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EUIV - Development Diary - 25th of February 2020

Hello everyone! So we have worked on this update for quite a long while and already covered a lot of features in previous diaries. However just because we’ve already covered something doesn’t mean we’ve stopped working on those features but we have been polishing and constantly improving them. Today we will be revisiting and diving deeper into the new Mercenary mechanics.

I want to highlight as usual, that any numbers you see in the pictures are very work in progress.

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Let’s start with the concept and the premise we had for doing this change of a core part of the game. Mercenaries have gone through a lot of iterations over the years to try and solve problems created by the mercenaries themselves, Despite these changes the problems have never really changed. Mercenaries as in how they are currently implemented lets you completely bypass or ignore an entire core feature of the game if you are rich enough. Manpower. And Manpower being cheapened meant that a lot of other features as well lost quite a bit of meaning, like supply limits.

Manpower is supposed to be something you have to budget, just like your treasury, something that becomes exhausted as you fight a heavy war versus your rivals. Mercenaries are supposed to supplement this, being more prevalent early in the game and fade away in their use as your nation modernizes and gets access to way bigger sources of manpower. Fundamentally why the Mercenaries do not act like this, is because they exist in a never ending supply to the player. One example of trying to address this issue was to try and make manpower using regiments more valuable with features like Army Professionalism and special units. However a 0 strength regiment is still 0 strength regardless of how good it is.

Jake and I far back when working on the design threw together some points of what our vision was and what we had to achieve.
  • Mercenaries must be in some way finite
  • Mercenaries should not be scalable for late game
  • A player should not be able to screw over another player by clicking first
Working with this framework we bounced a lot of ideas between us and discarded a lot of ideas. For instance a favorite of my ideas did not fulfill the last requirement as it would let you before a war exhaust on purpose the available mercenaries for your enemy.

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So as you know from previous development diaries we settled on the Company mechanic inspired from Crusader Kings and Imperator but with a twist. Let’s go through a bit quickly what this is for people who haven’t read Jake’s old Dev Diaries.

The old way of recruiting mercenaries and how they interact with your armies is gone and reworked from the ground up as part of the 1.30 Update. You now recruit a whole company, that function as a fully individual army only consisting of mercenary regiments. As you buy a Mercenary Company you also buy the accompanying manpower with that Company giving the Company sort of a finite amount of time fighting for you limited by how well you can manage them. These companies are either seen as “local” or “foreign” and the foreign ones will have unique modifiers and content revolving around them. When the company becomes disbanded, it used to be unavailable to you for 10 years but this has been increased to 20 years. Another change since last dev diary on mercs is that the upper cap of regiments in a company has now been set to 60 instead of 40. Mercenary Companies are still scaled by the development of the hiring nation, but it has as well been tweaked slightly.

To clarify a bit though, a “local” is a company that does not have a home province, each nation has a set amount of these and are always available to you. The foreign ones have a home province and can be hired in your empire if they are within your trade range (not counting stuff like trade winds and such). Foreign Companies also come accompanied with a General and these do not count for your own Leader limit so can be quite handy boost early game for your money.

Since the last development diary covering mercenaries we have done quite a lot of changes besides some number tweaks. What I am covering now wasn’t originally part of our design but something that we’ve been testing as of late.

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A big change we’ve done is to emphasize more on the locality of mercenaries. This gives quite a strategic element especially for widespread empires, like colonizers. A Foreign Mercenary Company is recruited from their home province and the further away you recruit from that home the longer time it takes for that mercenary company to form up there. What provinces within your control you can recruit these companies on is determined by your trade range calculated from the companies home province. Most of the base values of the mercenaries will also be now based on their home province, like technology groups and so on. All of this to give a sense of locality to them.

What we want to achieve is that you wouldn’t hire some German Jaegers to fight in India, unless you are willing to transport them all the way over there as well. What we want to promote is inspired in part by history, where the Brits would hire local manpower to fight in India for the most. But we were also solving a problem where you had access to so many Mercenary Companies that it became a non issue again. In essence previously Purbiyas would appear in Paris fully ready to fight another European power in just a matter of days.

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Some other changes are the cost of Mercenaries which have been heavily rebalanced. They are no longer as expensive as they were to more fit their new limited nature with manpower. We’ve added some cheaper alternatives for smaller states in the game but with their own drawbacks as to represent their lower pay.

For instance above is the Local Companies available to smaller nations and the one for Free Cities. The idea of these Companies (numbers not final as usual!) are to be incredibly much cheaper to fit the budget of smaller nations, but to compensate they are also not the best of company, being slow to reinforce and slow to regain their morale.

