Best way to capture kings?

[Beirut]

Baby needs a new pair o' shoes and ransoming a king is the best way I know how. Looking for tips to catch the miserable sots alive.

I usually open a can of longbows on him and reduce his unit numbers and then hit him with cavalry or troops from two sides to avoid him escaping, but there's no way to guarantee that he doesn't get killed.

Anyone have any secrets for better success at capturing kings alive?

[drone]

Just guessing, but I imagine you want to surround the bodyguard unit with low attack/high defense units, and somehow get the unit to rout. In my experience, the most successful scenario is to lure the King onto a bridge and cap both ends with spears/pikes.

The easiest way might be to isolate the King on the campaign map and capture him when he can't flee to another province.

[HopAlongBunny]

I'm not sure what comes into play.

In my first campaign with the Turks, I decided on a Byz first strategy because I could not get the Egyptian king to surrender. I replayed it over and over; he always fought to the death.

Now, I can do the capture almost 100% if I want. I think you need a combination of: nowhere else to go; overwhelming odds; preferably no other units intact nearby; and a little bit of luck. You will also need him surrounded; when the "great escape" is attempted you must have fast horse outside the melee to intercept.

I am pretty sure some V&V's will make some kings impossible to capture; I mentioned "luck" above because I am sure there is some amount variance due to a RNG.

Good luck!

[Beirut]

Just guessing, but I imagine you want to surround the bodyguard unit with low attack/high defense units, and somehow get the unit to rout. In my experience, the most successful scenario is to lure the King onto a bridge and cap both ends with spears/pikes.

The easiest way might be to isolate the King on the campaign map and capture him when he can't flee to another province.

Low attack, high defence unit. Interesting, Never thought of that angle.

Usually it's whatever cavalry I have and billmen. But billmen are a high attack against cavalry. Hmmmm....


Thanks. You too, Bunnyman.

[drone]

It's just a guess, since I don't really know how the capture mechanism works. It may be moot, the game might just randomly choose killed or captured regardless of the kill chance percentage. You have to get the unit routed though, which is difficult to do for a bodyguard unit.

I put a placeholder in the wiki regarding killing v. capturing when I wrote up the melee combat page, if anyone has info on this I could clean it up some.

[Martok]

Just about any time I've captured a faction leader, I've had to force his BG unit to route first. If he simply stands and fights without running, he'll usually be killed instead of captured.

Certainly the most foolproof way to capture a king, however, is (as the others have already pointed out) to leave him no province to which he can escape to. Even if a faction leader makes it off the battlefield without being caught, he'll still end up in your clutches if he has no place to go.

[caravel]

Just about any time I've captured a faction leader, I've had to force his BG unit to route first. If he simply stands and fights without running, he'll usually be killed instead of captured.

Certainly the most foolproof way to capture a king, however, is (as the others have already pointed out) to leave him no province to which he can escape to. Even if a faction leader makes it off the battlefield without being caught, he'll still end up in your clutches if he has no place to go.

+1

The problem with the high defence/low attack unit approach is that the faction leader's/general's unit will always be "winning easily" against them. So his morale is unlikely to break and he will most likely go down fighting. I find that the best way to capture a general/faction leader is to rout his other elite units around him first, and then take on his unit. If this doesn't rout him, then his morale is probably too high to rout anyway and he will probably fight to the death. In general terms if you've wiped out his army and the rest of his unit, then you'll probably end up killing him before you capture him.

[Roark]

Just surround him with spears. He'll usually start running eventually, and as long as he's got rank upon rank of spears around him, he'll eventually get captured.

If he's massively high valour, though, quite often it's just plain impossible. In this case, just javelin him to death.

[Ignoramus]

A 100% chance of capturing a king is in the Late Era with England. You can grab your army from Mercia and Wessex and invade Denmark. The Danish King always retreats, and so falls into your hands. Because the Danes hold Estonia, you still get around 10,000 florins.

