Slaves, Hostages and Prisoners of War

[Thunderbrd]

Above all else, resistance to capture is about the prospective captive's expectation as to how they will be treated. If captivity is expected to be a "fate worse than death", resistance will be pretty much total. Remember that people can and do kill themselves to avoid capture, so it's not just a matter of "can I subdue them without killing them?" - more "can I subdue them before they abandon hope?"

Worldviews will necessarily play a big part in this. Many people will consider being eaten by their enemies to be worse than death by other means. Similarly human sacrifice, especially as it often involves (what amounts to) torture. Slavery, on the other hand, does not involve dying, and thus is - generally speaking - easier to accept.

A building establishes a worldview right? So we can easily have the national modifiers off of those. But you make a great point as to why civics will also be a major source of modification.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Good point! So to say, if your enemy had Worldview Sacrifice or Cannibalism, your units had a higher resistance, or, simpler: These worldviews reduce your chance for capturing.

I would think they would increase the chance of capturing because your units would be trying to for those reasons. But they'd also increase capture resistance because they'd be suspicious that others would be trying to capture THEM for this reason.

 

[Faustmouse]

But on the other hand, when your enemies KNOW that you adopted cannibalism, they would try by all means to avoid getting captured. So their resistance (or your capturing rate, which is basically the same here) would increase (decrease) because of that.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

If you are running cannibalism you probably should get some food from all kills.

 

[Faustmouse]

If you are running cannibalism you probably should get some food from all kills.

This would make Cannibalism extremely powerful. It should come with some diplo malus (increasing as the game progresses) and a lot of Disease. Also we could have Diseases that require Cannibalism Worldview!

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

We already do. Each time you eat someone you may get that prion disease.

 

[Faustmouse]

You mean Kuru? Sure, but other diseases can spread with cannibalism much easier. So more disease would be appropiated.

 

[Thunderbrd]

But on the other hand, when your enemies KNOW that you adopted cannibalism, they would try by all means to avoid getting captured. So their resistance (or your capturing rate, which is basically the same here) would increase (decrease) because of that.

Best to manifest that as an actual resistance for the other units I think. Dynamics-wise I don't think we can do it yet. But perhaps building out something along the lines of having enough espionage into your opponent can tell which ones do. I dunno... but as you said "WHEN your enemies KNOW" so what about the ones that don't?

 

[Faustmouse]

Hmmm... I *think* it is possible to trigger an event for Player A if player B has a certain building - Worldview (Cannibalism) so to say. This event could give player B's units a free Promotion "scared of Cannibalism" which grants +20% Resistance or something like this

The downsides:
a) This Promo will stay even when you abandon this Worldview (but this can be changed via event as well I guess)

b) The Promotions are against all Players. So Player C,D,E...'s units would also face a 20% harder to capture army.

Not a very nice way I think. But that's advanced stuff and we should leave it until the rest is implented.
BTW I replied to your statements and it would be nice if you could mark all the values green that you agree with me.


OR, what just popped in my head: A "Scard of Cannibalism" Promotion becomes available when someone build the Cannibalism building. You can choose to promote your unit with that, or prefer combat Promotions and don't want to waste a Promo-slot.
Also, not very nice...

 

[Thunderbrd]

What if we make the World View give all your units a Cannibal Combat Class. Then we give the CC a + to capture as well as something for DH to work with so they can produce food. It could also give access to further promos - particularly ones that enhance the ability to capture.

I'd have to make a tag for it but we could have a Capture/Capture Resistance set of tags vs particular combat classes. At that point, a growing cultural fear of cannibalism could set in. Is it possible to have events that trigger when a combat result has taken place? If so we could put in a chance for an event to trigger whenever you lose a unit to a Cannibal Combat Class unit - that event could give the Fear of Cannibalism concept you're talking about and could give a free Fear of Cannibalism promotion to all units that adds a Capture Resistance vs Cannibalism - and perhaps access to further promotions down a promotionline that lets those units choose to look out for Cannibalism further, gaining a combat bonus, withdrawal bonus and capture resistance bonus vs Cannibal CCs.

I'll review that document again here in a bit.