Even though we’ve made Mercenary Companies cheaper we’ve made the over time inflation of land maintenance cost grow faster for Mercenaries. While normal regular troops grow by 2% each military technology you take, the Mercenaries will grow by 8%.

There’s a lot of unique content that has been made now for the Mercenary Companies. Especially for countries such as Hungary and it’s Black Army. Last time we had a lot of [REDACTED] when we talked about it but this time I’m going to tell you more about it.

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Hungary has for a long time had some unique decisions and events relating to their historic Black Army founded by Matthias Corvinus which relied more on paid standing mercenaries rather than manpower from the nobility. This is now integrated with the new mercenary system where Hungary early on gets access to unique Mercenary companies to them.

These mercenary companies have events tied to them giving you some unique flavor but they also have a 5% discipline modifier associated with them and are a bit cheaper than other companies.

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And when you finally reach a date where the Black Army starts to become out of date historically (This is tied to Age of Reformation) you as a player get a choice to keep them in your employ however at the cost of your Nobility’s faith in you.

We’ve added somewhere around 100 different mercenary companies and several of these are tied to content in the game trying to give them some reliance on the actions of actors in the game. For instance we have the Pontifical Swiss Guard available to the Papal States as a mercenary company now, though quite small, just like the Black Army features a 5% Discipline benefit.

Some other interesting companies to spike your interests are Forlorn Hope that function well like a vanguard, the Dahomey Amazons available to whoever holds Bahomey and last the Hessian Jaegerkorps that become available later in the game and which @Ofaloaf describes as “the perfidious enemies of all God-fearing americans”

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So you might be asking why after nerfing Mercenaries so hard, why are we giving them these benefits? Just because we do not want them to be the main fighting force of your nation and be able to scale properly with the growth of your empire, does not mean we want them entirely gone or not keep them interesting to consider. They still fulfill a function as either auxiliary troops or as veteran soldiers that can give a hard punch even though they might not be able to replenish them as well or be as reliable as your regulars. And a nice thing with how they will work going forward is that we can create a lot of unique and interesting content with them.

As I’ve covered before, this is also why we’ve been going over sources of manpower for the player, we are quite happy with the numbers as is but we wanted the player to have a bit more control than just getting a lot of manpower from ideas, hence the changes to Drill, Professionalism and Buildings as some examples. Some other examples are we have reworked how supply limit and attrition modifiers interact to be a bit softer on you. Another change done is changing the overrun mechanics a bit. This is when you have 10x more forces than the enemy at the instant the battle is created, the combat is concluded the first tick and the enemy gets wiped. This still works but if you have enough to actually fill the combat width it is ignored. You will probably lose the battle if you are facing 30 000 versus 300 000, and you might still get stack wiped during the combat lock part, but you won’t get overrun anymore meaning in face of such an opponent you can still lower the sizes of your stacks. Of course mainly that affects multiplayer because I doubt you’ll see AI walking around with stacks in the range of half a million.

Let’s finish with Mercenary-based modifiers and what has happened to them now. I think we have covered this before but I still see the question so I’ll reiterate on it. Mainly this is about Available Mercenaries which was quite desirable previously. This of course no longer exists and has been remade into a new modifier called Mercenary Manpower.

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So now instead of Available Mercenaries you have Mercenary Manpower. This modifier increases the amount of manpower a company comes with when they are hired by you. It also increases how many Condottieries you can rent out just like how Available Mercenaries did.

Everywhere you would have had Available Mercenaries previously you will now instead have Mercenary Manpower. And since Mercenaries no longer rely on your FL to calculate how many you can have this is a sort of indirect nerf to several idea sets like Quantity and Offensive/Diplomatic. Let’s give you some examples of changes:
  • Switzerland Ideas/Governments been made a lot more Mercenary
    • Their government gives +50% Mercenary Manpower
    • Their ideas gives +50% Mercenary Manpower
    • Their ideas gives -15% Mercenary Maintenance
    • Their ideas gives +5% Mercenary Discipline
  • Burgundy ideas now gives +50% Mercenary Manpower
  • Administrative Ideas now gives +50% Mercenary Manpower
All other modifiers should work as expected, mercenary cost reduces the cost of the company, mercenary maintenance reduces the maintenance, discipline makes them stronger.


It’s hard to try and figure exactly what I should cover and what to go deeper into, especially also since I have the influenza while writing this, but the good with the bad, it means that I can sit and read this thread free of disruptions and try to help clarify any questions people have as well as I can.

Next week’s development diary I’ll be covering some new religious changes.
 
