Rebellion
Rebellions are when groups of angered subject peoples aggressively rise up against the ruling authority to forcefully make demands to said authority, usually for more autonomy or complete freedom. Rebellions are primarily caused by unrest, although they can also be triggered by certain events. Rebellions may be combated by increasing province autonomy to reduce unrest, reducing unrest through other means, using harsh treatment, or just simply gathering the troops and using brute military force to slay the rebels once they rise up.
Contents
Unrest[edit]
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This section may contain outdated information that is inaccurate for the current version of the game. The last version it was verified as up to date for was 1.23. |
Each province has a number called unrest denoting how discontent the people of that province are with their current situation and how likely they are to instigate and uprising.
Factors[edit]
Unrest is controlled by many factors. Some are specific to a province (local unrest), while others affect unrest in every province in the country (national unrest). The total unrest in a province is the sum of its own local unrest and the country's national unrest.
National unrest factors include:
Stability: +2 per point of negative stability, and −1 per point of positive stability.
Legitimacy: scales linearly from +2 to −2 as legitimacy varies from 0 to 100.
Republican tradition: scales linearly from 0 to −2 as republican tradition varies from 0 to 100.
Horde unity: scales linearly from +2 to −2 as horde unity varies from 0 to 100.
Religious unity: scales linearly from +3 to 0 as religious unity varies from 0% to 100%. (Religious unity above 100% doesn't reduce unrest.)
Overextension: +0.05 for each percent of overextension, e.g. +5 at 100% overextension
War exhaustion: +1 per point.
- Ruler: with
‘Just’ personality: −2
- Advisor: a
Theologian will reduce unrest by −2.
- Government type:
Despotic Monarchy,
Tribal Despotism and
Elective Monarchy all give −1 national unrest.
- Religion:
Animism and
Totemism give a fixed −1 national unrest
Local unrest factors include:
Tolerance: +1.25 per point of negative tolerance and −1 per point of positive tolerance towards the local religion. The maximum bonus from tolerance of heretics or heathens is −3.
Missionary: An active missionary increases unrest by +6. This applies even if the missionary is not making any progress due to occupation of the province or lack of conversion strength.
Culture: provinces with cultures that are neither accepted nor part of the same group as the nation's primary culture get +2, or +1.5 in a republic.
- National Defense: When fighting a defensive war, provinces with cultures that are part of the same group as the nation's primary culture get −5
Occupation: +1 upon occupation, then +1 for every 6 months thereafter that the occupation continues. Rebel occupation does not increase unrest from this factor.
Separatism: +15 for newly acquired provinces without a core, decays by −0.5 at the turn of each calendar year, effectively lasting 30 years. Modifiers to "Years of separatism" modify this by 0.5 per point. Provinces obtained by diplomatic annexation or colonization don't get separatism since they are automatically given cores, but bought and seized provinces do. Provinces conquered from primitives by non-primitives are also separatism-free, making them an even more attractive conquest target.
Friendly troops: −0.25 per friendly regiment at 100% maintenance, up to a maximum of −5 with 20+ troops. The effect scales with maintenance level (down to zero at minimum maintenance).
Local autonomy: manually changing local autonomy adds a province modifier lasting 30 years: "Increased Local Autonomy" decreases unrest by −10, while "Decreased Local Autonomy" increases unrest by +10.
- Recent Uprising: −100 unrest for 10 years. For all provinces associated with the recently active rebels.
Many ideas and policies reduce unrest:
Finally, many events and decisions affect unrest. Here are some of the most important decisions with long-lasting effects:
- The Catholic decision Statute in Restraint of Appeals gives −1 national unrest.
- The Christian decision Advancement of Religion Act gives +1 national unrest.
- The Muslim decision Denouncement of Sect Practices gives −1 national unrest (until the ruler dies).
- The Muslim decision Establish an Ibadat Khana gives −1 national unrest.
- The Hindu decision Support the Advaita Movement gives −1 national unrest.
- The Pagan decision Encourage Divination gives −1 national unrest.
