[TW Guide] RTW: RTW Rebel Campaign Strategy Guide

[Hesus de bodemloze]

Author: Genius of the Restoration
Original Thread: Rebel Campaign Strategy Guide

Rebel Campaign Strategy Guide

I started a Rebel Campaign a while ago and haven't seen a guide on how to play this fascinating ‘faction’ so I thought I’d write one. The Rebel faction is easily the most diverse faction to play with. They can get a range of units associated with all areas of the map, from Spanish Mercenaries and Hastati to Hoplites and Horse Archers. This makes them very enjoyable to play with, but I’d advise against attempting this campaign unless you have a good grasp of the various units in RTW as fighting with all the vastly different units in one campaign requires you to know which tactics to use for each battle, from desert fighting against Egypt with Eastern Infantry to skirmishing in West Africa against Carthage and Numidia. This guide is divided into two parts,

• An overview of the faction, and
• Advice from my own campaign

PART ONE:


Unlocking the Rebels
To unlock the Rebel faction go to your \data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign directory and open the text file named ‘descr_strat’. You will see a list of factions that fall into one of three categories, playable, unlockable, and nonplayable. To unlock a nonplayable faction simply take the name of the faction and drop it into the unlockable or playable list. The Rebel faction is listed as ‘slave’. It is also important that you do not put all of the factions listed into the unlockable or playable factions list, because RTW will only show 20 factions to choose from when you try to select your campaign, so one will be left out. I suggest leaving the ‘romans’_senate’ faction in non-playable because it is bugged anyway.

Starting the Campaign
Start a campaign as you usually would, except choose the Rebels as your faction. You will notice that unlike every other faction the Rebels have no victory conditions. This means that you only win once you have taken every settlement on the map. I’d advise you to choose the Imperial Campaign over the Short Campaign because the AI can’t go for a quick win, and the Imperial Campaign makes for bigger empires and more of a challenge.

Rebellious Provinces
The Rebels start with 30 provinces that are spread throughout the map. They have a particularly strong presence in the provinces surrounding Italy, in Asia Minor the Middle East, and in the north. Here is a rather large map of the starting situation.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Rebel units
The Rebel faction has a huge number of units available to it, including some unique units. While I wont list them all, some are worth taking note of for being different from units in other factions.

Generals – There are three types of generals in the Rebel faction, named generals, unnamed generals, and what I will call fake generals. A named general is just like a normal general. He has a portrait, traits, and can have a retinue. An unnamed general is different and appears as a recruitable unit would without any of the benefits of being a general. These units cannot recruit mercenaries, built forts, act as governors, have abilities etc. They resemble the fighting unit you would find in a custom battle – a unit without traits.



The third type of general are fake generals. These generals have a portrait and act like a normal general, however they are not attached to a General’s Bodyguard unit, but to another kind of unit, for example a Militia Cavalry unit. Generals also differ depending on culture. They can be Barbarian Warlords or Eastern Generals for instance, each with different stats.



Diplomats – It is possible to recruit diplomats as the Rebels however, they cannot engage in diplomacy. The only option they have when interacting with an AI character is to bribe them. So don’t try to go suing for peace.

Judean Zealots – I’m sure everyone who has ever captured Jerusalem is aware of these units. Unique to the Rebels, they are armed with spears and have terrific attack and charge for spearmen. Coupled with good morale and stamina they are perhaps the best unit that spawns for the rebels. They only spawn in Judea, but seem to spawn often.



Amazon Chariots – Pretty much like the Egyptian Chariot Archers. People seem to rave about these but I’m not sure why, maybe it’s the novelty factor. They have 1 more attack, missile attack and charge bonus than Egyptian Chariot Archers. They also have Excellent Morale instead of Good Morale. They have 1 defence and only 2 hit points which makes them very fragile. They are also without the fast moving trait that the Egyptian’s have, so enemy light cav can catch and hurt these delicate monsters of war. Keep them alive and they’ll ruin things just like other chariot archers though. They are also very cheap to maintain.



Building your army
Rebel units are obtained in five ways:

1.Garrisons present at the beginning of the campaign.
This is largely the same in the Rebel Campaign as it is for other factions. Each settlement starts the game with a garrison.

2.Recruiting mercenaries.
Named generals can recruit mercenaries just like a general for any other faction, provided you have enough denarii.

3.Recruiting in settlements.
Recruiting in settlements is a complicated business. Not all settlements can recruit. Some deny this, even with barracks upgrades that say they should produce a unit. Also, all upgrades follow the Roman tech tree, though they do not all build the same units. For example, a first level barracks always says that it allows the training of Town Watch, but it changes with the culture (Petra trains Eastern Infantry, while Athens trains Militia Hoplites). ‘Rebel’ itself is not a culture, just a faction, which means that barracks upgrades differ throughout the Rebel Empire. To work out what will be built if you pursue a particular upgrade, familiarise yourself with what can be recruited from various cultures. An Eastern Stable produces Horse Archers for instance, meaning you can only get them from Eastern settlements, and only from certain ones (Jerusalem can build them for instance, but not Arsakia). Another problem that emerges is that the faction can only rarely recruit from barbarian settlements. This means that the only units that can be recruited in any number are Eastern Infantry and Militia Hoplites. Some settlements can build normal Hoplites but others can't. It's a strange system and you have to take what you can. It makes it hard to know if you will be able to retrain your troops, and this is especially problematic in the barbarian areas where training is hard to come by.

