History YMMV / RebelInc

** The Billionaire as a whole can also be this. Facilitators can destroy insurgents without even needing support, let alone encirclement, and moreover unlike coalition soldiers they never leave. The downside to this is that they cost money... which is easily more than overcome with the Investment Portfolio's ridiculous - and reusable - return on investment that blows even the normal funding ticks out of the water, which by the way you get ''as well''. One might imagine this is to balance juggling funding with civilian initiative, but that's almost completely covered by the Billionarie's personal NGOSuperpower of a charity operation, which not only invests in initiatives faster than normal, but does so ''completely corruption-free'', meaning that for the most part it can be safely ignored while you literally [[MemeticMutation pay people to f**k off]] faster than even a full-size army of nine units can. On lower difficulties the typical outcome is literally running out of initiatives to fund as the MoneyForNothing rolls in and the region steadily flips to green. The one actual downside is that the Billionarie doesn't get events to reinvest excess funding over 100 into charities (which he owns anyway) or the military (which he doesn't form).

* BossInMookClothing: Insurgents on a Tank. Just a single insurgent unit is present in the scenario map. However, it has monstrous strength, ''completely immortal'', '''instantly''' takes over any zone it enters without any regard to its security power, and has a good liking to go from a zone to another zone. In the map, it appears as just a larger insurgent icon.

* SuperPoweredMooks: Basic soldier units can be upgraded in order to acquire unique abilities:
** Terrain specialist attachments allow the soldiers to function more efficiently in specific terrains. Specialized soldier unit also can near-instantly clean up occupied caves, if the cave is in the same type of terrain.
** Tank units have far higher combat power than normal soldiers, and the battle progress goes significantly faster, shortening the battle time that unit has to go through. However, they cannot enter rough terrains without good roads (or without All Terrain Tanks player tactic), they decrease local Support level, cannot gather intel, unable to clear caves.

** Getting certain modifiers through Weekly or Campaign challenges can make even harder levels much easier:
** Having no Corruption (ignoring the reputation loss, and saving money from costly anti-corruption endeavors), no Inflation (everything is significantly cheaper), Funded initiatives (particularly if those initiatives are expensive like roads or electricity), or destroying Insurgent Camps turning into Garrisons (Basically having a free, if stationary, soldier).

** The variety of governors (with the exception of the civil servant, who doesn't add any modifiers) mostly offer some gimmick mechanics that, while useful, require extensive practice, and can be outright detrimental to your performance if you fail to understand them... except for the General. His upgrades, while not posessing the same potential, are simple and straight to the point. The long list of military buffs he receives makes him absurdly efficient at not just holding the ground against the insurgents, but fighting them back. Once he's unlocked, good lucky trading the benefits troops under his command receive for anything else.

*** Having no Corruption (ignoring the reputation loss, and saving money from costly anti-corruption endeavors), no Inflation (everything is significantly cheaper), Funded initiatives (particularly if those initiatives are expensive like roads or electricity), or destroying Insurgent Camps turning into Garrisons (Basically having a free, if stationary, soldier).

* HarsherInHindsight: Rebel Inc is effectively a game about the United States bringing Afghanistan under their control, with the developer even meeting with Afghan officials in Europe to discuss the situation while making the game. The war took place in [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror real life from 2001 to 2021]]. The key elements of winning the game are to reduce corruption, keep insurgents bottled up with large forces including a significant element comprised of highly trained local units and to improve the ability of locals to access modern infrastructure. In real life, after the United States failed to convince the Taliban to hand over Osama Bin Laden in early in the war, the country spent the next 20 years gripped by cancerous corruption that hollowed out any positive improvements, with an pseudo-army that didn't bother fighting once the Americans left, and former President Ashraf Ghani fleeing the country with $150 million in stolen US Dollars.
** The Opium Trail level takes it further, as opium was a major source of funding for the Taliban while they were in exile, and while in that level keeping control of it is vital to victory, the US despite multiple attempts of varying success, failed to stop or even meaningfully limit the opium trade in Afghanistan.

* 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.
** Also inverted, since Rebel Inc was thought up by the developer before they'd started on Plague Inc.