Also worth considering are ideas that increase tolerance towards the religion of troublesome provinces or religious unity. Before conquering a province that you don't have a core on, consider ideas that reduce
years of separatism. Also consider promoting its culture, which may require bonuses to
maximum promoted cultures. Reduced
stability cost and
cost of reducing war exhaustion can make it easier to recover from bad situations. Finally, for an aggressively expansionist country, reduced
core creation cost can help deal with overextension.
Some events that have not been updated to use the current modifiers system give so-called base unrest. This decays at the rate of −1 per year.
Reducing unrest[edit]
The main system for reducing unrest is local autonomy. Raising a province's local autonomy will give it −10 unrest for 30 years. Raising stability, lowering war exhaustion, hiring a Theologian advisor, moving (well-maintained) troops to the affected provinces, and changing culture (if it's not already accepted) also help. Longer term, changing religion will also help (assuming tolerance of the true faith is higher than tolerance of heretics and heathens, which it almost always is), but the presence of a missionary increases unrest in the short term.
Additional effects[edit]
In addition to the chance to increase the chance of uprising, each percent unrest has the following local effects:[1]
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The following table may contain outdated information that is inaccurate for the current version of the game. The last version it was verified as up to date for was 1.28. |
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+10% | Local regiment recruit speed |
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+10% | Local ship build speed |
Separatism[edit]
![]() |
This section may contain outdated information that is inaccurate for the current version of the game. The last version it was verified as up to date for was 1.25. |
A newly acquired non-core province will gain 30 Years of separatism, except in the cases already mentioned above. Each year of separatism corresponds to a
+0.5 "Separatism" local unrest modifier, which decays by the same amount each year, so the base unrest from separatism is +15 and it will be completely gone in 30 years.
The number of years of separatism gained on conquest of a non-core province can be reduced with some ideas and policies:
If separatist rebels win a siege, they will extend separatism by 10 years (and thus raise the "Separatism" local unrest modifier by
+5) and will spawn a core of the primary nation of that province's culture if it does not exist there already. Total years of separatism is capped at 40 years, equivalent to +20
in the province.
It is not possible to change the culture of a province that has a Separatism unrest modifier of any size on it.
The Steppe Nomads,
Great Mongol State, and
Tribal Federation government reforms have a
−5 Years of separatism effect.
It is possible to have 0 years of separatism immediately after conquering a province with Humanist idea 4 (−10), the Humanist-Offensive policy active (−5), a leader with the conqueror personality (−5), a government with separatism reduction (−5) and a national idea that reduces separatism (−5). Custom nations can also be given a -10 separatism reduction in their national ideas, which eliminates the need for a tribal or nomadic government.
Forming a nation will remove all separatism in provinces owned at the time of formation as soon as they are cored (instantly if they already are cores, or if the formation itself grants cores - the only formation that currently does so is that of Manchu). Diplomatically annexing a vassal or personal union, whether the usual way or through a decision (such as forming the
Commonwealth or
Spain diplomatically) will also remove all separatism in the former subject's provinces.
Rebel factions[edit]
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This section may contain outdated information that is inaccurate for the current version of the game. The last version it was verified as up to date for was 1.25. |
Each province will be associated with exactly one rebel faction, however one rebel faction can spawn rebels in multiple provinces if an uprising occurs. All active rebel factions can be seen on the Stability and Expansion government tab, along with their numbers and their current progress towards an armed uprising. This information can also be enabled in the outline. A rebel faction is associated with a set of demands, which can be seen by clicking the "Handle them!" button. When unrest reaches a critical point and an uprising is triggered, the first stack of rebels will spawn in the highest development province that is associated with the rebel faction in question, followed by additional stacks in other associated provinces, until all rebels have spawned.
Common rebel factions[edit]
The most common types of rebel factions are peasant rebels,
separatists,
religious zealots,
particularists,
noble rebels, and
pretender rebels.
- Peasant rebels want lowered taxes in the form of higher provincial autonomy.
- Separatist rebels want to join an existing nation with their culture, or declare independence and form a new nation entirely.
