POWs?

[RusskiSoldat]

I haven't played the original medieval, just Rome, so can someone explain to me how prisoners of war work?

[Spartan156]

Uh i belive its just like kills with no real reson at all, or theres probably some other use in the game for them, like prisoner exchange.

[Crimson Scythe]

You can ransom back POWs and get some cash after a battle. The amount you received depended on the quality of the soldier in MTW, and obviously nobility and generals brought in a pretty penny too.

[Lusted]

Basically, during a battle you accumultate prisoners based on the number of routing soldiers you kill. A button will appeasr on the user interface ocne you start to get prisoners, and you can click it at any time to kill them all. In MTW it made a suitably gruesome sound if you did this, in M2Tw apparently you will hear begging sounds. If you do not kill the prisnoers, after the battle a screen will pop-up telling you how many troops you have captured, and there are 3 buttons: release, ransom, execute.

[nameless]

No I think it's the moment when two units engage each other the number of prisoners will start to rise randomly from what I have seen.

[gnaeus]

Prisoners begin to be taken as soon as you chase and kill the other armies routed unit from what I've noticed in M2:TW

[nameless]

Prisoners begin to be taken as soon as you chase and kill the other armies routed unit from what I've noticed in M2:TW

EDIT: nope, the number started increasing the moment the unmounted french knights smashed into my english knights...unless they started routing already...

[Anaea]

and what you do with your prisoners also has an affect on your chilvalry++++----Dread trait meter thing.

[Kanfoosh]

The french knights(mounted) rout on impact in that highly scripted battle.

[Gaius Baltar]

I haven't played the original medieval, just Rome, so can someone explain to me how prisoners of war work?

In the original MTW, during a battle, when an enemy unit started routing, you would start taking a number of prisoners (rather than killing them). You had a screen option to kill the prisoners if you wished.

1. Kill them - dread rating increased for commanding general - may have also had a moral effect on the enemey, not sure
2. Spare them - you then ransom them after battle. Could be fairly lucrative depending on how many and if nobles were involved.

[Pooki]

You could also spare the soldiers and kill only the ring leaders

[MadeManG74]

I like the sounds of it, since in RTW if you were i serious need of coin you pretty much needed to capture a settlement, which in turn would then need to be kept in order, meaning spending more, meaning you needed to conquer another settlement etc etc, or at least with WRE in Bi it was like that. This sounds pretty cool though, instead of attacking a city, take your best men and try to capture the enemy's Generals or Royalty then ransom them back for some funds

[ShangTang]

Man that killing sound when you clicked the button in MTW was the best thing ever.

[Sétanta]

I agree.

Anyways, I have seen the prisoner numbers increase as soon as contact is made with the enemy forces. Maybe that is not how it is intended, but that is how it is working on my computer. The most prisoners I have gotten was from the battle of Agincourt with about 250.

[Matty_P]

i got 400 because I used my cavalry to chase routers in the tutorial...

[MoROmeTe]

There were prisoners and prisoners in MTW.

When you engaged an enemy army and routed them you gained prisoners. They could be executed at any time during the battle, but after the battle ended they were automatically ransomed. I gained a lot of cash this way... ransoming some kings or offspring of kings netted upwards of 20 000...

When you engaged a rebel or civil war army prisoners were also gained. After the batle one could spare them, execute the ringleaders or execute them all...

I hope that my failing memeory did not betray me again...

[Centurion-Lucius-Vorenus]

Man that killing sound when you clicked the button in MTW was the best thing ever.

Yeah, that was always fun, in a kinda sick demented way.

[SaberHRE]

Yeah i agree, those sounds were pretty grotesque(but sounded pretty realistic).

From what i remember of MTW PoW played an important role, but somewhat neglected one. You had only 1 options. Kill the PoWs during battle(gives you a dread trait, scant mercy i believe), otherwise the enemy either ransomed the prisoners(though they often did not even when there was a prince among the PoWs ), if they didn't the PoWs automatically died. In RTW they totally deleted this i believe and routing enemy was just killed(in contrast to MTW where routing enemy was "captured").

[Lord Janos]

But surely if you charge a routing unit and kill the soldiers they can't be prisoners anymore... because they're dead? Or is this just realism that has to be compensated for the sake of gameplay? Not that it's a bad thing, of course.

[Destraex]

it is assumed that as you fight a unit you start taking prisoners if the enemy unit is losing. In mtw1 you could kill them if the battle was not going your way.
I could not see this feature in the mtw2 demo