Kill or Capture?

Possibly the answer to this one is that it is "just pure coincidence", but I thought I would put the question out there just for my own curiousity....

I have noted now in a succession of battles that a small number of royal knight units invariably finish the battle with vey small tallies of adversaries killed, but huge numbers of prisoners taken....are certain commanders pre-disposed to capturing rather than killing? :inquisitive: Is is that certain unit types will capture rather than kill other specific unit types (and in the case of my guys they coincidentally came up against the same type of opponent each time)?

Has anyone else noticed this when reviewing battle stats after the field clears? :help:

Soldiers are only captured when their status turns to "Running Away".

Until a unit routs it will fight to the death. Even withdrawing units will fight their way out. As soon is it routs it is no longer fighting and is vulnerable to capture. Your RKs being cavalry and thus faster moving than infantry, are likely charging and breaking the enemy and then mopping up the routers as they flee.

I believe that only routers are captured, but I also have a feeling I've had somewhere the message that "Your soldiers have captured the enemy general" before his unit broke and ran. I've also had the impression in the past that mercenaries are more likely to take prisoners (assuming they're more interested in ransom than killing :beam: )

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Originally Posted by macsen rufus

I believe that only routers are captured, but I also have a feeling I've had somewhere the message that "Your soldiers have captured the enemy general" before his unit broke and ran. I've also had the impression in the past that mercenaries are more likely to take prisoners (assuming they're more interested in ransom than killing :beam: )

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The general will often continue fighting in the midst of a melee, he will then rout and a split second later be captured. The game doesn't get the time to inform you that the general routed in that small space of time.

Yes, Caravel (welcome back, btw, what happened to Manco? :clown: ) I do see some lags in the messages. I often don't get the message about the enemy general captured for 10-20 seconds after his flag has gone down, so I think it might just be related to the messages getting stacked up...

I often get the enemy general fleeing message after the message that I have captured him.

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Originally Posted by macsen rufus

Yes, Caravel (welcome back, btw, what happened to Manco? :clown: ) I do see some lags in the messages. I often don't get the message about the enemy general captured for 10-20 seconds after his flag has gone down, so I think it might just be related to the messages getting stacked up...

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I like the name, Manco Capac but it's too long and is in two words. So it's easier for me to make a mistake typing it in. :beam:

It's like rythmic says, you get the messages late or not at all. I've often won the battle captured the enemy general, seen the battle summary screen and then heard that the enemy general is running away. Sometimes I hear the enemy general is running and I've captured him then later I hear nothing. (strange that as I type this it is the Shogun audio for these events that is in my head and not the medieval audio and I've been playing Medieval now for years and haven't played Shogun for a few months)

When I clicked onto this thread I thought it was going to be a 'do you prefer to kill or ransom your prisioners.' Well, I read the thread and was disapointed to find out that:

A. It wasn't what I thought it was.
B. The questioned was already answered by the time I arrived.

So what's a conquerer to do?

Well, hopefully no one will mind if I gently steer slightly off course. I perfer to decide on a case by case basis whether or not I am going to ransom my captured prisoners.

Case in point, I am playing the Sicilians, Norm, GA, Early. I crusaded to Palestine and the Egypt king was there. I managed to capture him in the battle and ransomed him back for the mucho grande money. Later I took Tunsinia while being flanked on both sides by the, at the time powerful Almos. Not wanting to keep fighting the same soldiers, I slaughtered the prisioners wholesale, after each battle I swapped out generals to not encur the prisioner vices. Alot of my generals have "scant mercy", which is the only trait in that line that is beneficial (raising dread), but I grounded the Almos forces into dust. They were later consumed by the Spainish.

If no one minds me asking what do you prefer to do with your prisioners. If anyone objects to my wholesale bid to high-jack the thread then, please, by all means, ignore me.

You know, there's really so many variables that factor into whether I execute or ransom/release that I'm not sure where I would begin. The only general tendency I follow is that I usually roleplay it. Examples:

If my victorious general has a high Dread rating, I tend to execute the prisoners. If he has numerous Chivalrous traits that boost morale, I ransom them.

