I'm wondering if there is a way to ransom all my wealthy captives with one command. So far, the only way I can figure out to do it is individual by individual. Sometimes, I just want to dump captives to make space for pirates and I prefer not to micromanage this task.
Coffeebean gave the specific answer to the question.
I wondered about the concept of just
DUMPING captives to make space in entertainment buildings for pirates.That seems strange. Why keep wealthy captives around at all? It seems most players consider them as nothing more than handy "packets of cash" to be redeemed for immediate needs. Really?
Wealthy Captives - quote from Manual:Wealthy captives are upper-class people captured on pirate cruises. They are found as passengers on the larger types of ships [and settlement raids]. Their role on your island is to entertain themselves and party, much like pirates, because people like these have never done any work in their lives. To you, as pirate ruler, they are like money in a savings account. The longer you keep them on your island, the larger their ransoms become.
Ransom increases:
Like pirates, wealthy captives must pay for entertainment. But of course, any ready cash they had when captured has already been plundered. So they are forced to pay for their entertainment on credit. The amount they spend is automatically added to the ransom amount on an ongoing basis. It is up to you to decide how long you want to wait. If you need cash, you can ransom a wealthy captive immediately upon his arrival. If you get too greedy [by waiting] your entertainment sites become too crowded and pirates cannot get what they need.
A ransom number appears in the detail window for all wealthy captives. This is the current amount of money that is added to the island's treasury if this captive is ransomed. At any time you wish, you may ransom a wealthy captive using the 'Ransom Captive' edict in the edict menu or by clicking on the scroll short-cut at the top of the captive detail. Once issued, the captive disappears from the island. The value of a captive is not shared with the crew that captured him/her. Additionally, wealthy captives do not try to escape. They are content to wait for their friends to pay their ransom. The only reason for satisfying their needs is the money earned from ransoming them. Unlike working captives, they do not worry about religion.As I read that, each wealthy captive starts with a base ransom value to which is added the fees collected for each entry into one of the needs buildings which serve pirates. Whether these fees are profit or not is a question. How much time or emphasis does the player wish to spend on this source of income?
However !
There is the information in the Strategy Guide:
The Great Power nations don’t learn of your dastardly deeds against them until they hear it from an escaped, released, or ransomed captive. Captives remember the event of their capture, except when a Letter of Marque legitimizes your actions in the eyes of the Great Powers. When a captive escapes or is released or ransomed, he reports his capture to the nation victimized by the event. If the nation hasn’t already learned of the event, your relations with that nation worsen. So captive escapes [generic - includes escape, release & ransom] pose two dangers: first, there’s a 15-20 percent chance (higher for captives of higher social class) that their home nation will discover the location of your island; second, there can be a serious diplomatic impact.If you are paying any attention to diplomatic affairs, ransoming wealthy captives is not just cashing out a held pocker chip -- it can have negative effects to be balanced against the positive effects of the "release."
I think there is the alternative of killing even the wealthy captives if they pose too great a risk when they go home.