[Beirut]

A 100% chance of capturing a king is in the Late Era with England. You can grab your army from Mercia and Wessex and invade Denmark. The Danish King always retreats, and so falls into your hands. Because the Danes hold Estonia, you still get around 10,000 florins.

Yeah, I just found that one out last week. I figured it was a "cheat" put in the game to help you out. I picked up 14,000 dollaridoos in ransom a few times. Great little kick start.

[Tratorix]

I find having a unit of light cavalry around really helps. If the king does escape whatever death trap you've set up, just have the cav charge past him a couple of times while he's routing. Used to work for me.

[Vladimir]

The strategic capture is best. However short of that you need to isolate him and surround him with spears. I recommend an overlapping triangle. Give him some room to move in the middle but hold the sides firm. Works best after you've destroyed the rest of the army first.

[Knight of the Rose]

What a fine point of tactical mastery, enjoyed the comments so far...

Kings have a lot of hitpoints, so I generally avoid using missiles on the generals bodyguard unit. And then just apply the ordinary measures of routing, that is flank, inflict losses and tire them down.

If you have a horse archer unit they can make the king chase 'em around, but don't destroy the rest of the army while taking them on a scenic tour, as the king will then retreat. Or if you're good do so but ensure the king is chasing the HA's with your army ready to intercept after the main battle.

The low attack/high defence strat sounds odd to me - you do want to take the bodyguards down, as the casulaties are the best way to ensure the rout. If the king charges alone, then you need to hold back - but that can be done by holding ground and formation, and if you're really desperate putting your men in loose formation.

As to the mechanism in taking prisoners instead of killing them, I was under the firm impression that any (melee) kill made to a unit that is fleeing is converted into a capture. No one is killed while routing.

/KotR

[Saul]

First of all, the king must rout, otherwise you cannot capture him. Indeed some of the V&V (legendary leader, brave beyond belief, famous warrior, etc) make the king impossible to capture since he will fight to the end, no matter what.

You have to surround and isolate him to lower his morale. The type of troops doesn't matter. It is important to have a fast and fresh unit of cavalry nearby to send in after he retreats. The cavalry will pursue and capture him if he manages to escape.

This tactic is not 100% guaranteed but I found out it works best.

[yoyolll]

All the tactics here are good but I have to back Saul, if you manage to destroy the BGs before they rout, the King is killed.

Surround with a high tier spears unit, then chase him down with fast cavalry. If you have one unit of cavalry right outside where the fighting is going on, and a stronger (albeit slower) unit farther away where you expect him to run, you can almost always intercept him with a high success rate.

IMO, killing any faction leader is always for the better. Your general usually gets a stat boost AND you get the satisfaction of killing the scumbag. I usually kill prisoners after a battle to increase my general's dread (which I think is the most useful stat after loyalty) so the enemy can shit their pants while fighting him.

[macsen rufus]

The only 100% guaranteed method is to get the king locked into a besieged castle, then autoresolve the assault, but the isolated province with no escape route comes a clsoe second (though the game will often cheat here....). I cannot count the number of times I've chased a fleeing king over the battlefield with faster units and still been unable to catch him... and also the tightest lockdown often fails to work (triangulated spears, polearms etc).

oh, and Yoyoll - dread has no bearing whatsoever on the battlefield, only on the strategic map

[yoyolll]

Is that so? I always thought it made enemies flee easier. Oh well...*sigh*

And yes, Kings are almost impossible to capture/kill on the battlefield but auto resolving a battle is never a good idea. Unless you are a completely incompetent general, playing the battle yourself will always yield a higher win rate.

[macsen rufus]

I used to think the general's dread had a battlefield effect, and really it should, I'd love to see the enemy quaking before an 8-star 'butcher', but unfortunately not.

