Complete Guide to Rebellions and Province Morale

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    • Complete Guide to Rebellions and Province Morale

      This post is intended to answer the following questions and problems:

      How did an enemy get my provinces without units?
      How did an AI capture my provinces without war?
      What is a Revolt?
      What is a rebellion?
      How did a province Declare Indepence?

      And then the solutions:
      What can I do to prevent revolts, rebellions, uprisings?
      How can I improve morale?

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      Why is my province smoking? Is it on fire? No, that is just the indication that the province has low morale.

      What is morale? Short answer is the happiness of your province and the people in it

      Why does morale matter? Provinces with a low morale have the chance to revolt, and this is the first thing you will notice, but morale also affects the production rate in resource provinces. It does not seem to be exact that a 50% morale province is half as productive as a 100% morale province, but low morale will knock the bottom out of your economy pretty quick




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      Section ONE: What happened?

      If you experience one of the above scenarios with provinces mysteriously no longer yours you have probably experienced a rebellion , revolt, uprising, independence whatever you wish to call it. Simply put: your unhappy provinces have fired you as their leader and joined someone else. They can join their former nation, your allies, your enemies, or any other nation really. Rebellions only happen at day change which is around midnight CET. The countdown until next day change is listed in the newspaper in the game info section. You can read about your rebellions using the Newspaper and selecting the Myself tab.



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      Section TWO: Why does low morale cause Rebellion?

      Basically provinces wish to be happy, and their measure of happiness is called Morale. Good morale flows out from your capital but there can be a lot of negative influences to morale. There is a bar for each province morale. Morale in your starting provinces is around 70%, but when a province is newly captured or re-captured the morale is 25% You can click the little "i" button and a box with details pops up.



      In this case the morale trend is rising, so that is a good thing.

      It also shows Chance of an uprising at 28%, which is a standard number for newly captured provinces.

      So if I do nothing then at the next day change (midnight central European time or so) The rebellions will be calculated. 28% chance means there is that likelihood of a rebellion. There are also chances for the uprising to succeed or fail.

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      Section Three - Prevention of revolts

      At this point you have choices to deal with this province before the end of the day:

      3.1) Do nothing, take your chances, and go back to re-capture provinces after the revolt. I do this 90% of the time. I only worry about Cities with good buildings that I don't want damaged, Key airbases, critical resource provinces. All others get this "hide my head in the sand" approach. Works well for me, but drives some players crazy. If the province does not rebel and the morale trend is "rising" you can gain several points in the morale every day. A few days of rising morale can bring the morale up enough to be out of the danger zone.

      3.2) Gold can be used to bring the morale up.

      3.3) Capture an enemy capital. Capturing an enemy capital will raise the morale across all other provinces you own by 10%. (Keep an eye on that province that was the capital, very common for them to revolt though) There are various strategies here that range from capturing the capital last in a war, to capturing it early and hoping that the player or AI rebuild the capital and you can capture it again. >> click here for a thread on capital farming

      3.4) Leave a garrison force in the province to suppress rebellion. Notice the "army strength" line? As the army strength goes up the chance of revolt goes down. At 28% chance an army strength of 7.0 will prevent rebellion. As the chance goes up the army strength must go up as well. Note that planes parked at an airbase do not prevent rebellions. Units that are not on the province center will not prevent revolts, and will not join in the rebellion.


      So in this case you can see that with an army strength of 4.4 in the province it drops the chance of revolt to 6%. Now this could be bad, because if the revolt happens it is very likely that the new owner of the province will own the province AND my army that was stationed there. It is also VERY IMPORTANT to observe the terrain effects on unit strength. In this example the Anti-air unit has a strength of 6.0 in other terrain, but here in the mountains only has a strength of 4.4. Especially important if you are using armored units and trying to prevent rebellions in cities. A group of tanks will be extremely weak in the cities.

      Frequently if the morale is rising it will be high enough to reduce the chance of an uprising to zero without a garrison force within a couple of days. Never assume that without taking the time to click the info button and see for sure. You can see in the picture below that this province at 32% will not revolt even without a garrison force.


      When a province is over 35% morale the chance of an uprising line no longer appears, and the province stops smoking.

