Hooo boy, I sure am tired of killing rebels!!!

[Satyr]

I sure wish I could actually engage my enemies! Instead I am spending most of my resources fighting rebels. As the Parthians I actually had to kill 11 rebel stacks in 2 1/2 years last night. This is totally out of balance. I would like to finish off the Selucids but every turn I have 2 or 3 new rebel stacks pop up. Is there anything I can do to discourage rebels?

[Barbarian King]

*kill population
*entetaiment
*public health bonuses
*mod away.................

[lars573]

*kill population
*entetaiment
*public health bonuses
*mod away.................

Or just ignore them. Rebels popping up are both a result of and a cause of unrest. But ignore the rebels and go spank the seleucids when you win a few major battles the rebels will not appear as much.

[Colovion]

I like agressive rebels which popup frequently. If it's in a province which is well above 130% though, then that's rather odd.

I've never figured out what the whole percentile thing means, though. It's no longer working in percent when it gets over 100% - so you really have no knowledge of how many of the citizens are loyal to you, just some odd number that the closer to 200% it gets, the better. I'd much rather a more accurate and more trustworthy scale that only goes to 100%, and has the possibility to have decimals. When you have 10% of the population who aren't loyal, it's very possible that some rebels might even take their loyalties and attempt to undermine your authority.

The game is too easy already, more agressive rebels are a must for me.

[Satyr]

I am winning major battles. I have eliminated the Armenians, taken some Selucid towns and am constantly slaughtering Egyptian armies that invade my territory. I have 'epic battle' signs all over the place. My LEAST happy province has NO rebels ever. All of my provinces are at least yellow and the ones with the worst rebel uprisings have the highest happiness, so are we sure that unrest causes rebels?

[Maltz]

You can bribe captain-led rebels with a incredibly cheap price even on VH. For 500 denari you get a HA, an Eastern infantry, some peasant and/or foot archer or something close. They will join you to become your fast reinforcement/garrison companion!

[Red Harvest]

There doesn't seem to be any way to control them. However, if you ignore them, new ones don't seem to appear as often. So if they aren't in the way I tend to ignore them...until I want to train some generals.

[Sin Qua Non]

There was some heresay and conjecture that building forts in rebel heavy areas would stifle the brigand outbreaks. Just pop a single unit in there to keep the fort in place.

[Owen]

There doesn't seem to be any way to control them. However, if you ignore them, new ones don't seem to appear as often. So if they aren't in the way I tend to ignore them...until I want to train some generals.

Don't you get a serious hit on income from devastation if you do that?

[Red Harvest]

Don't you get a serious hit on income from devastation if you do that?

Not if the rebel army isn't particularly large. And since a new rebel army often seems to appear on the next turn, it doesn't seem to matter which approach I use, I will get about the same amount of devastation. I'm speaking mostly of my experience as barbarian factions. The forest regions and hinterlands are overrun with rebel armies.

[Satyr]

My stupid rebels always seem to camp on my roads. Heck, if I don't deal with them they often cosy right up next to my settlement. The knock to trade and devastation is too high to leave them there. It is hard enough making ends meet as some of these eastern factions particularly when you are sealed off from trading by being at war with all your neighbors.

If the darn Egyptians would only accept a cease fire I would be doing good. It would be a good thing that they are getting overrun by the Selucids for a change except that this is a short campaign and I am supposed to eliminate the Selucids so I really wish they weren't doing so good.

Anyway, I sure am tired of fighting the same stupid fight night after night. My HA against 2 units of eastern infantry, one unit of archers, and one unit of light cav. How many times I have faced the exact same rebel army I can't even imagine! I actually turned my comp off last night as I couldn't face another rebel army. I hope CA tones them down some or I will not play Rome much longer.

[Quillan]

Watch towers SEEM to help, though it can be inconsistant. Playing Egyptian, I had 3 rebel armies appear in a single turn, when I only had 4 provinces. However, since building watch towers that allow me to see everywhere, I rarely have rebels appear. They still show up sometimes, though.

