Rebels are ridiculously overpowered

[Cynical Dreamer]

Harder doesn't equal better.

Some of us happen to have a love for history and expect the game to offer us the chance to play and see some historical events happening if you pull them right.




Someone call Cortes or Pizarro and tell them they did it wrong historically. Somehow they happened to pull the blitzkrieg conquest of two native empire in months, and their annexation to the Spanish Crown didn't mean that suddenly the peasants went mad back at home revolting all the time like madmen because "spain had overextended".

I'm going to give you a pictorial showcase of what I mean.

Note the date. 1531

Now note the date in this one. 1534:

Try to do that live in the game. Good luck with everyone revolting in your empire. Funny enough doing this kind of stuff Spain didn't collapse because "overextension" but it turned from a more or less second rate european power into a world superpower for almost 150 years.

And certainly a lot of revolts happened in the meantime, from the comuneros to the many incan revolts. None of them involved 11 thousand arquebusiers in tercios spawning in Cajamarca, however. Just goes on to prove that revolts in EUIV many, many times go well over the top of what's believable.

Hello,

Your example is an excellent one. After the "Blitzkrieg" conquest, Spain was plagued with a series of uprisings, despite the massive losses due to sickness suffered by the local populations.

Quote : It took almost 60 years of wars for the Spaniards to suppress the resistance of the Indian population of Mesoamerica.

After the Spanish conquest of central Mexico, expeditions were sent further northward in Mesoamerica, to the region known as La Gran Chichimeca. The expeditions under Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán were particularly harsh on the Chichimeca population, causing them to rebel under the leadership of Tenamaxtli and thus launch the Mixton War. (end quote) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanis...ec_Empire#Integration_into_the_Spanish_Empire


If you actually read about the history of South America beyond the initial conquest, you would learn to much astonishment I am sure that the continent was rocked by Indian rebellions, and abortive wars of independence for most of it's history. And therefore, Spanish colonization of the Americas is a great example of how rebellions in game are generally well managed.

 

[Captain Frye]

2Cynical Dreamer

That wasn't his primary complaint, I think. He was talking about overextention and how "too many" colonies cause spanish people to rebel at home.

 

[RAM]

that before you core your American provinces you get rebels with your Tech?Or its after?

Lets put it this way. I anexed the Incan empire. Next turn of the month I had a rebel uprising in Cajamarca. 11.000 "natives" with 9 tercio infantry regiments and two latin cavalry nicely laughing at the 7000 troops I had done my conquest with.

And that was the first of a long series of rebellions EVERYWHERE, with all the rebels (be it natives, peasants, claimants or religious rebels) spawning nice tercios. At one point before quitting I counted how many rebels I was having in my empire at that moment. A total of 145 units, or in numeric terms, 145.000 rebel troops rampant all around my posessions, all of them being of the same tech level as I was.

One would wonder where did those guys get the muskets, considering the tercios had 1/3 of arquebussiers in their ranks. Oh, and how did the incans learn to fight in perfect Tercio formations in a matter of mere days (let alone put a hold on 5000 muskets) after the anexation would be something I long to know aswell.

 

[RAM]

Hello,

Your example is an excellent one. After the "Blitzkrieg" conquest, Spain was plagued with a series of uprisings, despite the massive losses due to sickness suffered by the local populations.

Quote : It took almost 60 years of wars for the Spaniards to suppress the resistance of the Indian population of Mesoamerica.

After the Spanish conquest of central Mexico, expeditions were sent further northward in Mesoamerica, to the region known as La Gran Chichimeca. The expeditions under Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán were particularly harsh on the Chichimeca population, causing them to rebel under the leadership of Tenamaxtli and thus launch the Mixton War. (end quote) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanis...ec_Empire#Integration_into_the_Spanish_Empire


If you actually read about the history of South America beyond the initial conquest, you would learn to much astonishment I am sure that the continent was rocked by Indian rebellions, and abortive wars of independence for most of it's history. And therefore, Spanish colonization of the Americas is a great example of how rebellions in game are generally well managed.

