EU4 - Development Diary - 6th of August 2019

[Battlex]

Can merc companies exceed a ratio for cavalry, so Christians hiring Muslim companies might not work as well as well as when Muslims hire them.
Will nation ideas such as reduced cavalry cost apply to mercs when hiring them.
Personally in favour of some mercs starting in exile, Charles I campaign to help save the winter King is hindered by his troops led by Mansfeld taking forever to get there as well as succumbing to various diseases. You could give them reduced maintenance cogs to transport them in.
Will merc companies be AI controlled like Condoterri, or player controlled.
How will merc companies affect ai chances of hiring condo from the player.

 

[Battlex]

I am actually hoping that the placeholder U/M/T stands for something like Uniques / Mercenaries / Troops.Though U for Units seemse more likely.
But, you know, it would help me realize that Janissaries and other special regiments actually exist

They really should've added Ghurkas in the rule brittania dlc :^)

 

[Chief of Staff]

This mercenary rework with new companies having its origins in different places may lend some interesting flavor to colonial rule in India. British East India Company is well known for hiring natives, called sepoys, to fight for them. However, it is somewhat different since the company itself hired them individually rather than as mercenary companies but it is close enough. What would be interesting, though, is a possibility for hiring Gurkha from Nepali area, famed for their military prowess. Of course, mercenaries should not be solely relied upon for the defense of the "jewel in the crown" that is Indian holdings and I think it is advisable to deploy at least some regular regiments there to reinforce them.

In addition, having different mercenary companies with different modifiers is about as close as having "special" units for all countries (other than regular units differentiated by drill modifier (units without drill modifier could be sort of thought as militias somewhat)). Still hoping for Highlands special regiments for the British Army, though.

And also hoping for modding ability to define special units in the manner of existing ones like Streltsy or Banner for each country some day, too.

 

[MiniaAr]

I don't like that very much. Why should the Swiss fight better when they get paid by Prussia, then by Lübeck? Are prussian coins coated in meth?

I agree. Shouldn't the mercenary companies get the modifiers from their own countries, including the ideas taken by the AI? Therefore, some games getting the Swiss mercs would be awesome. But some other games, you might prefer the Bavarians or something else.

 

[riadach]

Ooooh, Redshanks I see. I hope some Gallowglass troops might be present too.

Is there a chance we could get billeting though? Perhaps we could forgo paying a period maintenance on a mercenary troop by allowing them to "billet" on an owned or occupy province thereby increasing devastation in that province as well as reducing development and increasing unrest?

 

[Kaampper]

I am not learned in historical things like thisz but as i mentioned before, isnt a mercenary company like shown above , the Cossacks, with 13.000 soldiers and 26 000 reserves, which adds up to 39.000 men.

To me that sound absolutely insane... there wernt many armies that size back then, especially mercenaries... right?

And another point, the One about multiple nations can hire a merc company, i dont get it, and from the comments i think nobody does.
So France invades austria with swiss mercs, and austria hires the same company so we basically have a swiss civil war, without the swiss involved...
Wouldnt that also mean that mercs still have infinite manpower if they can be hired by multiple people. ?

I like the merc system from Imperator, one of the few aspects that are great from that game.

Though, despite my criticism, these changes are so much better than the current merc system. Id just wish wed get more condotierre offers, because thats what i find lacking in the game.

 

[Me_]

Aside from the Black Army, are there any other "nation specific" mercenary companies? I suspect the Templars, mentioned in a DD a long time ago to be one. I would imagine that they could be used in a variety of ways in certain circumstances.

 

[Illuminatus]

Nice rework, just one question that I don't know if it has historic bases but I like the idea ...

Will be there a way to brive a merc company hired by an enemy? or a way that the company turns against the one who paid if some conditions are met?

 

[bly08]

Then I'd be curious to know what the other 20% was.



They're not in at the moment, but we highly desire having Random Mercenary Companies in the new world for RNW games.



Unlimited Manchu Banners will feel considerably less unlimited.



We're taking a broad look at said modifiers, and they will likely change by release. There will still be mercenary-only modifiers, but the likes of "available mercenaries +25%" from admin ideas are sure to change.



Mercenary Companies will be part of the free European Update coming next year.



The composition, among other things, is scripted for the companies. as an example:

# Mesopotamian Mamluks
merc_mesopotamian_mamluks = {
    regiments_per_development = 0.075
    cavalry_weight = 0.4
    artillery_weight = 0.2
    home_province = 410
    trigger = {
        religion_group = muslim
        capital_scope = {
            region = mashriq_region
        }
    }
    modifier = {
        cavalry_power = 0.1
        cavalry_shock = 0.1
    }
}

As for the compositions, as well as the costs, these numbers are far from final.





There will be events tied to Mercenary Companies

View attachment 504155



Colonisation rework is not part of the scope for the upcoming European Update.



Trade range will suffice for accessing Mercenary Companies, no need to actually assign merchants.



All first implementations have a reasonable estimation for best value, but they seldom survive first contact with actual playtesting. The values shown in this dev diary should not be taken as final, and will be balanced out in the sizeable journey towards release. We may find that a 10-year delay on re-hiring the same merc company works best, or that it's wildly too short or too long, and will balance accordingly.