As for the autoresolve - I never do that for field battles, the only use for it in my book is this one situation. Playing a siege assault yourself usually ends up killing the king, but when it's autoresolved, he seems always to be captured - just one of those quirks that may come in handy

[Martok]

The only 100% guaranteed method is to get the king locked into a besieged castle, then autoresolve the assault

I have to admit that I often forget that. I'm so used to personally commanding siege assaults (unless I enjoy truly overwhelming force) that it doesn't usually occur to me that auto-resolving more frequently nets me (valuable) prisoners. Thanks for reminding me of that, macsen rufus; I'll definitely have to keep that in mind for future campaigns.

Is that so? I always thought it made enemies flee easier. Oh well...*sigh*

I used to think the general's dread had a battlefield effect, and really it should, I'd love to see the enemy quaking before an 8-star 'butcher', but unfortunately not.

To be fair, in the early days of MTW, it was in fact a common mis-perception among a lot of folks -- to which it must be admitted I was one of -- that dread had an effect on the battlefield. It was only later on that one of the CA guys specifically stated that it did not, and that dread only affected the loyalty of a general/governor's province.

I too concur that a general's dread rating *should* have an effect on an enemy army (after all, who wouldn't run from someone known for literally drinking the blood of their enemies?), but sadly this was never implemented in the game.

[caravel]

With the current model, enabling dread on the battlefield would be unwise, as generals are too strong in MTW anyway. Armies are held together by a good general, having no real valour in their own right and when the general dies the army withers away. This is highly unrealistic as it is. Adding dread would have overbalanced this further, lowering the AI enemy's morale to an unacceptable level. As ever the player could exploit this by training up good high dread generals, whereas for the AI, obtaining a high dread general would be a matter of luck.

I also don't think that in real terms, coming up against a high dread "Martok the Butcher" would have frightened the enemy in this way. They would be less likely to want to be captured by said general knowing that a lifetime of toil and hardship in the camel stables awaited them... I'm sure they'd fight to the death to avoid such a fate.

Perhaps a general's dread could have been used as a morale modifier for his own troops? As it is, the general's command stars give valour but the morale bonus is separate and only comes into effect on the battlefield in proximity to the general. The dread stat could have been used as a modifier for this. The amount of dread being relative to the amount of the bonus? Martok the Butcher's own men would be sure not to rout while under his command. Dread could also have a "see-saw" effect with 0 giving no bonus, 1 to 5 giving some, but 6+ starting to take it off again, i.e. the men not wanting to fight for such a murderous fiend.

[oz_wwjd]

Just surround him with spears.

That doesn't work so well with some units. I tried capturing the King of the cumans with that method as the Byzantines,and somehow he managed to trash one of my spears well enough to escape. Also if you've ever faced one of the Jedi Byzantine generals they seem to have no fear of spears,they charge into the middle of them and rout whole units,or that's been my experience.

[Roark]

Yeah... there was a second sentence in my post, which reads as follows:

If he's massively high valour, though, quite often it's just plain impossible. In this case, just javelin him to death.

[yoyolll]

With the current model, enabling dread on the battlefield would be unwise, as generals are too strong in MTW anyway. Armies are held together by a good general, having no real valour in their own right and when the general dies the army withers away. This is highly unrealistic as it is. Adding dread would have overbalanced this further, lowering the AI enemy's morale to an unacceptable level. As ever the player could exploit this by training up good high dread generals, whereas for the AI, obtaining a high dread general would be a matter of luck.

I also don't think that in real terms, coming up against a high dread "Martok the Butcher" would have frightened the enemy in this way. They would be less likely to want to be captured by said general knowing that a lifetime of toil and hardship in the camel stables awaited them... I'm sure they'd fight to the death to avoid such a fate.

Perhaps a general's dread could have been used as a morale modifier for his own troops? As it is, the general's command stars give valour but the morale bonus is separate and only comes into effect on the battlefield in proximity to the general. The dread stat could have been used as a modifier for this. The amount of dread being relative to the amount of the bonus? Martok the Butcher's own men would be sure not to rout while under his command. Dread could also have a "see-saw" effect with 0 giving no bonus, 1 to 5 giving some, but 6+ starting to take it off again, i.e. the men not wanting to fight for such a murderous fiend.

