Killing Prisoners - During battle

[kiwitt]

I tend to kill my prisoners as I fight them. If I am so inclined. Sometimes I ransom, sometime I wait to the end, sometimes I kill as I go,

I assume that managing prisoners, would sap the strength somewhat of my troops, or does the AI assume there would be support personnel who would guard the prisoners, while the soldiers battle ?

[RZST]

just kill em all unless you need the cash. i usually just kill em all on battle, specially when im against crusades :) or when i capture royalty.

[The_678]

I always kill my prisoners, just for sake of not having to kill them twice. I hate having to fight people who I had already killed. I also wait till the end of battle just for the sake of seeing how many prisoners I have collected. I don't know if it makes any difference. The only time I don't kill all the prisoners is when I am super poor or in debt and i capture a king. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

[Eastside Character]

I never kill royalty, the money is too good. Besides killing prisoners during a battle can get a bad vice, and morale penalty in next battles. I think only the infidel are not worthy to be ransomed (excluding their royalty of course). Generally, it's very medieval to ransom back prisoners, very historically correct. I kill only occasionally and when i need a Butcher vice for my general.

Regards,
EC

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (kiwitt @ Feb. 15 2004,21:23)]I assume that managing prisoners, would sap the strength somewhat of my troops, or does the AI assume there would be support personnel who would guard the prisoners, while the soldiers battle?
I would assume that carrying those banners would somewhat inhibit the fighting abilities of the soldiers, but it probably doesn't. The game most likely doesn't take those things into account. Of course, you cannot be sure about this unless you have seen the code, but I would be most surprised if this factor had any influence. It is just a lot of work for a hard-to-envisage effect (exactly how does it influence the soldiers if the captives seem to be teleported from the battlefield?).

[bighairyman]

i don't think it matters if u kill them during the battle or kill them after. But if in the middle of the battle and ur army is routed, then the prisonors u capture will be free by thier comrades chasing after ur soldiers. but i always wait towards the end, just to see how many prisonors i can catch. and i won't worry about the bad vices, unless ur army is low moraled, or the troops are low moral types. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

[John86]

I only kill my prisoners when im going to lose a battle. The money you get from them can be very high. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

[castle]

I kill them in a battle unless i capture a king.

[Tribesman]

If I can get behind the opposition and capture their artillery at the start of a battle I kill the prisoners instantly , other than that I normally ransom them .

[kiwitt]

Thanks Guys.

Looks like I'll hang on to them and forget about in-battle killing, and make a decision at the or near the end.

[Obex]

I like to ransom back the prisoners if i am defending and have no plans to invade in the near future. doing this takes money away from the enemy, and forces them to continue to pay upkeep on the crappy, low morale units i just scattered and captured. id rather they didnt feel the need to recruit new, teched up units to replace the buthered ones.

the exception to this is if i capture good units, or if i just need to reduce the overall size of the enemy's forces (like against the mongols)

[R'as al Ghul]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif
I'm sorry, it might be my German version but concerning prisoners I've usually only two options:
1. I make prisoners of a regular army during battle by chasing routers or by overwhelming local force.
After the battle I'll be
a) noticed that they aren't bought back (One of your general's offers hasn't been accepted. You don't need to worry about them) or
b) noticed that I received sum x for the prisoners.
No one asks me what I want to do http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif
2. I make prisoners of a rebel army.
In this case I'm asked what I want to do with them:
a) Kill all
b) Kill the Leaders
b) set all free

What are you talking about?
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

Answers please
Cheers

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (R'as al Ghul @ Feb. 16 2004,06:13)]What are you talking about?
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif
When you capture rebels you only get the option to kill/ enslave all, kill/enslave ringleaders or release all. But when you capture another factions soldiers you can also ransom them back to your enemy for a hefty price.

[R'as al Ghul]

Quote[/b] ]When you capture rebels you only get the option to kill/ enslave all, kill/enslave ringleaders or release all. But when you capture another factions soldiers you can also ransom them back to your enemy for a hefty price.

Agreed But I think I never have the option to choose.
Just as I stated above I'm informed of the outcome.
No, I'm not space-barring through this phase.
So, my question remains...

