"Local" overseas mercenaries

[sesn]

So victimizer has just complained in the regular forum about not being able to recruit mercenaries overseas and made an interesting point that I'd like to post here.
I do understand that there are reasons for this restriction, for example:
- Not render transports unnecessary as a global trade empire that is swimming in money.
- General "realism" considerations.

Here is an elegant way of doing it. Let the mercenaries have the unit type of the region in question.
Pros:
- Shipping units from Europe still makes sense, even if mercenaries.
- Its somehow realistic (Hiring the local warlords etc... Somebody surely can come up with a historical example)
- You can just limit the number of available mercenaries to balance it and make it realistic.

There are some some questions to be cleared out of course, as:
- Are the mercenaries equal to your tech level or to that of the most advanced of the regions tech group?
- How to prevent tech groups with worse unit types to just hire the better troops overseas?

Just thought i put this out there.

 

[Ilightmaster]

I think the way it works now is just a simply way to say : "making a matrice recalculating mercs cost depending on the continent, the nation that want to hire them ... would be doable but does it worth it ? How many recalculations are going to process ?"
You might not agree with me and to be clear this suggestion is legit but i don't think are going to do it.

Just thought i put this out there.

 

[sesn]

I think the way it works now is just a simply way to say : "making a matrice recalculating mercs cost depending on the continent, the nation that want to hire them ... would be doable but does it worth it ? How many recalculations are going to process ?"
You might not agree with me and to be clear this suggestion is legit but i don't think are going to do it.

Just thought i put this out there.

Yes, i am aware that there are more important things on the Dev's agenda.
Regarding the recalculations: I would not even touch merc cost. I too think that this might make things to complicated.
Personally, I have zero experience with the programming and logic that's behind EUIV. But I was imagining that one could use the same system that makes the artillery show up at tech 7 to make the respective merc type show up when a province in the respective region is occupied. Then just use the logic that makes regular mercs not hireable overseas to make the special mercs not hireable on the "false" continents.

All this is probably a lot more complicated than I make it out to be.

 

[awesome_scorpion]

I think the primary reason it isn't done is that a recently conquered country is not going to fight their own brethren just for some cash. But this seems contradictory to both the in-game feature of buying mercs in merely occupied territory, and the realistic scenario of the poor underclass being more than willing to fight their previous overlord for some hard cash. I think there should be a more specified regiment system, where regiments have a culture and a religion, based on the provinces they spawned in. And the regiments will have lower morale/discipline depending on who they're fighting. Sunni mercs won't have issue fighting Hindu rebels, but they will have trouble attacking their own religious leaders. Francien armies can fight german, italian or iberian forces obeying commands without question, but will much more easily desert when fighting francien rebels. This means you cannot simply hire some local mercs to deal with rebels in the same area. You have to think where you are going to hire them, and have to weigh travel distance against regiment strength. This would also give land empires the same, reasonable limitations as naval empires. Newly conquered territory won't provide troops with the same loyalty as the home lands.

In numbers and facts:
Every regiment is assigned a religion and culture based on the province that produced them. When fighting an enemy of the same religion, they get -10% morale. Fighting the same culture, -5%. These maluses are cumulative. Rebels get these in reverse; rebels gain morale strength fighting troops of the same religion or culture (traitors!). How does that sound? It makes little sense for soldiers to fight armies whom they share beliefs and ideals with compared to completely foreign and alien armies, whom they've only heard about through propaganda from their leaders. The catholic armies were much more willing to bash the heads of the protestant heretics in compared to the catholic heads. It just seems much more logical than the idea that catholic armies fought sunni armies with the exact same morale as their catholic brethren.

Of course, this seems weird that a catholic nation would hire sunni regiments. Well, how else would they hire soldiers in a sunni province?

Finally, I understand this is going to take a lot of the engine, assigning another two variables to every single regiment, but between the type of regiment, the amount of soldiers, and the type of soldiers, I think two more variables won't be that much of a big deal. And it adds another layer of realism and detail to the game, which can only make this game even deeper, and thereby, better.

 

[Grand Historian]

It was how Cortes conquered the Aztecs, so I see why not. It would require an overhaul to naval mechanics, supply, and attrition, though, if it were to be balanced.

 

[SignedName]

It would be cool if you could hire native auxiliaries. It would be doubly cool if said native auxiliaries could rebel against you.

 

[saegoto]

another idea:

u can hire merc in overseas provinces but only if there is a hostile core. you can hire merc from that nation with his default mil tech level.