On civil wars not being proportional to the disloyal characters, I have been thinking and I believe it is true to the spirit. When the conflict explodes, all characters are faced by the question of who they support. Independently of their status, some can be turned when a faction rebels and a civil war usually means splitting the nation in two.
Your are with me or against me, type of situation.
I understand that it might be larger than the few initially disloyal characters and their powerbase, but always being 50% of the country no matter what seems to be far too much. Sometimes it should be bigger than 50% perhaps if the government/ruler is incredibly unpopular, but having one disloyal governor that is your rival refusing to be removed because of low loyalty while the rest of your nation and characters are both loyal and stable that you decide to use 'bring to trial' to remove (which is what it is for - removing characters that are a large problem from your court or provinces that have too much power/important position(s) to simply be thrown in jail with no consequences by trying to imprison them through a trial which can have multiple outcomes: success/failure with stab hit/failure with civil war) being able to convince half of the entire nation to rebel when they overall have few greivances with the administration is both unrealistic and not fun.
Engaging in a Civil War in this period was extremely dangerous (has been throughout history) and could result in complete confiscation of all property, loss of noble status, mass execution of leaders and nobles involved (and you have that option upon winning to 'forgive' or 'punish' the rebels) so convincing someone to commit treason was usually somewhat difficult, especially when the initial rebellion was small so had a small chance of success. Thus, when given the option of 'with or against me' for the rebellion of a single councilor, governor, or family head most people are going to respond with 'Certainly not, I like my head being attached to my shoulders and my skin not being flayed'. As per the rebellion expanding, that does happen when more provinces get occupied and immediately flip, so even a single governorship rebelling could become a massive problem if your forces are elsewhere and they carpet siege multiple regions, thus encouraging the player to be careful and proactive with dealing with dissent and rebellion.
Large Civil Wars that immediately start with 50% of the country, often half your capital region too, are a massive pain and can take decades to put down and completely wreck you, and if any other power decides to attack you the playthrough can effectively be over. Now, that should certainly be possible, that half the nation rises against you, but it should not be for every single civil war - there should certainly be gradations of Civil War from province-governorship(s)-quarter/half/more than half the country depending upon the circumstances, both within and without the player's control. The initial complaint about some of them being too small was perhaps warranted, and perhaps they should have been enlarged, but having every single one be 50% is too much. A 10% disloyal powerbase should not be able to 100% of the time get 50% of the nation to revolt - perhaps there should be a chance that it ends up larger, even significantly larger, than the initial disloyal powerbase, but it should not be the only option.
As for the historic precedent, many Civil Wars happened that were not half the population. A significantly powerful individual that has enough of a grudge, or was likely to lose everything anyway might, and did, go for a last resort 'all or nothing' and this is simulated through a single powerful individual/small group being threatened with complete imprisonment in the 'Bring to Trial' action. Having a low Civil War threshold from an unstable country also might prompt a smaller group to 'try their luck' and in game if you are stretched thin and weak, they might succeed too.
I have less of a problem with the strength of the rebellion's troops (a province levy will be able to pick up arms in the same way if their governor raises them) and a defecting legion will bring it's skills, but the sheer initial size being completely disproportional to those prompting the revolt I feel should be altered to more reasonable gradations.
An all-out Civil War can be fun and has it's place when your realm is very unstable and disloyal, or is shifiting governments, or going through a mission/event like the Roman Eastern Dictatorship, but it seems wrong for it to always be massive and half the country, because they often weren't and it allows one character to destroy your large loyal realm. The current state is so disruptive and would make using 'bring to trial' never usable because it now becomes 'roll for chance of 50% civil war to remove one disloyal governor' which is never worth it unless you are a tiny country, to the extent that I actually preferred the inital system as it did allow large ones too, even if some were perhaps too small.
