amusing rebellion bug with saba

[nein]

After playing as saba for awhile I noticed a sudden drop in my income. Perplexed I looked at the map and realised that I had gained a region... across the sea in kush I now owned a large town. Apparently the ptolemies had taken it, only for it to revolt. They immediately declared war... despite me having no say on this secession
The village was staffed with two of my crappy slinger units and a host of rebel peasants. These guys had an upkeep of 300, a tad expensive methinks! What do they need the cash for anyway? To buy rocks? I tried to hand it back for a ceasefire, but they were having none of it. I disbanded the peasants and waited for a ptolemy stack to forcefully take it back. Soon enough they did, and then they agreed to a ceasefire. All is now well, except the same thing happened again... and again... and again.

[yuezhi]

this cycle is better than ptolemies hellmarching down the arabian peninsula and attacking your capital directly.

[Entropy Judge]

They immediately declared war... despite me having no say on this secession

Yeah, that happens. Not really a whole lot you can do, except try to Cease-Fire and keep the village (because if you give it back, it'll just revolt back to you in a while anyway).

The village was staffed with two of my crappy slinger units and a host of rebel peasants. These guys had an upkeep of 300, a tad expensive methinks! What do they need the cash for anyway? To buy rocks?

Think of it this way: Those peasants? They're supposed to be working the land, getting food and other materials. Since they're currently employed by your army, they aren't doing that. Since your army doesn't want to starve, they now need to import food and other supplies. That's why they have such high Upkeep. Also, they're terrible units anyway and IIRC the description even says to disband them ASAP because they don't belong in combat anyway.

I tried to hand it back for a ceasefire, but they were having none of it.

Force Diplomacy a Cease-Fire without trading the Settlement? Might work.

[seleucid empire]

This is a common issue when playing with Saba. It means any kind of diplomatic relations with either the ptolemies or seleukeds is close to impossible

The culture of the rebel towns of palmyra, bostra, Petra, Meroe, Axum, homna and gerrha means that if Seleucids or ptolemies (who have a different culture) take the cities (and they will). It will rebel (the culture difference between the greeks and the rebel towns is too great) to you almost instantly (because those rebel towns have the same semetic culture that you have) and start a war. Usually you end up at war with both great empires and have a hell of a time trying to fend them off -.-

[Petite Wolf]

I had the same thing happen in my Koinon Hellenon campaign, except it was a city close by - Halikarnassos I believe - and it was a ton of fun defending it. But yeah, such things as the native culture of certain regions can become either very annoying or very fun, depending on how things go. Considering the AI has no idea how to properly manage a settlement and the same thing will happen repeatedly, I suggest sending a proper army down there and using them instead of peasants who'd much rather be working a field instead of fighting, and use them to defend. A little bit of chaos thrown in sometimes can be quite fun.

[The_Judge]

I've got the opposite in my Epeiros campaign. My two rebellious towns in the south always rebel to Carthage. So it's quite impossible to become friends again with Carthage, although they are almost wiped out of Africa.
The Carthaginians are now conquering the Spanish towns bordering the Mare Nostrum in an effort to march to Massalia, my northeastern frontier city.