Unrest is a mechanic in Rise of Nations which, when unchecked, can result in less income, manpower, stability, and even independence in conquered territories. Unrest is caused by various factors, such as military occupation during a war, low national stability, or even rebel funding by other countries.
Take a look at the images on the right. See the yellow bar? If the red goes over the yellow bar, then you cannot build buildings or make units in that city.
Causes of Unrest
Unrest appears in cities when:
- Your nation has <45% Stability. If it is under that level, any nations that you do not have a golden core on have a chance to increase and potentially max out their unrest bar for 1-3 minutes.
- They are occupied. Occupied cities have maximum unrest, but they cannot rebel and produce way less money, resources and manpower. However, if you have cored this city, it will not have unrest when you occupy the cityagain.
- Annexed. Unrest in recently annexed cities will go down as time passes.
- Scorching. Scorching cities will make them produce no money, resources or manpower. It will also cause attrition to any units near that city without being near other non scroched cities. Usually lasts for around 10–20 minutes.
- Rebel funding. If other foreign countries choose to spend money on helping rebels, unrest in conquered nations and releasables can increase.
- Nuclear Attack. This will permanently cripple the city, resulting in half of the population dead, city tiers and infrastructure reverted back to 1, all buildings will be destroyed and the city will be scorched for a long time. If the nuked city had fortifications already built, unrest will go down like if it was annexed newly and the unrest bar won't go all the way to max, the population will decrease by a quarter instead of half and all buildings remain undestroyed.
Negative Effects
High unrest will have many negative effects on a nation. A city with higher unrest will produce less resources, money, manpower, and population growth will decline with the max being at -5%; and a city with unrest from scorching will produce nothing at all. A player cannot construct buildings or train units in cities with high unrest, and unrested cities are much easier to take(Up to 3x). High unrest also decreases your stability. Finally, high unrest in releasables can lead them to rebel or even declare independence.
Ways to Decrease Unrest
- Security Spending, will cost money(Depends on your income), also increases rebel supression, stability and reduces war exhaustion.
- Education Spending, will cost money(Depends on your income), also increases research, political power and political leader xp gain.
- Healthcare Spending, will cost money(Depends on your income), also increases stability, population growth and reduces war exhaustion.
- Political Research. Improving national stability at the cost of research points will decrease unrest.
- Consumer Goods. A surplus of consumer goods increases the stability of a nation by 25%, so it's a great option to decrease unrest. However, building factories for their production requires money and time.
- Ideology can place a major role in unrest, and the wrong ideology will make unrest reduce even slower. The fastest ideologies to decrease unrest are Liberalism and Democracy while the worst ideologies in terms of unrest are Socialism, Fascism, and Communism.
- Forming. Forming a formable will immediately remove unrest from all nations required for the formable and all the cities required will be immediately integrated It will also provide a 1-time 10% stability boost which can be easily maintained with low government spending and a stability-boosting policy/ideology.
- Enacting the Liberation Act policy will allow you to decrease unrest faster.
- Waiting. Sometimes, just waiting is the best option. As time passes, unrest in annexed cities decreases, and fires in scorched cities gradually die down.