I'm somewhat more likely to ransom people if I'm playing an Orthodox or Muslim faction, and less so if I'm Catholic.

If I defeat a Crusader army, I am usually not gentle with prisoners--to hell with the ransom money, I just want to make sure they can't trouble me again! ~D I follow this policy pretty strictly, regardless of whether I'm Muslim, Orthodox, or an excommed Catholic.

I never execute rival faction's prisoners, I prefer:

a) The ransom money.
b) To give the demoralised, disloyal rabble of good runners and cowards back to the enemy for them to support.

Occasionally I execute rebels to increase the dread of a general, though only if they are an opposing religion/culture and usually only if the province has rebelled several times already.

When it comes to choosing what to do with prisoners, it really is on a case-by-case basis, although generally I prefer to ransom as I usually need the cash. If I've just won a huge defensive battle against a really troublesome larger neighbour I'm more likely to kill prisoners, especially when it's their first attack, even more likely if it was a former ally. Both to punish them for breaking the alliance and also to reduce the troops they have available - if they've broken an alliance to attack you, you know they'll keep on coming. If I have captured royalty or nobles (say if I caught a few royal knights in the woods :skull: ) then I'll keep them alive as they tend to be juicy ransom fodder. Of course a King is best!

On occasion I'll also kill some prisoners early in the battle if I have caught a particularly good enemy general, as it will weaken them to lose him. After that point any new prisoners taken will stay alive for the ransom, (but you still get the vice, alas!)

I take a similar line to rebels as Caravel - really troublesome provinces will earn more battlefield slaying of prisoners.

Regarding the killing of prisoners, it depends on what you have captured, your finances and your own general traits.

For instance, if the captured units are of good quality, you are probably better off killing all prisoner rather than facing them all over again (the best example is when you capture AUM early in the game when playing as the Spaniards). Of course, you never know precisely what you have captured but can always have a accurate idea of what kind of routers you cavalry chased. If you basically only captured peasants and archers, you might as well sell them back so that you get the cash and the AI keeps fighting with those silly units instead of replacing them with better ones. Likewise if the AI army has many stars but is a coward, not so bold, often retreating lunatic, having him in command of the enemy army for the following battles can be a great advantage (just like the Swedish King - Charles II or IV ???? is it Charles ??? Must look that up :book: - who always dutifully returned the Russian general whom he found so easy to fool).

Regarding the financial element, it is self-explanatory. Nevertheless bear in mind that you might be better off without a king's ramson if killing that king means that the factions disappear.

With respect to your general traits, the thing is that, after you get the trait merciless, you have to keep executing prisoners until you get "secret blood lover" to get rid of the morale penalty (once you get it stop killing prisoners or the penalty comes back). Once I get to 1,000 prisoners or more, I find difficult to resist getting the "butcher" vice.

Finally, there is also the "boredom factor" which makes you kill all the prisoners you can get when fighting the GH ... (of course if the Horde only appears in Khazar, that you fight them there, no need to kill prisoners since there will be nobody to pay their ramson anyway).

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Originally Posted by Caravel

I never execute rival faction's prisoners, I prefer:

a) The ransom money.
b) To give the demoralised, disloyal rabble of good runners and cowards back to the enemy for them to support.

Occasionally I execute rebels to increase the dread of a general, though only if they are an opposing religion/culture and usually only if the province has rebelled several times already.

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And give the swift justice virtue to your king.

I couldn't agree more. :2thumbsup:

But I NEVER ransom if I capture 1000 or more. :skull: :skull:

Oh yes, if I can get the Butcher vice, I go for it :skull: . I do not have that many great generals (unless I play with the Byzantines and then I have too many) and so my best generals tend to accumulate plenty of dread, and I have discovered that if you continue with the merciless policy of slaughtering captured enemies, at one point you get to a vice that only increased dread and goves no morale penalty (like scant mercy, but you get a lot more dread) - I think it was secret blood lover? Anyway, when I play with a Pagan faction (in one of the mods) I love to give this vice (it is a virtue really) to a fierce pagan general along with Butcher.
The only problem I have with killing prisoners is that the AI never does it, and so it is an exploit. I suspect the AI never does it because of its stinginess, which I also suspect is the reason for it never to hire mercenaries. I guess it also tries to avoid the morale penalty. But there is no way to make up for all the AI's shortcomings.

