This FAQ addresses the following list of questions:
[anchor=whats_rebel]What are rebels?[/anchor]
You won't be asking this after you play very long. But rebels are the armies that pop up in your nation and fight you even when you're at peace. Their flag is a spiffy red and black one:
. (Flag graphic isn't working.)
[anchor=cause_rebel]What causes rebellions?[/anchor]
Rebels can spring from several causes. Events can trigger rebellions in specific provinces, or random ones. Many nations have nation-specific events containing rebellions, and there are also random events with them. (Random events apply to all nations.) There are several types of events that cause rebellions; for detail on these events, see the random event FAQ v1.08.
Outside of events, rebellions happen for three reasons. One is, the owner has tried a religious conversion and it failed. Another is because there is "revolt risk" in the province, and it has failed a rebellion check. A rebellion check happens:
The final way in which rebels may appear in the game is via civil wars. In a civil war, provinces become rebel controlled and armies defect and become rebel armies. See [anchorlink=civil_war]below[/anchorlink] for details.
[anchor=cause_rr]What is revolt risk? How do I see it? What causes revolt risk?[/anchor]
Loosely speaking, revolt risk (RR) is the chance that a province will have a rebellion each time it faces a rebellion check. The net revolt risk for a province is shown on the province information screen labelled "Revolt Risk" (duh). The figure shown is a sort-of yearly figure. As shown, it is 12x the actual value; the actual net RR is typically applied monthly. For example a province showing "6%" for its net revolt risk means that it has a 0.5% chance each time it has a rebellion-check.
[Historical note for people still running 1.07, or reading older posts: RR used to apply monthly as shown, not /12. Thus you got 12 times as many rebels back then, actually a bit more since more provinces would be rebel-controlled. 1.07 rebels fought badly, but it doesn't balance out - rebels are much easier to deal with in 1.08. Before 1.08 certain nations were incredibly tedious to play during various "times of troubles" because you'd be fighting rebels constantly.]
The net revolt risk in a province is simply a sum of individual RR caused by a set of rebellion-related causes.
The causes of revolt risk can be broadly divided into two sets; some originate from the controlling nation (not necessarily the owner). The others are features of the province itself.
Here are the factors that come from the nation which controls the province:
You can see all RR effects itemized for a province by hovering over the Revolt Risk line in the province display; a tooltip will pop up showing the breakdown.
The primary game function of RR is in causing rebellions. However, nonzero net RR in a province also reduces the tax income and other economic factors; for more details see the Economy FAQ v1.09.
[anchor=rebel_power]Why do rebels keep beating my armies?[/anchor]
When fighting a human-controlled nation, rebels are given the same morale and tech. So you are basically facing even odds for a straight-up fight. If you attack rebels in mountains or forest, or across a river, they have a superior DRM to you and you're likely to lose unless you've got favorable odds.
These rebels cheat! They defeated my army three times in a row, and it's more than twice as big!
That's not a question, that's a whine. Suck it up and deal.
[anchor=kill_rebels]How do I kill rebels efficiently?[/anchor]
Attack them in the first month they appear, when their morale is low. Since rebels don't retreat, you only need to beat them once. If you can predict a rebellion, it's best to just garrison the province and/or an adjacent province ahead of time. Try to start conversions on the first of a month, so that they end on a first, and thus give you the most time possible to get armies there.
If you get to rebels in their second month, their morale will still not be full, and they'll usually be beatable.
Tactics used against other armies work. So, for rebels in plains or desert, bring cavalry. Rebels don't get much cavalry so you can usually get the cavalry bonus pretty easily.
Rebels are unlike normal armies in that their morale is determined by yours: when the battle starts, theirs is set to whatever yours is. (That only applies against humans; against AIs they have low morale as they did in 1.07 and before.) Thus, setting your army maintenance slider to full before attacking rebels is generally a bad idea, since it's costly but gives you no advantage. However, there is a trick you can use to gain a morale edge via maintenance. No army ever gets its morale increased while in combat, including rebels. It is possible to exploit this by being very careful about movement times (see the Army Movement Times FAQ v1.08). Send a small army, then one day later a large army to the rebel occupied province, choosing the sending day so that the first army arrives on the last day (the 30th) of a month. The first army should be small, just enough to survive one day of battle (250 to 1K men except in plains or desert where 1K to 2K is better). While the armies are moving, raise maintenance to 100%. The small army arrives with lowered morale, thus setting the rebel morale. The large army gains morale at month's end while moving, then arrives with higher morale than the rebels have.
Also note that rebels can sometimes be dealt with via attrition. If winter is coming when a rebellion pops up, or if it's just a very low support province in the mountains/tropics/etc, you may do fine just letting the rebels melt away in the cold. Look at the siege screen for the province: the attrition rate that the rebels have is shown. If you're sure they'll attrit down below the level required to siege, then you'll be OK just leaving the rebels there until you can deal with them. In the northern parts of the world it is rare for a rebel siege to succeed except on plains, since the siege itself will take a year or so and a single winter will attrit any army by 75% or so.
