EU4 - Development Diary - 26th of March 2019

[korawit13]

According to my quick research, the concept of a mercenary is eurocentric. According to Wiki, "During the 16th and 17th centuries, a number of mercenaries, arriving from several countries found employment in India. Some of the mercenaries emerged to become independent or independent rulers. "

European mercenaries in India: "During the first war between Bahamani Sultanate and Vijayanagara Empire, launched in 1365 by Muhammad Shah I, both sides imported their artillery guns and employed Turkish and European gunners to man them."


I did not find the concept of mercenary during medieval and ancient times of other continents except in Europe.
The common usage of mercenary becomes global during WWI and WWII.

According to History Chanel, the popular place which rulers were employed merceries was 14th century Italy. Popular mercery companies are the White Company, the Swiss mercenary, the hessian mercery, and The Catalan Grand Company.


My quick suggestion is I guess you could do geographic restriction on what nations are allowed to employ mercenaries like the Swiss Confederation and the Italian states.
For the game design, I do not know I place that responsibility on you.

References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mercenaries#Medieval
https://www.history.com/news/6-legendary-mercenary-armies-from-history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercenaries_in_India

 

[Dasmani]

Right - so they are tied to the country, not really the node, as mercenaries are now. So why not just keep the system there now?

The properties of the unit are tied to the node, but the cap for the number of regiments a country can recruit from that node is tied to the country (based on the country's control of the node). This is mainly just a technical/coding distinction from the system you proposed.So as a comparison, in the system you proposed a node collects a number of units and distributes those units based on trade power. In the system I propose, a node has a value for a number of units available based on the trade value in the node and countries claim a share of that number based on trade power. It is identical in effect: the available units could be modeled as a virtual manpower pool, but that isn't necessary.

It's desirable for those properties to be possessed by the country rather than by the node because it makes it possible for decisions by the country to affect their mercenary cap in a node. For example, if there were a national idea or idea group that increases, let's call it "Mercenary Influence" by x%, having the cap tied to the node would mean that every node in the game would need to read that and store a copy of it. It's just less efficient.

In the system I proposed for receiving extra manpower (that is, national manpower) from trade nodes, the amount of total manpower that is distributed is dependent on properties of the node (just as in the system you proposed where the node had it's own pool of manpower), but the manpower is distributed to the nations competing in the node directly (this is technically less calculation and coding.)

Right - but my point is that I don't see these as different to what is already there. You can pay money to get higher rates of manpower recovery now (the slider for army expenditure affects manpower pool growth rate). Every nation already has a pool of available mercenaries. Adding in a link to the trade nodes with no real game effect seems to be superfluous - what effect of the link am I missing?

In the current system, the mercenary cap for a country is independent, so when one country hires mercenaries, those mercenaries are only removed from that country's available mercenaries, and one country can raise their mercenary cap without lowering another countries.

Tying the mercenary caps to trade nodes as I proposed represents a global mercenary cap that countries claim a share of by their control of trade. So, as a concrete example, if you were to look at a single trade node, the value in that node would give it a mercenary cap of some number. If you add up all the mercenary capacity of all the nodes, that's it. That is all of the mercenaries for the whole world (or, in years when trade range is more limited, a cap on mercenaries for a whole region), and this requires nations to compete for a share of that capacity by exerting economic control.

You can pay money to get higher rates of manpower recovery now (the slider for army expenditure affects manpower pool growth rate).

The army maintenance slider only affects army morale and the rate at which units reinforce. It does not affect manpower or manpower recovery. Adding a slider to allow countries to pay money to draw additional manpower from other sources would be extremely welcome and would more accurately represent the shift to large standing armies during the period. In the early years, it makes economic sense to keep that slider as low as possible and supplement your army with mercenaries that you can disband during peace. In the late game, money is available enough to keep the slider at maximum, giving you enough manpower to wage wars with your regular forces.

The mercenary slider would also translate to the efficiency with which your trade power would be used to determine your cap when recruiting mercenaries and your distribution of manpower from a node. It shouldn't be possible for someone with barely any presence in a node to buy up all the mercenaries while nations that have a much larger presence are actively competing for those contracts, and it also shouldn't be possible for a nation to "tie up" a share of the mercenary cap if they aren't actually paying mercenaries, so there needs to be a way for a nation to decide how much of its economic weight its throwing into the mercenary ring.

