EU4 - Development Diary - 26th of March 2019

[Schnitzelschale]

So can we hope on Landsknechte as a special german mercenary unit?

 

[Fediuld76]

The whole problem with the mercs arises in Multiplayer.
You can have one country because is richers (like Italy or France) to steamroll those who are bit poorer but having more manpower.
Possibly buff further the speed of drilling and the effectiveness of standing state troops?

 

[Latheloi]

Two ideas that came off the top of my head:

1) What about if the availability of mercenaries in a region was an output of the number of independent duchy level countries within it? This would start to naturally limit the bottomless nature of mercenaries for big empires (as their regions would all be full of them), and make them available in the fragmented areas where mercenary companies were a common part of historical warfare.

2) What about if hiring mercenary companies required sending a diplomat? That would slow down the possibility of someone mass hiring mercs (there could also be an optional notification about other countries hiring mercenaries so AIs and players could react)

 

[LevKovacs]

I think a lot of the problems related to mercenaries are in reality related to the way money works.

Currently, even for minor nations, money ceases to be an actual game mechanic by mid to early late game. Especially if you have a few colonial nations and trade companies in place, you can afford buying literally everything there is, at the same time, and you still have some money left.

Obviously, this breaks mercenaries. By early lategame, you can always just get a bazillion of them, essentially for free, because no one cares about money anyway. The proposed fixes are good in themselves, but in the end its a bit of a cover-up for an other game mechanic - the economic system - that clearly doesn't work in a reasonable manner.

 

[Jetstreamed]

Good day and welcome to this week's Dev Diary for EUIV. I'm sure it comes at an unforgivable late hour for many, but I have not long returned from a short trip to Lithuania. The country is a bit smaller than I remember, but Vilnius was a delightful place to spend the long weekend.

I'm returning as forewarned by last week's Dev Diary to talk about ambitions for game mechanics in the upcoming European Expansion, slated for Q4 this year. As neondt has been discussing with maps and missions, I too will be sharing thoughts and ideas that we have regarding certain game mechanics. What is mentioned here are not changes that are currently in the game, nor are they promises of things to come, but more to share our thought process and ideas we have for the upcoming expansion and update.

During the large end of year Dev Diary I mentioned various wishlist items that we would like to tackle in EUIV and on the list, right at the top, which with a degree of imagination is in bold, flashing colours and on fire, is that the current state of mercenaries in the game is long overdue for a shakeup. That's what we're here to talk about today.

Firstly, why are we even talking about Mercenaries at all? Well Europa Universalis is a game about building Empires, and the business end of your stick are your armies. While regular armies are cost-effective for ducats, they can and likely will run dry of manpower in prolonged wars. Mercenaries exist for you to supplement your fighting force at an inflated ducat cost, allowing you to extend your own fighting capacity so long as your coffers can handle it. In the past, there was a limit to how many mercenaries were available to hire due to a 1% daily chance of mercs becoming available. This was removed in the interest of expunging the random element to available armies, and now your number of available mercs are tied to your forcelimit. Mechanically it's all very functional, but not without its issues

View attachment 465835

Look familiar? Once one's economy is in good shape, the go-to for a nation is to flesh out their army mercenary infantry and, should they feel decadent, mercenary artillery and keep that as a permanent solution for all aspects of warfare. They are the ultimate siege weapon due to reinforcing without need for manpower, so attrition is seldom a concern, while also being an entirely effective battle force as they take your nation's bonuses to battle, and any losses are very quickly recovered in exchange for money.

Even in the event of your mercenary armies being wiped out, so long as you have the money, you are able to swiftly recruit as far as your force limit allows courtesy of their quick recruitment time, and within a few months, your armies march once more with renewed vigour and no impact on your manpower pool.

Now to its credit, the way mercenaries work currently allows for a nation to always keep their momentum going. It can be no fun to simply sit on your thumb for manpower to recover for a war you want to fight if you find no other options available to you, and I'm sure most of us have found ourselves in a war which would have been all but lost if a few loans and an eager band of mercenaries had not been available to save the day.

So what are our thoughts from here? Well, there is certainly no end to the balance tweaking that could be done here, as the variables involved are plenty and could be adjusted: rising cost of mercs, restricting their availability, perhaps reigning in how easily they adapt to all of your country's military traditions, fostered for centuries, within a few days. This could be done, and indeed it wasn't too long ago that we did increase mercenary costs across the board, but I believe the solution should be grander in ambition, to be fitting for the gravity of the Expansion we're planning for this year.

@Groogy and I have hashed out thoughts on mercs with very much a "back to the drawing board" approach on the system. What has become more and more apparent is that the system as it exists is ripe for a full makeover.

