killing prisoners??

[Jeanne d'arc]

Do u let them live or do u just kill them wich will give u possibly the dread and reduced morale modifier?

[Mysterium]

It depends, but if I've got plenty of money and/or I'm outnumbered on the strategic map, then I'll kill 'em. I don't want to have to keep defeating the same guys over and over again.

Besides, and little dread never hurt anyone . . . 'cept for maybe the guys I kill . . . http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

[Zone]

I often do if i want to increase the dred a little but after I've done it a couple of times I don't anym ore because of the moral reduction. If you REALLY want to increase dread, wait until the end of a huge battle when you've captured about 1500+ people and slaughter them. Your general will get the V Butcher and +2 dread with the explanation: 'this man once killed thousands of prisoners in one battle' or something similar :)

[Jeff]

For some reason I used to let them all go, but now I just kill them all. There are exceptions of course, such as I need money and I have captured a King or Prince. Then I'll ransom them back for the cash. Basically I kill them all for the dread rating. It seems to really help on those especially rebellious provinces.

[metatron]

I generally kill them, as I don't want them returning to fight again. They're supposed to have died.

[Brutal DLX]

It depends..
If they are of low quality and I'm not in a desperate situation, I try to ransom them back. An enemy that had maxed out his army will then not be able to train a lot of newer, and possibly better troops, thus I maintian my advantage.
Of course, when I'm attacking, there's not much need to spare lives. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Zone]

The troops you're most likely to capture (because they rout easily) are the peasants. thus, if you keep selling them back, the enemy armies will accumulate plenty of rubbish peasants and they will not be able to train new and better units because they a/ have no money due to paying for ransoms, and b/ have to pay support costs for loads of rubbish peasants.

[Basileus]

I always kill em, mostly it depends on the way that i role play the general king etc..

[PseRamesses]

When I get a new king I kill prisoners until I´ve a good dread then I simply sell them back since it makes my troops happy to share the ransoms. Captured soldiers are usually low-graded ones such as peasants, militia, spear etc and I gladly meet them some other day than newly recruited better ones.

[Kulgan]

It really depends on the sitation.
For example I was playing with the spanish fighting the almohads and I captured one 7 star general and 500 of their troops, included 100-150 AUM.
Hmmm though choice on that one... If I release them they might give me 1000 florins , and they will massacre my troops for much more florins.
So I killed those guys, you should always count the pros and cons ( in florins )
If you are winning badly against an empire, let them go.
You'll beat them again soon and get more cash out of them.

You can kill them to get dread, or release them to get the mercy vice,hard choices http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[lancer63]

If I'm invading a rebel prov. I let them all go. If the rebel factions is part of a civil war of mine, I kill the ringleaders. If I'm losing the battle I kill them all. If I'm wining and only capturing low class troops I let them be.

[Oberstein]

It depends on the circumstances. Generally, I find it best to let prisoners go after a battle. Usually if you take a large enough number, the AI won't be able to pay for them and they'll end up dead anyway, but without the morale penalty. I think I read somewhere that higher dread generals are rather more likely to kill prisoners when you don't specifically order a massacre.

However, if I've captured a king and princes, don't need money, and would really like to see a particular royal line disappear...well, that little red box does make a satisfying sound when you click it ^^

[Yoko Kono]

i only ever kill them once per general and only if its 1000+ prisoners that way you get butcher and scant mercy but no morale penalties
the only exception i would make is if i have a king captive that i would rather was dead

[Mysterium]

Hey, I know that buying back your troops helps keep loyalty up, but is there any hit to your own loyalty based on killing the other guy's troops?

[Ludens]

This is already the third time I bring this up, but I cannot kill captured troops, excepting rebels. First I thought it had something to do with being an Islamic faction or leaving on auto-tax, but as the Vikings it happened as well
Perhaps I am doing something wrong. I always assumed that after the battle, a screen would come up to ask you what to do with the prisoners, like when happens when you crush a rebellion. Perhaps this is not the case and to get rid of those cowards I need to press the 'kill prisoner'-button in the battle-screen, when the kills-casualities come up. Am I correct in thinking this?

