Civil War!

[JWW]

Consider this an in progress summary AAR. There should be an image of the current map at the bottom.

Civil War. For those who haven't seen one, and I had not until last night, this is what it looks like. Rome, turn 373. I had been on the edge as a decadent republic for a long time, and things finally tipped. And this is the result. So now I'm a stable republic with a civil war. I'm red. The faction rebelling against me is the bright blue. This should be interesting.

I blame only myself. I started the game and nearly lost it in the first few turns. Got a handle on how things work, won my initial wars, and then expanded as shown on the map. Along the way I fought a really tense and entertaining war with Carthage. I was out of money, out of manpower, right on the edge, but won a couple of key battles and ended up pushing them back and taking Spain from them. But I had spent the last 100 years or so just trying to regain stability and fighting off rebels. The latest patch made that just a little easier, the whacking the rebels part, by the way.

But Macedonia, the blue to the east, started pulling way ahead in legacy, and I realized I was going to lose. Things were getting a little boring just swatting down rebels and trying to improve my status. So I decided to just make something happen and invaded Britain, taking the lower province from the Belgae. Yes, they had established themselves there, and I got tired of them when they declared war and sent a large marauding army into Gaul. So I decided to make them pay, realizing I might break my republic along the way. Just as I achieved my goal of taking the southernmost province of Britain and breaking the Belgae, Carthage stabbed me in the back. It was brilliant, really. I should have known. They had been insulting me for years. Macedonia, on the other hand, had never insulted me, and we have co-existed for a long time. So hint -- When a nation keeps insulting you, they mean it.

Carthage managed to land a huge army on the Italian mainland despite my naval superiority, the largest army I had ever seen in the game, 1500+ combat points, TOOK ROME, and I had to recall forces from everywhere, despite the certainty that a lot of small rebellions would happen. I finally defeated that army, after about 15 years, though I lost Sicily, and things were just stabilizing when I tipped over into civil war. And I am still at war with Carthage.

How I ended up in a civil war, obviously I did a poor job of handling the whole decadence thing. I kind of figured it out a little as I went along, but I made a lot of initial mistakes in building and management and expansion that I can see in hindsight but didn't see as I was learning the game. And I could never get things turned around despite trying for about 100 turns after I stopped expanding.

That leads to a question. Once you are decadent as a large nation, how can you turn it around? Or can you?

Now this new situation should be interesting and a whole different kind of fun, trying to defeat the usurper Claudius while not losing the rest of my republic. I guess that is my game goal now. Reunite the republic and just try to survive until the end.

Which leads to one last point. Even in losing the game, you can have some great fun and great stories.

[loki100]

...

That leads to a question. Once you are decadent as a large nation, how can you turn it around? Or can you?

...

Yes, but its not easy.

I've just managed to make myself old as an attempt to clear out govt age (this may not have been the best plan I've ever had)

and there are two problems. One is that as a powerful state, sheer size generates your decadence far worsened by govt age buiding up. Two is that the culture side of the CDR is 50% this turn, 50% inherited, so it takes a long time to turn stuff around.

my logic is to start doing things right - pop to culture where you can, culture or decadence reducing buildings as much as poss and exploit the few tools to clear out age.

having said all that - great report and it sounds like a great game

[devoncop]

Great account !

Read this and weep Paradox. This would never happen in Imperator.

THIS is why Empires is such an epic game.

Thanks for posting.

[13obo]

AARs like this one is what keeps my interest in the game. Thank you!

[LDiCesare]

Civil wars tend to be quite ugly. The problem is you need high loyalty to prevent them. High loyalty requires culture, buildings, and, more importantly, not being decadent or old. Ideally, being glorious.
In order to recover from decadence/old, you have 2 options:
-The slow one: Increase culture, take decisions that reduce government age.
-The quick one: Conquest.
You probably have objectives taken by the civil war. Take these back first. That will help with both government age and tokens (-20% and +1 respectively for each conquered objective). Then boost loyalty by putting everything you can into loyalty and culture. Use decisions: Sell away slaves, convert what you can, give food to the poor. Then attack Macedonia or Carthage and take whatever objectives you can there. You can probably forget Galla (the objective in Wales if you have it) as fighting in Britain is a pain and much more difficult than fighting in Africa. Also, Macedonia should have huge culture, thus taking these provinces shouldn't lower your CDR much.

But you have to survive the civil war before another war pops up, and that's not going to be easy.