Stolen settlements?

[gogu]

Hi! This may be a fairly encountered problem for newbies but I couldn't find an answer for it. Why can rebels steal my settlements out of the blue, without sieging or forcing me fight at all? I have watch towers pretty much everywhere but I still can't see them coming and when I take rebel settlements, I still have to siege even if their army is way weaker than mine(except when I have cannons or other artillery I don't have to siege, obviously, but I still have to fight them).

I think I reached 35 regions pretty quickly(there are around 100 turns left to take 10 more) so it seems like the game is basically trying to forcingly stop me from finishing it too quickly by stealing settlements and not letting me see it coming I can always get them back since there's always a castle nearby but I loose other settlements in the next turn so it seems like a neverending situation. I can't leave a huge top tier army in every city since the army upkeep would drain me of money.

Also, do rebels never die? I keep killing them and they come back with full armies, I know there are several types of rebels but all of them appear at some point. I can't seem to advance at this point since every turn I have to gain back settlements, repair the damage done to the buildings and refill my armies.

[In3x]

If you settlement is rioting, and you don't get it to blue, yellow or green happiness before the end of your turn it will rebel and you will lose the settlement and a rebel army will spawn inside.

[gogu]

Wooow, thx a lot, didn't know that. I do have problems with riots but they're fixable

[Larkin]

If it's the "Civil Revolt" message that's why. The people have armed themselves in response to your harsh rule (I assume your taxes are high).

Lower taxes a bit and try building some town hall type structures. Not only will that improve public order, but it'll reduce corruption and improve administration, thus giving you a bonus to income. If you're on 35 regions you should have a strong enough economic infrastructure (farms, ports, markets) to be able to sustain yourself without the need for high taxes.

Ideally all taxes will be low, but the way I deal with it is by using the cities tab (right click on it to see a list of all your cities, then click on the public order heading to list them in order from best to worst happiness or the reverse) to check if any of my cities are blue or worse happiness. If they are, I put troops in, lower taxes, and focus on building public order bonus giving structures to help.

Religion can also play a factor, so if you take a Muslim city as Catholic or vice versa, be sure to put some priests/imams in the area to convert the popuation faster and quell dissent.

[Sitalkes]

As you progress through the game and you get further away from your capital the loyalty value of your generals becomes more important and some will become rebels or be bribed by an opposing faction to switch sides. It also depends on the authority level of your faction leader as to how likely a rebel army will appear. If you put a settlement on very high taxation for long enough you can more-or-less guarantee that a rebel army will appear nearby eventually (sometimes only one turn of very high taxation is enough to generate an army). If rebel armiess are appearing in particularly inconvenient places, save the game before ending the turn. When you start the new turn and find rebel armies where you don't want them, reload the game (don't use the autosave), end the turn again, and you should see the rebels go away or at least to a different location.

By the way, the best taxation level is one that makes the city happiness indicator blue. The game likes it when you screw the peasants and penalises you when you go easy on them. So always set taxes to high or very high when you are building something in a settlement and try to get a happiness level of 75-85% or so - this is how you get the "good tax collector" trait. When you are not about to finish building something, always have taxes on very low as this increases chivalry and grows the settlement as fast as possible - you will get more money in the long run that way and it requires fewer troops to keep the peace, which also saves money. Once you start making some money, be sure to keep less than 10000 in the bank as having large amounts of money in the bank also gives bad traits.

[13lackGu4rd]

As you progress through the game and you get further away from your capital the loyalty value of your generals becomes more important and some will become rebels or be bribed by an opposing faction to switch sides. It also depends on the authority level of your faction leader as to how likely a rebel army will appear. If you put a settlement on very high taxation for long enough you can more-or-less guarantee that a rebel army will appear nearby eventually (sometimes only one turn of very high taxation is enough to generate an army). If rebel armiess are appearing in particularly inconvenient places, save the game before ending the turn. When you start the new turn and find rebel armies where you don't want them, reload the game (don't use the autosave), end the turn again, and you should see the rebels go away or at least to a different location.

By the way, the best taxation level is one that makes the city happiness indicator blue. The game likes it when you screw the peasants and penalises you when you go easy on them. So always set taxes to high or very high when you are building something in a settlement and try to get a happiness level of 75-85% or so - this is how you get the "good tax collector" trait. When you are not about to finish building something, always have taxes on very low as this increases chivalry and grows the settlement as fast as possible - you will get more money in the long run that way and it requires fewer troops to keep the peace, which also saves money. Once you start making some money, be sure to keep less than 10000 in the bank as having large amounts of money in the bank also gives bad traits.

Wrong, the key is to set taxes to very high(or as close to it as your happiness allows) the turn before a structure is completed. If your taxes are set to very high or high when a structure completes you have a chance to get the "good tax collector" trait line, if taxes are on low that turn you have a chance of getting the opposite one, the inefficient tax collector or whatever it's called trait line. Now, since low taxes have highest growth, for the long term the best taxes are low for all cities and switch to very high or high each time before a structure is being completed. Now, that's quite a bit of micromanagement, especially on large empires, so it's really up to each player how much he wants to invest in it, but that's the optimal route.

[Sitalkes]

Wrong, the key is to set taxes to very high(or as close to it as your happiness allows) the turn before a structure is completed. If your taxes are set to very high or high when a structure completes you have a chance to get the "good tax collector" trait line, if taxes are on low that turn you have a chance of getting the opposite one, the inefficient tax collector or whatever it's called trait line. Now, since low taxes have highest growth, for the long term the best taxes are low for all cities and switch to very high or high each time before a structure is being completed. Now, that's quite a bit of micromanagement, especially on large empires, so it's really up to each player how much he wants to invest in it, but that's the optimal route.

That's what I said but to have the best chance of getting the good tax collector trait you should have taxes set to high/very high and have a happiness level of disillusioned when a building is completed. the only exception seems to be a church of some sort - I have noticed when it is built having lower taxes seems to give you a chance of getting one of the chivalry traits (if you don't get bad tax collector!)

[El Cid99]

^^ Also, the benefits of reduced corruption are nowhere near sufficient to compensate for the 500k+ that you don't have in the bank.

That, and that when the Plague hits, you'll probably drop to about -100k.