Rebels in BI

[Major König]

How will rebels play in EB? I have seen some background on them. but will they roam and not just stand still? Will they be accessible to normal diplomacy? And will they try to conquer anyone?

[Stalins Ghost]

I'm not really sure myself. I've noticed watchtowers are still rebel magnets.

I must admit...this would be better suited to the BI catagory to be honest.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I assume you mean EB, not BI. The rebels are not so bad for some factions, but really a pain for others. You also have to keep an eye on their diplomats too, or try to kill them off. Having a lot of varied units that the different rebel groups have access to is enjoyable though. But all the units still aren't done, so there will hopefully be even more.

[Epistolary Richard]

The slave faction in EB aren't the rebels of RTW - they represent the multitude of independent states and free peoples who didn't make it as full factions for one reason or another - the Eleutheroi. In gameplay turns, I've been really enjoying them - especially the turn when my field army got crushed by the Aedui and then an Eleutheroi banner laid siege to Rome. I managed to scrape together troops to raise the siege, but I've lost other towns to Eleutheroi besiegers (in that case Samnite force).

They vary in their intentions - some are determinedly aggressive, some patrol their borders, others are happy to raid and devastate the surroundings, some act like brigands and lie in ambushes. And, as Teleklos says, the variety of their units does a great deal to individualise them to their surroundings. But yes, beware of their diplomats. Whilst you can only bribe eleutheroi, their own diplomats can offer you ceasefires which are tempting, but can leave you greatly exposed.

[Major König]

So they are more independant and act as their own faction? They have their own intentions and act as not just regular slave rebels?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

It's the same hardcode obviously, but with scripts we've got some wonderful ways of having the factions interact with the rebels, and in a way it does seem like they are their own little factions in places. Especially in the middle of the greek world, you have to be much more careful about who you want to attack and where you want to expand. Not all rebel cities are equal.

[MRY6]

This is great news, since i was really tired of how one is not able to do anything with rebels except kill or bribe them. I really like if they can go on offensives and do diplomacy as you said, but once they capture a city, can they grow their army and then "expand" their rebel faction to other cities and provinces??

[Epistolary Richard]

It can happen, but they tend not to be as vigorous in attacking once they've actually settled. Part of the hardcoding around the slave faction is that the AI factions is programmed to be extremely aggressive towards them (favouring attacking them over other factions - try playing as the slave faction sometime and you'll feel like one oft-kicked puppy ) so you'll probably see fewer and fewer independent states the longer you go into the game, but that's just part of the trade off of having more powerful AI factions.

[MRY6]

Originally Posted by Epistolary Richard

It can happen, but they tend not to be as vigorous in attacking once they've actually settled. Part of the hardcoding around the slave faction is that the AI factions is programmed to be extremely aggressive towards them (favouring attacking them over other factions - try playing as the slave faction sometime and you'll feel like one oft-kicked puppy ) so you'll probably see fewer and fewer independent states the longer you go into the game, but that's just part of the trade off of having more powerful AI factions.

So does that mean, that one can actually play as a rebel faction?? Can you choose which one to play??

[ginga_rob]

Cool, rebels that don't just wait for you to sluaghter them

[Epistolary Richard]

Originally Posted by MRY6

So does that mean, that one can actually play as a rebel faction?? Can you choose which one to play??

I'm not quite sure how you read that from what I wrote. The 'slave' faction won't be playable - not least because of the CTD errors that you find in the vanilla game when you mod slave to be playable.

[MRY6]

You said "Try playing as the slave faction sometime...". I took it as maybe you meant that.

[Major König]

Well anyway, that is some good news. Finally a change for more interactive game experience! Kudos for team EB! if only there wasn't a faction limit, then every independant city could be a faction. (Imagine how long you would wait for the AI to finish all it's turns)

[MRY6]

True, a smarter more aggressive rebel city state is awesome!

[Glyndwr]

This is great news, but I was more concerned about brigands. While I don't mind independent city-states going on the aggressive, I find brigands tiresome and completely useless (ie: randomly congregating in the most loyal settlements simply to stand around and get in the way of things). I can see their purpose in more isolated factions in the early game, but that's it.

How will EB handle brigands? Are they still in, or will we get rebels arriving in disloyal provinces instead?

[Epistolary Richard]

Originally Posted by MRY6

You said "Try playing as the slave faction sometime...". I took it as maybe you meant that.

Ah yes, mea culpa in that case I meant the slave faction in vanilla RTW. You can mod your game to play it (and will be able to mod EB to play them as well), but you have to take the caveat that they were never meant to be played and you'll get the occasional CTD with them (oh, and say bye-bye to postive cash flow as well).

Originally Posted by Glyndwr

How will EB handle brigands? Are they still in, or will we get rebels arriving in disloyal provinces instead?

I'm afraid there's nothing we can do to stop those stacks from appearing. What we have done is add a greater diversity to the units that appear (so they're not always stacks of skirmishers and light troops). You do have a feel at least that you're fighting a proper army rather than a bunch of rabble that would never be seen on the field of battle.

[Hellenes]

Originally Posted by Epistolary Richard

Ah yes, mea culpa in that case I meant the slave faction in vanilla RTW. You can mod your game to play it (and will be able to mod EB to play them as well), but you have to take the caveat that they were never meant to be played and you'll get the occasional CTD with them (oh, and say bye-bye to postive cash flow as well).


I'm afraid there's nothing we can do to stop those stacks from appearing. What we have done is add a greater diversity to the units that appear (so they're not always stacks of skirmishers and light troops). You do have a feel at least that you're fighting a proper army rather than a bunch of rabble that would never be seen on the field of battle.

Thats very sad...
Its another reason that 1.2 campaign is very unpleasant to me, in 1.3 one can mod the appearance of the rebels...
I guess we must live with that.

Hellenes