An interesting suggestion
I have seen a lot of threads about the new Total War game coming up (Shogun 2), and there are a lot of threads posting ideas for new things they want to see in the game. Like a ranked multiplayer, or more than 20 unit cards in battles. But it would be kind of cool to have the option to take prisoners at the end of each battle.
Like having the option of either just killing off every single one of the enemy (before they make it to the red-line of the end of the map) or taking people hostage. But in order to take them hostage, they have to be in range of at least one of your units, that aren't routing, on the map. But to choose either option, you just click it on the message before a battle starts. This might only work for single player since in multiplayer you have a new army every battle you take.
But this might make battles more fun. Like if they have a family member in the battle, you might want to keep him alive so you can take him for ransom later. Or you don't want to completely destroy a unit, cause you can kill them later in front of an opposing army to reduce their morale, or you can send them on a suicide charge of the same army you took them from and have their men get scared at the sight of their brothers charge at them.
And if you take an important figure hostage, you can set him up for ransom through the diplomacy system, and get a nice, hefty amount for it. Or they can attack you a second time and steal the man back. But if they do accept the ransom, then you can trick them, and take both the money, and the man. But if you can do that, they can do it to you too. So if you try to trick them, they can counter trick and take back their money.
Even if you spent the money, they can take it back, which might put you in debt, so you will have to work harder for money, or be less wasteful. But the way that works (for the people who want realism) is that since you took the money, you spend some of your money in its place, thinking you will get it and it will balance out what you spent. But if they trick you, then the money you spent won't be balanced out and you lose a lot more than you gained. But one thing that will prevent you from tricking them is that it will give you leader (or any character for the decision of the action) a bad trait, so you won't want to do it very often, unless you want that person to be that way. But the worse the traits the character has of doing what he is doing, the more likely they will attack you back for the person, or the more likely they will ambush for the trade.
But if Creative Assembly decides to do that option, then make sure the AI doesn't trick you every time, that will just get frustrating after a while. But the more the figure is in importance, the more the money they will accept to pay you with. Or, they don't have to pay you at all. You can make them do tasks for your benefit.
It will add a different style to the way you fight (which some people are complaining that it never changed). You won't want to destroy every unit the opponent throws at you, you want to try and make them all rout, which will give you more people to take. The more people you take, the more you can use to lower the morale for their next army they throw at you. The more that happens, the more people you get. You can use some of the prisoners for slavery, which will boost your economy because you are get free labor. This whole system is just one way of making money off the misfortune of the enemy army losing.
But you have to be careful, cause they can also do that to you. So you can just always use brute force in battle, unless you know you are going to win, and you just want to kill everybody, like the old Total Wars. Total War will be launched into a different kind of warfare, psychological warfare. The better you get at scaring your enemy, the more likely they will try to avoid you. The more battles you win this way, the more your name will spread, and the faster. People won't want to fight you if you scare them. The more likely they will be on your side, until their faction is wiped out.
Of course, some people like won't like this idea. So before the campaign there could be an option that lets you take this off, so you can fight a normal way. But this might be an interesting stand point. You can play a whole campaign without this, then you can play a whole campaign with this. As the same faction. This adds twice the re-playability as before. With different outcomes. You can control your faction fear, so there won't be any likelihood of rebels standing up to you. Your countries will be more happy, because they don't want to disappear. Or you can run your country a happy way. More rebels than the first option, but your people will love you more. Which will give you a happy outcome. But if you rule it with fear, you won't get as much as a happy outcome.
But another note on the battles: it will be cool to have some smoke, not any poisons though, thats just cheap. But with smoke you can divide the enemy army into sections. Send horse units into the fray, and slaughter the confused men. Or round them up, and take them over. But there might different ideas on how you use the smoke. You can use it to be shot at on a whole unit and cover them up. Or you can shoot a line of smoke (with ground artillery, I'm not trying to make airplanes come in the game) so the units will be divided and you can send units down those lines and destroy the unit that is trapped. But the artillery doesn't have to be directly in front of its target. It can shoot it diagonally from it or in any other way. But the smoke starts out weak, so units can pass through. But it gets stronger as it goes on. Then it weakens again and stops. So even though they can be singled out, another unit can come in from the opposite end and aid the unit in need. Which might add some strategy, because you will have to do it fast before that one unit gets reinforcements. But it can also happen to other units, at the same time. But there might need to be two cannons, so they can make two lines. But you can have the option of line going through a unit too so it separates them. So you can weaken them easily. But this might happen, if they had this technology during that period.
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