Mercenary - The man of war

[unmerged(80402)]

I realy don't like how present are made the mercenaries in-game, when you play eu3. They are just bad, because they are not getting your morale bonuses, and their cost is growing with each new mercenary unit, which makes them just near to useless, even in early game - unless you got no manpower.

I think that mercenaries, should just be better, at least early, because early armies were often using mercenaries, and not without a reason. They were experienced warriors, sometimes veterans, who knew how to fight, and they not needed to be trained. Plus when king used mercenaries, he did not needed aproval of his nobility to serve his purpouse - he just needed money. Ussualy, because mercenaries were good at fighting, they were worth the money, as they ussualy defeated less experienced peasants or merchants, sometimes even nobles(but ussualy nobles were cavalry, and most of them knew how to fight, because their state came from the knights, so they did made pretty good wariors - anyways...), and as long as you payed them well, they were loyal in most cases.

Also, the increasing cost is just riddiculous - they should just cost more, and have higher upkeep, but be at stable cost, because if you would pay each new mercenary bigger payment, the ones who would be there first, would propably be outraged by this.

With the new economical system, and probably slower manpower recovery, i think such change, would be very reasonable, aspecialy as mercenaries no longer get recruited instantly as it was in the vanilla(which was most important reason for people buying them). Certainly it would be good and sensible way of making it more possible of small, but strong economicaly countries, to build quite decent armies, without killing their economy, and running out of manpower.

 

[unmerged(303218)]

The problem you outlined here is valid, but its roots lie with the EU3 system of having only two kinds of armies - professional (standing) armies and mercenaries.

The core of the problem is that states of the high middle ages/renaissance did not have the means to establish the very modern system of standing armies and drafting populace into it in times of war. The armies they could raise were either low-quality levies (little more than an armed rabble) much the same as peasant revolters, or they could call the nobility to arms - if one existed and was willing. But nothing on par with mercenaries in terms of usefulness on the battlefield.


To sum up each kind in a nutshell, and to show how each is so different from the other the best solution would be to have all of them:

• Type: positive features || negative features || makeup (CA stands for Combined Arms, i.e. a balanced mix of infantry, cavalry and artillery)
• Peasant levies: cheap; plentiful; immediately available even to OPMs || poor quality; WE skyrocketing when raised for long times || light infantry
• Nobles: well-trained elite warriors || unruly lot; the state must sacrifice much in administrative efficiency to have them || heavy cavalry
• Feudal retinue (private armies): no costs || loyal to the noble paying; varying quality; usually small groups; hardly cooperating || mostly infantry
• Mercenaries: hard-hitting veterans, available from foreign MP pool || costly; mutiny risk; unwilling to put themselves to risk || CA
• Standing armies: loyal; well-trained; standardized; hard-hitting || costly; high centralization required; no dismissal || CA
• Draft/reserve mobilization: loyal; standardized; called up as needed || absolute centralization needed; WE concerns || CA

There are so many so different approaches to how a state can get military power, with some synergies and mutual exclusivities in the underlying structure of society. E.g. nobles (noble insurgency in Liberum Veto countries) and their retinues make for a really adaptive and generally competent military - however, this only stands true on small scales, and, more importantly, these armies obey the nobles - this is not the direction the West is growing in. Still, under a charismatic ruler, skilled in diplomacy, such a state can defend itself from invaders many times its size.

And while standing armies and drafting is clearly the way of the West, that requires a state-wide bureaucracy enveloping everything and running efficiently enough. Which is a goal incredibly difficult to attain, therefore completely relying on this form of the military for all matters is an obvious impossibility up to the late game.


That is to say, a mix of different forms of armies should be prevalent. Thus a player a hundred years into the game should bring levies, nobles and their private armies (if he hasn't outlawed the practice yet), mercenaries and a small professional corps to the battle if he is invaded by a bigger country.

And the exact composition of this mix should depend on the circumstances - raising levies only if really necessary (them standing or being defeated bumps WE a lot), and constantly trying to expand the standing army, using it to curb the rights of the nobility (banning private armies), to enroach on lands held by the nobility and expand the professional army with the newly acquired holdings. This should be a slow process, creeping outwards from the capital and the nearby region, gaining traction only so slowly even though it is a snowball-like process (but the point by which the process could speed up steeply comes very late thus it doesn't matter). New conquests and colonies could be bureaucratized fast, attenuating the problem, but reconquests would often set up even more feudal territories to be reformed if done at the wrong time in the wrong way.

