Idea/Discussion how to make rebels more strategic and less annoying element of the game

[Drachenfels]

Hi guys,

Rebels. Most of the time you don't do anything with them just quell rebellion if it hops to existence. Of course there is occasional harsh treatment, at times you even park your army on the province but overall it's repetitive and annoying part of the game and not strategic risk.

My idea is to tweak the system base on interesting conclusion of Russo-Japanese war. I will quote a paragraph from the wiki: "In Poland, which Russia partitioned in the late 18th century, and where Russian rule already caused two major uprisings, the population was so restless that an army of 250,000–300,000—larger than the one facing the Japanese—had to be stationed to put down the unrest."

Idea.

Every province is adding a percentage of your total force limit that is required to be on mission called 'Suppress rebels' up to certain cap limit. Similarly to drill mechanic that is coming, you pick an army, park it somewhere, hit the button and as long as enough soldiers is doing this, rebels are not progressing. Advantage of the system is that is less micro and more macro. You have to field an army and this army cost you maintenance (but is not causing attrition damage). When war comes you basically have a choice unleash your full potential or keep some forces in the back to suppress rebels. The thing is contrary to current rebels, progress bar never goes down because province unrest went below zero. We are decoupling unrest on province with progress.

My provisional numbers are among those lines:
- every uncored province +1%
- every territorial core that is not your state 0.01%
- every province with intolerance 0.25%
- every province of non-accepted culture 0.50%
- every province with unrest 0.10% per 1.0 of unrest

With a cap of half of your force limit.

My emphasis is that only provinces that are stated, of tolerated religion, of your culture group without unrest won't generate this burden.

Everyone else has to maintain some part of the army to keep it from firing.

How that would scale? Scaling probability between 0% and 100%. When enough soldiers is on the mission 0% chance for rebel uptick, but if you deploy only half of regiments it's 50%.

Of course it's only rough idea. It was not math-tested, but bottom line is, the more you blob and more ethnically diverse provinces you have, the bigger standing army is necessary to keep it all together. But if time comes that you need to use all units of the army you need to calculate that it will cause rebellion, maybe not now, maybe in 30 years but it will happen.

Constructive criticism or you would like to improve this idea? Feel free to share your thoughts.

Disclaimer.

I am well aware that there are certain events, decisions, mechanics and especially disasters that are based upon revolts. So I am not saying it will be easy to implement.

 

[bbqftw]

Funny how all these suggestions always mean more rebels and more tediousness.

Go play MEIOU

Here is my constructive input. Right now everyone not insane already optimizes for zero rebels past court and country phase (a recent game saw 2k dev Ming annexed in 8 years with zero rebels firing with average OE of 200% during coring). This is perhaps not strictly optimal, but it reduces having to micro 20+ fleets and armies since the auto rebel suppress function is ass. So basically you suggest omnipresent rebel risk when most people commit 2-3 idea groups simply to avoid dealing with this mechanic, and that this will make the system less annoying?

The entire cost structure of this game is that rebels are financially unviable to deal with, until that changes you will always see optimization to eliminate never seeing this mechanic. And perhaps that is the source of my irritation, it's that people who suggest increasing rebels simply don't have enough experience to get this.

 

[Philthy]

Hi guys,

Rebels. Most of the time you don't do anything with them just quell rebellion if it hops to existence. Of course there is occasional harsh treatment, at times you even park your army on the province but overall it's repetitive and annoying part of the game and not strategic risk.

My idea is to tweak the system base on interesting conclusion of Russo-Japanese war. I will quote a paragraph from the wiki: "In Poland, which Russia partitioned in the late 18th century, and where Russian rule already caused two major uprisings, the population was so restless that an army of 250,000–300,000—larger than the one facing the Japanese—had to be stationed to put down the unrest."

Idea.

Every province is adding a percentage of your total force limit that is required to be on mission called 'Suppress rebels' up to certain cap limit. Similarly to drill mechanic that is coming, you pick an army, park it somewhere, hit the button and as long as enough soldiers is doing this, rebels are not progressing. Advantage of the system is that is less micro and more macro. You have to field an army and this army cost you maintenance (but is not causing attrition damage). When war comes you basically have a choice unleash your full potential or keep some forces in the back to suppress rebels. The thing is contrary to current rebels, progress bar never goes down because province unrest went below zero. We are decoupling unrest on province with progress.

My provisional numbers are among those lines:
- every uncored province +1%
- every territorial core that is not your state 0.01%
- every province with intolerance 0.25%
- every province of non-accepted culture 0.50%
- every province with unrest 0.10% per 1.0 of unrest

With a cap of half of your force limit.

