Rebellion

In MEIOU and Taxes 3.0 unrest has been separated into two categories: banditry and rebellion. Each of these interact with the vanilla mechanic of provincial unrest via a new gain and suppression system. Gain represents the accumulation of unrest and the breakdown of social order while suppression represents a tendency toward order due to either policing or a happy populace. When gain exceeds suppression this is translated into provincial unrest and, eventually, a revolt.

Banditry
Banditry represents the turn of non-elites to crime due to poverty and starvation. In terms of game mechanics, it is the result of low welfare, low fulfillment of life needs, war exhaustion, and/or low stability. To reduce banditry make sure that local peasants, residents, and nomads have their life needs met and that provincial welfare is above 0.

Rebellion
Rebellion encompasses most other forms of discontent with your government. It is caused by religious intolerance, cultural unrest, nationalism/separatism, and low elite loyalty. Rebellion gain scales with the manpower size of affected classes and the provincial power of disloyal elites such that the happiness of small classes or weak local elites will have relatively little impact on provincial unrest.

Suppression
Suppression is the sum of all forces countering unrest and disorder in the province. These include policing (explained below), autonomy, the amount of manpower you can raise from a given province, and the military power of loyal local elites.

Policing
Policing can be both centralized and decentralized depending on your government reforms, provincial infrastructure, and state reach.

Powerful local nobles may, with the appropriate reforms, levy private armies from local tenants and freeholders. Similarly, burghers may organize town militias from residents and artisans after the appropriate reform has been passed. In both cases, the effectiveness of elite policing is dependent on having either high elite loyalty in the province or high communication efficiency.

A centralized state can instead allocate police forces by investing in garrison infrastructure. These garrisons additionally increase fort level, directly decrease provincial unrest, and reduce hostile movement speed through the province. However, garrisons require state maintenance and also tie up the productivity of local residents who could instead be working in other industries.