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The swiss didnt use mercenaries, they generally didn't have to and only rented out mercenaries themselves, getting to a point where most nations in Europe rented Swiss Mercenaries. And consequently most majors agreed on Swiss neutrality.
That one is missing from the mechanics so far, I guess....
 
Will some of the mercenary companies from CK2 make appearances here as well, since (IIRC) some did exist during this timeframe? And if they're vassalized from a converted save will that change things?
 
Would some companies have better military technologies(better units) than your country has? For example, in South-East Asia, kingdoms had Portuguese mercenaries that had the particularity to have firearms. Would this be includes?
 
This still works but if you have enough to actually fill the combat width it is ignored.
For game play purposes, does this mean the total number of regiments? Or must the combat width be filled?
Example, 40/0/0 won't be stack wiped, but how about 30/0/30?

Also, will mercenary size scale with difficulty? If the VH AI uses up man power, all of a sudden they drop from fielding 4 x 50k armies to fielding armies of 4k, 4k, 15k, 7k?
 
For the gentleman disagreeing:
"The restricted model of occupation was adopted by the Portuguese in
North Africa as a result of a number of structural deficiencies of the Portuguese
Kingdom. As a matter of fact, very soon the lack of armament and soldiers
made the project of territorial conquest that was initially chosen for Morocco
unfeasible. Therefore, a new political and military strategy was adopted. It
consisted of conquering the most important strongholds along the Northern
coast of Morocco aiming at controlling the navigation of the Gibraltar Strait
more effectively and minimizing the effects of the Muslim navy. The initial
idea of conquering the kingdom of Fez was thus abandoned and replaced
by the attempt to economically stifle the kingdom of Fez by cutting off
access to the sea through the conquest of its main port cities. Indeed, in
Northern Morocco, a restricted model of occupation was chosen where the
Portuguese domination was confined to the area within the forts and to a
small territory around it; the garrisons of these forts were supported by a
naval force that varied from fort to fort, a model that would later be transferred
to the Southern Coast of Morocco and to the shores of the Indian Ocean."

Source:
Athens Journal of History - Volume 3, Issue 4 – Pages 321-336
https://doi.org/10.30958/ajhis.3-4-4 doi=10.30958/ajhis.3-4-4
The Portuguese Art of War in Northern
Morocco during the 15th Century
By Vitor Luís Gaspar Rodrigues

Also i hope to see Portuguese and European Mercenaries in Asia.

"early 1600s, some three thousand Portuguese mercenaries were serving in Bengal, five hundred in Makassar, and fifteen hundred in the Southeast Asian mainland kingdoms. Another contemporary source estimated that as of 1627, there were five thousand European mercenaries in the Mughal army alone and another thousand Portuguese sailors in the Mughal navy."

Also the presence of European mercenaries in Asian armies was not new when the Portuguese reached India. Thousands of men, disillusioned by service in European armies or navies, signed on as mercenaries in various Asian armies. The first Portuguese soldiers to join Indian armies in the early 1500s reported the presence of long-established Italian and French mercenaries. By 1600, Asian armies included Portuguese, English, Dutch, French, Germans, Greeks, Danes, and Swedes.
Why the struggle, why the strain?
Why make trouble? Why make scenes?
Why go against the grain?
Why swim upstream?

It ain't- It ain't- It ain't no use
You're bound- You're bound- You're bound to lose
What's done- What's done- What's done is done
That's the way the river runs

So why get wet? Why break a sweat?
Why waste your precious breath?
Why beat your handsome brow? Nothing changes

Nothing changes
Nothing changes anyhow

The blindest man is him who refuses to see.
 
How does this make Swiss Mercenaries more historical?

The swiss didnt use mercenaries, they generally didn't have to and only rented out mercenaries themselves, getting to a point where most nations in Europe rented Swiss Mercenaries. And consequently most majors agreed on Swiss neutrality.

Not sure these modifiers properly represent this.

Not that your point isn’t valid but Swiss neutrality is a result of the Congress of Vienna wanting to separate France, Austria, Italy and Germany, and keep key mountain passes neutral. Not because they all wanted Swiss mercenaries.
 
Which is a roundabout way of solving that issue. You don't have Mercs as manpower sink anymore. Great. What do you do with your money in the late game now? Spam buildings that will give a 0.01 monthly return?

The overabundance of money has always been an issue in Paradox games. Its a tough nut to crack, though: make money too hard to obtain and you really hurt beginner players. Make it too easy and money quickly becomes effectively infinite. Of the two, I personally prefer restricting the amount of money, but I acknowledge I am part of a small minority and that Paradox probably has looked into the numbers and come to the conclusion that the economic model is basically fine as is.
 