[Mysterium]

From my experience, yup, that is correct. If you haven't killed the prisoners in the battle screen, you're not given the option later. You have no choice in it. The only way they'll end up dead is if the other faction refuses the ransom.

[kawligia]

You have to take everything into consideration.

I alwyas get the scant mercy V, but I don't like getting the no mercy V.

If you ransom back prisoners, you will have to fight them again, BUT, buying captured soldiers costs much more than training them in the first place, so in the end it means there will be fewer troops.

Killing a King will usually not be the end of the line, and ransoming him back will get you A LOT of money and leave him with a bad vice. Plus if his lands become rebels, his allied bordering nations will eat up his old lands, and not you.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Also I never execute rebels because doing so will never help you.

[Zone]

I've found that you can kill the prisoners when the battle has finished, when the box pops up telling you how you won i.e. time expired, routed off field etc. but as soon as you click next (or whatever it is) and go to the screen giving stats for each unit, that's it, you sell tham back or the're refused.

[Servius]

I almost always kill them. Since the AI almost always fields their best troops in the first wave, I execute their best soldiers and they're left with the crappier ones.

However, in cases of rebel troops, if there is no keep for them to retreat to, or if it's a rebel force in my own province, I don't kill them. This is because, without being able to retreat, they disappear whether I kill them or not. Thus not killing the prisoners might turn into ransom money.

The other time I let them go is if I have a really defensible province, like Flanders (with all the border river crossings I've modded in) I let them go. I get money from the ransoms and I don't really care how many men they send, I'll never lose a defensive fight on a bridge map.

About the river crossings, one of the things I did was actually require a river map whenever a border actually has a river on it on the strategic map. Oddly enough, that was often not the case. Flanders, for instance, on the strat map, has a river on the border for all but it border with Lorraine. The crossing to Wessex also uses a river map now; made sense to me.

[makkyo]

kill 'em
1. raises your dread
2. awesome sound it makes (hehehehe)
3. less enemies to worry about
4. bribing is for the weak http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[MiniKiller]

Quote[/b] (Ludens @ Feb. 11 2004,12:39)]This is already the third time I bring this up, but I cannot kill captured troops, excepting rebels. First I thought it had something to do with being an Islamic faction or leaving on auto-tax, but as the Vikings it happened as well
Perhaps I am doing something wrong. I always assumed that after the battle, a screen would come up to ask you what to do with the prisoners, like when happens when you crush a rebellion. Perhaps this is not the case and to get rid of those cowards I need to press the 'kill prisoner'-button in the battle-screen, when the kills-casualities come up. Am I correct in thinking this?
yup u could aslo wait till the battle is over, but before u leave the battlefield.

[Doug-Thompson]

I wish there was a "Enslave ringleaders" option for regular battles, not just rebellions.

(Christian factions have the "kill" option while Muslims have the "enslave" option for rebellions.)

I don't kill prisoners, even when the "bag" contains a high-valor general I don't want to face again. Those elite generals usually fight to the death anyway, so it's rarely an issue.

It would be nice to eliminate all captured generals. The only way , though, is to kill all the "grunts" too.

[Phatose]

I usually don't press the kill buttons until the first time a general captures over 1000 men in a single battle. When that happens the first time, I gleefully press the kill all button, and never press it again. That way I get +3 dread from scant mercy and butcher, but no morale penalty.

As for fighting them twice...I'd like to think that after fighting me once, they don't want to do it again. And besides, in my experience the computer will only ransom if it's a small number of not very useful guys or if it's the king/sultan/emperor/ect. If I capture 500 peasants, I usually get told they wouldn't pay and the peasants are no longer my concern.

[Crimson Castle]

I prefer to kill the pesky soldiers - like the archers, and artillery crews when I catch them.

If I am low in cash, I will refrain from killing the pows if they contain nobility - whom I can ransom later.

[Ludens]

Now I understand. Thank you Mysterium and MiniKiller.