Total War Prisoners

[Mus]

POWs dont disband when you eliminate their faction in Total War. Nor do you recover your POWs. Is that working as designed?

[ericbabe]

Yes.

[barbarossa2]

I am curious what all of this means.

So if I declare a total war on France (and I am Russia), the men of mine which France has captured are not returned? So in a total war I can assume the loss of the manpower which is captured? And visa versa?

Just curious.

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

Yes.

Why does it work that way then? Shouldnt Prussian POWs be removed from play along with all the other Prussian units when their faction is eliminated and who is holding my units prisoner if Prussia no longer exists?

[;)]

Seems like its working backwards from the way it should. My units captured by Prussia are removed from play and I have a big stack of Prussian POWs sitting on my capital.

Oh hey, something else I just noticed is theres a large stack of unemployed Prussian Generals sitting on Brandenburg.

[:D]

[barbarossa2]

I am curious about this too.  And it really doesn't make sense to me either.  Are they killing these prisoners?!?!?

[ericbabe]

Being a prisoner-of-war during the Napoleonic era was indeed often quite fatal, particularly under total war type conditions:

From Napoleon-Series.org:

On landing on Cabrera, most of the prisoners were stepping foot on solid land for the first time in four months. There they found no buildings except for an abandoned fort, no sign of human habitation and little more than scrub brush, lizards and rocks. 4500 French, Polish, Swiss and Italian conscripts were left to largely fend for themselves. Their officers were imprisoned elsewhere. The following day a ship arrived with provisions: ship's biscuit, beans, lard, salt and bread. On another trip the supply ship dropped off tents for the junior officers and the sick. Supplies arrived, in theory, every four days, while Spanish and British warships stood guard. There was a single spring of fresh water that dried up in the height of summer. The few goats and rabbits which shared the rocky islet with the French were quickly hunted down and eaten. By the end of the first month 62 men had perished (an annual equivalent death rate of 20%). Between May 1809 and Dec. 1809 approximately 1700 soldiers had died. By 1810 only 17 men from an Imperial Guard unit that had numbered 75 still lived. The unit's highest-ranking officer wrote that "they were all virtually naked, pale, and gaunt: left so long without provisions, they resembled skeletons." During one four-day period when food supplies were cut off more than 400 men died.

The prisoner population of Cabrera included at least twenty-one women—a few officers' wives and the rest cantiniéres and camp followers. Some of the young and pretty ones (and even those not so young and pretty) turned to prostitution to survive, others continued their trade as wine-merchants on the island. It was reported that, on the whole, the women, keeping themselves busy, fared better than the men on the island. Most of the women eventually went to England when the officers were transferred there in 1810. A small number of babies were born, but what happened to them was not reported.

It was this final departure of the officers to England, as well as the realization that they were going to never be repatriated, which seemed to have led to a decline of morale among the men. Throughout 1810 to 1812 more prisoners arrived on the island to replace those who died. More than 9,400 men passed through Cabrera, though the population was always considerably less due to the high death rate. There were only, at most, 100 escapes from the island prison.

Finally in May 1814 word came that the war was at an end and freedom at hand. "An incomparable happiness seized everyone," wrote one observer. "Some seemed to lose their minds…Others embraced, crying…" Search parties had to scour the island for hermits who were hold up in caves like troglodytes. Of the almost 12,000 men who had been imprisoned, any where from 4,000 to 10,000 (the later figure including those who had died at Cadiz) had died, their graves unmarked.

Similarly, Spanish POWs in French custody weren't that better off:

Spanish prisoners in France were also harshly treated, often forced to work as laborers building canals and draining marshes. On the Peninsula, especially, brutality followed brutality. In March 1809 Napoleon wrote to Gen. Clarke, the French Minister of War, of a column of Spanish prisoners: "Twelve thousand prisoners have arrived from Saragossa. They are dying at the rate of 300 to 400 a day: thus we may calculate that not more than 6000 will reach France…You will order a system of severity—these people are to be made to work, whether they like it or not. The general number of them are fanatics, who deserve no consideration whatever."

Many POWs in the Peninsular War simply ended up outside of Spanish territory. Large numbers of French soldiers captured in the Peninsular theater were transferred to England and Ireland or put on prison hulks -- so even if France had succeeded in conquering all of Spain, they wouldn't have received these POWs back. Even under the best conditions, outside of total war conditions, such as at Norman Cross in England, diseases like typhoid were very common among POWs. Of the 7,000 POWs held at Norman Cross, there were almost 2,000 deaths from disease.


For what it's worth, it was much easier to liberate prisoners in the original "Crown of Glory" and players overwhelmingly did not like having to deal with POWs.

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

For what it's worth, it was much easier to liberate prisoners in the original "Crown of Glory" and players overwhelmingly did not like having to deal with POWs.

Dealing with them while the war is still on makes sense. After their country has been wiped off the map not so much.

The manual says that POWs dont forage and dont use supply. If thats the case about the only purpose they serve is to sit and wait to be exchanged after the end of hostilities. Not really getting why they wouldnt be removed from play if there is no power for them to be released to at the end of hostilities.