Why there are no POW's in empire?

[Pizza de Oveja]

Why there are no prisioners in Empire or napoleon???

Perhaps units in retreat should take more casualties, it's a shame that prisioners are not despicted in empire. They should like star walking towards your units with their hands up and dissapear as soon as they touch any unit.

When the lines brake in a battle IMHO more troops are taken prisioner than run away, specially if they are being charged by enemy infantry, how are they supposed to run away????
Or if the cavalry has them surrounded. To make this thing happen they had to make inf run almost as fast as cavalry, which is pretty lame to me at least.

The trademark of total war, that is, that battles always end with a tedious mowing down by the cavalry of a rabble runing for their lives was perhaps good for rome but I think in empire a kind of them becoming prisioners would have been way more realistic in most cases.

Units running charged by cav should surrender instantly in most cases or turn back and fight like if they were surrounded like it happened sometimes in rome, their banner turning red I think it was, and units being charged by infantry and breaking should never be allowed to run away and outrun the charging troops!

[Mr_Cyberpunk]

I agree and its stupid this hasn't been added to NTW since its been asked 1million times. I think the only solution we have now is to just make the AI retreat earlier- Battles take too long, I'd rather it be a case that the AI would retreat if it stood no chance of recovering a battle. It makes no sense for the AI to just sit there and take it.. unless in a seige.. but in open field battles the AI should ideally fall back- not get utterly slaughtered in the field. seiges ideally the AI should surrender more often OR offer vassalage when down to their last settlement.

Anyway its annoying because Medieval2 had the feature and by this game not having it its a step backwards.

[FriendoftheDork]

Why there are no prisioners in Empire or napoleon???

Perhaps units in retreat should take more casualties, it's a shame that prisioners are not despicted in empire. They should like star walking towards your units with their hands up and dissapear as soon as they touch any unit.

When the lines brake in a battle IMHO more troops are taken prisioner than run away, specially if they are being charged by enemy infantry, how are they supposed to run away????
Or if the cavalry has them surrounded. To make this thing happen they had to make inf run almost as fast as cavalry, which is pretty lame to me at least.

The trademark of total war, that is, that battles always end with a tedious mowing down by the cavalry of a rabble runing for their lives was perhaps good for rome but I think in empire a kind of them becoming prisioners would have been way more realistic in most cases.

Units running charged by cav should surrender instantly in most cases or turn back and fight like if they were surrounded like it happened sometimes in rome, their banner turning red I think it was, and units being charged by infantry and breaking should never be allowed to run away and outrun the charging troops!

The way I see it, there are POWs in ETW, but no system for it just as there is no system for troops drinking water, needing provisions, supply lines etc.

In MTW and it's sequel and POW system was very fitting because of the old ransom system in that age. A knight could die on the battlefield but was expected to be taken alive if possible as it was honorable and very profitable to whomever took him.


In ETW prisoners of war was common, and there were certain rules of honor that applied to their treatment (some of which are still applicable today in the Geneva Convention). Soldiers might surrender en-masse if they felt they had no chance of winning or escaping together. Stragglers getting away would probably have to turn to banditry in order to survive, at least if in enemy or neutral territory, and would probably be shot by either side.

So the old ransom/execute/free options in regard for PoWs is not really applicable in ETW, and thus any POWs will pretty much work like any other casualties.

As for your complaint about retreating units taking little casualties, well actually it's the other way around. In most battles one side would retreat at the point that defeat became more or less obvious, and retreat in good order taking few casualties. Losing 30-40% of your army in defeat would be considered a clear defeat, while losing 50%+ which is common in empire would be one of those rare and shattering defeats and required either a very foolish general or extremely effective pincer movement encirclement tactics.

In TW games in general it has usually been too easy to run down enemy routers with cavalry, even having ten men running down and capturing 300 enemies in matter of a minute or so.

In ETW they have gone one step in the right direction, abd two steps back. It's harder to get 100% kill rate now because cavalry is fairly weak now even against routers, and the enemy has to run alot less in order for the battle to end. And since the routers often split up forcing cav to run half across the map just to kill a single man before running back to get 10 more, pursuing routers is a chore much more than in previous editions.