As with other armies, it is possible to exploit the differences in the support levels provided by a province to attrit the enemy without battle. Send in an army timed to arrive at the end of the month, large enough so that its size combined with the rebels' size is exactly the support level of the province. Then you battle for one day and retreat, or just retreat immediately. Either way, because the rebels' support limit is much lower than yours, they suffer attrition while you don't. For a detailed explanation of attrition, see Army Attrition on Land v1.08.
[anchor=leave_rebel]What happens if I don't kill the rebels?[/anchor]
They may just attrit (see above). In the north, they'll attrit all the way down to <1000 men, at which point they vanish. In low-support places they may attrit down to a stable level which is still too small to siege. In which case they withhold that province from your economy.
If they are not attrited below siege levels, they'll eventually capture your province.
[anchor=capture_effect]What happens when rebels capture a province?[/anchor]
If the province was controlled by an enemy nation, it will be returned to its own government's control and the rebel army vanishes.
Otherwise, the province becomes rebel-controlled. It produces no income. If it stays rebel-controlled for long enough it may [anchorlink=cause_revolt]revolt and declare independence[/anchorlink], or [anchorlink=cause_defect]defect to a neighbor[/anchorlink]. See below.
After taking a province, a rebel army usually sits still for a month or two. Then it will move on to some other province. It may be easier with some provinces, especially border ones, to just let rebels go and hope they cross the border and cause problems for one of your neighbors. Then you move in behind them and siege your province to get it back.
[anchor=rebel_movement]After rebels capture a province, where will they go next? Is it random?[/anchor]
No, it's not random. Rebels try to capture a whole nation (as defined by "minimum" and "extra" sets in revolt.txt).
When rebels are in a rebel-controlled province, they do one of two things. If there are multiple stationary rebel armies there, they take the month to reform into one army. Otherwise, the rebels will select a new target province and start moving there.
Rebel movement is recomputed on the first of each month, and also upon loading the game, but only for rebels in rebel-controlled provinces. If conditions change while they're moving, rebels in rebel-controlled provinces may change their target (and thus change their move).
Exactly how do rebels choose their target province? Rebels only target settled provinces (even a TP), and they never target other rebel-controlled provinces. Keeping those general rules in mind, the decision works as follows.
First, using their current province as a guide, rebels choose a "captive nation" to try to free. (This affiliation is strictly temporary, only for the duration of the decision of where to go next.) The captive nation is chosen based on these criteria:
If rebels target a province they can't actually plot a path to, they'll just sit there, unable to move. (This often happens to rebels on islands.)
When rebels target a non-adjacent province, their move path often takes them through non-rebel-controlled province(s). Non-rebel armies do not affect rebel's target choice, but they may affect their path. If they fight a battle while moving, rebel armies do exactly the same thing your troops do: they continue their move only into the next province. If that province is not rebel-controlled, the rebels will then start a siege.
Rebels are subject to "terra incognita" just as players are. Rebels initially know about all of Europe, most of North Africa, and nothing else. Like a normal nation, they discover any province which they move in to. They also discover the province they're in when they start leaving it. Their target selection is not affected by this (is that really true?), but their movement speed is. Entering an unmapped province takes a very long time, for rebels just as it does for players (see the Movement Times FAQ v1.08). Note that unlike players, rebels may plot a move into unoccupied terra incognita; it just won't complete for them.
[anchor=insta_capture]Rebels captured my fort without a siege! How can I prevent that?[/anchor]
When a province has a rebellion, there's a chance each time that the rebels capture the fort. The higher the net RR, the higher the chance. (More research needs to be done on this; you might help by visiting this thread where they are doing just this work. Very interesting!) You can't prevent it for insane levels of net RR, but the larger the fort, the lower the chance.
They don't have full data yet, but it appears that at 4% net revolt risk, a minimal fort will never fall to rebels in a rebellion. At 5% up to about 25% net RR, the chances increase up until about 42%, at which point no higher net RR makes a further effect.
For a maximum fort (level 6), it appears that rebels cannot capture the fort until the net RR is at least 15. From there up to roughly 35 net RR, the chances increase, again appearing to top out at about 42%.
[anchor=cause_revolt]I didn't recapture a rebel province, and it declared independence! What caused that?[/anchor]
When a province has been rebel-controlled for a long time, it may revolt. A province which revolts declares independence from its parent nation and forms a new nation. This can happen if the following conditions are all true:
When a government collapses (see [anchorlink=cause_collapse]below[/anchorlink]), all of its provinces that can revolt, do. This can create many new nations all at once.
[anchor=revolt_effect]What happens when a province revolts?[/anchor]
When a province revolts, it will form a new nation. In addition to the revolting province, other provinces may join the new nation. Only provinces in the new nation's "minimum" and "extra" lists (in revolt.txt) may join. All provinces joining may be owned by any nation, but they must be rebel-controlled (no matter what length of time). The "minimum" provinces have no additional conditions - they all join if rebel controlled. The "extra" provinces join only if they are adjacent to a province that has already joined. Addition of "extras" is done iteratively: starting with the "minimum" provinces, adjacent "extra" provinces are added repeatedly until no more join.
If a nation's capital province joins the new nation, then the parent nation's capital will be moved to some other owned (not necessarily controlled) province. Thus it may end up relocating to a rebel-held or foreign-held province.
