Recruiting from defeated armies

[ray243]

One issue with Total war is that you often have two ridiculous choice to make when you defeat the enemy army. You either wipe out 99 percent of the enemy army, which is quite ahistorical, or you have to release an amount of prisoners for them to fight you again.

What happened when the Romans defeated an enemy tribe is that they will essentially force the defeated survivors to join the Roman army and ship them to a place far away. Often those units formed from enemy tribes would become a integrated part of the army, as they drafted replacements from Romans.

So will CA feature this in R2TW?

[Deadly Rabbit]

I hope so.

[truth1337]

Not only this, but most battles in history weren't just 100% killed on one side and 10-40% killed on the other. Especially for barbarians, they were supposedly pushing games with a kind of friendly undertone. Rome had a different opinion, where battles were a way of extincting all fighting capable men of the tribe they were conquering. But even in that case, tactical aspects would often prevent them from a total slaughter of every last man in each battle. Retreats and new enagagements would happen. That is a general complaint I have about TW, which would improve the game A LOT if they fixed. Now the roman era might actually be one of the few eras where it wasn't too uncommon with such total wipeouts - Trebia, Trasimene, Cannae, Carrhae, Teutoburg forest and more come to mind, but I still believe the vast majority of battles featured the defeated retreating in order to either fight a new battle, or discuss peace terms after seeing the casualties were not acceptable to continue fighting.

[ray243]

Not only this, but most battles in history weren't just 100% killed on one side and 10-40% killed on the other. Especially for barbarians, they were supposedly pushing games with a kind of friendly undertone. Rome had a different opinion, where battles were a way of extincting all fighting capable men of the tribe they were conquering. But even in that case, tactical aspects would often prevent them from a total slaughter of every last man in each battle. Retreats and new enagagements would happen. That is a general complaint I have about TW, which would improve the game A LOT if they fixed. Now the roman era might actually be one of the few eras where it wasn't too uncommon with such total wipeouts - Trebia, Trasimene, Cannae, Carrhae, Teutoburg forest and more come to mind, but I still believe the vast majority of battles featured the defeated retreating in order to either fight a new battle, or discuss peace terms after seeing the casualties were not acceptable to continue fighting.

Total wipeout was a very rare thing. Even if the case of a massive defeat like Cannae, there are enough survivors from the battle to be reformed into a new unit. If whatever empire is rich enough to afford employing more men into their ranks, they should be able to ask the surrendered tribes to contribute men as a tribute. However, if the empire isn't rich enough to afford a much bigger standing army, they should disperse the majority of men within your empire and enslave them.

If R2TW is going to extend the time period to the imperial era, we should see more instances of recruiting men from defeated enemy. After all, able bodied men were not easy to come by, given the Roman's strict definition of an able bodied men.

[warrior6]

Not only this, but most battles in history weren't just 100% killed on one side and 10-40% killed on the other. Especially for barbarians, they were supposedly pushing games with a kind of friendly undertone. Rome had a different opinion, where battles were a way of extincting all fighting capable men of the tribe they were conquering. But even in that case, tactical aspects would often prevent them from a total slaughter of every last man in each battle. Retreats and new enagagements would happen. That is a general complaint I have about TW, which would improve the game A LOT if they fixed. Now the roman era might actually be one of the few eras where it wasn't too uncommon with such total wipeouts - Trebia, Trasimene, Cannae, Carrhae, Teutoburg forest and more come to mind, but I still believe the vast majority of battles featured the defeated retreating in order to either fight a new battle, or discuss peace terms after seeing the casualties were not acceptable to continue fighting.

the problem is that when your in battle and the enemy army is routing, cavalry rack up kills as if they were armed with assault rifles and SMGs. and they continue to do so even when the routing units are far away on the map that nothing on foot will catch them. why dont they just turn around and try to kill the cavalry with their superior numbers?

you could have a group of 100 spearmen in rout and far away on the battle map far from you main army and 6 horsemen that catch up to them (doesnt wat kind of cav) will cut them all to pieces before they can leave the map. if they could recognize hey i think we could kill these 6 guys and get out of here alive, you wouldnt have such horrendous casualty rates after a battle.

this was especially hilarious in FOTS when a small group of sabre cavalry with like 10 guys (suffered casualties in battle) are cutting down 100s of routing troops who are armed with rifles and bayonets.

[Ichon]

you could have a group of 100 spearmen in rout and far away on the battle map far from you main army and 6 horsemen that catch up to them (doesnt wat kind of cav) will cut them all to pieces before they can leave the map. if they could recognize hey i think we could kill these 6 guys and get out of here alive, you wouldnt have such horrendous casualty rates after a battle.

this was especially hilarious in FOTS when a small group of sabre cavalry with like 10 guys (suffered casualties in battle) are cutting down 100s of routing troops who are armed with rifles and bayonets.

