Escalated peasant factions are too harsh and constant in China in 867

[round panther]

When your vassals get attacked by peasants and they win (which happens all the time in China) they then become escalated peasant factions and a problem for you. This system, while interesting creates factions that are almost unbeatable. While I do enjoy challenge these factions are nigh impossible to beat by their sheer volume of troupes and how spread out they are.

For example in my 867 Tang game I had in my second year a faction of about 10K peasant. Nothing thats unbeatable for the Tang dynasty and then one year later I had another escalated faction with about 24K still nothing too serious. But after that year I had again ANOTHER escalated peasant faction with around 40K peasant all over China(I have about 10K soldiers) and since I played in 867 they could take a fort in about 10 month making it so they would win in the same amount of time.

I think I'm pretty good at the game with my 5K hours but I genuinely think its impossible to win without exploiting the game. I'm not sure if this was the intended goal of Paradox with escalated rebellions but in any case its not a good system and it would need a rework because now it results in a very frustrating situation where, as the emperor of China, I can do nothing but see my empire being torn apart by rebels that I have beaten again and again.

I guess you could micro-manage every single vassal of China to check if any of them is getting their ass kicked by rebels, but I don't think its a good system if its indeed the intended solution and realistically you can't participate in 10 wars at the same time all across China.

Now, what could be the solution to this? Well, I don't have much of an answer but maybe you could put a hard stop for escalated peasant factions for about 10yrs or put all the rebels in one spot so they can't siege the whole of China so fast but even then that's just delaying the problem. It's a very frustrating issue and I really hope someone can fix it because China(867) is unplayable.

[agile dew]

Dramatic over-exaggeration /s

Do you understand my wrath now /gen

[round panther]

Well it wasn't as unbeatable as I thought but still, this is 4 yrs later

[agile dew]

Oh I've beaten them too, but there's always more, and they get stronger and stronger. Get ready for 15k vs 30k again and again. And you're a "small" China (i.e. confined to the Sinosphere); vassalise (for instance) Japan and now that's 50 provinces of the wrong culture and religion, which means a 50k rebellion (before being multiplied via escalation). I literally reached a 1 million peasant rebellion.

[agile dew]

Yup

This is the big boy version

[old cloud]

...Good? That seems like exactly the situation when you should expect a giant near-unbeatable rebellion

[round panther]

Ok but... why. Like you can do nothing to prevent it unless you micro manage the whole of china to search for rebels. I dont have a problem with difficulty or even these escalated peasant rebellion but like give me a way to atop tbem? Or at least keep them dead you know? Like i got 5 red turban rebellions over the span of like 20 yrs. Its not fun its just infuriating because you win all these wars and you still lose not only your sanity but also your empire.

[old cloud]

I guess because people don't want to be ruled by a giant foreign hegemony, OP

[agile dew]

And yet as any other system it's fine. It should be homogenised one way or the other. Cyrus isn't even playing a foreigner; those rebels are the same culture group and religious group!

It's also significant that as is, the game couldn't even simulate the Tang's western-most tributaries, since as Tengrists and even Muslims of non-Sinitic culture they would do giant rebellions they didn't actually do IRL (which remains the model or at least a barometer for the game)

[old cloud]

Yeah I was referring to your thing spanning practically the whole map from Sakhalin to Gibraltar. No wonder people are upset; if anything, half a mil is too small.

The game needs more counterweights against big empires, and China's escalated peasant factions are a good first step. As it is, right now the bigger you grow, the easier it is to grow bigger, with almost exclusively positive feedback loops all over the game.

[agile dew]

The issue is I was punished for being celestial when as feudal that would have been a non-issue. And the tools to actually prevent that rebellion don't work. I'm not going to argue it's not logical, it's just not fair and not really manageable. Nomadic and clan are so strong that Paradox have to hard script their respective empires' dissolution, lol. The Mongols had basically the territory I had and it was hunky-dorey, they even made everyone an Ashari Arab (annoyingly, as this had consequences for centuries).

Like, if they actually balance it by making all cultural and religious minorities very rebellious, and rebellions unpreventable, that's fine. Although it won't be accurate in some regions (Armenia was a very docile ERE then Muslim territory; Spain had a diversity of cultures and religions, etc.)

[agile dew]

It was 1 million troops before I managed to cut it by half by converting, by the way. I calculated and that's equivalent to 1% of the world population at that time IRL 💀

[old cloud]

Right, I agree feudal needs more pressures like Celestial has, not the converse.

And I'd be fine if at that point the cultural traits like Loyal Subjects, Ruling Caste, etc. got a buff to reduce these effects and make their behavior more like it is now, so you could keep those regions more like you say.

[old cloud]

Sure, and your ultrahegemon held something like 60-70% of the world's population in it. In the US Civil War with conscription over 10% of the population was in the military, so 1/8 of that rate in pre-industrial societies doesn't seem too outrageous.

[wet willow]

the problem is - ai loves getting peasant rebellions, especially when it can't beat them

[round panther]

Especially in china since your civilian vassals are expected to call a military governo which will probably come late lose the war even before he gets there. Man why is everyone so poor in china? Half of the rebellions start because some governor was like in debt for 5 yrs. Not even in debt of treasury but of gold.

[jovial osprey]

I feel that, i tried playing a military governor in both tang and the 1178 start date and was constantly broke, casue theyd have the law where you had to fund your own armies, so i had nothing to do with the treasury but my liege kept increasing the taxes

[wet willow]

coz you're getting all the money man.
also check control.

[round panther]

But realistically is someone supposed to check controle for every vassal?

[agile dew]

I had 130 direct vassals, who each had 5-10 vassals on average. It was not fun micromanaging 500 people

[cunning glacier]

Honestly, what I would do is add some sort of counterplay to the escalated factions as they form, by being able to penalize the governors that provoked the rebellion, such as by forcibly retiring them, giving a massive merit penalty, appointing one of the rebels as the new (possibly Feudal) governor, et cetera. This would appease the peasants and shrink the faction, but also piss off your nobles.