According to the current rules of war, neither the Gurkhas nor the French Foreign Legion are really mercenaries at all. They are foreign nationals forming part of the regular forces of Britain, India or France.

This is what I was getting at. In the transition to professional standing armies, the use of mercenary units was largely replaced by the practice of contracting foreign nationals into the regular armies of the state.

The "Wild Geese" fleeing Ireland after the 1688, 1715 and 1745 episodes of attempted Catholic seizure of the British crown were the core of the regiments. 1715 and 1745 - and the subsequent chasing off of the highland clans - were what added Scots to the mercenary ranks. Almost every well recorded mercenary I check started their military career in a national army before leaving or being kicked out for some reason or another. Wars create mercenaries; political supression may sustain their numbers, but in almost all cases the genesis is a defeated (or, in a few cases, even a victorious but disbanded) army.

I think we're on two different subjects here. Yes, those events led to Irish and Scotch soldiers establishing contacts with foreign military leaders, and veterans of those events were present as mercenary groups, but the practice of France, Spain, and other nations to supplement their regular forces with Irish recruits was fueled by the large number of otherwise unemployed military-aged Irishmen who had been banned from service in Great Britain. The Irish Catholic gentry of the region recruited from these men to supply the French and Spanish.

When I mentioned that at least three generations of Irishmen were recruited who had not been veterans of any conflict, I had been in a bit of a rush, so I'll try to be more thorough here:

1688 to 1715 is 27 years, 1715 to 1745 is 30, so a twenty year old in 1688 would have been 47 in 1715 and a 20 year old in 1715 would have been 50, which is fairly old for military service. Also, there were undoubtedly battle casualties in those time periods which would have needed to be replaced. So with that in consideration, looking at the fact that those units continued to expand through those years, it is necessary to conclude that foreign powers were recruiting from generations that were born during or after those conflicts: people who came of age between conflicts.

So while some soldiers became mercenaries following conflicts, this was far more common in times when armies were raised temporarily from levies and were supplemented by temporary mercenary contracts. In times when standing armies were trained and maintained, it was significantly less common for veteran troops to be disbanded or leave service in times of peace, and foreign recruits were likewise kept on a near permanent basis. This is why I decided to exclude the War of Austrian Succession. Frederick the Great would not have disbanded his veteran troops after 1748. He would have kept them in Prussia.

Likewise, as you said, the mercenary units formed by veterans of those conflicts were formed by the soldiers who left and relocated away from that conflict. The Wild Geese flew to continental Europe to find work as mercenaries. In game terms, you would find them in Genoa and Champagne, not the North Sea. So having casualties and disbanding add to the pool of the node in the region the casualties and disbanding occurred fails to model the trend of soldiers of fortune seeking their fortune away from the conflicts that made them soldiers. It is possible to build a system that accurately simulates this, but Trade Value is a fairly accurate abstraction. The disbanded and routed soldiers of foreign conflicts are more likely to wind up in places that have more money, goods, and ships passing through.

It could also be modeled by events that spawn units that act in the same way as Condottieri but are not connected to another nation.

 

[amisner2k]

Well if you plan on going the route I think you're going, I will be very interested indeed.
Here is how I would expect the new revamped feature to work:

Instead of hiring individual mercenary regiments, you'll hire entire armies (which could be called "companies" in game to more appropriately match the mercenary theme).

So say you go to hire a mercenary company. You see in a list some available options:
- Wilhelm's Mercenary Company (12x4x6)
- George's Frankish Band (8x2x4)
- [some randomly generated merc company name] (INFxCAVxART)
- etc you get the idea

In the list you can see each army's makeup and cost.
Clicking the option in list will immediately hire the merc band at the province selected.
It will instantly appear on map with zero moral (to represent the band needing to organize itself and members) and gradually increase its moral until ready. Player can give move order to army once moral is high enough just like any regular army.

Mercenary armies have unique features such as:
1. They cannot be split or have regiments added or removed from them (since they're not your armies, they just follow your orders)
2. They cannot have leaders reassigned/unassigned (they have their own leaders).
3. Each mercenary army costs a certain ducat amount per month plus extra due to losses from attrition.
4. Each mercenary army is effectively its own "mini nation" with its own combat bonuses (not sure how feasible this one would be to code in but would be really amazing if was possible).
5. Various ideas or events could provide bonuses/penalties to the combat effectiveness or whatever of merc companies under your control.

