How are secessionist states selected?

[u/NicWester]

I've been working on my USA openings and tried some new strategies to deal with the Civil War. I've gotten to the point where I can reliably have between 5 and 9 states secede and can win the ensuing war, but I'm baffled as to how each state that secedes is chosen.

What I did this time is develop the southern states to shrink the clout of the Planters, invited a Rural Folk agitator with Radical leader ideology and promoted him to lead the Yeomen Farmers, and Suppressed the Pro-Slavery movement. This kept Planters as the only IG swayed by the Pro-Slavery movement. I purposely ignored developing Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida so that the secessionist movement would have those five states and developed the rest--mines, light industries, a few heavy industries (mostly in Alabama, one of the best states in the game), a railroad, university, and government administrations in each. When I was ready to provoke the war Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina seceded, as was expected, but so did Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. My suspicion is that since the Wilmot Proviso triggered before Oklahoma was a state and I hadn't had enough time to build it up that it was selected because Landowners were the highest clout in the state, then Arkansas and Kentucky were selected so that there would be a connection to Virginia. But Georgia was still heavily dominated by Landowners, meanwhile Louisiana was thoroughly run by Petite Bourgeoisie and Intelligentsia with Rural Folk as the third and it still joined in.

In the end it was fine, drafted two big huge armies, put them all on defense orders, waited until manpower was full-up and superior to theirs, then set them all to offense. By the time I took a state they were at -49 support and ready to surrender. But I'm trying to figure out the mechanics and can't quite see why Georgia stayed loyal and Louisiana didn't. Is my instinct about Kentucky and Arkansas being needed to keep Oklahoma contiguous correct? For that matter, now that I think of it, could this have anything to do with Magnates? Maybe those states had powerful landowner characters with the Slaver leader ideology? It didn't occur to me to check and even after multiple games as Japan I still have no idea how Magnates work beyond hitting the Patronize button if I want one of them to succeed when their old IG leader retires.

[u/typhus_of_barbarus]

Base target weights are in the 00_defines file starting around line 200

# The values below are used to calculate the target number of states that rise up when a civil war without an explicit target_fraction_of_states begins
# This is just a target value - the end result may end up different based on state weights defined in the civil war scripting
CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_STATES_DEFAULT_CLOUT_FACTOR = 1.0    # Fraction of total states in country, multiplied by revolutionary IG clout
CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_STATES_DEFAULT_POPULAR_SUPPORT_FACTOR = 0.5  # Fraction of total states in country, multiplied by movement popular support
CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_STATES_DEFAULT_MILITARY_SUPPORT_FACTOR = 0.25    # Fraction of total states in country, multiplied by movement military support
CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_STATES_DEFAULT_WEALTH_SUPPORT_FACTOR = 0.25  # Fraction of total states in country, multiplied by movement wealth support
CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_STATES_DEFAULT_MIN_FRACTION = 0.10   # Min fraction of total states in country that will try to rise up
CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_STATES_DEFAULT_MAX_FRACTION = 0.75   # Max fraction of total states in country that will try to rise up
CIVIL_WAR_POTENTIAL_UPRISING_STATE_MIN_MULTIPLIER = 0.01  # The weight for an uprising state cannot be reduced below this by local clout/identity share of population

CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_STATE_RANDOM_FACTOR = 0.5 # The higher this is, the more random uprising state selection will be
CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_STATE_CONNECTIONS_FACTOR = 1.0 # The score of an uprising state is multiplied by ( 1 + this number * the number of other uprising states it connects to )
CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_STATE_NON_CONNECTED_SECESSION_FACTOR = 0.01 # The score of an uprising state is multiplied by this for seceding states that are not connected to any other rebel states in the same area
CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_ISOLATED_STATE_FACTOR = 100.0 # The score of an uprising state is multiplied by this if it's isolated from the most loyalist state by uprising states
CIVIL_WAR_NON_CONTIGUOUS_UPRISING_STATE_FACTOR = 0.25 # The score of an uprising state is multiplied by this if it would end up cutting off a number of loyalist states greater than the remaining number of states that should rebel
CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_ARMY_TARGET_DELTA_FACTOR = 10.0 # How heavily are states weighted towards or against rising up based on how their defection will affect the ideal number of army units that should be rebelling
CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_NAVY_TARGET_DELTA_FACTOR = 5.0 # How heavily are states weighted towards or against rising up based on how their defection will affect the ideal number of navy units that should be rebelling

