Major Unrest in cities when creating Barbarian Invasion Campaign

[Crusader Vanguard]

I recently finished constructing a Barbarian Invasion campaign from scratch, using a new map. I managed to get everything to work properly... with one minor detail that has me confused.

80% unrest appears in certain settlements, all completely random. I cannot find the cause of this. It's random, with no pattern I can see, and strangely it seems to cross all cultures, but certain factions seem to not have this problem. All the Roman factions have it (including Romano-British), many barbarian and nomad factions have it, but certain factions do not, like the Berbers, Sassanids, Saxons, and Vandals (whom I gave settlements too). I cannot find a pattern.

This 80% unrest appears at the beginning of the campaign at the start, no explanation for it in the least. I cannot figure out what's causing it to fix it. I've managed to keep public order up in these settlements with buildings, units, and better governors, but I don't understand why a settlement would have 80% unrest at the very start of the campaign. Squalor is low in most cities (upgraded sewers where needed and I've given generals anti-squalor traits), distance for capital I don't think should effect it, and there are no rebel or enemy armies wondering around.

Any ideas why some settlements start with 80% unrest?

[Jambie Lionheart]

Sometimes unrest can represent a spying problem within a city, so perhaps you put spies in the wrong cities when you made it... just a possibility. That can explain the somewhat nonsensical pattern to your problem. That's one possibility.

Another I can think of is that perhaps you set the starting unrest values for cities wrongly for barbarian and nomadic factions. Both of those could also account for why/how it's being automatically fixed as you said in your post since both issues can somewhat be fixed within game. Could be wrong, but those are the two which come immediately to mind.

Oh, and have you checked the generals within the cities? Some generals stats can give off mean unrest penalties to any city they are assigned to.

[Crusader Vanguard]

Thank you for the reply, CtMurphy.

1. Do I have spies in wrong settlements?

No. Besides the fact I have not installed agents to any of the factions yet (except the Huns, because all they needed were new coordinates), I do not place spies in any cities when creating my campaigns. I normally operate with the idea that I want to explore and spy on enemy or rebel cities at the start, then put spies and such in my cities later when needed.

2. Set starting unrest values?

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by this. You mean I somehow set the unrest level in these settlements to full? I don't know if that's possible, without purposefully trying to cause unrest. I am unaware of any means to actually "set" the unrest level at the start of the campaign.

Also, I must apologize because I misspoke in my opening post (which I have now corrected). I ASSUMED the Romans didn't have this problem because none of the cities started red or blue when I first loaded them to see if I inserted them properly.

2 Settlements in the Eastern Empire have the issue, both in northern Greece on the border.

5 Settlements in the Western Empire have the issue, all the settlements in North Africa except for Carthago. I made the Western Empire Pagan, and the Berbers Christian. But other cities that do not border a different religious region have this issue, so I don't know.

I also gave the Empire Rebels (both) 7 settlements from their main counterparts. The Eastern Empire Rebels have the 80% unrest issue in all but the Capital (Alexandria), and the Western Roman Rebels have it in all settlements, even the capital.

All 5 settlements for the Romano-British have it, including the Capital. So much for my capital immunity theory.

Some factions are without this issue completely (Sassanids, Berbers, Saxons, Vandals off the top of my head, all from different cultures), some only have one city affected (Franks), some have all but the Capital affacted (Sarmatians, Eastern Roman Rebels), and some have all affacted (Western Roman Rebels, Romano-British). I don't see any pattern as to the number of settlements.

3. I have generals with traits that would cause unrest at 80%?

I'm must admit I didn't think of this, but unfortunately, while I believe it is a very plausable explanation, it is not the case. I have given many generals the "GoodTaxman" trait, which increases the tax income but causes unrest. However, in each case with a general having this trait, the unrest happened to be set properly to the level of the trait (5% unrest, 10%, 15%) like it should. Also, many of the 80% unrest settlements have governors whom do not prosses this trait.


Okay... what I know:

It is not a culture related issue as all cultures have it, unless you discount Carthaginian and Eastern because they both have only one faction, both don't have the issue (Sassanids, Berbers)

It is not a border-with-an-enemy issue, as the Alemanni are at war with the Western Empire, and all 4 of the settlements I gave them border a Western Roman settlement, and only 2 of those 4 have the 80% unrest issue. Also, many factions don't have enemies besides rebels and they have it.

It's not a religious issue as far as I can tell. Some settlements with this issue have churches, others have Pagan shrines, others have no religious buildings at all. Futher, some border opposing religious regions, others do not.

I also don't believe it's cause by an overwelmingly powerful enemy. Maybe? Again, only 2 of the 4 Alemanni settlements have it. I set the Roman Rebel factions as allies against both main counterparts, like the main West and East empires are, but if this was true (the two main Roman Empires are the most powerful combo enemy), Alexandria (capital of the Eastern Roman Rebels) would have this issue, like the capital of the Western Roman Rebels. Although... Alexandria is the lone except in this case.

I thought capitals could be immune, as most of them are, but the Western Roman Rebels and Romano-British have their capitals suffering from this.

Some of the settlements with this issue have governors, others do not.

It might have something to do with certain building types? But many of my settlements with this issue (especially Roman ones) have buildings like the sewer construction tree and arenas to help (I increased the benefits of both sewers and arenas), and in all of the settlements on the map, most of them have very little squalor. And I don't see how Distance-To-Capital penalties should add to unrest, as it is already a penalty.

I'm not going to assume that anything I stated above is cleared as the reason for this 80% unrest issue, but I don't think any of them are responisble with the evidence I have.