Anyway, that's pretty much the gist of what I think the new mercenary mechanic could be. Would be pretty sweet. Either way, I look forward to what you all come up with.

 

[rimworld inbox]

Can't wait to hire cost inefficient cav merc units for greater immersion and more intelligent decision making.

Maybe you can make merc companies like ottoman 0/0/20 cannon stack, the Russian 50/0/0 streltsy stack and Swedish 10/9/0 stack for maximum efficient gameplay courtesy of AI

I also really like ideas for inflexible splitting of armies. Because no one who has played eu4 past tutorial could possibly see the utility in being able to divide up armies at will.

 

[Ruian]

Can't wait to hire cost inefficient cav merc units for greater immersion and more intelligent decision making.

Maybe you can make merc companies like ottoman 0/0/20 cannon stack, the Russian 50/0/0 streltsy stack and Swedish 10/9/0 stack for maximum efficient gameplay courtesy of AI

I also really like ideas for inflexible splitting of armies. Because no one who has played eu4 past tutorial could possibly see the utility in being able to divide up armies at will.

But what if we could hire banners and pay constant 10 corruption per year because we love corruption so much? Didn't think of that, did you? Hey, that's an idea. Mercs just constantly corrupt your nation until it becomes unplayable. If you hit 100 corruption the game just ends.

 

[Canute VII]

We are in agreement. If manpower weren't so horribly underpowered I would never hire a single mercenary except for in a pinch (which is supposed to be what they are for, I think). Yeah why drill when you can lower maintenance and save your money for mercs. Pretty much.

To counter this, lowering maintenance on mercenaries should bring its own downsides. Effectively, we are not paying mercs their salary, why should they stay loyal and disciplined? A merc regiment with lowered maintenance should start to loot even owned provinces and contribute to devastation. Now we can

• accept this
• disband mercenaries
• put all our merc units in the least importanr province in the least important state

The point is that it should be more risky to employ mercs and not pay them.

 

[Balesir]

The properties of the unit are tied to the node, but the cap for the number of regiments a country can recruit from that node is tied to the country (based on the country's control of the node). This is mainly just a technical/coding distinction from the system you proposed.So as a comparison, in the system you proposed a node collects a number of units and distributes those units based on trade power. In the system I propose, a node has a value for a number of units available based on the trade value in the node and countries claim a share of that number based on trade power. It is identical in effect: the available units could be modeled as a virtual manpower pool, but that isn't necessary.

To be clear (as I may have misunderstood), is the total mercenary availability in the node just the sum of national "shares", or is it less? If it's less, then you are indeed just replicating the system I have in mind but with units instead of manpower. If it's the same, on the other hand, I think you've just got a total number of mercenaries allocated to each nation based on its total trade power as a nation. The other issue would be where the mercenaries get replacements from; if it's the national manpower pool, then you just have an extra "virtual manpower pool" for the nation equal to the number of available mercenary regiments (= x * trade power) times 1000.

In the system I proposed for receiving extra manpower (that is, national manpower) from trade nodes, the amount of total manpower that is distributed is dependent on properties of the node (just as in the system you proposed where the node had it's own pool of manpower), but the manpower is distributed to the nations competing in the node directly (this is technically less calculation and coding.)

The system I had in mind would not make the manpower in the pool available in any way except by hiring mercenary regiments and replacing casualties in them. Direct manpower feed to the national pool I think would be much better done via covert diplomatic actions among non-accepted cultures.

In the current system, the mercenary cap for a country is independent, so when one country hires mercenaries, those mercenaries are only removed from that country's available mercenaries, and one country can raise their mercenary cap without lowering another countries.

Tying the mercenary caps to trade nodes as I proposed represents a global mercenary cap that countries claim a share of by their control of trade. So, as a concrete example, if you were to look at a single trade node, the value in that node would give it a mercenary cap of some number. If you add up all the mercenary capacity of all the nodes, that's it. That is all of the mercenaries for the whole world (or, in years when trade range is more limited, a cap on mercenaries for a whole region), and this requires nations to compete for a share of that capacity by exerting economic control.

Yep, I see this - and if the cap on the node as a whole is less than the sum of the national caps in the node then you have something that pretty much represents mercenary companies looking for contracts (but with some discrimination about who they'll sign up with). The question then is where they get replacements from - remembering that consolidating regiments and then hiring more (back up to the cap) will just create a bottomless manpower pool...