* HarsherInHindsight: Rebel Inc is effectively a game about the United States bringing Afghanistan under their control. This took place in [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror real life from 2001 to 2021]]. The key elements of winning the game are to reduce corruption, keep insurgents bottled up with large forces including a significant element comprised of highly trained local units and to improve the ability of locals to access modern infrastructure. In real life, after the United States failed to convince the Taliban to hand over Osama Bin Laden in early in the war, the country spent the next 20 years gripped by cancerous corruption that hollowed out any positive improvements, with an pseudo-army that didn't bother fighting once the Americans left, and former President Ashraf Ghani fleeing the country with $150 million in stolen US Dollars.

** Players have often complained about how difficult to exterminate and persistent the Insurgents are.

* DemonicSpiders: The insurgents are a ''nasty'' foe to try to control. The two primary ways to combat them are by funding Initiatives to increase support and using troops to fight them directly. However, insurgents move to control regions which prevents Initiatives from being built and destroys what is already there, meanwhile the only way to get rid of them in combat is if they are completely surrounded or pinned against a river or the map edge; most of the time insurgent units are just pushed around without actually being destroyed. While they can be killed in combat without being surrounded, their numbers will pretty much always increase faster than the player can kill them. Their camps also pump out more insurgents and give them a combat bonus. They also work to destroy the player's reputation. You lose reputation when a region is taken (especially if it has a high population) and continuously when regions are controlled. Your reputation also takes serious hits if regions are stabilized and then taken back by the insurgents and when multiple adjacent zones are controlled by the insurgents. Insurgents can also disrupt elections, turning a potential bonus into a disaster. As a final insult, there are surprise attacks by insurgents. Normally, insurgents can only move to adjacent zones, making them somewhat predictable, but sometimes surprise attacks can take place where any region is at risk. If a surprise attack takes place far away, it's likely the insurgents will have already taken the zone by the time the player moves in a unit. Surprise attacks can also be launched against the player's HQ, which is pretty much a game-ender barring an immediately adjacent friendly unit.

* HarsherInHindsight: Rebel Inc is effectively a game about the United States bringing Afghanistan under their control. This took place in [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerro real life from 2001 to 2021]]. The key elements of winning the game are to reduce corruption, keep insurgents bottled up with large forces including a significant element comprised of highly trained local units and to improve the ability of locals to access modern infrastructure. In real life, after the United States failed to convince the Taliban to hand over Osama Bin Laden in early in the war, the country spent the next 20 years gripped by cancerous corruption that hollowed out any positive improvements, with an pseudo-army that didn't bother fighting once the Americans left, and former President Ashraf Ghani fleeing the country with $150 million in stolen US Dollars.

* HarsherInHindsight: The game is a thinly-veiled pacification and restoration of order in rural Afghanistan in the early 00s. And the easiest and most efficient ways of doing that are putting either a corrupt official or a military leader in charge of the whole operation, fighting the insurgent forces on even terms and bringing modern hardware to the fight, while allowing to neglect either civilian affairs, or government oversight efforts, as simply fighting current "terrorist forces" is enough to make them surrender and "win"... Comes 2021 and the near-instant disintegration of Afghan National Army in the face of the Taliban offensive exposed just how important it is to create a civilian support for the new regime and how corruption and lack of supervision can rot the whole system inside-out, particularly in the army.
** Although to be fair, having a corrupt official or a military leader in hard or brutal mode is the surest way to have the insurgent spun out of control. Especially when the government made choices that are not would not be recommended in the game. Not to mention that the real-life Afghan National Army is the worst role model to look up to when building National armies in the game. At least the military units in the game are fully staffed for battle rather than ghost armies in order to get more budget.

* BreatherLevel: Distant Steppe, the fifth map, has fewer dirt road regions than Pistachio Forest, so it's much easier to move your army units to deal with threats. Also, all of the urban centers are very close to each other, so it's easy to bring them under your control early.