How many of those uprising comprised 11.000 trops, 9000 of them in perfect tercio formations?.

Spain had to deal with uprisings in the new world. Of damned to failure natives armed with handheld stone weapons, rags, arrows, and little else. Thats why all those uprisings didn't live longer than a couple of years (in the most long lived case) and were easily erradicated after the initial surprise was gone.


The spanish dealt with a number of uprisings of natives woefully armed, equipped and untrained. Not with thousands of european styled firearm-equipped and perfectly european trained troops spawning everywhere. To say that the game "represents that well" is ludicrous, seeing the example you can read just avobe. Mere 20 days after the anexation of the Incans I already had 11.000 "native uprisers" in tercios and cavalry. The Incans had never seen a horse until they saw a Spaniard mounted in one, and now they had suddenly enough to form a wing of 2000 horsemen. Not to count the (roughly) 3000 arquebuses needed to equip 9000 terciomen (not to mention the cuirass, made of steel - the incans didn't knew what metal was, btw- or the pike - the incans were using stone weapons when the Spanish arrived).

No, the game doesn't represent this well. I have no problem with uprisings caused by conquest. What I have a problem is with the kind of uprisings you see caused by conquest. And by the fact that those uprisings don't happen just in the native nation you just anexed, but everywhere in your empire because of a totally inapropiate overextension mechanic that isn't designed to cope with this, perfectly historic, scenario. You know, after one month of the Aztec Anexation, there weren't three or four revolts back at spain because of it. And certainly the income of the Spanish empire didn't plummet after the conquest (pretty much the opposite), yet in the game you have to deal with a HUGE income hit because of plumetting trade and tax efficiency that make no sense whatsoever, at least not in that scale.

No, the game doesn't handle that situation well. Not nearly enough.

 

[entwo]

The biggest problem I have with rebels is that they have 100% discipline, the same tech as you and can easily outnumber your max forcelimit army as a medium size nation.
The rebels should have lower tech, lower morale and lower discipline. If you send your entire army with a decent general against a rebellion and lose because they have almost equal stats as your army and you lost the dicerolls it's infuriating.

 

[RAM]

If you send your entire army with a decent general against a rebellion and lose because they have almost equal stats as your army and you lost the dicerolls it's infuriating.

Unless they're trained contenders with properly armed and trained troops, or a nobility uprising, I absolutely agree with this.

"Peasant revolts" with same quality troops as yours?. Hell even in the peasant uprisings in the XVII century all across europe the peasants were armed with agricultural tools at best, not with thousands of perfectly armed and lined up first class troops able to go headon against the best of the best of the nation they were revolting against...

 

[RAM]

2Cynical Dreamer

That wasn't his primary complaint, I think. He was talking about overextention and how "too many" colonies cause spanish people to rebel at home.

My complaint is that the overextension issue makes no sense in a colonial anexation at all. If anything conquering the Americas strenghtened and stabilized the things back at Spain in that era. What caused Spain problems later on was that the huge income coming from the colonies was mismanaged by the rulers to an extreme. Not to mention the ruler's over the clouds ambition meant Spain was in a perpetual war for almost 60 years with no end, and that caused quite a bit of a trouble. But that was not a product of overextension, but of bad management of an empire that well managed and wisely ruled would've been very different.

Uprisings in the place you annex, I fully expect them and of course they should happen and pretty widespread. But not in the scale you see in the game and certainly not with the tech you see it in the game. Because I also have a problem with the equipment of the revolting units. Native uprisings should use the tech of the nation they belonged to, not of the nation they revolt against. IT's stupid to imagine a uprising of incans fighting in tercios and with thousands of horsemen, yet that's exactly what you have to deal with in this game.

 

[GeneralZaphod]

Hello,

I disagree with you. Several historical examples : Sweden's war of independence, where the rebels had a larger force than the defending Danes. The Polish multiple civil wars, where the warlords each had large standing private armies. Dutch war of independence, where the rebels where capable of matching numerically the opposing forces that where thrown at them. The French Wars of Religion, where 10% of the population was able to muster nearly as many troops as the Royal Army. The War of the Rose, where both sides where more or less evenly matched. And the list goes on.