- Religious zealots want to convert the country to their religion. They are most likely to come from provinces with an active missionary.
- Particularists are similar to peasants in that they want higher provincial autonomy and will raise autonomy on occupied provinces.
- Noble rebels are the strongest rebel type (as they are financed by the nobility), they also demand more autonomy and will raise autonomy on occupied provinces.
- Pretender rebels want to install their leader to the throne and replace the current ruler. They are particularly dangerous for countries that are the senior member of a
personal union. If pretenders in a junior member win, they will install a new ruler and break the union.
Different tags will have their own separatist factions based on culture, and each different religion its own religious faction.
All faction types[edit]
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This section may contain outdated information that is inaccurate for the current version of the game. The last version it was verified as up to date for was 1.25. |
A rebel faction will have the culture and religion of the provinces in which it appears.
Most types of rebels:
- will stay within their home country
- will disband instead of retreating, so their armies only need to be defeated once
- will have leaders
- will disband after enforcing demands
Some types of rebels (usually separatists) want to become part of a different country. These have a "defection target" which is another country, which may or may not exist. If the rebels win, they and the provinces they occupy will defect to the target country.
Many types of rebels are made more likely by various country or province modifiers granted by events.
Icon | Name | Composition | Factors | Occupation effects | Demands | Defect | Area | Notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Peasants | ![]() 90% |
![]() 10% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 80% |
Base: 2
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Particularist rebels | ![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 75% |
Base: 2
|
+10% |
|
No |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Separatist rebels |
![]() 60% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 10% |
![]() 100% |
Base: 10
|
In provinces of rebels' culture:
|
5 years |
Provinces with target country's cores |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Revolutionary rebels |
![]() 60% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 10% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
None |
|
No | Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Noble rebels |
![]() 60% |
![]() 40% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 100% |
Base: 1
|
+10% |
|
No |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Heretic rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 100% |
Is a
|
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Pretender rebels |
![]() 50% |
![]() 40% |
![]() 10% |
![]() 125% |
Base: 1
|
None |
|
No | Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Ronin rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 100% |
Only for
|
None |
|
No | Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Ikko-ikki rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 80% |
Base: 1
|
None |
|
No | Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Lollard heretics |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 100% |
Base: 1
|
+10% |
|
10 years |
Catholic provinces |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Polish Magnate rebels |
![]() 50% |
![]() 40% |
![]() 10% |
![]() 120% |
Base: 1
|
|
No |
Nation |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Catholic rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Protestant rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Reformed rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Orthodox rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Coptic rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Anglican rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Sunni rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Shia rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Ibadi rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Theravada rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Vajrayana rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Mahayana rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Confucian rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Shinto rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Hindu rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Sikh rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Animist rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Fetishist rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Totemist rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Nahuatl rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Mayan rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Inti rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Tengri rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Norse rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Jewish rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Zoroastrian rebels |
![]() 70% |
![]() 30% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 110% |
Base: 1
|
Unless the province is
|
|
10 years |
Nation |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Cossack rebels |
![]() 60% |
![]() 40% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 95% |
Base: 14
|
Create an independent Cossacks nation. |
No |
Nation |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
Tribal rebels |
![]() 60% |
![]() 40% |
![]() 0% |
![]() 95% |
Base: 14 |
|
No |
Nation |
|
Rebel faction progress[edit]
Each month a rebel faction has a chance to make progress towards a full-scale rebellion. The monthly chance that a rebel faction's progress will increase by 10% depends on the sum of positive unrest in all provinces associated with that faction and the country's level of Overextension; maxing out at 75% progress chance. Rebel monthly progress chance, positive unrest in all provinces associated with that faction and expected time until rebellion can be found in the tooltips for that faction's progress in the Stability and Expansion tab, and the Outliner. If the faction's progress reaches 100%, it will go into open rebellion and spawn troops in some of the provinces that had positive unrest.
The formula for the monthly percent chance of faction progress given X total unrest is:
- X - X2/100 (if X < 75)
- X/4 (if 75 < X < 300)
- Maximum of 75%, display is rounded down to the first decimal.
