Does the new mercenary system need more flexibility?

[Swagnificent]

I'm mostly thinking that we need more smaller Merc companies as well as more niche ones, such as mostly artillery or cav ones, or ones with shit morale that you use just for pure numbers.

Having recently tried to escape the tyranny of quantity ideas and professionalism and attempting to Merc up, I find the extreme lack of smaller, more unique and flexible mercs sad, as well as the lack of dynamic ones. (For instance, how about ones like the Wild Geese, where a religious/ethnic minority of a country sends out its manpower to Merc around?)

That being reworked alongside the condottiere system would be a dream because as is, they feel weirdly disconnected as well when they should probably have at least some connection. (Maybe you could advertise condottiere stacks or preset them up?)

 

[Blizzrd33]

I'd like to see the professionalism cost for hiring a merc company scale with the number of troops you get, instead of the current method of the price in ducats both upfront and ongoing scaling but the professionalism hit remaining 5%.

I'd also like to see an option to re-roll the general who leads the merc company for a similar cost to hiring a general for your regular manpower troops, instead of being stuck with the same one until they die. I will sometimes disband the company if their leader dies and the next one is terrible, because I don't want to pay for that sucky leader for years and years.

 

[FantasticFwoosh]

Importantly, the mercenaries should be following the rules set out by the cossacks DLC's precedent about earliest implementation of techgroup when there's a difference in what kind of unit should be able to be raised. ( In short if your vassal is behind on tech, in the provincial recruitment you might only see basic bronze cannons or a rounded up/down version of a unit until they catch up equal to you, the variation still helps composition plans though )

This would be seen in Dahomey Amazons or Ottoman Janissary mercenaries for instance, perhaps posessing a slight cost increase if you re-arm them to western technology, instead of leaving them on their native techgroup by player choice and the same in vice versa to purchase mercenaries with more stats or technology than themselves, as the player is arbitarily limited in the current system.

Theres not any excuse that the AI doesn't recognise quality regiments, condoterri does acknowledge and put more offers/payments in than usual when the player min-maxes unit compositions for their own armies, so its easy to push all the earlygame strong units together (anatolian, muslim cav) and make a easy mint.

 

[currylambchop]

I think there should be small, medium and large mercs and the Ability to customise their composition to a point (so removing the cavalry from the independent army for example)

 

[ImAdrian]

I see no reason why we can't just choose the number of regiments we want to hire.

In real life, if a private military company has 50k contractors available, am I forced to get all 50k? No, I can request 10k for example. I still don't understand the decision to make the hiring of mercs an "all or nothing" choice.

The old system was maybe too flexible, because you had unlimited mercs as long as you had money for it. But what if we combine the two systems, and still have regional mercenary companies with limited troops, but you can choose precisely how many you want to hire, and the company can run out of troops.

 

[annulen]

In real life, if a private military company has 50k contractors available, am I forced to get all 50k?

There may be some lower limit. But in theory each fully manned regiment should be able to fight alone.

 

[beaver79]

I just wish you could merge or split them. Any Mughal run I do I conquer India fast and use a merc stack to deal with the rebels. After you get big enough the only merc company you can hire is the 50k one and there are no provinces they can stand in that they don't suffer attrition.

 

[Zaddy]

The decision to make mercs unsplittable and generally miserable to use while ALSO making them routinely larger than reasonable to avoid supply limit attrition is one of the most galaxy-brained changes they've ever made. I really don't want to be mean because I see what they were going for but I really do refuse to believe the devs playtested the new mercs for more than an hour and said "Yep, ship it."

 

[Vapiritapiri]

What's the point of mercs when they reduce professionalism so much?

 

[annulen]

What's the point of mercs when they reduce professionalism so much?

That's the topic of discussion. How to nake them relevant.

 

[AngelRay]

In the curent system, they are a hindrance to good gameplay.
Never used the new mercs.

 

[ImAdrian]

I usually do still hire them early game before I have enough manpower. I'm curious with the nerf to quantity if I'm gonna use them more often, but I doubt it, they're just so terrible

 

[Nostalgium]

I'd like to see a complete revamp of the mercenary system, to be honest. Something that ties them into the Condotierri mechanic more directly, to anchor the mercenaries to an actual entity and not just an arbitrary place on the map. Incidentally, the Condotierri mechanic needs some work as well, but I just shambled out of bed and haven't taken my coffee yet, so I'm not in the mindpsace to elaborate.

 

[annulen]

I'd like to see a complete revamp of the mercenary system, to be honest. Something that ties them into the Condotierri mechanic more directly, to anchor the mercenaries to an actual entity and not just an arbitrary place on the map. Incidentally, the Condotierri mechanic needs some work as well, but I just shambled out of bed and haven't taken my coffee yet, so I'm not in the mindpsace to elaborate.

I like the idea that Condotierri should be more like government owned mercenary companies. It would be interesting to learn more details about your vision though.

 

[ImAdrian]

What if all mercenaries were just condotierri borrowed from other countries?
Like, just make a list of all countries willing to offer condotierri, with number of troops, price per regiment. And allow other countries to hire them from that list.

But allow us to hire 1 regiment at a time (and choose how many we want), not the whole stack.