It does not seem so bad to me that cavalry can cut down routers though honestly I would rather have it automatically done as I think a large percentage of men running away would stop and hide, not continue running out in the open, it makes more sense that a percentage of routers would get caught based on cavalry left on the winning side. Also since ETW it is much more difficult if not nearly impossible to manage a fighting withdrawal as even if you exit the field with majority of your forces intact the game automatically kills most of them at the end of battle. With some MTW2 mods BAI manages fighting retreats fairly well, if attacker attempts to rashly attack to prevent withdrawal the BAI sometimes even returns to the battle- I would really like to see that in RTW2.

It was when the pursuit was pressed against disorganized and fleeing men that usually led to the majority of casualties. Also it is quite commonly reported that men fleeing battle throw down their weapons to gain more speed to run away. I find it more annoying that fresh infantry in pursuit find it impossible to chase down exhausted men.

[oppaiO_O]

this is already doable in fots on a small scale with artillery if your enemy has artillery and you wiped his infantry out most likely in most cases that artillery will be yours after the battle is kinda like when you capture a boat but this time it only works for arty but being able to recruit other units from your foe sounds good only if they have proper stats like like maybe high hit points because they're skilled warriors but low morale since they're fighting for you and not their country...

[Love Mountain]

I always thought that the option to capture enemy artillery should exist in Empire and Napoleon. Just like theability to draft enemy soldiers. Would add a lot of authenticity to thegame.

[HappyGoodVibes]

There apparently was a roman legion that could have been captured and stationed in the east by parthia or some such nation. They might have even fought han empire soldiers. It's always dangerous to recruit from the enemy's soldiers however, since active soldiers usually don't change sides that easily. I think the more common practice was to sell the majority of soldiers into slavery while the best fighters could have been recruited like mercenaries, but only after their country is defeated. That was a reason parthia didn't station that legion in the west: it would have been too easy for the soldiers to run back to rome if they got a chance.

I think recruiting directly from a defeated army is a tricky thing to implement. If it ever happened it was very rare or it was with a group of soldiers that were not "loyalist" (such as defeated mercenary companies changing sides after they get captured). By and large I think captured soldiers were sold into slavery.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

Slavery makes sense or hostage, direct recrutment less.

[Asgaroth]

Slavery makes sense or hostage, direct recrutment less.

I agree. They should bring back the old MTW II system where you could release, kill or sell prisoners.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

I agree. They should bring back the old MTW II system where you could release, kill or sell prisoners.

It was also nice in Rome Total War. If you enslaved a hole city you got a bonus on the map on slavery and you got automaticly faster a high population on your own cities which was important to get better building or just be able to recruit units.

[Manuel I Komnenos]

By the way this was quite often used by the Hellenistic armies. Since the soldiers were mainly Macedonians, they would rally around the victorious and most prestigious ruler. It happened during the Diadochi wars and occurred in the battles between the Epirotes and the Macedonians as well. In fact, such battles were decided quickly by a move of the cavalry and the victor never attempted to annihilate the enemy force but to inflict as less damage as possible so that the precious Macedonian soldiers of his enemy would join his army.

[Derbiean]

I think in regards to direct recruitment they could implement a small tweak in addition to the MTW2 feature of releasing, ransoming or executing prisoners, that is you could have a certain amount of the defeated army be willing to join your empire where you get the choice of accepting or rejecting them.

[Asgaroth]

It was also nice in Rome Total War. If you enslaved a hole city you got a bonus on the map on slavery and you got automaticly faster a high population on your own cities which was important to get better building or just be able to recruit units.

I agree. It was very nice.

They could make that besides higher population of your city you get a bonus in happiness because people don't need to work hard jobs such as the mines, industries in general as the slaves do because of them.

It could be just for a while not all the time, like 10 turns at least.

[Wowwars]

I agree, and I think maybe we should have an actual prison in cities or somewhere maybe not for soldiers but for generals/mademen/noble-born.

[AngryTitusPullo]

One issue with Total war is that you often have two ridiculous choice to make when you defeat the enemy army. You either wipe out 99 percent of the enemy army, which is quite ahistorical, or you have to release an amount of prisoners for them to fight you again.

What happened when the Romans defeated an enemy tribe is that they will essentially force the defeated survivors to join the Roman army and ship them to a place far away. Often those units formed from enemy tribes would become a integrated part of the army, as they drafted replacements from Romans.

So will CA feature this in R2TW?

It's already implemented somewhat in Shogun 2. You'll given a unit when you destroy the last province and make it vassal.

You can also capture cannons in FOTS and also ships since Empire so I'm sure some of these features will be carry forward to Rome II.

If you mean field battles then defeated or captured enemies are sold as slave. One does not immediately recruited defeated enemies to fulfil your ranks after battles. Only after the war.

[DarthShizNit]

I think this would work for factions of the same culture, phalanx's will switch to other greeks, legions in a civil war, other barbarian tribes. I don't see this happening on a pluasible scale between two completly diffrent cultures.

[Deadly Rabbit]

I think it is and should be possible between cultures. How many examples do you need of Rome and many other nations fielding foreign auxiliary units?

[Ichon]

I think it is and should be possible between cultures. How many examples do you need of Rome and many other nations fielding foreign auxiliary units?

How many were recruited directly after a battle from defeated enemy? None I can think of though maybe there is some example it was definitely rare. It does make sense for vassals, allies, and mercenaries though.