Help! Colonial Unhappiness!

[Blade!]

Here's the scenario:

Me: Spain
Stability: +2

I am Spain. I rule. Everything is going great. I know I can't hope to hold the Netherlands area, so I get out of there and abandon it. I avoid all European wars, after annexing the 2 minor states in the Iberian peninsula.... I go and colonize all of N.America annex Aztecs and Incas, working on Iroquois. Everything is great, even all my pagans except the major cities have been converted.
Then it ALL falls apart! Every non-national province (African, American, and formerly annexed European provinces) develops rebellion risk of 3-5%! Basically, I can't keep up with supressing the rebellions... and basically can't when cities of 8,000 suddenly produce armies of 52,000!
WHY!? Perhaps, after a while do colonies yearn for independence? Or does prolonged war affect your colonies but not your national provinces? Do National provinces just never develop rebellion? I really need to figure this out if I am going to enjoy playing this game!

 

[Dark Knight]

You can check the revolt risk factors for a province by putting the cursor over the revolt risk in the province information screen and letting a drop-down list appear. The probable explanation is that war exhaustion is causing a large positive revolt risk in your provinces which results in risks of 3-5% for your non-Catholic provinces which presumably don't have as much of a negative factor for religion.

 

[unmerged(1104)]

Cites of 8K producing large armies; remember the province population is more than the city population.

You have most of N. America? I wonder if you are getting the American Revolution factor and it's spilling over into your other colonies? I sure you would have noticed - could it be a random event?

 

[State Machine]

Can't say what is going on, but, I'm playing England, and a similiar thing seems to have happened to Spain. If you look at revolt risks, they are as you mention. This kicked in around 1580 (?) and is still true (1677). You're screwed

Seriously, though, Spain has had pretty low stability since some Civil War events. That is always a factor in revolt risk. As said, long wars influence revolt risk. Religion is a factor. If you are (like any good Spaniard of the time) - pretty intolerant to other religions - provinces of other religions will have much higher revolt risks. Have not played Spain, but I imagine the Incas, Aztecs, conquered colonies from Netherlands or England in America are not Catholic - they will have a much higher revolt risk.

As mentioned hold your cursor over the revolt risk for a province to see what the factors for the risk are.

 

[Misha]

Revolt Risk

One point that hasn't been mentioned is that the revolt risk for war exhaustion is doubled in non-national provinces. So while your war exhaustion revolt risk in Madrid might only be 5%, it would be 10% in all those territories you conquered. This, coupled with lower than max stability, would give your pagan provinces (for which there is no religious tolerance slider) a fairly substantial revolt risk percentage.

The solution? Try to max out your stability, but first & foremost get out of whatever wars you are in. Once you are at peace with everyone (except for your rebels, of course) war exhaustion will drop to zero, probably eliminating your revolt risk entirely.