This is largely the thought behind not making merc companies simply be first come first served.



Mercenary Companies can be hired so long as their province of origin is within your trade range, even if that province is owned by your bitter war rival, and they will be spawned in any of your core provinces. We briefly considered having them spawn exiled in their origin, and the buyer would have to march / ship them home, but this had too many issues with intended functionality. For example: landlocked Brunswick would have trouble hiring Scottish Mercenaries to fight in their conflicts.

I want to reiterate that having set scripts for army comps that are unsplittable and unmergeable is a terrible idea.

 

[Huseyin1453tr]

İ Like To See More Depth Family Mechanics Not Very Depth Like Ck2 But Atleast İ Can See My Other Heirs Also Assasination Mechanics for Rival King or Heirs

 

[Te. Kenzo]

Maybe instead to have the same company recruitable by everyone, it should be a bid, At start of the war you can notice that a mercenary company is on an ongoing contractation (likely during 30 days), and this time you can try to do a better offer than your enemy and he can do the same

 

[Kukumarro]

Are mercenaries going to keep counting towards your army force limit? I think it will make more sense if they wouldn't, like what happens with condottieri, specially since they are not infinite manpower anymore. Also, because of the professionalism mechanics, you still have a tradeoff between using regular armies and mercenaries.

 

[MiniaAr]

I also want to say that having an "Attach mercenaries", similar to the current "detach mercenaries" would be much appreciated. I understand the not splitting, nor merging part of the rule, but in MP when you cannot pause, managing both Merc armies and regular armies simultaneously so that they arrive at the same time could be stressful.

 

[Reman]

I appreciate the effort to make mercs less spamable, which will make manpower conservation more important. The line between money and fighting ability was so narrow that, in some instances, it disappeared altogether.

However, I have several concerns:

• The fact that merc bands are unsplittable and ummergeable is problematic for a number of reasons. EU4 places heavily emphasis on micro for fort assaults, carpet sieging unforted land, and many other mechanics. Such mechanics could be redesigned to be less micro-intensive, but in the current reality mercs are going to feel excessively clunky to use.
• The poor unit composition of mercs will make them difficult to use well. An 8/5/0 stack isn't good at any point in a campaign. How are prescripted compositions supposed to compete with properly designed armies, like a 40/0/40 in the late game? The composition problem alone is enough of an issue where it feels like you could have replaced "merc rework" with "mercs removed from the game entirely" and you wouldn't notice a substantial difference in terms of strategic options.
• How will the AI handle this? The current AI is completely tuned to the music of plentiful mercs and loans. It stacks its units into ridiculous army sizes and eats 5% attrition wherever it goes. How will it survive without a huge pool of mercs to replace losses? Are we going to enter an era of EU4 where all AI nations are constantly scraping 0 manpower and can only muster pitiful merc stacks against properly designed human armies?

 

[Mesis]

As a MP-only player I love the change.
We will se how it will actually affect the game but hopefuly for the better

 

[Rear]

One of the most rewarding aspects of the game currently is when I can rent out mercenary armies to other countries, especially in multiplayer. These changes seem to completely remove any meaningful rewards from another country hiring your mercenaries in particular.

Perhaps you could give a country prestige, or a percentage of the upfront cost of renting the mercs, when another country decides to hire mercenaries that are based within the player's country.

 

[darth254]

yessssssssssss! I'm sure big strides such as this will take fine-tuning/polishing, but an excellent start on getting away from the necromancer merc armies.

 

[Riekopo]

Logically shouldn't Mercenary Companies be experienced and have veterancy as well as their leaders?

 

[DDRJake]

Hungary is emperor? HuH

Nice catch. I made this screenshot on a build that had a hilarious bug that was giving out Emperor Rank to any old nation.

Two more questions:

1) What will happen with company if their army was stackwiped but manpower of company is still there? And if it was drained completely, does that mean the end of such company?
2) Do generals of mercenary armies count in leader pool limit?

1. A stackwipe is a stackwipe, that mercenary company is gone, and will not be available for hire re-hire for another 10 years.
2. They do not. Since the generals of Mercenary Companies are explicitly tied to that army, they lose all flexibility afforded by your regular leaders, so it made no sense for them to eat into the leader pool limit.

 

[MateuszNH]

Nice catch. I made this screenshot on a build that had a hilarious bug that was giving out Emperor Rank to any old nation.



1. A stackwipe is a stackwipe, that mercenary company is gone, and will not be available for hire re-hire for another 10 years.
2. They do not. Since the generals of Mercenary Companies are explicitly tied to that army, they lose all flexibility afforded by your regular leaders, so it made no sense for them to eat into the leader pool limit.

i have question, is it possible to just delete mercs with lost manpower and take new ones with new manpower pool ? In that case it may not work out.

By the way, if we are in manpower mechanics topic I hope u'll work some more with attrition, scorched earth tactic just doesn't work, nobody uses it, also for now salt-fortresses line in west africa wastelands doesn't work at all, same with scandinavian or russian arctic forts, maybe with this mercs change it may work a little better but i'm not sure