Prisons?

[GreenKnight]

I was just tracking a Swadian Prisoner train, but alas, they'd made it to Praven before I could catch up. And the idea hit me? Why not have some way to get those prisoners back? Depending on what sort of a war is being fought, it doesn't seem unreasonable that there's a system of prisoner exchanges in place. So what if there was a prison in every city, where you could go and purchase freedom for all the POWs currently held there. At that point, they'd appear on the map outside the city as just another rescued prisoner party. The difference is that you can control the size of said party, so that you could always be sure you could recruit them into your party. Also, this prison could house an officer of either army, who would offer you a reward for every prisoner you brought in...the amount hopefully varying this time, depending on the calibre of units you brought in.

 

[Narcissus]

VERY good idea! Not sure how hard that would be to put into the game but I really like it.

Narcissus

 

[Cor Shan]

In the MA, they would execute enemy soldiers upon reaching their towns. So realism -1. But for knights, there would be a ransom.

 

[okiN]

Actually, Cor Shan, they wouldn't. They'd kill them, sure, but it's not like they'd be able (Or willing) to do it within five minutes of arrival. Therefore there should be the option to bust them out of jail before they're executed, which should take place a day or two after they're brought in.

 

[alesch]

They would have kept everyone until a ransom had actually been refused I think. It was probably a lot less common for medieval lords to pay for the safe return of their peasant levys, but they still probably weren't executed on arrival just in case there was an unusually compassionate/wealthy lord who would pay for their return. They just wouldn't pass up the chance to raise money.

I really like this idea, prisons with affiliations wouldn't pay much for bandits and such, but for higher level enemies might pay a nice amount. Maybe you could get quests form the prisons, such as "Track down the group of escaped prisoners" or maybe make it possible for the PC or Borcha and Marnid to be captured, forcing you to pay a ransom or possibly raid the prison to retrieve them.

 

[armagan]

Hmmm. Meeting with an enemy party and exchanging prisoners could be an interesting quest.

 

[bewing77]

Feeding peasant prisoners would probably cost more than what could ever be excpected as a reward for them so in most cases they would probably just be killed off. Another thing to remeber is that in some parts of europ (the nordic countries) POWs where kept around as slaves.