Troops' faction change via rescuing?

[tarquineos]

So, last night I was playing newly created character on native, and at day 13 (and at level 6, I believe; and not allied of any factions, so far) I saw this:





And wondered... How the hell those River Pirates ended up fighting alongside the Swads? Besides some obvious commentaries on how the Swadians are in such a desperate need of real men to join their forces, that made me wonder about the factions system. And the answer to my previous question seems to be straightforward: a bunch of river pirates got captured by a Vaegir party, but the Vaegirs then lost a battle to a Swadian group, that was able to recruit the rescued prisoners in the same way the main character can.

Now, is this the way the faction system was intended to work? I'm pretty confused here. If the pirates indeed joined the swads the way I described, this would theoretically mean that:
- troops from both main factions (i.e., Vaegirs and Swadians) could actually change sides if captured by an outlaw group, and rescued by an opposing faction's group.
- troops from both factions could turn into outlaws, if captured by the enemy faction and rescued by an outlaw group.
- neutral troops (such as farmers) could be rescued from outlaws groups by a faction group, and then join the faction.

But the thing is, I can't remember seeing (then, again, my memory is not always reliable...  ) either such "traitor" troops neither "faction sided farmers", so my rationale is probably wrong. 

Thoughts? Ideas?

 

[Mackyownsa]

It's all simple.  The Swadians are such a powerful faction, that the weakest faction needs somebody's leg to hold onto.  The Vaegirs are trash, so the River Pirates join with the Swadian force to crush the gay mountain men.  Hooah!

 

[tarquineos]

Hey, that wasn't nice! I started to read your post, and when a saw the first phrase

It's all simple.

I suddenly thought that someone would actually explain what is going on! 

The Swadians are such a powerful faction, and some more nonsense statements

Now, although I'm pretty much tempted to answer this, let's not get this thread to degenerate in just another Vaegirs X Swadians discussion, ok? 

 

[Amman d Stazia]

tarq., in short, yes.  Any prisoner can be recruited by the party that rescues them.  I've fought Swadian war parties and nearly died because I thought the Vaegir knight was on my side... until he chopped me.  It's a bit rare to see a lot of troops change side, because the high-end troops are relatively rare, and the lower grades tend to die rather than get captured, then there is the whole thing of who captures who....

 

[Trooper5445]

That is the worse when you think someone should be on your side and then attacks you.

 

[Cleaning agent]

It's not that surprising that you don't notice traitor troops that often.

I'll explain.

Armies usually fight a certain level of other armies i.e. river pirates fight farmers and manhunters. Swads and Vaegs fight each other. Bandits prey on people near their spawning area.

Once a party, of whatever type, has won against another one, and captured the units in it, it is severely weakened, and the next party it encounters will a) be likely to beat it and b)likely to be the same type of unit as it just beat.

An example. A bandit party attacks a caravan and wins. It gains a few swadian prisoners. Since it is in Swadian territory, and weakened, it will be cahsed by every swadian party around it. So they kill em all, and recruit the prisoners back. They haven't switched sides or anything.

The same could be said for river pirates and peasants. Some peasants manage to beat a river pirate party and capture a couple of em. Then they get slaughtered by the next lot and those are recruited back!

It's quite simple!

 

[tarquineos]

OK, now I get it; thanks, everyone! 

Although now I'm pretty disturbed by the fact that I actually never noticed the traitor troops before. I've been playing for almost an year, for god sake! 

 

[Trooper5445]

It is a nice touch thought going to war with your enemies to kill your traitor allies. And then their is the "Hey buddy how are you y *dagger through neck*" part.

 

[Golcondio]

Want some fun?
NOTE: This works best if your character has a high Surgery skill.

Wait until some swadian/vaegir scouts (or, even better, a patrol) engage river pirates in combat.
Enter battle, armed with a bow.
Headshot one or two allies (not your own troops, of course: it's better if you don't field troops of the same type as the aforementioned scouts), then tab out.
Repeat until you (hopefully) knocked unconscious all the scouts.
Leave the battle, thus giving free prisoners to the pirates.

Now you can rescue them, should you need it, or wait until the pirates get owned by another party, if you're lucky the party will be of the opposite faction.
Voilà: instant traitors!

I know, it's a bit lame, but I've been playing for 2 full years now, and I need new emotions

 

[Amman d Stazia]

yep, its a good one, that. 

I like to use an escorted caravan as bait, myself.  Let them get in a fight with some banditos, then charge to the rescue, cleaning up on the loot, prisoners, etc as I do.....

 

[Cleaning agent]

I usually use Caravan quests as cheap money and easy battles. The irony is that you usually have really weak units in your crew, whereas the caravan has 2nd and 3rd tier troops who can easily kill the bandits along the way. You usually sponge their loot off them, without actually contributing much to the battle.

 

[Tacoslayer23]

That's really strange i've never seen that.

 

[Golcondio]

It's as close an exploit as you can get for this game, I'd leave it for when you're bored and you've got tendonitis from ctrl-Xing too much...

 

[Cleaning agent]

It's as close an exploit as you can get for this game

Apart from standing just out of range on a siege ramp and slashing through the stone battlements and killing the people behind them. I'd say that's an exploit more than a bug.

 

[Halden The Borch shooter]

Yeah, I have fun headshooting allies just to recuit more people to myself. 

 

[phbbbt107]

Wait, wouldn't shooting them in the head with a bow and arrow kill them? And since you can't rescue dead people...

 

[Golcondio]

If your surgery skill is high enough, you have some chances of knocking them unconscious (I headshot because it's fast, and doesn't seem to affect knockout chances...).