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: The variety of governors (with the exception of the civil servant, who doesn't add any modifiers) mostly offer some gimmick mechanics that, while useful, require extensive practice, and can be outright detrimental to your performance if you fail to understand them... except for the General. His upgrades, while not posessing the same potential, are simple and straight to the point. The long list of military buffs he receives makes him absurdly efficient at not just holding the ground against the insurgents, but fighting them back. Once he's unlocked, good lucky trading the benefits troops under his command receive for anything else.
* While this can easily stop being the case for the general in higher difficulties, due to the increased civilian initiative cost, the Smuggler can also lead to this, as his ability to speed up soldier training and obtain extra cash from them can very well allow one to mobilize an effective defense faster without compromizing civilian spending, as long as they are willing to delay going on the offensive.

* While this can easily stop being the case in higher difficulties, due to the increased civilian initiative cost, the Smuggler can also lead to this, as his ability to speed up soldier training and obtain extra cash from them can very well allow one to mobilize an effective defense faster without compromizing civilian spending, as long as they are willing to delay going on the offensive.

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: The variety of governors mostly offer some gimmick mechanics or are outright detrimental to your performance... except for the General. The long list of military buffs he receives makes him absurdly efficient at not just holding the ground against the insurgents, but fighting them back. Once he's unlocked, good lucky trading the benefits troops under his command receive for anything else.

* HarsherInHindsight: The game is a thinly-veiled pacification and restoration of order in rural Afghanistan in the early 00s. And the easiest and most efficient ways of doing that are putting either an active smuggler or a general in charge of the whole operation, fighting the insurgent forces on even terms and bringing modern hardware to the fight, while allowing to neglect either civilian affairs, or government anti-corruption efforts, as simply fighting current "terrorist forces" is enough to make them surrender and "win"... Comes 2021 and the near-instant disintegration of Afghan National Army in the face of the Taliban offensive exposed just how important it is to create a civilian support for the new regime and how corruption and lack of supervision can rot the whole system inside-out, particularly in the army.

While this can easily stop being the case in higher difficulties, due to the increased civilian initiative cost, the Smuggler can also lead to this, as his ability to speed up soldier training and obtain extra cash from them can very well allow one to mobilize an effective defense faster without compromizing civilian spending, as long as they are willing to delay going on the offensive.

* HarsherInHindsight: The game is a thinly-veiled pacification and restoration of order in rural Afghanistan in the early 00s. And the easiest and most efficient way of doing that is putting a general in charge of the whole operation, fighting the insurgent forces on even terms and bringing modern hardware to the fight, while allowing to neglect civilian affairs, as simply fighting current "terrorist forces" is enough to make them surrender and "win"... Comes 2021 and the near-instant disintegration of Afghan National Army in the face of the Taliban offensive exposed just how important it is to create a civilian support for the new regime and how corruption and lack of supervision can rot the whole system inside-out, particularly in the army.

** The initial roll-out of the Campaign mode and its modifiers has lead to numerous complaints about totally unbeatable levels on Normal and Brutal difficulties. The key issue is how there are certain modifiers that the insurgents can get that make it all but impossible to win.

* ScrappyMechanic: Players have often complained about how difficult to exterminate and persistent the Insurgents are.

* DemonicSpiders: The insurgents are a ''nasty'' foe to try to control. The two primary ways to combat them are by funding Initiatives to increase support and using troops to fight them directly. However, insurgents move to control regions which prevents Initiatives from being built and destroys what is already there, meanwhile the only way to get rid of them in combat is if they are completely surrounded or pinned against a river or the map edge; most of the time insurgent units are just pushed around without actually being destroyed. While they can be killed in combat without being surrounded, their numbers will pretty much always increase faster than the player can kill them. Their camps also pump out more insurgents and give them a combat bonus. They also work to destroy the player's reputation. You lose reputation when a region is taken (especially if it has a high population) and continuously when regions are controlled. Your reputation also takes serious hits if regions are stabilized and then taken back by the insurgents and when multiple adjacent zones are controlled by the insurgents. Insurgents can also disrupt elections, turning a potential bonus into a disaster. As a final insult, there are surprise attacks by insurgents. Normally, insurgents can only move to adjacent zones, making them somewhat predictable, but sometimes surprise attacks can take place where any region is at risk. If a surprise attack takes place far away, it's likely the insurgents will have already taken the zone by the time the player moves in a unit. Surprise attacks can also be launched against the player's HQ, which is pretty much a game-ender barring an immediately adjacent friendly unit.