Even worse, the "enemy forces melt away" message does not exist anymore, and I've seen very small units of enemies escape battles, just to terrorize the landscape while you have to chase and enagage them several times before they're all killed (native musket cavalry is especially annoying this way).

[Mr_Cyberpunk]

I've seen very small units of enemies escape battles, just to terrorize the landscape while you have to chase and enagage them several times before they're all killed (native musket cavalry is especially annoying this way).

this is why you should be garrisoning a regiment per minor town- it stops the enemy AI from doing this and if in proximity to the major city ensures that they'll never attempt to attack it either. If all else fails then just build a fort near by- that'll stop them dead.

the enemy can't enter garrisoned buildings- and unfortuantely your city guards have no intercept ability making them utterly useless. So if you have a regiment at the spot, he'll call the city guard to his aid. In places like moscow and paris though it'd be a bit harder.. this mainly works well for the german areas.

[FriendoftheDork]

this is why you should be garrisoning a regiment per minor town- it stops the enemy AI from doing this and if in proximity to the major city ensures that they'll never attempt to attack it either. If all else fails then just build a fort near by- that'll stop them dead.

the enemy can't enter garrisoned buildings- and unfortuantely your city guards have no intercept ability making them utterly useless. So if you have a regiment at the spot, he'll call the city guard to his aid. In places like moscow and paris though it'd be a bit harder.. this mainly works well for the german areas.

If I need a regiment in every town, port, farm etc. It's gonna cost me more than the occasional repair costs themselves. Only essential ports and colleges require a garrison.

[Pizza de Oveja]

I think that the old system of pow's in medieval II cant be applied to ETW and that is why I proposed an alternative in battle system for taking pows in my initial post.

Also please note that system in med II had the problem that they never actually surrender, when they were mowed down by the cavalry there was an obscure way in which some of them became pow's instead of casualties (which was also historically incorrect as only people that were worth a ramsom were taken hostage).

I havent thought thou how Pow's would be dealt with after the battle, but I think it is pretty obvious that although Geneva Convention did not apply at that time, "gentelman" behaviour did and thus prisioners were seldom put to the sword, like they in fact usually were in the middle ages[notable exceptions apply of course].

That could be abstracted as the game does not really model demographics in the needed depth, but I cant believe anyone really thinks that having to chase down in the same turn an enemy army that keeps being defeated, and never surrenders is pretty lame, expecially when instead of running towards their frontier the keep running towards your ungarrisoned cities and mines and end up laying waste to the whole province!

It is not unsual at all that defeated AI armies do you more damage than would a victorious one.
Clearly that a big flaw.

It would be as unrealistic that no army ever would scape a battle lost but naval battles for example place a unit surrendered with no extra work for programers, and those battles would really be spoiled if you had to either sink or chase down every ai ship in order to eliminate it, which would be historically incorrect.

An this distintion between land and sea battles is really weird as ships usually did scape lost battles in fact way more times than whole armies three consecutive defeats in a turn.

[steifan]

It seemed to be common (atleast in the 17th century/1600s) to put captured enemies into your own ranks
if they were considered to be "trustworthy", otherwise they'd be shot or imprisoned.
In the game you could for example choose to have your captured enemies to form some kind of
mercenary regiment with poor morale to use as cannon fodder.. I think that could be useful in the game and
historically OK.

I believe that after some Danish-Swedish battle during the 17th century,
the Swedes shot the captured Danes and 'welcomed' the captured Germans into their ranks.
(Currently reading some books about the 30 years war from a Swedish perspective.)

[hanibalthegreat]

Why there are no prisioners in Empire or napoleon???

Perhaps units in retreat should take more casualties, it's a shame that prisioners are not despicted in empire. They should like star walking towards your units with their hands up and dissapear as soon as they touch any unit.

When the lines brake in a battle IMHO more troops are taken prisioner than run away, specially if they are being charged by enemy infantry, how are they supposed to run away????
Or if the cavalry has them surrounded. To make this thing happen they had to make inf run almost as fast as cavalry, which is pretty lame to me at least.