Simply put, the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries where periods during which the state was weak and incapable of fielding durable standing armies. Rebellions comparable in size to the royal armies was a very real possibility, simply because of the small size of governmental forces. That, coupled with increasing fiscal pressure, lead to multiple uprisings and civil wars in all of Europe's large nations, that only really stopped at the beginning of the 18th century.

I find the current system perfectly historical, working and fun. Sometimes, too many rebels might spawn at a strange place, yes, but nothing that really hurts the game overall.

You are completely missing the point. What we see in this game is like 100x more FREQUENT than your examples. Also, like I said, civil wars. Show me one example of any country that has 2 huge rebellions every single year of its existence/

This really shows the need for options when starting a game. We all have our notions of what fun is. Why should a game like this PUSH what it feels are right on me?

 

[GeneralZaphod]

Not to mention, I SO enjoyed MOST of the previous games. This one is just making me freakin mad right now. I can't do much of anything without huge headwinds. For you who find that fun, good for you, but I don't.

 

[unmerged(773375)]

I agree, the natives rebellion and peasant should be nerfed, especially in low population cities.

Also, a modifier like : just crushed peasent rebellion in province x to lower revolt risk should make sense.

 

[Beagá]

That too. Crushed rebellions should mean everyone inside the country that hates you should be more afraid.

That´s EXACTLY how it happens in Victoria 2. Crush a rebellion, and militancy decreases.

 

[scarletrose]

Someone call Cortes or Pizarro and tell them they did it wrong historically. Somehow they happened to pull the blitzkrieg conquest of two native empire in months, and their annexation to the Spanish Crown didn't mean that suddenly the peasants went mad back at home revolting all the time like madmen because "spain had overextended".

It works in the game too... make sure to have the admin power to core everything ASAP, have +3 stability, employ harsh treatement on all incan regions (Cortez and Pizarro sure did) and you are fine.

What you are not fine with is steamrolling and full annexing 3 full eurpean countries in a blink when you are still making cores on the land you already possess and you have no military power to employ harsh treatment (or even worse, you have those points but you rather spend them on tech and ideas ... then you whine about rebels destroying your country), something a lot of people is expecting to be possible ... it is not. and it shouldn't be. not without consequences.

I seriously don't understand all the fuss about rebels ... they are not a threat at all if you do not ignore them.
Whenever a potential rebel appears, you do everything in your power to remove the threat before they field troops.
If you don't do that you are asking for rebellions to spawn
If you do that you will never have rebellion problems unless you do something outrageous like conquering 20+ regions in one go. or declaring wars with no casus belli.

This is not a war game, is a strategy game ... if you have a plan for conquest but you don't have a plan for keeping your lands you fail at the game.

 

[scarletrose]

You are completely missing the point. What we see in this game is like 100x more FREQUENT than your examples. Also, like I said, civil wars. Show me one example of any country that has 2 huge rebellions every single year of its existence/

Show me one example of any country that formed the empire of scandinavia, united Italy in the 16th century or erased a dozen sovreign nations in a single war.
Because that's what you see in the screens.

 

[Smitzer]

What makes me mad is that after I crush the revolt there can be another one next month.I understand that OE gives a more frequent check for rebelions or something but there should be cool down.

And that tercio-tech thing is interesting I found out that sometimes I get my-tech rebels in my colonies and sometimes I don´t and I am talking non-core now.
I guess game-wise if it´s your core and culture(your religion than as well) you get your rebels and if it´s your core but not your culture you get natives with muskets too and non-core spawns Indians with bows...but sometimes it just doesn´t work that way...makes me wonder.

Gamewise core and culture must be the main factor...religious rebels have tech based on that two things.

 

[RAM]

It works in the game too... make sure to have the admin power to core everything ASAP, have +3 stability, employ harsh treatement on all incan regions (Cortez and Pizarro sure did) and you are fine.

