What should I even do here?

[Yozul]

Okay, so I thought it might be fun to play as Ethiopia. Maybe try getting that new achievement for them. Things were going pretty well at the start. I conquered East Africa easily enough. Made some gains in Arabia and gutted the Mamluks, even got Alexandria. I even felt pretty safe finally lowering my autonomy in most of my provinces, since it hadn't had much time to tick down with all the conquering I'd been doing. Pretty good game, right?

Well, then my leader died. No biggie. His heir was 38 without an heir of his own, but I had that Ethiopian idea that gives 25% increased chance of an heir and a couple royal marriages with vassals. Nope, he dies at 43, still with no heir. Now due to the crap legitimacy all those provinces I lowered autonomy in have about 5% revolt risk. That is a lot of provinces, by the way. So fine, I beat down rebellion after rebellion, and finally start to think maybe I'll pull through this. My new crap 0/1/3 leader gets a crap heir with a weak claim, but hey I'll live, right?

So what's that new flame symbol there? Oh, that's the warning for the new disaster system. Hmm... because I have very low legitimacy and a leader with terrible adm it's ticking toward civil war at 1% per month and there's nothing I can do about it? Well, let's hope I can clear that disaster pretty quick. I might still pull through this, there are a whole lot of provinces with recent uprising for a few more years after all.

So the inevitable happens. Civil war! What do I need to clear this? Why, 90 legitimacy, of course. So here I sit with 31 legitimacy, a 6 year old heir with a weak claim, about a third of my provinces at 5% or more revolt risk, and the other two thirds are about to have recent uprising expire, at which point they'll have about 15%. I spent all my money reinforcing my troops for the last round of rebels, and I've just worked back up to about a third of my manpower cap after having been full at the start of all this.

I am feeling a little like this game might be hopeless at this point, because I don't think I'll be able to beat all the rebels. Is there something I'm overlooking? Or am I really looking at many, many decades of getting ravaged by rebels, most likely ending with an Ethiopia about the size it started at?

 

[Sunspawn]

I really think that legitimacy should not be used for such things, as it's 100% randomness and not something you can fix with MP and effort.

 

[bbqftw]

everyone knows that RNG-dominated mechanics being the most important ones is good game design

to be fair, I think lower autonomy button is kind of "russian roulette" button now, unfortunately, as there's so much RNG you can't really plan 30 years ahead too well. After all, any random heir death is going to screw you over.

 

[ParadogsGamer]

You should rarely lower autonomy unless it's really obvious, like -15 or so because first of all it's a lot of micromanagement and second you can quickly find yourself in a bad situation.
Simply raise autonomy where needed and then leave it alone is a good long term strategy.
Ethiopia is a special case because you start with a super leader and then almost certainly get crap leaders after that. So hold your horses with anything autonomy related until he dies and you can see what you're dealing with. Just use him for fast conquest as long as he is alive and then gauge the situation. In a good run, you should be able to get all the way to Mutapa and all that sweet gold with your first ruler. Then you are big enough to handle situations after he dies. Obviously, that doesn't help you now.
I would take it as a challenge to see if I could get out of it, but it's a pretty bad spot you're in. Not knowing the details, but perhaps releasing some vassals to contain the situation would be an idea.

 

[Santoes]

The civil war disaster has to the worst of them. Before they rarely happened, but now it's almost inevitable.

One thing you could of done a little different in your game was to not take two BT 5 territories. You wouldn't meet the requirements of the disaster and there for would be able to let time reduce most of your autonomy before you took the bigger BT provinces.

 

[Yozul]

You should rarely lower autonomy unless it's really obvious, like -15 or so because first of all it's a lot of micromanagement and second you can quickly find yourself in a bad situation.
Simply raise autonomy where needed and then leave it alone is a good long term strategy.
Ethiopia is a special case because you start with a super leader and then almost certainly get crap leaders after that. So hold your horses with anything autonomy related until he dies and you can see what you're dealing with. Just use him for fast conquest as long as he is alive and then gauge the situation. In a good run, you should be able to get all the way to Mutapa and all that sweet gold with your first ruler. Then you are big enough to handle situations after he dies. Obviously, that doesn't help you now.
I would take it as a challenge to see if I could get out of it, but it's a pretty bad spot you're in. Not knowing the details, but perhaps releasing some vassals to contain the situation would be an idea.

The funny thing is that I had -15% unrest when I lowered the autonomy in all those provinces, my first leader had already died, and I have Mutapa as a vassal. It seems like maybe a bad idea to try and integrate them now.

I suppose if I could release everything with Somali culture as a vassal that could make a huge difference, since that would be the worst of the lowered autonomy provinces, and it's really mostly terrible provinces anyway.