My emphasis is that only provinces that are stated, of tolerated religion, of your culture group without unrest won't generate this burden.

Everyone else has to maintain some part of the army to keep it from firing.

How that would scale? Scaling probability between 0% and 100%. When enough soldiers is on the mission 0% chance for rebel uptick, but if you deploy only half of regiments it's 50%.

Of course it's only rough idea. It was not math-tested, but bottom line is, the more you blob and more ethnically diverse provinces you have, the bigger standing army is necessary to keep it all together. But if time comes that you need to use all units of the army you need to calculate that it will cause rebellion, maybe not now, maybe in 30 years but it will happen.

Constructive criticism or you would like to improve this idea? Feel free to share your thoughts.

Disclaimer.

I am well aware that there are certain events, decisions, mechanics and especially disasters that are based upon revolts. So I am not saying it will be easy to implement.

I'm not so sure about the numbers, but I do like the concept!

You'd be able to have more control over your rebels, not less.

 

[Lacost]

Funny how all these suggestions always mean more rebels and more tediousness.

Go play MEIOU

Here is my constructive input. Right now everyone not insane already optimizes for zero rebels past court and country phase (a recent game saw 2k dev Ming annexed in 8 years with zero rebels firing with average OE of 200% during coring). This is perhaps not strictly optimal, but it reduces having to micro 20+ fleets and armies since the auto rebel suppress function is ass. So basically you suggest omnipresent rebel risk when most people commit 2-3 idea groups simply to avoid dealing with this mechanic, and that this will make the system less annoying?

The entire cost structure of this game is that rebels are financially unviable to deal with, until that changes you will always see optimization to eliminate never seeing this mechanic. And perhaps that is the source of my irritation, it's that people who suggest increasing rebels simply don't have enough experience to get this.

The thing is that this very tactic you just described is completely out of historical context. Maybe you could conquer all of Ming in 8 years and not face rebels during that period but there is literally no chance at all that those provinces would stay calm for the next decades.

Yet in EU4 you can do a world conquest in a few years without a single rebel stack showing up. That is simply unrealistic.


I guess this is the reason why so many suggestions come up with "better" ideas on how to simulate rebels in the game ... and keeping the current state where rebels basically vanish in the late game is pretty much one of the worst simulations I could imagine. So the goal might not be to make rebels tedious but to give them a stronger presence throughout the game.

 

[Seb19999]

I have a diplomatic idea about rebels. I think you should get a special CB when rebels from other country cross the border and start sieging your province.

 

[alexti]

Of course it's only rough idea. It was not math-tested, but bottom line is, the more you blob and more ethnically diverse provinces you have, the bigger standing army is necessary to keep it all together. But if time comes that you need to use all units of the army you need to calculate that it will cause rebellion, maybe not now, maybe in 30 years but it will happen.

I cautiously like the idea. If you are aggressively blobbing you already have to dedicate large part of your forces to rebel management and it requires a lot of careful micromanagement to avoid getting your troops squashed by a large rebel groups, to ensure no province defections and so on... So your proposal would reduce all that micro and would effectively charge economical cost instead.

My concern is that in your proposal rebel management will be much cheaper. You could just allocate half FL of regular infantry to "rebel suppression" and basically have rebel-free game from there on. I guess it depends on the view if the current rebel dance is a good gameplay.

 

[alexti]

Here is my constructive input. Right now everyone not insane already optimizes for zero rebels past court and country phase (a recent game saw 2k dev Ming annexed in 8 years with zero rebels firing with average OE of 200% during coring). This is perhaps not strictly optimal, but it reduces having to micro 20+ fleets and armies since the auto rebel suppress function is ass. So basically you suggest omnipresent rebel risk when most people commit 2-3 idea groups simply to avoid dealing with this mechanic, and that this will make the system less annoying?

I think in OP proposal instead of committing 2-3 idea groups to avoid dealing with rebels you would need to commit certain amount of money for that and free up those idea groups to perhaps take more economical idea groups. That would probably make more idea group choices viable and it would also help to address waiting in the early game. Strong early game would become more important because instead of the time-gated growth limiter you would have income-based growth limiter and income is much more under the player control.

 

[Drachenfels]

Funny how all these suggestions always mean more rebels and more tediousness.

Funny how my idea clearly says to comb numbers toward direction where you have less rebellions but more severe rebellions __if you allow them to__ happen. Would you kindly point out a part that says/does/in effect will cause otherwise?

