KarlXII said:
Gorvex said:
1) The problem with militia patrols dropping off prisoners into the closest walled fief is that the player can abuse it to get free prisoners to sell for hefty sums. And the developers don't want to make PoP any easier with some free money.
Is that really all that bad? Can't the player also abuse the feasts option to get hundreds of prisoners at a time? (maybe that's just me). And we're only talking 2 patrols on average per walled fief. Not to mention their prisoners aren't high tier (usually).
I dunno, it just doesn't seem like abuse to me...
Though the devs could balance it by making slave trading "dishonorable" where you lose honor each time you sell prisoners (maybe). I'm just spitballing and seeing what sticks
Of course it can be an abuse, but not in the normal way of using patrols, no. The problem comes when the player gives his militia patrols some troops that he doesn't need, or train a bunch of units that do very well in autocalc, like Legionnaires or Gladiators. You don't have to pay the wages of your militia patrols, yet you can buff them as much as you want. Own a castle and it's village in the Noldor forest area, do this to one (or two) of your own militia patrols, and you can get a serious prisoner-gathering army. And you don't have to do anything further, just come back occasionally, and collect those juicy prisoners to sell. Or just gather some free renown, honor and relations for releasing them. Noldor patrols just love to engage, even if they can't win in autocalc. Couple that with a 300+ men patrol, and a lot of fighting (with a lot of prisoners) will happen. Also, those militia patrols can replenish their numbers by recruiting the prisoners that the Noldor had. Just like the player can maintain 6-7 Noldor patrol-hunting this way, with the difference that the player's intervention is not needed, and he doesn't have to pay the wages either...
Sure, you can also get a lot of free prisoners from hosting feasts, but the difference is that it's part of the game already, while the militia patrols dropping off their prisoners would need to be added. By changing everything that follows the same "logic" would increase the amount of possible abuse and make PoP easier as a result for nothing. A snowball effect to be exact.
Madman666 said:
I guess the main problem would be that you can farm prisoners with those patrols, stuffing them with troops, which don't require any more money and letting loose say on noldor border, to hunt for noldors and then bring them to your fief for profits, relations and honor (noldor nobles). And since patrols are AI controlled and won't get the new x2 penalty for autocalcing noldors, it can become second best way of getting noldor prisoners... But well, it still requires a lot of trained, decent troops to stuff in a patrol and those patrols take out noldors anyway if you provide sufficient force.
@Madman also explains it pretty well why it's a bad idea. Just follow the discussion on page 211 started by davvynn if you'd like. As you can see, at the beginning, I suggested to add this tweak as well. But I changed my mind and left it to the developers to decide. Generally, I just love the tweaks @Leonion made. They are so awesome and add a lot of improvements! But I try to see things from the devs perspective as well, and sort out tweaks that would make life easier in PoP without having to do anything in return.
Of course, if the case up ahead could be countered (like making prisoner-selling a dishonorable act as you suggested) or prevented in any way, I would be very pleased to have that prisoner-dropping tweak for militia patrols officially
. So don't get me wrong. I know that it can be annoying when there are patrols of 1-3 men roaming with 100+ prisoners, waiting to get their prisoners recruited by someone else
