civil war questions

[eXistenZ]

I have a few questions about the civil war mechanic. TWC is still wobly so excuse me for the messed up layout.

Im trying for the play/win all battles achievement (veni,vidi,vici). now obviously the civil war, with multiple stacks spawning near a single city can screw up that plan. Im playing as rome on hard, im about 90 turns far, with about 34 settlements.

1) when does it occur? My imperium bar is about 1/2. Apparently also influence has its role. I'm at 39%. Can i expect it soon? And would i get any sort of warning?


2)Is it completly inevitable? Say my house doesnt grow too powerfull, can it be avoided? Or is it maybe possible to win an economic/cultural victory before it happens?


3)I've heard it doesnt spawn near your capital, but another city. Is it always the same city (even if you reload)?

Anyone who got experience with this, ill gladly hear it

[ParanoiD84]

I got mine a few turns after i entered imperium level 3 and mu influence was at 80% something. Not sure about the other questions as i only had it once as Arverni and they took Brigantium.

[alhoon]

Playing as Parthia, the civil war spawned first in Nissa, my capital. I said "meeehhh", loaded the autosave and moved my forces closer to Nissa... and the civil war DIDN'T happen. Then like 10-12 turns later it happened and they took a different city to the South.

[eXistenZ]

thanks, anyone else who can shed some more light on this?

[Korburss]

Its close to random but if you get lucky, you can trigger it with mass assassinations.

It can start in different places but its normally the capital.

The troops will be on par with you're own. In fact they'll be clones. Each army will be a copy of one of you're own, with a extra or two.

Only a max of four armies per battle, so if you have faith in your skills bring only four armies to defend.

The rebels will never have more than the number of armies at the cap you're on. If you're using a army cap mod, ditch it for a bit, that's how those thirty plus armies happen.

[alhoon]

In my game the armies were NOT a clone of my own, not even close.

[Korburss]

In my game the armies were NOT a clone of my own, not even close.

Which version were you on? I've only heard of the clone thing during Beta 2.0.

But yes at least at that time they were clones. I had been theming my armies and had things such as a full army of gladiators and one of only auxiliary and such but lo and behold, all the same.

[AusHaching]

Not seen clone armies either. Had a civil war as Suebi. The rebels had 12 armies (the maximum possible at my empire size), but they all had no experience and no weapon upgrades. They also spawned in a food shortage province and were soon starvin away.

[karamazovmm]

the civil war can be completely avoided in my last macedon campaign I avoided it. I maintained a healthy 50% balance with the the other faction

were the rebellion will sprout is as far as I could play completely random

regarding when does it occur I have a theory which is basically there is a script running and you have a percentage chance of civil war happening at different levels, the higher the difference in power the higher the probability.

in my current patch 2 campaign I had a very tricky roman civil war, I lost and gained a lot of settlements, I had only 2 armies nearby, and they launched multiple avenues of attack, I lost 3 cities in the first turn, and the ai didn't stop there, they launched more and more aggressive attacks, coupled with a volcae invasion rome itself got besieged. 4 armies were in iberia, and the spawn was at noreia, by the time the other 2 armies that were trying to wipe the volcae arrived via conquering provincia, I had lost back and forth illiria, cisalpina and panonia

so avoid the civil war at all costs, or try to swerve them to conquer other stuff, they so far have delivered me 2 new cities, and I keep pushing them up

[Arimahn]

the civil war can be completely avoided in my last macedon campaign I avoided it. I maintained a healthy 50% balance with the the other faction

I highly doubt not getting a CW has anything to do with faction balance and much more with a certain mean time to happen that resets on reload. You can avoid a civil war simply by reloading last turn's autosave. The game probably checks for province count and then triggers an increasing chance of war each turn. Which means no amount of fiddling with the politics system will help.

[Winterspawn]

My friend, I got civil war at around the same point in time as you with about a slightly larger empire by a few provinces. I play as Macedon though so for me it's just my Antagonid Dynasty and the Other Families. The politics are bugged for me in this first (and only so far) campaign with no dilemmas and the Other Families gaining support from nobles where it should lose support when performing actions. I got my influence to 49% for a while and managed to get a lot of victories raising my influence to 52%. After the AI did a few assassination attempts and gave a promotion to the one general they had it dropped to 49% again (due to the bugs) and this time I got civil war. I just got to the next stage of Imperium (where you can get 12 Armies and 4 agents of each and so on) while the first time I dropped below 50 I was not that big yet.

So I believe it occurs after you reach that level of Imperium and then get too powerful or weak. Either that or it would be the second time you get into a bad position of power which would be weird and I don't assume is correct.