 

[Faustmouse]

I'm not sure if you can trigger an event after fighting. At least not more then one per turn I guess... Platyping probably knows more about it. Good idea with the free Promo and CC from the Worldview, but I'm still on the Fence that Cannibalism should influence capturing chance too much...

 

[Faustmouse]

Some observations about ingame Capturing:

Dogs: No Captetives. (which is good)
Crossbowman: Captetives (obviously)
Tanks: Captetives (good!)
Helicopters: Captetives (also good!)
Robot: Captetives (this should not be the case)
Wooden-Siege: No Captetives (This is bad I think)*
Gunpowder-Siege: No Captetives (as above)*
Gatling-Gun: Captetives (which is good)

Any more units you are interested in "getting tested"?

*You get, however, the siege unit when you step on it's plot. So only the LAST one, no matter what Capturing Chances you have.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

What if we make the World View give all your units a Cannibal Combat Class. Then we give the CC a + to capture as well as something for DH to work with so they can produce food. It could also give access to further promos - particularly ones that enhance the ability to capture.

I'd have to make a tag for it but we could have a Capture/Capture Resistance set of tags vs particular combat classes. At that point, a growing cultural fear of cannibalism could set in. Is it possible to have events that trigger when a combat result has taken place? If so we could put in a chance for an event to trigger whenever you lose a unit to a Cannibal Combat Class unit - that event could give the Fear of Cannibalism concept you're talking about and could give a free Fear of Cannibalism promotion to all units that adds a Capture Resistance vs Cannibalism - and perhaps access to further promotions down a promotionline that lets those units choose to look out for Cannibalism further, gaining a combat bonus, withdrawal bonus and capture resistance bonus vs Cannibal CCs.

I'll review that document again here in a bit.

Possible. You would need to put that combat class on when you activate that world view and remove it when you end it.

No event trigger but we could do something in python. Build a building or two in the nation that looses to captives that gives the resistance.

Some observations about ingame Capturing:

Dogs: No Captetives. (which is good)
Crossbowman: Captetives (obviously)
Tanks: Captetives (good!)
Helicopters: Captetives (also good!)
Robot: Captetives (this should not be the case)
Wooden-Siege: No Captetives (This is bad I think)*
Gunpowder-Siege: No Captetives (as above)*
Gatling-Gun: Captetives (which is good)

Any more units you are interested in "getting tested"?

*You get, however, the siege unit when you step on it's plot. So only the LAST one, no matter what Capturing Chances you have.

Some units use the capture tag they are not killed so they don't trigger the captive mechanism. This seems to be the case for some siege units. It should capture all the units that way.

 

[Faustmouse]

Some units use the capture tag they are not killed so they don't trigger the captive mechanism. This seems to be the case for some siege units. It should capture all the units that way.

Yes! You should be able to capture the Cannon (sometimes) and the People that use it. This shouldn't relate to each other. All four possible capture/no-capture outcomes should be possible.

And we need a tag on robots that prevents them to get captured (I tested the Scout Mech).

BTW: Why are some Mechs robots while others are "Species (Human")?

 

[Yudishtira]

And we need a tag on robots that prevents them to get captured (I tested the Scout Mech).

Sorry but why shouldn't robots get captured?

 

[Hydromancerx]

Some observations about ingame Capturing:

Wooden-Siege: No Captetives (This is bad I think)*

*You get, however, the siege unit when you step on it's plot. So only the LAST one, no matter what Capturing Chances you have.

Yeah capturing siege engines and boats is very powerful. While its logical to have a crew for them to provide captures I wonder if its over powered to get both a captive AND a siege engine or boat.

Perhaps you can only do one. You can either get captives OR get a siege engine, but not both. Then again it would add some spice if you were lucky enough to get it all.

Also in the boats case what if you capture them at sea and have no cargo space to carry them?

 

[Faustmouse]

Sorry but why shouldn't robots get captured?

They should be able to be captured, but they shouldn't transform into a Captetive that can be eaten with Cannibalism
Could make even stronger version of Slave specialists!


Edit:
You really think that capturing siege weapons is powerful? I almost instandly delete them; they have no pormotions!
I haven't thought about the boats... right now, non of them gets any boni for or against capturing...

