History VideoGame / RebelInc

* UnstableEquilibrium: Reputation affects income, and it spirals down if you don't stabilize the country soon enough. [[CycleOfHurting Good luck getting out of that hole with reduced means to turn the tide]].

** Billionaire - can use personal connections to fund the operation. Only 3 military units are available, who are capable of disbanding insurgents via payments.
** In addition, your government can be customized and given various bonuses with up to 6 advisors divided by color, with 5 possible advisors in each role : green (military strength) [[note]]Instructor, who trains national soldiers without Coalition forces; Chef, who allows for longer deployment of Coalition soldiers; Observer, who lowers the risk of civilian casualties due to airstrikes; Arms Dealer, who increases national soldier's strength; Drill Sergeant, who speeds up national soldiers' training[[/note]], blue (military bonuses) [[note]]Censor, who reduces Reputation loss when Insurgents capture a zone; Pilot, who increases the frequency of airstrikes; Tactician, who makes the Insurgents take casualties when fleeing a zone; Engineer, who makes garrisons appear faster; Logistics Expert, who allows soldiers to move faster through secured zones[[/note]], yellow (civilian matters) [[note]]Tax Collector, who gives you more budget the more secure zones you own; Realist, who delays Reputation loss due to a lack of stability; Investigative Reporter, who makes anti-Corruption efforts more efficient; Private Donor, who gives you a starting bonus budget; Wealthy Exile, who prevents budget reduction due to low Reputation[[/note]], pink (law enforcement and diplomacy) [[note]]Religious Leader, who decreases Insurgent strength when stabilizing zones; Tribal Elder, who delays the start of the insurgency; Militia Chief, who makes the initial insurgency weaker at the cost of augmented Corruption; Police Chief, who makes law enforcement initiative more efficient; Negotiator, who makes peace talks faster[[/note]], orange (intel and PR) [[note]]Journalist, who allows you to get intel on zones faster; Village Elder, who boosts support gain in remote areas; Farmer, who boosts support gain in rural areas; Town Planner, who boosts support gain in urban areas; Doctor, who reduce the number of hostile civilians faster[[/note]] and purple (game modifiers) [[note]]Armchair Architect, who gives you a randomly placed HQ in exchange for a cash boost; Tourist, who gives you intel on more zones at the beginning of the game; Celebrity, who gives you a Reputation boost at the beginning of the game; Impulsive Shopper, who buys random initiatives if you own a certain sum of money; Trained Monkey, who randomly replies to events once they run out of time[[/note]].

* GeoEffects: Rivers can't be crossed by insurgents when fleeing a lost battle, allowing your forces to destroy them if they're surrounded on other sides. Each province is also classified as either urban, rural, or remote, with progressively higher movement costs and lower intel gathering rates in that order (movement costs can be lowered by investing in roads). Likewise, the first bonus map involves caves, used by the Insurgents as camps. Without the proper initiative to teach soldiers how to clean them up, an Insurgent-occupied cave acts as a beefed-up camp immune to airstrikes.

* BriefcaseFullOfMoney: The FlavorText for the 4th Anti corruption initiative [[ImpliedTrope implies]] an attempt to make it a DefiedTrope, by banning the printing of high denomination currency. The launch trailer also displays a briefcase full of money while talking about the governor's failure to control corruption.

* GetBackHereBoss: Defeated Insurgents will always flee to a nearby zone where they'll start sowing dissent afiter a short while. To destroy them, they must be either beaten when stuck somewhere they can't flee (they can't cross the edge of the map, your HQ's zone, garrisoned zones with the proper upgrade or rivers without bridges) or surrounded by soldiers.

* TakingYouWithMe: The security initiatives (Local Militia, Local Police Recruitment and Local Police Expansion) will each kill one insurgent whenever they are destroyed by said insurgents. This can render up to 3 insurgents dead, freeing up your armies to deal with larger insurgent incursions and attacks.

* KillEmAll: In campaign mode, a "Leaderless Insurgency" means that you are not fighting a unified force under a common banner, but many random pockets of individual rebels with their own grievances against your intervention. This makes it ''impossible'' to have peace negotiations, though gameplay-wise they can still team-up against you--EnemyMine, one supposes.