That's a good idea but it makes building up that many dread points completely not worth it. I always killed prisoners for that sole reason, and I was mistaken in thinking it actually mattered on the battlefield. Although the AI generals would be a problem with balancing.

And if we're speaking about real life, think of a dreaded general. For example, Vlad III (or Vlad the Impaler.) In his own words, "I have killed men and women, old and young... 23,884 Turks and Bulgarians without counting those whom we burned alive in their homes or whose heads were not chopped off by our soldiers..."

Would you want to fight this man?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...43/Impaled.gif

It makes sense to have dread work on the battlefield, and I think the fact that it affects his men's happiness could be used to balance the attribute.

[Vantek]

Getting a little offtopic here, but wow, that's a great idea! However, I agree that generals are a little too overpowered already. I've always said that in my opinion, generals should influence just soldiers' morale, not their attack/defense. In that case, dread could affect morale. And why not piety as well! It could affect their upkeep as well!

Dread - improves own units' morale and reduces enemy units' morale. Affects peasant units strongly, regular units moderately, elite and religious units weakly. Every 3 points of dread give all units +1 speed on running and every 4 points give +1 speed on walking (LOL). 5 points of dread make uncontrolled units normal. 7 points of dread make all units Disciplined.

Piety - improves own units' morale (moreso than dread), affecting religious units very strongly (2x), elite units strongly (1), regular units moderately (1/2), peasant units weakly (1/3). Reduces upkeep (with diminishing gains and affected by unit type). Every 3 points of piety give +1 charge. 7 points of piety give +1 attack.

Acumen - reduces upkeep.

Command - every star gives +1 morale to all units regardless of type. Greatly increases the rate at which units gain valour in combat. 4 stars make controlled units normal, 8 stars make all units disciplined. 7 stars give +1 defense.

The morale from command affects units in a larger area. The morale from dread and piety affects units in a smaller area.

Hehe, just some funny thoughts ^_^

[sharpshooter]

This might be a little off topic, but I'd like to share a couple of times I thought I'd captured kings, but they "escaped".

First example - playing Poland vs the HRE - MTW/VI Vanilla

Sniping attacks by the HRE into Silesia etc had annoyed me. Yes, it was personal. I attacked the small stack with the Emporer in Bavaria. (I had taken a rebel Austria, which may be what annoyed him). He retreated to Franconia. Saxony was rebel, and Lorraine and Flanders were French. I attacked him again, and he retreated to Friesland. Good, the Emporer is trapped, with an army too small to jump into any of the surrounding provinces. I attacked him again, and the HRE retreated to the castle.

The Emporer appeared in Swabia.

Second example - playing Hungary vs Sicily.

The Sicilians had been attacking Serbia by convoying armies over from Naples. The Hungarians had no fleets. Croatia and Greece had ports, but Serbia did not have a port.

After repelling a first attack of Town Militia Serbia was invaded by a larger Sicilian army led by the Sicilian king. Hungary had enough men to reinforce Croatia and Greece to prevent escape. The Sicilian king was then attacked in Serbia. On the battlefield he fled as a single remaining man.

The Sicilian king reappeared in Naples.

No ransom, no gratuitous killing of prisoners.

Now, I'd hate to accuse the AI of cheating, but, how can I put it - maybe it bends the rules sometimes. Sometimes with kings, and many of you will have encountered odd scenarios involving particularly Italian and Sicilian fleets where armies are transported through apparently blockaded seas.

There is no such thing as a "for sure" trapped king.

Hmm ... except when playing the Turks in Early, where the Egyptian sultan starts in Antioch. Invasion of Tripoli on the first turn always seems to work in capturing him.

