Civil War 2.0 vs 2.6?

[badass7]

Hello all,

I just wanted to ask as I'm a bit unclear exactly what to expect or if something has bugged out. I recently installed 2.6 and have been enjoying a Roman campaign. The rebellion has recently started, or at least I think it has. In 2.0 it was basically half your cities rebelled. Now, it seems all of my cities have gone into automanage and no settlements have actually rebelled, except 3 (including Rome) a few turns later. Right now besides those 3 cities the rebels have huge legion stacks in quite a lot of places. I can see the rebel trait says a rebellion is happening soon but several turns in I don't seem to be seeing a mass rebellion like in 2.0 Has the system changed or has something bugged out? If anyone could give me an explanation it would be greatly appreciated. RS2 is by far my favourite mod, I don't play Rome without it, so I would like to understand the new rebellion system.

[neep]

Sounds like something might be borked, did you remember to fire off the script EVERY time you started ?

The rebellion kicks off when you get to 85+ cities.
When the rebellion starts, governors in many cities will get the "Governor Rebels" trait. You can check if this is the case.
Then, rebel cities will have their happiness go to zero (due to the above trait). You can check if this is the case.
The "Governor Rebels" trait can go away after several turns out in the field - but it always causes the cities to rebel.
If that's not happening then I don't know the exact failure mechanism, but it seems that something has gone wrong.

As the rebellion kicks in, your cities get set to auto-manage as part of the rebel scripting that takes place. So that suggests that the script is indeed being invoked.
A lot more than 3 cities should rebel. All of Italy should rebel, plus various regions elsewhere (I've found myself left with 35 - 50 cities under my control, so it varies)

[badass7]

It seems after a number of turns all those with the rebel trait have now lost it an returned to normal, so I could take off the auto govern off all settlements and none of them revolted. So yeah, it seems something definitely bugged out. It does also seem like the rebellion is scripted differently, as I said in 2.0 around half your cities just flat out revolt.

I definitely activated the script after every turn. I've played so many Rome mods now I do it even in other Total War titles! Still, I'm having fun fighting the huge stacks of rebel legions walking about. There's a good 5 or 6 on the border of eastern Italy alone, and I have many of my own legions moving to counter, so the battle should be fun at least!

[ferike_2007]

It seems something got screwed in your campaign because in all v2.6 roman campaign i have played the rebellion occured when my provinces number hit 85, with clocklike accuracy - i even planned and timed my last conquestes to have propper troops and general to face the rebel stacks; and almost all Italy and Greece revolted, so your estimation is correct: usually i lost around half of my provinces.

Maybe, just maybe... you once forgot to run the script; a single mistake is enough to "kill all of the fun". Sorry.

[badass7]

Well, it definitely activated at 85 settlements. That's when a lot of armies in the field turned and all my provinces went to automanage, and many governors gained the rebel trait, but ultimately only 3 actually revolted.But yes, something definitely went wrong somewhere.

I just noticed my new faction leader hasn't gained the emperor trait, and my original FL died during the rebellion. Do I need to take the rebel cities for that trait to be gained, or should he have it already?

[ferike_2007]

I just noticed my new faction leader hasn't gained the emperor trait, and my original FL died during the rebellion. Do I need to take the rebel cities for that trait to be gained, or should he have it already?

Well, i'm not a trait or script specialist, but i suppose the quoted event could easily disturbe the rebellions' process due the lack of proper triggers - the dead FL's traits. Maybe the new FL didn't got the needed traits. If you have some older saves it could be worthwhile to make some tests: replay the few last turns before the rebellion; maybe you could "kill" your FL somehow - a nice Caribbean boat trip, or a rebel stack will help -, and let the new younger leader to gain propper traits for rebellion - if the death of your FL screwed the rebellions' process, your observations could help the developer(s) to improve the trait/script system...

[Adam the VIth]

Good, I guess I managed to activate the script every time! Just went to rebellion at 85 settlements!

Question: So what do I do? I guess the gamey thing would be to move all the rebellious guys out of the way, but I do like a challenge.

What do most of you do? Let some cities and legions go, but be gamey with some that you don't want to lose?