- Yes, the chance of progress for unrest between 50 and 100 is LESS THAN the chance at 50 and 100 unrest, with a low point of 18.75% at 75 unrest.
- If a country has at least 101% Overextension, then this base chance is multiplied by (1 + Overextension/50), still capped at 75%.
Total Unrest | 0 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 | 60 | 70 | 80 | 90 | 100 | 100-300 | 300+ |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Progress Chance | 0% | 9% | 16% | 21% | 24% | 25% | 24% | 21% | 20% | 22.5% | 25% | Unrest/4 % | 75% |
Mean months until 10% progress |
N/A | 11.1 | 6.3 | 4.8 | 4.2 | 4 | 4.2 | 4.8 | 5 | 4.4 | 4 | 1/Progress Chance |
1.3 |
Progress Chance at 101% Overextension |
0% | 27.2% | 48.3% | 63.4% | 72.5% | 75% | 72.5% | 63.4% | 60.4% | 68.0% | 75% | 75% | 75% |
If none of the provinces supporting a rebel faction has positive unrest, its accumulated progress will begin to decay by 10% per month thereafter. If it reaches 0%, the rebel faction will cease activity. If unrest is then increased for any reason, the faction will resume gaining progress towards rebellion.
It is possible to reduce a rebel faction's progress to 0 at any time by accepting their demands. This will also remove any rebel troops that faction has spawned. The demands are generally quite unpleasant, however, and impart various other penalties as well, so this is usually a very undesirable option unless the rebels have already rebelled, are on the verge of doing so or they have overwhelming numbers.
It is also possible to check the country's subject's rebellion progress by ticking the box next to the current national unrest on the rebellion's page.
Harsh treatment[edit]
![]() |
Please help improve this article or section by expanding it with: 'Harsh treatment cost' modifier. |
![]() |
Traditions | Ideas | Bonuses | Policies |
---|---|---|---|---|
−20% |
|
— | — | — |
−15% | — |
|
— | — |
Rebel progress can be reduced at a fixed rate of -30% through harsh treatment, at the cost of military power. Harsh treatment simply means using arrests, torture, executions and other forms of violent means to deal with the rebels and discourage anyone from joining and/or supporting them. This action will cost between
50 to
200 points, scaling with the sum of all positive unrest in provinces supporting a particular faction. The faction's progress must be at least 30% for harsh treatment to be available. This can be made more cost-effective if the total unrest can be reduced to a small number with the presence of friendly troops, allowing a large amount of rebel progress to be removed at once at a lower price.
It is generally best to use harsh treatment as a temporary measure to forestall a rebellion to allow one to buy time to deal with the underlying unrest issue that is causing the rebel problem rather than using harsh treatment as a means of preventing all rebellions, as the military point cost can add up quickly, making it very costly over time. If the source of unrest is ticking down over time (such as the unrest caused by separatism), or will be removed at a known point in the near future (such as a missionary finishing converting a province), harsh treatment can prevent a future revolt by delaying the progress long enough for the underlying unrest problem to disappear. If the unrest will not or cannot be removed in a reasonable amount of time, it may be preferable to just let the rebels rise up and simply have your troops slay them if there are no other pressing threats to the nation. However, if you have enough modifiers that reduce the cost of harsh treatment, (and reductions in other maluses like separatism), then it becomes possible to combine harsh treatment with stationing troops on the problem provinces to completely prevent a rebellion.
Active revolts[edit]
![]() |
This section may contain outdated information that is inaccurate for the current version of the game. The last version it was verified as up to date for was 1.25. |
When a faction's progress reaches 100%, it will go int open rebellion and an uprising will be triggered which will spawn a stack of rebel troops in some of the provinces supporting it in order to attempt to enforce its demands. All provinces associated with that faction, even those that did not spawn troops, will get the modifier “Recent Uprising”[5] for 10 years[6], giving:
![]() |
The following table may contain outdated information that is inaccurate for the current version of the game. The last version it was verified as up to date for was 1.28. |
![]() |
−100 | Local unrest |
Rebels can also spawn via events. If this happens, they will immediately get troops on the map, regardless of what their prior faction progress was (if any) and the uprising will not have any effect on the existing progress. They function just like any other rebels.
