One of the main things bothering me now with this game is how strictly the EU 4 army system has been copied into it. In particular the armies and the modifiers that they receive from traditions and such. Basically from what we've seen from the dev diaries, gameplay footage and directly from Johan is that a Country has certain modifiers to discipline, Light Infantry damage, etc and these are then given to every Cohort that fights under it.
This means that if you hire a Gallic Mercenary army as Rome, the Roman country modifiers will apply to this new Gallic Army so it will sort of be as if this Gallic army instantly adapted itself to Roman tactics and fighting style the moment they received their payment even if the only Roman person any of the mercenaries in the army has ever seen was the guy giving them their paycheck.
For Carthage this is even worse as they historically relied heavily upon mercenaries/allies such as Gallic and Iberian Infantry, Numidian Cavalry as well as their own Carthaginian Navy.
It would also nullify the use of famous mercenaries such as the Rhodian Slingers or the Cretan archers as well as famous Auxilliary such as the Batavians who manned most of the early Roman Emperor's elite cavalry Germanic Bodyguard as none of them will provide any sort of unique bonus.
I'm guessing that folllowing the EU 4 model, allies will also not be providing their own bonusses when fighting enmeies if they fight alongside you, or, if they have a higher-tiered general, they might actually override your own traditions.
What it comes down to is that it would add a lot of historical flavor if Cohorts would simply have their own unique modifiers that will draw from their home-faction instead of the army they are at that time fighting with and that mercenaries develop their own traditions(that the player can see before hiring). That way if you play as Carthage and have 5000 allied Numidian light cavalry, 10000 mercenary Gallic light infantry and 3000 Carthaginian Heavy infantry that they all receive their own bonusses so the Gauls receive their own light-infantry bonus from their mercenary company, the Numidians use the light cavalry bonusses from their own country as do the Carthaginians from theirs.
To balance this there could be an overall discipline malus in battle if your armies consist of troops that are for ~~>40% non-country cohorts, as well as a military tradition or General ability/trait that would remove that malus so that for example either Carthage(as their tree's end bonus) or Hannibal in particular could handle foreign armies without problems. On the other side of the pond, there could also be a Feudatory law that would force all your feudatory' armies to fight in the same manner as their overlord faction, giving them their overlord's national ideas bonusses with the benefit being that the feudatories will not add to the foreign country troop malus. This is basically what happened with the Romans whose republican army consisted for about 50% of allied troops who fought in the same manner as the Romans. This allowed Roman generals to generally have an easier time handling the tactics of these armies while Carthaginian generals, besides Hannibal, generally struggled commanding their multicultural armies.
This means that if you hire a Gallic Mercenary army as Rome, the Roman country modifiers will apply to this new Gallic Army so it will sort of be as if this Gallic army instantly adapted itself to Roman tactics and fighting style the moment they received their payment even if the only Roman person any of the mercenaries in the army has ever seen was the guy giving them their paycheck.
For Carthage this is even worse as they historically relied heavily upon mercenaries/allies such as Gallic and Iberian Infantry, Numidian Cavalry as well as their own Carthaginian Navy.
It would also nullify the use of famous mercenaries such as the Rhodian Slingers or the Cretan archers as well as famous Auxilliary such as the Batavians who manned most of the early Roman Emperor's elite cavalry Germanic Bodyguard as none of them will provide any sort of unique bonus.
I'm guessing that folllowing the EU 4 model, allies will also not be providing their own bonusses when fighting enmeies if they fight alongside you, or, if they have a higher-tiered general, they might actually override your own traditions.
What it comes down to is that it would add a lot of historical flavor if Cohorts would simply have their own unique modifiers that will draw from their home-faction instead of the army they are at that time fighting with and that mercenaries develop their own traditions(that the player can see before hiring). That way if you play as Carthage and have 5000 allied Numidian light cavalry, 10000 mercenary Gallic light infantry and 3000 Carthaginian Heavy infantry that they all receive their own bonusses so the Gauls receive their own light-infantry bonus from their mercenary company, the Numidians use the light cavalry bonusses from their own country as do the Carthaginians from theirs.
To balance this there could be an overall discipline malus in battle if your armies consist of troops that are for ~~>40% non-country cohorts, as well as a military tradition or General ability/trait that would remove that malus so that for example either Carthage(as their tree's end bonus) or Hannibal in particular could handle foreign armies without problems. On the other side of the pond, there could also be a Feudatory law that would force all your feudatory' armies to fight in the same manner as their overlord faction, giving them their overlord's national ideas bonusses with the benefit being that the feudatories will not add to the foreign country troop malus. This is basically what happened with the Romans whose republican army consisted for about 50% of allied troops who fought in the same manner as the Romans. This allowed Roman generals to generally have an easier time handling the tactics of these armies while Carthaginian generals, besides Hannibal, generally struggled commanding their multicultural armies.