The army maintenance slider only affects army morale and the rate at which units reinforce. It does not affect manpower or manpower recovery.

Sorry, yes - I was misremembering the effect that makes manpower increase when you decrease the slider (and thus decrease replacement rate).

Adding a slider to allow countries to pay money to draw additional manpower from other sources would be extremely welcome and would more accurately represent the shift to large standing armies during the period.

Is payment of money really what swelled manpower pools as the period progressed? I don't think so. Late on it was conscription by the levee en masse, early it was acceptance of disaffected or unemployed soldiers.

This is what I was getting at. In the transition to professional standing armies, the use of mercenary units was largely replaced by the practice of contracting foreign nationals into the regular armies of the state.

Partly, maybe, but not 'largely'. Mercenary companies were still a thing in 1815, and recruitment of foreign unemployed and disaffected emigres went in parallel to that.

I think we're on two different subjects here. Yes, those events led to Irish and Scotch soldiers establishing contacts with foreign military leaders, and veterans of those events were present as mercenary groups, but the practice of France, Spain, and other nations to supplement their regular forces with Irish recruits was fueled by the large number of otherwise unemployed military-aged Irishmen who had been banned from service in Great Britain. The Irish Catholic gentry of the region recruited from these men to supply the French and Spanish.

Catholic Irish and Scots were not barred from enlisting in the British forces - they simply often refused to on political/personal grounds. They wanted to fight against Britain, not for it. This could and should be a result of "aggressive expansion" and non-accepted cultures, and of militarily crushing revolts.

Likewise, as you said, the mercenary units formed by veterans of those conflicts were formed by the soldiers who left and relocated away from that conflict. The Wild Geese flew to continental Europe to find work as mercenaries. In game terms, you would find them in Genoa and Champagne, not the North Sea. So having casualties and disbanding add to the pool of the node in the region the casualties and disbanding occurred fails to model the trend of soldiers of fortune seeking their fortune away from the conflicts that made them soldiers. It is possible to build a system that accurately simulates this, but Trade Value is a fairly accurate abstraction. The disbanded and routed soldiers of foreign conflicts are more likely to wind up in places that have more money, goods, and ships passing through.

It could also be modeled by events that spawn units that act in the same way as Condottieri but are not connected to another nation.

The English Channel and Bordeaux strike me as the trade nodes for this. Trade nodes represent shipping areas, which is why they make such good conduits for mercenary connections. The growth of mercenary manpower in the nodes that is set against the opponent that exiled them strikes me as a good way to model this.

 

[Elzephor]

Why not introduce a bidding system? You'd have an interface showing the available mercenaries. Instead of being click-and-buy with fixed prices, countries would place bids on each company, and after a certain time period had passed, each company would go to the highest bidder.

This would give you a couple cool options. Perhaps some companies could be willing to consider switching sides during the war, if they are out-bid. Perhaps some are more stingy than others - some regular companies could be click-and-buy, while other, better ones would hold out for better bids.

A system like this would open up the possibilty for mercenary companies to act like more fleshed out and interesting "characters" in the game, who have their own interests and agency - while not getting to complicated.

 

[Dasmani]

To be clear (as I may have misunderstood), is the total mercenary availability in the node just the sum of national "shares", or is it less? If it's less, then you are indeed just replicating the system I have in mind but with units instead of manpower. If it's the same, on the other hand, I think you've just got a total number of mercenaries allocated to each nation based on its total trade power as a nation. The other issue would be where the mercenaries get replacements from; if it's the national manpower pool, then you just have an extra "virtual manpower pool" for the nation equal to the number of available mercenary regiments (= x * trade power) times 1000.

The total mercenary availability in the node is calculated first using trade value, which is independent of any nation in the node, and then that availability is split by trade power. So the nations calculate their cap based on a property of the node, but the value of of that calculation is stored as a property of the country so that it could be modified by ideas, policies, events, and triggered modifiers that affect values of countries, rather than being stored in the node.

Yep, I see this - and if the cap on the node as a whole is less than the sum of the national caps in the node then you have something that pretty much represents mercenary companies looking for contracts (but with some discrimination about who they'll sign up with). The question then is where they get replacements from - remembering that consolidating regiments and then hiring more (back up to the cap) will just create a bottomless manpower pool...