* NintendoHard: Not only are you fighting an RealTimeStrategy battle against the insurgents, you also have to juggle your budget, reputation, public support, random events, inflation, and internal corruption. Even the "Casual" setting can be '''very''' tough and where failure is expected.

* MagikarpPower: National troops take forever to train and are weak early on. However, if you continue training more of them and invest in a number of initiatives, they can grow in strength to the point where they rival Coalition troops. As a bonus point, they don't antagonize the local population and don't disappear after a while. Taken UpToEleven if you choose the General as your governor, as he has additional initiatives that arm national troops with high-end weapons. The air force random event can even further boost national troop strength, sometimes at the cost of Coalition troop strength. There is also a random event wherein you have to address soldier desertion, with one of the options being to pay more money for salary and training, thus increasing troop strength even more. This trope is even more in effect if you choose the Smuggler path and activate the initiative that speeds up national troop training at the cost of their effectiveness.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''VideoGame/PlagueInc''. A game about counter-insurgency operations and nation-building might not seem like it has anything in common with a game about eradicating the world population with disease, but the mechanics and goals are remarkably similar. Both games involve the player trying to change members of regional populations to a certain state (dead or supporter) in order to completely dominate the map with zones of a certain state (dead countries or stabilized regions). To this end players must strategically purchase modifications to their disease/operation which modifies one of three core variables (severity, infectivity, and lethality vs support, inflation, and corruption) and which spreads outward from a single starting point (operation HQ or starting country). In addition to having mechanically identical win states, failure comes when a crucial variable (cure progress or reputation) reaches a certain point.

* RippedFromTheHeadlines: The game is essentially a CaptainErsatz title about fighting the insurgency in Afghanistan and to a lesser extent Iraq. While the country is never named directly, the game begins in April 2002 in the aftermath of an "invasion", with a "Coalition" of forces trying to help the government gain control of the country. There are also other references: the Troop Surge random event can occur if the game goes long enough, with the Coalition leader giving the player 2 Coalition units to end the war once and for all. Another event sees the Coalition distracted with an unnamed other war where they request one of the player's Coalition units to be temporarily withdrawn, probably referring to the division of resources between Iraq and Afghanistan. The creators outright admit on the Steam page that the game takes inspiration from Afghanistan.

* OddlyNamedSequel2ElectricBoogaloo: While not technically a sequel, it is a game borrowing enough from ''VideoGame/PlagueInc'' to be a spiritual successor. Which makes it odd that it is titled '''Rebel''' Inc when you are in control of the '''Counter''' Insurrection forces (in other words, the Rebel's '''enemies'''), while ''Plague Inc'' had you in control of the pandemic.

[[quoteright:270:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rebel_inc_head.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:270:Will you bring peace and hope, or see this war-torn country descend into violence once more?]]

!!The game provides examples of the following tropes:

* AdamSmithHatesYourGuts: Everything you do causes prices to increase due to Inflation, and reduces your income. Once the insurgents show up, you have to outsource your military while you build up your own. The outsourced military has a time limit, and extending the limit becomes progressively more costly. Your permanent military is probably still weaker by the time this happens, and has a considerable training time to boot.
* AddledAddict: One of the random events on Opium Trail involves your national troops being addicted to drugs, lowering their combat strength, unless additional measures are paid for to stop their addiction.
* AwesomeButImpractical: Yeah, tanks are cool. Yeah, in open terrain they'll roll right over the insurgents. But they're useless in a support role, and what's worse, they can't go into battle in the mountains to take the fight to the insurgents. The loss of support they cause is just the cherry on top. They're a bit more practical in Campaign mode, where several Combat Tactics counter every last one of their weaknesses, including their inability to travel through mountains, but you're at the mercy of the RandomNumberGod if you intend on relying on tanks.
* BlackAndGrayMorality: While the game is intentionally vague about the cause the insurgents fight for, they bring nothing but trouble in the area. You're trying to bring back order, reopening schools and hospitals to reach that goal... But look at all the morally questionable (at best) and outright morally bankrupt (at worst) decisions you took while solving any RandomEvent that pops up, and can only justify by claiming you couldn't afford to piss off some people or groups at the time you made them...
* BriefcaseFullOfMoney: The FlavorText for the 4th Anti corruption initiative [[ImpliedTrope implies]] an attempt to make it a DefiedTrope, by banning the printing of high denomination currency. The launch trailer also displays a briefcase full of money while talking about the governor's failure to control corruption.