One special case that can be encountered are pretender rebels. These can spawn not only via event(s) but also have a chance to when an heir with a weak claim succeeds to the throne in a monarchy, or if the monarchy's
drops low enough. Otherwise, they only ever rarely exist as a faction gathering progress from unrest. If these rebels control the capital city for 36 months, they will install a new ruler, whose stats can be seen in the "Stability and Expansion" tab.
When a country annexes another, any and all remaining armies of the annexed country will become separatist rebels.[7]
Rebel spawn strength[edit]
The number of rebel regiments that will be spawned from an uprising depends on the total development of their associated faction's provinces and the military technology of the nation they spawned in. (Exception: If the rebels are separatists and the nation they want to join still exists, that nation's technology level is used for all calculations.) It is possible to see the current size of a rebellion by hovering over the rebellion progress, including how much each province is contributing to the rebellion. The exact calculation is (all values given are from /Europa Universalis IV/common/defines.lua)
Rebel stacks have spawn size 1 unless they are spawned by an event that sets a larger size. The number of rebel artillery spawned is increased by 10% of the base at technology 11 and another 15% of the base at technology 16. Unfortunately for small countries, it is quite possible that a single uprising can spawn a rebel army with more regiments than their entire land force limit would permit them to have if they have annexed a significant number of provinces.
The morale of the rebels is
This is unaffected by national morale modifiers. Strangely, your national discipline modifiers are applied to rebels - so be careful when fighting your own rebels with attached troops from your subjects.
Rebel troop behavior and effects[edit]
Rebel stacks are hostile towards everything except for other rebel stacks of the same type. This means that they will attack anything that comes into contact with them, including even other rebels if they are of a different faction.
Rebel stacks will siege the provinces they spawn in until they surrender, idle several months in the province, then move on to another province and repeat the process. Non-separatist rebels may eventually siege arbitrary provinces that are not actually associated with their faction, especially once all their faction's provinces have already been occupied. The province will then change its rebel type to the sieging faction. This is usually beneficial in some cases because it can prevent separatist uprisings, but if all provinces of a rebel faction are occupied by different rebel factions, the rebels' progress percentage is instantly added to that of one of the occupying factions, which will cause an immediate uprising (even in the middle of the month) if the sum is 100% or more. This means that one uprising can subsequently trigger additional uprisings, escalating the situation.
If a province occupied by rebels is in a friendly zone of control, they will always move to a fort that protects that province next, else the province selection appears to be fairly random. This is an exception to the rule that separatists may not siege non-associated provinces.
If a province occupied by rebels is not in a friendly zone of control, or the rebels have successfully sieged a fort in a province, there are immediate effects depending on the rebel type:
- Peasant, particularist, Lollard, noble, or pretender rebels: Province gains +10 autonomy.
- Separatist rebels: +10 years of separatism (effective +5 unrest), unless the rebels had already occupied that province. They will also give their nation a core on the province, if it doesn't have one already.
- Religious rebels of a heretic or heathen religion, and the province did not follow the rebels' religion: Instant conversion to the rebels' religion, as well as −40% manpower, −33% tax income and +2 unrest for 2 years ("Forced Conversion" modifier). Active missionaries are also ejected and their progress is removed; usually, missionary progress is merely frozen until a province is unsieged. This makes religious rebels quite dangerous, but they can also be used as a tool for converting your country to another religion.
- Religious rebels of the state religion: −15% manpower and −15% tax income for 2 years ("Religious Violence" modifier). Notably, they do not convert provinces that do not follow the state religion.
- Heretic (not religious!) rebels: -40% manpower, −33% tax income, +2 unrest and +5 local autonomy for 2 years. Catholicism will gain +0.1% reform desire.
If an army starts to unsiege a province occupied by rebels, rebel stacks of the occupying faction may move to attack it. Otherwise, all stacks will stay mostly static after all applicable provinces have been sieged until the rebels break the country and their demands are enforced.
