What do I do with prisoners?

[andijones84]

I have some prisoners that are in my traps. Do they just stay there forever, or till someone comes to help them? Do they ever die? Am I feeding them?
I looked up the info on "trapper" but it didnt really give me as much as I needed. Aparently if I free them half of my traps will be fixed for free, but I dont know how to free them. Its not that obvious or else Im a bit dim which could also be true.
Help would be appreciated
Ta

[????]

Poke them with pointy sticks!

T

[monkeylovesmummy]

You go into your rally point, and there you will see the option to free them. Some of the traps used begin their repair automatically. You will see their status at the trappers.

You could message their owner and ask if they want them back in trade for some peace and quiet.

But I do like the other suggestion of poking them with pointy sticks...

[andijones84]

Ta muchly.
Although I also agree, a nice pointy stick would be better..

[ickledevil]

forget pointy stick use the phalanx's weapon

[Dumnorix]

As i see it you have 4 options.

1) Release the prisoners

2) Keep them in your traps until attacked again, where the attacker frees the troops.

3) Jab them with a pointy stick

Or,

4) Sit there and mock them until they get bored and die

[andijones84]

I realeased my first lot, however in the process of being attacked again and they will enevitably end up in my traps too. Can I do anything other than release them? What happens if I just hold on to them?

[monkeylovesmummy]

What happens if you hang on to them?

They take up space in your traps indefinately - they get fed.
Or they will be freed by their owner with another attack.
Eventually all your traps could be filled with a variety of different troops, and then new troops will get through.

You're best to try and talk with their owner, or message them with a goodwill meassage that you have set them free. Tho some people don't care if their troops are trapped - they have so many.

[Dumnorix]

If you hold onto them they just take up space really. You don't have to feed them. They just sit there. Not sure why. Maybe they just look at the floor until there owner comes to collect them.

You can't do anything other than release them. Unless they have changed the game.

[Zadmar]

1) Release the prisoners

2) Keep them in your traps until attacked again, where the attacker frees the troops.

Both of these options cost you resources though - the first only repairs half of the traps for free, the second only repairs a third for free. The remaining traps have to be repaired out of your own resources.

The approach I favour is to wipe the attacker's village completely off the map. That way all of your traps are repaired for free. It also tends to discourage your attacker from coming back.

[Constantine]

Hi

Nobody made this clear:

Who feeds the trapped troops? Is it the trapper (ie the Gaul), or is it the troops' owner?

A response would be much appreciated.

[Koloth]

Hi

Nobody made this clear:

Who feeds the trapped troops? Is it the trapper (ie the Gaul), or is it the troops' owner?

A response would be much appreciated.

Troops owner

[Cretin]

The correct answer to all of the above questions is:

don't build a trapper as it costs more resources than it is worth. Build phalanx and a phalanx hero. If you do not have enough troops then send him out raiding to someone with population 2 until you come home again or wake up tomorrow morning, then train some more phalanx, then send them away again till you get home from school, then train more. Then next time someone attacks, you have 20-30 phalanx and your phalanx hero (assume you have worked out that your attacker sends say 5-6 macemen) and you own him. If he comes back you dodge his attack as he has probably sent 100 macemen to kill you! Then you keep sending your phalanx out and raiding until you have 100 and then if your teuton is raiding you with 10 macemen every now and then (as he gets no resources) ping him again. By this time he will say either fair game I will come cata you, or you can say - hey mate why don't we team up and own this area of the map?

Early game sorted.

Other answer (why didn't you tell him to offensive tech to TT and own this teuton)? If he had the knack for that he wouldn't be asking these questions sorry. For now you need to play around a bit and learn basic travi-skills

[cookie2]

Can we have a final definitive answer to the question about "who feeds prisoners ,the trapper or the prisoner owner"?
I have read Koloth reply and have taken that to be correct but still a lot of players say that when they have prisoners their wheat stocks go down ,and if they release them the stocks increase again .
I think it`s vital for players to know the real rule on this ...it can make such a difference to the game ,especially from a Gauls point of view.

[DragonFyre]

Can we have a final definitive answer to the question about "who feeds prisoners ,the trapper or the prisoner owner"?
I have read Koloth reply and have taken that to be correct but still a lot of players say that when they have prisoners their wheat stocks go down ,and if they release them the stocks increase again .
I think it`s vital for players to know the real rule on this ...it can make such a difference to the game ,especially from a Gauls point of view.

It's the player who owns the troops who feeds them.

[Adkill]

Yes, it's the owner of said trapped troops that pays for their upkeep, though from what I've seen, many players think otherwise.

[cookie2]

Now i can inform my alliance and other players of the facts ,many thanks .

[Lord PhasLat]

Sounds to me trappers are a waste of time

[NoImagination]

Sounds to me trappers are a waste of time

Yup, pretty much. They're going to get an improvement in 3.5, but I suspect that even then they'll be pointless. Attack is the best form of defence in pretty much every game ever made.

The main benefit of trappers is having the potential to have them. If there's a pop 50 gaul and a pop 50 roman next to each other, a raiding teuton will hit the roman because there's no trap danger. It's a real banana if you lose half your raiding army in the first day and find he can defend against your second half. Whilst that's very unlikely, there's no point in a teuton taking that risk until he can afford to lose a few macemen.

They also kind of work if the teuton started a few days after you, whereby you can have a ton of traps without a large pop, and completely destroy his army with them. It's not hugely useful though because there're still all the other players out there who can hit you too.

If Travian were a two player game, I could see the point in traps, but as it is...

[OPT]

They're just not as useful later on in the game, when Teutons will inevitably have a bigger army than 200 traps, but still cheap and effective earlier on in the game.