P.O.W. as tradable manpower

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    • P.O.W. as tradable manpower

      Hi,

      I was thinking about prisoners of war and how could it be possible introduced into game like this. I read several suggestion but they tend to focus on labor camps or smt. This is my take, seeing P.O.W. only as (exchangeable) resource and trying to reduce any micromanagement that came up in other suggestions and additional user timed actions.

      1. What is it
      Prisoners would be special kind of resource, as it is not simply global resource for your country, but you would have a list of prisoners based on countries they come from. Therefore they can only be viewed in separate list.
      F.e. in Diplomacy-Information view where list of countries is, there would be additional column with two numbers, one above the other, representing number of your soldiers they currently have as POWs and vice versa, number of their soldiers that you imprisoned. Could also be new tab just for that as well, I guess.

      2. Acquiring
      Since I see no point in having options during the battle as that would be too much for most players, and since it is common thing in all wars, I am thinking that this should happen automatically. I am not sure what rules for this would make sense, and I'm looking forward to suggestions. I am thinking like in small clashes it shouldn't happen. But if battle has more that 10k soldiers on both side, then might be possible. Also, not every battle. If difference in strength is not too high then I guess nothing. But if one side is much stronger, the smaller army would more likely surrender.
      How much? I was thinking small steps so balance is not disturbed too much. Either some fixed percentage, like 5%, or even better - as the battle rages on, small army is losing numbers. The last number it has before it is destroyed would be added to POW count. So battle still lasts the same amount of time, with the last hit of winning army that destroys the losing army, would act like this imprisonment of soldiers as prisoners. Should then winning army suffer the last bit of damage? I would say yes for now so battles stay the same, even though logically it makes no sense.

      3. Usage
      I do have few ideas, but the most important one is - exchange of prisoners. When making the trade to another player, POWs would be new kind of resource or, new kind of category, whatever feels better UX. I guess you could offer your POWS for his, but I don't see a reason to stick only to POWs-POWs exchange. F.e. you might ask for monetary reparations, or just some other resource in order to release his soldiers.

      If offer is accepted, POWs disappear as the resource and are simply added to other player's manpower pool.

      4. Balance
      I like the idea of potential small boost in manpower, but aware that balance might be damaged. I'm just hoping that this disbalance works in both ways. Also, most likely it won't change much as winning side will most likely not release POWs if they are not confident of victory.

      5. Fun part
      Diplomacy, off course! :) bigger nation may release POWs if they feel secure but wants the smaller enemy to be able to put some resistance, perhaps on some other front. Also, strong nations will end up having more POWs, this gives smaller nations some hope that, if they get their soldiers back, they might be able to put up another fight. Once the balance of power becomes clearer, I don't think it changes much anyway, which is the safe position, but adds some flavor. You might even try to negotiate release of POWs of your ally, that would be cool.

      6. Other
      Well, I was just thinking how cool would it be to have actual in-game thing to improve your reputation. If there would be option to simply release POWs without the trade offer, then depending on the number of POWs and the ratio of your and opponents armies or land sizes (since it is not very noble noble when other nation is already broken), those computer controlled players would realize that you are not just heartless conqueror and might not attack you for a while longer :)

      Looking forward to feedback, criticism, suggestions....

      Cheers
    • ahhh I understand now, creating a prisoner pool that you could negotiate with the respective player. Great idea, though it may get a bit messy if multiple countries are involved. Wonder if there would be an upkeep on the amount of POWS you have, and if so perhaps a more darker route (meaning your global popularity will decrease and perhaps the respective POW's country would got a small moral boost) where you could choose to pick 'Geneva Convention slight avoidances' by uh... decreasing the amount of prisoners or if you can delegate prisoners to uh 'voluntary community input' by having a certain amount boost construction, almost like the premium currency but heavily, heavily nerfed.
      Make HWW all in, a staple gamemode :thumbup:
    • and icing on the cake if this feature were to be mixed with supply lines (encirclements), whereby encircled troops were more likely to increase the number of prisoners taken, that would be amazing. But until then let this post be sent into the darkest dustiest corner of the forum.
      Make HWW all in, a staple gamemode :thumbup:
    • I like the idea of supply lines, and that would combine great with this idea.

      As for 'Geneva Convention slight avoidances', I actually wrote another option with "release" being "execute" which would only have negative effect (beside reputation, enemy where POWs come from would get morale boost in their provinces as they are more resolved) but you could still do it just as flavor of being evil or smt. And then I deleted that part as I was concerned not to be misunderstood :D
    • I enjoy the originality of this idea. I like the idea of an additional diplomacy mechanic.

      I also think it could be interesting to add an intelligence aspect to this. Let's say you have a ~5% chance of capturing an officer or squad leader within the destroyed unit that provides intel of a nearby enemy unit or structure (ie airfields).

      My other contributing thought is that you're going to have to feed these POWs. So, I expect there would need to be a food penalty, similar to any other infantry unit.
      The elephant is the only land mammal that cannot jump.
    • purplepizza117 wrote:

      Maybe playing into the 'most feared nation' view of the AI and global popularity could be the tendency to not release POWs too? Idk, just spitballing.
      depends, in war you're really only obligated to release POW's if either the war ends or if you make a deal with the enemy you're fighting to do so, if no deal is made and the war is still on as long you dont mistreat nobody would blame you for just holding on to them