My most decisive battle ever

**IGGEL** · 09-20-2014, 22:27

Playing as Makedonia, I took Sparta and built up the army in Pella. I then marched the army in Sparta and the one in Pella to Attike and combined them. As they were closing on Athens, a KH army moved next to my army and I attacked. The Athens garrison also marched to battle. In the end, I had captured 3 or 4 of their family members as well as other troops and the ransom totaled 19000 mnai. I offered the ransom and they made the bright idea to refuse, destroying their faction. This was by turn 11.

**Wulfburk** · 09-20-2014, 23:00

Nice! Though KH most likely refused the ransom just because they were forced to, from not having the 19k to pay ya, its only turn 11 after all... doubt an AI faction raises that much money on such a low period, specially since you captured their other city.

**GRANTO** · 09-21-2014, 01:19

Originally Posted by IGGEL

Playing as Makedonia, I took Sparta and built up the army in Pella. I then marched the army in Sparta and the one in Pella to Attike and combined them. As they were closing on Athens, a KH army moved next to my army and I attacked. The Athens garrison also marched to battle. In the end, I had captured 3 or 4 of their family members as well as other troops and the ransom totaled 19000 mnai. I offered the ransom and they made the bright idea to refuse, destroying their faction. This was by turn 11.

they would not have had the money to pay.

**IGGEL** · 09-21-2014, 03:08

I figured they would just be in the negative

**Ibrahim** · 09-21-2014, 04:00

Originally Posted by IGGEL

Playing as Makedonia, I took Sparta and built up the army in Pella. I then marched the army in Sparta and the one in Pella to Attike and combined them. As they were closing on Athens, a KH army moved next to my army and I attacked. The Athens garrison also marched to battle. In the end, I had captured 3 or 4 of their family members as well as other troops and the ransom totaled 19000 mnai. I offered the ransom and they made the bright idea to refuse, destroying their faction. This was by turn 11.

http://www.standupzone.com/forum/ind...ach=7213;image

yeah, that's all I got.

**Thaatu** · 09-21-2014, 11:06

Another stupid thing in M2TW is that with regular tributes and such your budget can go negative, but with onetime deals such as ransoms it cannot. I haven't had anyone agree to a ransom yet, because AI uses its money by the end of its turn, as do I usually. It doesn't matter whether a faction gets a 500 or a 30,000 surplus every turn, if there's no money at that particular moment, ransom is useless. It would be great if paying a ransom could get a faction seriously in debt.

Please tell me I'm wrong in what happens if you release or ransom prisoners. I had a huge battle in which I attacked with 2,500 Macedonians two Getai armies, totaling 4,500 men. I managed to wheel my cavalry so that just before the infantry protecting the flanks of the phalanx broke, the whole enemy line disintegrated. With light infantry and cavalry I managed to capture nearly 4,000 enemies, with only a few hundred enemies killed. I figured this was the deciding moment of the war and, in hopes of peace and as a friendly gesture, I released the prisoners. Just then apparently the two stacks I annihilated reappeared almost at the same spots where they were previously. Is this actually what happens? Instead of returning to recruitment pools the units just reappear at the front lines? If so, what's the point in releasing prisoners if you have to fight them again the next turn?

**bisthebis** · 09-21-2014, 11:11

Just then apparently the two stacks I annihilated reappeared almost at the same spots where they were previously. Is this actually what happens? Instead of returning to recruitment pools the units just reappear at the front lines? If so, what's the point in releasing prisoners if you have to fight them again the next turn?

Yes, you relase the soldiers and they join the army. It's rather useless, but in vanilla M2TW relaesing prisonners gave positive traits to the general : it was the only good reason for relasing. IDK if it still works in EB2

**Sylon** · 09-21-2014, 11:20

Releasing soldiers boosts your faction's reputation up, making diplomacy easier. This was utterly useless in vanilla Medieval 2, since the AI would declare war on you even at max reputation, but it tends to be slightly more useful in mods where the diplomacy is improved.

Executing reduces your reputation, while ransoming does not affect it either way, even if the enemy refuses or is unable to pay and you end up executing them.

But yes, you don't want to release prisoners unless you really want your faction reputation to go up, and can afford to take on the AI stack again.

**Thaatu** · 09-21-2014, 16:07

So if I wanted to raise my faction's reputation, I can go on prisoner raids and release all I catch? It's a little historically questionable, but at least it adds to the gameplay dynamic. Thanks!

**Ibrahim** · 09-22-2014, 04:26

Originally Posted by Thaatu

So if I wanted to raise my faction's reputation, I can go on prisoner raids and release all I catch? It's a little historically questionable, but at least it adds to the gameplay dynamic. Thanks!

you can use that to simulate parole: that is historical: the Caudine forks disaster is an example of that.

**Nightshift** · 09-23-2014, 13:28

Maybe it should even be changed from executing enemy soldiers+family members to taking them as hostages as I think this would be much more historical. Of course if there could be a way to implement this as a real option that would be pretty sweet.

a) just change text from executing into taking them as prisoners/ slaves/ someone to drag over roman avenues or sacrifices for some gods..
would at least calm my conscience.

b) enemy family member still dissapears but at the same time ai diplomacy is forced to sign truce for 10 turns if you open negotiation (just an example). I guess this is just impossible.

c) Maybe have a script that would act like captured family member has been bribed. Thus defecting to your side but maybe get a trait like we had before the traits-quickfix when new tribe members couldn't leave the city and were starving. They would than stay in nearest town/city/camp until it's conquered and than reversing the traits and bribing him back to his old faction or whoever conquers the city.

Don't know if this could possibly be done and if it would be worth the effort. Just came into my mind, maybe someone has an idea as how to realise this or something similar.