How to potentially fix "King [X] has been taken prisoner by Looters" every five minutes.

[Androme1]

From what I understand, the reason why alot of notable rulers and lords are constantly being captured by looters and small parties of other bandits is because when they're released from captivity, they spawn at the party/town/castle where they were being held prisoner, but with no army to support them. As they then attempt to make their way back to their own territory in order to start recruiting troops, they inevitably get caught by some bandit party at some point, and just end up being constantly taken prisoner over and over again.

An easy way to fix this, in my mind atleast, would be to implement the following behaviour as soon as a person is released from captivity.

- Released from captivity.
In descending order of priority:
- If person owns a town, spawn there (from most prosperous to least prosperous)
- If person owns a castle, spawn there.(from most prosperous to least prosperous)
- If person does not own any fiefs, but clan owns a town, spawn at town (from most prosperous to least prosperous)
- If person does not own any fiefs, but clan owns a castle, spawn at castle (from most prosperous to least prosperous)
- If neither person nor clan owns any fiefs, spawn at town -> castle of best friends (from most prosperous to least prosperous)
- If neither person nor clan owns any fiefs, and if person has no friends, spawn at place of release from captivity
And also:
When at extremely low or no army at all, and sitting in either town or castle, allow person to recruit until 20-30 units or so before they try to move away from that place, so as to scare off the small bandit parties atleast.

 

[Androme1]

Bump. My suggestion might not be optimal, but this is an important problem that needs addressing in some way.

 

[Lord Earl]

I kind of like the idea of a noble going through many woes on his way back to his territory. Some better AI for it would be a good idea. For example, he should move with caravans, and join up with other lords of his faction when he encounters them.

 

[DanAngleland]

I kind of like the idea of a noble going through many woes on his way back to his territory. Some better AI for it would be a good idea. For example, he should move with caravans, and join up with other lords of his faction when he encounters them.

In real life I think Androme's solution would make more sense- when released, they wouldn't just be shooed out of the door of the castle in enemy lands and left to their own devices, they'd be escorted somewhere either by their former captors or envoys from their own lands who have negotiated to be allowed to bring them home.

 

[Lord Earl]

True. Maybe if a lord's party is defeated, then a small party of him and a few bodyguards (if any survived) is spawned nearby. That would allow for a lord to sometimes be captured by bandits, without it being too frequent.

 

[deuxhero]

It's easy enough to have both by making a distinction between escaped lords and released lords.

 

[Lord Earl]

That's a good point.

 

[TheVenatoS]

I really don't understand why this hasn't been implemented from beginning , it's a sole if-else script and would make a huge difference and could help with the snowball at least a little bit.
Although it's a few factors that affect it and need fixing.