I've seen a lot of confusion on the forums about how the REF, rebel sentiment and revolution works, and I've been confused by it myself. I did some research on the exact rules for these, both by looking at the game's actual code and by playing the game, and I thought I'd write up a little guide here.
First, let's talk about rebel sentiment.
There are two types of rebel sentiment: rebel sentiment % in each of your individual cities, and overall rebel sentiment % in your nation. The overall % is NOT the sum of the % in each of your cities. You do NOT need 50% rebel sentiment in each city to allow for revolution.
Rebel sentiment in cities
The ONLY thing affecting rebel sentiment is the rate at which you generate bells - the cumulative numbers of bells generated over time does NOT matter. Here's the way it works.
The rate of bell production is used to compute a target rebel sentiment value. Each bell/turn will ultimately produce 25% rebel sentiment in one citizen. Thus, if you generate 10 bells/turn and have 5 citizens in your city, you will eventually get 50% rebel sentiment.
The rebel sentiment does not change instantaneously to that "target" rate however. The game will slowly "drift" the rebel sentiment from the current value to the target value using a logarithmic type of curve. What it means is, if the current rebel sentiment is 0% and the "target" rebel sentiment is 50% and the game is set to normal speed, rebel sentiment will roughly grow as follows:
- After five turns: 33% of target value (33% of 50% in this example, so 16.5%)
- After ten turns: 60% of target value (60% of 50% in this example, and so forth)
- After twenty turns: 85% of target value
- After thirty turns: 95% of target value
- After fourty turns: 99%
However, as the rebel sentiment increases, you get bell rate production bonuses. So in reality, as rebel sentiment grows, it picks up speed from itself, and the eventual rebel sentiment grows a bit faster than I gave above.
The bigger the city, the more rebel sentiment you need to get a higher percentage (one bell = 25% of ONE citizen). In fact if the city is enormous (pop 25-30) I suspect high rebel sentiment is impossible without serious bonuses from founding fathers.
In practice, I've found a size 12 city with three elder statesmen and a newspaper should reach 50% rebel sentiment in about 10 turns on normal speed. Add +50% for epic and +200% for marathon.
First, let's talk about rebel sentiment.
There are two types of rebel sentiment: rebel sentiment % in each of your individual cities, and overall rebel sentiment % in your nation. The overall % is NOT the sum of the % in each of your cities. You do NOT need 50% rebel sentiment in each city to allow for revolution.
Rebel sentiment in cities
The ONLY thing affecting rebel sentiment is the rate at which you generate bells - the cumulative numbers of bells generated over time does NOT matter. Here's the way it works.
The rate of bell production is used to compute a target rebel sentiment value. Each bell/turn will ultimately produce 25% rebel sentiment in one citizen. Thus, if you generate 10 bells/turn and have 5 citizens in your city, you will eventually get 50% rebel sentiment.
The rebel sentiment does not change instantaneously to that "target" rate however. The game will slowly "drift" the rebel sentiment from the current value to the target value using a logarithmic type of curve. What it means is, if the current rebel sentiment is 0% and the "target" rebel sentiment is 50% and the game is set to normal speed, rebel sentiment will roughly grow as follows:
- After five turns: 33% of target value (33% of 50% in this example, so 16.5%)
- After ten turns: 60% of target value (60% of 50% in this example, and so forth)
- After twenty turns: 85% of target value
- After thirty turns: 95% of target value
- After fourty turns: 99%
However, as the rebel sentiment increases, you get bell rate production bonuses. So in reality, as rebel sentiment grows, it picks up speed from itself, and the eventual rebel sentiment grows a bit faster than I gave above.
The bigger the city, the more rebel sentiment you need to get a higher percentage (one bell = 25% of ONE citizen). In fact if the city is enormous (pop 25-30) I suspect high rebel sentiment is impossible without serious bonuses from founding fathers.
In practice, I've found a size 12 city with three elder statesmen and a newspaper should reach 50% rebel sentiment in about 10 turns on normal speed. Add +50% for epic and +200% for marathon.