Got any more ideas? I mean, I can deal with this issue (as I already have), but it bugs me that this should happen for no reason. I've edited this game many times before and each "issue" had a good reason for being there, but I cannot explain this one. I hate to think it but... I might have to consider this a bug? I wonder if other modders who have constructed their own maps have this issue?

I apologize to (and thank) all who read this very long post, but I wanted to be thorough. Any help figuring this out would be appriciated.

[Jambie Lionheart]

Hmm, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure how much help I can be unless I saw and played the map myself, but I shall try. Though firstly, one of the experienced modders might know this problem. Have you tried asking at this url address: www.totalwar.com?

And as I read through that, the word 'bug' did spring to mind. It's a big possibility.
However forgive me, since I feel a tad confused now. When you said the settlements in question were experiencing an 80% unrest issue I assumed you meant that those settlemtents were experiencing an unrest penalty to the value of 80%. But after reading your second post, I'm not so sure. Was I wrong?

I think a screen shot of both your settlements build list and the settlement management scroll would be extreamly useful.

[Crusader Vanguard]

Thanks again.

First, no I haven't gone to the Total War Forums because I don't have an account. I know, that's strange, but I have never found a problem that was already available until now. Maybe this problem is addressed there somewhere, but... I've had a hard time narrowing down the search enough to find it. I might have to create an account.

Okay, to clarify: my "issue" is when I start a campaign as any faction with the bug, the first thing I do is click on a settlement I know has it, select the settlement management screen, and under the public order section, under negatives, there is an "unrest" penalty, and the value of that unrest penalty is ALWAYS 80%... which I believe is the max for a settlement. This happens at the start of the campaign without me doing anything.

I believe I may have confused you with the "GoodTaxman" unrest penalty some generals give their cities, and that's normal and expected, unrelated to my problem.

I know how to upload screenshots to the community (I think... again, I've had no reason to upload, all my friends have other means of viewing... seems straightfoward enough), but how do you want to see my screenshots? I don't have accounts at places like imageshack or whatever it's called. I don't do that sort of thing. Is there an easy way for you to see the screenshots?

[Jambie Lionheart]

I just meant if you created an account on there, you could maybe ask fr some help on it. Another site you can try on in tw heaven. com. That site is specialized for the modding community, if anyone can help you with your issue, they can. They'd be able to tell better than I can what could cause such a thing if it a problem with the modifications you made itself.

hmm, ok, that makes it more understandable. Thankyou for the patient explination. It was actually the religious thing that confused me the most. I thought you might have meant it was a case of serious unrest levels caused in your settlements by multiple different sources. But I understand now.

Hmm ok, Unrest can be caused by having enemy spies within a settlement, attributes/retainue of governers, religious unrest, if I remember correctly is shown as something else and I don't remember going to war in the game ever being any sort of cause for unrest in itself (though that could have been changed since it's been two years since I last played it).

You also said that not all of the settlements had governers in them so that rules them out.

An easy way might be if you take a screen shot ingame and then add it to your steam library. I could probably see it so long as the screenshot was listed as public but you might have to add me as friend even then. I think you would be better off joining one of those sites though and posting it on here. That way other people can see your problem too and maybe they could help shed some light on it, or spot something we do not. :) I don't think we'll make any progress without them. Right now I can only think it's a bug.

[Crusader Vanguard]

2 further things I believe I can rule out:

1. I took the map I'm using from another mod, cleaned it out (including the mercenary.txt and rebel_descr files) and restarted. I also gave many factions different starting locations than what they were in the mod I borrowed the map from. The Burgundii for example, only had 1 settlement, and it was not one if the 4 I gave them, but the capital does not have the 80% unrest penalty, although the other 3 do. So I don't believe it's because I moved factions for where they originally were on this map.

NOTE: Just in case it's relivant to anyone, I took this map for my own personal use, and will not post it somewhere for any reason without the original author's permission. Just thought I needed to say that.

2. I found certain settlements had a different "faction_creator" listed in the descr_strat.txt file than the new owners of the settlment. Some of them had the 80% unrest issue (Sarmatian cities were all wrong), but as I soon discovered not all did. Even after I changed the "faction_creator" script for each region, the 80% unrest penalty still showed up in all the same settlements.

Oh... and I unlocked the rebels just to see... every single Rebel settlement also has the 80% unrest problem. Good thing public order means nothing to them!

I'm really stumped on this. What's left... other than the fact it could be a bug inside the game?

I understand, CtMurphy, and thank you very much for trying to assist me.

As for religious unrest, that appears separately from the 80% unrest, and I took care of that by editing the descr_regions.txt and deleting my map.rwm file. That's easy. Sorry it confused you.

Since the religious unrest is separate, I only have one spy on the map (not in a city... he's actually closest to a rebel one), and the generals "unrest traits" appear normally... that's all I can think of too.

I might try the other sites, thank you for the suggestion. As for the screenshots, you're right, but with all due respect, and I hope you don't take this the wrong way, I don't add people to my friends list that I haven't actually met in person. Sorry. Thanks for offering though.

Maybe Logan (who started the "need any help whatsoever" discussion) can help, but after that I'm going to either go to one of these Total War sites or assume it's a bug I cannot fix.

Again, thanks!

[Jambie Lionheart]

In that case the only way to share screen shots is to use one of the sites you mentioned.
Nah that's fair enough, I understand completely about adding people.

The best people to ask would be experienced modders, they're the most likely people to know the cause of your issue. Most of them are very willing and able to help too.