I would implement a secondary cost/cooldown to these units, or have the units spawn at low manpower and need to recover. It would be easiest to have the special units reinforce from nonexistent manpower, as the regiment cap already solves the issue of having too many mercenary regiments.

 

[tonypa]

Well if you plan on going the route I think you're going, I will be very interested indeed.
Here is how I would expect the new revamped feature to work:

Instead of hiring individual mercenary regiments, you'll hire entire armies (which could be called "companies" in game to more appropriately match the mercenary theme).

So say you go to hire a mercenary company. You see in a list some available options:
- Wilhelm's Mercenary Company (12x4x6)
- George's Frankish Band (8x2x4)
- [some randomly generated merc company name] (INFxCAVxART)
- etc you get the idea

In the list you can see each army's makeup and cost.
Clicking the option in list will immediately hire the merc band at the province selected.
It will instantly appear on map with zero moral (to represent the band needing to organize itself and members) and gradually increase its moral until ready. Player can give move order to army once moral is high enough just like any regular army.

Mercenary armies have unique features such as:
1. They cannot be split or have regiments added or removed from them (since they're not your armies, they just follow your orders)
2. They cannot have leaders reassigned/unassigned (they have their own leaders).
3. Each mercenary army costs a certain ducat amount per month plus extra due to losses from attrition.
4. Each mercenary army is effectively its own "mini nation" with its own combat bonuses (not sure how feasible this one would be to code in but would be really amazing if was possible).
5. Various ideas or events could provide bonuses/penalties to the combat effectiveness or whatever of merc companies under your control.

Anyway, that's pretty much the gist of what I think the new mercenary mechanic could be. Would be pretty sweet. Either way, I look forward to what you all come up with.

This is very similar to what I had in mind.

I will try to write down short description of what I think would be better Merc system (assuming the loans are also being fixed so you will not be able to pull out money from nowhere anymore):

- every Region has number of available Mercenary Units (MU)
- size and number of units are based on Manpower and land Force Limit of every country who owns at least one province in the region (scaled from total development of country against development of provinces owned in this region)
- these MU are stationed in specific province as their home, if hired the new controller has to move them into their own territory first (for example country owning a province in India can hire MU from there and bring it to their home region in Europe to fight, it just takes time and money to move them)
- the look and stats of each MU depend on the owner of their home province
- each MU has General (replaced randomly when they die)
- they cannot be split or have regiments added or removed from them, can not change general (as described by amisner2k)
- price of each MU can be different based on their size, quality of stats and general, and current contract
- the price of each MU goes down when they are NOT hired, and goes up while they are hired
- both price to initially hire and monthly cost goes up every month, so longer the MU is being hired = more money is required to keep them
- country can get them for very cheap if no other country has hired them lately, but also anyone can pay more and hire same unit even when they were already hired by other country
- current owner can end the contract at any time, the MU will then move back to home province and their price starts to lower
- while fighting in battles, and also through Attrition, each MU will lose men
- they will not reinforce ANY men over time like normal units while being hired, they will only start to reinforce back to max limit when they move back to origin province after contract ends
- however MU will reinforce their unit by looting enemy province. When MU is looting the country currently owning them gets no money from looting until MU is already fully reinforced (from comment by veryhungryperson in Steam)
- if MU is completely destroyed, new MU will be forming in one random province, starting with 0 men, cheap price and slowly growing to max limit
- if MU reaches minimum size (10-15% of their max size) they will automatically end current contract and move back to their home province. They can not be hired before they reach max size again (from comment by veryhungryperson in Steam)

P.S. I did not read through whole thread, sorry if this same idea has been proposed before

 

[Ruian]

@tonypa can you enlighten me as to how you have so much money every game such that you suggest nerfing loans and making mercs incredibly expensive and painful to use?

 

[tonypa]

@tonypa can you enlighten me as to how you have so much money every game such that you suggest nerfing loans and making mercs incredibly expensive and painful to use?

What makes you think the system I proposed will make Mercs more expensive to use? I intentionally never mentioned any numbers as these are all matter of balancing the system and does not change the basic idea. Main point of the system I posted is that Mercs are not tied to each country anymore (where larger country can simply get more of them just because they are big) but they are attached to each Region where every country has similar access to them. Also, relying on Mercs for long periods of time should be avoided imh.

