Few question from MTW fan ...

[El Diablo]

Changed the spaming rate to 100 instead of 10, but that does not appear to affect ongoing campaign ... :((

Yeah the spawing rates is part of the program that is read only at the START of a campaign. Thus it will not change any of the games you have already started.

- how does the reinforcement system works ? It's seems there is no way to replace archers or artillery that have run out of arrows and that if more than a full stack takes part in the battle, the additional troops will be managed by the IA .... So how does it work if I need large number of artillery pieces to break down city walls ?

Usually you just take in two or three units of artillery and you can ner rely on the AI to give you any more. Similarly when archers run out of arrows they become pretty expensive and poor light infantry. The best way to get into cities is through sap points rams and towers.

It does mean that you need to get the composition of your army right.

- at what ages does a princess no longer available for a wedding/breeding. Some princesses who are about 25 seem to attract very little interest (I turned down quite a few useless candidates). Likewise a few of my family members have just married princesses well into their 30s' ... Have they any chance to get an heir or is there some kind of time limit for that ?

I dont think there are princess's as in MTW it is more female family members. The game will give you offers of adoption and "man of the hour" evenets if your family member:settlements ratio gets to low. The only way to lose a game from loss of FM's is if your very poor at looking after them, or if you have them all in one stack that gets slaughtered (or on a boat that gets sunk).

- how do you know what is the max farm upgrade you can build in a city in order to avoird excessive population ? I undertand that the one that takes four turn to build is normally the limit but there seems to be some difference between province regarding "natural" farming output so that max farm upgrade might have some benefit in rather arid provinces (for instance Sahara)

This is a tricky one and many people disagree on it (and there has been some quite heated "discussion" her about it). Generally I (note thats me and I am no genius on this game) treat farms as mines - i.e. a source of income. The growth bonus is good if the towns population growth is below 3% at the lower tiers of the town and 2% at city level.

- do rebels have a negative effect even if I cannot see those ? In some large provinces (Sahara again) I sometimes discover rebels roaming aimlessly around the desert ... Do I need to build watchtower every here and there and hunt them down or can I just let them live?

Yes - if they are on your roads they are stopping trade and also causing "devastation" on your farming land. This shows up as blackened "burnt" lookin raes on the map. I highly recommend watch towers if for nothing else they make good early warning systems.

Hope this was of help - but Omanes will be along soon with some better answers.

ED