If it's a normal revolt (not a government collapse), the new nation automatically declares war against the parent nation. The parent nation's allies usually dishonor its alliance when this happens, though not always.
The capital of the new nation will be the "capital" province shown in revolt.txt if that province was among the revolters. Otherwise, the lowest numbered revolting province is used. By default, the new nation's religion and culture are those of its capital province; however both of these things can be overridden for a nation in revolt.txt, by the "religion" and "culture" lines, respectively. For example when Persia appears it will always be Shi'ite and have Persian culture, regardless of its capital. (The same process for nation creation is used when you release a vassal.)
Note that the check for province defection (see the next question) is performed after the check for revolt. Thus, a province that has been rebel-controlled but unable to defect may join a revolting nation in the same day it revolts.
[anchor=cause_defect]I didn't recapture a rebel province, and it defected to my neighbor! What happened?[/anchor]
Provinces that don't revolt may defect. A province will defect 4 years (48 months) after it is captured by rebels, assuming:
[anchor=defect_effect]What happens when a province defects?[/anchor]
A defecting province changes ownership, and is no longer rebel-controlled. The nation losing it gets a 5 year CB on the receiving nation.
Unlike other means of province ownership change, there is no nationalism effect in the defecting province. Also, BB is not affected in either nation.
[anchor=cause_collapse]My government collapsed! What caused that?[/anchor]
A government collapses automatically on the first of a month if rebels control a greater number of its owned provinces than the total number of provinces it controls (its own, or others), strangely TPs count against you (as rebel-owned provinces if rebels take them), but not for you. Determination of province revolt and defection is performed before government collapse is tested. A government which ends the month about to collapse may be saved if in the same month one or more rebel provinces leave via defection or revolt.
[anchor=collapse_effect]What happens when a government collapses?[/anchor]
There are several effects:
[anchor=whats_turbo]What's "turboannexation"?[/anchor]
Turboannexing is how an enemy government's collapse looks to a belligerent nation - namely, that it can take any number of provinces in the peace. Generally, turboannexation is a planned result, but not always.
A 100% warscore is enough to take all the provinces of a small to medium-sized nation, up to maybe 8 provinces. However, a large nation can have provinces worth hundreds of warscore - for example, China has about 500% warscore worth of provinces as it starts the campaign in 1419. To fully take over a large nation via wars and diplomatic peaces can require many wars. This takes time: several years per war, plus five years of peace in between. For example conquering 1419 China requires about 6 wars or so, so the minimum time you can take them out via traditional wars is perhaps 40 years.
By contrast, turbo annexation is very fast. It requires one well-planned war, plus one or two easy "mop up" wars against the rump state that is left after a turboannex.
[anchor=wanna_turbo]I want to do a turboannexation! How do I plan it?[/anchor]
Sometimes, you can't. However, there are several circumstances where it's pretty easy. Basically you need a guarantee (or at least to have good odds) that rebels will capture one enemy province.
The most predictable way is when you've got an enemy nation that has already had a rebellion in one or more provinces. If you DoW and invade quickly, you can kill all of the enemy's armies such that he can no longer attack the rebels and/or siege the province. Now you can siege out the enemy. Note that if the province can revolt or defect, you must siege quickly enough (within 3-4 years) to cause the government to collapse before the province can escape. Consult revolt.txt, or siege quickly.
Another reliable circumstance to plan a turboannex is when the enemy nation has high RR from an event. If you know (usually by reading events files) that the RR will continue for a while, you can invade the enemy and start sieges, waiting for rebels to appear somewhere - anywhere. Don't complete any sieges until a province rebels. When rebels do appear, you retreat, leaving them your siege.
Yet another way to go, though not guaranteed, is to invade when the enemy has started a conversion attempt. This is not guaranteed - the conversion might succeed or it might not. See the missionary and conversion faq for more info on the odds of success/failure.
If you read events files, you can target historical events with revolt commands. If they are random rebellions (targeting -1, meaning, not a specific province), you can complete all sieges except for one province (preferably the capital). When the event fires, it'll only target currently controlled provinces.
Another possibility is to use rebels from a neighboring province. (Typically this will be a province you own.) Suppose you own an isolated province, whose only neighbor is the country you want to turbo-annex. If that province is of a religion you can afford to repress, drop the tolerance slider to zero. Eventually a rebellion will happen; the rebels will siege your province, take it, then move on to the target country.
One final way to sometimes get turboannexation is to simply go in with no planned rebels at all. Capture all provinces but the enemy capital, which you can siege for a while but then just cover. If you're lucky, the enemy will get a random rebellion as an event. With the 1.08 war exhaustion rules, as long as you're not recruiting nor taking losses your WE doesn't rise, and you will never be forced to make peace. So you wait for years if necessary. If you need to get peace for some reason, then you can complete the capital siege and make a normal 100% warscore peace. Then you return in five years to try again.
[anchor=war_exhaustion]What is "war exhaustion"? How do I find out what it is for my country? How does it work?[/anchor]
War exhaustion (WE) represents the effect of war on the population supplying the troops and leaders. If you are at less than max stability, you can see it in-game by going into the tech screen and hovering over the stability slider. If you've got nonzero WE, you'll see that it appears as a malus to your stability investment. Internally, WE is kept as a floating number, though it is not shown in-game anywhere. You can see the exact number by inspecting a save file.