Are the rebellious generals and family members easily bribe-able? Do I have to kill them all, or do some of them return to the fold?

I did a search, but the results were not workable without several hours of reading through hundreds of posts.

Once I beat this civil war, will I have another when I return to 85 settlements again?

[ur-Lord Tedric]

Gents - just to confirm that there is a big difference on the timing of the '2nd Rebellion' between V2.0 and v2.6.

In v2.0 (& v2.5) there is a probability that the rebellion will occur each and every turn after 85 settlements; there is a very small likelihood that the rebellion will not occur at all before 125 settlements and game 'win'; however it is small.

In v2.6 the code was left as it was due to testing purposes and remains that it will occur definitely at 85+ settlements.

[neep]

Gentlemen, I took the liberty of putting together some notes on the Rebellion.
My goal is to provide this information, most of which I have gathered from others more knowledgeable and handsome than me.
I am not suggesting I’m the expert on this, I’m just trying to put this information into a single place for folks to refer to if needed.
If anyone has additional points or tips & tricks, please add your suggestions.

Preparation
The rebellion will occur once you have 85 cities.

During the rebellion and the aftermath you will be running a cash deficit and your treasury will go negative in a big way. Do not panic.
Once you recover enough cities, your cash flow will become positive and you’ll find that you can rapidly get your treasury back into positive territory and begin to rebuild.
At that point, you will still have a sizable Rebel faction to deal with but you’ll be able to start repairing buildings and refresh your armies.
Until then, you will be unable to purchase anything since your treasury is negative. Even though your treasury is empty/negative any buildings or troops already queued will continue to be produced on schedule.

Actions to Take
To prepare, try to fill up your building queues for all cities. This will allow your cities to continue to grow and be happy.
Additionally, try to build up your armies in general; keep the recruitment queues full so fresh troops can continue to be generated. If possible, refresh all troops to full strength just before the rebellion hits.

You may want to consider the types of Rebel troops you will be facing.
Post-Marion, the Rebels will be predominately Segmentata and Praetorian even if you have no buildings that can produce those units.
These are hard coded into the scripts, even cities that are economy-focused with no barracks will generate top of the line troops for the Rebels.
Rebel stacks are usually 50% heavy infantry, 3 or 4 missile units, 3 or 4 cavalry units, a general (Boo, Hiss), and an artillery piece.
This may affect how you want to organize your own forces to deal with these Rebel scum.

When the Rebellion Starts
The first step that happens is that certain regions are randomly identified for rebellion and within those regions, cities are randomly assigned to rebel.
Around 50% of your cities will be targeted for rebellion although this is variable. I have found myself with between 41 and 58 cities still under my control, of varying economic benefit.
South/Central Italy will always Rebel, except for the city that your Faction Leader iscurrently in (Hint : Choose a big city for him to defend.)

Rebellion is controlled by giving the city governor a “Governor Rebels” attribute. When this happens, the city WILL rebel, moving the governor outside the city will not change the result.
When the governor gets the “Governor Rebels” attribute they are also limited in how far they can move, so a rebel governor cannot move to another city.
Rebel governor’s Management and Influence values are set to zero and so provide no benefit to the city, and the city’s happiness is set to zero.
But note that the city has not yet flipped to the Rebel faction.

Cities in the rebel region with no governor will automatically flip to the rebels.

The garrison troops are not affected and you can move them out ofthe city. These troops will remain loyal to you and can be used later to fight against Rebel forces.
Troops and Generals who are onboard a fleet will not rebel.
Non-Rebel governors are not affected by movement restrictions and they can still move as normal.

You may also see Rebel forces start to randomly appear in your territory.
Some of your troops who are in the field may also be turned to the rebellion.

Actions to Take
You cannot make these Rebel cities become loyal or raise their happiness levels.
Review the cities with unhappy citizens and decide what to do about their building and unit queues.
Cash flow will be reduced at this point since you have a lot of unhappy cities. By removing units and buildings from the Rebel city build queues you can recover those funds, which may be used to add to the queues of your loyal cities.
However, you would hope to re-take those Rebel cities in the near future so it MAY be worthwhile to leave the build queue in place so that when you re-take the city it has new buildings becoming available to you (the new owner of the city).