The initial cost to hire Merc unit for short time should be quite low (in my mind).

As about loans, it is true that I do consider these "easy money" atm, without no actual penalty using them. But I do not think fixing loans is the actual point of this thread.

 

[Ruian]

@tonypa cheaper sounds good to me, they are obscenely expensive as is unless you are dominating a rich trade node in Europe. This system doesn't address the main point of merc rebalancing though. Evidently some players are upset that large nations can spam hire a bunch of mercenaries as soon as their armies are defeated or manpower depleted. With your system it sounds like they will be able to hire huge companies of mercs on command, especially if they span large amounts of land- which they will.

 

[tonypa]

@tonypa cheaper sounds good to me, they are obscenely expensive as is unless you are dominating a rich trade node in Europe. This system doesn't address the main point of merc rebalancing though. Evidently some players are upset that large nations can spam hire a bunch of mercenaries as soon as their armies are defeated or manpower depleted. With your system it sounds like they will be able to hire huge companies of mercs on command, especially if they span large amounts of land- which they will.

Well, large countries with rich tradenodes have always more money and are able to maintain more troops, even if Mercenaries would be completely removed from the game. And, as we know from the attempts to at least reduce the "bigger = easier" system (corruption from territories, limited number of states, high cost to convert new provinces) many players are so used to only play the game by expanding as fast as they can, they oppose any penalty on large nations. They oppose it fiercely, loudly and with endless passion.

I do believe this new system I proposed does reduce Merc spam ability from larger nations. Let me explain:

- first, number of merc units would be limited, once all the units in specific region have been hired no more can be created. Currently, the blobs like Ottos or Russia or Ming can pretty much rely on endless amount of Mercs. Notice that big country in the region will make more mercs available not only to themself, but every other country in the region too

- next, any country in the region would be able to bribe enemy Merc Unit to fight for them instead of that large dominant nation. Yes, the richest and strongest nations in the region have probably more money to pay for these, but that is not always the case, specially when they are starting to lose the war.

- also the Home province of Mercs means these units can not magically appear next to enemy troops who are currently siegeing down capital, no, they need to move from their home province to the target, following all the rules every unit has to follow. There could be forts blocking their path, there could be nations not allowing access. All this means enemy has time and means to counter this new Merc unit

- and because the strength of Merc Unit would not be magically reinforced every month by spending some small amount of money, they would be much more vulnerable to multiple battles. Currently, with enough money you can basically throw unkillable Merc Units at enemy that will be at full force couple days after every battle. That will be not possible anymore

 

[Scorpene]

they can't change the mercenary system.

Mercenaries are the way they are for two reasons, 1) manpower is burned too fast (and the AI simply can't handle it), and 2) anything that s not war in EU4 is boring or non existent, so you need an infinite supply of mercenaries to keep fighting wars/keep the game fun. They can't really change how mercenaries works without fixing the other two problems. They will fiddle the numbers or put a patch here and there but the infinite mercenaries horde will always be there.

Here is the thing of interest.

Interwar need to be… Regular.
Currently, once you ended a war (and sometimes even before) you are already planning for your next military move.

Peace should be a time where you plan things, where you build, educate your people, where you struggle with internal troubles (hello Estates) and where you plan. Creating a Trading company? Creating Polder? Creating a new Harbour on the Channel, called Cherbourg? You can do that when you are at peace. You can develop your settlement and the way they are, when you are at peace. And by developping i mean, finding way to convince people to settle in your colonies (which was the problem of France and NL), or way to convince native to embrace your nation and religion ?
I mean, war is interesting, but War is just a continuation of politics and infrastructure policies and should be more of that in EUIV. There is so much work to do on that game. And you'd maybe have less war and less blobs, but the replayability of the game would increase so much ! (and the potential for new achievement would increase so much too).

A settler Manpower that allows you to colonize differently,
a sailor Manpower that you can use to build and upkeep your ship (just like now), but also to developp trade company all over Asia
And of course a Merc Manpower, with people willing to fight. Following the game, more and more we'd go from Mercenaries to Condottieres (or Lansquenets), and in the end to full Professional armies.

