod? I certainly hope so, but how to get that effect then? Conquering and heavily romanising and garrisioning neighbouring territories does not seem to help...

[Ludens]

I am afraid this is beyond the power of the engine to simulate. This cannot be modded, in other words. You'll have to conquer them by force, or use diplomacy.

[Subotan]

I.e. bribe.

[Dayve]

Bribing is the only way to simulate it.

Problem is, a rebel city with a 5 star general (most of the generals in rebel cities have many command stars, management scrolls and influence wreaths) as well as a large garrison (which most of them have at least 10 units, not counting the governor) would cost hundreds of thousands of denarii to bribe.

When you consider that a single unit of, say, rebel Akontistai that appear as brigands sometimes cost as much as 15,000 to bribe, imagine how much a rebel city with a good governor and large garrison will cost?

Imagine trying to bribe Bononia with its 8 star general and 12-15 unit stack of Gaesatae and light cavalry and whatnot. You'd probably need half a million.

If you wanted to roleplay it i suppose you could use the add money cheat to add a million minai, bribe the city, then use the remove money cheat to return your treasury back to what it was before, but it's a lot of messing around really.

The point of this mod is to change history, not mimic it exactly. Although you can mimic it and there's nothing wrong with that, may as well just change it and conquer these cities.

Roleplay it as a war, then put in an allied government with a puppet governor, then as time goes on demolish the government structure and make it a lightly romanized province, then a type 2, then eventually, if available, type 1.

[Macilrille]

Sad :-(

Bribe yes, but
1) they are damn expensive
2) That was not what the Romans did, it was a natural effect of what is known in International Politics as Bandwagoning, IE chosing to side with the major power.

Did the vanilla game not have Cyrenaica joining Macedonia if the latter became sufficiently powerful?


Oh well, if you say it cannot be done, it cannot be done...

[/Bean\]

I use the gameplay to roleplay alliances between empires and rebel cities, such as the Romans with Massilia or Pergamon, by transporting an army there with the move_character, using auto_win attacker, then making it a type 4 government and recruiting local troops. I let it build its own stuff and recruit its own units, but if its attacked it can easily be roleplayed as me coming to an allies aid. Easy.

[theoldbelgian]

Sad :-(

Bribe yes, but
1) they are damn expensive
2) That was not what the Romans did, it was a natural effect of what is known in International Politics as Bandwagoning, IE chosing to side with the major power.

Did the vanilla game not have Cyrenaica joining Macedonia if the latter became sufficiently powerful?


Oh well, if you say it cannot be done, it cannot be done...

nope cyrenaica rebelled to the macedonians if the egyptians took over and let it rebel

[SwissBarbar]

to the makedonians? in my game they rebelled to the seleukids. are there more than 1 possible faction (apart from the eleutheroi) per city to rebel to?

[/Bean\]

They've always rebelled to the Makedonians in earlier versions in my experience, and the AS after 1.0

[C.LVCIANVS]

Sad :-(

Bribe yes, but
1) they are damn expensive
2) That was not what the Romans did, it was a natural effect of what is known in International Politics as Bandwagoning, IE chosing to side with the major power.

Did the vanilla game not have Cyrenaica joining Macedonia if the latter became sufficiently powerful?


Oh well, if you say it cannot be done, it cannot be done...

I've had a strange idea, playing with bi.exe... Religion?

I don't know if there's a max limit of different religions allowed by the game, but creating a sort of "political religion" or ideology for each faction in the game, with character traits (eg. "Roman", "Ptolemaic", "Pontic", "Macedon" ect.) and buildings (factional temples or government types) spreading "political influence" in bordering enemy provinces, causing unrest & revolts if not managed properly... The same things of vanilla BI, briefly...

It would be possible to "convert" Massilian greeks in a "gens togata", leaving some spies, diplomats, generals with a high conversion value trait for some years in their province...


But it would be a very long & hard work to do...

[icydawgfish]

I've had a strange idea, playing with bi.exe... Religion?

I don't know if there's a max limit of different religions allowed by the game, but creating a sort of "political religion" or ideology for each faction in the game, with character traits (eg. "Roman", "Ptolemaic", "Pontic", "Macedon" ect.) and buildings (factional temples or government types) spreading "political influence" in bordering enemy provinces, causing unrest & revolts if not managed properly... The same things of vanilla BI, briefly...

