Ransoming back corpses

[Cazbol]

I recently fought a huge battle against the Mongols when a part of their force appeared in Georgia. I won the battle with ease. I'd never kill captured prisoners before, but here I decided it was the logical thing to do, since the Mongols don't seem to build units but have enough money to pay ransom for captured units. As I want to get rid of them quickly, I certainly wasn't planning on selling them troops. On top of that I had more money than I needed. The decision was thus simple and over 900 prisoners were put to the sword, and noone left alive.

After the battle I then get the message that my general has ransomed back over 900 prisoners and received over 29,000 florins. The battle against the Mongols was the only one I fought that year, so the prisoners could only have come from there.

I kill the prisoners and get "Scant mercy" but also get ransom money. Unfortunately the Mongols also get their troops back. Why is that?

[Kristaps]

In my battles, I noted that I would normally "capture" also the rebels who have fled the field during the battle if there was no adjacent province they could flee to: i.e., I did not have to 'actually' capture those on the field. They were captured 'by default' and I got to confiscate their lands after the battle. Probably, in your case, something similar happened: a bunch of mongols routed and you captured them by default after the battle.

[Cazbol]

It was the year in which the Mongols appear (1230). They appeared in Khazar and Georgia, while the rebels in Volga-Bulgaria joined them. The rebels in Khazar retreated and gave up their province so it became a Mongol province. Thus the Mongols that fled from battle against me in Gerogia should have been able to retreat to Khazar.

It is of course possible that ownership of Khazar wasn't transferred to the Mongols until after the Mongols in Georgia fled, thus leaving them no route for escape.

I must admit that I'm no longer sure how many men I ransommed, but I remember there were 18 nobles and I received a little over 29,000 florins. All in all about 3,400 Mongols escaped Georgia. Does anyone know if 29,000 florins sounds like the right price for 3,400 men, or alternatively for 900 men? There was no royalty among the nobles.

[Kristaps]

I guess, in your case, the ownership of Khazar transferred after your battle had taken place. I believe, a faction has to own the territory before the turn in which the battle takes place in order to be able to use the province as a safe place to flee to. As to the ransom money: not sure about that. In the cases in which I killed all the prisoners I took on the field, and I still got 'extra prisoners' after the battle, the extras could be accounted for by the rebels that had fled (that's when I actually checked the numbers).

[Mori Gabriel Syme]

I've had that happen as well. After the last men had fled the field, I clicked the "kill prisoners" button; the enemy had stabbed me in the back, & my general could use the dread. The corpses brought a nice ransom.

Somehow the prisoners I killed had already been counted as alive, though it also acknowledge in the general's V&V that I had clicked the button to kill them.

[A.Saturnus]

29000 fl. sound more like a few thousand men than only 900. I captured once about 5000 rebels and got about 40000 fl. (It was a jihad, the silly rebels gave their land peacefully but had nowhere to go)

[Pellinor]

I had that happen with the Mongols. They took Khazar (I followed up the rout too early, and there was another wave of Mongols when I thought I'd got the lot), so I launched a Jihad (I had one lying around as I tend to be very short of provinces I have once owned and then lost). When it arrived, about 5,000 Mongols decided that I could have the province without a fight, so they ended up captured and I got 40,000 florins for them.

I like to rationalise/roleplay things, but all I can think of for this is:

"We are the Golden Horde We come with a message from Genghis Khan - give us your land"

"Excuse me, Great Khan, but this land belongs to us Turks."

"Turks? Oh, sorry, I thought this was China. Oy, Temujin, have you been holding the map upside down again? Sorry to bother you, we'll be off. Sorry about the mess: here's something to cover the cleaning bill."

Which seems a little... out of character :-)

[Orda Khan]

Quote[/b] (Pellinor @ Feb. 14 2003,07:52)]I had that happen with the Mongols. They took Khazar (I followed up the rout too early, and there was another wave of Mongols when I thought I'd got the lot), so I launched a Jihad (I had one lying around as I tend to be very short of provinces I have once owned and then lost). When it arrived, about 5,000 Mongols decided that I could have the province without a fight, so they ended up captured and I got 40,000 florins for them.

I like to rationalise/roleplay things, but all I can think of for this is:

"We are the Golden Horde We come with a message from Genghis Khan - give us your land"

"Excuse me, Great Khan, but this land belongs to us Turks."

"Turks? Oh, sorry, I thought this was China. Oy, Temujin, have you been holding the map upside down again? Sorry to bother you, we'll be off. Sorry about the mess: here's something to cover the cleaning bill."

Which seems a little... out of character :-)
Lol Pellinor.
I think this is just built into the game, my generals keep ransoming prisoners yet nobody instructs them to do so

......Orda

[Leet Eriksson]

I wish they would let us order to ransom or not,sometimes i don't want to ransom troops that i forget to kill them,i hope they have it as a feature in the expansion.

[Nobunaga0611]

Are you sure it wasn't the message you telling you that you've caught more people involved in the revolt and you have a choice whether to let them go, execute the ringleaders, or just let them all go? I'm sure you don't mean this, but its the only logical thing I can thing of.

[Kraxis]

Yes but that is only rebels... The talk here is about faction troops...

[solypsist]

perhaps the defeated Mongol army had nowhere to retreat to, so you killed your prisoners during the battle and took the rest of the army captive after the battle.

[hoom]

It is a cut off army.

Thats a really nice way of winning a war.

Have a big fight with a cut off army, keep your prisoners from the battle and capture the rest anyway.

If its the first time, the faction will probably ransom them all back leaving them broke and unable to replace their dead troops.

Sure, you still have to fight the troops that were ransomed, but if you got lots of prisoners, there will be no replacements till the enemy has paid off his ransom debt so he falls back till he has a decent army built up.

That said, it is possible that the game counts the number of captives when the battle result screen comes up so if you execute prisoners afterwards they are still included as captives back on the strategy map.
29 000 florins is still the ransom for several thousand troops though.

[deejayvee]

Quote[/b] (A.Saturnus @ Feb. 14 2003,04:45)]29000 fl. sound more like a few thousand men than only 900. I captured once about 5000 rebels and got about 40000 fl.
It depends who you capture and how rich they are. Try capturing the French King or someone and the ransom can be huge But 5000 rebels are not going to be able to raise a large ransom each.

[Pellinor]

Oops, I forgot to say: the MOngols explicitly said the Jihad could have the province. It wasn't that they abandoned the province before battle, I got a little message from them welcoming the Jihad and saying Islam should have the province.

I thought for a minute they would join me http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif, but 40k florins was a nice second-best.

Pell.R.

[Husar]

I often kill prisoners after a battle simply because I don´t want to fight against them again at a later time.
i found out that there are 3 possibillities:

1.You kill them before the battle ends and your general gets a bad V&V which says that he killed them because he was afraid to lose the battle.

2.You kill them when the first screen(the one showing the goals) after the battle is being shown and your general gets a V&V saying that he shows no mercy, etc.

3.You kill them when the second screen(the one showing the kills and losses) after the battle is shown and then the game won´t recognize that you killed the prisoners. I think this is because they are already listed up as prisoners, but I don´t know if your general gets any V&Vs in that case.

PS: Sorry, I can´t tell you exactly how the V&Vs are named, because I have got the german version of the game. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif