Civil wars are broken

[Delicia Suprema]

I have had 2 in total and in both of them i didn't have patience to carry the game on.

They let you with 0 troops and with only 20 to maximum 30% of your previous land. While the other side has 20 troops and 80% of your land.

How in gods earth can i win this ? Just makes me quit this or avoid at maximum effort any civil war.

[Lemur]

Ive also suffered. my roman game is basically conquer, stabilize, give in to all demands from senate so long as i can rinse and repeat. civil wars are broken a bit

[restarter]

is there anywhere that indicates who will go with what side? it seems so random like a flip of the quarter because sometimes i get all the armies, sometimes they do, sometimes its pretty even and a fun challenge.
i recently won a civil war and got like 50 popups with events i didnt understand. at the end of it. my senate approval went from 92% down to 1.5% so yeah... no idea whats going on with civil wars

[Ericus1]

Mostly random with a little bit of weighting based on character attributes/friendships/family ties. So yes, civil wars are badly implemented, mechanically random, and often broken.

[CLop]

I agree. The civil wars are broken.

[Bozz 💀]

yeah I just quit playing my roman playthrough because of this

[tonechild]

Tried a few times, experienced different things:

First: After civil war ends, all characters die and then there is a weird new party using triangle circle square as its icon without a tooltip. This only happens maybe 50% of the time, and I am not sure what causes it.

Second: In the last 3 games I had a civil war, the game decided generals who were my friends and with high loyalty, it decided they should join the rebels. That and, it left me with no armies at all, and very little manpower.

Third: In my very most recent game. When that "Desperate Leader" event occurred, I tried everything to stop it from causing civil war. I ended up not being able to assassinate the guy, but I made friends with the other general who had a 20k army, and I had the consul, myself, go ahead and take charge of another army, and stood up 20k troops.. Want to know what happened? ME, the damn consul, and BFF joined the rebellion, and left my side with nothing. How does this make any sense? Fortunately, I actually was able to still stave off the rebellion because I had lots of tributaries. But after I won the civil war, with Rome in shambles, Carthage took a swing and ended my whole career. I am so frustrated beyond belief. Seriously, the salt is heavy right about now.

[Delicia Suprema]

Originally posted by tonechild:

Tried a few times, experienced different things:

First: After civil war ends, all characters die and then there is a weird new party using triangle circle square as its icon without a tooltip. This only happens maybe 50% of the time, and I am not sure what causes it.

Second: In the last 3 games I had a civil war, the game decided generals who were my friends and with high loyalty, it decided they should join the rebels. That and, it left me with no armies at all, and very little manpower.

Third: In my very most recent game. When that "Desperate Leader" event occurred, I tried everything to stop it from causing civil war. I ended up not being able to assassinate the guy, but I made friends with the other general who had a 20k army, and I had the consul, myself, go ahead and take charge of another army, and stood up 20k troops.. Want to know what happened? ME, the damn consul, and BFF joined the rebellion, and left my side with nothing. How does this make any sense? Fortunately, I actually was able to still stave off the rebellion because I had lots of tributaries. But after I won the civil war, with Rome in shambles, Carthage took a swing and ended my whole career. I am so frustrated beyond belief. Seriously, the salt is heavy right about now.

For the next patch they really need to work on civil wars.

[Bozz 💀]

the menander patch is absolute garbage, it introduced a lot of bugs crashes and this kind of nonesense.... I had a general with 92% loyalty and a general with 5% the disloyal general gave all his troops to the loyal general just before civil war and then my loyal general rebelled while my disloyal general stood with me but he only had like 4k troops lol
*also maybe prevent civil wars while you are in a big war, makes no sense to go full civil war while you are already dealing with an external threat...

[Humphries2594]

Only way i've found to 100% get the armies join you is to place your faction leader and his children in charge of your armies

[tonechild]

Originally posted by James Humphries:

Only way i've found to 100% get the armies join you is to place your faction leader and his children in charge of your armies

That didn't work for me, my faction leader and his homies all joined the other side.

[osskssa17]

yeah civil wars need work, they happen far too often and with too much rng

[asphar360]

Originally posted by tonechild:

Originally posted by James Humphries:

Only way i've found to 100% get the armies join you is to place your faction leader and his children in charge of your armies

That didn't work for me, my faction leader and his homies all joined the other side.

When you say “faction leader”, are you referring to the ruler? Coz the ruler isnt able to join a revolt against himself lol. But if you mean a faction as in the “populares” or something then yeah it’s pretty random. Best thing to do is make sure your ruler and his close family are leading your armies and stuff. Navy isn’t really important. Also pay off loyal veterans, not sure if it helps tho.

[Crowkeeper]

Played a lot since Menander came out and I have not had a civil war I didn't cause on purpose. If you are having civil wars constantly then you are doing something wrong.

That said, the AI clearly can't handle the changes without difficulty buffs, so something should definitely be changed.

[Delicia Suprema]

Originally posted by Wight Male:

Played a lot since Menander came out and I have not had a civil war I didn't cause on purpose. If you are having civil wars constantly then you are doing something wrong.

That said, the AI clearly can't handle the changes without difficulty buffs, so something should definitely be changed.

My 2 civil war happened because of 1 dude. And i couldn't make him my friend or even bribe him.

I literally waited for it to happen.

[restarter]

Originally posted by Delicia Suprema:

Originally posted by Wight Male:

Played a lot since Menander came out and I have not had a civil war I didn't cause on purpose. If you are having civil wars constantly then you are doing something wrong.

That said, the AI clearly can't handle the changes without difficulty buffs, so something should definitely be changed.

My 2 civil war happened because of 1 dude. And i couldn't make him my friend or even bribe him.

I literally waited for it to happen.

Same. Not sure what to do at that point. I suppose i could be missing some mechnic somewhere or some indicator in some tab somewhere. but as far as i can tell, there's not much one can do about it. Even low popularity doesnt seem to make any difference as a random amount of troops and territories will go with him regardless if anyone likes him.
This is all fine as Rome had many civil wars and revolts, according to wikipedia, but it seems many were somewhat small and quashed easily. With the exception of major revolts or civil wars maybe the disgruntled statesman or faction should have a smaller army "awarded" them to act as an actual conflict. The entire Empire doesnt need to be cleaved in half every 15 years over one minor character.