On this subject, I often get the message that "ransom was refused, and the prisoners need trouble my thoughts no more"...

I can understand in some situations, like if the defeat has triggered a rebellion, or if the defeated faction was struggling for a florin....but what are the governing factors in the AI deciding whether it WANTS to buy back prisoners?

I tend to release all the prisoners i get, I just feel guilty about killing them, and i think ransoming them is a bit unfair (if i capture and enemy prince etc. i do ransom though)

@Bamff -- I get the feeling that most times the AI refuses to cough up for its cowards is simply down to the lack of florins. Possibly it also chooses to accelerate the succession (why pay a fortune to buy back a "Good runner, weak attacker" king when his heir has much better traits?)

There's also the obvious cases of them having no territory left to return the prisoners to, and as you pointed out there are rebellions where the "people" don't want the royals back, so the faction is destroyed. I also feel like the AI gets to know more than we do when we're presented with a ransom demand -- it probably can see what troop types are there, their VnVs etc. It wouldn't be the only occasion where the AI can use information the human player can't get :inquisitive: .

Now, the one I really don't get is when a faction decides to abandon its one and only province without fighting! (Try Norway XL and first move throw everything you have at Sweden - they always decide they can't win and you get the province without a fight or a siege.)

Still, I guess if the AI were more predictable the game would be less fun :beam:

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Originally Posted by macsen rufus

@Bamff -- I get the feeling that most times the AI refuses to cough up for its cowards is simply down to the lack of florins.

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I'm convinced that it's based entirely on florins. The Ai never has much cash and nearly always refuses those massive ransoms.

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Originally Posted by macsen rufus

There's also the obvious cases of them having no territory left to return the prisoners to, and as you pointed out there are rebellions where the "people" don't want the royals back, so the faction is destroyed. I also feel like the AI gets to know more than we do when we're presented with a ransom demand -- it probably can see what troop types are there, their VnVs etc. It wouldn't be the only occasion where the AI can use information the human player can't get :inquisitive:

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I quite honestly don't think that the AI is aware of, can exploit, or otherwise make use of V&Vs. There are cases where the AI will continuously ransom back a failure of a king time and time again. It's when the AI doesn't have the available cash that it doesn't bother.

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Originally Posted by macsen rufus

Now, the one I really don't get is when a faction decides to abandon its one and only province without fighting! (Try Norway XL and first move throw everything you have at Sweden - they always decide they can't win and you get the province without a fight or a siege.)

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This is problably because the AI doesn't know, that it's on it's last province, or if it does, the "can't win this battle" part of the AI overrides the "last province" AI.

CA could have beaten this by imposing a hidden "single province morale bonus" (this would help the Danes, Swiss, Burgundians and Aragonese also) and a change in the AI behaviour causing them to always fight to the death if in a single province. Unfortunately it is not this type of AI that is used for these functions, but the "can't win - retreat" AI, which doesn't appear to even "think" that the AI might not have anywhere to retreat to.

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Originally Posted by macsen rufus

Now, the one I really don't get is when a faction decides to abandon its one and only province without fighting! (Try Norway XL and first move throw everything you have at Sweden - they always decide they can't win and you get the province without a fight or a siege.)

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For me, this is one of the more frustrating aspects of the campaign AI. What's odd is that it seems to be especially prevalent in XL (which is probably my sole complaint about VikingHorde's mod). Would that CA had implemented Caravel's idea of a single province morale bonus....it would have been a major improvement!

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Originally Posted by Caravel

CA could have beaten this by imposing a hidden "single province morale bonus" (this would help the Danes, Swiss, Burgundians and Aragonese also) and a change in the AI behaviour causing them to always fight to the death if in a single province. Unfortunately it is not this type of AI that is used for these functions, but the "can't win - retreat" AI, which doesn't appear to even "think" that the AI might not have anywhere to retreat to.

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Simple and elegant. I very good idea. It really is a shame that CA didn't do it.