A full description of war exhaustion can be found in the War Exhaustion FAQ v1.09. What follows is my summary.
WE rises when you recruit troops or are "actively" at war. It decreases in months of peace, or (very slowly) when you are "inactively" at war. There is a maximum value for WE which is 10, plus or minus 4, depending on your Centralization and Innovation sliders; see the FAQ on Domestic Policies Slider Settings v1.08.
There are two effects of WE. One is the previously mentioned malus to stability investment. The main effect is in increasing rebellion risk. See the WE FAQ for details.
AI nations have their WE and its effects reduced, except on Very Easy where they have the same WE effects as a human. AIs at Easy-Hard have their WE and maximum WE halved. On Very Hard, their WE and max WE are divided by 3. Thus their highest possible maximum WE at Very Hard is 4 (for a decentralized and innovative AI - very rare). Most Very Hard AIs will have effective max WE of 2, since the AIs tend to be decentralized and closeminded.
[anchor=civil_war]I had a civil war! What caused it? How does it work?[/anchor]
A civil war in EU2 is a built-in kind of random event. It is not scripted like other random events. Note that some nations have "civil war" events, for example the English Civil War. These are normal events, typically involving some revolts and some added RR for a while. However they are not true civil wars.
The cause of a civil war in EU2 is low stability, and high badboy. You will never get a civil war if at +1 stability or higher. Centralization seems to affect it - the higher it is, the lower the chance to get a civil war. Beyond this, not much is known. Civil wars are rare enough that they are hard to test. I've spent two hundred years at low stability without having one.
The effect of a civil war is fairly drastic. Each of your provinces (even colonies and TPs) has a 33% chance to become rebel-controlled. Each of your armies has a 50% chance to defect and become a rebel army; this includes having your leaders defect and turn into rebel leaders.
Update for 1.09: for you world conquerers, civil wars are now a very serious problem. It appears they will now happen very frequently on very hard for any nation over the badboy limit which is at peace, and at less than +1 stability. The incidence in this circumstance is something like one every four months.
- [anchorlink=whats_rebel]What are rebels?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=cause_rebel]What causes rebellions?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=cause_rr]What causes revolt risk?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=rebel_power]Why do rebels keep beating my armies?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=kill_rebels]How do I kill rebels efficiently?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=leave_rebel]What happens if I don't kill the rebels?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=capture_effect]What happens when rebels capture a province?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=rebel_movement]After rebels capture a province, where will they go next?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=insta_capture]Rebels captured my fort without a siege! How do I prevent that?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=cause_revolt]I didn't recapture a rebel province, and it declared independence! What caused that?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=revolt_effect]What happens when a province revolts?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=cause_defect]I didn't recapture a rebel province, and it defected to my enemy! What's up with that?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=defect_effect]What happens when a province defects?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=cause_collapse]My government collapsed! What caused that?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=collapse_effect]What happens when a government collapses?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=whats_turbo]What's "turboannexation"?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=wanna_turbo]I want to do a turboannexation! How do I plan it?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=war_exhaustion]What is "war exhaustion"? How do I find out what it is for my country? How does it work?[/anchorlink]
- [anchorlink=civil_war]What's a civil war? How does it work?[/anchorlink]
[anchor=whats_rebel]What are rebels?[/anchor]
You won't be asking this after you play very long. But rebels are the armies that pop up in your nation and fight you even when you're at peace. Their flag is a spiffy red and black one:
[anchor=cause_rebel]What causes rebellions?[/anchor]
Rebels can spring from several causes. Events can trigger rebellions in specific provinces, or random ones. Many nations have nation-specific events containing rebellions, and there are also random events with them. (Random events apply to all nations.) There are several types of events that cause rebellions; for detail on these events, see the random event FAQ v1.08.
Terminology: you will often see what I am calling a "rebellion" (rebels pop up) called a "revolt". However I am using "revolt" to mean "a province declares independence" (see [anchorlink=cause_revolt]below[/anchorlink] for details). Many people call both things the same thing ("revolt"), but I am trying to be precise.
Outside of events, rebellions happen for three reasons. One is, the owner has tried a religious conversion and it failed. Another is because there is "revolt risk" in the province, and it has failed a rebellion check. A rebellion check happens:
- On the first of every month
- Each time you change your religious tolerance sliders
- Each time you have a stability hit if you're already at minimum stability. For example, if you break a truce (-6 stability) when at -2 stability, you'll face five rebellion checks.
The final way in which rebels may appear in the game is via civil wars. In a civil war, provinces become rebel controlled and armies defect and become rebel armies. See [anchorlink=civil_war]below[/anchorlink] for details.
[anchor=cause_rr]What is revolt risk? How do I see it? What causes revolt risk?[/anchor]
Loosely speaking, revolt risk (RR) is the chance that a province will have a rebellion each time it faces a rebellion check. The net revolt risk for a province is shown on the province information screen labelled "Revolt Risk" (duh). The figure shown is a sort-of yearly figure. As shown, it is 12x the actual value; the actual net RR is typically applied monthly. For example a province showing "6%" for its net revolt risk means that it has a 0.5% chance each time it has a rebellion-check.
