pantsukki
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Rebel alignment

Wed Aug 01, 2018 8:52 am

What factors affect rebel alignment in the off-map boxes? It starts to increase automatically quite early in the war, blockades/lack of merchants can increase it and also certain events. The manual claims that also the loss of certain locations can increase it, is this true?

Bargus
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Re: Rebel alignment

Thu Aug 02, 2018 12:52 pm

To piggy-back off this, I have 2 questions: 1) aside from forcing a surrender/armistice, does rebel alignment have any other effects? Like, hampering revenue, troop quality, etc.? And 2) is it true that computer controlled UK will never surrender due to high rebel alignment?


Thanks!

epaminondas
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Re: Rebel alignment

Sun Aug 05, 2018 2:11 am

Bargus wrote:To piggy-back off this, I have 2 questions: 1) aside from forcing a surrender/armistice, does rebel alignment have any other effects? Like, hampering revenue, troop quality, etc.? And 2) is it true that computer controlled UK will never surrender due to high rebel alignment?


Again, I can't say for sure but on your first question Bargo, I've never seen anything indicating that rebel alignment has anything other than a zero-sum effect. On your second, there's an inference from the text accompanying the Revolution Icon (p.144) that appears to exempt Britain from revolutionary surrender.

pantsukki
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Re: Rebel alignment

Mon Aug 13, 2018 6:47 pm

So no one has experienced an increase of rebel alignment due to the loss of important provinces?

Just wondering what ways I have to, ahem, facilitate the Russian revolution :siffle:

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Durk
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Re: Rebel alignment

Mon Aug 13, 2018 10:26 pm

I am not the best person for explaining the technical side of this game, but some thoughts and observations. Revolution in primarily triggered by low National Morale. At first the army rebels, locking many/most units every other turn. Then when NM reaches 0, your government is no more.

Rebellion is a similar kind of a calculus. Taking Objective cities makes your population happier, as does winning conflicts. Conversely, losing and Objective city raises your off-map rebels. Rebels function much as do enemy forces with regard to loyalty. 51% or higher loyalty the player should not have any adverse consequence. Once loyalty drops below 50% the region is not as productive, moment and supply are impacted if the loyalty drops too far.

The only real way you can hasten the Russian Revolution is the use of some cards and winning battles.

epaminondas
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Re: Rebel alignment

Tue Aug 14, 2018 12:20 am

Durk wrote:Rebels function much as do enemy forces with regard to loyalty. 51% or higher loyalty the player should not have any adverse consequence. Once loyalty drops below 50% the region is not as productive, moment and supply are impacted if the loyalty drops too far.


Aha! Makes sense - good to know Durko. It seems to me that there's a confusion over terms operating here and it would be helpful to know which affects which. As I read it, the notion of "rebels" is just a device used to explain the effects of loyalty loss. But "loyalty" in turn is only a device used to register the effects of national morale. If that's indeed the case then it's simply national morale that we need to focus on, with both rebels and loyalty only there to provide colour.

If that's true then the answer to pants' original question would be "yes", the loss or gain of some locations does indeed affect morale - as displayed in the battle notes. It's difficult to separate this effect from the usually accompanying battle effect, but I suspect Kovno might be a case in point.

epaminondas
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Re: Rebel alignment

Tue Aug 14, 2018 1:34 pm

Just following on from the last point, there's a line in the situation reports that notes that "our citizens are pleased" or something to that effect. I'm thinking that this is a marker for a critical location loyalty bonus.

pantsukki
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Re: Rebel alignment

Tue Aug 14, 2018 6:22 pm

epaminondas wrote:Just following on from the last point, there's a line in the situation reports that notes that "our citizens are pleased" or something to that effect. I'm thinking that this is a marker for a critical location loyalty bonus.


I think those messages only affect EP's?

pantsukki
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Re: Rebel alignment

Tue Aug 14, 2018 6:23 pm

Durk wrote:I am not the best person for explaining the technical side of this game, but some thoughts and observations. Revolution in primarily triggered by low National Morale. At first the army rebels, locking many/most units every other turn. Then when NM reaches 0, your government is no more.