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TL;DR version: the multitude of approaches to create an armed force, if represented in the game, would open up a deep, new strategic layer. Thus I feel it should be included.

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Not to mention that levies would inherently and strongly prefer strategic defense over strategic offense, thus giving a much needed asymmetry to warfare in the game. One more reason to include them.

 

[Jstebby]

+1

 

[svenk91]

Off course you start with buying mercs that have the best price-quality ratio. Then you start to buy them with a worse price-quality ratio. When you got them you need to get them from further away, that increases costs to. So the system where they get more expensive the more you buy that EU3 has is actually fitting imo. And since the latest beta patches manpower is greatly decreased (especially early in the game) and it's not untill you're very big and/or later in the game that you can erect big standing armies during a war that takes some time. Getting only 100 manpower a month isn't uncommon if you're small.

 

[George LeS]

It IS a problem, and one which actually needs fixing in EUIII, if the 5.2b patch is to become official. IMO there are 3 things, at a minimum, which need to change:

1. The rising costs are ridiculous, and need to go, or at least be made much less steep.

2. The limitation to your home continent is both unrealistic and harmful in play. It is precisely in far away areas where speed of recruiting becomes a selling point. You should be able to recruit anywhere, but of local types.

3. More important, the selection needs changing. As it is, you are often reduced to 4 artillery units available. This means that, even though mercs are a last resort, they are useless even as such. By far, the most needed units are infantry. Cavalry is 2nd. It is very rare you to want Merc artillery at all. After all, if you are looking for artillery, it means you're likely to be besieging something, which means you are not desperate for manpower (your opponent is). So the most important change to mercs, from a gameplay perspective, would be making sure you always have all types available. At least, always have infantry available.

I believe these changes might at least make them an option for the player.

 

[Shedcape]

I personally hope that the mercenary system will be similar to that of CK2 to some degree. At least in hiring whole armies at once with its own leader and such, instead of hiring 1 regiment at a time.

 

[Fawr]

Mercenaries experience could be overrated. Mercenaries often got the hardest and deadliest work, with the high death and retirement rates individual soldiers often didn't pick up that much more battle experience than the armies of nation states. Of course lower death rates would let nation states give their soldiers more training (while thats not the same as battle, particually if its training without gunpowder it still helps). When you factor in the higher morale of troops fighting for a cause rather than for money I don't think mercs should be supertroops.

That said I like the CK2 system of hiring them in large batches, rather than hiring them 1000 per month per province.

Money wise, should there be something about battle/war rates as opposed to peacetime/garrison rates?

 

[vintis88]

I think Marquis d Blois' idea sounds really good. Were something like it implemented into EUIV I'd be a happy camper

 

[Taiisatai64]

Judging by the new Retinue feature in the upcoming CK2 DLC, I think they're going to include a military system similar to that of CK2, with raised levies phasing into standing armies as time goes on, and mercenaries being hired in large groups.

 

[unmerged(303218)]

Mercenaries experience could be overrated. Mercenaries often got the hardest and deadliest work, with the high death and retirement rates individual soldiers often didn't pick up that much more battle experience than the armies of nation states. Of course lower death rates would let nation states give their soldiers more training (while thats not the same as battle, particually if its training without gunpowder it still helps). When you factor in the higher morale of troops fighting for a cause rather than for money I don't think mercs should be supertroops.

That's completely true, professional troops are up to par with mercenaries in basically anything and better in a number of fields. However, in the early part of the game states aren't able to field large standardized standing armies, thus they need mercenaries for a heavy-hitting option.

You see, mercenaries are supposed to be compared to levies (or nobles) in their fighting abilities, and they are much better than them. That is their selling point in the game - later, when substantial professional armies can be fielded, they just fall out of use.

That said I like the CK2 system of hiring them in large batches, rather than hiring them 1000 per month per province.

That is indeed a great improvement, and is much more realistic than EU3's system. Not to mention that it also alleviates the problem of 4 merc artillery regiments blocking your ability to build more.

Money wise, should there be something about battle/war rates as opposed to peacetime/garrison rates?

Not really.

Levies, nobles and late-game draftees are flexible in this matter, mercenaries and professionals aren't really.
The best you can do is dismiss the mercs once their job is done, however this often leads to problems with organized violent crime in the region. With standing armies, you could lower their maintenance a bit (as in EU3) but that would hurt their quality hard.