The European Expansion and its update will, in all likelihood, feature a completely different mercenary mechanic from what we know today. We have established several key aspects of how we want to handle mercenaries:

• We still want them to exist as a way to supplement one's army strength for ducats.
• Province-level recruitment will probably have to go. Reducing click-fatigue while we're at it should be a priority.
• The system should respect geopolitics: Mercs in India should be functionally different from Germanic ones.
• Mercs must be finite to some degree. As an example, a prolonged 30 years war should drain Central Europe of available mercenaries, and said merc units should find themselves no longer able to reinforce.
• Player involvement in the system must be greater than it is today
• Late game multiplayer must be diversified from all out merc-on-merc warfare.
• The system should be robust, feel alive, and enjoyable

In addition to this, we want to make the fundamental changes to the merc system part of the update. All players who get the planned Q4 update should enjoy a new merc system to explore.

The Dev Diary may end up raising more questions than it answers regarding mercs, but this is not the last we'll be talking on the matter. This and various other DDs to follow are to shed light on our internal thoughts regarding development, rather than showing off what we have added to the game. I'm sure you're growing tired of hearing it by now, but we continue to iron out tech-debt issues (which really deserve a dev diary of their own) and gearing ourselves up for developing this large European Expansion.

What are your thoughts on the existing mercenary system and what would you like to see in a new update? Let us know in this thread, and we'll be back next week to talk more on our plans for the upcoming Q4 Expansion and Update

How about also limiting the Discipline and Morale of mercs. So that they'd now only be affected by mercanery specific modifiers "+x% mercenary discipline". 200k 100%discipline, 5 morale mercs will never beat even a 50k 140% discipline, 9 morale army. But atleast you can still use the mercs strategically to force march them in from the backline to assault a fort.
Reg army will do the brunt of fighting, while mercs will do their job of complimenting your army.

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

Suggestion: Geopolitically relevant (by current game state, not predefined) mercenaries are assigned to land at any arbitrary size (territories/regions/nations/continent). Allow the hiring of mercenaries in any terriory you own, by use of a new interface that allows you to design the entire army at once( see Stellaris fleet designer). All of the mercenaries you know of can be hired at any time, from anywhere. However, the arrival time will be dependent on distance from their source to your marshaling point.
Force enroute to your marshaling army are not visible on the map, but already cost you gold. As they arrive the are added to your army.

For example, my new colony in florida is in need of an army to defend against the french who just declared war. I select where in Florida i wish to marshal my new merc army, and am given a sortable list of all available mercenaries. I sort by distance/time, since i need them fast. The nearby options are some of my colonists with muskets, a bunch of natives with bows, Some cavalry available from the Portuguese colony of cuba, and no artillery units at all. I hire all the colonists and cavalry, and enough natives to fill out the battle width. I really want some artillery to help with a siege i expect, so i sort by just artillery. Nearest option is to import from Spain. This will take a long time, but they are very nice artillery and will be great when they get here. I buy a few of them as well.
I wait for everyone but the artillery to arrive, then hit the road. The army marches towards the french colony, defeating the small group of local defenders. As I begin to lay siege on their fort, my cannons arrive! The siege is quickly over now that I have such firepower. France, having also suffered defeat to my armys in europe and fleets on the high seas, are forced to surrender.

 

[Pureanger]

I do like the idea of regionalized mercs. Having multiple pools of mercs that you can hire and reinforce from should feel more realistic and force you to plan ahead. Just brainstorming here, but what do you think of a seperate merc maintenance slider that lets you "bid" for whose merc armies get resupplied first in the corresponding area. It might become really costly, but gives you an military edge, especially if the market for mercs are dried up...

 

[Blackwhitecavias]

I feel like mercenaries should cost more if the mercenary manpower pool (or whatever the equivalent is) is lower as the remaining troops would be in higher demand.

 

[Furuderikas]

One thing I find myself always wanting to do but unable to actually carry out as should be logically possible is as a tall nation, emulating the historical merchant-state strategy of forgoing a standing army to avoid its costs and invest that money in navy and trade, and merely hiring mercenaries to carry out land warfare if and when needed. Despite this being a real historical phenomenon it is discouraged in favour of keeping a standing professional army at forcelimit the same as every other nation as the actually *more* economical option. Some form of ideas or such to assist in this would be good. (Though it should be a trade-off of course).

Some form of company or trade based armies such as in the British and Dutch East India companies would be good also.

 

[Tavior]

What are your thoughts on the existing mercenary system and what would you like to see in a new update? Let us know in this thread, and we'll be back next week to talk more on our plans for the upcoming Q4 Expansion and Update

Do you have a time machine to this expansion release date?!

