How do you deal w/ autonomy

[Thrake]

I dont get why you people are a scared of rebels... Do you never ally anyone? Give an ally military access, and they will clear them for you, if you cant.

The whole point of taking land is to increase your power, But if you let autonomy sit at 50% you have to take twice as much land than if you just decreased autonomy and killed a rebel stack.

By the way, after rebels pop, all the revolt risk goes away (HURRAY!). So again, give Bohemia access, and he'll gladly waste his man power for you... thus being less likely to drag you into a war you dont want.

Edit add; I have had games with no allies, and no manpower, where I was slow to reduce autonomy. Like my Aachen to india game... Nobody wanted to be my friend... Being catholic in india in 1450 will do that.

I don't see the use of lowering autonomy in 1BT fish while allowing it to spawn a rebelion in 5 other provinces. It's a bit too gamey to me, too.

Really, when I'm small, I usually don't increase autonomy because I can't afford it (I sometimes increase it a couple years after conquest when it's close to a revolt; sometimes I don't have to and when I have to, I still benefit of a few years without increased autonomy). I also try to decrease it in key provinces, ie I conquer 3 provinces with the same rebel type, one being say 10 BT, and the other two 3 BT, then I increase autonomy in 3 BT (no unrest), while decrease in 10 BT (some unrest, but parking military there and waiting is usually enough to keep it very low; might have to do the occasional harsh treat though).

Once I'm a big enough blob, I just increase on conquest; this just allows revoltless blobbing almost regardless of the pace of expansion (and I'm too rich/strong to care about what I get from new provinces anyway).

 

[Pyske]

I generally leave as-is upon conquest (usually 40%). If the nationalism causes enough unrest to put me in danger of rebels (80%+), I find a good time to position some troops to crush them, and then lower autonomy to quickly trigger the rebel stack. The -20% unrest from "recent rebellion" then generally covers most of the remaining nationalism (by the time unrest ticked up enough to threaten the first rebellion) and the additional +10% from lowering autonomy.

 

[andriy.gerasika]

I don't see the use of lowering autonomy in 1BT fish while allowing it to spawn a rebelion in 5 other provinces.

I believe, for most recent version, only provinces that have revolt risk spawn rebels. Also, rebels do not seem to retreat anymore, so they are quite easy to kill compared to previous versions.

My point is that it is better to conquer 2BT province, lower autonomy and kill the rebels -- this will give you 1.7BT province, compared to conquer 4BT province and increase autonomy, this will give you 1.4BT province. Assuming I am most of the time in war, my autonomy almost does not decrease until I hit Government level 12.

Manpower and killing rebels is not a problem for me, I am very careful at managing these (conserve manpower and do not auto-hunt), prefer Quantity over Quality (even for Russia). Other problem is that I am not happy w/ vassal feeding -- assuming I diplo-annex vassal, lower autonomy and kill the rebels, that still would give me province at 50% capacity, w/ accepted culture and tolerant religion.

Generally, how do you play uber-aggressive style early in the game? I find autonomy limiting the expansion more effectively than AE: if I increase autonomy, I am dirt poor, only "heartland" is of some value for me; if I decrease autonomy, sure thing, rebels eat some manpower, but still better compared to increasing autonomy.

 

[birincikalite]

What nation do you want to expand with? It depends on that. But there is one thing that won't change : Loans.
Even as major powers you sometimes may need it, and with minors you're gonna get dozens of them if you want rapid expansion...

 

[maledwarfwarior]

I generally don't play uber-aggressive, it's mostly a matter of A) cheesing the AI into stupid gamey mistakes, or B) losing horribly as everyone gangs up on me because of aggressive expansion. I do try to avoid cheesing the game, so I won't take massive numbers of loans, I won't force a rebellion to lower long-term revolt risk, I don't leave 3 units of infantry at a mountain river crossing to be reinforced by 100 units hiding behind the mountain, ECT. I rarely if ever play optimally, I play to make a story not a blob.

 

[andriy.gerasika]

I rarely if ever play optimally, I play to make a story not a blob.

Please elaborate. Do you mean "roleplay"?