[Historical note for people still running 1.07, or reading older posts: RR used to apply monthly as shown, not /12. Thus you got 12 times as many rebels back then, actually a bit more since more provinces would be rebel-controlled. 1.07 rebels fought badly, but it doesn't balance out - rebels are much easier to deal with in 1.08. Before 1.08 certain nations were incredibly tedious to play during various "times of troubles" because you'd be fighting rebels constantly.]
The net revolt risk in a province is simply a sum of individual RR caused by a set of rebellion-related causes.
Terminology: "revolt risk" is commonly used to label two different (though related) things. One is the net RR for a province, as in, "The RR in Thrace was 20%!". The other is the RR addition or subtraction caused by some specific cause (see below): "The event gave me +24 RR for 10 years!" This faq refers to individual causes of RR as "RR"; I use "net RR" for the per-province sum of RR.
Incidentally, both sorts of RR really ought to be called "Rebellion Risk", since they are about risks of rebellion (not revolt). However, "revolt risk" is what the program calls it, so we'll just have to put up with some ambiguity and confusion.
Incidentally, both sorts of RR really ought to be called "Rebellion Risk", since they are about risks of rebellion (not revolt). However, "revolt risk" is what the program calls it, so we'll just have to put up with some ambiguity and confusion.
The causes of revolt risk can be broadly divided into two sets; some originate from the controlling nation (not necessarily the owner). The others are features of the province itself.
Here are the factors that come from the nation which controls the province:
- religious tolerance - the state tolerance of the province's religion is one of the strongest causes of RR. The tolerance value is set on the religion screen. Note that being intolerant to your state religion gets double penalties.
Code:slider value: [left . . . . (.) . . . . right] other religion RR: +11 +8 +6 +4 +2 +1 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 state religion RR: +22 +16 +12 +8 +4 +2 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 - stability - the controlling nation's stability is subtracted from -2, and this sum is added as RR. Thus -3 stability gives +1 RR; +3 stability gives -5 RR.
- per-province event-related RR - events can impose a per-province addition to revolt risk. There are no random events that do this, however. Also note that per-province RR ends when provinces change hands.
- per-nation event-related RR - events can impose a revolt risk on your entire nation, meaning, all provinces under your control.
- culture - if the province's culture is not one of your state cultures, +1 RR, or +2 RR if you are at war.
- war exhaustion - an RR malus based on the controlling nation's WE level is added; for details see [anchorlink=war_exhaustion]below[/anchorlink].
- war taxes - +1 RR in all controlled provinces
- occupation - +1 RR if the province is occupied, that is, the nation controlling the province is not the owner.
- bordering rebels - if rebels control any bordering province, +2 RR is added.
- capital province - gives -2 RR.
- tax collector - causes +3 RR.
- chief judge - gives -1 RR.
- manufactory - gives -1 RR.
- nationalism - starts at +3 RR, then goes down by 1 per decade.
You can see all RR effects itemized for a province by hovering over the Revolt Risk line in the province display; a tooltip will pop up showing the breakdown.
The primary game function of RR is in causing rebellions. However, nonzero net RR in a province also reduces the tax income and other economic factors; for more details see the Economy FAQ v1.09.
[anchor=rebel_power]Why do rebels keep beating my armies?[/anchor]
When fighting a human-controlled nation, rebels are given the same morale and tech. So you are basically facing even odds for a straight-up fight. If you attack rebels in mountains or forest, or across a river, they have a superior DRM to you and you're likely to lose unless you've got favorable odds.
These rebels cheat! They defeated my army three times in a row, and it's more than twice as big!
That's not a question, that's a whine. Suck it up and deal.
[anchor=kill_rebels]How do I kill rebels efficiently?[/anchor]
Attack them in the first month they appear, when their morale is low. Since rebels don't retreat, you only need to beat them once. If you can predict a rebellion, it's best to just garrison the province and/or an adjacent province ahead of time. Try to start conversions on the first of a month, so that they end on a first, and thus give you the most time possible to get armies there.
If you get to rebels in their second month, their morale will still not be full, and they'll usually be beatable.
Tactics used against other armies work. So, for rebels in plains or desert, bring cavalry. Rebels don't get much cavalry so you can usually get the cavalry bonus pretty easily.
Rebels are unlike normal armies in that their morale is determined by yours: when the battle starts, theirs is set to whatever yours is. (That only applies against humans; against AIs they have low morale as they did in 1.07 and before.) Thus, setting your army maintenance slider to full before attacking rebels is generally a bad idea, since it's costly but gives you no advantage. However, there is a trick you can use to gain a morale edge via maintenance. No army ever gets its morale increased while in combat, including rebels. It is possible to exploit this by being very careful about movement times (see the Army Movement Times FAQ v1.08). Send a small army, then one day later a large army to the rebel occupied province, choosing the sending day so that the first army arrives on the last day (the 30th) of a month. The first army should be small, just enough to survive one day of battle (250 to 1K men except in plains or desert where 1K to 2K is better). While the armies are moving, raise maintenance to 100%. The small army arrives with lowered morale, thus setting the rebel morale. The large army gains morale at month's end while moving, then arrives with higher morale than the rebels have.