Any garrison troops that you have in rebellious cities will get ejected and then attacked by Rebel troops.
Garrisons are usually relatively weak so you could lose a lot of troops in these minor skirmishes – one for each Rebel city. Better to move them out of the cities and consolidate them together into a few, large stacks.
They will then be harder targets for the Rebels and you may be able to destroy a Rebel stack or two as they appear.

You can also move troops and generals onto boats, where they will be safe from rebellious thoughts.
This also allows you to position those troops to retake strategic cities later.
Greece usually rebels so I always position a fleet off the coast of Sparta to retake that city as my first step to reconquering Greece.

During the Chaos (2 Turns)
During the next few turns, the effects of the rebellion will ripple through your empire.
Cities with “Governor Rebels” will be very unhappy with happiness= zero. Some will flip to the rebel cause immediately, some will take an extra turn for the unhappiness to take effect.
So you will see your empire degrading over several turns as your cities become unhappy (less income) and then become Rebels (even less income as you lose cities).
A happy city with no Governor will not rebel.
An unhappy city will rebel, as usual.

When a city rebels, there is a full stack of Rebel troops generated for each city, and these are top of the line troops.
These are hard coded into the scripts, even cities that are economy-focused with no barracks will generate top of the line troops for theRebels.
Rebel stacks are usually 50% heavy infantry, 3 or 4 missile units, 3 or 4 cavalry units, a general, and an artillery piece.
The Rebel troops will come looking for trouble and will attack your loyal cities.

Actions to take
All your cities will be set to Auto-Manage (as part of the underlying script mechanics to set attributes for cities and Governors).
You could leave this alone and reset this later, but it’s probably better to check and reset these now. The auto-manage tends to be simplistic and you will likely need to have different cities doing different things. You will need to do this for several turns until this phase has completed.
You’ll also want to make sure that happiness in your non-Rebelcities is relatively high and thus, taxes are low. This will not help with your overall economy but you have to just give up on trying to make money for several turns. Your treasury will go into debt in the order of hundreds of thousands during the rebellion and the aftermath, so a few extra denarii here or there will not make any difference. Just focus on keeping your good citizens happy so all available troops can be out in the field killing Rebels.

Consolidate your forces if needed so that they are strong enough to counter the Rebels in their region.
Even if your forces are too weak to decisively win, they can seriously weaken the Rebels forces so that later battles can destroy the Rebels.

There may be additional Rebel stacks randomly appearing on the campaign map.
These seem to be very aggressive and will come looking for trouble. Your loyal cities will find themselves under attack, and you will see several stacks of Rebels moving into your territory.
Attack and destroy them if you can, otherwise you’ll have more troubles later as more Rebel stacks appear.
The goal for you during this phase is to consolidate your troops and start to kill off Rebel forces in the field.
Meanwhile, since the Rebel forces are being so aggressive it means that the Rebel cities are being left lightly defended by only one or two garrison units.

Don’t retake Rebel cities during this chaotic period, since those cities may just turn around and rebel again.
Setting up a siege to starve out the city defenders would be OK since it can take several turns before you gain the city back. But you’ll likely find yourself attacked by Rebel stacks as they start to pop up.
Wait for things to settle down before starting to recover cities back into your empire.

Aftermath (short term)
Your current Faction Leader (FL) will be described as “Dictator for Life”
If not, make sure to have him spend a turn in Rome to ensure that this trait is applied. It is important for moving on to the Imperial phase of the game.
He must die before you get back to having 85 cities, or the rebellion will start over again. Depending on how fast you recover your cities, simple old age might take care of this.
Alternatively, he can be used to spearhead attacks on anything that moves – it’s amazing how much damage a large body of heavy cavalry bodyguards can inflict before they finally go down.
Of course, if it turns out that he’s impervious to battle wounds send him off, on his own, on a trip around the world. He’ll eventually succumb.