Enforced demands[edit]
As more and more provinces are successfully occupied by rebels, a "rebels break country" meter begins to fill up (visible under the "stability and expansion" tab). If it fills up all the way, the rebels' demands are automatically enforced, regardless of circumstances. Alternatively, if a country is not at war and more than half its provinces (including at least one fort) are occupied by rebels - regardless of what faction they are - all active rebel factions have their demands enforced immediately. This will likely have drastic negative effects, but it will also reset war exhaustion and stability to 0 which means that, if properly timed, it can actually be used constructively in some cases when playing particularly aggressively.
If separatist rebels occupy a province, they will start a 5-year timer. If the province is not retaken in that time, that province will defect, or if the target country no longer exists, all the provinces associated with the separatist faction will declare independence and form a new nation, even if they are occupied by another rebel faction. Other types of rebels need to occupy the capital to enforce their demands, but for this, the timer is only 2 years (3 years for pretender rebels). There is an automatic warning when rebels are close to enforcing demands, but it will not trigger if foreign separatists (separatist rebels spawned in another country) have sieged a province in your country, so be careful.
Since retaking a province from rebels resets its occupation timer, it is not actually necessary to immediately defeat the rebels if it is currently inconvenient (or not possible) to do so, or if you are hoping for allies or enemies to deal with them for you. It is, however, recommended to take care of separatists quickly, both to prevent provinces from defecting and to prevent them from adding more long-lasting unrest.
Support for rebels[edit]
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This section may contain outdated information that is inaccurate for the current version of the game. The last version it was verified as up to date for was 1.25. |
A diplomat can support existing rebel factions in other nations, increasing the chance they rebel. This is a covert action that can be performed by any country with administrative technology at least 3 (in 1444 this includes countries in all technology groups except for West African, Central African, and primitives). The effectiveness of supporting rebels can be increased by a number of ideas and policies.
Ideas and policies which increase rebel support efficiency:
If there is more than one rebel group in the targeted country, then the funding country must choose which group to support. A country can only support one rebel faction in each target country.
Supporting rebels requires a spy network size of at least 60. It also requires a one-time monetary cost proportional to the size of the rebellious faction. Upon confirming the action, the supported rebel faction will get a base +10% per month increase to their chance of making progress towards an uprising for the next 5 years. Rebel support efficiency ideas modify this base chance; for example a country with +50% rebel support efficiency would increase the supported faction's chance of making progress by +15% per month. This does not actually change unrest in the affected country but rather directly affects the monthly progress chance, making it difficult to counter except by using harsh treatment.
Once an uprising occurs, supported rebels will behave like allied units of their sponsoring country, even if the sponsorship only began after the rebels spawned - but they are still hostile to the sponsor's allies and subjects. Any rebels that manage to declare independence while under foreign support will receive a relationship bonus towards the supporting country. If allied rebels cannot complete their objectives because the province they are trying to occupy is controlled by an ally, they will wander the countryside instead and siege random provinces while attacking anything they come into contact with.
In addition, supporting rebels in a rival country will also increase the power projection of the supporting country for the duration of the covert action. The magnitude of power projection granted is proportional to the amount of income spent on supporting rebels.
Declaring war in support of rebels[edit]
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Available only with the Art of War DLC enabled. |
With the Art of War DLC, once the rebels have spawned, the supporting country receives the "Support Rebels" casus belli, allowing them to declare war to enforce the supported rebels' demands. The war will be called an Intervention War, and the war goal is to take the target country's capital. The war can continue on even if all the spawned rebels are slain, and provinces can be taken from them. The declaring country must accumulate 50% warscore to enforce the rebels' demands, and the player may get a call for peace if the opponent is already willing to agree with it.
Supported separatist rebels that break free (through an intervention war or otherwise) get an alliance and +200 opinion modifier with the country that supported them, if any are present.