 

[Vohen]

Good day and welcome to this week's Dev Diary for EUIV. I'm sure it comes at an unforgivable late hour for many, but I have not long returned from a short trip to Lithuania. The country is a bit smaller than I remember, but Vilnius was a delightful place to spend the long weekend.

I'm returning as forewarned by last week's Dev Diary to talk about ambitions for game mechanics in the upcoming European Expansion, slated for Q4 this year. As neondt has been discussing with maps and missions, I too will be sharing thoughts and ideas that we have regarding certain game mechanics. What is mentioned here are not changes that are currently in the game, nor are they promises of things to come, but more to share our thought process and ideas we have for the upcoming expansion and update.

During the large end of year Dev Diary I mentioned various wishlist items that we would like to tackle in EUIV and on the list, right at the top, which with a degree of imagination is in bold, flashing colours and on fire, is that the current state of mercenaries in the game is long overdue for a shakeup. That's what we're here to talk about today.

Firstly, why are we even talking about Mercenaries at all? Well Europa Universalis is a game about building Empires, and the business end of your stick are your armies. While regular armies are cost-effective for ducats, they can and likely will run dry of manpower in prolonged wars. Mercenaries exist for you to supplement your fighting force at an inflated ducat cost, allowing you to extend your own fighting capacity so long as your coffers can handle it. In the past, there was a limit to how many mercenaries were available to hire due to a 1% daily chance of mercs becoming available. This was removed in the interest of expunging the random element to available armies, and now your number of available mercs are tied to your forcelimit. Mechanically it's all very functional, but not without its issues

View attachment 465835

Look familiar? Once one's economy is in good shape, the go-to for a nation is to flesh out their army mercenary infantry and, should they feel decadent, mercenary artillery and keep that as a permanent solution for all aspects of warfare. They are the ultimate siege weapon due to reinforcing without need for manpower, so attrition is seldom a concern, while also being an entirely effective battle force as they take your nation's bonuses to battle, and any losses are very quickly recovered in exchange for money.

Even in the event of your mercenary armies being wiped out, so long as you have the money, you are able to swiftly recruit as far as your force limit allows courtesy of their quick recruitment time, and within a few months, your armies march once more with renewed vigour and no impact on your manpower pool.

Now to its credit, the way mercenaries work currently allows for a nation to always keep their momentum going. It can be no fun to simply sit on your thumb for manpower to recover for a war you want to fight if you find no other options available to you, and I'm sure most of us have found ourselves in a war which would have been all but lost if a few loans and an eager band of mercenaries had not been available to save the day.

So what are our thoughts from here? Well, there is certainly no end to the balance tweaking that could be done here, as the variables involved are plenty and could be adjusted: rising cost of mercs, restricting their availability, perhaps reigning in how easily they adapt to all of your country's military traditions, fostered for centuries, within a few days. This could be done, and indeed it wasn't too long ago that we did increase mercenary costs across the board, but I believe the solution should be grander in ambition, to be fitting for the gravity of the Expansion we're planning for this year.

@Groogy and I have hashed out thoughts on mercs with very much a "back to the drawing board" approach on the system. What has become more and more apparent is that the system as it exists is ripe for a full makeover.

The European Expansion and its update will, in all likelihood, feature a completely different mercenary mechanic from what we know today. We have established several key aspects of how we want to handle mercenaries:

• We still want them to exist as a way to supplement one's army strength for ducats.
• Province-level recruitment will probably have to go. Reducing click-fatigue while we're at it should be a priority.
• The system should respect geopolitics: Mercs in India should be functionally different from Germanic ones.
• Mercs must be finite to some degree. As an example, a prolonged 30 years war should drain Central Europe of available mercenaries, and said merc units should find themselves no longer able to reinforce.
• Player involvement in the system must be greater than it is today
• Late game multiplayer must be diversified from all out merc-on-merc warfare.
• The system should be robust, feel alive, and enjoyable

In addition to this, we want to make the fundamental changes to the merc system part of the update. All players who get the planned Q4 update should enjoy a new merc system to explore.

The Dev Diary may end up raising more questions than it answers regarding mercs, but this is not the last we'll be talking on the matter. This and various other DDs to follow are to shed light on our internal thoughts regarding development, rather than showing off what we have added to the game. I'm sure you're growing tired of hearing it by now, but we continue to iron out tech-debt issues (which really deserve a dev diary of their own) and gearing ourselves up for developing this large European Expansion.

