Plague and Family Members

[Satsuma]

Hi

First post so be kind. :beam:

I tried a quick search to see if any of my following questions were already answered, but I couldn't spot anything. Apologies if this is a well known thing and I've been blinder than 90 year old druid...

As the title says, Plague and Family Members.

I'm only on my second full campaign game. My first was an E/E game as Julii where i blitzed through and didn't really get the most of the game.
I'm now playing my second game as Brutii on H/H and taking my time expanding and solidifying my provinces.

Problem that I have is the scurge of the Black Death hitting Macedonia around 250BC. I kind of knew it was coming but wasn't sure when exactly, and a few of my Family members have now been infected.

I had a few instances of plague in my first Julii game and I made sure to quarantine the city that was infected, letting nothing in or out. In all cases I lost a lot of population (a good thing) and only a few soldiers (not too bothered tbh). If there was a Family Member present I left him where he was and after a few turns the plague passed. All of my family members in that game survived the plague.

This time things have turned off differently...

I've had one young general (and faction heir) die in the first turn in the settlement where the plague hit.
I can only assume a Macedonian spy infected a second city the next turn, or the plague spread, as a second city then became infected. This caught two other family members.
Now the really dumb thing on my part: I didn't realise until too late and moved them both out of the city with a big stack of troops to counter a large Macedonian army heading towards Athens (which I've already taken, but has a weak garrison).

So (I got there eventually)...

1) Are my generals pretty much doomed to a horrible death, full of much wailing, pain and a bad cough?
2) If they live do they still carry the virus, and do I run the risk of reinfecting any city I stop in?
3) How long will they stay infected?
4) Is the mortality rate for Plague dependent on difficulty level?

I have tried being a nasty Roman and sending an infected spy to Gaul too, but can I then spread the plague across the whole empire?

In some ways it would be cool to essentially bring down the might of the Empire using just a few agents with sore throats and runny noses.

Any help/advice greatly appreciated. I'll try and tough it out one way or another (might need to start working on a few captains in case most of my family tree end up on the wagon).

Cheers

[Alerion]

Hey

I hope I can be of help:

1. No, I had family members infected with a plague and they lived through it... apparently they CAN die, when infected though...
2. They will carry the virus for an amount of time
3. I dont know, but you can see it in their character scroll. There is a little plague sign... Also the plage notice will always show up at the beginning of each turn, as long as one character or settlement or agent or anything else carries the plague - just try to not enter any "clean" cities with infected characters....
4. No idea... but I wouldn't think so...

just pray your characters survive and don't send them into clean cities as long as they carry the plague

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Welcome aboard Titus Leghorn ~:wave:

1) Are my generals pretty much doomed to a horrible death, full of much wailing, pain and a bad cough?I think that whether they die or not is fairly random. From my experience, most generals do survive though, but that could just be me.
2) If they live do they still carry the virus, and do I run the risk of reinfecting any city I stop in?The moment the skull is gone from their scroll (right click on their unit card to see it), they are safe being no longer harbor the illness and spread it. Bear in mind that they can stay ill after the settlement they were residing in has got over the plague.
3) How long will they stay infected?The longest I had a general infected for was five turns, although most of my infected generals usually get over it within three.
4) Is the mortality rate for Plague dependent on difficulty level?From my experiences I'm inclined to say no but I'm far from 100% sure.
I have tried being a nasty Roman and sending an infected spy to Gaul too, but can I then spread the plague across the whole empire?It's occurrence, I think, is either invoked by an infected agent/general's movement from settlement to settlement or is randomly invoked (possibly aided by higher squalor levels, but don't quote me on that). Essentially, you won't get it back unless the province owners decide to bring it back to you (and the AI isn't, AFAIK, intelligent enough to consciously do that).

Hope this is useful ~:)

[Joooray]

I have tried being a nasty Roman and sending an infected spy to Gaul too, but can I then spread the plague across the whole empire?

In some ways it would be cool to essentially bring down the might of the Empire using just a few agents with sore throats and runny noses.

Welcome to the Org. ~:)

From my experience it is not possible to really bring down a whole empire with infected spies. Altough it may be possible if you put great effort into it.
It is however possible to seriously hurt another faction. The difficulty is, that an infected spy normally dies after a few turns (I think somewhere around 3-4 turns after he first catched the black thingy, but this is an uneducated guess). So you would have to have a constant supply of spies to move in and out of the enemies city to keep them infected because, if I remember correctly, the cities of your enemies don't stay infected as long as your own cities do. Also I found it very hard to make an enemy city rebel even with the negative influences caused by the plague.

Hope I was able to make some things a little bit clearer.

[Satsuma]

Wow thanks for your quick comments and replies guys. It's all really helpful.
Thanks for the welcome too. :beam:

Hopefully my chaps won't be pushing up daisies any time soon then. I'll keep them rampaging around the provinces with their walking army of the (nearly) un-dead striking fear into the masses. :skull:

Thanks again

[Quirinus]

This hasn't been mentioned, and it may just be me, but don't troops from an infected city carry the plague as well?


