First game in 1.30

[Laurent1944]

Hello, after half a year without playing, I am doing my first game in 1.30.

I love the new estates, the percentage of control and the choice of missions. No more free money and free MPs, but more realistic for me.

On the other hand, I am disappointed by the mercenary system. I was excepting a CK2-like system, with mercenary armies from all size, and I am stuck with giant mercenary armies. I'm in 1600 and the smallest army I can hire has 38k men, the biggest 60k, and are worth between 1.3 and 3.9 k gold. I can afford them, but in most cases I feel hiring these armies is pure overkill. Especially for a colonial empire (I play Spain, never did before) fighting on several continents. And the option to use only national troops is hard too, due to the very heavy losses suffered by carrying armies at sea (I missed that point, and sent troops in 1500-something from Spain to Kilwa, just to see 75% dying on the way... a hard hit for my manpower).

 

[StefanFan]

You are not the only one disliking the merc system. And if you read the forum, there are plenty of other issues left that need probably 10 patches at the current development pace

 

[Meglok]

The new Merc system works ok early in the game, esp if you are just grabbing the Free Company to allow early expansion. But the exponential rise in size and cost makes mid and late game Merc use an only dire emergency option unless your economy is huge. @Groogy This really needs better game balancing, unless this was the intent of the developers.

One tip, the cost and size doesn't grow as long as the Merc company is hired by you. If you afford it they make a great base siege unit to keep your manpower pool losses due to siege attrition to a minimum. Just attach to a stack of cannons with a siege pip leader for max siege speed.