Also note that rebels can sometimes be dealt with via attrition. If winter is coming when a rebellion pops up, or if it's just a very low support province in the mountains/tropics/etc, you may do fine just letting the rebels melt away in the cold. Look at the siege screen for the province: the attrition rate that the rebels have is shown. If you're sure they'll attrit down below the level required to siege, then you'll be OK just leaving the rebels there until you can deal with them. In the northern parts of the world it is rare for a rebel siege to succeed except on plains, since the siege itself will take a year or so and a single winter will attrit any army by 75% or so.
As with other armies, it is possible to exploit the differences in the support levels provided by a province to attrit the enemy without battle. Send in an army timed to arrive at the end of the month, large enough so that its size combined with the rebels' size is exactly the support level of the province. Then you battle for one day and retreat, or just retreat immediately. Either way, because the rebels' support limit is much lower than yours, they suffer attrition while you don't. For a detailed explanation of attrition, see Army Attrition on Land v1.08.
[anchor=leave_rebel]What happens if I don't kill the rebels?[/anchor]
They may just attrit (see above). In the north, they'll attrit all the way down to <1000 men, at which point they vanish. In low-support places they may attrit down to a stable level which is still too small to siege. In which case they withhold that province from your economy.
If they are not attrited below siege levels, they'll eventually capture your province.
[anchor=capture_effect]What happens when rebels capture a province?[/anchor]
If the province was controlled by an enemy nation, it will be returned to its own government's control and the rebel army vanishes.
Otherwise, the province becomes rebel-controlled. It produces no income. If it stays rebel-controlled for long enough it may [anchorlink=cause_revolt]revolt and declare independence[/anchorlink], or [anchorlink=cause_defect]defect to a neighbor[/anchorlink]. See below.
After taking a province, a rebel army usually sits still for a month or two. Then it will move on to some other province. It may be easier with some provinces, especially border ones, to just let rebels go and hope they cross the border and cause problems for one of your neighbors. Then you move in behind them and siege your province to get it back.
[anchor=rebel_movement]After rebels capture a province, where will they go next? Is it random?[/anchor]
No, it's not random. Rebels try to capture a whole nation (as defined by "minimum" and "extra" sets in revolt.txt).
When rebels are in a rebel-controlled province, they do one of two things. If there are multiple stationary rebel armies there, they take the month to reform into one army. Otherwise, the rebels will select a new target province and start moving there.
Rebel movement is recomputed on the first of each month, and also upon loading the game, but only for rebels in rebel-controlled provinces. If conditions change while they're moving, rebels in rebel-controlled provinces may change their target (and thus change their move).
Exactly how do rebels choose their target province? Rebels only target settled provinces (even a TP), and they never target other rebel-controlled provinces. Keeping those general rules in mind, the decision works as follows.
First, using their current province as a guide, rebels choose a "captive nation" to try to free. (This affiliation is strictly temporary, only for the duration of the decision of where to go next.) The captive nation is chosen based on these criteria:
- the captive nation must not currently exist. (A nation's start date and expirydate definitely do not affect rebel decisionmaking. I don't know whether rebels observe any other conditions on nation formation encoded in revolt.txt.)
- the rebel province must be in the nation's "minimum" province list
- if more than one such nation exists, take the one defined earliest in revolt.txt (that is, the one closest to the start of the file).
- uncolonized provinces and rebel-controlled provinces are never targetted
- if there's a captive nation: its "minimum" provinces are preferred to its "extra" provinces
- adjacent provinces are preferred to non-adjacent
- [if no captive nation:] provinces owned by the owner of the rebel province are preferred to provinces owned by other nations
- wealthier provinces are preferred to less wealthy. "Wealth" is the left number you see on the province screen: modified Base tax + production + trade taxes + trade tariffs + manufactory bonus. Decimal numbers are rounded.
- if there's still no unique target province, target the province with the lowest province number (as in Province.csv).
If rebels target a province they can't actually plot a path to, they'll just sit there, unable to move. (This often happens to rebels on islands.)
When rebels target a non-adjacent province, their move path often takes them through non-rebel-controlled province(s). Non-rebel armies do not affect rebel's target choice, but they may affect their path. If they fight a battle while moving, rebel armies do exactly the same thing your troops do: they continue their move only into the next province. If that province is not rebel-controlled, the rebels will then start a siege.
Rebels are subject to "terra incognita" just as players are. Rebels initially know about all of Europe, most of North Africa, and nothing else. Like a normal nation, they discover any province which they move in to. They also discover the province they're in when they start leaving it. Their target selection is not affected by this (is that really true?), but their movement speed is. Entering an unmapped province takes a very long time, for rebels just as it does for players (see the Movement Times FAQ v1.08). Note that unlike players, rebels may plot a move into unoccupied terra incognita; it just won't complete for them.
[anchor=insta_capture]Rebels captured my fort without a siege! How can I prevent that?[/anchor]
When a province has a rebellion, there's a chance each time that the rebels capture the fort. The higher the net RR, the higher the chance. (More research needs to be done on this; you might help by visiting this thread where they are doing just this work. Very interesting!) You can't prevent it for insane levels of net RR, but the larger the fort, the lower the chance.
