Galatian stacks and Pergamon Reform

[Jervaj]

Hello everyone,

Im back to playing the mod after a very long hiatus and I decided to give one of my old favourites a try again Pergamon.

Their reform conditions to become a kingdom seem the same as always, but Im wondering if is there any sort of Galatia rebel spawn right now, as it used to be difficult to achieve the main avenue of getting that reform.

In this new campaign, I was able to defeat one of big the starting stacks (the other either joined the garrison or got destroyed attacking another province as it seemingly dissappeared) and get some progress as the popup suggested. But I dont really have any other stacks to attack in galatia itself, as those generated by the shakedowns dont seem to count as they are outside galatia. It seems like the rebels are hiring troops well enough, as Ankyra itself its full with a 20 unit stack, and of pretty good quality (so much heavy infantry) but it doesnt seem they leave the settlement really. I was wondering basically if new galatian stacks spawn in Galatia itself somehow or if I will have to tweak the script to be able to reform? Or maybe do I have to conquer Ankyra for more rebels o spawn there?



PS: I know I could alternativelly conquer Ankyra and kick out the Seleucids, but I was RPing and expanding more slowly and would prefer to avoid it if possible.

PS2: I managed to complete it and trigger the invasion (with Bythinian reinforcements, that was unexpected), but Im still curious because the way I did it is not really intended. I pushed rebel armies into galatia with bigger forces before fighting there, or fought border rebels of other provinces "from Galatia", which makes it count too.

[QuintusSertorius]

Yeah, I've altered the conditions for the Galatian Shakedowns in the current build, they were occurring too infrequently before.

Conquering Galatia won't help for those reform conditions, though, it needs to be either Rebel-held, or have revolted to the Boii to count. The revolts script should be regularly churning up new little stacks, Galatia is one of the "Troublesome Regions" where they happen more frequently.

[Airos]

You can conquer Ankyra and let it rebel for "free" rebels stack. Very easy since rebellion is a national sport in Asia Minor in the game.


In my recent Pergamon (600 turns), I tried a "peaceful expansion" route, or well, a that how it would read like in a history book.
Essentially : trade and revolt.

You can buy Ipsos and Sardis on the first turn for like 10k.
The good people of Ephesus, Halikarnoss (spell?), Side and Tarsus then decided on their own to revolt with just a tiny little help. The Pergamon King, being an humanitarian and all, restored order promptly.

TONS of rebel stacks between the galatians, Pisidians and the vanilla classic bandits by the way, even with allied gov in Side/Ipsos. 1 stack every 2 turn or so.

[QuintusSertorius]

There should be very few "vanilla classic bandits", they've been reduced to the lowest possible spawn rate, and replaced with the Revolts Script.

[Roma_Victrix]

On a semi-related note, I don't understand why some players find the now very frequent random rebel spawns so appealing. I find it somewhat annoying. I'd rather fight epic wars against powerful factions capable of raising armies and actually wisely garrisoning their cities. A bunch of cowherd bandits blocking roadways are just douchebags who get in the way of that and offer nothing special to gameplay other than building up better traits and chevron experience points for your family members/generals. After a while it just feels like a needlessly time consuming mindless chore dealing with so many turds strung across your empire. I'd rather the rebel spawn script be used for something useful, like scripted rebellions and civil wars or something. Now that would be interesting!

I look forward to this "Revolts Script" that you're talking about. The current iteration of the game has too many of these random spawns.

[Jervaj]

Yeah, I've altered the conditions for the Galatian Shakedowns in the current build, they were occurring too infrequently before.

Conquering Galatia won't help for those reform conditions, though, it needs to be either Rebel-held, or have revolted to the Boii to count. The revolts script should be regularly churning up new little stacks, Galatia is one of the "Troublesome Regions" where they happen more frequently.

But does that happen when rebel controlled? I didnt saw any new ones appearing in Galatia itself, though in my own regions plenty from the shakedowns, psidian raids and the random rebels here and there.

[QuintusSertorius]

On a semi-related note, I don't understand why some players find the now very frequent random rebel spawns so appealing. I find it somewhat annoying. I'd rather fight epic wars against powerful factions capable of raising armies and actually wisely garrisoning their cities. A bunch of cowherd bandits blocking roadways are just douchebags who get in the way of that and offer nothing special to gameplay other than building up better traits and chevron experience points for your family members/generals. After a while it just feels like a needlessly time consuming mindless chore dealing with so many turds strung across your empire. I'd rather the rebel spawn script be used for something useful, like scripted rebellions and civil wars or something. Now that would be interesting!

I look forward to this "Revolts Script" that you're talking about. The current iteration of the game has too many of these random spawns.