The rebellion for me did in fact start at Pella (my capital) and many people here have posted screenshots of their civil war and as Rome the armies do in fact spawn around Rome. I do think that from seeing the screenshots you only get rebel armies to fight instead of armies and navies. The rebels the get max army cap (and for me navy cap as well) in almost full to full stacks of units you have in your armies yourself (so for me only Hoplites, Pikemen, Thorax Pikemen, Thorax Swordmen, Royal Peltasts, Argranian Axemen, Archers, Light Peltasts, Thessalian Cavalry and Citizen Cavalry) and no others.

The amount of militairy units you have plays a role as well. I reached the army cap but I only had 1 full stack navy and I believe that's why every rebel army was exactly 16/20 units large. It equally divides the total amount of units you have over all those armies giving you an equal amount of units.

The AI also takes your capital first, does not replenish or recruit (except for a Hero in my campaign), and they do seem to die of attrition from starvation if you take away their food sources after they have taken a city. So spies with their poison provision/assassinate general (which these armies don't have but they do have captain units instead which will also dissapear after killing their leader) and Heroes with their assault patrol skill are of extreme importance to winning this.


I won my civil war by using agents, killing of all hostile factions at my direct borders within 4 turns of the start of the civil war, paying, Sparta, Athens and some other ally I had to go to war against them to deplete their forces even more (and get the cities of Sparta and Athens for free without having to betray them technically) and by attacking only seperate stacks or several severely depleted stacks.

These are my own observations though and if they are in fact correct you could try disbanding almost all your forces when you think it's going to happen. If I am correct in my observations and if there is no minimum threshold of rebel forces set for the Civil War you might be able to win with city garrisons.

[eXistenZ]

Ok, interesting two lasts posts. Especially about dminishing your troops just before, making you fight only like generals. There seem to be some contradiction about where the rebellion starts: some say capital, some say not.

(havent playe a few days btw) So the imperium bar grows when you conquer more? Is there another way to trigger it (cause i want my troops back)? Murder and rumours only decrease your influence (cause you lose senator support)

[Winterspawn]

Yes, Imperium is the size of your faction measured in the amount of settlements you control. And for me political actions did decrease my influence but after using patch 2 the AI started to gain influence from these actions instead of losing it like it used to do before the patch. I recommend just saving a lot on different slots and try to keep armies near Rome.

[eXistenZ]

@Karamazovmm: you had no civil war at all? even when your imperium br was full? cause in that case i might take another faction to try for that achievement, on a lower level.

[eXistenZ]

@Karamazovmm: you had no civil war at all? even when your imperium br was full? cause in that case i might take another faction to try for that achievement, on a lower level.

[karamazovmm]

yep no civil war, I tell you it was hard to balance, and btw my imperium bar wasn't full, I went for economic victory

[eXistenZ]

yeah the idea of going for a non military victory also came to mind. But still, economic victory requires 90 settlements. Which difficulty did you play?

[karamazovmm]

yeah the idea of going for a non military victory also came to mind. But still, economic victory requires 90 settlements. Which difficulty did you play?

normal, Im almost there for my egypt campaign, just missing to conquer a part of iberia and south of france. however when I was doing the final clean up of the satrapies... had a civil war

balance was on 49 to me and 51 to then

one thing that I started doing is when you have a general with a high level of gravitas I just replace him in the army, thus becoming a statesman, thus using that gravitas to full power.

what Im getting now is to sincerely jut have the civil war on the first few turns, push your rep to the limit and it will happen. given the size of your territory it will be small (don't use radius mods! for this! or you are going to have 20+ stacks!) and the troops will be basic.

[MaestroAl]

As far as I know, the rebel army appears in your capital if you are NOT the most powerful faction. If you ARE, they appear in a province elsewhere :-)

[Krasnaïa Zvezda]

The Civil War armies will spawn in your capital unless you have an army of your own garrisoned there.

They will then spawn randomly (?) in another provincial capital.

I knew I was nearing the Civil War in my 150+ turns Roman Campaign when my Imperium bar reached the third (or fourth, can't remember) bar with the "intimidating" reputation and the expanded text telling me that Civil War was brewing.

I was at 50-60 % influence for my family and then "triggered" the Civil War by increasing my influence through new conquers mostly.

As I "triggered" it, I moved my armies pretty evenly through all my territory so as to cover most of it.

When Civil War was declared, the Senate Loyalists spawned in Bibracte, a provincial capital in Gaul with the max number of armies possible with my current Imperium rank.

They weren't perfect clones of my armies as in they were not built in the exactly same way but they did field the same troops I did in a pretty balanced way.

The only thing they add that I didn't own myself were the basic ballistas that are unlocked with the first workshop for the Romans.

They were tough to fight since the cities I was defending were settlements without walls but with one legion that I managed to put in the city thanks to the forced march, the garrison and bottlenecks on the city streets (I also used the "no victory flag" mod) I was able to fend them off long enough for the rest of my Legions to come and wipe them off.