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EU4 - Development Diary - 17th March 2016

Hi everyone and welcome to another development diary for Europa Univeralis IV.


Today we will be covering a much-anticipated mechanic. For times where a nation you love is being attacked and you are unable or unwilling to sign an alliance or when you simply want to make your idle standing army work for their bread, we introduce Condottieri.

Condottieri DD 01.jpg


Condottieri are armies which you have rented out to other nations in exchange for money. Condottieri armies will remain in control of the nation who has offered them but they will fight and die for their recipient country marking their recipient’s enemies as their own.


When renting out your army as Condottieri, you are able to negotiate the fee for your services, which is set as a multiple of their monthly maintenance, from 0x all the way up to 5x, with the first 18 months paid upfront. If you are confident that you are leaving behind enough of a garrison, you can send out a sizable amount of your army, up to 20 units (increased by +available mercenary ideas) to earn money for you on the battlefield.


Once rented out, Condottieri will be hostile to the recipient’s enemies and will be able to fight and siege in the name of the paying nation. They will also have the military access which their recipient country has but these enemies will have access to the Condottieri’s homelands too, so they cannot simply seek refuge at home. In addition to the fee that you have charged your recipient country, your units will also gain 50% more prestige and army tradition for fighting as Condottieri.

Condottieri DD 02.jpg


After 18 months have passed, either side may cancel the arrangement and the troops will go back to being a regular army. The agreement can remain for as long as both parties are satisfied. Naturally, should a nation find themselves at war with a nation who is renting their Condottieri, the contract will be cancelled. Furthermore, if the paying country finds themselves at peace, they can end the contract before the 18 months are up.

More to come next week!
 
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I know this is not related to this dev diary, but will you add culture families? Like there is Areas, Regions and Superregions, there would be the same in the culture. For example: Slavic Supergroup, West Slavic Group, Czech Culture.
 
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I've actually found several uses for Condottieri in my single player game and im so looking forward to it. Tired of my rivals getting stronger if i can send my troops to defend my weaker neighbors without being able to get an alliance with them
 
mercenaries are a good idea for allowing small or poor nations that focus on warfare, or those with various bonuses to battle get a decent income from keeping a large army.

Example could be early Hungarian 'Black Army' being rented out as it has a bonus to cavaly attack. One could also help those in dire need for fre that realy need it, maybe even Byzantium can have a better chance at survival with mercs.
 
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I'm excited for Condottieri, however it could make mid / late game even more deadlocked.

By mid game there's already an extremely complex web of alliances within Europe and rivals have been constantly brawling with each other, the bigger nations have swallowed smaller countries etc.

My point: Will aggressive expansion and rivals have a say in the offering of Condottieri armies? For instance, if I am a weakened Austria in mid-game, and France decides to have a go, and has been expanding quickly over the past 50 years or so, am I more likely to have Condottieri offers from Frances rivals who are not my alliance, or perhaps random nations who have high AE penalties associated with France, but not enough to form / be in a Coalition?

And will it work the other way? If i'm for instance France consolidating my foothold in central Europe, and aggressively taking provinces from smaller nations, (besides the obvious Coalition which could form), If i declare on someone, am I suddenly likely to face 5 - 10 armies from 5 - 10 nations who simply want to bandwagon in on the France - InstertMinorNationHere war?

Is there some restriction on the total amount of Condottieri armies any nation can receive that I've clearly misread? I saw that there is cap on renting units out, but not sure if there's a cap on how many units you can have rented to you.

Is Condottieri going to turn into a pre Coalition mechanic that can turn a 1v1 war into a massive conflict as minor nations, (or even major nations who are rivaled with either party), offer their idle armies up to either party for profits, prestige and (in the case of multiplayer) a way to just generally stop the progress of an aggressive player that no one likes?
 
It is fine and logical to have 1k sized units of infantry and cavalry, but artillery, really?

I dont think there has ever been an army with 10,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry and 8,000 pieces of artillery... insane.

Proposal, why not lower the artillery regiment from 1,000 to 10.

So if you have 8 units of artillery, you have 80 artilleries?
 
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It is fine and logical to have 1k sized units of infantry and cavalry, but artillery, really?

I dont think there has ever been an army with 10,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry and 8,000 pieces of artillery... insane.

Proposal, why not lower the artillery regiment from 1,000 to 10.

So if you have 8 units of artillery, you have 80 artilleries?

It would be cool if artillery numbers were more realistic, although maybe it refers to the men needed to use said artillery and not the piece itself.
 
It would be cool if artillery numbers were more realistic, although maybe it refers to the men needed to use said artillery and not the piece itself.
Since it takes 1000 men from your manpower pool I would assume it refers to men.
 
Nice! This definitely has "Things to do while in Regency" plastered all over it! :)
 
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This will most likely ruin the whole game for quite some time. A much more straightforward concept of forts was too complicated for PI to properly introduce and magic still happens all the time around them, and this requires serious AI involvement.

EU's AI is retarded and cannot properly handle standard armies. This will just add to confusion and we'll end up with a gamy exploit galore.

What about manpower? What about reinforcement cost? What about army limit for recipient and original owner of the army, why should I hire condotieri instead of standard mercenaries?

This can be great for multiplayer, but single player games will most likely be completely unplayable until the 5th hotfix, and situation will become bearable no sooner than two paid dlcs later.
 
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It would probably be a good idea to give the renting nation full control of the army. That way you can't just sit around and collect money, and if the player/AI is hiring AI, then the AI who is renting out the army won't do some stupid shit that isn't in line with what you or the other AI wants to do.
 
A followup question about this: If you rent out your forces and then suddenly you get attacked from another nation, cant you use these forces to defend yourself until the contract expires? In my opinion a war declaration on you should cancel the contract..

Because in my current game i rentef out my forces and suddenly my PU partner spiked in liberty desire and immidiatly got a support indepence from Muscovy, as if the army was non-existent. Would this affect other countries willingness to declare war on you as well?

If that is the case I guess you have to feel very safe to rent out anything at all...
 
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