just remove manpower from the game

[darth254]

mercs are so ridiculous why even bother with standing armies. People who conquer the world in the later 1500s and early 1600s are crapping out mercs while demanding gold in peace deals. The AI is just as bad if not worse, vomiting mercs to punch wayyyy above their weight.

what's the point of manpower again? mercs or bust baby.

 

[guachi]

Mercenaries are far more expensive and the pool of available mercenaries doesn't keep up as your country expands.

It also allows countries who focus on money a way of fielding an actual army. Although perhaps not having an infinite pool of mercenaries would be a good idea. When you can run +300 ducats a month and it's only 1650, you can basically bury your enemies in mercenaries and never lose a war (although it might not be worth waging the war in the first place given other options)

 

[sterrius]

While i understand the mercenary logic i never understand how the actual system help Bigger countrys rather than small ones.

First its the pay upfront. Bigger countrys have no problems going into loans to pull all the mercenarys it needs. A small one will enter in a debt spiral to even recruit maybe 5 of them.
Them its the maintence, its rather big but big countrys again can field whole mercenary armies for the whole game making manpower just a useless number for them.

Also Horses and Artilhary no ones uses, its so expensive that unless you're not looking to the gold bar anymore you will avoid them like the plague. Its totally out of reach from even medium sized countrys.

Maybe mercs should cost a variable amount based on how much gold your country makes per month.
It also makes sense that mercs would try to rip off big countrys for bigger cash amounts, while they know a smaller one can´t pay the same price france can for example.


And again i find force limit as the limitador a very poor choice as its again help bigger countrys against small ones.

One Solution that also adds variety to the war would be Continent Mercs pool.

- Europe would follow western tech and have 30 mercs. Only european provinces can hire them and no country can have more than 30 mercs.
- Africa would have half muslim and half african tech units, again another pool of 20-30.

- As we move intro south africa/china the pool would have its quantity based more or less in the population of the region in 1444. (So expect huge mercs pool in asia).

- Military Tech would improve the quantity of the merc pool , ideas also would be much more important.


Add this with my idea above and you can even factor how much recruiting all mercs would cost for a country. I vote for something around 50% of the annual income of the country. As army already take close to 50% it would be impossible to keep full mercs for a long time.

Of course force limit still exist, this also means we would have to think how much mercs we actually want in our army and make a fine compromise instead of just having full merc armys.

 

[darth254]

I mean the game portrays the mercs like robots. consistent pricing, infinitely replaced. These are freakin sellswords. They aren't loyal like a national army. They wanna get as much $$$ with as little risk as possible. Yet this game dumbs down mercs to simply "if you can afford it, mercs are all yours and you win". If a lot of mercs die in war, the asking price should go up, and way up based on the risk. If a lot are dying, they should also mutiny or take off or something.

I mean the merc lovers can downvote me all they want cause I've called them out on it. That's what this game is coming down to though. Merc spam.

 

[Nuklearius]

#

 

[grommile]

I'd prefer it if mercs would be much cheaper than normal infantry, but would also have significant disadvantages, like lower discipline, military tactics and morale.

I'm not sure we should be encouraging sieges as the primary use of mercenaries.

(units with lowered battlefield effectiveness are still perfectly effective siege units)

 

[pphair]

I'd prefer it if mercs would be much cheaper than normal infantry, but would also have significant disadvantages, like lower discipline, military tactics and morale.

I think eu3 had them like that.

 

[Spacehamster]

I'd prefer it if mercs would be much cheaper than normal infantry, but would also have significant disadvantages, like lower discipline, military tactics and morale.

I think that should depend on the era. For the first 150 years I think mercenaries should actually give you access to superior unit types such as Almughavars and Swiss Pikemen. As we approach the 30 Years War things should begin to even out. Once we enter the Enlightenment Age is really where national troops should begin to emerge as superior in quality. Although, even then, several national armies such as the English and the Prussian had the character of mercenaries actually.

 

[darkfireslide]

I'd prefer it if mercs would be much cheaper than normal infantry, but would also have significant disadvantages, like lower discipline, military tactics and morale.

