patrol order for town watch

Hi All
Can anyone tell me if you have to order your town watch to patrol for them to be effective or just having them in a town is good enough ?
I have read here that some of the long time players have stated that their town watches have caught Spies and Recruiting parties. I would be interested
to know if their town watches had been ordered to patrol when they had these successes or not and if they thought it mattered ?.

Cheers

One Grain.

I did ask Richard about this once and he told me they didn't need orders to do the normal roles (e.g. catching naughty people doing naughty things, including spies and recruiting parties as well as common criminals).

Having said that, if you want them to do something unusual they do need a special order-an example of that once in a Chinese role, I had a watch whose role was to watch those evil barbarians doing trade, they needed to be ordered to do that.

I would add that having 2 watches 1 with dogs and one without will enhance security in the town.  Dogs have proved very good at tracking down people from breakins at government buildings...

Thanks for replies that helped. Just one thing regarding 2 town watches I have read in other posts on the forum about the town watch that someone mentioned having 2 in the capital
I assume this is because of the population size, or is it to have a day and night watch ?
I have always assumed that the town watch would just be split into a day and night roster without me ordering it to do so ! or am I mistaken about this.

Cheers

One Grain.

Many of your important buildings will be in the capital, so having one town watch looking for criminals all over the city and one with orders to guard specific buildings such as the treasury could improve security.

yes Ardagor that is a valid reason.

Cheers.

One Grain.

Moscow had 4 2 with dogs  then I moved all the government buildings to St P and had 4 there as well same setup..... oh and do not forget to add grills to government buildings makes it hard to break in as well....