Harsh treatment cost scaling is double jeopardy

[Hakuromatsu]

Squirrelloid's thread on 1.8 got me thinking about a few things, especially rebels. Now mind you, I love the new system -- whoever cooked up the concept nailed it. It isn't any less random than the old system, but now there's actually player agency in rebel uprisings. But...there are certainly still balance issues with rebels, as others have mentioned. One of the biggest is harsh treatment.

For those who don't know the specifics of harsh treatment:

• A rebel faction can be harsh treated at 25% progress and above, and reduces the faction's progress by 25%.
• The cost of harsh treatment is equal to 5 MIL per 1% chance that the faction's progress will rise each month. At 10%, it costs 50 MIL to harsh treat, at 20%, it costs 100 MIL, etc.
• The monthly chance of progress increase is capped at 75%, regardless of the total unrest of that faction's provinces. Therefore, the cost to harsh treat is capped at 375 MIL.

And some more stats on harsh treatment:

• Harsh treatment guarantees at least half a year will pass before the faction reaches 100% (harsh treating at 95% drops progress to 70%). At a capped rate of 75% chance per month, this gives you an average of eight months before the faction reaches 100%.
• If no faction is past the 75% chance per month cap, the cost to harsh treat every single rebel faction in your nation is equal regardless of the number or distribution of the rebel factions. The total cost is 5 MIL for each % chance per month in all provinces with positive unrest.
• However: if you wanted to stop all rebels from ever rising up (i.e. always harsh treating when a faction reaches 95%), on average you would have to pay varying amounts of MIL/month depending on the number and distribution of the rebel factions. The cost of harsh treatment/month for a single faction increases quadratically as % chance/month increases. The average monthly MIL cost to stop a single faction in its tracks is equal to [(% chance per month) / (10%)]²

So...for example, if a nation has five rebel factions with a 10% chance of progressing each month, you'll spend 250 MIL to harsh treat all five every 50 months on average -- 5 MIL a month. However, if a nation with the same total provincial unrest has one rebel faction with a 50% chance of progressing each month, you'll spend 250 MIL to harsh treat it every 10 months on average -- 25 MIL a month.

This is one of the biggest contributors to why a large number of small factions is easier to handle than a small number of large factions, which most of us have figured out intuitively. Harsh treatment is useless on large factions. This is in addition to some of the extra military advantages concentrated large rebels have over spaced-out small rebels:

• Large uprisings have a greater chance of winning sieges due to your inability to win battles fast enough, leading to negative effects and adversely affecting your income.
• Individual stacks in large uprisings have a greater chance of joining together to form unbreakable blobs.
• The increased need to stomp out large uprisings leads to a need to attack with unfavorable circumstances (most often, your rebel-hunting stack doesn't fully recover between battles, compounding your losses).

Anyway, the solution to quadratically-increasing harsh treatment is making harsh treatment a flat cost regardless of how large the rebellion is. That way, you'd pay the same amount of MIL per month to keep all rebels in your nation at bay, no matter how they're divided amongst your factions (and large factions would still have the military advantages listed above).

I don't have a good number in mind, but 50 MIL feels appropriate. Or maybe 75 or 100 MIL? It would need testing, of course.

 

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

Anyway, the solution to quadratically-increasing harsh treatment is making harsh treatment a flat cost regardless of how large the rebellion is. That way, you'd pay the same amount of MIL per month to keep all rebels in your nation at bay, no matter how they're divided amongst your factions (and large factions would still have the military advantages listed above).

Or... you could try and proactively keep unrest down through increased autonomy, religious & culture conversion, occupation, and ideas?

Just a thought.

 

[Illianor123]

If the costs are too high for you to pay, then raise autonomy.

A flat rate could be too good. If you had a large number of large rebellions then it would be too easy to keep them all down.

 

[Rey]

Plus increase stability, reduce OE and WE, get the Theologian advisor and some decisions (superintendents, ...).

 

[Incompetent]

Basically, if the unrest is twice as widespread, it costs four times as much to suppress it with Harsh Treatment. I think this kind of scaling is intentional: HT is designed to let you ignore some nuisance-level unrest, but it won't let you silence major rebel factions.

