Combat injuries, prisoners of war

[Riekopo]

I just realized that prisoners are completely missing from EU4. Taking, ransoming, and releasing prisoners was a big part of war during this period was it not? Also, non lethal injuries from combat. I think casualties should be broken down between deaths and injured who take time to recover.

 

[BrokenSky]

I just realized that prisoners are completely missing from EU4. Taking, ransoming, and releasing prisoners was a big part of war during this period was it not? Also, non lethal injuries from combat. I think casualties should be broken down between deaths and injured who take time to recover.

That would be difficult, and I'm not sure it would add much? Say injured people going home and recovering is part of your manpower recovery...
Ransoming would be more interesting, but for important characters, not soldiers. Having events after a defeat where you have to pay some ducats to the other side or lose army tradition or something?
Wounds, ransoming and such would be more interesting on characters such as the general, especially when he's your ruler, but they wouldn't happen that often.

 

[gdj]

EU4 spans roughly 400 years, and dealing with prisoners and/or wounded soldiers changed a lot during this timeframe.

For the first 200-300 years taking prisoners was highly uncommon in Europe. The usual fate of wounded soldiers was to die of their wounds. Worse even, the usual fate of prisoners was to be executed, unless they were high ranked nobles.

This was different of course in other parts of the world, capturing enemies and selling them into slavery was an important economic factor in many regions, and the practice of "adopting" former enemies that some native americans cultures practised is interesting too, but modelling this is not exactly easy..