[*Ringo*]

Watch towers SEEM to help, though it can be inconsistant. Playing Egyptian, I had 3 rebel armies appear in a single turn, when I only had 4 provinces. However, since building watch towers that allow me to see everywhere, I rarely have rebels appear. They still show up sometimes, though.

If this is true, i'm going to stop building them! I like fighting rebels, they are good experience for my younger generals. Everything in moderation i suppose tho.

*Ringo*

[phred]

Forts help quite a bit. I had rebels coming through a mountain pass every turn into my Julii province, but after I built a fort in the pass they stopped completely. I would think that a fort (manned with one unit) built in the foggy part of your provinces would help.

[Maltz]

Does anybody have any theory about rebels popping up? So far here are a few experiences - might be inaccurate, though:

(1) Rebels pop up at fixed spots in a given territory - for example, at the end of a bridge. Once appear, a rebel army don't move themselves.

(However, those camped in the rebel city sometimes DO come out to take a walk. A famous example is the settlement just north of Rhode. The cretian archers/slingers always come out to enjoy their sea view. Sometimes those camped in a rebel city also come out and attack weak offenders - I saw one a few days ago.)

(2) Certain areas have a high chance of rebel occurance - perhaps it is linked, but not directly proportional to:

- public order (to be more specific, maybe "unrest level", "distance to capital", and/or "cultural penalty")

- extent of "fog of war" (i.e. more watch towers reduces rebel, I have not experienced this at all, though.)

I wonder whether rebels are like "mercenaries" that has a certain regeneration rate dictated by the above factor (plus a random factor?). So they just regenerate every turn. For areas that are highly rebelious you get rebels every few turns.

(3) Rebel family members seem to mature once in a while. It seems to me that there is a secret family tree running...? But when we play as the rebels we don't see any family trees.

[Sin Qua Non]

I can attest that watchtowers may help the rebel problem, but they won't eliminate it. I often don my insane emperor's hat and send someone out to place watchtowers all over Arabia and Africa, and rebels still show up. The watchtowers just allow me to watch them pop into existence, wave hello, and then distrupt my trade. So don't worry about them disappearing entirely because of watchtowers.

[Lonewarrior]

This is how I deal with the rebel problem. When attacking other lands, I ignore them or bribe them, whichever I'm in the mood for. Or I'll take the city first, 2 turns later, attack them.

[Owen]

Well, my hunch is that the appearance of rebels depends on unrest, or possibly unrest plus culture penalty or something like that. This would explain why you still see rebels in areas near your capital that have that bizarre permanent 15% unrest problem. Mediolanium for the Julii springs to mind here.

I'm not sure that watchtowers help, since I still have quite a few rebels and yet I have watchtowers all over the place. So many that I have encountered a bug where a couple of my watchtowers don't do any watching, and appear dark on the campaign map as if they belong to someone else.

[Red Harvest]

I'm not sure that watchtowers help, since I still have quite a few rebels and yet I have watchtowers all over the place. So many that I have encountered a bug where a couple of my watchtowers don't do any watching, and appear dark on the campaign map as if they belong to someone else.

I'm not sure that it is a bug. It appears to be a legitimate undocumented feature...I think. If you hover over a darkened watchtower, it says that it is your factions tower, but is under the control of another faction. I'm not sure how you establish control of another faction's tower though. I saw this yesterday, and all I did was send a unit out close to it and it reverted back to my control after that.

[ghostcamel]

I'm not sure that it is a bug. It appears to be a legitimate undocumented feature...I think. If you hover over a darkened watchtower, it says that it is your factions tower, but is under the control of another faction. I'm not sure how you establish control of another faction's tower though. I saw this yesterday, and all I did was send a unit out close to it and it reverted back to my control after that.

Hey thats pretty intereting Maybe a spy could steal an enemy tower?