Put another way, for a fixed total amount of unrest in your country, it's much safer to have several small rebel factions than one big one. Divide et impera!

 

[TimurLank]

I think the better way would be to "freeze" revolt progress for certain period of time. Lowering 25% for 300 MP means nothing if it takes less than 6 months to regain that percentage.

 

[Autoclave]

my only gripe with it is that the base tax doesn't really matter on % increase for rebel faction. A 1 base tax province with same culture/religion is just as likely to increase the rebel progress by same amount of 5% just as a 12 base tax province.
This means local autonomy and culture conversion low base tax provinces is very much worth it.

 

[Hakuromatsu]

Or... you could try and proactively keep unrest down through increased autonomy, religious & culture conversion, occupation, and ideas?

Just a thought.

What was the point of this post, exactly? This isn't a ragequit thread

A flat rate could be too good. If you had a large number of large rebellions then it would be too easy to keep them all down.

You'd have just as easy a time keeping the rebellions down with HT if you had a "very large" number of small rebellions, though.

What do you think a good number for the flat rate would be, hypothetically?

Basically, if the unrest is twice as widespread, it costs four times as much to suppress it with Harsh Treatment. I think this kind of scaling is intentional: HT is designed to let you ignore some nuisance-level unrest, but it won't let you silence major rebel factions.

Put another way, for a fixed total amount of unrest in your country, it's much safer to have several small rebel factions than one big one. Divide et impera!

You don't think large rebellions already have significant military advantages over small rebellions anyway? (Incidentally, here's another to add to the list above: with small rebellions, you can preemptively plant your armies in all rebel provinces to get defender bonuses and crush the rebellion before it begins.) I think you're right to say "divide et impera," but as it is large uprisings are already more threatening and HT is useless against them on top of that. HT ceases to become a viable game mechanic above ~25% chance/month, which makes the button a bit of a waste. (And raising autonomy just to make HT cheaper is ridiculously silly from a flavor standpoint )

One of the other issues is for small nations just starting to expand. As it is, rebels are a looming threat for small nations (especially in ROTW) but trivial for large nations, since large nations are much less likely to have all their rebels concentrated in one or two factions (apart from special cases, like after conversion). If you're in an area of the world with a limited number of options for conquest and can't help getting uprisings above your FL (especially when something like a ruler dying at 25 with a weak heir happens), HT needs to be just as viable an option as the proactive options. Large, multicultural, multireligious empires shouldn't be less likely to have their outer territories torn apart by rebels, but that's what's happening (especially to the AI of small countries, at least as I've observed).

Also, your choice of avatar is rather appropriate for your post...

I think the better way would be to "freeze" revolt progress for certain period of time. Lowering 25% for 300 MP means nothing if it takes less than 6 months to regain that percentage.

What would you suggest, specifically?

 

[Less]

I don't even harsh treatment anything. The problem is that Unrest itself scales quadratically.

 

[Incompetent]

You don't think large rebellions already have significant military advantages over small rebellions anyway?

Of course they do. Large rebellions are supposed to be a much bigger threat, however you try to deal with them. That said, the rebel AI is such that if a revolt breaks out over lots of provinces, you can often defeat the rebel army in detail rather than having to win one big battle.

(Incidentally, here's another to add to the list above: with small rebellions, you can preemptively plant your armies in all rebel provinces to get defender bonuses and crush the rebellion before it begins.)

Not if you're facing lots of small rebellions scattered across your empire. Billeting troops in all affected provinces is an advantage you have if the *total* unrest in your country is low and/or confined to a small area.

As for the small countries versus large countries thing: Harsh Treatment is actually quite cost-effective if you are a small country, because your monarch point income doesn't scale much with size. The times when HT is ineffective are when *you* are at least moderately large and the potential rebellion covers a largish area. The only time a small country gets in real trouble is if it eats deep into a culturally unified blob. But then it's supposed to be hard to go from some random minor to de facto King of France.

 

[Mztr44]

There is something buggy with rebels though, maybe just religious in particular. Last night I had some sunni unrest from doing conversions. The chance got to 85% and then the next month they rebelled, I should have had a minimum of three more months. Twenty years or so later, the exact same thing happened again, early rebellion from 90%.

