Below is an image to help us illistrate how you load units onto a ship, either for the purpose
of "Bridging" or simply to load the ships for transport on a future turn.
A Merchantmen ship can hold a total one (2) Infantry or (1) Knight, Cavalry, or Artillery. A
Ship of the Line can hold a total of just (1) Infantry. Either ship can load a general on them
in addition to the above mentioned units (See image below), as they do not use up any of a
ships "Load Capacity".
If you are loading ships for the purpose of moving those ships to another sea zone, then
you must not have moved the ships during this turn's naval movement phase. No, unstacking
ships does NOT count as having moved them. Since you move the land units onto ships during
your Land Movement phase, once loaded, you obviously can not move the ships this turn. Further,
next turn, after you have moved the ships, your units on board those ships can not disembark
from those ships that turn. You can only move units off a ship on a turn where those ships did
not move that turn.
Bridging:
Since you can only move units onto a ship that did not move and can only move units off a ship
that did not move, the process of moving units both onto, then off ships in the same turn is
called "Bridging". In the first image below you can see a Merchantmen ship loaded with two
infantry and a general. These units began the turn in the territory of Bombay. During the
Naval Movement phase the Merchantmen unit was not moved, so it remained eligible to have land
units moved onto it. During the Land Movement Phase (which we will go over next) the two
infantry and general were moved onto the ship. Now, its still in the middle of the land
movement phase and since the merchantment had not moved, its also eligible to have troops
moved off it. So as you can see in image 2 below, you can see the two infantry and general
were moved off into the territory of Oman. This process of loading ships onto a ship, then
offloading them off the ships into another land territory that borders the sea zone the ships
are in, all in the same turn, is called bridging.
You may bridge units onto a ship and then onto another land territory so long as both
origin and destination territory border the sea zone that the ship that will faccilitate
the bridging is in. You MAY NOT move units onto a ship in one sea zone, then attempt to
transfer them onto a ship in an adjacent sea zone.
