Plague... damn fleas

Greek Cities Campaign
Difficulty: Can't Remember

I build up my forces very quickly, building the next barracks level in all of my provinces. In pretty much the first turn Carthage comes along and attacks Syracuse, I get rid of them. The scipii come next, and I lose Syracuse. The brutii attack Thermon, and I have put my army inside ships previously so Thermon is practically theirs anyway. I attack Corinth, meanwhile the Thermon army is going up the Aegean sea. I attempt to get a military alliance with Thrace- not possible. So I land my army there anyway. My large army goes up around, and while the Macedonians are fighting me in the South, I invade in the north and after that completely wipe them out.

So I own Macedon. Now for the tricky part, I managed to eliminate the Macedonians right before the Plague in Macedonia event. Plague strikes, and I am stuck. The stupidest thing is- the Greeks cannot build ANY HEALTH BUILDINGS WHATSOEVER. I am stuck there, and I have to wait ages while almost my entire Thessalonican population dies. Soon the plague is over... or at least it no longer says 'this settlement is infected with the plague' in my settlement details scroll, but then, my general in the settlement is STILL INFECTED!!! How is this? Whenever I move any new armies in there they get infected as well. Can somebody please tell me what is happening?

You're going to have to leave him there a while, till it goes away. It should eventually (either that or he'll die, either way problem solved). When playing as Parthia, my faction leader was a plague bearer *twice*, and he recovered both times with no problems.

But just yestaday when playing as Scythia, I was sieging the Macedonian capital when... you guessed it, the plague hits. My 9 star amazing general and faction heir died of the plague a few years after I take it :(

Yeah, but what I don't get is how the plague is still on my super-general (he's like my best general) but not on any of the other townspeople.

I've had this problem as Scipii for about 30 years.

Most of my admirals, and a couple characters have plague. I've ended up just scrapping most of the plague ships because its cheaper to rebuild than let them sit idle for decades.

I think when ships get plague they can't be cured.

Think on the bright side: you've got a biological weapon on your hands now.
start sending spies into the city and send them out and wreck havoc to the rest of the world! BWAHAHAHHAHA

it could also come in handy if you need to keep squalor down in your OWN city }=)

playing the scipii i felt like there is some kind of plague conspiracy against me :/ it hit my capital capua 3 times in a row und 5(!) times in total up to now. the second epidemic infected 11 famaily members in capua - 4 of them still slowly die in forts outside the city. non of them recovered.

The plague is one of the best features of the game!


The key is to CAREFULLY read the message you get at the beginning of the turn, where it says which characters and armies are affected. Make sure you know who all of them are.

Here's what I know about it:

It will burn out in a city in 4-5 turns if you avoid moving anyone in or out.
Characters in that city will get infected, and they will NOT heal in the 4-5 years. They will eventually either die from the plague or get cured. Spies are similar.
Admirals in ships never lose it. The admiral will occasionally die of the plague, but his replacement will get it.
Captains of armies seem also to keep it a long time, although I didn't wait for it to go away, and I disbanded (was afraid I would merge the infected troops with another stack by mistake).




Try to always have a ship or army infected as a source of spies with the plague. It is SO much fun to infect your enemies' capitals with the plague.


my 2 cents

I am wondering about Plague also.
What I have experienced is "wish I was not so tired could think better", I guess I try to start from beginning.

I attacked Brutti settlement I cant remember if I noticed they were plagued or not.

Anyway I attacked one of their cities then my General was plagued, in fact I think 2 armies attacked the city, one under AI General control.

Both Generals got the plague and you can see it on the unit card as "plague bearer". I moved them out, so I had two armies as plague bearers.

For some reason I cant remember why I moved another general into the city with a small garrison, "close to end game", not really worried. Anyway he gets plague, city has plague but eventually heals, with him still being a plague bearer.

Plagued Generals
So I have 2 generals with plague and a city with a governor/general with plague.
Now however I want to "see" if I can tell if the next settlement has the plague, figuring I will just attack plague citys with plagued generals.

I look at it by double clicking and I do not see any plague. I send a clean general up to siege it. Not knowing if what I was doing was wrong or not, I thought I would reinforce his army with some infantry from one of the Plagued generals.

I did, looked at the clean generals unit card, it said no plague. Didnt think anymore of it, eventually attacked the settlement and immediately the town was plagued and the previously clean general was plagued.

So I figured well either the infantry I brought over from the plagued general infected him or maybe the city was plagued, "maybe" I could just not tell. Maybe you need a spy close to see correctly. So not really sure, really.

Then I start double clicking all the Brutti citys trying to see if they have plague, and crap, every turn this one does, this one does not, it keep changing.

Enemy Plague Bearers
I think the Brutti faction leaders, plague bearers are as retreating from me, regrouping in these cities and changing their status. Anyway I am not sure and I have no way of knowing if a city is plagued or not.

You would think, perhaps if you have a nice general you would might want to keep him clean if you can. But I couldnt be postive if a city was plague free or not. Again, mabye a spy can see just if he is close enough outside the city it does not seem really feasible to have to burn a spy on each settlement.

So I continue on and send a a different clean general to what appears to plague free settlement. I double click on it and it says nothing, no riot, no plauge, no siege. I seige it.

Next turn or so I go to attack but before I attack I check again to see if it has plague and I get no indication on the city unit card. I bring up the attack window, with withdraw, fight on map, auto and out of curiosity I click on the leader in the city, look at his details and see he is a plague bearer.

Plagued not Plagued
I am then confused, because the city says its not plagued at first glance yet it has a faction family member who is a plague bearer in it. At this point if you dont want the plague you can only withdraw.

Which makes me wonder if perhaps, although not always feasible you could just wait till they bust out, but then again wouldnt you still occupy the city? Yes, so I have no idea, so I attack it anyway and get plague.

Then I started thinking perhaps, mabye the turns are like I move (end turn), the AI moves and that counts as one turn, but a city will not register as plagued if a plague bearer just entered because it takes a turn to register.

So although a city might say its not plagued I have to check it, move or not, end turn, AI plague bearer has to enter, wont show up next turn, takes a turn. I move or not, AI moves his units around, after one full turn, with AI plague bearer in a city it should show as plagued, YES or NO. If no then the only way to tell if a city Faction Family Member is plagued is to start a siege battle, right click on his portrait for details and check his unit card, and then withdraw if he is plauged but that seems kind of cheese.

Now I am thinking siege a city, check for faction family members, nobody can enter, wait 2 turns, check city again by double clicking if there is a family member if he is plauged it should show up as the city plagued. If there are no family members in the city and the city says no plague then I am thinking you are good to go.

Hello, Before I rape, pillage and burn your settlement, are YOU.... PLAGUED
Seems kind of goofy, "Lets start battle, what?, the leader has plague!, hmm, withdraw." But you dont know until you start a battle, double clicking on a settlement does not seem enough as I have already pointed out.

Then to top things off, I was looking down at Scippi beating crap of Egypt and low and behold one of the Egyption Family members was a plague bearer, wtf. I mean this is kind of funny, but when can I stop worrying about the plague.

I know about the burn out thing, I have read a few posts I could find about plague. That general I had garrison that city, still has the plague but the city does not. I read if you move him out and back in the city will the get the plague again.

City could heal, but enemy garrison leader/family leader still plague bearer
Which makes me think another thing, I suppose a enemy city could get the plague, heal, not appear plagued, look clean, but a family member in the city could have the plague, you attack it and you get the plague and the city gets it again. No way out?

Confusing. How about a doctor unit, just kidden. If I could know definitely a city had the plague I would just burn it from afar, perhaps even come back in a few years.

But as it is now to me the cities just keep switching on and off, Brutti family members are moving around and their cities are not showing up as plagued when you double click them but if you start a battle and look at them you can see they are plagued.

Maybe the deal is
Just siege the city with your armies. Then have either a spy or another army near by double click then right click the family leader portrait. I dont think the sieging army can double click, so you need another army or spy to do it.

Seems what I never had to do now has become necessity at least for awhile considering what I noticed in Egypt, lol. Poor Scippi.

i think there's a bug in the game code in relation to plague and generals

Just like player cities if an enemy city gets the plague, enemy spies/assassins catch it too. Eventually the plague dies out but the spy/assassin is still a carrier. When you capture the city he infects your army who then reinfect the city.

Note as enemy spies/assassins hide from you you are not always able to be 100% about detecting them. Later in the game I use an assassin as part of an armies entourage as they seem better able to detect enemy agents and are able to eliminate themwithout risk.