Empire-Wide Unrest?

[Sextus Molestus]

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but I couldn't find anything useful nor conclusive while searching.

I'm playing on Easy campaign difficulty as the Romans, and have myself a nice empire. It includes all of the lands of the victory conditions except those east of the Crimea (if the Crimea is what I think it is: that little peninsula in the Black Sea), in Asia Minor and eastwards, and those in all parts of Africa. Around 230 BC I reached suitable borders and diplomatic statuses to become a hermit for a time and await the Marian reforms, as I didn't want to be caught off-guard, unable to retrain legions that were out and about campaigning.

It's now around 220 BC, and just about every non-Italian/Sicilian settlement, including most in Gaul, most in Iberia, most in the Balkans, and most in Greece, have about 15% public order penalty due to unrest.

This cannot be due to other factions' spies - I have sent my own spies into some settlements and have found nothing, and there's no way so many settlements could just randomly be infiltrated without my knowing. To reiterate, there is absolutely no way this is due to espionage.

I have read about base unrest level. The odd thing is, I did not notice this unrest before - it seems to have come in over time. Perhaps it's the squalor that's actually rising with the rising populations, but I really don't recall there being unrest in every last settlement. As a side note, if anyone can point me in the direction of a list of XGM settlements' base unrest levels, that'd be extremely helpful.

All of these settlements are colonized with no more barbarian public order penalties, too.


So, at long last, my question is: Where is this unrest coming from, and what can I do to prevent it? Everywhere I look there are cities with blue faces, and it's killing me! Every other turn some settlement is rioting!

[Scutarii]

Base unrest levels are in descr_rebel factions, I think, or maybe descr_rebels. Anyways, its possible unrest might rise with squalor. You're only real solution is bigger garrisons and more happiness buildings, or lower the base unrest in the game files. As the game goes on, cities get bigger and bigger, so its a lot more of a problem in the later game...

[DimeBagHo]

Some of it might be residual cultural unrest caused by buildings that were constructed by a different culture (this is the vanilla cultural unrest mechanism). But I'm guessing that most of it is due to the base unrest level. It is set at "3" for lots of regions (which translates to 15%) and will affect all cultures apart from the the original owner.

[Sextus Molestus]

Thanks very much, I think it might be base unrest levels, because it's typically 15% unrest I'm running into. If I manage to arrive at the right place in the files, will modding them make my current campaign not work anymore?

[DimeBagHo]

The file you want is descr_rebel_factions.txt. The unrest number is the one on the "chance" line. Changing that number probably won't break your current campaign, but it probably won't affect your current campaign either. You may also need to delete map.rwm from xgm\Data\world\maps\base\.

[Sextus Molestus]

Thanks, can't wait to get home and try it!

EDIT: Can you please explain what the file map.rwm does, and why I might need to delete it? I did that, but when I started a new Bactrian campaign some things weren't running smoothly. Certain icons were buggy in that they didn't show up, and my faction leader's portrait was just a white box, and his unit card was messed up as well. I'm not sure if this is due to what I did, which only was changing all the chances in descr_rebel_factions to 0, and deleting map.rwm.

I'm going to try again, putting map.rwm back in its original place.

By the way, my old campaign does still work, as you said, and also, (as you said), the changes did not affect it.

[Vae victis]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know what provinces/regions have a higher base unrest then 3 or 15%?

I found two provinces in Nubia with an ugly 75% base unrest/revolt risk. Add some squalor, culture penalties, and religious penalties, and these places become hard to govern.

[Scutarii]

The city that is 'london' has a high one, the most southernmost ones in East Africa do, and I'd have to check the file to remember the rest... But I'm on my laptop.

[Sextus Molestus]

I'm pretty sure that Heirosomething (the city that used to be Jerusalem in vanilla) has a higher base unrest, but I might be mistaken.

[Scutarii]

Looking at the file, there's actually a lot that have more than 3 unrest (some go down to 0 as well though, 3 is just most common). Lots of Britain, the Raeti, Galatia, Jerusalem... etc. Descr_rebel_factions if your really curious.

[Vae victis]

In descr_rebel_factions.txt, how do you tell which settlement the "chance" is applied to? There's two 15's and a nine to beware of, but I cant tell what settlement that they are for.

[DimeBagHo]

You have to cross check with descr_regions.txt which is [RTW]\xgm\Data\world\maps\base or in [RTW]\xgm\Data\world\maps\campaign\custom\[campaign]\ (for some provincial campaigns). Each region will have a line for rebels, and some types of rebels occur in more than one region.

[Vae victis]

Thanks. Watch out for the Ethiopians in Axum and Opone, they are tough to control. Thats pretty cool how ethnic and historic tribes are listed for each provence. Some are harder to control than others.