 

[Yudishtira]

They should be able to be captured, but they shouldn't transform into a Captetive that can be eaten with Cannibalism

There is a tag in UnitInfos specially for specifying what the unit becomes when captured.

If you make any units capturable that weren't before, I think they will need to get values in this tag.

 

[Faustmouse]

Ah, good to know!
I think basically every unit that has a human attached to it (so all manned siege units tanks, wheeled etc units) should become captetives. We can make up a new Captetive Type for Robot. But this would also require new specialists.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Yes! You should be able to capture the Cannon (sometimes) and the People that use it. This shouldn't relate to each other. All four possible capture/no-capture outcomes should be possible.

And we need a tag on robots that prevents them to get captured (I tested the Scout Mech).

BTW: Why are some Mechs robots while others are "Species (Human")?

Mechs are human driven vehicles while Robots are purely AI.

Sorry but why shouldn't robots get captured?

Read below.

Yeah capturing siege engines and boats is very powerful. While its logical to have a crew for them to provide captures I wonder if its over powered to get both a captive AND a siege engine or boat.

Perhaps you can only do one. You can either get captives OR get a siege engine, but not both. Then again it would add some spice if you were lucky enough to get it all.

Also in the boats case what if you capture them at sea and have no cargo space to carry them?

I THINK you may be able to do both but it depends on how DH setup his captives mechanism. As for boats... due to complexity of cargo I think we assume all naval battles fail to capture the crew or carried units - those are assumed to die at sea though we also assume captured boats to be something we can then man once hijacked. Assumes we have extra crew that can do this.

There is a tag in UnitInfos specially for specifying what the unit becomes when captured.

If you make any units capturable that weren't before, I think they will need to get values in this tag.

That tag operates on a different mechanism. See comments below.

Ah, good to know!
I think basically every unit that has a human attached to it (so all manned siege units tanks, wheeled etc units) should become captetives. We can make up a new Captetive Type for Robot. But this would also require new specialists.

Capturing robots and reprogramming them... interesting concept. Maybe best to restrict this to another mechanism entirely.


This conversation shows us where our understanding of capturing stands.

There's more than one capture mechanism:
1) When a unit is designating it's capture type it's possible to capture that unit and when it is it will be converted to the type designated in the xml. This works off of its own dynamic and the 'capture chance' we're talking about here does not currently work into this mechanism at all. I've been meaning to check but I think it may be that DH checks for this tag to be used on the unit and if it is, it's not valid for capturing according to the capture mechanism we've been discussing here.

2) There's a very specific mechanism in python for capturing naval and siege units. Again, this differs from the dynamic we're discussing. I believe it operates off the capture tag on the unit too though. I'm not so sure how these work entirely.

3) When units have 0 power AND a designated capture type, there's no chance - it's an automatic capture and conversion of that unit to the type designated.

4) Then there's the mechanism we're discussing that turns units into 'captives' of whatever type - Neanderthal, Military, Civilian etc... This dynamic is based on the percentage chance to capture and the capture resistance of the unit. It always produces types of captives as noted and does not work off the Captive tag on the victim unit at all.

If we make robots capturable under this mechanism, we'd be turning an artificial hunk of metal and programming into a person. Pinocchio would be jealous. If we have Catapults being both capturable under the siege and Captive mechanism that may be rational as we've caught not only the mechanism but the crew as well.

Otherwise units that operate on the other mechanisms are probably Not Applicable for use under this one so their chances of resisting capture or capturing are irrelevant. At some point I'll try to figure out how to best hide these compiled values on units where it doesn't make a difference and replace this display with a note stating how capturing does work for them (in brief like : When defeated may be captured.)

Next cycle I can take a look at all the capture mechanisms and see if perhaps we'd like to blend them all into a master version that takes all the different versions into account. Til then, proceed forth with this knowledge.

I'm sure DH could offer a lot more about the other captive mechanisms and about how he programmed this one specifically. My role in this was to make these new tags and build the ability for these new tags to compile and interact with his Captives mechanism. He then had to plug them into his formula.