[[folder:Click here for a detailed explanation of the gameplay]]
The player has a choice of governors at the start of each scenario. They are unlocked as each scenario is beaten on medium difficulty with the latest governor. Each governor has certain advantages and disadvantages. For example, the Economist is given an annual budget at the start of each year but has to watch out for inflation and must remember that there won't be any more cash influx until the next year; the Warlord can quickly convert his old militia into the national army units, but will have to either pay them a bonus regularly to prevent unwanted behavior or disband them altogether.

!! Regions
Each region consists of urban, rural, and mountainous/forest zones. The level of access in each zone determines which civic initiatives will be applicable to it. As zones receive aid and recover their economy, the governor's level of support in that zone grows. When it reaches maximum, the zone is considered to be stabilized. When all the zones are stabilized, the game will be won.

!! Insurgents

Shortly after the start of the game, the player will have to start dealing with a new challenge - insurgents. They will usually start in a rural or mountainous/forest zone and expand from there, securing control over zones and destroying any improvements done to them by the player. Combating insurgents requires training and deploying troops. Initially, the player can only deploy Coalition troops (blue), unless you use the Instructor advisor. They train quickly and are strong fighters from the get-go, but tend to antagonize the local population and have a limited deployment time. At their end of their tour, they can either be recalled (which boosts insurgent morale) or asked to stay on for one or two more tours (at the cost of reputation). On the other hand, national troops (green) don't disappear but take forever to train and are fairly weak from the beginning. It takes several more initiatives to turn them into an effective fighting force. If the "Garrisons" initiative has been enabled, the game will periodically suggests sites for a garrison at a small one-time cost. Garrisons help secure a zone and aid any nearby forces in combat. If insurgents are defeated in a zone, they will attempt to flee to the nearby zone, making it hard to destroy them for good. The only way to do it is to make sure all adjacent zones are either occupied by your troops, a garrison, or there is some natural barrier that prevents crossing (e.g. edge of the map, river without a bridge). Insurgents can occasionally pop up in un-pacified (or even pacified) zones. The maximum allowed number of military units is 9: 5 Coalition and 4 national, although a random event may net you an additional 2 Coalition or 2 national units, even if you're already at maximum.

The player can also request air support in the form of bomber strikes and recon drones. Neither can be controlled directly (unless you use cheats). Air strikes have a chance of causing civilian casualties, the chance will be increased if the player passes heavy ordinance initiative. In that case, the player may choose to either apologize, try to cover it up or downplay the effects. Drones provide intelligence and can also be used to increase troop strength on the ground with combat support.

Various events pop up throughout the game, requiring action from the player. Each event has two or three choices, depending on the event and the current funds.

There are two possible ways of ending the insurgent threat: destroying them completely after stabilizing the region or signing a peace treaty with them which causes them to disband. The latter still requires a strong military presence, since they will refuse to negotiate if they are winning and any insurgent units still alive at the end of the negotiations will cost the player's reputation to disband.

!! Meters

Like ''Plague Inc.'', this game also has three indicators on the bottom: support level (green), inflation (orange), and corruption risk (red). Support level indicates how fast your influence spreads through the zones and how fast they are pacified. Inflation is the result of enabling initiatives and will raise the cost of all initiatives as it grows. Inflation will slowly drop over time, encouraging spreading out your spending. Corruption will result from new initiatives, certain random events, or normal growth. High corruption will cut into the support level and may even affect your reputation. Corruption is dropped by passing anti-corruption initiatives and arresting corrupt officials (which provide one time reductions for corruption).

!! Gameplay Modifiers

Similar to ''Plague Inc.'', you can select previously-unlocked advisors prior to starting a game (genes in ''Plague Inc.''). These can provide certain bonuses (e.g. Tribal Elder will delay the start of the insurgency, Logistics Expert will increase travel speed of soldiers through stable zones), although some seem more like hazards (e.g. Impulsive Shopper will waste your money on random initiatives, the trained monkey will choose a random choice for events when the time is up). There are six advisor slots with five options for each. A random advisor is unlocked every time you beat a map at any difficulty level.