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (R'as al Ghul @ Feb. 16 2004,14:03)]
Quote[/b] ]When you capture rebels you only get the option to kill/ enslave all, kill/enslave ringleaders or release all. But when you capture another factions soldiers you can also ransom them back to your enemy for a hefty price.

Agreed But I think I never have the option to choose.
Just as I stated above I'm informed of the outcome.
No, I'm not space-barring through this phase.
So, my question remains...
I asked the same question just a week ago. It seems that there isn't a 'what do you want to do with the prisoners?'-screen when you are not fighting rebels. If you want to kill them, you need to do it on the battlefield, when the kills-casualities screen comes up (don't worry, you do NOT need to order it BEFORE the battle is over, you can still do it after the screen came up. Just don't click OK to fast).
In the middle ages it was apparently unusual if prisoners were killed in stead of ransomed. Apparently it was seen as a dishonourable thing, and the soldiers hated it because they lost their ransom-bonus. The latter is represented in the vices you receive for killing prisoners (non-rebels and rebels) IN battle. Strangely, the top level of this vice, butcher, doesn't have a morale penalty.

[Trax]

You can only kill your prisoners during the battle battle IIRC
by pushing the icon showing the number of prisoners you have taken.

[R'as al Ghul]

Quote[/b] ]You can only kill your prisoners during the battle battle IIRC by pushing the icon showing the number of prisoners you have taken.
Trax That's it. You're my hero. So I have to click the Icon. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif Hahahahahahaha
Now, honestly, is this in the manual?
Thx everybody

[Mouzafphaerre]

-
Hello, my first post here...

I kill all prisoners until I get the message Your enemy are fleeing the field. Why? Because killing'em will drop the enemy's morale; will earn your commander +1 dread point and finally hearing all those screams is so much fun http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

I don't kill them after the victory message because it will cost my commander the merciless virtue which will in turn drop my army's morale by 2.

Exceptional cases:

If I'm after destroying a faction, I kill all prisoners no matter the situation because I don't want to see them fighting the next year. ;)

If I capture a monarch or a heir, I kill them immediately. I don't care ransom money; damaging the enemy's royal line is more important.

If I'm not planning to destroy a faction but defending or getting an additional province or two, I will keep the prisoners alive after the victory message appears. :)

Cheers
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif
_

[myself]

Hi Mouzafphaerre,

in regards to what you were saying, if you kill the prisoners before you get the message, your enemy is fleeing the field, you don't get the scant mercy or merciless vice? I've gotten these vices before for killing the prisoners in battle screen, NOT in the option screen after i comeback out to the campmap where given the option to kill them all, release them all, kill ringleaders only. Could this be because i killed them while the enemy was fleeing?

[bighairyman]

i think u get the scant mercy for killing any time during the battles, but maybe after a couple more vices, it's possible that u won't get those vices if u kill prisoners before the enemy is routing message. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Hello again,

AFAIK, you'll get the scant mercy/merciless for killing the prisoners in the battle field (battle screen IOW). Executing all or ringleaders in case of rebels (on the map screen) will effect your dread (according to the manual). However, I don't know the certain values.

Hth http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif
_

[Mouzafphaerre]

-
[Sorry for flooding; I don't seem to find a post editing function...]

In my experience, you get scant mercy for killing the prisoners when the enemy are not fleeing. If you continue killing after they start running away, then you get merciless. Both will earn your general dread (1 and 2 respectively) but the latter will also cost your army 2 morale points. That's why I tend to avoid it unless I'm trying to destroy a faction.

Hth and please correct me if I'm wrong. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
_

[gaelic cowboy]

IIRC isnt it possible for prisoners to escape and return to the battle if your forces drop to low I seem to remember that from the booklet or something. I always slit there heathen throats love that sound of my blades sending them to their deaths when I press it http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Glory]

Screw killing princes and kings. The real money is in the pope he's worth alot more and his army isn't good.