From my experience it is not possible to really bring down a whole empire with infected spies. Altough it may be possible if you put great effort into it.
It is however possible to seriously hurt another faction. The difficulty is, that an infected spy normally dies after a few turns (I think somewhere around 3-4 turns after he first catched the black thingy, but this is an uneducated guess).
Really? I normally have about two spies near the Greek peninsula at around the time of the plague, so that I can get them to spread it far and wide. They usually have pretty long lives, though their plague gets cured in a few turns. I have had spies dying on me due to the plague before, but I find that it's generally not the case.

I love spreading the love...... plague around. I find that barbarian factions are most suspectible to this kind of dirty attack. A well-placed infected spy or two at certain towns or large towns can really hamstring an aspiring regional power (like the Britons or Germans).

[Emperor of Graal]

I train lots of spies and send them on boats into turkey to infect eastern people.
This generally annoys them because Generals with massive reputations dies in the space of turns
Also cities fall to rioting.....Shame:medievalcheers:

[pevergreen]

In terms of actual family member casualties, I had my first casualty a few weeks back from the plague. Since release, I've played a lot of RTW, but only 1 family member has ever died. So I guess its an unlikely thing.

[Wausser]

Hmm I'm now in 114 BC (M/M) and till now no FM has died in because of the plague, the key is just not the let them get infected, I generally move them out of the city into a fort nearby before they are infected....

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

This hasn't been mentioned, and it may just be me, but don't troops from an infected city carry the plague as well?It's very odd, but I'm sure the answer to that is no. From my experiences, although men die while they're in the infected city, the moment they leave they're fine, acting as if nothing has happened.

Edit - misread the question - yes, they do carry the plague indirectly through their captain.

~:)

[Carlos Matthews]

Troops can carry the plague, I found this out when I moved troops out of infected Carthage onto a ship, infected the admiral then deposited them in Lilybaeum where they infected my young faction heir and killed him.

[Wausser]

Yep that's true when I captured Mediolanum from Julii, it had the plague, so I moved out the general along with a few troops, but the general was already infected, so I moved the general out of that army. When the general left, the captain also had the plague :no:

[Theif55]

Plague ? i have 10 genearal including Heir and Leader + 8 genereal

by that time i have conquer ITaly and there a Plague in bruti city and i have 4 general i tot by sending more general can cure the plague so i send those 10 in side and they all get infected and i send them back to rome which also get infect withen all 14 of my general DIES they will the BEST !!!!

[Jxrc]

Welcome to the Org. ~:)

From my experience it is not possible to really bring down a whole empire with infected spies. Altough it may be possible if you put great effort into it.
It is however possible to seriously hurt another faction. The difficulty is, that an infected spy normally dies after a few turns (I think somewhere around 3-4 turns after he first catched the black thingy, but this is an uneducated guess). So you would have to have a constant supply of spies to move in and out of the enemies city to keep them infected because, if I remember correctly, the cities of your enemies don't stay infected as long as your own cities do. Also I found it very hard to make an enemy city rebel even with the negative influences caused by the plague.

Hope I was able to make some things a little bit clearer.

I agree that it's no possible to wipe out a faction with infected spies but you can really create massive trouble. My favorite target are Memphis, Thebes and Alexandria. If you play normally when you get those cities they (unless you play the Egyptian or Seleucid) be so huge that they'll be difficult to handle even if you exterminate a good deal of the population when moving in ... With something like 6 or 8 spies you can cause havoc pretty easily and reduce the risk that the Egyptian become huge in no time. You just need to ship your spies as soon as possible, get one in each city and wait. Due to their size, plague will hit those cities sooner or later (plague hit Alexandria in 206 in any event IIRC). Once one of your spies is infected start moving around and enjoy. You'll lose some spies trying to enter the cities or to plague but as long as you keep 2 it is quite enough to keep the plague going for ages. Just remeber that just like your generals, spies remain infected with the plague even after the city has ceased to be. When it happens you just need to get your infected spy to get out and in the city to re-start the plague all over again ... very handy if you play as the Scipii or Brutii ... Even a bit cheesy since the AI cannot stop you and is not smart enough to retaliate in kind but since the Eggy are overpowered anyway ... Kind of nice to get to Memphis and only to have 3,000 inhabitants to deal with (I have tried to get to a lower figure but those cities keep a positive growth rate despite the plague when they get to less than 3,000 inhabitants). Just be careful to wait until the epidemy stops before you take a city ...

[Quirinus]

:yes: Agree with Jxrc, though my target of choice is whoever's occupying Greece. As soon as the scripted plague begins in Macedonia, I get a couple of spies infected and get them to go on a tour of duty, um, infection around Greece. It's very easy to do as the cities are all so close to one another, so I'd go around infecting the whole of Greece with the plague. By the time the city recovers from the plague, the spy has likely reached that city again, starting a cycle again. I repeat this until either my spy dies or the plague dies off. Maybe an exploit, but jolly good fun! :skull: