The AI and it's beloved diseases

In every game that I've played, Rome gets the plague. Sooner or later, the Eternal City piles its dead by the thousands. However, there is no mourning in the city of Rome. In fact, they have come to embrace the disease. Now that the last 400 of their citizens have magically gained immortality for no apparent reason, and all their troops have fallen to the epidimic, they now have begun to horde plague carriers in the city so that the disease may remain forever.

Far be it for me to ridicule the decisions made by the Senators, who have undoubtedly been driven mad be their illness, but does the AI seem to be oblivious to the fact that they have the plague, or do they just not care? As if this isn't bad, I've witnessed Macedonia spread disease to nearly all of its settlements via my spy network. So unless somehow they KNEW I had been planning to invade and therefore decided to commit mass suicide by contracting plague, there is something seriously wrong here.

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Originally Posted by Darius

does the AI seem to be oblivious to the fact that they have the plague, or do they just not care?

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What can you do when you get the plagues? Nothing but quaranteen, that is it, you cannot make it just go away, only time. So how the heck is the AI supposed to make it just "dissappear"?!

If I want the plague to go away, I move the infected generals/spies/diplomats/assasins into the wilderness. If this is not done, then said individuals will then REINFECT the city once it has rid itself of the plague. This cycle will continue until all infected individuals are either dead, cured, or removed from the city.

leaving a general in a city with the plague is ok - the city cleans up after 3 or 4 turns and the general will come good between 1 and 4 turns later.

Make him leave, then reenter will reaffect the city, and the general, effectively resetting the timer.

The AI, as you say, is good at infecting itself. It doesn't seem to have any quarantine routine built in at all.

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Originally Posted by ulyanov

leaving a general in a city with the plague is ok - the city cleans up after 3 or 4 turns and the general will come good between 1 and 4 turns later.

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I've tried that but it only works about 1/3rd of the time. I am beginning to wonder if retinue size is a factor. My generals with big retinues always seem to keep the plague until they die.

Oh crap, I sure hope retinues dont get infected...I never thought of that...how in the world am i supposed to know if they are infected or not?!

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

I've tried that but it only works about 1/3rd of the time. I am beginning to wonder if retinue size is a factor. My generals with big retinues always seem to keep the plague until they die.

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I've never had a general take more than 4 turns to clear up.

I've certainly seen them die in that time, but more often than not they get better...

I have never seen one of my generals or agents get cured. Maybe im not letting them stay around long enough, but that was the product of generals not getting over the plague.

Whenever the plague breaks out in an important city of mine I send the infected guys into a loan small boat... to suicide.

you will *never* recover unless you stay in a city.

If you stay in town after the town is no longer infected then you will recover. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen...

i almost never have a infected fam. member because they only got infected the second turn the first time they say the city has plague your generals/agents are not infected only people/soldiers i only have some accidentally bribed generals with the plague or some agents that got the plague while it showed up in a place they where in.

whats also weird is that they can still fight i thought that you were really sick when you had the plague

Sometimes the plague can actually be a good thing, long-term. Most factions have at least 1 or 2 cities in which the citizens breed like rabbits, and the population inevitably outstrips your ability to construct buildings to compensate. This leads to squalor, disaffection, poor population loyalty, rebellion, and (most importantly) negative net income. Seleucia, Memphis, Alexandria, Carthage, Cirta and Ariminum (among others) are all prime examples of cities that do this. When the plague strikes, I will often pull my governors out, and purposely use the garrison troops to spread the plague back and forth between these cities. Believe me: the long-term benefits to your economy and stability that result from thinning out your population greatly outweigh the short-term monetary shortfall. Ruthless, I know, but effective.

If I want to make sure that a city doesnt get too big for its britches so to speak, I just give it as a gift to my current enemy, then walk my garrison back in, then either slaughter or enslave the inhabitants. After that you have much less of a population problem, and it nets you some cash too. Of course this may be considered an exploit, but I like to think of it as being cruel and unusual punishment for both the reclairant citizens in the city and as an insult to my enemy.