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      Section Four - What can lower Morale

      Frequently asked is how to improve morale, and that is a complex answer. I describe it best as good morale flows out from your capital, but is influenced by a lot of negatives along the way. First we have to understand the negatives:

      As you see in the picture above: This province has three factors reducing morale:

      4.1) Distance to capital. Even though this is listed as "x.y days" this is only a distance and is not influenced by travel time or speed of units. This is capped at -39 points no matter how far away it is. In theory you could move your capital, but I don't recommend that (Will link to further post on morale/capital relationship)

      4.2) Neighbors. If the neighbors are unhappy then it drags down the morale of the province. Sometimes there is a line for Enemy Neighbors, and as near as I can tell it works the same way. The morale of a neighboring province exerts influence on bordering provinces. Note that neighbors can also be a positive influence and improve the morale around them >> Link to a post with details of neighbor morale calculation << and >> Link to an in depth discussion of neighbor morale influence <<

      4.3) Wars. Each country you are at war with adds a -5 to the morale of every single province. This is capped at -25, so more than 5 wars at once will not further reduce your morale. I like to joke that if you buy 5 wars the rest are free, at least regarding morale. I recommend keeping to one war at a time if you have a choice. Don't start a war that you don't intend to finish just because you want a province, or an island, or a supply drop.

      There will be a few other negative influences show up sometimes:

      4.4) Radiation. If a nuclear plane or rocket attacks a province, morale decreases by 30 for a while. After three days, the effect is lowered.

      4.5) Enemy Units: They will lower your morale, if they are in your land.

      4.6) Artillery, Rocket, Airplane attacks. I am guessing naval bombardment also. This lowers morale but it doesn't show up in the info box. In terms of rockets each level 2 rocket impact seems to reduce morale by 5% roughly.

      4.7) Spies. Sabotage spies can lower morale.

      4.8 ) Losing a capital. If the enemy captures your capital you lose 20 points of morale in each province across all provinces instantly. Important to protect the capital, and replace it quickly if lost. Not having a capital will give all provinces a -40 in place of the distance to capital line.

      4.9) Shortage. Either Food or Oil (possibly others) shortage will lower morale. Not having enough food for at least the next 8 hours on hand will start to influence morale, and with zero food on hand the penalty can be as high as -30.






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      Section Five - What can be done to improve overall morale?

      5.1) First it is important to reduce the negative factors as much as you can. This means reduce the number of active wars you are fighting, and study the list of negatives to morale above. Frequently I see players having open wars with an AI country that has one island or province left. Either finish the enemy off, or change your diplomatic status with it to peace.


      AI players will usually accept peace after a day or two with no battles. Sometimes it takes longer which I suspect has something to do with your reputation.


      5.2) Build a fortification (or infrastructure, see 5.2a). Each level of fortification will give a +5 boost to morale in that province. So a level 5 fort will give +25, and offset the -25 of having 5 wars, or having the capital far away. Note that building a fort takes 24 hours, so it won't prevent rebellions the first day. Some players build >> fortress complexes << that build on the positive morale of each neighbor and can help stabilize regions. Building high level forts in adjoining provinces will make a morale "hot spot" that will flow out to other provinces in the area.


      5.2a) Construction of infrastructure buildings also improves province morale similar to forts. Each level of Infrastructure gives a +5 in that province, for a maximum benefit of +15.

      5.3) Another positive you can see here is a +7 from neighbors. This means that happy neighbors will make their neighbors happy. I have a theory that the occasional scattered level 5 fort will stabilize larger sections, but I have not tested that extensively. Other players have as linked in 5.2

      5.4) Capture an enemy capital to raise morale in all your provinces. Refer back to section 3.3
      War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin keep out of the way til you can. - Winston Churchill



      VorlonFCW
      Retired from Bytro staff as of November 30, 2020.

      >>> Click Here to submit a bug report or support ticket <<<

      The post was edited 4 times, last by VorlonFCW: assembled in multiple sections. Edited to add infrastructure morale benefits. ().

    • (Reserving this space for additional content in the future)




      Questions, comments, corrections?
      War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin keep out of the way til you can. - Winston Churchill



      VorlonFCW
      Retired from Bytro staff as of November 30, 2020.

      >>> Click Here to submit a bug report or support ticket <<<
    • FYI, you instantly lose 20 morale points in every province when your capital is captured. You instantly gain 10 morale points in every province when you capture an enemy capital.

      Also, the lingering effect of post-nuclear attack radiation is -30 for three days. There is also an instant negative effect of -40 or more. I have seen the instant nuclear attack effect drop morale in the target province by -70 or -75, but for unknown reasons, the instant effect seems to be variable.

      The post was edited 2 times, last by MontanaBB ().

    • Thanks @MontanaBB I meant to go back and fiddle with that line before I published it.


      Would you be interested in doing an article on the relationship of distance to capital and the dangers/advantages of moving your capital?
      War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin keep out of the way til you can. - Winston Churchill



      VorlonFCW
      Retired from Bytro staff as of November 30, 2020.

