Troop Transports

Subject: Loading transport ships
From: Ironrodiken @ Impressions Date: 12:17 p.m. 11/30/99
In Reply to: Infantry and archers clumsy posted by Judi on 7:28 a.m. 11/30/99:

Getting soldiers onto transports was a tad tricky for me, too, until I got the hang of it. Now I rarely have to tell them twice.

1. Find a section of non-floodplain coastline that's not hemmed in with buildings. Straight sections work better than convoluted sections, although this isn't absolutely necessary.

2. Move your soldiers near your desired loading point. They don't need to be right on the coast, just close.

3. Move your transport near the rally point -- again, not right on the shoreline, just close to it.

4. Right-click the transport, choose Embark, then click on the company to load. Before you click, make sure the cursor shows the Embark order, which looks like a little guy with an arrow. The cursor looks like this when it hovers directly over a soldier or the company standard.

5. WAIT A COUPLE OF SECONDS. This could be where you're running into trouble. Give them time to get aboard before you repeat the Embark order.

6. Note that all members of a company need to be present before the company can embark. If you've got 14 soldiers at the rally point, and a 15th is on his way from the Recruiter to the Fort, the company won't embark until Pvt. 15 reaches the rally point. He has orders to report to the Fort first, which can bollux up your embarkation plans. You can override his standing order by moving the company's standard by a tile or two; this tells the tardy guy to go directly to the rally point. Along these same lines, if a 16th soldier is produced while you're cajoling Pvt. 15, then the whole company will wait for Pvt. 16 to show up, too. The easiest way to avoid this is to transport only full companies. I suspect that most of your problems stem from trying to load partial companies.

We've never seen anything quite like the crash that you described, but I'll betcha Itchy & His Band of Merry Men will be trying to reproduce it... :) I hope these instructions will improve your success rate and avoid a repeat of your crash. I can load my transports on the first try at least 9 times out of 10, and on those rare occasions when the order does fail, it's because one or more soldiers got separated from their company.

More

(This from Nixon @Impressions)

If you select your ship and get any other icon besides Embark (due to it being on Move or some other mode) just hit the "K" button and that will automatically bring up the Embark icon. Just click on your available troops with this icon and they will board the Transport Ship.

 

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