Releasing Enemy Generals

[Orcish_Saiyan]

Is there any benefit to releasing generals that you captured after a battle besides the slight amount of gold you receive? Mostly asking because they say they'll be in my debt.

[alicerinz]

People that hate you will hate you slightly less, while people that like you will like you slightly less.
Just execute those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

[Harukage]

Generals will have better impression of you. When they like you they will apear as canditates for hire after their faction is destroyed, or they can be hired right away after a battle if they like you enough. Additionaly their faction will hate you less, making thing like peace treaty and making vassals easier. And i think that it also influences how other factions see you in dimplomacy.

[Gray Riders]

It can make it easier to recruit them later, as well as the diplomatic bonuses.
The diplomacy bonus led to an amusing situation where Cao Cao randomly declared war, but because I released his troops and generals and wasn't capturing his settlements his opinion of me increased more than the war lowered it.

[Killer29687]

I had over 100 positive relations with Cao Cao... he still declared war on me.... the AI is wonky

[RitualistEssence]

Execute also allows you take whatever items they have such as legendary weapons and such.
Like i got Lu Bu's spear by executing him.

[Killer29687]

Originally posted by Ritualist Essence:

Execute also allows you take whatever items they have such as legendary weapons and such.
Like i got Lu Bu's spear by executing him.

Why would you not recruit him???? You would get his spear and his horse..... if you don’t have a council position for him then recruit him then banish him for over 3k profit

[Nylan]

When i capture a general i look at a few things. First the cash for releasing them, do i need it or is it a decent amount(500 or so)? Second what are their traits? Are they good, or a jerk? If they have nice traits i might just snatch them up, if they have traits that make them an utter jerk and hard for folks to get along with i release them, regardless of gains i might get from execution. Why? Because their presense can make other generals in that faction less happy, win win!

Also check out their items, might get one for executing that i really want, or several from hiring them, stripping gear then dismissing them. Then i can sell any unwanted items for gold per turn to a friendly AI. Another thing to consider is who is their faction at war with and who are their friends? Say Cao Cao is at war with both Yuan Shu and i, but friends with Lui Bei. Executing a general of Cao Cao would give a boost to Yuan Shu in diplomacy but a larger penalty to Lui Bei, so could be a bad idea.

When it comes to yellow turbans i find there is almost always just one option, execute. This really hurts their faction due to how hard a time they have getting generals. I have to be pretty hard up for cash to accept ransom on these guys, but if they are worth 500 or more i might just take it, unless it's one of the better heroes like He Man. That guy i ALWAYS kill. He is just too good to keep alive as an enemy.

[HarbingerOfDestruction「俺様」]

Originally posted by Killer29687:

I had over 100 positive relations with Cao Cao... he still declared war on me.... the AI is wonky

Cao Cao is a cunning and manipulator backstabber. He asked to be my vassal but suddenly
He declared war on me when I played as Liu Bei when I was the most vulnerable and exploited that my armies were being away too far conquering the north. I never trusted him again aftet that stunt. He does have the trait "opportunist" for very good reason.

[The Mailman Thinks I Am Gay]

Originally posted by Killer29687:

I had over 100 positive relations with Cao Cao... he still declared war on me.... the AI is wonky

it not, you are playing against Cao Cao. Check his traits in the diplo menu and you know why to never trust him fully

[Killer29687]

Originally posted by The Mailman Thinks Im Gay:

Originally posted by Killer29687:

I had over 100 positive relations with Cao Cao... he still declared war on me.... the AI is wonky

it not, you are playing against Cao Cao. Check his traits in the diplo menu and you know why to never trust him fully

Yeah but I wasn’t weak.... likewise a general+ my garrison took his army out...it’s funny how he tried to attack me yet he was repelled so easily

[The Mailman Thinks I Am Gay]

Originally posted by Killer29687:

Originally posted by The Mailman Thinks Im Gay:

it not, you are playing against Cao Cao. Check his traits in the diplo menu and you know why to never trust him fully

Yeah but I wasn’t weak.... likewise a general+ my garrison took his army out...it’s funny how he tried to attack me yet he was repelled so easily

Doesnt matter. You can ruin the poor battle AI in battle with ease at time. THe AI assumed that it could beat you. I beaten off two full Yuan Shao stacks with just 600 men with Lu Bu and some garrsion on a farm, despite the autoresolve having the battle as a decesive loss.

[Krono]

The amount of money you get for releasing a lord is just pitiful. I captured Yuan Shao one time and it seems the most you can possibly get is 500 gold. That's pathetic

[Gregorovitch]

Basically the faction the general is from and all their friends will like you a lot for releasing and hate you a lot for killing them. Conversely the faction's enemies will like you a lot more for killing them and hate you a lot more for letting them go.

A lot. You can easily rack up 50-100 points of love or hate with a lot of factions during a big war whether you release/employ or execute. Which directly affects how much they will all want for doing deals and if they will do deals at all. These points get reduced at the rate of of one point per turn AFAIK so it can take a long time to get rid of penalties acquired this way.

Which means there is no simple one-size-fits-all answer to this question. In fact it's sometimes a no-win situation. Whatever you do it's going to piss somebody off, so the question is who do you least want to piss off? Often you are in a dilemma because, for example, you may want to vassalise your foe in a peace deal which will be much more difficult if you execute their generals but if your current friends and allies loath this faction they will start hating you for not executing them. Or is that legendary weapon really worth the grief you're going to experience from separating it's current owner from it after separating him from his head?

It's therefore as good idea to check the diplomatic map when you enter a war and check the relations of you adversary to everyone else and also check if your main friends have a strong like or dislike for this faction. If they hate your foe you will lose some respect from them if you don't execute, but not that much so you may decide to swallow that in favour of a better peace deal for example. You need to decide this in advance of any battles because you can't access the diplo screen to check this from the post-battle decision screen unfortunately.

Of course if you play the Big Bad and just kill everybody you can then you don't care about people liking you so all this doesn't matter really.

[Killer29687]

i find it pathetic you only get 5+ relation with the person whos rival you executed.... i mean really?

[DR GOO]

The only Generals I execute on sight if I can is Yuan Shu, Yuan Shao and Cao Cao. Cao Cao is the worst, especially frst contact, all he has to do is sniff your b o after accidentally spotting a commandery for the 1st time and it's WAR