It really is interesting how many different views players have on something as simple as how we handle wartime prisioners. I'd like to say that my above post is accurate, but in reality I get a perverse pleasure out of the throat slitting sound you hear when you kill the prisioners off. Understandably, my campaign generals tend to be butchers. I never noticed the "secret blood lover" virtue. Oh well I guess that means I'll have to kill more prisioners.

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Originally Posted by Kavhan Isbul

The only problem I have with killing prisoners is that the AI never does it, and so it is an exploit.

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Correct, but it's a historical issue (supposed that CA implemented this into the game purposedly). In medieval times, war prisoners were never slaughtered, or only on VERY rare occasions (Agincourt was one of these). They were kept for ransom, and even if no one wanted to pay for them or couldn't do so, they were released most of the times - without their weapons and armour of course. It was only in later times that prisoners were sytematically subjected to cruel treatment or massacred right away (that's why I like PMTW, the historical frame permits such unkind treatment of valuable enemy troops :laugh4:).

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Originally Posted by Sensei Warrior

but in reality I get a perverse pleasure out of the throat slitting sound you hear when you kill the prisioners off.

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oh my that's so true :whip: ....

When you capture rebels, you have three options instead of just two - in their case you can also execute/enslave only the leaders. I wish the same applied to factions' prisoners. There are many times I want to kill only a certain nobleman (or the Pope) and not necessarily the entire army. There should have been an option to kill nobles only, and perhaps a further option to kill elite troops only.

I will follow up with a recent war story that illustrates my previous points, and provides a partial work around for Kavhan's above post.

I am playing a VI game as the Welsh on Norm. The Saxons and I came to blows over Somersaete and I was forced to defend against an 800-ish Saxon army lead by their King. I had already made their King a Coward or Good Runner or some such blather. Saxon army was 80% Peasants with no missiles. I had a Archer heavy army with a couple of Horsemen fresh from boot camp.

I should interject here my intense Hatred for Peasants. I hate fighting Peasants possibley even more so than fighting Jinettes or HAs. I call them the rebound unit. As soon as you look at them they flee forcing you to take all of them Prisioner and ransom them back so you can fight the same Peasants again the very next turn. Its boring. I know there are ways to mod them out but I can't be bothered, my way to get rid of them is much more fun. Rant fin.

What worried me wasn't the army I was fighting but the army coming over from the East which for some reason had a super lage contingent of Saxon Huscarles. I did not want to end up fighting Huscarles and 600+ Peasants next year so here is what I did.

I set my army like this. Line of Archers, Line of Spears, Line of Archers, Line of Melee Units and General (the Heir Apparant) on a reasonable incline. I had my Horsemen staged on the wings but really far away from the bulk of my army. When the battle commenced I sent my Horsies really, really far around the Saxon army. The Saxons met me head on but the intense missile fire forced them to retreat, regroup and repeat. Of course this only works as long as you have missiles to fire. When my archers were starting to run out of arrows on came the whole Saxon army (including the King)to crash into the Melee units which I moved forward to engage. I had already withdrew my first line of Archers.

Contact lasted about 1/2 of a second when the Saxon army fled en masse. By this time my Horsies completely encircled the Saxon army and you can guess the rest. Only a couple escaped from my net. I waited until a split second before the King was captured and hit the Prisioner button. In the end I lost 33 men, mostly to 2 units of Huscarles. I had decimated the Saxons army. I killed off somewhere in the realm of 400 prisioners. Ransomed 20 Prisioners including the King (mucho money). Very few escaped and the rest were killed in the battle.

To Recap:

I got the ransom for the King, and it was alot, which hopefully impeded the manufacture of any more Huscarle units for awhile. I felt all warm and fuzzy and merciful as I sent their Weak Defending, Weak Attacking, Cowardly, Good Runner (or whatever he has now) back to the Saxons so I can run his army of Huscarles off the field in the next battle.

I killed off almost every Peasant present at that battle, so I won't see them rebound.

My heir gets Scant Mercy.

This is probably close to the perfect mix of getting to hit the Execute Prisioner button, and strategically giving the Saxons the Ultimate Idiot General Back ... and I got to hear the sound :whip:

A little long but I had to share.