 

[anomalacaris]

I don't think flat cost is appropriate, it should at least scale linearly.
In terms of efforts needed to quell such a rebellion, you need way more military, and so why not way more military points?
The current model is manageable as long as you don't swallow more than you can chew.

 

[ChildeR]

<good analysis of harsh treatment cost>

You skipped the part where you explained why you think quadratic scaling is a bad thing. Yes, it means a large number of small factions is easier to handle, but isn't that how it's supposed to be? Harsh treatment will only get you so far, which seems fine. If the faction is large you need to get at the root of the problem.

 

[finkellll]

So...for example, if a nation has five rebel factions with a 10% chance of progressing each month, you'll spend 250 MIL to harsh treat all five every 50 months on average -- 5 MIL a month. However, if a nation with the same total provincial unrest has one rebel faction with a 50% chance of progressing each month, you'll spend 250 MIL to harsh treat it every 10 months on average -- 25 MIL a month.

This is why you do all the other things mentioned above (put troops there, -3 unrest advisor, increase autonomy, etc.) before you harsh treat. Drop the %chance, then reduce the progress for cheap.

Also, feed your vassals if you get rebel problems when you expand. Since rebels are based on force limit, 4 groups of 8 showing up in my vassals' territory instead of 4 groups of 16 showing up in mine is much easier to handle.

 

[ahyangyi]

Somehow I find the quadratically-increasing cost creates quite interesting gameplay. It makes the marginal benefit of decreasing unrest linear though, so it's still a linear function when you look at it from a different angle.

Also, I feel non-linearity is generally no problem. Probably there are also people who prefers the old exponential damage calculation than the current linear one. Oh, and the advisor cost is always quadratic and looks quite fine.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There is something buggy with rebels though, maybe just religious in particular. Last night I had some sunni unrest from doing conversions. The chance got to 85% and then the next month they rebelled, I should have had a minimum of three more months. Twenty years or so later, the exact same thing happened again, early rebellion from 90%.

There are a few. I got Ottoman patriots in an occupied province due to event. I then made peace without taking that one. My rebel screen shows it as an active revolt, but they won't siege ottos nor move. As long as they sit there, I can't possibly get more patriots since the game thinks those are attacking me. That's definitely not right lol.

 

[matk]

Tl;dr: large revolts are harder to deal with than many small ones.

Yes, and? Welcome to reality. The system is great the way it is: it is a good gameplay mechanic that forces you to make choices between facing large-scale revolts or losing some power (via raising autonomy, using monarch points, accepting demands sometimes, needing specific advisors to helps, etc.) AND it is reflective of history. There is a reason the expression 'divide & conquer' exists -> a united force is MUCH more difficult to deal with than a divided force of the same size.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Tl;dr: large revolts are harder to deal with than many small ones.

Yes, and? Welcome to reality. The system is great the way it is: it is a good gameplay mechanic that forces you to make choices between facing large-scale revolts or losing some power (via raising autonomy, using monarch points, accepting demands sometimes, needing specific advisors to helps, etc.) AND it is reflective of history. There is a reason the expression 'divide & conquer' exists -> a united force is MUCH more difficult to deal with than a divided force of the same size.

Maybe rather than blathering tl;dr, you should actually read. It's a useful skill in life and it would allow your response, should you bother to make one, a bit more chance to be on topic and actually address what was said.

 

[Denkt]

Rebel system is made so that smal revolts also have alot of problems to even form while large unrest group are very hard to stop before they revolt, and are very daangerous if they do.

 

[TimurLank]

Tl;dr: large revolts are harder to deal with than many small ones.

Yes, and? Welcome to reality. The system is great the way it is: it is a good gameplay mechanic that forces you to make choices between facing large-scale revolts or losing some power (via raising autonomy, using monarch points, accepting demands sometimes, needing specific advisors to helps, etc.) AND it is reflective of history. There is a reason the expression 'divide & conquer' exists -> a united force is MUCH more difficult to deal with than a divided force of the same size.

You missed the whole point. I wonder why ...