[Discuss] Pledging Ransom

[psymann]

jmadsen1 at juno.com wrote:
> I like this idea, so I'm posting again

Indeed, why not.  I've found (not in BM yet) that sometimes I have to 
make the same suggestion about 6 times over the course of a couple of 
years before it hits home ;-)

Somehow I did completely miss this - and not because of it being amongst 
general/marshal or duchy-change posts, since I have all my posts 
threaded, and just clear thread-by-thread if I don't want to read them.

> My idea has two parts: 
> 
> 1) All prisoners are captured by someone specifically
> 
> If you capture a prisoner, he is "yours" - any ransom money goes to you. Perhaps you can even control the ransom amount?

This sounds like a good idea.  To expand on it, I'd add:
- capturee always has a chance each day to escape no matter what type
- capturer has the option to send the capturee to the judge in order to 
hold him without that chance to escape
- if capturee is of a profession that gives him a chance to escape from 
the judge, that's kept, and he just has a higher chance to escape from 
the capturer
- capturer has option to set the ransom, which means if he's happy to 
let the capturee go for next to nothing, but gain a little gold, that's 
ok.  And because the ransom is set by the characters, it's likely to be 
of a sensible size.
- capturer can't do torturing, so if he wants that done, again he must 
send the capturee to the judge

So - the capturer has limited ability to hold a prisoner and demand 
ransom.  If he can't be bothered because he wanted a lightweight game, 
and this is too complicated, he just sends to the judge, or leaves the 
default ransom and waits for the noble to do his time or escape.  The 
judge still has more facility for dealing with prisoners, since he can 
hold more securely, and torture.


> 2) What do you think about an option for "attack for prisoner capturing" - a unit setting

Lovely.  I'd add it to my little collection of suggestions for altering 
unit settings so that you can actually roleplay your unit in battle more 
effectively.

http://news.battlemaster.org/archives/discuss-moderated/2007-November/013940.html

There was also a suggestion that spawned from a discussion around that 
time, that you should be able to capture banners rather than them just 
being lost - and captured banners could be taken back to the capital (or 
other region) for added prestige (and maybe region morale boost if they 
hated the enemy).  Again, that could be a unit setting.

So, with all those together, your settings could be:

murderous/aggressive/normal/defensive/evasive
line/box/wedge/skirmish
front/middle/back/rearguard
tight/middle/loose (/default=middle)
quick/middle/slow (/default=middle)
ordered/normal/autonomous (/default=normal)
percentage of men in the rear: X% (/default=10%)
try to capture banners: Y/N (/default=N)
try to capture nobles: Y/N (/default=N)

This way, you have far more chances to roleplay your unit in battle - 
something which at the moment hampers roleplay, because your 
roleplayed-as-timid unit runs to the front and kills everything, or your 
roleplayed-as-brave unit is the last into battle, does little damage and 
loses few men.

The defaults for all the new options mean that someone who wants a very 
lightweight game can get it, and the maths would be set up so that 
default was always at least an "ok" tactic.  The optimal might be a 
little away from default, but you could also deliberately choose 
sub-optimal tactics if that suited your type of troops.

psymann


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