@DDRJake is there a possibility of a real Rework of colonization though? (and would that be part of the Brest - Constantinople update? As settlers and colonists where the countries involved in that axis)

 

[Balesir]

The total mercenary availability in the node is calculated first using trade value, which is independent of any nation in the node, and then that availability is split by trade power. So the nations calculate their cap based on a property of the node, but the value of of that calculation is stored as a property of the country so that it could be modified by ideas, policies, events, and triggered modifiers that affect values of countries, rather than being stored in the node.

OK, so it's basically a modified calculation method for the mercenary caps by nation, as are present now? Mercenaries are not shared in any meaningful way, but are "on call" for each specific nation. The manpower acquisition is then a fix for the current rapid manpower drain and slow recovery, gained by applying cash to (a) node(s).

Apart from the slider, I think it has the advantage of simplicity, but I think some method to 'share' the resource (eg have the node cap be less than the sum of national caps) and to 'suborn' mercenaries (either a bidding system or a covert diplomatic move to get a mercenary unit to swap employers) would be better. The 'slider' I would frankly prefer to be a single button (like the 'maximise profit' one) and/or a covert mission to acquire rebellious/non-accepted culture manpower to the national manpower pool.

I would implement a secondary cost/cooldown to these units, or have the units spawn at low manpower and need to recover. It would be easiest to have the special units reinforce from nonexistent manpower, as the regiment cap already solves the issue of having too many mercenary regiments.

I think this depends whether you want mercenaries to be an ultimately limitless source of manpower. With the manpower pools as tight as they are now, this is an overwhelmingly powerful feature of mercenaries, but maybe if manpower recovery were more relaxed (for example by returning a proportion of casualties to the pool immediately) it would be different.

Another approach would be to have local wars and such change the rate of replacements to mercenary units, but if you do that you might as well do it as a manpower pool in the trade node (since you'll be doing something as involved as that, anyway, to get the rate changes).

None of these systems address the increased availability of mercenaries during or after wars. Having to wait until later in/after a war to get mercenaries, and having their availability go down over an extended peace, seems to me to be an important factor in both balancing and limiting mercenaries; long-term, you either have to disband your mercenary regiments or convert them into "normal" national regiments (albeit possibly using foreign-recruited manpower).

 

[Dasmani]

OK, so it's basically a modified calculation method for the mercenary caps by nation, as are present now? Mercenaries are not shared in any meaningful way, but are "on call" for each specific nation. The manpower acquisition is then a fix for the current rapid manpower drain and slow recovery, gained by applying cash to (a) node(s).

No no, sorry. Let me try an example.

Genoa has a trade value of 157.3 Ducats. This trade value attracts 76 units of mercenaries. Spain,, France, Genoa, and Tuscany all have a merchant in the node with 37%, 17%, 32% and 18% of the trade power respectively. Let's say Spain and France have their slider at max while Genoa has it at half and Tuscany has it at 0. France and Spain use their full trade power, Genoa uses half his trade power, and Tuscany uses no trade power to compete for mercenaries. But France is using the "build mercenary contracts" trading policy giving a 10% increase to trade power for mercenaries and has an espionage-quantity policy for another 40%! So Spain uses all of his 37%, France uses 150% of his 17%, Genoa uses half of his 32% and Tuscany uses none. So that brings us to a new ratio of 37, 25.5, and 16. Using that ratio, Spain has a cap of 36 units, France gets 24 units, and Genoa gets 16 out of the 76 (if you sum those numbers for the ratio it comes out to 78.5 so that's why it looks so nice, since 37/78.5 is about 36/76).

It would work the same for the bonus manpower. Let's say the trade value corresponds to 760 manpower per month, Spain would get 370, France gets 240, and Genoa gets 160

I think this depends whether you want mercenaries to be an ultimately limitless source of manpower. With the manpower pools as tight as they are now, this is an overwhelmingly powerful feature of mercenaries, but maybe if manpower recovery were more relaxed

That's the whole purpose of receiving bonus manpower in addition to the system of special mercenary units.

Mercenaries are not shared in any meaningful way, but are "on call" for each specific nation.

The use of trade power is an abstraction for the establishment of contracts and payment methods, which are necessary to build trust with your mercenary contacts. It shows that a nation has sufficient administrative and diplomatic institutions in the region to actually contract mercenaries. You can compete for mercenaries by changing the share of trade power used to make calculations for the mercenary pool or by steering trade away from a node. By tying the cap to a value possessed by a nation (trade power, specifically) you can have any number of modifiers for it. Prestige, Covert Actions, Peace Treaties, Policies, Events, State Edicts, Estates, Ideas, and Diplomatic Relations could all change the relative availability of Mercenaries simply by modifying the trade power value for that calculation.