!! Campaign

Added in a update, the Campaign mode is less an actual story and more a challenge run; there are five regions within the country that need to be stabilized, each done in proximity of each other. The kicker is that the regions have at least three modifiers that both positively and adversely affect gameplay; a region may have, for instance, faster National training at the cost of strength due to local traditions, a disorganized insurgency which reduces their combat strength at the cost of the inability to negotiate peace, and a shortage of fuel, leading to slower travel speeds.

In addition to these regional modifiers, both you and the insurgents gain Combat Tactics every two regions. One game you may able to extend Coalition soldiers' deployments by winning battles with them while having tanks that can travel through ''any'' terrain, while the insurgency gains the ability to ambush any unit who enters a no-intel zone and becomes far more aggressive to put you off balance.

Adding onto that, governors and advisors both become tired once a region is completed with them, forcing you to switch your tactics up unless you have a Combat Tactic that allows reuse of them without negative effects.

Fail even ''one'' region and the whole campaign is over barring a certain Combat Tactic.
[[/folder]]

* AttackDrones: Played with. While drones are only used for reconnaissance, an additional initiative can also have them boost any of your troops in the vicinity by providing combat intel.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Giving [=NGOs=] a free hand will randomly give you free Initiatives (much like the mutation mechanic giving free traits in Plague Inc.) but increase Corruption and Inflation by a large amount. Inflation increases costs and can prevent you from buying Initiatives, while Corruption reduces your Support and Reputation. The only way to get Inflation down (if not playing the Economist) is to just simply wait, while anti-corruption Initiatives are either a one-time reduction or also take time to work. Thus, international aid can trap the player into a doom loop where they either have to just watch as their Reputation and Support levels drop, or purchase Initiatives and waste money since Inflation is so high while making Corruption and Inflation get even further out of control.
** Likewise, the "Universal Justice" initiative (which makes you pledge to arrest and trial criminals no matter their wealth or background) can backfire quite badly in terms of support and Reputation if you choose to let go or reward corrupt judges or violent police leaders, as people realize the governor lied to them.
* NintendoHard: ''And how.'' Not only do you have to battle with insurgents (which are a headache in and of themselves), but you also have to juggle your budget, reputation, public support, random events, inflation, and internal corruption. Even on the game's "Casual" setting, this game can be '''very''' tough.

The game takes place in the aftermath of an international invasion of a unnamed but thematically Southern Asian country[[note]]A lawyer-friendly version of Afghanistan with a lesser extent to Iraq[[/note]]. With the fighting in the chosen region over, the player is assigned as the governor of that area. The goal of each mission is to develop and stabilize all the zones of that region, while dealing with insurgents and keeping your reputation from [[YouLoseAtZeroTrust dropping to zero]].

The game takes place in the aftermath of an international invasion of a unnamed but thematically South Asian country[[note]]A lawyer-friendly version of Afghanistan with a lesser extent to Iraq[[/note]]. With the fighting in the chosen region over, the player is assigned as the governor of that area. The goal of each mission is to develop and stabilize all the zones of that region, while dealing with insurgents and keeping your reputation from [[YouLoseAtZeroTrust dropping to zero]].

The game takes place in the aftermath of an international invasion of a unnamed but thematically South Asian country[[note]]A lawyer-friendly version of Afghanistan and a lesser extent to Iraq[[/note]]. With the fighting in the chosen region over, the player is assigned as the governor of that area. The goal of each mission is to develop and stabilize all the zones of that region, while dealing with insurgents and keeping your reputation from [[YouLoseAtZeroTrust dropping to zero]].

The game takes place in the aftermath of an international invasion of a unnamed but thematically South Asian country[[note]]A lawyer-friedly version of Afghanistan and a lesser extent to Iraq[[/note]]. With the fighting in the chosen region over, the player is assigned as the governor of that area. The goal of each mission is to develop and stabilize all the zones of that region, while dealing with insurgents and keeping your reputation from [[YouLoseAtZeroTrust dropping to zero]].

The game takes place in the aftermath of an international invasion of a unnamed but thematically Middle Eastern country. With the fighting in the chosen region over, the player is assigned as the governor of that area. The goal of each mission is to develop and stabilize all the zones of that region, while dealing with insurgents and keeping your reputation from [[YouLoseAtZeroTrust dropping to zero]].