Rebellion is a similar kind of a calculus. Taking Objective cities makes your population happier, as does winning conflicts. Conversely, losing and Objective city raises your off-map rebels. Rebels function much as do enemy forces with regard to loyalty. 51% or higher loyalty the player should not have any adverse consequence. Once loyalty drops below 50% the region is not as productive, moment and supply are impacted if the loyalty drops too far.

The only real way you can hasten the Russian Revolution is the use of some cards and winning battles.


Cheers!

But isn't the revolution event related to the off-map rebel alignment? The chances of the event increase as the rebel alignment increases?

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Durk
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Re: Rebel alignment

Sat Aug 18, 2018 2:50 am

Oh no, it is tied to the Russia (and other factions) NM. When NM reaches zero, revolution breaks out.

pantsukki
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Re: Rebel alignment

Mon Sep 03, 2018 5:15 pm

Durk wrote:Oh no, it is tied to the Russia (and other factions) NM. When NM reaches zero, revolution breaks out.


I'm still trying to understand the mechanic here, as none of my games so far have lasted long enough for any revolutions to happen. For example the Russian revolution event specifically states that the chances of it happening are increased when rebel alignment is over 70%. On the other hand, don't factions simply lose the game when their NM reaches zero (or is the sudden death limit 5 in this title, I can't recall) ?

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Durk
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Re: Rebel alignment

Tue Sep 04, 2018 2:07 am

I am really not a great technical person, so I suspect the NM is depress when rebel alignment is low. But the NM is the defining issue. Also, I misstated. Revolution breaks out at about 15 or 7 NM, not zero. Because this is a three faction game, the Entente continues if one faction is at zero NM.
Sorry for my poor explanation.

epaminondas
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Re: Rebel alignment

Tue Sep 04, 2018 9:49 am

I've tried to cull and assemble what seem to me the most important points regarding NM and Revolution and have come up with the following.

Automatic Victory (or defeat) is achieved when one side reaches its minimum or maximum “National Morale” (NM) level (only Western Entente and Central Powers can have an automatic NM win/loss. If Eastern Entente NM reaches 0, it will be removed from the war but the Western Entente can continue the fight).

So for the Eastern Entente (Russia) zero NM will take it out of the war but will not in itself produce a Central Powers victory - all very historical.

For both sides in the conflict, the will to fight is tracked by their National Morale (NM). Above and below certain levels, you instantly win or lose the game. These thresholds will vary during the course of play depending on the political situation.

So the "automatic NM win/loss" level affecting the Western Entente and Central Powers referred to in the first passage is not fixed but will vary according to the "political situation" - whatever that means. The initial thresholds for each can be found via F9 and appear to be 150 for victory and 5 for defeat. It appears, however, that these can change with unexplained changes in the "political situation" and we're left to guess what those might be. Interestingly, in a single player game, the player's side of the equation will be manipulated by the game system ripping NM points off you to "balance" game play.

Revolutions may effect Russia, France, Germany, AustriaHungary, Italy, and Ottoman Empire. For Russia, the chance of Revolution begins when Rebel loyalty reaches 70% or higher in the Russia off-map region, for the others when Rebel loyalty reaches 80% or higher. The chances of Russia succumbing to Revolution is also higher each turn than the others.

So the advent of revolution won't in itself trigger surrender. Instead:

A nation in Revolution struggles to maintain popular support for remaining in the Great War. Each turn, a 100-side dice is rolled against the nation’s Rebel Alignment; if successful, the nation moves 1% towards Rebels (so, effect becomes worse as nation descends into revolution).

Presuming that in this context "successful" means below the Rebel Alignment threshold, the revolution then becomes more serious and increases the likelihood of its gathering momentum via further increases in the threshold level. Again nicely historical.

Once a nation has spiraled into Revolution, it is usually only a matter of time before the nation signs an armistice and surrenders.

Fine and sensible - but what is the actual trigger value? I'm presuming that this can be determined turn by turn via the F9 procedure but I've never had the occasion to find out.

pantsukki
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Re: Rebel alignment

Tue Sep 04, 2018 5:36 pm

Now that sheds some light on things, thank you!

epaminondas
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Re: Rebel alignment

Wed Sep 05, 2018 2:20 pm

Pleased to have been able to help. As I've demonstrated in the past I'm very critical of the rulebook, but in this case the information we needed was all there and it was just a matter of teasing it out.

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