And regarding not having rebels at all. Early game you have annoying rebels that cost you nothing except barrage of popus and diverting your armies. In late game you have none or they are even more irrelevant. If you consider this is not the problem then at least we agree that we disagree.

In addition accepting culture currently is close to irrelevant, while my idea would put some emphasis who is accepted and who is not.

 

[netherlink]

I don't see how rebels are such an issue to so many people apparently.
You can predict quiet well whether or when a rebellion will spawn, you even get the exact number of regiments.

With standing armies, supression, LA increase, Advisor and Legitimacy control you have plenty of tools to use.

Only thing which is quiet obligatory is to pick either religious or humanism ideas, which is quiet a streamlining and debatable.

Anyways, if at all, i think rebellions are more often than not too easy to keep in check or spawn controlled respectively.

 

[Drachenfels]

Rebels are just boring, repetitive, annoying and strategically irrelevant experience. Especially early before you get all those modifier. You have army of 140k, and you have Uzbek rebels spawning in total 26 regiments, split 3:1 in the middle of nowhere. Hardly fun.

 

[Bibor]

Quite simple, really.
Religious rebels flip the province immediately upon sieging it down.
Separatist rebels flip the province immediately upon sieging it down.
Pretender rebels take a % of your army, depending on legitimacy ratio (50/50 if both at full 100) and beeline the capital. To prevent "delete armies trick", they take a % of the army that exists, plus instantly raise % of total force limit. At "51% warscore" they instantly win.

Have fun with the WC

 

[bbqftw]

I cautiously like the idea. If you are aggressively blobbing you already have to dedicate large part of your forces to rebel management and it requires a lot of careful micromanagement to avoid getting your troops squashed by a large rebel groups, to ensure no province defections and so on... So your proposal would reduce all that micro and would effectively charge economical cost instead.

My concern is that in your proposal rebel management will be much cheaper. You could just allocate half FL of regular infantry to "rebel suppression" and basically have rebel-free game from there on. I guess it depends on the view if the current rebel dance is a good gameplay.

from a sanity perspective I already run TC strats which mean practically no rebels even without humanist, unless low legitimacy and that is basically fixed with civil war.

I don't think its financially viable to fight rebels, sure you can use then to zero separatism but I'm pretty sure that's even more counter intuitive.

In other words, its already possible to maintain reasonable expansion pace without rebels firing outside of court and country. This is just a boredom increasing system especially since this basically means you can never go above 100% OE due to the way progression never ticks down.

Game already has enough unenjoyable mechanics as is post 1600, don't need to add more to satisfy the blobbing hater crowd. If they showed any indication of understanding the current blob limiter mechanics currently in the game if be more sympathetic but literally not one suggestion has ever touched on augmenting these things.

 

[Drachenfels]

Game already has enough unenjoyable mechanics as is post 1600, don't need to add more to satisfy the blobbing hater crowd.

I am not sure, why you have to put into every single comment inflammatory content. Example. You claim I am anti-blobbing hater and part of some crowd. First of all I play for WC in every single game I start. Usually I fall short with only about 20k-21k development on normal, but blobbing is what I love in this game.

Clearly for me your didn't put even a shadow of thought what is my idea exactly. For some reason initially you claimed there will be more rebels, now you claim:

This is just a boredom increasing system especially since this basically means you can never go above 100% OE due to the way progression never ticks down.

I have no idea which part of my idea gave you impression you can never go above 100% OE. Quite contrary with numbers in my proposal going above 100% OE will generate less rebels. This demonstrates how loose grip of it you have while sending some "hateful" messages about other players play styles.

So I will be grateful for a clear and to the point message and not yet another rant and out of thin air assumption what is my goal in here or how I play the game.


Blob hater has a spreadsheet that measures amount of blobbing he does:

- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JfTxITS9G-B_0TojbI1JZQ7G8y7nuYgozSoKIqwBycs/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Dalos]

I'd say this doesn't have a simple solution like some new modifiers for unrest etc.

I'm missing two things:

1. Logistics - I don't know how much is Total War popular in here, but in that system rebels could be a real threat just because it takes some time to move your units and this weakens your border defense. Not so much of an issue in here most of the times. Also you can win against the odds just because of good tactics and army composition (or lose utterly against the weaker foe)
2. Foreign support - It would became much of a threat with better system of rebel support. Maybe they can act as a some sort of a country? Not sure really. In history it was (it still is) all about balancing powers. That's why you support protestants as a catholic superpower - you don't want Emperor too strong.

