Extra game feature for prisoners?

javalang · Post by **javalang** » Wed Jan 25, 2012 2:36 am

I was just thinking how cool it would be if there was some kind of bonus for capturing prisoners, and equally, some sort of punishment if your units surrender. For instance;

1. If you make any hard units surrender, you might be able to keep them or convert them to your core force, but at limited strength, at the expense of some prestige in order to man them properly?

2. If you capture soft units like infantry, maybe you could get a prestige bonus for each unit of strength you capture, that would kind of be like a labour bonus as they might be useful behind the front lines?

3. If your hard units surrender, as above, they enemy could use small units of them temporarily?

4. If your soft units surrender, you lose prestige and or your enemy could get more prestige for each city they take, like a 5% bonus or something?

Either way, what are your thoughts on this? It would make for an interesting spin on the game as you would have this objective to level bomb and subdue your enemy with artillery before surrounding and attacking so you could get extra bonus prizes.

And, you would always want to keep retreat hexes open behind your units so the enemy couldn't do this to you!

What do you all think about this idea?

brettz123 · Post by **brettz123** » Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:06 pm

I think it is a very bad idea to be honest. And modelling slavery in a game like this is honestly a little distasteful as well as unrealistic. Combat units were not running around with a slave train to help them do things behind the front lines.

javalang · Post by **javalang** » Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:45 pm

"Modelling slavery", are you kidding me? How about "Modelling war", as the ENTIRE game is about destroying your enemy almost completely. There is no bonus for saving life, so nice try trying to take the high ground there. Having a bonus or incentive to get the enemy to surrender instead of being destroyed means less death. POW's were sent to the home front for internment and sometimes for labour work on farms, mines, infrastructure or building up defenses. How is this distasteful? They didn't tag along as personal slaves for heavens sake. Re-read my post.

Read this about the allies using labour camps as punishment on German soldiers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_lab ... rld_War_II

Read about the Japanese and the Burma railway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma_Railway

Or better yet, do a google search for "world war 2 labour camps" and have a read. If my post bothers you, don't play any world war 2 game as we are actually killing thousands of virtual people each time we win a map you know. Is that not distasteful?

bebro · Post by **bebro** » Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:32 pm

I agree with brettz123.

First, depending on what you mean exactly the diff between war in general and prison labour use is that the latter can (like the Burma Railway example you gave) include things we usually see as mistreatment, abuse, or even crimes.

In such cases there's a clear difference to warfare, which - even if it causes death and destruction - is not synonymous to war crimes. I personally don't want to see the latter depicted in a game.

Aside from this I also think it has no place here because that is totally besides the point of a PG style game, where you beat enemy armies to reach certain objectives. Anything like a "war economy" or somesuch plays no role, prestige is - as I understand it - not related to industrial production in any way.

shooty · Post by **shooty** » Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:41 pm

The game does already have unit captures (not prisoners) but the feature is kind of abstracted.
It is added in certain DLC scenarios but it isnt part of combat engine.
It is usualy when you take a city, though the map maker can use other conditions to give you a "captured" unit.
You can keep them as is or upgrade them to your nations equipment.

Capturing a unit in game does not model slavery. It is capturing equipment.
The "bonus" is you get to use the equipment.

like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captured_G ... tern_front

brettz123 · Post by **brettz123** » Wed Jan 25, 2012 7:06 pm

javalang wrote:"Modelling slavery", are you kidding me? How about "Modelling war", as the ENTIRE game is about destroying your enemy almost completely. There is no bonus for saving life, so nice try trying to take the high ground there. Having a bonus or incentive to get the enemy to surrender instead of being destroyed means less death. POW's were sent to the home front for internment and sometimes for labour work on farms, mines, infrastructure or building up defenses. How is this distasteful? They didn't tag along as personal slaves for heavens sake. Re-read my post.

Read this about the allies using labour camps as punishment on German soldiers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_lab ... rld_War_II

Read about the Japanese and the Burma railway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma_Railway

Or better yet, do a google search for "world war 2 labour camps" and have a read. If my post bothers you, don't play any world war 2 game as we are actually killing thousands of virtual people each time we win a map you know. Is that not distasteful?

I didn't say your post bothered me I said modelling slavery just like modelling running Auschwitz I would find distasteful. And what part of unrealistic did you not understand? Labour camps were not on the front lines and have no place in the scope of Panzer Corps. It is a fairly simple concept. And I don't need to google forced labor camps in America or Burma I am well aware they existed and also well aware they were not on the font lines of combat. So what is your point?

If this were a strategic level game I would still have an objection with the ability to do these things but at least at that level I wouldn't have an objection based on realism. Frankly I'm shocked that you are shocked someone thinks it would be distasteful.

brettz123 · Post by **brettz123** » Wed Jan 25, 2012 7:08 pm

shooty wrote:The game does already have unit captures (not prisoners) but the feature is kind of abstracted.
It is added in certain DLC scenarios but it isnt part of combat engine.
It is usualy when you take a city, though the map maker can use other conditions to give you a "captured" unit.
You can keep them as is or upgrade them to your nations equipment.

Capturing a unit in game does not model slavery. It is capturing equipment.
The "bonus" is you get to use the equipment.

like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captured_G ... tern_front

And that is how it should be modelled. Nothing to do with forced labor at all just finding enough equipment to use on the front lines. Which did happen in combat.

Tima · Post by **Tima** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 6:53 am

I like the idea of a bonus but I think it would be better to keep it simple and only receive a small points or prestige amount.

dragos · Post by **dragos** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 9:55 pm

I'd only like the idea of a small prestige gain for units destroyed (as in original Panzer General) and a prestige lose when losing an unit. The prestige amount should be generally small, but proportional with the base cost of the unit and its experience. Of course, it shouldn't matter how the unit is destroyed, either by kills or surrender. Also it would be interesting a victory points model like in Pacific General, with each objective on the map having a preset number of victory points, and each unit destroyed also generating victory points. Therefor, if you destroy a high enough number of enemy units you shouldn't have to take all objectives to achieve decisive victory, and if you lose a lot of units you can still lose the scenario even if you take all objectives on the map.

Extra game feature for prisoners?

Do you think there should be extra points or bonuses for capturing enemy troops or equipment?

Extra game feature for prisoners?