They don't have full data yet, but it appears that at 4% net revolt risk, a minimal fort will never fall to rebels in a rebellion. At 5% up to about 25% net RR, the chances increase up until about 42%, at which point no higher net RR makes a further effect.
For a maximum fort (level 6), it appears that rebels cannot capture the fort until the net RR is at least 15. From there up to roughly 35 net RR, the chances increase, again appearing to top out at about 42%.
[anchor=cause_revolt]I didn't recapture a rebel province, and it declared independence! What caused that?[/anchor]
When a province has been rebel-controlled for a long time, it may revolt. A province which revolts declares independence from its parent nation and forms a new nation. This can happen if the following conditions are all true:
- the province has been rebel-controlled for more than 30 months, plus 1.2 months for each click of Centralization you have. So at Centralization 10, it can't revolt until the 43rd month.
- the province is in the "minimum" province list for at least one country which does not currently exist, as seen in the file db/revolt.txt in your EU2 directory.
- all other preconditions encoded in revolt.txt must be met. The nation must not have a "revolt = no" line. The date must allow that country to exist, as per the "date" and "expirydate" lines. There must be no existing nation on the "no" list for the nation.
When a government collapses (see [anchorlink=cause_collapse]below[/anchorlink]), all of its provinces that can revolt, do. This can create many new nations all at once.
[anchor=revolt_effect]What happens when a province revolts?[/anchor]
When a province revolts, it will form a new nation. In addition to the revolting province, other provinces may join the new nation. Only provinces in the new nation's "minimum" and "extra" lists (in revolt.txt) may join. All provinces joining may be owned by any nation, but they must be rebel-controlled (no matter what length of time). The "minimum" provinces have no additional conditions - they all join if rebel controlled. The "extra" provinces join only if they are adjacent to a province that has already joined. Addition of "extras" is done iteratively: starting with the "minimum" provinces, adjacent "extra" provinces are added repeatedly until no more join.
If a nation's capital province joins the new nation, then the parent nation's capital will be moved to some other owned (not necessarily controlled) province. Thus it may end up relocating to a rebel-held or foreign-held province.
If it's a normal revolt (not a government collapse), the new nation automatically declares war against the parent nation. The parent nation's allies usually dishonor its alliance when this happens, though not always.
The capital of the new nation will be the "capital" province shown in revolt.txt if that province was among the revolters. Otherwise, the lowest numbered revolting province is used. By default, the new nation's religion and culture are those of its capital province; however both of these things can be overridden for a nation in revolt.txt, by the "religion" and "culture" lines, respectively. For example when Persia appears it will always be Shi'ite and have Persian culture, regardless of its capital. (The same process for nation creation is used when you release a vassal.)
Note that the check for province defection (see the next question) is performed after the check for revolt. Thus, a province that has been rebel-controlled but unable to defect may join a revolting nation in the same day it revolts.
[anchor=cause_defect]I didn't recapture a rebel province, and it defected to my neighbor! What happened?[/anchor]
Provinces that don't revolt may defect. A province will defect 4 years (48 months) after it is captured by rebels, assuming:
- it has an eligible nation to defect to (see below).
- it is not currently being sieged.
- it is not a capital province - capitals don't defect.
[anchor=defect_effect]What happens when a province defects?[/anchor]
A defecting province changes ownership, and is no longer rebel-controlled. The nation losing it gets a 5 year CB on the receiving nation.
Unlike other means of province ownership change, there is no nationalism effect in the defecting province. Also, BB is not affected in either nation.
[anchor=cause_collapse]My government collapsed! What caused that?[/anchor]
A government collapses automatically on the first of a month if rebels control a greater number of its owned provinces than the total number of provinces it controls (its own, or others), strangely TPs count against you (as rebel-owned provinces if rebels take them), but not for you. Determination of province revolt and defection is performed before government collapse is tested. A government which ends the month about to collapse may be saved if in the same month one or more rebel provinces leave via defection or revolt.
[anchor=collapse_effect]What happens when a government collapses?[/anchor]
There are several effects:
- Mass revolts - all rebel-controlled provinces revolt. Unlike a normal revolt, there's no minimum time requirement for rebel occupation, and the new nations receive their "extra" provinces regardless of adjacency. Note that these revolts may move the capital to some other province, which may be any owned province regardless of who has control.
- Peace is forced - a peace treaty is "signed" with every belligerent nation. They receive ownership of any provinces they control, except the capital province. They pay 2 badboy points per province gained. There is no badboy reduction for the collapsed government.
- Return of government control - any remaining provinces are returned to control of the collapsed government.
- Rebels go into politics - all rebel armies vanish if they are occupying a province which has returned to government control.
- Stability restored - the stability of the collapsed government is set to +3.
- Monarch is reset - the monarch of the collapsed government has his skills decreased to 3/3/3. This lasts until he dies.
[anchor=whats_turbo]What's "turboannexation"?[/anchor]
Turboannexing is how an enemy government's collapse looks to a belligerent nation - namely, that it can take any number of provinces in the peace. Generally, turboannexation is a planned result, but not always.
