Sieging another nation's rebels during a Civil War.

[Antiochus_Soter]

I have found that one of the only ways that it is possible for a small nation to steal a few additional provinces off a larger neighbour is to wait until the neighbour goes into a Civil War, declare war on the rebels and start besieging their provinces. Once you hold a few of them you can sue for peace and if the rebels accept your offer before they are wiped out then you will get to keep those provinces that they agreed to cede to you in the peace negotiations.

I have done this with Parthia against the mighty Seleucids and it worked great. In fact it is quite realistic as that is exactly how Parthia began conquering parts of the Seleucid Realm, they took the area of Parthia from the Seleucid satrap Andragoras after he had declared independence from the Seleucid Empire.

However, when I tried to do it as Rome, it did not work for some reason. I was playing as Rome and Epirus had a Civil War, when I besieged the Epirote Rebels provinces, when the siege was completed the province was simply returned back to Epirus, even though the message that was displayed actually said "Rome now controls the Province". Does anybody know why this happens? is it a bug? Or is it meant to happen?

Is it to do with whether or not the you have been previously at war with the nation under Civil War? Is it to do with core provinces? Is it to do with the type of government? (Rome was a Republic when I could not get it to work, whereas I think Parthia was some sort of Monarchy when it did work). Or maybe it is something to do with the relative strength of the two powers, Parthia was weak compared with the Seleucids whereas Rome was strong compared to Epirus.

Any ideas how the game determines who takes control of the province in these circumstances? It would be good to know ahead of time when it works and when it doesn't, because if it is not going to work, the last thing I want to do is use my resources to help my rivals through their civil wars.

Oh another thing is that when this was happening I was playing the "Magna Terra" mod,I have no idea whether or not this issue is just specific to that Mod, but I suspect that it is not.

 

[Borne2Run]

When all enemy provinces are controlled by rebels or the central government the civil war ends. In this case you were at war W/ Epirus Rebels, who lost the war against Epirus.

Or, the central government had troops at the province you besieged, so you helped them reclaim it.

 

[Cheexsta]

In a civil war, if one faction's provinces are occupied by an outside enemy, then the other faction can reclaim it simply by entering the province. It sounds like your army was besieging the province with an Epirote force helping you - even just one cohort would have been enough.

I have to agree with the strategy of taking advantage of civil wars, too. It's a great way to nab a few provinces, especially if you are able to encourage them by smearing their ruler's reputation, etc.

 

[Antiochus_Soter]

No, there was definately no cohorts from the loyalist side in the province. Throughout the entire siege, the Roman flag remained in the bottom left, which usually indicates who will control the province when the siege is over. In fact after the seige was over it even said that "Rome now controls the province" but it still reverted back to Epirus after I hit OK on the pop-up box. Seeing as noone else has come across this then my guess is that it may be a bug with the Magna Terra Mod.

Using the Magna Terra Mod and playing as Rome I have managed to replicate the "bug" three times now (twice against Epirus and once against Egypt, in all circumstances I had previosuly been at war with them), playing as the Parthians (also in magna Terra) it never happened during 2 Seleucid Civil Wars. Could it be something to do with the culture/religion of the province? I bet those Seleucid provinces were not "Greek", but the Epirote ones were Greek most likely and the Egyptian one was also probably Egyptian.

Still in some circumstances it would make sense that you should not be able to take these provinces. If I was involved in a Civil War and one of my mortal enemies that I had recently been at war with suddenly landed in my territory and captured one of my provinces I would be pretty annoyed, it should at least allow me to break off any ceasefire agreements with them.