 

[maledwarfwarior]

I rarely if ever play optimally, I play to make a story not a blob.

Please elaborate. Do you mean "roleplay"?

Roleplay may be too strong a word. The clash of armies, the foundation of an empire, the creation of a legacy. The actions I take in-game write a epic, but to cheese eu4 robs the game of this power. I don't put myself in the shoes of the heads of state, doing what they would, but where other people see raw numbers I see untold stories. Say you have a very one-sided battle, you lose only a few dozen men. To most people it's nothing major, a footnote in history. However, I see an unwritten tale. Did those men die in battle? Or did they desert the army? And if so, why? So many questions. And the only answers are what I write. Currently, I'm planning on doing an extended timeline custom nation in a random world. The year: 51 AD. 51 years after the bombs fell... 51 years after devastation.

 

[Thrake]

I believe, for most recent version, only provinces that have revolt risk spawn rebels. Also, rebels do not seem to retreat anymore, so they are quite easy to kill compared to previous versions.

My point is that it is better to conquer 2BT province, lower autonomy and kill the rebels -- this will give you 1.7BT province, compared to conquer 4BT province and increase autonomy, this will give you 1.4BT province. Assuming I am most of the time in war, my autonomy almost does not decrease until I hit Government level 12.

Manpower and killing rebels is not a problem for me, I am very careful at managing these (conserve manpower and do not auto-hunt), prefer Quantity over Quality (even for Russia). Other problem is that I am not happy w/ vassal feeding -- assuming I diplo-annex vassal, lower autonomy and kill the rebels, that still would give me province at 50% capacity, w/ accepted culture and tolerant religion.

Generally, how do you play uber-aggressive style early in the game? I find autonomy limiting the expansion more effectively than AE: if I increase autonomy, I am dirt poor, only "heartland" is of some value for me; if I decrease autonomy, sure thing, rebels eat some manpower, but still better compared to increasing autonomy.

If you "spend your time at war", I'm not sure how you can kill rebels, keep being at war and not run short of manpower. Late game I can do that when I'm a blob with quantity (or admin for merc path), but early, there's no way. Try to start with Norway and it's 6 or 7 FL and tell me how you kill rebels on your own.

See, you say 1.7 BT VS 1.4 BT, but you're assuming to increase autonomy VS decrease autonomy. It does not have to be increase OR lower, it can be don't touch autonomy, or just do a mix. I commonly increase autonomy late game because by that time it's a no brainer: I'm too rich to care about what money 3 provinces can bring me, while rebels will require me to mobilize one stack to go after it at full maintenance for a few months, pay reinforcement, loose manpower and probably loose more money than I would win otherwise.

Then, when you have just won one war, it's manageable, but if you say win 4 wars in short succession, then you're good for 4 rebelions in a few years; again too much trouble and an indherance for conquest (I won't even mention colonial powers with rebelions in Europe and all over the world). So I raise autonomy and forget about it. Some modifiers such as trade power aren't affected as badly as tax efficiency anyway.

 

[Johan]

I tend to increase it if unrest is high after conquest!

 

[JoeRambo]

I have been experimenting with economic as first idea group for certain countries. Once you are in almost constant war, -0.05 per month adds up very nicely. While it looks tiny, over wide and fast expanding empire 6% per 10 years work out to massive cumulative numbers.

It's of course opportunity cost, but i realised that with my pope forgiven loan habits it is not that bad idea to go Economic instead of other openers.

 

[Cymsdale]

Early game I tend to increase autonomy soon after conquest. Later on if I have enough manpower/money, I just stomp the rebels. My last game I was Russia with quantity and I couldn't really 'spend' my manpower fast enough.

 

[birincikalite]

I have been experimenting with economic as first idea group for certain countries. Once you are in almost constant war, -0.05 per month adds up very nicely. While it looks tiny, over wide and fast expanding empire 6% per 10 years work out to massive cumulative numbers.

It's of course opportunity cost, but i realised that with my pope forgiven loan habits it is not that bad idea to go Economic instead of other openers.

Second is fine but I think first isn't needed.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Second is fine but I think first isn't needed.

Economic 1st is for nations like Zazzau, Benin, Mali who have pretty easy access to westernization but are mired in awful tribal governments that cause unrest, remove a diplo relation, or add 15% tech cost and have no -LA at all coupled with annoying events that kill your heir more often than usual and stab hit you more too. This region also has a chunk of income potential from gold coupled with an AWFUL trade scenario (hard to control more than Timbuktu + Katsina for a long time) but strong production (IE manufactories on ivory). You can make a case for exploration --> economic too though, simply to get more borders/targets.

 

[josh127]

I tend to increase it if unrest is high after conquest!

But what do you consider "high"?

For me if it's under 7% it's not as big a concern, 7% - 8% is a grey area and over 8% I'll probably just raise autonomy unless other factors apply (I hate dealing with rebels).

Of course, there's a few more variables to that as well:

1) If there's a lot of provinces with around 5% wanting to spawn the same rebels, that could be a problem, and if they're not going to give me good returns, it's not worth the trouble. But chances are if you go to the stability tab you'll find out they are split between different rebel types anyway, so this often isn't necessary.

2) What other factors are impacting the unrest, and will they be cleared up shortly? If it's at 8% because I have 4% from uncored provinces, and 4% from high WE, those are factors that will disappear, so I consider where it will drop down to and whether I can avoid a large rebellion before it pops

3) How well prepared am I to handle the rebellion? Obviously, the better prepared I am, the more willing I am to just wait it out and let the rebels pop on me. If my stomach is growling because I see a nearby feast though, 25% autonomy is better than fighting rebels. Especially if the feast is at a militaristic disadvantage (less tech, bankrupt, etc).


The other variable is at what point do you raise autonomy (assuming you're not wanting to fight the rebels)? If unrest is over 10% I want to make my decision right away. Waiting is probably going to result in the rebels spawning. Under 10% though I can wait and keep my eye on progress. I like to make that decision at 80% progress just in case I find a way to bring unrest down further beforehand or decide that I'm now better prepared to deal with the results.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

High unrest vs not is just a starting point. Your real consideration is the cost of fighting the rebels versus the cost of raising autonomy. If you can realistically avoid rebellion in that province without encountering rebels (which, if you only have 1 province of a given rebel type, can be well over 8% in some circumstances) or losing time then it's strictly poor play to raise autonomy. Sometimes, it's better to just fight the rebels too, while sometimes that's too costly compared to alternatives. The ability to milk allies to do it for you, current morale/prestige situation, amount of military ideas, and how soon you need troops that can be used for -unrest elsewhere are all factors too.

Once you're rolling, rebels mostly matter because they force you to dedicate units to them as opposed to putting those units on the front against other opponents. Early game though it's really about manpower/ducat cost of fighting rebels versus the autonomy itself. Unless the province is really valuable, you will often come out behind if you have to fight a rebellion of significance.

 

[birincikalite]

Well I just look at how many years to revolt. If it's 4-5 years or more, I don't increase since it will decrease due to nationalism anyway.
You can actually not increase even if its 1-2 years, but you should check progress. If it starts getting high then you can decrease it. Tis just lets you enjoy the increased gain for some more time.

 

[Pashahlis]

Well, for me its very simple:

If the province has less than 10 development, i just leave the autonomy as it is (normally 40%-50%). If the province has 10 or more development, i decrease autonomy and fight the rebels. Normally the manpower and ducats i use to fight the rebels are worth it in the long run. Fighting rebels also gives a little bit prestige and army tradition. If the province has less than 10 development but is an important trade center i will also decrease autonomy. And only if the unrest is very high and i cant fight the rebels or stop them from spawning i will increase autonomy.

 

[kitemasaki]

Well, for me its very simple:

If the province has less than 10 development, i just leave the autonomy as it is (normally 40%-50%). If the province has 10 or more development, i decrease autonomy and fight the rebels. Normally the manpower and ducats i use to fight the rebels are worth it in the long run. Fighting rebels also gives a little bit prestige and army tradition. If the province has less than 10 development but is an important trade center i will also decrease autonomy. And only if the unrest is very high and i cant fight the rebels or stop them from spawning i will increase autonomy.

Why are you reviving a dead thread from April?