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (Mouzafphaerre @ Feb. 17 2004,03:30)]In my experience, you get scant mercy for killing the prisoners when the enemy are not fleeing. If you continue killing after they start running away, then you get merciless.
There are two series of vices for killing prisoners.
1) The first set applies to killing rebels after the battle is over.
2) The second set applies to in-battle killing of prisoners. This one does NOT make a distinction whether the enemy is fleeing or not. If you kill the prisoners in battle, you will get this vice, under any circumstances. I do believe that the game makes distinction between in-battle and post battle killing of rebel prisoners (you get a vice of the second set if you kill rebel prisoners in battle, and a vice of the first set if you do it after battle), but I have not tested it.

[R'as al Ghul]

Guys this is great
I only play the 3D battles for a few months now.
Due to my lagging old system I could only play Shogun 3D and
MTW Strategy. Now I've a new system.
While the MTW 3D game is quite similar to Shogun there are obviously some features I wasn't aware of.
I tested the Kill Prisoners Button yesterday for the first time, until now assuming that it was simply indicating how many prisoners I took.
What Fun I was missing How easy it is to even win
against large armies when you can drop their morale by killing off some prisoners. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-behead.gif
Thx again for the Input.
Cheers

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (R'as al Ghul @ Feb. 17 2004,13:09)]How easy it is to even win against large armies when you can drop their morale by killing off some prisoners.
This has been brought up several times but I am not sure whether is true. It doesn't make sense.

As far as I can see, there is no morale penalty for enemy is killing captives. I also think this would make individual soldiers just more determined to not get captured. Furthermore, it would be too easy to cheat: just rout a few peasants, capture and kill them and the entire enemy army suffers a morale dent.

Perhaps this is the same as the 'dread-battlefield effect'. Ever since the game has been released, players are reporting that high dread generals lead to hasty withdrawals on the side of the opponent. But in the last post of this thread Effect of Experience (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=15;t=14025;hl=dread), one of the developers is quoted as saying that dread does not influence the battlefield (dread related vices do affect the morale of your own troops). So perhaps you might have made the same mistake as those others?

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Hi Ludens,

I've been playing the MTW + VI, unpatched. I hadn't played 3D battles pre-expansion...

In my experience (which might be different than yours or others' due to a bug or something else), I get only scant mercy for killing prisoners when the battle is continuing -sort of- evenly. If I kill them after the victory message or when the summary screen comes up, I get merciless. Both happen in battle...

Post battle execution (enslaving when playing Muslim factions) of rebels is a different issue. I haven't made enough observation to comment about the differences between the outcomes of the three available options. The manual, however, mentions that you'll get dread points increasingly. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-yes.gif

Best
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif
_

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (Mouzafphaerre @ Feb. 17 2004,19:23)]In my experience (which might be different than yours or others' due to a bug or something else), I get only scant mercy for killing prisoners when the battle is continuing -sort of- evenly. If I kill them after the victory message or when the summary screen comes up, I get merciless. Both happen in battle...
Hello Mouzafphaerre

This is why I said 'series of vices'. As you will have noticed, there are several vices which follow each other up in a chain. There are also virtues like this, for example skilled attacker (+1C) > expert attacker (+2C) > specialist attacker (+3C).
If you take a look in the vices & virtues list in the download section of the org (you can also search in 'locengevents.txt') you will see that 'scant mercy' and 'merciless' are number 1 and 3 respectively in the list of vices acquired by killing prisoners in battle. So my guess is that you get merciless just because you kill more prisoners at the end of the battle than when you do it during the battle. This makes sense because most of the prisoners are taking during the mass rout once the battle is decided. If you take thousands of prisoners, you might even skip the entire list and go for number 6, 'butcher', immediately.


Quote[/b] ]Post battle execution (enslaving when playing Muslim factions) of rebels is a different issue. I haven't made enough observation to comment about the differences between the outcomes of the three available options. The manual, however, mentions that you'll get dread points increasingly.
Again, refer to the vices & virtues list. The list might not be complete or accurate but it is a great help. Be aware though, that killing prisoners in battle leads to vices that lower piety and the morale of YOUR men since they will lose their valuable ransom (except for the last one, 'butcher' which only increases dread).
The killing of rebel prisoners after battle leads to vices that lower happiness but increase dread.
Releasing of rebels increases happiness, but lowers dread.
Alternating kill all rebels and release all rebels seems to lead to 'random justice' but I am not sure about this one.