A 100% warscore is enough to take all the provinces of a small to medium-sized nation, up to maybe 8 provinces. However, a large nation can have provinces worth hundreds of warscore - for example, China has about 500% warscore worth of provinces as it starts the campaign in 1419. To fully take over a large nation via wars and diplomatic peaces can require many wars. This takes time: several years per war, plus five years of peace in between. For example conquering 1419 China requires about 6 wars or so, so the minimum time you can take them out via traditional wars is perhaps 40 years.
By contrast, turbo annexation is very fast. It requires one well-planned war, plus one or two easy "mop up" wars against the rump state that is left after a turboannex.
[anchor=wanna_turbo]I want to do a turboannexation! How do I plan it?[/anchor]
Sometimes, you can't. However, there are several circumstances where it's pretty easy. Basically you need a guarantee (or at least to have good odds) that rebels will capture one enemy province.
The most predictable way is when you've got an enemy nation that has already had a rebellion in one or more provinces. If you DoW and invade quickly, you can kill all of the enemy's armies such that he can no longer attack the rebels and/or siege the province. Now you can siege out the enemy. Note that if the province can revolt or defect, you must siege quickly enough (within 3-4 years) to cause the government to collapse before the province can escape. Consult revolt.txt, or siege quickly.
Another reliable circumstance to plan a turboannex is when the enemy nation has high RR from an event. If you know (usually by reading events files) that the RR will continue for a while, you can invade the enemy and start sieges, waiting for rebels to appear somewhere - anywhere. Don't complete any sieges until a province rebels. When rebels do appear, you retreat, leaving them your siege.
Yet another way to go, though not guaranteed, is to invade when the enemy has started a conversion attempt. This is not guaranteed - the conversion might succeed or it might not. See the missionary and conversion faq for more info on the odds of success/failure.
If you read events files, you can target historical events with revolt commands. If they are random rebellions (targeting -1, meaning, not a specific province), you can complete all sieges except for one province (preferably the capital). When the event fires, it'll only target currently controlled provinces.
Another possibility is to use rebels from a neighboring province. (Typically this will be a province you own.) Suppose you own an isolated province, whose only neighbor is the country you want to turbo-annex. If that province is of a religion you can afford to repress, drop the tolerance slider to zero. Eventually a rebellion will happen; the rebels will siege your province, take it, then move on to the target country.
One final way to sometimes get turboannexation is to simply go in with no planned rebels at all. Capture all provinces but the enemy capital, which you can siege for a while but then just cover. If you're lucky, the enemy will get a random rebellion as an event. With the 1.08 war exhaustion rules, as long as you're not recruiting nor taking losses your WE doesn't rise, and you will never be forced to make peace. So you wait for years if necessary. If you need to get peace for some reason, then you can complete the capital siege and make a normal 100% warscore peace. Then you return in five years to try again.
[anchor=war_exhaustion]What is "war exhaustion"? How do I find out what it is for my country? How does it work?[/anchor]
War exhaustion (WE) represents the effect of war on the population supplying the troops and leaders. If you are at less than max stability, you can see it in-game by going into the tech screen and hovering over the stability slider. If you've got nonzero WE, you'll see that it appears as a malus to your stability investment. Internally, WE is kept as a floating number, though it is not shown in-game anywhere. You can see the exact number by inspecting a save file.
A full description of war exhaustion can be found in the War Exhaustion FAQ v1.09. What follows is my summary.
WE rises when you recruit troops or are "actively" at war. It decreases in months of peace, or (very slowly) when you are "inactively" at war. There is a maximum value for WE which is 10, plus or minus 4, depending on your Centralization and Innovation sliders; see the FAQ on Domestic Policies Slider Settings v1.08.
There are two effects of WE. One is the previously mentioned malus to stability investment. The main effect is in increasing rebellion risk. See the WE FAQ for details.
AI nations have their WE and its effects reduced, except on Very Easy where they have the same WE effects as a human. AIs at Easy-Hard have their WE and maximum WE halved. On Very Hard, their WE and max WE are divided by 3. Thus their highest possible maximum WE at Very Hard is 4 (for a decentralized and innovative AI - very rare). Most Very Hard AIs will have effective max WE of 2, since the AIs tend to be decentralized and closeminded.
[anchor=civil_war]I had a civil war! What caused it? How does it work?[/anchor]
A civil war in EU2 is a built-in kind of random event. It is not scripted like other random events. Note that some nations have "civil war" events, for example the English Civil War. These are normal events, typically involving some revolts and some added RR for a while. However they are not true civil wars.
The cause of a civil war in EU2 is low stability, and high badboy. You will never get a civil war if at +1 stability or higher. Centralization seems to affect it - the higher it is, the lower the chance to get a civil war. Beyond this, not much is known. Civil wars are rare enough that they are hard to test. I've spent two hundred years at low stability without having one.
The effect of a civil war is fairly drastic. Each of your provinces (even colonies and TPs) has a 33% chance to become rebel-controlled. Each of your armies has a 50% chance to defect and become a rebel army; this includes having your leaders defect and turn into rebel leaders.
Update for 1.09: for you world conquerers, civil wars are now a very serious problem. It appears they will now happen very frequently on very hard for any nation over the badboy limit which is at peace, and at less than +1 stability. The incidence in this circumstance is something like one every four months.
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