Pretty clear you haven't done what you preach. As soon as the anexation is done your overextension goes over the roof. That overextension has some nasty secondary effects, one of them being that coring anything gets prohibitively expensive. There's -no- way you can core all of the Aztec empire just anexed in a single stroke because, simply said, even saving all your points income since the beginning of the game you wouldn't have enough.

That's to begin with.

To follow on, coring a province isn't instantaneous - it takes years to happen. And during those years you'll have to be dealing with massive uprisings with thousands of troops rebelling everywhere using the same tech as yours everywhere and all the time. and not just where you anexed. They'll happen there, and back at home, at any other colony you have, anywhere and everywhere. All kind of revolts. Peasants. Religious. Nationalists. Claimants. EVerything and everyone will instarevolt against you. One or two revolts per month (bare minimum)- and all of them using your top military tech. By the time the years you need for the coring to be complete your empire won't be an empire anymore because you'll be destroyed. That if you didn't quit before. And quite frankly, if you don't quit you're a masochist and you'll have lost the provinces you were trying to core anyway because the revolts will have succeeded and they'll have claimed independence anyway.

Oh btw, anexing the Incas turned a monthly profit of +13 ducats per month with all upkeep bars full (in my case) into a 21 ducat loss per month with all upkeep bars to the minimum because of the trade, tax and production immense negative percentages you get from overextension. Good luck staying with that kind of "economy" for the years it'll take to core all those provinces. And did I mention you'll have to deal with endless rebellions of dozens of thousands of rebels with the same tech as yours and at full upkeep?. Ye, I think I did, but just in case I remind you- yeah you will have to deal with those too. Good luck and have fun bankrupting your empire while you stand no chance against the rebels.


Please, next time you put up an idea, do with one that's feasible. Even better - one you tried and worked. Because the one you just put up is pretty clear to see it doesn't work (and even clearer to see that you haven't even tried)

 

[K.Kingen]

Lets just sum it up:

1. 1-tax provinces shouldnt be able to spawn 20k stacks (yes it happened to me)
2 . When i agree to the rebels demands, it should eliminate the revolt risk, it doesn't (except that autonomy rebel group). Instead the exact same rebels spawn i agree to the exact same demands.
3. If a provinse already has spawned a rebelstack, it shouldnt spawn another until the first one is dead, thus preventing multiple rebel spawns i a province. For example if london spawns 10k, then another 10 k, and another 10 making it a total stack of 30k before i even had the time to get there.
4. If i destroy a rebelstack, it should give the province a cooldown to when the next rebel can spawn.

I really like that the rebels have been buffed up but the mechanics are quite ridicilous. Sometimes it feels that i have killed more rebels than what would have been my entire population.

 

[Hector of Troy]

I rather like the fact that rebels aren't pushovers anymore.

So do I. Moreover, developers have already said the AI will know how to handle rebellions better in the next patch. I believe the system will also receive some adjustments, which I hope doesn't mean rebels will turn to be the pushovers they were in EU3.

Sometimes I think the rebels are too easy to handle, especially the ones that fight for independance or nationalism. In case you can't wipe them out, just give them what they want, like local autonomy. Okay 20 years no taxes for me from one province and a prestige hit..... This doesn't really hurt me. I would like them to only be happy if they get their full independance.

What would be the purpose of negotiating with rebels and eventually giving them what they want, if you know beforehand you will always wipe them out on the battlefield?

They don't happen unless you're playing to dangerously. They should be difficult. It makes expansion harder, it makes the game harder. Adress the problems of your nation and you wont have to deal with so many. Don't overtextend, get low revolt risk modifiers, stablize, promote religious unity. Really whatever direction you want to go with. Can also spend a bit of military power to crack down on a province if its giving you that much of a hard time.

Well said.

 

[unmerged(752132)]

Harder doesn't equal better.

Some of us happen to have a love for history and expect the game to offer us the chance to play and see some historical events happening if you pull them right.