The trademark of total war, that is, that battles always end with a tedious mowing down by the cavalry of a rabble runing for their lives was perhaps good for rome but I think in empire a kind of them becoming prisioners would have been way more realistic in most cases.

Units running charged by cav should surrender instantly in most cases or turn back and fight like if they were surrounded like it happened sometimes in rome, their banner turning red I think it was, and units being charged by infantry and breaking should never be allowed to run away and outrun the charging troops!

well i thought you knew all men fought to the death in the 18 century..

[Al Bundy]

On this theme - It would have been nice in Naval battles when one of you're ships was sunk and the crew are in the water that you could sail by them and pick them and they join your crew like in Pirates

[IGdood]

That time of the month?

Wait, did I just get minded?

[kesa82]

That time of the month?

Wait, did I just get minded?

Hmm, not sure. Actors are, of course, habitual and compulsive role-players. I once played a girls role on stage. At 13 I made a rather pretty girl. I've been mimicking a girl ever since.
Some people seem to think that's a bit deviant. hmm, then you need to go strait-away to Hollywood and start locking all those people up, and boycott movies and TV, because most theatre people I know make me look boringly and plainly conventional.

Anyway, it has always seemed to me that men get PMS too. Maybe men really are dumb, to be buying that excuse off of women.

Back to the topic

[Al Bundy]

and why aren't there any slaves in this game?

[Soveriegn]

and why aren't there any slaves in this game?

I love how in the last stage of Road to Independence, the woman person says that you need to build a navy so the Barbary Pirates (who did not leave the Mediterranean really) won't raid your coastline for slaves. Once again, another thing CA can't catch.

[Final Frontier]

Assimilation would've made sense- after all, if the player is able to capture enemy ships, why not be able to capture the ranks of the enemy after they've given up?

I was a bit disappointed to see that it was either 'kill or be killed' in terms of how units are used on the playfield, it would've been nice to see them 'surrender and join' at least, instead of them all magically dying after the battle is lost. (Or for the most part) It doesn't make or break the game, at least, so it's not that critical of an issue.

And I think it would fit into the game just fine; maybe they could have it so that said units could not be replenished in ranks to balance it.

[Chyeaaaa111]

Great question. As others have said, why no slaves? Other games had slaves as a (very profitable) trade resource.

[Lumina]

You can always go play Sid Meier's Gettysburg or Take Command 2nd Manassas, they have POWs. Encircle an entire Brigade with 2-3 Brigades and watch them crumble when morale goes to zero and they have no place to go. So many regiments utterly surrender.

[Humble Warrior]

Great question. As others have said, why no slaves? Other games had slaves as a (very profitable) trade resource.

CA were clear pretty early on that slaves were not going to be used as part of the game in any meaningful way. They said this about year or so even before ETW release. Many of us felt it should be in as that was how it was, but CA were pretty determined not to deal with it.

It`s the one thing they really did keep to!

[Gezoes]

Slaves, tusks, textiles, spices, same stuff, different names.

This thread is about POW's, and from what I've seen, there's none in NTW, ofcourse. Imagine that.

[Pizza de Oveja]

The post got polluted with the slaves thing but I think pow is a really different matter. It's shouldn't be that hard to have the same surrender scheme that there is in naval battles for land battles, provided there are some requisites, like that the unit does not have a clear path to run to the hills for example.

[Humble Warrior]

The post got polluted with the slaves thing but I think pow is a really different matter. It's shouldn't be that hard to have the same surrender scheme that there is in naval battles for land battles, provided there are some requisites, like that the unit does not have a clear path to run to the hills for example.

It isn`t that hard. They managed POWS in MTW, RTW and MTW2. It doesn`t take a rocket scientist to work out that men surrendered and got captured in the 18th century. CA simply messed up POWS in ETW, probably because they ran out of time and they never went back to Patch it as with most everything else in ETW.

I dunno how many times I gotta say this before people will get it.