[Vantek]

I, too, have felt that you can never be sure to capture any king. Annoying little buggers!

[Heidrek]

best way I've found is to encose them in a triangle of spearmen. Engage the king with one unit of your best spears, then throw a flanking unit into the engaged king to break the numbers down. While his bodyguard is getting puonded move a couple more spear units into place so you have a solid barrier around the king. Once he tries to run, he goes straihjt into one of the spear who hold him in place until he eventualyy gets captured.

[gollum]

The most reliable fleeing king buster unit in my experience is the Alan mercenary cavalry - they have excellent speed and a really good attack that makes sure that the king's hitpoints are exhausted before he escapes. Other units just as fast, like the Turcomans, vanilla horse archers and Desert Horse, have low attack values that often cannot take "all the lives" of the King before he makes to safety. Steppe cavalry are a good second best (and far more available!).

Obviously the first step is to rout him, this tends to be easy if he is of such a predisposition (coward and the like), however if he is the valliant kind he can be encircled by units of (preferably) fast spears which is far easier and more reliable - however his army needs to be beaten first. Remember to set the one that stands in his apparent direction of escape (the one he is facing) to hold formation as this makes teh unit less permeable; the other should be set to engage at will to maximise the number of spear men that attack him and allow for his hitpoints to decline quickly since they fight him from the rear.

[Empirate]

This might be a little off topic, but I'd like to share a couple of times I thought I'd captured kings, but they "escaped".

First example - playing Poland vs the HRE - MTW/VI Vanilla

Sniping attacks by the HRE into Silesia etc had annoyed me. Yes, it was personal. I attacked the small stack with the Emporer in Bavaria. (I had taken a rebel Austria, which may be what annoyed him). He retreated to Franconia. Saxony was rebel, and Lorraine and Flanders were French. I attacked him again, and he retreated to Friesland. Good, the Emporer is trapped, with an army too small to jump into any of the surrounding provinces. I attacked him again, and the HRE retreated to the castle.

The Emporer appeared in Swabia.

Second example - playing Hungary vs Sicily.

The Sicilians had been attacking Serbia by convoying armies over from Naples. The Hungarians had no fleets. Croatia and Greece had ports, but Serbia did not have a port.

After repelling a first attack of Town Militia Serbia was invaded by a larger Sicilian army led by the Sicilian king. Hungary had enough men to reinforce Croatia and Greece to prevent escape. The Sicilian king was then attacked in Serbia. On the battlefield he fled as a single remaining man.

The Sicilian king reappeared in Naples.

No ransom, no gratuitous killing of prisoners.

Now, I'd hate to accuse the AI of cheating, but, how can I put it - maybe it bends the rules sometimes. Sometimes with kings, and many of you will have encountered odd scenarios involving particularly Italian and Sicilian fleets where armies are transported through apparently blockaded seas.

There is no such thing as a "for sure" trapped king.

Hmm ... except when playing the Turks in Early, where the Egyptian sultan starts in Antioch. Invasion of Tripoli on the first turn always seems to work in capturing him.

Are you absolutely sure those teleporting kings were not actually a combination of "old king dies, heir takes over"? I've had that happen to me a few times, and it feels like cheating, but isn't.
Also, many times the AI will somehow sense its king is close to being isolated in a province, and attacks out of it, only to decline battle and withdraw to a different, safe, province.

An example of the two in combination: I (France, H, early, VI vanilla) attack the English and force them out of Wessex and Mercia. Their only remaining provinces in the British Isles are Northumbria and Wales, with the king trapped in Northumbria. Next turn, I attack Northumbria, but the AI attacks Mercia from Northumbria the same turn. They call off the attack, but their king retreats to Wales, while I proceed to take a mostly empty Northumbria. Two turns later, I attack Wales, thinking "this time I'll get the bugger!". No such luck: The very turn I take Wales the English king dies and his heir (in Aquitaine) takes over...