Oh, and ive had Rebels pop up right under a watchtower, so i dont think the towers have any effect on them

[Satyr]

My main areas of difficulty with rebels in this Parthian game are in my capitol province and the ones closest to my capitol. Furthermore, they are the happiest provinces (> 100% on very high taxes). My least happy province is also the furthest away from my capitol and I have NEVER had a rebel army pop up there. So this is quickly getting down to being either entirely random or some propensity for rebels is preprogrammed into the game based on province.

[Torqemada]

I believe the difficulty setting has somthing to do with it. On VH rebels pop up almost every other turn for me, epecially when playing certain factions. As the Scippi I have yet to see a rebel army on Sicily after 20 years of play. Where as with the Germans I can't scrath my butt with out bumping into some pathetic peasent mob. With Germania hardly having two denarii to rub together I found the trade and devastaion hit unbearable and therefor only play them on the hard setting.

I believe each region has a base chance to rebel that can be affected by certain variables such as difficulty setting or proximity to a fort(by the way we dont know if its the fort or the unit inside that keeps rebels from appearing).

IMHO the biggest problem with too many rebels stems not from the game being difficult to play as much as its just freaking ANNOYING! The rebel armies hardy ever present any real challenge. I want to fight worthy opponents like roman legionaires not peasant rabble. And since auto-resolve is a joke I end up having to squash every, last, smelly, cowardly man. Bribing seems like a waste of resources to me. Why spend denarii AND lose out on experience and the chance for VnV? Maybe if gaining units from rebels were more reliable(maybe I am doing it wrong ) I would do it just to add extra citizens by disbanding them in growing cities.

Anyways, enough rambling. Anyone with more province knowledge, feel free to enlighten us.

[ghostcamel]

I have one tip for bribing rebels, i found this in a secret errata file in the Rome folder.

'You must have atleast 2000 denari in your bank to bribe a rebel army. Otherwise, the bribe option wont show up' Not a direct quote.

As to getting armies to convert to your faction more reliably, dont know. But if you want more heirs, of course make sure the rebels are led by a general. I always get the general unit, but usually hes the only one. If i bribe a non-general army, i usually dont get any.

Theres some other rules say you cant get a unit if you cant build an equivalent unit. But im not superclear on this part, so i wont go farther.

[Owen]

I'm not sure that it is a bug. It appears to be a legitimate undocumented feature...I think. If you hover over a darkened watchtower, it says that it is your factions tower, but is under the control of another faction. I'm not sure how you establish control of another faction's tower though. I saw this yesterday, and all I did was send a unit out close to it and it reverted back to my control after that.

I'm pretty sure it's a bug, given that I also had my city Mediolanium suddenly stop seeing any squares around it and also look like a foreign city in the fog of war (with usual square banner showing city owner but not the garrison size). I also lost sight of one of my large armies controlled by a general sat in the square next to it, and clicking on it in the armies tab showed the army at the base of the screen, but just a green circle on terrain that still showed as under fog of war. Then again, that problem seemed to be solved when I moved the three diplomats out who were sat in that city, so maybe that's an entirely different "undocumented feature".

[ToranagaSama]

I sure wish I could actually engage my enemies! Instead I am spending most of my resources fighting rebels. As the Parthians I actually had to kill 11 rebel stacks in 2 1/2 years last night. This is totally out of balance. I would like to finish off the Selucids but every turn I have 2 or 3 new rebel stacks pop up. Is there anything I can do to discourage rebels?

Yup! Just another ANNOYANCE that makes the game "not fun"!!

Some seem to find Rebels useful in order to "build-up" their general's experience. I can appreciate this. My comments are directed toward CA, I, for one, don't really want or need this. There are a number of Mods which raise the bar/trigger for "General's Experience" (Command Stars), making it more difficult to achieve experience/stars. I play one of these mods.

So, in this context what is the point of all the continually re-appearing Rebel stacks? NONE!