What are your thoughts on the existing mercenary system and what would you like to see in a new update? Let us know in this thread, and we'll be back next week to talk more on our plans for the upcoming Q4 Expansion and Update

Very interesting.
But since we're talking about mercs, will you guys touch on their decline as well?
I should happen in the late game, with ideals of the enlightenment giving way to nationalism and the conscription army.
Not necessarily tied to revolutions, but should require some sort of "popular support" for such reforms to take place and you be able to make a full army of conscripts.
That could put the late game on a whole new scale and supplement that merc dependency you mentioned.

 

[Kane_hun]

How will the Black Army be affected? Any ideas for them?

 

[Poliut]

There could be a global (merc?) population function. I remember in the one EU4 LAN livestream a couple months back where the late game world war saw more casualties than were actually alive during that time period.

 

[jrgen3]

There could be a global (merc?) population function. I remember in the one EU4 LAN livestream a couple months back where the late game world war saw more casualties than were actually alive during that time period.

They had over a billion casualties?

 

[Reman]

The main change I'd like to see with mercenaries is limiting their numbers in some way so that you can drain a nation's ability to wage war without driving it all the way to bankruptcy. This would increase the strategic importance of preserving troops, and would make defensive warfare more interesting since you could use terrain bonuses to grind a superior foe down. In the current version of EU4 it's basically impossible to win against a country with a superior economy since they can fling an endless supply of golden goons that will eventually break you through sheer numbers. There's also a problem of easy loans allowing excessive overleveraging followed by truce-locked chain bankruptcies, but one problem at a time I guess.

Transferring Imperator's mercs system would probably solve EU4's merc problem. While you're at it, you could transfer in Imperator's fort system and alliance system to improve the game further.

 

[Ixal]

I feel like mercenaries should cost more if the mercenary manpower pool (or whatever the equivalent is) is lower as the remaining troops would be in higher demand.

A cost increase will not balance mercs because of the absurd amount of money you can make with production+trade stacking.

Mercs should not only be looked at in a vaccum, but the high income you can get ever since buildings became stackable by not costing MP is also part of the problem and needs fixing, too.

 

[$ODa]

The whole problem with the mercs arises in Multiplayer.
You can have one country because is richers (like Italy or France) to steamroll those who are bit poorer but having more manpower.
Possibly buff further the speed of drilling and the effectiveness of standing state troops?

With the current state of multiplayer, this isn't really a problem. In the 1400s kinda, but in theory, both countries should be fighting with mercs and manpower units, since seiging and aggressing with manpower units is practically impossible to sustain, and fighting with all your manpower in troops + all your mercs will almost always win against someone whos not committing all their availbile troops. If anything, I think mercs are a good bandaid for the real problems of multiplayer, which are forts and how strong defensive advantages are, the fact that assaulting is the only viable way to seige and costs way too many men (if mercs arent used), and the fact that FL is a meaningless number when you have to commit to a bankrupcy war to beat someone else doing so.

 

[otaats]

Q4 2019 can't come soon enough!

 

[grandadmiralbob]

@DDRJake One thing I would love to see, is 2 "game modes." One for conquering sprees that EUIV has become, where people who prefer a more warlike game, can conquer or be conquered. In the other mode I would like more domestic problems, decisions and events, so even if France is fighting England, maybe now won't be the time to connect my Kingdom. It would do 2 things. Give players 2 ways of playing EVERY nation, making the 2 main groups of players as happy as possible. Who knows, maybe those crazy WCing players will get curious and see what it's like to sit there for 24 hours just clicking development buttons.
Two other things are making prestiege matter a little more, and getting rid of ALL insta-bonuses. Right now, with a click I can, be an empire, reduce WE, increase legitemacy, increase stability, increase mercantilism, "accept" a whole culture, get to tech 4, or 5 if I'm Florence , and stackwipe my neighbors, increase, sometimes greatly, the effectiveness of my troops in other ways, and others. I know you guys might not have the resources for THAT kind of remake. In my crazy world, comets, both hazardous and "great", would be the only insta-boni/maluses. Maybe you could take the mechanic of harmonizing religions and apply it to other mechanics?

 

[Zalmoxis]

I see three sources of mercenaries. Companies that exclusively work for you, which I would label under regular recruitment from your manpower (along with feudal levies and professional troops and such). Companies from other states (the Condottieri mechanic). And from the region from nowhere in particular from no state.

It's possible to buff the need for Condottieri troops and increasing the likelihood of AI to offer them, and more likely to buy the services of them from others, while having regional mercenaries as a sort of stock that can be replenished. On a similar note, if countries had to take more loans from other countries (And maybe also from the estates) and less from generic nondescript banks, that could also be neat. If everyone hates you and won't loan you money, you will have a harder time fielding a whole ton of mercs.