Suez/Sieges

[Narmorce]

Has anyone else had a problem where, dragging ships between European and Indian Ocean destinations, the game plots movement through the Suez canal but then wont let the ships through? I had one instance recently where a major army I had sent from England to fight in the Sudan spent a year off the Mediterranean Coast of Suez before I realised it.

My second question is on sieges - how exactly do you get troops inside forts to sortie? I've rebels sieging my city in Cyprus, I've rushed two units there to aid in the defence, but despite giving them offensive orders, dragging them outside the city,or clicking on the 'sortie' button they stubbornly remain behind the walls. My units well outnumber the rebels, but I'm getting very worried the 'automatic surrender' is going to kick in.

[loki100]

The siege sounds wrong. In theory sortie only kicks in if a fresh force arrives in the province (so you march out to join it). You're trying the alternative which is to move the unit out of the fort and you should engage in a battle (but with a malus).

Few possible reasons - are you sure that when you deploy the besieged unit they are out the city/fort (double check the location on top of the stack detials), is there anything attached to the stack that is 'locked' (not sure this should matter but remember some 'at scenario start' garrison units are permanently locked ... not that this should be a problem in Cyprus).

If neither of these help I'd suggest upload the saves etc as a possible bug report.

[Sir Garnet]

Plotting movement with the canal my ships move through, but it appears actually to be through Judea on the map. In our MP PBEM there is a sea route through Judea, but it may require passage rights. I"m not sure my ships ever went through the Suez Canal - so I am not sure that it is working but have not had time to test.

[Kensai]

I recreated Suez in our game this last turn, does it work for you Sir Garnet?

[Narmorce]

I'm not sure what was happening with my siege. I had one garrison and two non-garrison units, all separate. For the two non-garrison units I kept clicking the 'leave city' button in the top left hand corner, and physically dragging them out, but nada. After about 12 turns of this one of the units finally engaged the enemy and the rebels were crushed, but if I did anything differently it's beyond me. I often have this problem in sieges - units refusing to leave the city to engage weaker besiegers even when ordered to.

As for Suez - I can't find evidence that is has been built (is this shown by a card, and if so which region?) but while the program keeps routing ships through it, sometimes they go through and sometimes they don't (with no message telling me why they don't). It's not rebels, because the Egyptians usually have a unit on one side of the canal and I have a fruit farm on the other.

[Kensai]

I probably know what was happening in your sieges. As you know, where under a siege, the besieged forces may spawn some extra defensive units if there is a depot, outpost or fort. These units are locked in to that defensive position and will disappear (despawn) if the siege is lifted. Perhaps you were selecting all units together and tried to march out (or use the sortie button) and this was not allowed by the engine, ergo by next turn you were finding yourself in the same position as before. You should always be careful on how you "create your stacks" as combining strong with weak (or slow or immobile) units may be disastrous as the slowest unit will probably blow your plans. This is critical if you expect a unit to march to the sound of guns!

Regarding Suez, normally France has the opportunity to play the Suez card on the Suez region and after some 200 turns the path will pop up.

[Narmorce]

I'll have to have another look at the stacking, because it seems either I'm accidentally selecting all the units at once or the computer's doing it for me. In the Cyprus campaign I referred to above I had four separate forces, and as far as I was aware I was doing exactly the same thing I always do when I have multiple forces in one province - select the unit or force tab you want to move and drag it where you want it to go (in this case, usually the Royal Marines), and it will move there leaving the others behind.

What gets me about Suez is that I have moved units through it in the past, but sometimes, for no apparent reason, ships on the Suez route get to either the Nile Delta or the Gulf of Suez and just park themselves there. I've just noticed I've an India-bound transport that has been sitting off Alexandria for at least two months (and yes, I do have a passage right with the Egyptians). I need to manually route the thing around the Cape of Good Hope.