Your treasury will be negative, and getting more negative with each turn that passes. There is nothing you can do to change this since the numbers are so large.
Your goal is to recover enough cities to first stop the negative cash flow and then return to a positive number treasury.
Every turn you are losing a lot of money, so you can’t sit around waiting for events to happen.
Italy has your home cities and these generate most of your cash, so retaking those should be a priority.
Cities on the outer edge of the empire are lower priority, but – if a lightly defended Rebel city is in reach, take it.

Actions to Take
Kill Rebel troops and retake their cities.

They cannot be bargained with, they can’t be reasoned with, they feel no pity or remorse or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
The Rebels will come to you, so take them on and destroy them in open field battles as much as you can.
Hopefully you will have experienced troops and several-star generals. This should allow you to inflict far more losses than you suffer.

Once the field battles are fought, and won, there are no further Rebel troops in the area so you should be able to take over the cities with little difficulty.
The Rebel cities themselves are usually left with only one or two garrison units. If you have siege engines then you can immediately attack and overwhelm the defenders.
Or just besiege for a turn or two, break through the walls, and take over.
The Rebel faction does not benefit from the scripts that create full stacks in besieged cities, so their cities can be locked up very easily.

This is the time to be aggressive. You are racing to recapture enough cities to improve your cash flow so you can retrain your troops before your military strength drops too low to continue fighting. If this occurs, you will be unable to capture more cities, and you will not be able to retrain existing troops.
You should be able to recover 3-5 cities per turn, depending on the distances involved and how many Rebel forces you destroyed during the previous stage.
You will need to have 50 cities or so to have positive cash flow.

If possible, target those cities that were your military centers first.
This will allow you to repair necessary buildings and retrain troops when you have cash in your treasury.

Most cities that you retake will have relatively low populations so there is little to gain in terms of immediate cash returns. But they help to link up your loyal regions, and they will grow back into happy, prosperous revenue generators.
Larger cities may be tempting for a short term cash windfall by massacre, but I believe this is foolish. The deficit in your treasury is too large to be replenished by a few short term payments, and all you’re left with is a low population city that generates little tax revenue. I believe it is better to keep the population in place so that higher tax revenues can be generated.
Since there is no culture shock the population should be happy and minimal garrison troops should be needed.

Aftermath (long term)
Once you have enough cities for a positive cash flow, you can relax-ish.
It will take a few turns for your treasury to be refilled since there will a be large deficit to be paid off first.
Then, you will start to have some spare cash that you can use to retrain your depleted troops.

Most ex-Rebel cities will still be low population, but they will have damaged buildings that may reduce happiness.
Only repair the minimum to keep your population happy. You want to make sure that your troops are in the field re-taking more Rebel cities, not acting as a garrison for your current cities.
All cash should go to retraining the army.

Your new FL will take a turn or two before becoming “Caesar”
If not, make sure to have him spend a turn in Rome to ensure that this trait is applied. It is important for moving on to the Imperial phase of the game.
Once this occurs, it is safe to increase the number of cities you control and there should be no further rebellions.

Fewer Rebel cities will be left, but these will likely be well defended. So you will need to choose between a longer siege period to starve them out and take over the city (hopefully) without a fight or a more immediate storming of the city with correspondingly higher losses on your side.
There doesn’t seem to be an obvious choice, and different regions may require different strategies.
You have some money to spend, but not a lot, so there are constant trade-offs between replenishing your troops, re-building happiness buildings, re-building trade/economy buildings.

Actions to Take
Continue to retake Rebel cities, but at a slower pace with a focus on minimizing your troop losses.
Allow your economy to rebuild and replenish your cash flow and treasury.
Position yourself for Imperial expansion

[Adam the VIth]

Neep: Truly what I needed (understatement).

THANK YOU!

[5th Lieutenant]

Great work, makes for interesting reading.

They cannot be bargained with, they can’t be reasoned with, they feel no pity or remorse or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

Would you say that you terminated them?

[neep]

Glad you got that reference

[tone]

Great guide.
Interesting point about rebellion happening at exactly 85 settlements... Not the intention that that should have remained. Yes if you could upload the save game that would be helpful