Uhh initially I'm fairly certain mercs were better because they were the only true career soldiers for a long time.
As they are in game, what they're supposed to do is act as a backup to your manpower pool. However, considering that mercs cost literally almost 3 times as much to upkeep compared to normal units (.21 to .58 per month for infantry iirc), I'm not sure how much more expensive you want them to be. I can guarantee you in the late game that an army of mercs isn't going to cut it against an actual major power, because the mercenary pool is very small- 30-40 mercs versus a forcelimit of 100-200 or more.
If it's any indication, when the AI fights wars with mercs, they'll take out as many as 10-20 loans just to upkeep them. So in other words yeah, mercs are pretty expensive. Even if you only merc infantry, it's difficult for even major powers to maintain a proper ratio of cannons, cav, and infantry without running a negative. And if you take money from someone after the war, then you get inflation, too.
Mercs can be frustrating to deal with when a nation abuses them but the economic drawbacks are already fairly severe. Even in the late game, if you have an army of mercs, that's money that could be spent buying +3 advisers instead.

 

[grommile]

I think eu3 had them like that.

Half like that.

Mercs were expensive trash in EU3 (and the economic balance in the early game was such that loans were murder on your economy).

 

[Spacehamster]

Mercs can be frustrating to deal with when a nation abuses them but the economic drawbacks are already fairly severe. Even in the late game, if you have an army of mercs, that's money that could be spent buying +3 advisers instead.

Well the value of mercenaries shouldn't really be measured in money. What mercs provide you with is the ability to wage endless wars. That is priceless.

I recently came back to the game after not having played since 1.0. For half my first campaign I was frustrated by having to endure many years of peace after a war in order for my manpower to somewhat recover. Even with fully recovered manpower my manpower ended up drained after just a few battles against any serious great power, despite winning the battles and had to withdraw to fight guerilla wars by trapping enemy stacks on islands. Then one day I decided to bolster my depleted army with a bunch of mercenaries. It turned out to be the EU4 equivalent of typing "god mode" in the console. I had become death the destroyer of worlds. Discovering the world of hired guns turned me from a victim of circumbstances into an iron ruler with the fate of nations in his hands and I never looked back. It is really ridiculous what a game changer mercenaries really are. If you can afford to hire mercenaries you can take on anyone and they will lose. You can't beat the infinite armies of the infinite empire.

 

[sterrius]

Well the value of mercenaries shouldn't really be measured in money. What mercs provide you with is the ability to wage endless wars. That is priceless.

I recently came back to the game after not having played since 1.0. For half my first campaign I was frustrated by having to endure many years of peace after a war in order for my manpower to somewhat recover. Even with fully recovered manpower my manpower ended up drained after just a few battles against any serious great power, despite winning the battles and had to withdraw to fight guerilla wars by trapping enemy stacks on islands. Then one day I decided to bolster my depleted army with a bunch of mercenaries. It turned out to be the EU4 equivalent of typing "god mode" in the console. I had become death the destroyer of worlds. Discovering the world of hired guns turned me from a victim of circumbstances into an iron ruler with the fate of nations in his hands and I never looked back. It is really ridiculous what a game changer mercenaries really are. If you can afford to hire mercenaries you can take on anyone and they will lose. You can't beat the infinite armies of the infinite empire.

And at same time they help more big and rich countrys.

Countrys that can barely afford 10k troops don´t get much benefit of mercenarys. A Spain, France, Ottomans from day one can get as many as 10k mercenearys and already save a lot of manpower making that merc army "tank" the most costly battles.

Also no problem going 2-5 loans to win a war against france or england. It will pay itself a thousand times as long you break their back in that war.



While i find no problem with a merc system it needs to invert the logic of helping more big countrys.

Also making smaller and medium countrys better to combat big countrys will add a lot of variety to the game.

As it is now mercs are based on your land warfare cost. But the +1% increase cost for extra mercenary troop is a joke when you can get -33% from prestige and some countrys like not weak at all burgundy already have a -25%.

And we have ideas.

Also the problem mercs come from thin air. The 20 limit is just too much in 1444 and enough to beat any medium/small country whole force limit.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

The way mercs work in-game IMO is meant to help the (brain-dead) AI and pretty much nothing else. Previously any decent WC player knew how important it was to keep the mercs alive because it would take “forever" to recruit them again due to the sometimes very limited availability. In contrast the AI pretty much only used them when it was out of manpower; it recruited all the available mercenaries and as usual it would proceed to stack wipe them in the silliest way possible so it would be a sitting duck rather fast because it had no manpower and no more mercs to recruit. As usual instead of teaching the AI to play PDS went with a much easier workaround: change how mercenaries work in order for the AI to have an unlimited source of regiments/manpower no matter how dumbly it used them.