[Vae victis]

Scutarii: Base unrest levels are in descr_rebel factions, I think, or maybe descr_rebels. Anyways, its possible unrest might rise with squalor. You're only real solution is bigger garrisons and more happiness buildings, or lower the base unrest in the game files. As the game goes on, cities get bigger and bigger, so its a lot more of a problem in the later game...

Do you play with reduced unrest? I think that I might switch the base unrest for all regions to zero, but I am wondering if this will affect gameplay too much?

My main concern is that the AI doesnt suffer from any public order or unrest penalties. It drives me nuts to see a large enemy city at 160% public order with only two units for a garrison. Meanwhile, the rest of the AI units are marching towards my lands, while I struggle to afford to pay upkeep for garrisons to combat squalar, unrest, culture, and religion/colonization.

[CaesarVincens]

You ought to try Extended Cultures as is before changing it right off the bat. There is a new building designed to give PO bonuses, as well as its many other changes. I don't recommend trying to rush so quickly however.

[Sextus Molestus]

You ought to try Extended Cultures as is before changing it right off the bat. There is a new building designed to give PO bonuses, as well as its many other changes. I don't recommend trying to rush so quickly however.

I don't quite understand what you mean by this sentence. Does this regard blitzing or rushing to conclusions?

Regardless, I forgot about the watchmen bonuses (I had "started" a campaign the night before to see some of the most obvious changes for myself). If I reinstall, which I might have to, because I want to include AI bonuses but can't remember if I did it or not my second installation around (I know I removed the Carthaginian Senate on my second installation but don't remember if I unchecked reduced bonuses - is there any way for me to check?), I will be sure to take those buildings into consideration - they're sure to make things easier.

I do not lament having to do a third installation, however. I haven't started my real campaign yet and don't plan to for a few days, because I really like playing as the Greeks (for some reason I hate playing as Eastern or Barbarian factions, don't know why) but I just played through a long campaign as them in XGM (the one I was talking about where I removed base unrest).

[Vae victis]

With the barbarians, base unrest can become a real problem because it seems like they dont have as many happiness buildings. I suppose that they would be more inclined to exterminate populations from rioting cities though. What does XGM-XC offer for public order buildings? Does anyone else change the base unrest in descr_rebel_factions.txt? I am worried that putting it too low might make the campaign too easy, but keeping it the same is costing me a lot of money for garrisons in foreign cities.

[Sextus Molestus]

XGM-XC has buildings that look like barracks you can construct, that offer bonuses to public order through law (I think, can't quite remember), and some give other bonuses such as a slight decrease to population growth to help with squalor issues as well. As Rome, you can build up to four levels of these watchmen, but I'm not sure about other factions.

Putting it low (changing it all to 0) does make the campaign easier in the sense that you don't need to worry as much about riots in certain cities. It's all about what you prefer, though. It's very realistic that the Ethiopian regions have high base unrest - it would be difficult to subdue the natives in that environment. But personally, I enjoy the challenge of fighting other factions much more than the challenge of keeping public order high, so I changed it. It's like putting fatigue on/off - putting it on can be viewed as being more realistic, and more of a challenge, but whether this is good or bad changes from person to person.

[CaesarVincens]

I don't quite understand what you mean by this sentence. Does this regard blitzing or rushing to conclusions?

A little of both, though at the time I wrote it, I meant blitzing.

Regardless, I forgot about the watchmen bonuses (I had "started" a campaign the night before to see some of the most obvious changes for myself). If I reinstall, which I might have to, because I want to include AI bonuses but can't remember if I did it or not my second installation around (I know I removed the Carthaginian Senate on my second installation but don't remember if I unchecked reduced bonuses - is there any way for me to check?), I will be sure to take those buildings into consideration - they're sure to make things easier.

To check whether bonuses are reduced or not you will have to open export_descr_buildings, scroll down to the monuments and look whether the exp bonuses are 1 or 0.

I do not lament having to do a third installation, however. I haven't started my real campaign yet and don't plan to for a few days, because I really like playing as the Greeks (for some reason I hate playing as Eastern or Barbarian factions, don't know why) but I just played through a long campaign as them in XGM (the one I was talking about where I removed base unrest).

You might try a campaign as Pontus, they have some special AoR features in Extended Cultures. (Plus, little base unrest in most nearby regions for them.)

[Sextus Molestus]

Thanks for the information, CV, I unfortunately have reduced them, so I'll need another reinstallation. But that will allow me to have a clean copy of the rebels file (I didn't back up the old one), as well as a clean EDU (I jumped to conclusions and nerfed Scythia, as I might have mentioned on the thread I made in the XC forum).

Perhaps I shall try Pontus next. It would be new but they seem civilized enough. Who knows.