Rebel Vs. Rebel

Setsuna said:

It just occurred to me, unless I'm mistaken, rebels don't fight each other, no matter how different their causes. You might be able to make the case that in certain instances disparate groups would band together against a common foe, but that is just one of many possible scenarios (Let's put allied rebel factions on the wishlist for now.)

Essentially what would be nice to see is, if, in the case of a nation being torn apart by war sees the collapse of its central government, various factions carving out spheres of influence as they vie for control. Instead of having Communist Farmers, Reactionary Officers, Anarcho-Liberal Clerks, and Conservative Soldiers all fighting together against the player's troops and then working together to siege the province. As an aside, how is it determined which group actually captures the province? (Though I think this would only matter for the capital?)

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If a rebel faction takes power that new government will still have all the other remaining rebel factions running about. So they are united against the status quo, but when somone new gets into power...

I hope so, this is something I'd really like to see

The problem with this idea is that it would be quite complicated to make a simple (to reduce computational complexity) and yet plausible system.

Take the Russian Revolution, for instance. You had Ukranian anarchist nationalists, reactionary aristocrats, conservative monarchists, liberal republicanists, socialist Mensheviks, pretty much every conceivable type of rebel, all banding together fighting against the central communist government. Not very well, admittedly - they suffered from lack of coordination; Nestor Makhno's Black Army (Ukranian nationalist anarchists) made an agreement with the Communist government and turned on the White Army (only to find themselves later betrayed - twice!), etc. But for the most part, there was little actual battle between both sides (save the aforementioned Black Army - but how do you simulate a government *allying* with a rebel group?), and though of course they would have all turned on one another should the Communist government fall, what point does that happen at? If only after the communists were completely defeated, that's essentially the current method (everyone vs. whoever controls the capital.) But what about if only Moscow were under Communist rule? Or if only Moscow was under Communist rule but it had 2 million troops there? Or etc? What would likely have happened in reality would be a gradual cooling in relations as Communist power weakened, with different parties falling out at different times - likely the socialists and liberals would leave the coalition first, since they had no desire to see a return of a Tsar. But how to effectively simulate that in-game? And besides, the way it's coded it's an all-or-nothing process; you can't have minor conflicts and contained battles within an alliance; they're either hostile or not.