Ordering troups and Prisoners

[guitarrock9]

I've got two questions. first when youre in a batlle how do you order your party, ive figured out the 1 2 3 4 buttons  say hear me whoever and that o opens a menu but how do you actuallty use the orders. also is there anything you can do with regular prisoners besides sellin them to ransom brokers? Thanks to anyone who answers.

 

[Markus II]

Question #1 - F1, F2, F3 etc. They're in the controls option menu.

Question #2 - You can recruit them. At least I think you still can 0.960.

 

[guitarrock9]

thank you

 

[Shik]

To recruit from prisoners - hit the camp menu, then click recruit from prisoners.

 

[Lyze]

Yes, but you take a morale hit when recruiting prisoners. So be careful when you use it. Oh, and the prisoner type it recruits (if you have more than one type), is random, so you won't always get the troops you want. A way to get around that is to either sell the unwanted prisoners, or put them in a castle you own, so when you go to "Recruit Prisoners", there will only be one option: the troop type you wanted.

 

[vonBlood]

A note on prisoner recruiting.

What I do is when I picking who I want to take as a prisoner, I choose the largest group(s) as prisoners.  Then I deposit all of them except the largest group of prisoners in a town or castle.

Then I camp, recruit prisoners (if I'm lucky) the recruit will be successful, and it will chose the large group (because I only have one group).  Then, because my morale is low, I will then return to the castle/town and station ALL my soldiers there for a little while till I can regroup morale.  Afterwards I return and pick up my soldiers.

If you just recruit and go about your life, the morale is so low, you will amost assuredly have dessertion, but as of .960 castles and towns prevent desertion of the troops stationed there, so its a good cool off place for your men as they get used to having former prisoners become part of them.

 

[Tuidjy]

I usually invite the prisoners to join right before a battle, and move them to the front,
so that they get bloodied.  After the battle, the morale goes up, and some of them
level, so that desertions are minimized.  Garrisoning them works fine, no argument, but
feels a bit like an exploit.  On the other hand, why would the former prisoners desert,
as long as you are paying them to sit safe, warm and comfortable in a castle

 

[vonBlood]

Garrisoning them works fine, no argument, ...why would the former prisoners desert,
as long as you are paying them to sit safe, warm and comfortable in a castle

Exactly.  You recruit the prisoners, and then give them a home, wages, tavern to 'wench' in (borrowed idea from a recent topic), they get to mix in with many other soldiers, thus losing their status as 'the former enemy'... makes sense to me... and works quite nicely.