Generals becoming traitors seems ahistorical

[The Despondent Mind]

I think mtw2 cannot represent why a Roman or Hellenistic general would rebel, thus its a flawed pointless mechanic.

[Hellenikon]

@Septentrionalis

I never had an FM in a city rebel - you should be safe from desertion while staying in cities.

It is when they are in the field that you need to worry.

I have seen it, when a settlement riots and then revolts, with a FM inside, one of these three will happen:
- He is killed during the riots (not even FL and heirs are immune)
- He is ejected from the settlement along with the garrison, the most common thing to happen
- He and the entire garrison turn eleutheroi

[Jurand of Cracow]

@Hellenikon: I think what Rad has meant was that a general cannot rebel in a city due to the low Loyalty. The situation you've described was because of the unrest of the city itself - it was related to the city, not to the general. The general might have caused it but not through low Loyalty, but through + Unrest traits.
@TDM: m2tw mechanics has many deficiencies but the modders try to make out the best out of it and the EBII team does a decent job. I disagree with the description "flawed pointless mechanics". It's better with it than without it.

[Rad]

I never had a general/garrison rebel along with the city - its the first time I hear of it.
They either die in the riots or get kicked out.

[Genghis Skahn]

There's no way in hell that we are removing traitors from the game simply because some Hellenistic and Roman players find it disconcerting. The Romans already have innate loyalty boosts making them the highest loyalty faction in the early game, period. The Hellenistic and Roman factions have enough advantages as it is(eg. siege weaponry), and it's absolutely silly to suggest that all the other factions should keep experiencing desertion of their characters while those two cultures don't. Especially Hellenistic generals, who we have plenty of cases of desertion/betrayal well recorded.

I just don't even know where you guys get off talking like this is a reasonable decision to make which will improve gameplay or the historical nature of EBII. It won't, it's a bad idea and as far as I'm concerned, I totally oppose it as an EB team member.

[BailianSteel]

That's right historically, I agree. I think a kind of proxy for such a situation is not difficult to mod, shall the team want it. You just give the guy +10 Unrest (or more) and see the city rioting and rebelling, than the kicked out general (with low Loyalty) would go rebel as well.

That'd be an interesting idea. It would help put a dent in the AI Seleukidai, though I worry for smaller AI powers.

I find this quite historical depiction by the EBII. The Roman political system used to produce quite different types of rebellion (and much less frequent) than the Hellenistic kingdoms or the "Barbarians" tribal systems. Eg. there were much fewer rebellions on the fringes (governors wouldn't establish their own states, like hellenistic Baktria, Pergamon etc.), and there were no family-related rebellions that were rife in the whole ancient world. Only in the 1c. BC there'd be serious civil wars - with very special political mechanisms.

Agreed. I consider Rome's ability to have it's most powerful men coming back to their center of power instead of setting up their own, hostile regimes to be a key factor in their rise to power. Gameplay wise it's also a good counter to their limited options for Direct Factional Governments.

I think mtw2 cannot represent why a Roman or Hellenistic general would rebel, thus its a flawed pointless mechanic.

Total War has always struggled with the non-military side of...Total War. In some ways it's even gotten worse as the franchise has gone on. I haven't been keeping up with the latest releases, but for the games I did play CA has yet to have a character system as good as Medieval II's. Even so, I think it's better to have the current mechanic than none at all.

[Jurand of Cracow]

I never had a general/garrison rebel along with the city - its the first time I hear of it.
They either die in the riots or get kicked out.

I agree with it, but the situation @Hellenikon described happened also to me. I think that it was actually two-stage process: 1. tbe city was rebelling and the general was kicked out, 2. the general (being out of the city) rebels due to his low Loyalty (I never seen the rebel general staying IN the city after his rebellion).
However, it also happened to me (in the Broken Crescent mod) that a general with 0 Loyalty would stay outside cities and not rebel for years.

[Rad]

I agree with it, but the situation @Hellenikon described happened also to me. I think that it was actually two-stage process: 1. tbe city was rebelling and the general was kicked out, 2. the general (being out of the city) rebels due to his low Loyalty (I never seen the rebel general staying IN the city after his rebellion).

That would be the work of some serious bad luck. But in that order of events, it is possible.

However, it also happened to me (in the Broken Crescent mod) that a general with 0 Loyalty would stay outside cities and not rebel for years.

Good luck, upon which I counted on a bit too much in my campaigns.

[Gunydii]

That's right historically, I agree. I think a kind of proxy for such a situation is not difficult to mod, shall the team want it. You just give the guy +10 Unrest (or more) and see the city rioting and rebelling, than the kicked out general (with low Loyalty) would go rebel as well.

If they really wanted to go for this they could prevent the rebellious FM from moving. you now either need a huge garrison - scary given this trait could presumably escalate - send in another governor - pretty inefficient, not much of a solution, and relies upon your wannabe rebel not being a star governor to begin with - or just let the province go and prepare for the reprisals. I may be alone in this, but I personally like the feel of that.

Think I'd like this to be a two way street though, get an entry trait, no movement, small malus on unreset, could get better, become a good citizen again, could get worse massive increase in unrest -> rebellion. not sure what the triggers could be, change in leader authority, presence of large high loyalty armies nearby, perhaps if the nearby troops aren't under a very loyal general there could be a big spike in chances of going rebel if the city does actually rebel?