      >>> Click Here to submit a bug report or support ticket <<<
    • Morale:
      1) No capital: If you have no capital at day change, you get -40 in morale calculations instead of the distance to capital in all provinces.
      2) Food shortage: If you have less than a certain number of hours of food, than you get hit with a food shortage morale factor. It seems that you need over 8 hours of food. This can be as high as -30. So, when you are negative on food production you have to allow for that for periods when you will be away.
      3) Resource shortage: If you have less than a certain number of hours of a non-food resource, you get hit with a resource shortage morale factor.
    • Province Morale:
      16% = 83% (ground units with 21 hit points to get 0% rebellion)
      17% =77% chance of rebellion without a garrison (ground units with 20 hit points to get 0% rebellion)
      18% = 71% (18 hit points)
      19% = 65% (17 hit points)
      20% = 59% (15 hit points)
      21% = 53 (14 hit points)
      22% = 47% (12 hit points)
      23% = 41% (11 hit points to get 0% rebellion)
      24% = 35% (9 hit points)
      25% = 28% (7 hit points)
      26% = 22% (5 hit points)
      27% = 16% (4 hit points)
      28% = 10% (3 hit points)
      29% = 4% (1 hit point)
      30% or higher = 0%
      Note: Hit points are attack points except defense points for AA and SP AA
    • I would just like to add that day change does not always happen at midnight, but varies for each game. Sometimes, it does not even fall on the hour. So it's important to keep track of what time it is so you can read your fresh spy reports, etc. etc.
      We're always looking for top players to play together and learn from. Apply to Tokugawa Bakufu ( alliance code : KIOTO ) if you are a like-minded individual and wish to improve your game.



      Whenever feasible, one should always try to eat the rude.

    • Marechal Saoul wrote:

      I would just like to add that day change does not always happen at midnight, but varies for each game. Sometimes, it does not even fall on the hour. So it's important to keep track of what time it is so you can read your fresh spy reports, etc. etc.
      Very true this has changed since this guide was published. Day change depends on the time the game was created. The day change is listed in the newspaper.
      War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin keep out of the way til you can. - Winston Churchill



      VorlonFCW
      Retired from Bytro staff as of November 30, 2020.

      >>> Click Here to submit a bug report or support ticket <<<
    • There have been a few minor changes to province morale over the past several months. Until I get time to incorporate them into the guide above I will note them here:


      In 1.5 game rounds morale becomes very important because it influences the production and construction speed of anything in the province. This means when you capture new territory it takes longer to produce units there.



      1.5 specific morale adjustments:

      • Decrease maximum capital distance morale penalty from -60 to -30
      • Added Expansion factor morale penalty:
        • Starting at 0 penalty when conquering provinces that amount to 1 nation (slight variations depending on the map size), goes up to -35 penalty when owning ~45% of all provinces on the map.
      • Added morale based production & construction times:
        • With lowering province morale also build times of units and buildings increase. Value examples:
        • Starts at +0% when below 80% morale
        • Maximizes at +900% when at 0% morale
        • Is at +162% when at 25% morale
      • Lowered victory thresholds:
        • 65% for coalition & team win instead of 70%
        • 45% for solo win instead of 51% (if more than 1 player reaches it, the player with more points wins)
      These changes apply to both CoW1.0 and CoW1.5, for old and new rounds:

      • Reduced army strength needed to suppress a revolt:
        • CoW1.5: For a province with 25% morale an army strength of 10 is needed to suppress the revolt completely (was unintentionally higher before)
        • CoW1.0: For a province with 25% morale an army strength of 6 is needed to suppress the revolt completely (was unintentionally higher before)
      • Reduced revolt chances:
        • A province at 25% morale with no garrison troops now has a 19% chance to revolt instead of 24%.
        • A province now only has a revolt chance when its morale is lower than 31% instead of 33%
      War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin keep out of the way til you can. - Winston Churchill



      VorlonFCW
      Retired from Bytro staff as of November 30, 2020.

      >>> Click Here to submit a bug report or support ticket <<<
    • I have never seen the lines through a province changing color to red like below. This is the only province doing it and it’s morale is 29%. Does anyone know if the color change is because of morale or something else?
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    • TomtheBuilder wrote:

      Arcorian wrote:

      ...


      To make sure that you do not miss a potential uprising in your empire, we added a new feature that highlights a province on the map that could revolt against your rule soon.

      ...


      These are just some highlights of today’s release, please check the following list of changes for a complete overview:

      General:
      • ...
      • When a province has a chance for an uprising greater than 0%, pulsating red stripes are displayed in the province on the map, highlighting a potential revolt. The chance of an uprising can be checked when using the info button in the province bar.
      • ...

      We hope you like today’s release and wish you and your troops a victorious day on the battlefield!


      Your Bytro Team
      This is a new feature, it means that there's a chance for uprisings, which is at 18% for newly captured provinces.
      I should probably change what I write in here. -No one ever