It would be possible to "convert" Massilian greeks in a "gens togata", leaving some spies, diplomats, generals with a high conversion value trait for some years in their province...


But it would be a very long & hard work to do...

That would be interesting because I know in IBFD they added in more than the default 3 religions. They have Christianity, Paganism, Zoroastrianism, some other eastern religion, and Judaism. I think it would be a good idea for a mini mod and would perhaps control AI expansion. Like for the "religion" system, you could have:

Roman (Rome)
Hellenic (KH, Maks, Seleucids, Ptolemies, Pontos*, Baktria, Saka*)
Eastern (Hayasdan, Pontos*, Parthia*,)
Western 'Barbarian' (Averni, Adeui, Lusotanna, Casse, Sweboz, Getai*)
Steppe (Sauromatae, Saka*, Parthia*)
Semetic* (Carthage, Saba)


I put stars next to some of the because those factions can be classified as two or more categories or some form of change occurs via reforms or historically. Regarding the star next to Semetic, that's because those two factions could possibly be considered Eastern. I especially like the way XGM simulates culture. Each province has a building in it giving it a native culture. It is easily held by a faction of the same culture but not by one of an opposing culture. Lets say the Romans capture a settlement in Gaul though, they can keep a garrison there and build a colony building (3 part building tree) and temples to convert the province to Roman culture. Just an idea.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Playing as Rome:

With Rebel cities that I want to make allies, my preferred method is to let another faction conquer them, then I go charging to the rescue and kick out the attackers. Then the people are so grateful they willingly become my allies, and I install a type IV government, and garrison with locally raised troops.

If the AI isn't obliging enough to conquer them for me, then I have to do it myself. Sometimes I can simulate a 'local' war by having one of my other allied cities attack the target. This other ally will use non-Roman troops, so I can 'pretend' that Rome isn't involved at this stage of the game. My other ally will attack with inadequate forces and get themselves defeated by the Elutheroi garrison of the target (this defeat is simulating an Elutheroi attack on my other ally, because the Elutheroi garrison is launching a sortie on the weaker besiegers.) Now Rome is 'forced' to intervene to support her other ally, and defeat the Elutheroi. Target taken, Type IV government installed, job done.

[Ludens]

to the makedonians? in my game they rebelled to the seleukids. are there more than 1 possible faction (apart from the eleutheroi) per city to rebel to?

Yes. Every independent city has a founder faction and a owner faction. At the start of the game, the town will rebel to the founder faction. However, if the eleutheroi upgrade the governor's residence, the town will rebel to the owner faction. If another faction conquers it and upgrades the governor's residence, it will rebel to that faction.

I've had a strange idea, playing with bi.exe... Religion?

I don't know if there's a max limit of different religions allowed by the game, but creating a sort of "political religion" or ideology for each faction in the game, with character traits (eg. "Roman", "Ptolemaic", "Pontic", "Macedon" ect.) and buildings (factional temples or government types) spreading "political influence" in bordering enemy provinces, causing unrest & revolts if not managed properly... The same things of vanilla BI, briefly...

It would be possible to "convert" Massilian greeks in a "gens togata", leaving some spies, diplomats, generals with a high conversion value trait for some years in their province...

IIRC there is a maximum of seven religions, so it's possible. However, the EB team rejected it because the rate of conversion is unrealistically fast even at its lowest setting. Cultural transformation takes many years, and even after 400 centuries of Roman rule, Gaul was still recognizably Celtic.

[C.LVCIANVS]

Cultural transformation takes many years, and even after 400 centuries of Roman rule, Gaul was still recognizably Celtic.

"400 centuries"? A very strong heritage indeed. Gaesatae always looked a bit "Neandertalian" to me.
Sorry Ludens, I didn't resist.

7 religions... greek (maks, ptoleis, koinon, seleucid, baktria, epeiros), roman, celtic (aedui, arverni, casse, luso), eastern (saba, hay, pontus), nomad (saka, sauro, parthia), germanic (sweboz, getai) and punic ?

[Atraphoenix]

In MTW serials It is quite funny to able to assimilate Rome to Islam in less than 20 years and of course it is same to christianize Middle east