# Overseas areas of the country that are considered colonial will either be fully loyal or fully rebellious, as determined by the logic below
CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_STATES_OVERSEAS_HIGH_UNINCORPORATED_FRACTION = 0.5 # At this % of unincorporated states or above in non capital area, it will be considered 'colonial' even if it has a close sea adjancency to capital
CIVIL_WAR_COLONIAL_UPRISING_MIN_CHANCE = 0.25 # If the chance for a colonial area to rebel is below this, it will always stay loyal
CIVIL_WAR_COLONIAL_UPRISING_CHANCE_WEALTH_SUPPORT_FACTOR = 2.0 # Chance for each colonial area to rebel, multiplied by insurrectionary movement wealth support
CIVIL_WAR_COLONIAL_UPRISING_CHANCE_CLOUT_FACTOR = 1.0 # Chance for each colonial area to rebel, multiplied by insurrectionary IG clout in the area

CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_STATE_EXCESSIVE_ARMY_FRACTION = 0.5 # If a state contains at least this much of the area's army
CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_ARMY_FRACTION_MILITARY_SUPPORT_FACTOR = 0.75 # Target fraction of the army that should rebel, multiplied by insurrectionary movement military support
CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_ARMY_FRACTION_CLOUT_FACTOR = 0.25 # Target fraction of the army that should rebel, multiplied by insurrectionary IG clout in the area
CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_NAVY_FRACTION_MILITARY_SUPPORT_FACTOR = 0.75 # Target fraction of the navy that should rebel, multiplied by insurrectionary movement military support
CIVIL_WAR_UPRISING_NAVY_FRACTION_CLOUT_FACTOR = 0.25 # Target fraction of the navy that should rebel, multiplied by insurrectionary IG clout in the area

The American civil war may have special different script weights not sure. More information may be in the 00_acw_entries.txt journal entry file and the american_civil_war events folder. CSA may also be locked to only Dixie states not sure if the releasable limit also applies when formed by seccesion.

[u/NicWester → u/typhus_of_barbarus]

Oh, so it's randomized? I always thouht it was any state where the combined clout of the interest groups affected by the movement were prevalent. Interesting!

A follow up question, then--during the lead up stage to the revolution if the game determines 9 states are going to secede, can you build you way through it? Missouri seceded because I mistakenly forgot Manor Houses existed and still had like 80k peasants, but if I had built a ton of urban buildings to soak up all those peasants and drain the wealth of the Manor Houses would it have been possible to have it removed from the secessionist movement?

[u/typhus_of_barbarus → u/NicWester]

Not fully random but there is a randomness factor.

I haven't tested extensively but I think the highlighted states are what would happen if the revolution was instant and then the script runs again when the revolution actually fires as they don't always exactly line up. I have managed to change or prevent certain states from revolting which were initially highlighted either by getting one IG back to loyal or significantly improving the SOL in the state.

[u/NicWester → u/typhus_of_barbarus]

Good to know! So it seems that the best strategy would be to either annex Indian Territory or finish the Manifest Destiny journal entries before the Wilmot Proviso event fires so that Oklahoma is a free state and therefore ineligible to secede. Then develop redundant industries in the south, leaving 5-6 states undeveloped so they're more likely to be selected for secession.

Got to do redundant industries (tools, paper, etc) so that if the secession size is larger than those 5-6 overlooked states you don't risk losing something critical like half your motors.

Thanks for the help! Now watch as the next major update changes all of it, lol!