That's what I'm talking about, the random little stacks of 5 or 8 units that pop up and besiege settlements left poorly-garrisoned and otherwise make a nuisance of themselves.

Everything we know of the ancient world suggests instability and unrest were the order of the day, there were always people resistant to the cental authority doing their own thing who had to be kept suppressed.

But does that happen when rebel controlled? I didnt saw any new ones appearing in Galatia itself, though in my own regions plenty from the shakedowns, psidian raids and the random rebels here and there.

I think it should. It's been a while since I looked it over, so will have to refresh myself.

[Roma_Victrix]

That's what I'm talking about, the random little stacks of 5 or 8 units that pop up and besiege settlements left poorly-garrisoned and otherwise make a nuisance of themselves.

Everything we know of the ancient world suggests instability and unrest were the order of the day, there were always people resistant to the cental authority doing their own thing who had to be kept suppressed.

If there were five to ten rebellions every year during the Hellenistic period, there is no state on Earth that would be able to withstand that and civilization would collapse into chaos much like with the Sea Peoples who helped to bring down most of the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean states. That would be like arguing the Carthaginians spent their entire existence putting down rebels, when in reality the most noteworthy occurrence was the Mercenary War of 241–238 BC. There weren't major revolts against Carthage after that point, although the Romans pretty much dismantled the Carthaginian Empire following the Second Punic War in 201 BC.

Are you honestly suggesting that the Romans had to quell a Spartacus type rebel figure several times each year? What?

From my count, there were three Servile Wars during the entire course of the Roman Republic, not 200,000 Servile Wars. That's only a slight exaggeration given the amount of rebels you have popping up in nearly every single province after about 8 to 12 turns (two to three years time lapse in the game). These are not tiny armies, either, especially when these "5 or 8 units" start banding together to multiply their strength.

From my understanding, history is dotted periodically with major revolts and rebellions, not constant gridlock and chaos. For instance, the civil wars among the Parthians for royal succession and the eventual Sasanian revolution against them, the Yellow Turban Rebellion that rocked China during the Eastern Han dynasty (which had previously been stable and prosperous), the two-decade long revolt against the Ptolemies in Upper Egypt (206–185 BC) by native pretenders to the throne (self-proclaimed pharaohs Horwennefer and Ankhwennefer), the Fourth Macedonian War fought by the royal pretender Andriscus against the Roman Republic in 150–148 BC, or the Sertorian War fought in Hispania (Iberia) from 80 to 72 BC between different political factions of Romans.

Again, are you just talking about pirates and banditry, or are you talking about serious nationwide organized revolts and civil wars?

[Shoebopp]

Well you could always write a RegEx script that easily modifies all of the new Rebels Script. Instead of medium unrest and spawning a small army, it would spawn NO army, but set the unrest to something much higher. Maybe even randomly damage a few buildings. This way, you still have to manage rebellious settlements by shifting your garrison troops or even sending in a top-notch governor. However, you don't suffer the hassle of fighting constant small battles. That way, you still replicate the unpredictable rebelliousness of large empires while still eliminating all those annoying battles.

[Shoebopp]

Alright, I'll try to commit myself to write scripts to replace all certain rebel spawns with either increased unrest or damaged buildings or decreased income. This way interested players can download and run those RegEx scripts on their local installation, instead of downloading a file that completely wipes any local changes they've made. These are the scripts and their changes:

The new Rebellions Script
- No more rebel spawns
- 4 unrest instead of 2. This will significantly increase the chances of a settlement straight up revolting. Then you'll have to fight THAT as the rebellion
Pisidian Raids on western Hellenes
- The smaller raid will be replaced by damaging farms and markets if they exist
- The larger raid will be unaffected. The army is big enough to pose a nice challenge
Ethiopian Raids on Seleucids, Ptolemies, Nabatu
- Will be replaced by damaging farms and markets if they exist
Arabian Raids on Seleucids
- Small raids just damage farms and markets if they exist
- Large raids are slightly larger
Dahae Raids on Seleucids
- Small raids just damage farms and markets if they exist
- Large raids are slightly larger
Numidian Raids on Carthaginians
- Just damage farms and markets if they exist
Raids on Pella
- Deducts income. Damaging Pella's infrastructure nonstop for all 3 raids would be overkill
Illyrian Raids on Epeiros
- Deducts income.

[Shoebopp]

I've assembled a micromod at https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...ids&p=16118257 to remove the vast majority of "annoying" rebel spawns, but leaving the extremely deadly and fun ones like the entire Eastern Migrations, the Galatian Shakedown, and the Arevaci Mercenary and Anti-Urbanization scripts.

