Tipping a settlement into revolt

[sbroadbent]

In my 6.2 Templar game, I've attempted to use the Spy/Assassin/Priest combo to generate unrest. One time it managed to be successful, but only due to I believe the excessive religious unrest. A few times I can get the citizens to riot, but it's only a one-time thing, before it gets put down, possibly because the AI set taxes to Very High and following turn dropped them to Low. Taking out all the happiness buildings and even having an 8 Subterfuge spy just doesn't seem to generate enough unrest to maintain open revolt long enough. It means that without some religious unrest it seems rather impossible (in the case of the faction being the same religion). What's worse is that they have only two units of infantry (about 110 soldiers in total) garrisoning the city, so it doesn't seem like there would be a whole lot of bonuses coming from the garrison, and they haven't sent additional troops to prop up the public order.

Just curious if anyone has been more successful in causing a settlement to throw off it's old masters?

[Yarrum]

It's been made much more difficult in SS progressively. Hint: More spies = more unrest.

[Caesar Clivus]

SS6.2 gives the AI bonuses to civil order so that it doesn't lose it's capital and half it's regions 3 turns into the game.

[sbroadbent]

It's been made much more difficult in SS progressively. Hint: More spies = more unrest.

Doesn't only the highest subterfuge spy have an effect, or is this cumulative? I know multiple spies can increase the odds of opening the gates.

SS6.2 gives the AI bonuses to civil order so that it doesn't lose it's capital and half it's regions 3 turns into the game.

I'm assuming this is because the the AI doesn't keep their cities garrisoned enough to keep public order up, and other methods of avoiding rebellions doesn't seem to work. I'm all for that, but is it possible to bump up the unrest caused by spies to make using spies in this manner a worthwhile strategy or is there something hard coded there with spies and their subterfuge rank?

[Khosrau]

I do not exactly know how it works, but I know it is possible. Though as Sicily, it took me around 40 turns to let Milan (owned by Venice) rebel with 2 or 3 spies in it. So it could take a while.

More spies definately help though most of the time (you can usually see public order go down when you sneak an extra spy in).

[El Generalissimo]

I don't remember exactly, but in Vanilla spies have a cumulative effect until a combined total of 10 (?) subterfuge. Once their stats add up to that, more spies do not encourage rebellion.

Load up more spies. Also, if the target province is another religion, send in the priests/imams to increase religious unrest.

Yes, it is much harder to incite rebellion in SS than in Vanilla. I used to do it all the time in Vanilla and rebellion would be sustained much longer. Fun.

[JorisofHolland]

In vanilla I killed off factions that way. I could destroy powerhouses I would strugle (well, strugle, let's say I would have to fight) to take out the honest way in only a few turns. Very funny. Good it is fixed

[Ichon]

Part of the problem is also when a city revolts it gets a large army often full of professionals. More realistic to just get a half stack of militia and the penalty is losing control of the city for a turn. Perhaps the longer a city goes without being retaken then the rebel army grows.

You can load a city full of spies and over time the revolt risk grows. Often if one of your own cities starting going into the red and only shows "unrest" without a cause you'll find 1 or 2 opposing spies. I once found 5 spies Antioch and in only a few turns they had sent unrest to 100%

[JorisofHolland]

Part of the problem is also when a city revolts it gets a large army often full of professionals. More realistic to just get a half stack of militia and the penalty is losing control of the city for a turn. Perhaps the longer a city goes without being retaken then the rebel army grows.

Not sure, but aren't those things hard-coded? If a small garisson is spawned, it can be strengthenend by scripts, but those would slow the game down, of course.

[Ichon]

I am not sure about the revolt army size. It might be hard coded to the number of army recruitment buildings in a settlement but I'm not precisely sure.

[Callawyn]

Part of the problem is also when a city revolts it gets a large army often full of professionals. More realistic to just get a half stack of militia and the penalty is losing control of the city for a turn. Perhaps the longer a city goes without being retaken then the rebel army grows.

You can load a city full of spies and over time the revolt risk grows. Often if one of your own cities starting going into the red and only shows "unrest" without a cause you'll find 1 or 2 opposing spies. I once found 5 spies Antioch and in only a few turns they had sent unrest to 100%

Not true. Only 1 spy counts, the one with the highest rating. You can see the actual unrest in the city whenever you have a spy in it so this is pretty easy to test. If you put a spy in the city, its happiness goes down. If you put a second spy in with a lower rating, no change. If you put a second spy in with a higher rating, the happiness goes down more, you can then take the spy with the lower rating out with no change. Note that one of the benefits of doing this is that there's an easily acquired ancillary for your spy for simply being in an enemy city with unrest (even if it doesn't revolt). Also, even if the city never rebels, buildings you sabotage and buildings damaged by the unrest are expensive to repair.

Forget trying to flip castles, its almost impossible. Cities are entirely possible, especially when there's a high percent of heresy (so, if you see heretics/witches in enemy lands - LEAVE THEM ALONE). Note that you can double click any city on the map and it'll show all of the religious% numbers (though not the happiness number). Any city regions nearby that have high (15+, AI often lets cities get to 20+ heresy) heresy ratings you should try to get to rebel. Send a good spy in. Send an assassin, or two, to sabotage any building that has +Law, +Happiness or +Health on it. Note that if the heresy% is high, do NOT send any of your own priests into the province. If your target city does not have high heresy but is not of your religion, you'll need a pack of priests, and possibly an additional assassin (one for sabotage, one for assassinating enemy priests/imams and additional sabotage). You'll need to keep religious buildings sabotaged in this case as well.

As mentioned above, the AI is a little better at lowering taxes / adding garrison to prevent this in Stainless Steel, but its still entirely well worth doing. In my last campaign as Hungary (SS 6.2), I caused 3 Byzantine cities to rebel (Athens, Durazzo, Thess.) and then used diplos to trade them for castles, then got the same 3 provinces to rebel again. Took 6 provinces from Byzantium without ever going to war with them, over the course of about 50 turns with only a half stack of crap units to defeat rebels, 3 spies, 5 assassins and 18 priests to work 3 provinces at a time, while my main armies were off fighting campaigns elsewhere.