Someone call Cortes or Pizarro and tell them they did it wrong historically. Somehow they happened to pull the blitzkrieg conquest of two native empire in months, and their annexation to the Spanish Crown didn't mean that suddenly the peasants went mad back at home revolting all the time like madmen because "spain had overextended".

I'm going to give you a pictorial showcase of what I mean.

Note the date. 1531

Now note the date in this one. 1534:

Try to do that live in the game. Good luck with everyone revolting in your empire. Funny enough doing this kind of stuff Spain didn't collapse because "overextension" but it turned from a more or less second rate european power into a world superpower for almost 150 years.

And certainly a lot of revolts happened in the meantime, from the comuneros to the many incan revolts. None of them involved 11 thousand arquebusiers in tercios spawning in Cajamarca, however. Just goes on to prove that revolts in EUIV many, many times go well over the top of what's believable.

No but it needs to be harder or you end up with EU3 snowballing stupidity.

Thats the same thing with overxtension. If we have to give up a bit of historical accuracy to have a game thats actually fun and doesn't get boring at the mid-way point because you've blobbed so large all your doing is bouncing around weak rebels waiting until you can conquer another nation that wont stand a chance against you, I am perfectly fine with that.



Also I've played a few games, Ottomans, England, Brandenburg and I have yet to have any problems with the rebels that aren't easily dealt with. Well excluding england early game, but I mean thats sort of the point of england at that point in history, war of the roses etc.

Lets just sum it up:

1. 1-tax provinces shouldnt be able to spawn 20k stacks (yes it happened to me)
2 . When i agree to the rebels demands, it should eliminate the revolt risk, it doesn't (except that autonomy rebel group). Instead the exact same rebels spawn i agree to the exact same demands.
3. If a provinse already has spawned a rebelstack, it shouldnt spawn another until the first one is dead, thus preventing multiple rebel spawns i a province. For example if london spawns 10k, then another 10 k, and another 10 making it a total stack of 30k before i even had the time to get there.
4. If i destroy a rebelstack, it should give the province a cooldown to when the next rebel can spawn.

I really like that the rebels have been buffed up but the mechanics are quite ridicilous. Sometimes it feels that i have killed more rebels than what would have been my entire population.

I like this, these seem to be reasonable complaints. There not things that have happened to me to often. But those could be worked on though I think the balancing would be difficult.


When it comes down to it most of the complaints Ive seen about this game seem like they come from the crowd who want to do everything at once I.e. eu3, or those who think some minor setbacks will destroy there games, so the crowd who everytime they lose a war, or something reload saves before then.

 

[NapoleonComple]

I defeated France, Brittany, Burgundy, Portugal, Spain, Provence, Scotland, Tyrone, Connacht and Aragon and lost my empire to rebels because I overextended.

And you know what?

I like that.

I like that because it makes perfect sense. I exhausted my armies in constant wars abroad and when the inevitable insurrection from the dozens of peoples I oppressed came along I was no longer able to resist. I've lost the best game I've ever played because of that and I completely deserved it.

Now I was crippled by war. I had high debts and I could only support 1/3 of my standing army. But I still like that the rebels are a mortal threat to your nation. As they should be. If you expand so fast that you destabilise your realm then you deserve to watch your nation descend into the decades of civil conflict that such an event would encompass.

 

[unmerged(752132)]

I defeated France, Brittany, Burgundy, Portugal, Spain, Provence, Scotland, Tyrone, Connacht and Aragon and lost my empire to rebels because I overextended.

And you know what?

I like that.

I like that because it makes perfect sense. I exhausted my armies in constant wars abroad and when the inevitable insurrection from the dozens of peoples I oppressed came along I was no longer able to resist. I've lost the best game I've ever played because of that and I completely deserved it.

Now I was crippled by war. I had high debts and I could only support 1/3 of my standing army. But I still like that the rebels are a mortal threat to your nation. As they should be. If you expand so fast that you destabilise your realm then you deserve to watch your nation descend into the decades of civil conflict that such an event would encompass.

What is it they say about most empires? Something about how its not outside forces but those within that bring them down? It's true in history, and I think they've done a good job of portraying it in the game.