The Black Plague!?!?

[Chaotix]

I am playing a Venice Campaign at this point. I have 40 settlements, Constantinople, and an Alliance with France. France has five settlements and a weak military, however, so I am planning to betray them. Then a message comes up saying the Black Death has arrived, and the next turn more than half of my cities are plagued!. I'm losing tons of cash because my cities can't trade. What do I do? How long does the plague last? Can anyone give a little info on it?

[Caliburn]

It will take several turns (10 maybe?) and even after the "event" passes, many of the cities may remain plagued.

Odds are, that everyone else is having exactly the same problems with cash flow. If you have a strong army, you might want to seize the opportunity to take over most of their cities, as they can't regain their forces. That way you can stay ahead if you're on the red because of a big army, and gain some more income as the plague passes, not to mention cutting down on unit support as you'll probably face casualties. It is nasty, though, keeping family members in cities will get them killed quickly etc. You'll need to get your treasury back to the plus side quickly after all (at least for me, as Venice, it took a few turns while many other factions managed it more quickly...). This is how I dealt with it, at least - It is a crisis, and in crises, extreme measures are ok, as long as you have some indication of their status before moving in on them. Carpe jugulum...

[Chaotix]

Thanks, Caliburn. I did what you said- I managed to grab Rennes, Paris, and Rheims in two turns and sacked them all. (I had already captured Caen and Angers from crusades on England earlier) I think I also got really lucky- the Black Death only lasted 6 turns, and now only 3 or 4 of my cities are left plagued. Unfortunately, now I have the mongols to contend with.:wall:

[EKKM]

Wish I had asked this earlier. After the balck plague left I continued moving my armies and agents around which has led to the continuation of the plague in a few of my cities. Now I'm just not miving anyone from or to those cities and waiting for them to be healthy again.

[Kanonen80]

Has anyone had the plague come back? I was on turn 185 the other day and London relapsed for some reason.

[alex9337]

While the Black Plague is a "trigger" event, which will happen at a certain period in the game, plague, as a general malaise, will occurr from time to time, relatively randomly.

I believe that each individual city/castle has its own odds on whether or not it happens, depending on how many health enhancing buildings the particular city has built in it.

[rrdew]

After the main outbreak, it seems some settlements will randomly get it again, but not on the massive scale of te first wave.

[Marquis of Roland]

Figure out what year the plague comes out, and move out all of your armies from your cities, or you will lose 1/2 to 2/3 of your full stacks. As Turks, I made the mistake of leaving my armies in my cities for retraining (I didn't know what year the plague hit), and after the plague was over and all my armies decimated, the Timurids thought it an opportune time for them to pop out :furious3:

[Skott]

One thing I noticed about plagues wether its the big BD or just a regular plague is that the enemy AI doesnt do a good job of rebuilding its units afterwards. This is a boon to you if you are at war with a faction right after a plague sweeps through. The AI armies arent full units often giving you the numerical superiority in a fight.

[FactionHeir]

True, but the enemy usually isn't very smart about keeping plague out of their towns either by moving plagued stacks in and out of cities repeatedly if you taunt him to do that by moving your stacks closer to the border or further away, so when you actually take their cities, your troops get decimated.

[TevashSzat]

Keep a couple of spies with the plague and send them into enemy cities you want to sabotage.