4.Spawning of Rebel armies.
Rebel armies spawn randomly in provinces you don’t control. The number of armies that spawn every turn is random, as is their number of units and location. Like recruiting in settlements however, the spawning of rebels is linked to culture and geographical location. A hoplite unit may spawn in Greece, but will not spawn in Scythia. Some provinces also seem to spawn rebels more often than others. There are also many useless spawns. This one for example has no chance to even make it out of Italy:


I've made a list of what units have spawned in my campaign so far.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Winter 270BCE
3 Pirate ships in The Gulf of Arabia
1 named general with 3 town watch in Latium
1 named general with 3 archers and an Eastern Infantry in Assyria
1 Scythian Horse archer in Tribus Sakae
1 Militia Hoplite in Macedonia

Summer 269BCE
3 Pirate Ships outside Thapsus
2 Warbands in Armorica
1 Thracian Mercenary and 1 Peltast in Paionia
1 Eastern Infantry and 1 Archer in Elymais
3 Eastern Infantry in Media

Winter 269BCE
3 Peasants, 1 Town Watch and 1 Equites in Umbria
1 Archer in Cappadocia

Summer 268BCE
2 Archers and 1 Skirmisher in Middle Egypt
1 Barbarian Cavalry, 2 Warbands and 2 Peasants in Germania Inferior

Winter 268BCE
2 Pirate Ships outside Cyrene

Summer 267BCE
1 Warband and 1 Archer Warband in Dacia

Winter 267BCE
1 Eastern Infantry in Assyria
1 Eastern Infantry, 1 Archer, 1 Peasants in Assyria (Separate stack)
1 Rebel General, 1 Archer, 3 Judean Zealots in Judea

Summer 266BCE
2 Pirate Ships near Scallabis
2 Peasants, 1 Warband and a Rebel General in Germania Inferior
2 Peasants, 1 Numidean Javelinman in Numidia
1 Named General, 2 archers, 2 Judean Zealots in Judea

Winter 266BCE
3 Pirate Ships outside Sardis
2 Judean Zealots, 3 Archers and a Rebel General in Judea

Summer 265BCE
3 Peasants, 1 Warband and a Rebel general in Transalpine Gaul
1 Peasants, 1 Archer and 1 Eastern infantry in Assyria
ADOPTED 1 named General

Winter 265BCE
1 Warband in Transalpine Gaul
1 Skirmisher in Libya
2 Cilician Pirates in Cilicia
1 Rebel General, 2 Bowmen, 1 Skirmisher and 1 Peasants in Thebais
ADOPTED 1 named General

Summer 264BCE
2 Thracian Mercenaries, 1 Peasants, 1 Militia Cavalry and 1 Skirmisher in Paionia
2 Town Watch and 1 Peasants in Phoenicia
ADOPTED 1 named General

Winter 264BCE
1 Pirate Ships outside Vicus Gothi
1 Warband in Britannia Inferior
1 Naked Fanatics in Belgica
3 Eastern Infantry, 1 Archer and a Rebel General in Coele Syria
1 Iberian Infantry in Tripolitania
ADOPTED 1 named General

Summer 263BCE
5 Numidean Javelinmen and 1 Numidean Cavalry in Sahara
TRIED TO ADOPT 1 Named General





5.Adoption.
Similar to a normal faction, the Rebels can adopt a family member. Before this can occur, a named general must have spawned to adopt the candidate. Because the adopter is not part of the family tree, neither is the adoptee.

6.Obtaining units after the destruction of a faction.
Once a faction is destroyed, any remaining units become rebel units. For example, if you conquer Rome by avoiding the powerful SPQR army, you’ll know there remains a massive rebel army sitting on your doorstep that you have to deal with at some point. This can be a handy way to boost your army, simply destroy a faction while leaving some of its units in the field. Easier said than done.





Building in settlements
Settlements will generally build buildings that their culture allows them to. A Greek settlement may build Paved Roads while a Barbarian one can't. As I mentioned earlier, don’t pay any attention to what the building browser says a building will produce, because it usually doesn’t. Another bonus for Rebel settlements is that (funnily enough) they cannot rebel. This means you can set your taxes to very high and not bother with a garrison or buildings to appease the masses because nothing will happen.

Economy worries
The Rebel faction starts the game with 10,000 denarii. While this might seem like a healthy start. As soon as you start losing settlements (which you will) and armies start spawning causing maintenance (which they will) however, your economy rapidly begins to slide to the negative. You have two options; try to recover, or let it go to hell.

It is very possible to make money with the Rebels. But doing so requires a lot of investment that you cannot afford to begin with.


Some other advantages of playing the Rebel Faction
The most significant advantage the Rebels have over other factions is that they (surprise surprise) don't have rebel armies spawn to block trade and attack your troops in transit. This can be used to supply troops as soon as you recruit them. It isn't uncommon to see a string of units that have been produced running towards the action areas. Each of the armies in this image have only one unit in them.




PART TWO:


Some helpful hints from my own Rebel Campaign on vh/vh. I have stopped playing in Winter 256 BCE.

At the beginning of the game you are faced with a shrinking economy, a disconnected empire and only a handful of settlements that can produce units.

Economy
The massive costs of having armies in so many provinces that don’t have any trade upgrades quickly turns your denarii base into the negative if you’re not careful. To ensure your money lasts a little bit longer always set taxes to very high.

Because the Rebel economy seems to enjoy slipping towards the abyss, when you know you’re about to go into deficit, stack some unit cues up. That way you’ll still be producing the units even after you plunge horribly into debt (this makes it harder to get out of debt though).

Move your capital from Tara to somewhere more central like Athens or Pergamum. This will reduce funds lost to corruption.

It is very possible to be earning money with the Rebels. Remember that sea trade is king. To start getting an actual income, disband any useless unit that spawns. Peasants and Town Watch are useless in most situations. Also Warbands that often spawn cost 200dn a turn which burns a hole in the thin lining of your pocket when you've got 20 around the map not doing anything. Make sure every unit is accountable for an action. If a unit of Round Shield Cavalry Cavalry spawn in Spain, disband it. It's not going to win you any battles, will never make it to the rest of your forces and even if it did would probalby cost you 2000dn is upkeep before it gets there.

Mercenaries are expensive. Generally much more than the normal unit would cost. I advise only recruiting the ones you need. Some of the better ones I'm sure everyone agrees are Cretan Archers and the Rhodian and Balearic Sligers. These are the only mercenaries I've recruited so far, bar one exception. I had one fake general (Round Shield Cavalry) spawn in Tripolitania outside Lepcis Magna with a Numidean Skirmisher and Town Watch. Seeing it only had three units garrisoned inside I beseiged it and hired some mercenaries, taking it back from the Numideans and sacking it. Although I'd avoid recruiting expensive mercenaries I'm not going to make a hard and fast rule about it because I'm perfectly aware that a situation might call for them.

Exterminate settlements. By sacking a settlement you gain precious denarii. Bigger populations mean a bigger haul of loot. My economy truly recovered after a turn in which I took Alexandria (but a lucky spawn army) and Larissa. Sacking both gave me about 20,000dn. I'd already attempted to build up trade income unsucessfully but this bonus allowed me to build docks in all my coastal cities which really got the economy working properly. Greece is a great region to control for trade income, just be wary of naval invasions from the Brutii.

I've got some screenshots from my current point in the campaign and from a similar, old campaign as Macedon to show just how important sea trade is.






Like the Rebels, Macedon has no allies or trade rights, and has 49 settlements about to finish the Imperial Campaign. The Rebels have 48 in my screenshot.




You can see that trade focussing around the Mediterranean is extremely important. The farming and taxes for the two campaigns are roughly the same. Mining represents a marginal difference with more built in the Macedonian campaign. Macedonian trade income however, seriously shames that in my Rebel campaign. The key to a successful economy is controlling the Mediterranean.

Empire
Another problem with having a big empire is that your units are spread very thinly across the map. The strategy I’m trying is to capture first the entire east and then move west. I chose this for a number of reasons:

• Eliminating all non-Rebel settlements means no more rebels spawn in that area. If you stuck in the middle of the map, around the many provinces surrounding Rome for instance, units would spawn everywhere and would not be particularly helpful in pushing in a direction. By conquering the east first, I hoped that by the time I went west (when enemies will be stronger), armies will be spawning amongst them that will be helpful.
• I wanted a monopoly on horse archers.
• I really wanted the Hanging Gardens wonder to boost income from farming.
• It is easy to unify Asia Minor, which is a good base for attacking from the west while armies spawning in the east amass and strike one faction at a time.

Moving east, my armies have united and destroyed Dacia,Thrace and Macedon initially, while my forces in the east have destroyed Pontus, the southern Parthians and then moved onto Armenia and the Seleucids. Scythia was much harder due to the huge number of Horse archers that they recruit. Luckily for me I had 5 archers spawn throughout Scythian territory so I could defeat them. If I were to play this campaign again I'd bring more.

Wherever possible I’ve tried to give my settlements to the faction that is the least threat. For example I’ll willingly abandon a settlement to Gaul so the Roman’s don’t get it. I’d much rather fight a big army of Warbands or Chosen Swordsmen than Hastati or Legionnaires.

This is the economy at the end of my game. Trade income from sea trade routes has had a truly massive effect. The Rebel Empire now has 68 settlements.



Last Words
Having played this far and destroyed all of the Roman factions I've lost the motivation to continue this campaign. I initially tried it to see if it was possible to beat the campaign and I'm certain now that it is. While it is hard to begin with, it got markedly easier once I got a solid centre of the empire. This makes it much easier to expand because you can empty these territories and push in the direction you desire.



I hope you've enjoyed reading this. I thoroughly recommend playing the Rebel Campaign. It's difficult but I don't consider it to be unwinnable. If you feel up to the challenge, have a go and post your suggestions here. Enjoy!