Citizen Levy

**Freshmaker** · December 23, 2009, 05:38 AM

I am playing on H/H as Gaul and every attempt at taking any Roman cities is failing miserably. I have pushed in from the north and taken the two top large towns, but I can't any cities. I have marched in large armies, built the political building, but can never keep the city.

The problem I have are the two gold chevron army of Citizen Levy that comes from the revolt. I exhaust a lot of resources protecting my own cities from these Super Patriots.

Is this working as intended? If so can I get a few pointers?

**Alavaria** · December 23, 2009, 06:06 AM

Take the small towns first. Important for cultural conversion.

It also helps to concentrate your family members together (improves conversion to your Independent culture) or even spam spies (which are good anyway).

The stuff that happens when a revolt comes ... I don't know if there's a way to stop them arriving with gold chevrons. If you have a garrison (+80% public order) and a good general (influence and other good things) along with a ton of conversion to your culture, it should be easy as pie to HOLD the settlement. If you can't do that, you'll never be able to hold it since construction of "Keltoi Migration" is stopped when it revolts.

**Arkaeyn** · December 23, 2009, 03:09 PM

Are you enslaving or exterminating the settlements when you capture them? I enslave every time, and a second time if it revolts. This temporarily lowers the population, but since many of the pop-increasing buildings already exist, it goes up to 3-4% increase in a hurry.

The citizen levies are pretty easily dispersed by missile troops. Light some arrows on fire and watch them burn.

EDIT: The Gauls are also pretty crippled in these regards, but try and find your best high-influence/high management general and stick him in the newly conquered cities. Don't be afraid to shift beneficial retinue members around as well. I just captured Syracuse and it wasn't even trying to revolt on the first turn due to a So-and-So the Good with 7 management and 4 influence. But that's rare for the Gauls.

**~~Tony83~~** · December 23, 2009, 04:55 PM

I'm not sure that there is anything we can do with regards to toning down the "experience" of these "uber patriots" but do be thankful when you do encounter them. They are only recruited by the AI when a city goes rebel and there are no other units to be recruited and, hence, save an errorless CTD crippling your campaigns. So while they can be a bloody nuisance, they are also a useful nuisance.

**Alavaria** · December 23, 2009, 09:38 PM

4 influence? Hmm, usually you can get good influence with the victor line of traits. I don't think management adds to public order.

There's some other trait that seems to be triggered by having your faction leader in a settlement with 100% move points and a treasury above 50K (+3 influence -2 management). [Opps: but he can't be Roman, Carthaginian or barbarian]

**Arkaeyn** · December 23, 2009, 09:42 PM

It could just be that this guy had a bunch of Nice Governor-style traits that decreased unrest. He's quite handy.

**FriendlyFire** · December 23, 2009, 10:16 PM

Faction leaders also get a public order bonus due to law, on top of their influence bonus, so they're very good at holding cities. And of course, if your faction leader has just conquered a city, I figure he's within his rights to declare it to be the new administrative capital, for an instant public-order boost due to zero corruption

Why *do* citizen levies sometimes get double-gold chevrons of experience, anyway?

**~~Tony83~~** · December 23, 2009, 10:24 PM

I'm not sure.

I'll check, but I don't think that it's anything we've coded in. Maybe it's to do with the game itself. In the vanilla game, the Citizen Levy function is filled by the Peasant unit, so perhaps there is internal coding, that we cannot change, that "beefs them up" to make them a little bit more of a challenge.

However, even with the additional experience, I can't imagine the Levy standing up to professional troops for long!

**Carados** · December 24, 2009, 03:45 AM

ExRM doesn't seem to get all that many gold chevron revolt troops. They definitely get superior quality weapons and armour, but 8 experience? Granted I don't really deliberately try to make cities revolt (although we've got it so the Seleucid Eastern holdings revolt fair regularly and I no see gold chevron horse archers).

Perhaps it is tied to settlement size??

**Maurits** · December 24, 2009, 06:11 AM

If the problem is hardcoded, we should have seen it in previous mods/versions. Isn't there any data or info available about this thing?

**mcantu** · December 25, 2009, 11:07 PM

Originally Posted by Maurits

If the problem is hardcoded, we should have seen it in previous mods/versions. Isn't there any data or info available about this thing?

the same thing happens in EB...

**Freshmaker** · December 27, 2009, 07:47 AM

Thanks for the pointers, I ended up losing that campaign because I poured too much of my resources fighting with Rome.

Anyhow, I have experienced the "Gold Chevron Levy" as an opposing army and one that I had under my control. It isn't so much the Levy by themselves that are the problem, but them plus the Gold chevron Hoplites, Light Cavalry that were mixed in. My armies contained a lot of infantry, so I understand why they couldn't stand up the all of the Missle troops and Veteran hoplites.

When I commanded the gold chevron levy, I watched the same thing happen. I would Auto battle and watch them tear through Roman armies. It was a disgusting war of attrition with them. After about 3 large armies, the levy had taken too many casualties, and lost the battle. My main army was thankful for the relief that the "rabble" gave them, but I was humbled that the Rabble fought off the Roman's better than my main army.

I will try and find out what conditions cause the "gold chevron levy" and report back with my findings.

**Arkaeyn** · December 24, 2009, 03:12 PM

I don't really think it's a problem. A quirk, at worst. Gold chevrons or not, the citizen levies are easy to defeat.

**Arkaeyn** · December 27, 2009, 02:06 PM

Auto battles don't usually work like normal battles. It's one of the biggest flaws in the RTW engine. It takes things like experience into account far more than it does overall troop quality. So that's the perfect way to use the gold chevrons.

**Ceasar Gubius** · December 27, 2009, 04:39 PM

LOL, I just have to laugh. These "Uber-Patriot" rebel units remind me of the Hebrews in the 1st book of Maccabess in the Bible

!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**Newtothegame** · December 31, 2009, 11:32 PM

Hmm, I've encountered this, too. The levies were quite frightening at first, but then died easily to my large Epeirote army.

But back when I played The Iberian Conflict there was an army of gold chevron elite swordsman that totally OWND everything I had and I did have to restart the campaign! Quite frustrating...

So yes, this does occur in other mods or at the very least in another version of THIS mod.

cheers,

Newtothegame

**Carados** · January 01, 2010, 06:02 PM

I've seen a load more revolts in ExRM lately and they all produced units with no experience at all. Improved weapons and armour are still present though.

Do you have any buildings that might automatically grant them a certain level of experience?? When I played RTR (gold? platinum? no idea anymore) yonks ago I would frequently see troops with 4 experience, and the government building would say it could recruit these units with 4 experience......