All other modifiers should work as expected, mercenary cost reduces the cost of the company, mercenary maintenance reduces the maintenance, discipline makes them stronger.

Does mercenary cost still double dip? I'm not sure how you're changing around mercenaries in the coding, but maintenance cost per month for regiments is calculated as a function of their recruitment cost.

This means that reducing the cost of regiments actually "double dips" - it gives you a discount at the time of purchase, and then it calculates the maintenance cost from that discounted price... resulting in significantly less cost over time.

Previously, all mercenary regiments were slapped with a +400% maintenance modifier which meant that any such reductions to mercenaries were negligible.

It sounds like you're using a new type of unit to represent mercenaries now though, in line with Janissaries/cossacks/streltsy/etc. As opposed to the old special-cased mercenaries. Which means that you're probably rolling that +400% into their base cost... basically instead of receiving a total of ~495% maintenance cost from a default mercenary regiment with a single -5% regiment cost you would be turning it into ~95% (NEW BASE) maintenance cost. This would have a much bigger effect than intended.

I'm not necessarily opposed to that idea, but I think it would create a rather weird 'meta', both for single-player and multiplayer.
 
Does mercenary cost still double dip? I'm not sure how you're changing around mercenaries in the coding, but maintenance cost per month for regiments is calculated as a function of their recruitment cost.

This means that reducing the cost of regiments actually "double dips" - it gives you a discount at the time of purchase, and then it calculates the maintenance cost from that discounted price... resulting in significantly less cost over time.
Actually a triple dip - Mercenary maintenance is calculated based on regular regiment cost, not mercenary cost.

Previously, all mercenary regiments were slapped with a +400% maintenance modifier which meant that any such reductions to mercenaries were negligible.
That is not true. Though modifiers are additive with themselves, they are usually multiplicative with other modifiers. Having a total of -5% regiment cost will always subtract 5% from mercenary maintenance, as the bonus for being mercenary applies to *mercenary maintenance modifier* and nothing else. Only mercenary maintenance is additive with this +150% (where's 400% from?), all other things are multiplicative.
 
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So anybody has the idea about when it released?
I guess it's just like Half Life 2 Episode 3: the more times somebody asks about it, the Valve just postpones it by one minute per question (kidding).
Anyway, considering the switching to the weekly dev diaries, i predict it to be somewhere in march-april this year.
 
What about countries which were heavily dependent on regular army like Korea?

You can't merge them no since they need to remain separate, however we have redone how you attach armies as you can see in a previous development diary.
Will you equalize movement speed of armies attached to and attached by other armies?

They do not regen their manpower while hired, it's only recovered when they are dismissed.
If so, why can’t we re-hire then for 20 years? Just letting us to wait until their regen will be enough.
 
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A player should not be able to screw over another player by clicking first
Does this mean that the same mercenary band can be hired by more nations at the same time? With the same leader? and its size change based on the development of the nation hiring it? Does the manpower pool is shared between the same band or each have their own?

That would be really roundabout and weird, their troops are only really skilled when being hired out? ".

It is not weirder that the same troops being more or less skilled, depending on who hired them. (Do mercenaries gain bonuses from the idea of the nation hiring them or not?)
 
When the company becomes disbanded, it used to be unavailable to you for 10 years but this has been increased to 20 years
Wouldn't it be better if it scales with how many manpower the company has left? Like at 0 manpower 20 year needed to be available, while if you only used up 50% of the manpower you'll only need to wait 10 years? Can't remember where I read it, but the reason was to give them time to regen their manpower. So it would reasonable that it scales.
 
Wouldn't it be better if it scales with how many manpower the company has left? Like at 0 manpower 20 year needed to be available, while if you only used up 50% of the manpower you'll only need to wait 10 years? Can't remember where I read it, but the reason was to give them time to regen their manpower. So it would reasonable that it scales.

There is no manpower regen. In the 20 years you can't hire them but other nations can. And when they do,they will have full manpower. It is the only way it would make sense, else one could hire all mercenaries available, exhaust them and stop his enemies from using them.
 
There is no manpower regen. In the 20 years you can't hire them but other nations can. And when they do,they will have full manpower. It is the only way it would make sense, else one could hire all mercenaries available, exhaust them and stop his enemies from using them.
That I know. You disband them so they can "regen" the manpower. It would be weird if I hire they lose like 10 men, I disband them due money reasons and I need to wait 20 years for that.

And no, everyone can hire the same company at the same time. That is not what the 20 years cooldown for.