[QuintusSertorius]

If there were five to ten rebellions every year during the Hellenistic period, there is no state on Earth that would be able to withstand that and civilization would collapse into chaos much like with the Sea Peoples who helped to bring down most of the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean states. That would be like arguing the Carthaginians spent their entire existence putting down rebels, when in reality the most noteworthy occurrence was the Mercenary War of 241–238 BC. There weren't major revolts against Carthage after that point, although the Romans pretty much dismantled the Carthaginian Empire following the Second Punic War in 201 BC.

Are you honestly suggesting that the Romans had to quell a Spartacus type rebel figure several times each year? What?

From my count, there were three Servile Wars during the entire course of the Roman Republic, not 200,000 Servile Wars. That's only a slight exaggeration given the amount of rebels you have popping up in nearly every single province after about 8 to 12 turns (two to three years time lapse in the game). These are not tiny armies, either, especially when these "5 or 8 units" start banding together to multiply their strength.

From my understanding, history is dotted periodically with major revolts and rebellions, not constant gridlock and chaos. For instance, the civil wars among the Parthians for royal succession and the eventual Sasanian revolution against them, the Yellow Turban Rebellion that rocked China during the Eastern Han dynasty (which had previously been stable and prosperous), the two-decade long revolt against the Ptolemies in Upper Egypt (206–185 BC) by native pretenders to the throne (self-proclaimed pharaohs Horwennefer and Ankhwennefer), the Fourth Macedonian War fought by the royal pretender Andriscus against the Roman Republic in 150–148 BC, or the Sertorian War fought in Hispania (Iberia) from 80 to 72 BC between different political factions of Romans.

Again, are you just talking about pirates and banditry, or are you talking about serious nationwide organized revolts and civil wars?

The Servile Wars were massive risings of significantly more people than are represented by the small spawns that happen periodically with the Revolts Script.

It's an all-purpose representation of banditry, piracy, locals who resent central authority (highlanders, etc), incursions of neighbouring peoples and so on. I've turned the frequency down a little in the current build and removed some of the additional spawns on the islands to stop them being swamped by repeat spawns.

I've also nerfed the Rebel General trait and reduced the number of Command stars they spawn with, so that they're not all regularly beating the AI in autocalc and turning into super-generals.

[Roma_Victrix]

Alright, I'll try to commit myself to write scripts to replace all certain rebel spawns with either increased unrest or damaged buildings or decreased income. This way interested players can download and run those RegEx scripts on their local installation, instead of downloading a file that completely wipes any local changes they've made. These are the scripts and their changes:

The new Rebellions Script
- No more rebel spawns
- 4 unrest instead of 2. This will significantly increase the chances of a settlement straight up revolting. Then you'll have to fight THAT as the rebellion
Pisidian Raids on western Hellenes
- The smaller raid will be replaced by damaging farms and markets if they exist
- The larger raid will be unaffected. The army is big enough to pose a nice challenge
Ethiopian Raids on Seleucids, Ptolemies, Nabatu
- Will be replaced by damaging farms and markets if they exist
Arabian Raids on Seleucids
- Small raids just damage farms and markets if they exist
- Large raids are slightly larger
Dahae Raids on Seleucids
- Small raids just damage farms and markets if they exist
- Large raids are slightly larger
Numidian Raids on Carthaginians
- Just damage farms and markets if they exist
Raids on Pella
- Deducts income. Damaging Pella's infrastructure nonstop for all 3 raids would be overkill
Illyrian Raids on Epeiros
- Deducts income.

I've assembled a micromod at https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...ids&p=16118257 to remove the vast majority of "annoying" rebel spawns, but leaving the extremely deadly and fun ones like the entire Eastern Migrations, the Galatian Shakedown, and the Arevaci Mercenary and Anti-Urbanization scripts.

SOMEONE ELECT THIS MAN AS CONSUL AT ONCE! HE IS A CONSUL OF ROME!

Nice work, bro. A man of the people! Thanks for all the efforts here; a well-deserved +1 rep and hopefully more from others.

The Servile Wars were massive risings of significantly more people than are represented by the small spawns that happen periodically with the Revolts Script.

It's an all-purpose representation of banditry, piracy, locals who resent central authority (highlanders, etc), incursions of neighbouring peoples and so on. I've turned the frequency down a little in the current build and removed some of the additional spawns on the islands to stop them being swamped by repeat spawns.

I've also nerfed the Rebel General trait and reduced the number of Command stars they spawn with, so that they're not all regularly beating the AI in autocalc and turning into super-generals.

Fair enough, I appreciate those moves, +1 rep.