Four questions...

[yogol]

1. How come that in some places, when you build a fort in a certain distance from a city, you can move a unit from the city to the fort in one turn but not from the fort to the city ???

I build a line of forts from my back-cities (Cairo, Jeruzalem and Antioch) to the front (to Sarkel for the Mongols/Timurids and to Europe for the rest, so that I can transport troops there without a General.


2. What causes a city to get the plague (aside from the Great Plague Event) ? Can I prevent it with Birmistans or the Inn-line (I never build these because they give my Generals such bad traits) ? Or by keeping all cities green (once they are huge, I tax them all I can with a 6-militia garrison) ?


3. Same old question : how can I kill those blasted elephants as the Egypt ? The answers in my tread about this subject weren't very usefull for Egypt, since we don't get any good spear-throwing units on horses. I bought all camel units in Baghdad that I could and trained them to gold, but they just get killed by the elephants in the first fight, lol.


4. What's the best way to use archers on walls : put them in a long single line or in a pack of 5 deep ? If I put them in a long line, would a second unit just behind it in a long line be equally effective ? Same question for naffatuns (maybe different types work differently). And for javelinmen ? And for Sudanese gunners ?

Also : do units on walls have the same effect when the enemy is inside the building ? I once saw my 5 javelin throwers butcher alot of Mongols horses, because my javelin were on the wall and the horses couldn't get to it, lol.

[glyphz]

... let's see
1. First thing, an army's starting movement points is equal to that of its slowest unit, + any bonus to movement from general. Every tile it moves to takes away from its movement points. Certain terrain takes away more movement points than others (Wilderness, Desert; trekking from Antioch->Baghdad, no roads, it is faster to walk along the greenish tiles on the side of the river). Roads lessen the amount of points lost.
Now, you say your army marches from the city to a fort, and i''m guessing the fort you have the problem with is off the road. If you start from the city the green arrow path you'll take will try to take advantage of roads as much as possible to conserve as much movement before leaving the road, maximizing movement. But from the fort to the city, by the time you reach the road you have depleted much more movements points, before you even reach the road, that there isn't enough to reach the city, or you don't have the general with you. Note that generals may have a penalty to road movement and if there is more than 1, it could actually slow down your army, i.e. 'Slothful', or 'Easy on the men' (SS mod). (if this is confusing, just say so, and either I or someone else will try to explain it better)

2. I believe this has got to do with Population, the numbers and the factors affecting this. You can get an idea from the city scroll details (the one with icons for trade, public order, p growth). The higher the negative factors to public growth (squalor, taxes) compared to the positive effects (farms, governor chiv points, bonus from own hall) the slower the city grows. At worst, the city stops growing or the city will lose population next turn.
Anyway, a place that has very low growth or a bad population (+) : population (-) ratio has a higher chance of catching a plague. Also, plagues are more likely to happen to large/huge cities compared to towns, possibly regardless of population growth, since I never saw a plague happen to a large town (despite having a growth rate of +0.5-0%)

3. I have litle experience with elephants, ditto facing them on the field. All i could think of is a defensive battle, choke point (bridge, city street, gateway), rotting cows-flinging trebuchets +archers or other siege support. Elephants have high morale and you need to lower it fast before they reach you line, it helps if their comrades aound them rout fast. Bridges and chokepoints works best. Rotten cows, just as they start crossing the bridge/chokepoint, will lower morale considerably of all units that cross it. After 1 or 2 flings you switch the trebs to fire ammo. Fire artillery + arrows (fire or not, a mix will do i.e. weak archers use fire arrows, better archers use normal arrows to cause more casualties. Don't forget to target where the enemies are tightly packed) will cause casualties and and even lower morale (at least to non-elephant units also trying to cross) before they clash with your defensive line (decent spears and heavy infantry). Once a rout has started (hopefully not yours) the elephants should follow suit (unless they've already run amok among enemy lines). That's all I can say as i've not had any success fighting them on the field.

4. No clue, sorry

[yogol]

Let me see if I understood your answers correctly...
1. Going from a road to rough terrain costs more then going from rough terrain to a road. that might indeed explain it !

2. No real way to stop the Plague if you want your cities to grow.

3. Use siege weapons against elepants to make them rout.



Thanks !

[pevergreen]

4: A thin line is better, as in M2:TW the archers behind others on walls will shoot upward, making for very inactive and ineffective arrows. I suggest even when packing 2 units on a short bit of wall, no more than 3 lines of archers.

[Jason X]

egypt gets desert cavalry for cheap anti-elephant tactics

[St.Jimmy]

2. What causes a city to get the plague (aside from the Great Plague Event) ? Can I prevent it with Birmistans or the Inn-line (I never build these because they give my Generals such bad traits) ? Or by keeping all cities green (once they are huge, I tax them all I can with a 6-militia garrison) ?

Dont the town hall line of buildings help prevent this? I think the byz's get baths and aquaducts also.

[Old Geezer]

Flaming ballista bolts are the best (cheapest and effective too) anti elephant weapon in the open field. Very accurate cannons are good too, especially with flaming ammo. You can kill elephants by charging them in the posterior with very heavy cavalry - repeatedly. But expect to lose a lot of heavy cavalry doing so and the unit used to pin the elephants has to have good morale to hold them long enough to allow the cavalry to charge. If you do not use flaming ammo you may get kills but the likelihood is greatly reduced of getting a run amok. If you rent some elephants and fight the AI you will notice that the AI will shoot flaming ammo at your elephants which may, as mine did, almost immediately run amok. (It is interesting to fight with the opponent's weapons/men sometimes to discover what their weaknesses are.)

[Ramses II CP]

Use javelins against the elephants, just as all the old posts say. Buy mercenaries if you don't have any native javelin cavalry. You can even build stacks of those early javelin infantry Egypt gets and just sacrifice them to clean out the elephants.