Achievements[edit]
Strategy[edit]
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This section may contain outdated information that is inaccurate for the current version of the game. The last version it was verified as up to date for was 1.25. |
The most effective way to deal with rebels is to combat the root of the problem: keep unrest low by keeping stability high, do not let war exhaustion get out of hand, station troops (up to 20 regiments) in the province, and use appropriate decisions, advisors, etc.
For dealing with newly conquered provinces, there are two main choices with local autonomy, raising it or lowering it. Each comes with its own positives and negatives:
- Lowering local autonomy immediately increases the amount of money and manpower a province provides, but this will add +10 unrest to the province for the next 30 years. Typically, this will trigger two rebellions over the 30-year time period taking into account the 10-year periods of −100 unrest from the Recent Uprising modifier after a rebellion happens. Sometimes it may not be possible to lower autonomy in a province if it is already at its minimum autonomy floor.
- Raising local autonomy immediately reduces the amount of money and manpower a province provides, but the −10 unrest it gives for 30 years will usually keep unrest low enough to prevent rebellions, barring additional sources of unrest (such as an active missionary, dutch nationalism, etc). Local autonomy normally ticks down over time (especially while at peace), so the value lost by raising local autonomy will be regained slowly over time. Separatism from a newly conquered province ticks down over a similar 30-year period, so its effects will mostly be gone by the time the effects of raising autonomy wear off.
It is not always possible to go entirely without unrest, but there is often a choice as to where the unrest is. A classic divide and conquer strategy can be very beneficial: spreading the unrest between several different rebel factions will keep them all weaker individually and thus make each individual one easier to deal with. When lowering autonomy, choose provinces with weak factions and be careful not to lower the autonomy in all provinces of a faction at the same time in order to keep the unrest at a non-threatening level. One united rebel faction with 25 unrest is a serious problem; five different factions with 5 unrest each are manageable.
If a large rebel faction makes progress such that they are close to a revolt, using harsh treatment on them can be useful unless it is certain they can be handled militarily. Remember that the cost of harsh treatment is based on the unrest in the associated provinces, so let the faction progress tick up to 75% or more, then apply all possible short term measures to reduce unrest such as moving troops to those provinces or reducing war exhaustion, before finally applying harsh treatment up to 3 times while it's cheap.
If an uprising occurs and it cannot be crushed or contained, it is always possible to accept their demands; this will likely be painful in the short term, but can be a better choice than allowing them to continue wreaking havoc and possible trashing most of your country in the process, as it does allow you to begin rebuilding sooner.
Finally, keep in mind that in some cases it may actually be desirable to accept the rebel demands. This happens most often with religious rebels or pretender rebels. Religious rebels might enable switching to a more desirable religion and will even convert provinces automatically, and it is beneficial to check the stats of a potential pretender before engaging his troops; who knows, there might be a 6/6/6 monarch just waiting to replace your current less-than-ideal ruler.
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ See in /Europa Universalis IV/common/static_modifiers/00_static_modifiers.txt (Static modifiers#Unrest).
- ↑ Unless the government is Papal, Steppe Horde, Celestial Empire, Iqta, Shogunate, Colonial Government, Native Council or Revolutionary Republic
- ↑ Unless the government is Papacy, Steppe Horde, Celestial Empire, Iqta, Shogunate, Colonial Government, Native Council, Siberian Native Council, Elective Monarchy, English Monarchy or Ottoman Government
- ↑ Unless the government is Papacy, Steppe Horde, Celestial Empire, Iqta, Daimyo, Shogunate, Colonial Government, Native Council
- ↑ See in /Europa Universalis IV/common/static_modifiers/00_static_modifiers.txt (Static modifiers#Local autonomy).
- ↑ See in /Europa Universalis IV/common/defines.lua.
- ↑ See in the patch notes of 1.14.
Management | Capital • Core • Culture • Religion • Rebellion • Autonomy • List of provinces |
Economy | Development • Tax • Production • Buildings • Manpower • Sailors |
Land warfare | Army • Land units • Discipline • Manpower |
Naval warfare | Navy • Naval units • Sailors |
Other concepts | Casus belli • War exhaustion • Military tradition • Leaders • Alliance |