Prisoners, what to do with them?

[Garyjd]

What do you do with prisoners? There does not appear to be a way to send them off map. I would not like to have a situation where they reactivate (armed no less) while in captivity, thus posing a huge problem for me.

[Nox165]

give them the bayonet, but really I just have them withdraw from the battle.

[Hitorishizuka]

2 hours ago, Garyjd said:

What do you do with prisoners? There does not appear to be a way to send them off map. I would not like to have a situation where they reactivate (armed no less) while in captivity, thus posing a huge problem for me.

Hit the Withdraw flag on far right, that orders them off the map. You should do this with empty supply wagons and your own brigades that are very damaged and close to shattering also. Ideally you should manually run them close to the retreating edge first so they don't risk taking a bad route.

[Zwerty99]

2 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

Hit the Withdraw flag on far right, that orders them off the map. You should do this with empty supply wagons and your own brigades that are very damaged and close to shattering also. Ideally you should manually run them close to the retreating edge first so they don't risk taking a bad route.

I also withdraw empty supply wagons of my own. They just attract enemy cav to your rear and hold no purpose. I honestly wish they simply disappeared...

Edited February 11, 2017 by Zwerty99

[A. P. Hill]

As soon as they capitulate, I head them for the edge of the map behind my lines.   At some point I'll go back to them and then select them, then click outside the map boundary lines and they'll rout off the map.

I use the same practice with empty supply wagons.

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Jochen Piper had one solution to the problem of what to do with prisoners; of course, 'unknown assailants' burned his house down with him inside it when he was released from prison. . . . might want to go another path. 

And, so did Nathan Bedford Forrest; come to think of it. A verified genius if ever there was one, but the man made a few . . . moral errors. 

But, in this game, just keep 'rout'ing them off the board; as long as no enemy combatants are running around behind you. 

Edited February 11, 2017 by Andre Bolkonsky

[Garyjd]

Thanks fellas. I appreciate the tips.

[Lif]

Prisoners,... you can't exchange mor than 1000 men. It's a bit unsatisfying because often I have 3000 prisoners.

[Wandering1]

I'd mention about the horrible war crimes one would commit if you were to mix-max the situation of capping at 1000 prisoners for any benefit, but that strays into the realm of munchkin-ing, and I've already mentioned what one would do with empty supply wagons (even your own) to @Andre Bolkonsky. 

[The Lyon's Roar]

I'd like to see more prisoners be exchanged for additional recruits 1,000 seems a tad low when you can sometimes come away with 3-4k prisoners. Also, to have the ability to capture and exchange enemy leaders for additional recruits (a Colonel is worth 50 men, a Brigadier General worth 100, for example).

[Nicolas I]

I have read that you get 100% of the prisoners weapons (vs 10% for the killed?).

If this is true, that would be a good incentive to continue capturing enemies event after the first 1000 ones.

[Wandering1]

This was nerfed a while ago. They give no weapons now, because getting 5000 1855s from Fredericksburg easily broke the economy of the game.

[Lif]

59 minutes ago, Wandering1 said:

This was nerfed a while ago. They give no weapons now, because getting 5000 1855s from Fredericksburg easily broke the economy of the game.

At least they could give... 25% or something like that.

[Wandering1]

25% is the base amount for captures (as in people shot and killed), with 50% being for rescues. On the higher difficulties, this percentage goes even lower (I believe 10 and 25% on Legendary, respectively?). 

So long as men captured doesn't provide any weapons though, there's no reason to stop us from doing something that sounds like a war crime, but I'm not going to describe here because it's significantly gaming the system; even more than getting free Fayettevilles from combining 100 Fayetteville squads into 2000+ farmers squads.