 

[Violent AI]

I hope the Condottieri coming in the next patch/expansion do something about this.

 

[Spacehamster]

I hope the Condottieri coming in the next patch/expansion do something about this.

The condottieri will simply be the system where one player can hire out his services to others. The developers pretty much slipped their tongue on that one during the developer multiplayer stream. Will be a sweet irony if the troops you rent out in turn are mercenaries already.

 

[Zelius]

The way mercs work in-game IMO is meant to help the (brain-dead) AI and pretty much nothing else. Previously any decent WC player knew how important it was to keep the mercs alive because it would take “forever" to recruit them again due to the sometimes very limited availability. In contrast the AI pretty much only used them when it was out of manpower; it recruited all the available mercenaries and as usual it would proceed to stack wipe them in the silliest way possible so it would be a sitting duck rather fast because it had no manpower and no more mercs to recruit. As usual instead of teaching the AI to play PDS went with a much easier workaround: change how mercenaries work in order for the AI to have an unlimited source of regiments/manpower no matter how dumbly it used them.

The biggest improvement over the old system IMO was the ability for merc units to update to latest unit type. The new system's crutch isn't that big, really, because there already was a way to get unlimited mercenaries: retreat your merc armies before units are destroyed and let them reinforce. The only real difference is that the pool got bigger (but limited by land FL, so incapable of fully replacing a lost army) and AI isn't hurt as much in stackwipes.

I hope the Condottieri coming in the next patch/expansion do something about this.

Here's hoping. I believe it's going to be a DLC feature though, from the looks of it.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

The new system's crutch isn't that big, really, because there already was a way to get unlimited mercenaries: retreat your merc armies before units are destroyed and let them reinforce. The only real difference is that the pool got bigger (but limited by land FL, so incapable of fully replacing a lost army) and AI isn't hurt as much in stackwipes.

Not always, if the mercenaries retreat to a province where they will suffer attrition they can auto disband (...) Unlike you I think this is a huge crutch to the AI precisely because the AI does not know how to manage its armies/manpower effectively; so it is always suffering needless attrtion, being stack wiped or consolidating so a huge mercenary pool as an unlimited source for regiments/manpower is very, very handy. Like I said before the previous system effectively made it give up due to lack of recruitable mercs and manpower. This not only helps out the AI but also all players that are poor at planning and/or conserving manpower (etc.) and have the economic power to recruit mercs.

TL DR the new merc system levels the playfield to help the AI and weaker players.

 

[Tweakee]

I hope the Condottieri coming in the next patch/expansion do something about this.

That would be nice, but I doubt it.

What would be pretty cool is if the mercenary pool started near-zero, and only went up if nations cash in manpower for money. So for 1000 manpower you get 10g and one more merc unit enters the pool. So peace creates mercs and war drains them.

It would kill two birds with one stone: reducing the insane number of mercs in play, and giving a benefit to maxxing out manpower.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

The condottieri will simply be the system where one player can hire out his services to others. The developers pretty much slipped their tongue on that one during the developer multiplayer stream. Will be a sweet irony if the troops you rent out in turn are mercenaries already.

Hopefully countries will still be conditioned by force limits or else big economic powerhouses will have an even greater advantage over the smaller ones. It would be beyond silly to see economic power allowing some fundamental rules (force limits, dip. relations limits, alliances) to be bypassed with little consequences.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

That would be nice, but I doubt it.

What would be pretty cool is if the mercenary pool started near-zero, and only went up if nations cash in manpower for money. So for 1000 manpower you get 10g and one more merc unit enters the pool. So peace creates mercs and war drains them.

It would kill two birds with one stone: reducing the insane number of mercs in play, and giving a benefit to maxxing out manpower.

I am pretty sure that won´t happen unless PDS can replace them for an equally effective solution to their problem: the AI giving up due to the lack of manpower and recruitable regiments (mercs or whatever).