Rebel Stacks are a COMPLETE waste of time. IMUHO, they increase the number of battles a player is *compelled* to fight by 25 - 33%. This in a game that already has TOO MANY unecessary and inconsequential battles to begin with; and, the ease by which a player can increase a general's "Experience" is ridiculously easy; as well as being out of balance in relation to the AI(, at least in my limited experience playing the Juii). In my experience it's QUITE rare to face an AI general with equal or greater experience.

Not Fun!

A method is needed allowing the Player to either disable the appearance/re-appearance of Rebels altogether (note, in my context, "Rebels" are separate from "Rebellions") and/or to *adjust* the frequency rate. A "Slider" would be perfect.

[Paul Peru]

(However, those camped in the rebel city sometimes DO come out to take a walk. A famous example is the settlement just north of Rhode. The cretian archers/slingers always come out to enjoy their sea view.

I started a greek campaign the other day. Trying to get off to a good start, I sent all my Rhodean troops to the mainland the 2. turn. Most of the rebel force left the city to smell the rotting algae etc. Not having sufficient forces to attack (beachcombers would have reinforced - killer ranged units...), I waited for the town to surrender. Then it occurred to me to bribe the beach bum rebels. They were quite cheap, and since they were all permissible units for my faction, I got to keep them all. A nice boost to my army at a bargain price... The pop-up rebels are usually lameish units, but an Armenian, say, always needs a population boost, so disbanding peasants in his barren mountain towns is a good option.

[Satyr]

If there is a rebel town and it is generating rebel armies I don't have any problem with that. I just am sick to death of the randomly popping rebel armies. Like ToranagaSama I find them NO FUN to deal with. But I find that as the Parthians anyway I am fighting about 3 or 4 times more battles because of rebels than I would if I was only fighting the enemy factions.

I have actually quit playing Rome for now because of this. I just bought Kohan II and am having a blast. Hopefully an additional patch or two to Rome will bring me back. Otherwise I will go back to playing Medmod MTW instead.

[Colovion]

Once the AI has been fixed to put their armies into a few larger stacks instead of many smaller stacks, then I'm sure the complaints about rebels will dwindle. At the moment fighting rebels and fighting the AI is one in the same (depending on the strength of the enemy of course). THe rebels just add to the amount of battles you need to fight to have dominance in your region.

Personally, I love the idea of rebels, and wish it could be expanded upon. I actually wish that if the rebels beat you in a battle that there should be a chance that those rebels could "Claim Independance" and start their own faction. So if you were fighting the Illyrian Rebels and they beat you - they may double their original numbers and take refuge in their home settlement. Rebels were a problem back in those days and I like to see that they really are in teh game as well. However, once you've ruled an area for a while and it's basically your homeland, then it doesn't make much sense to have some rebels cropping up there. It makes more sense to have more rebels in the beginning when you're establishing dominance, and then on borderlands where you're just beginning to establish your reign.

I guess once the patch is released (pre-Christmas I hope) then we'll be able to see how CA has tweaked it all.

[bach01]

I ran across the same in my latest German campaign, and for me like the majority of you it was more irritating then anything else. So I searched the Mod Forums till I found something that may work. Haven't tested it, but it sounds like a logical fix for the problem.

The chances of the Rebels appearing is controlled by the descr_rebel_factions.txt.

--sample--
rebel_type Suebi//Germans
category peasant_revolt
chance 3
description Suebi
unit barb infantry slave
unit barb infantry slave
unit barb peasant slave
unit barb peasant slave
unit barb naked fanatics slave
unit barb cavalry slave
unit barbarian rebel general
--end sample--

From what I read in the Mod forum the chance of rebellion is under chance = "3". I believe sets the games unrest penalty for that area to the 15% we all been talking about. If you set it down to 0 it should reduce the chance of a rebellion popping up from the base 15% to 0%.

Hope this helps.