The good thing is that the first vice in each row only carries a bonus (+1 dread or +1 happiness) and no penalty.

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

I am not certain about this, but I think that if you kill prisoners several times in a bettle you tend to get 'worse' merciless vices (and hence bad morale) than if you kill them just once, unless of course its a 1,00+ and then you become a butcher.

About the province rebels, I never kill them. you seize their estates and get more cash for more prisoners adn then releasing them after the battle, the King (no tthe battle general or a governor) looses one dread but gains +10 happiness which effects all provinces, includng long loyal ones, and that is very handy

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Ludens and O_loompah,

Many thanks to both of you for the references. I'll surely check them out.

O_loompah,

I think you're right about the serial killing, which also copes with 'series of vices'.

Best
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif
_

[R'as al Ghul]

Quote[/b] (Ludens @ Feb. 17 2004,18:07)]
How easy it is to even win against large armies when you can drop their morale by killing off some prisoners.
This has been brought up several times but I am not sure whether is true
Hey Ludens,
I'm also everything but sure about this. After discovering
this new (to me) feature, I was on a killing spree and
everyone routed quickly that evening.
I guess it does affect the Enemy's troops. But to what extent I've no idea. It needs more testing.
Cheers

[Seven.the.Hun]

first of all, as to in battle killing, if u press that button, i dont think it matters how many times u press the button, i think it has to do with the number of battles the general does this in...like the first battle you execute, u get scant mercy...dread+1...the second battle u do this, no mercy, where u gain dread but start to lose loyalty for the other army units, then its like secret blood lover and bloodlover after incessant killing of prisoners...all gain you dread and lose loyalty,
killing the 1000+ prisoners in 1 battle is of course the butcher dread +2...
i manage prisoner slaughter with my good generals/heirs so that loyalty stays level and dread goes as high as possible, so with them i ransom here and there...
with other battles and generals i execute every last enemy, and lets be honest people, that SQUISHY noise that the button makes is to die for, http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif ...in this case i'll press the button as many times as possible just to further amuse myself...MUAHAHAHAHA

fare thee well to all http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-juggle.gif

[lancer63]

Henry V ordered his archers to slash the throats of hundreds of french prisoners at Agincourt before he knew he was the victor. So have I a score of times. You can't allow yourself the luxury of keeping prisoners for ransom when you're not sure if you'll soon become one.
So I say, when in doubt, gut them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

[octavian]

killing all prisinors can be good, unfortunatly, your generals can get a bad vice if u do it to often (i believe it drives down morale) so i make it a habit to only kill prisoners if 1. i feel like listening to that lovely heart warming sound that accompanies it. 2. i captured a really good general or heir. and 3. if im losing, which doesn't happen very often. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif cheers matey, shit, i can't drink yet http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Senta]

Quote[/b] (Seven.the.Hun @ Feb. 18 2004,13:20)]first of all, as to in battle killing, if u press that button, i dont think it matters how many times u press the button, i think it has to do with the number of battles the general does this in...like the first battle you execute, u get scant mercy...dread+1...the second battle u do this, no mercy, where u gain dread but start to lose loyalty for the other army units, then its like secret blood lover and bloodlover after incessant killing of prisoners...all gain you dread and lose loyalty,
killing the 1000+ prisoners in 1 battle is of course the butcher dread +2...
i manage prisoner slaughter with my good generals/heirs so that loyalty stays level and dread goes as high as possible, so with them i ransom here and there...
with other battles and generals i execute every last enemy, and lets be honest people, that SQUISHY noise that the button makes is to die for, http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif ...in this case i'll press the button as many times as possible just to further amuse myself...MUAHAHAHAHA

fare thee well to all http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-juggle.gif
oh, yeah... gotta love this sound effect...
and, myself, i always kill the rebels, and usually strive for butcher vice, so i conduct controlled killings... unless i captured a lot of units and i'm short on mine, then i kill them all, for the sake of future peace (hate fighting the same armies more than once)