 

[Drachenfels]

1. Logistics - I don't know how much is Total War popular in here, but in that system rebels could be a real threat just because it takes some time to move your units and this weakens your border defense. Not so much of an issue in here most of the times. Also you can win against the odds just because of good tactics and army composition (or lose utterly against the weaker foe)
2. Foreign support - It would became much of a threat with better system of rebel support. Maybe they can act as a some sort of a country? Not sure really. In history it was (it still is) all about balancing powers. That's why you support protestants as a catholic superpower - you don't want Emperor too strong.

I totally agree with both things.

Not sure if (1) should be coupled with rebellions or even attrition, but certainly is a topic that could be expanded.

 

[DeerMan]

Oh damn, I just proposed a similar idea, let me remove that thread and post some of it here

"I thought, for example, that guerrilla warfare should be a province modifier and not a proper way of fighting a war.
Let's take for example Albania, usually annexed by the Sublime Porte in less than 5 years and famous for posing a costant threat to northern ottoman expansion.
Instead of buffing Albania, I suggest that the conquered province get "Guerrilla rebellion"wich reduces (or removes completly) taxes,production and manpower gained. After an x admount of time the province becomes indipendent (but the Ottomans keep their core there).
The ways to fight this modifier is to stationate an army on the province to search and destroy the rebels. It means that the army looses manpower and if attacked it would get a malus in combat for not being in formation.
The more drilled and proffessional (and modern) the army is, the more effective it will be at removing all the rebel's leaders and pacifing the province. Pacifing provinces should give some absolutism and 10 years of -0.5 autonomy.

But the europeans(or everyone) should get in the last age or at some tech level a very huge bonus in fighting guerrilla rebels or simply less chance of the modifier spawning.
The chances of a province getting guerrilla rebels should also depnd on the terrain. higher for mountains and jungles, lower for farmlands and grasslands."

 

[bly08]

My guess is people would just ignore the mission, at least I would. There's no way tying up half of your army is worth it to keep one rebel stack down.

 

[Nussor]

I like @DeerMan 's idea of using Guerrillas as a province modifier and/or possible in-between step to a full rebellion; make it interactive with the covert ops mechanic, too.

The OP gave me an idea for an improved "Suppress Rebels" mechanic: select an army, push the button and the map will show you rebel hotspots, so you can order it to go there. Instead of just suppressing one province, armies will project their force outwards for some tiles with some degree of weakened effect with appropriate numbers. This wouldn't change a lot in the game and reduce tedium by a considerable degree.

@bbqftw MEIOU & Taxes is indeed the superior game, but not an option if I want to import my CK campaign, for instance.

@Dalos The strategy aspect in TW is atrocious, precisely because of the limited movement range.

 

[alexti]

from a sanity perspective I already run TC strats which mean practically no rebels even without humanist, unless low legitimacy and that is basically fixed with civil war.

I don't think its financially viable to fight rebels, sure you can use then to zero separatism but I'm pretty sure that's even more counter intuitive.

In other words, its already possible to maintain reasonable expansion pace without rebels firing outside of court and country. This is just a boredom increasing system especially since this basically means you can never go above 100% OE due to the way progression never ticks down.

We might be interpreting OP proposal differently. With the cap of half FL it should be possible to go over 100% OE (and more importantly over 2000% OE) without having a single rebellion as long as half-FL is dedicated to rebel suppression. That would certainly reduce the waiting for majority of players (assuming that few players are insane enough to play with over 2000% OE now)

Game already has enough unenjoyable mechanics as is post 1600, don't need to add more to satisfy the blobbing hater crowd. If they showed any indication of understanding the current blob limiter mechanics currently in the game if be more sympathetic but literally not one suggestion has ever touched on augmenting these things.

I think that OP suggestion is quite pro-blobbing. Basically, it massively reduces micro required to expand fast, so I wouldn't expect most blobbing games last far past 1600.

 

[Dalos]

@Dalos The strategy aspect in TW is atrocious, precisely because of the limited movement range.

I wrote it in a haste to be honest and treat it more like a brainstorming...

I'm not saying the idea is good (or bad), it's just thing (I mentioned two things from TW actually) that can help simulate it. Maybe some kind of HOI4 logistics but it doesn't have to be exactly the same...

If you want to solve this long term issue you have to be radical. It will hurt, just like you can see it in Stellaris... But of course this solution won't just affect rebelions (which is good, general solution is preferred)