It also means that you may not want to steer all the trade to one node, you may want to keep a lot of value in Samarkand to have a higher capacity for the special Kandysamar units because they look like samurai coated in candy. That's what I'll be doing anyway.

 

[Chris B.]

Here are a couple of ideas:
- Add a mercenary pool to all states or regions, preferably based on development, that ALL countries share
- Make a sphere of reach for all countries (probably could be even increased with ideas) that is measured from either their capital/border/full cored states/etc.
- Spice it up with features, such as: full cored, non-separatism, right culture states contribute mercs only to the owner country, etc.

This one is for free, I will charge for the next idea.

 

[Balesir]

Genoa has a trade value of 157.3 Ducats. This trade value attracts 76 units of mercenaries. Spain,, France, Genoa, and Tuscany all have a merchant in the node with 37%, 17%, 32% and 18% of the trade power respectively. Let's say Spain and France have their slider at max while Genoa has it at half and Tuscany has it at 0. France and Spain use their full trade power, Genoa uses half his trade power, and Tuscany uses no trade power to compete for mercenaries. But France is using the "build mercenary contracts" trading policy giving a 10% increase to trade power for mercenaries and has an espionage-quantity policy for another 40%! So Spain uses all of his 37%, France uses 150% of his 17%, Genoa uses half of his 32% and Tuscany uses none. So that brings us to a new ratio of 37, 25.5, and 16. Using that ratio, Spain has a cap of 36 units, France gets 24 units, and Genoa gets 16 out of the 76 (if you sum those numbers for the ratio it comes out to 78.5 so that's why it looks so nice, since 37/78.5 is about 36/76).

Okay, but my point was that hiring mercenaries in a node doesn't affect the mercenaries available to any other country in the node, and nor does the progress of wars in the vicinity. This seems to me to miss key elements of what the mercenary market should be about. What you are doing here can be thought of as getting a total mercenary supply for the whole world (based on the trade value sums in all nodes) and then dividing it up among countries in ratio with a complex calculation based on trade power and policies.

That's the whole purpose of receiving bonus manpower in addition to the system of special mercenary units.

Right - I think it's basically a separate issue that the manpower pools need reform in themselves, and sourcing of "foreign recruits" from trade nodes or directly via covert diplomacy is one way to do it. Mercenary units themselves, though, ought not to have an endless source of manpower. Neither should revolters, actually, but that's another separate issue.

The use of trade power is an abstraction for the establishment of contracts and payment methods, which are necessary to build trust with your mercenary contacts. It shows that a nation has sufficient administrative and diplomatic institutions in the region to actually contract mercenaries. You can compete for mercenaries by changing the share of trade power used to make calculations for the mercenary pool or by steering trade away from a node. By tying the cap to a value possessed by a nation (trade power, specifically) you can have any number of modifiers for it. Prestige, Covert Actions, Peace Treaties, Policies, Events, State Edicts, Estates, Ideas, and Diplomatic Relations could all change the relative availability of Mercenaries simply by modifying the trade power value for that calculation.

Right, but the result is a pool that is exclusive to you. The two things this lacks are a sense of competition for scarce resources and any effect on the availability of the said resources caused by local wars. Both elements should, I think, be a feature of a good mercenary system.

It also means that you may not want to steer all the trade to one node, you may want to keep a lot of value in Samarkand to have a higher capacity for the special Kandysamar units because they look like samurai coated in candy. That's what I'll be doing anyway.

Special features of the mercenaries available from specific nodes is a feature that would be good to add. As well as making contact with specific nodes valuable, it also opens up a range of potentially interesting tradeoffs and considerations if, for example, the features of the troops in a node depend on who generates the most mercenaries by disbanding regiments or taking casualties locally. Such dynamically generated characteristics could make policies and actions important on the supply, as well as the demand, side.

 

[RedZoneR1]

Make the merc hiring and maintenance start out low, but scale exponentially by a really sharp amount, so they would be a nice option earlygame, but as the game goes on they would be brutally expensive and too much of a cash-drain to maintain.
I think that splitting standing-army buffs and mercenary buffs could apply too.