[Nightsh4de]

I seem to remember there is a penalty associated to loyalty if your FL is not present in the capital and also seem to remember that if he is, any FM in the city with him gradually accrues loyalty.....I think

[Septentrionalis]

I wonder if any of you veterans of the mod could give me some pointers on how to manage the Faction Leader (and possibly succession). The FL needs to win battles and conquer to accrue authority, but if he stays outside the capital, he loses authority. I am a bit puzzled by how to handle that, given that staying in the capital is not really conducive to winning battles.

Is it so that they should lead as much as possible of the conquest early on and then retire to the capital? Now I have got a FL with no (0) authority, because he has been in various newly acquired cities trying to quell unrest with his high influence and not fighting battles.

[Ivir Baggins]

I wonder if any of you veterans of the mod could give me some pointers on how to manage the Faction Leader (and possibly succession). The FL needs to win battles and conquer to accrue authority, but if he stays outside the capital, he loses authority. I am a bit puzzled by how to handle that, given that staying in the capital is not really conducive to winning battles.

Is it so that they should lead as much as possible of the conquest early on and then retire to the capital? Now I have got a FL with no (0) authority, because he has been in various newly acquired cities trying to quell unrest with his high influence and not fighting battles.

FL will also build authority if they govern the capital. Cycling them through newly occupied cities - without fighting - drops his authority due to a "where the hell is he?" effect.

Have him in the capital? He's overseeing the empire's operation - authority goes up.
Have him fighting enemies? He's a winner - authority goes up.
Have him in the sticks? He's nowhere near the levers of power, someone else is pulling them - authority goes down.

[Genghis Skahn]

The surefire way to increase the authority of your FL is through winning battles. Quite frankly, nothing works as well as winning battles. There's also things you can do like ordering spying missions, diplomatic missions and assassinations which will increase authority if successful, and decrease it if unsuccessful.

I did add 1-2 triggers for high influence FLs(and maybe something else) to experience a slight authority boost in the past, as well.

[Septentrionalis]

FL will also build authority if they govern the capital. Cycling them through newly occupied cities - without fighting - drops his authority due to a "where the hell is he?" effect.

Have him in the capital? He's overseeing the empire's operation - authority goes up.
Have him fighting enemies? He's a winner - authority goes up.
Have him in the sticks? He's nowhere near the levers of power, someone else is pulling them - authority goes down.

The surefire way to increase the authority of your FL is through winning battles. Quite frankly, nothing works as well as winning battles. There's also things you can do like ordering spying missions, diplomatic missions and assassinations which will increase authority if successful, and decrease it if unsuccessful.

Thank you guys. It all makes sense now. It is very useful information that staying in the capital not only stops authority from going down but also increases it. Likewise, knowing that clandestine operations and diplomatic missions increase authority is very valuable.

The next thing I need to do is read the rules of the forum one more time to figure out how to give rep to forum members that take time to help others out.

[z3n]

Placing a spy in the generals army may help -- I've never verified that personally but I've seen some say that about vanilla M2TW.

[Septentrionalis]

FL will also build authority if they govern the capital. Cycling them through newly occupied cities - without fighting - drops his authority due to a "where the hell is he?" effect.

Have him in the capital? He's overseeing the empire's operation - authority goes up.
Have him fighting enemies? He's a winner - authority goes up.
Have him in the sticks? He's nowhere near the levers of power, someone else is pulling them - authority goes down.

I am reporting back to share that once I heeded to your advice and parked my faction leader to the capital with his modest 1 in authority, I have not once had a deserting family member. Even though some have stayed outside settlements for some time. Also, his authority never went up at least visibly. Perhaps he had a negative figure under the hood that would not show in the UI.

Some time ago the original faction leader died and I replaced him as soon as I could with the heir/new leader. He had only 1 in authority but he now has 3. Whatever is going on here, the advice you and others gave me helped me out a lot.

[Wulfburk]

Yeah same, at a moment my empire got too big for few family members, and those few family members had all crap loyalty, so i didnt have enough to lead my 4/5 standing army stacks. But bringing back my faction leader to the capital and letting him stay there is creating an overall loyalty increase in all other family members, and also on new ones adopted or that come of age.


And im all for the rebellion mechanic staying. Its a great feature IMO, forces you to use family members, and good ones.

[nvm]

I find it pretty easy to maintain authority and prevent rebellions when you know how to do that. It's only a problem early game where for some factions having your only army stack rebel at turn 2 can be pretty much a game over. Late game I feel, we could perhaps actually use a bit more difficulty maintaining a large faction with scripts.

[QuintusSertorius]

I think people are overlooking some of the "traitors" who are in place at the start of the game. The "governor" of Rhegion is a Roman traitor, and Magas in Kyrene is a rebellious half-brother of Ptolemy II.

My game also crashes a fair bit so I've got no remorse.

It shouldn't do; 2.3 is much more stable than previous iterations. You're not on Windows 10 or Mac are you?

I find it pretty easy to maintain authority and prevent rebellions when you know how to do that. It's only a problem early game where for some factions having your only army stack rebel at turn 2 can be pretty much a game over. Late game I feel, we could perhaps actually use a bit more difficulty maintaining a large faction with scripts.

There are quite a few scripted elements which persist, such as nomadic raids and Troublesome Regions, which should present some difficulty even in the late game. In 2.35 for factions in the east, there's the new Eastern Migrations scripts, which means the north-east corner is no longer somewhere easy to control.

[BailianSteel]

It shouldn't do; 2.3 is much more stable than previous iterations. You're not on Windows 10 or Mac are you?

I am indeed on Windows 10. I also use highest graphics and play from an external drive if that's of any use.