 

[Styrbiorn]

I like the ideas presented by the marquis - me too would like to see an overhaul to the military in general. A system with feudal levies, noble cavalry and mercenaries slowly evolving into large standing armies would be ideal, the evolution determined by whatever system will replace the domestic sliders. This would add a lot of interesting strategical choices, as well as geographical uniqueness and depth to the game. I doubt that we'll see that though.

Having a decentralized feudal country, your levies and noblemen would form cheap to maintain armies but the provinces would yield less income (even when not mobilised, if such a system is used). They would also be more unruly and more prone to rebel and carve out their own little realm. When the country becomes more centralised/less feudal, provinces would give more money but yield no troops. Levies and standing armies could have a different rate of improvement technology- and economy-wise, which would give the player a choice whether to do this change and when. Such a system would make the transition more interesting and difficult as the nobles would be inclined not to agree with this change (the transformation of Russia during Peter would be a good example). The differences between Eastern and Western Europe would easier and more fairly implemented with this system, instead of simple having worse tech and units.
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One thing I'd like to see is individual experience for units, not only a national counter (Army tradition). This could slowly decrease by time (faster in peacetime?). This would give another possibility to improve the usefulness of mercenaries: peaceful states without crack troops could acquire some expertise in times of need.


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Another idea to the pool of mercenaries is to have it linked with the destruction of countries. When the feudal states of the Balkans were vanquished by the Turks, noblemen or soldiers from the region turned up for service in the neighbouring nations. The destruction of states in the game could yield a boost to cheaply available mercenary regiments for the nations opposed to whichever country destroyed the state in question.

 

[Avrelianvs]

More important, the selection needs changing. As it is, you are often reduced to 4 artillery units available. This means that, even though mercs are a last resort, they are useless even as such. By far, the most needed units are infantry. Cavalry is 2nd. It is very rare you to want Merc artillery at all.

I get what you're said, but you're missing something there: in history Mercs were often specialized troops. Crossbowmen, halberdiers, gunners, or specialized cavalry like the Stradioti in Venice, which were a light cavalry recluted in the Balkans. You may "need" infantry, but that'd be ahistorical.

 

[unmerged(303218)]

I get what you're said, but you're missing something there: in history Mercs were often specialized troops. Crossbowmen, halberdiers, gunners, or specialized cavalry like the Stradioti in Venice, which were a light cavalry recluted in the Balkans. You may "need" infantry, but that'd be ahistorical.

While that's true, this is another case of gameplay-trumps-realism.
I mean, in EU3 mercenaries were a fast-and-easy-to-recruit alternative, with no-reinforce mechanics (and high maintenance) clearly making them useful in and only in fighting the decisive battle.
Thus clearly mercenaries had only one use - instant army, when you needed one or needed a boost to one. Which role could be best filled by infantry - you needed numbers and needed them ASAP. No time for cavalry, definitely no use for artillery.

EU3 mechanics made a standing infantry army worse than useless. Thus the idea of having specialized merc troops such as your examples was a bad one.

 

[Styrbiorn]

I get what you're said, but you're missing something there: in history Mercs were often specialized troops. Crossbowmen, halberdiers, gunners, or specialized cavalry like the Stradioti in Venice, which were a light cavalry recluted in the Balkans. You may "need" infantry, but that'd be ahistorical.

What do you consider infantry if neither halberdiers, gunners or crossbowmen aren't? What would you call a landsknecht?

 

[George LeS]

While that's true, this is another case of gameplay-trumps-realism.
I mean, in EU3 mercenaries were a fast-and-easy-to-recruit alternative, with no-reinforce mechanics (and high maintenance) clearly making them useful in and only in fighting the decisive battle.
Thus clearly mercenaries had only one use - instant army, when you needed one or needed a boost to one. Which role could be best filled by infantry - you needed numbers and needed them ASAP. No time for cavalry, definitely no use for artillery.

EU3 mechanics made a standing infantry army worse than useless. Thus the idea of having specialized merc troops such as your examples was a bad one.

Exactly. There's not much point in making mercs more realistic, if no one ever uses them. (Although I do sometimes buy cavalry.)

And anyway, one of the most popular mercenary type was pikemen.

I wouldn't mind if you could get merc artillery some levels earlier than you could build it.

 

[unmerged(303218)]

Exactly. There's not much point in making mercs more realistic, if no one ever uses them. (Although I do sometimes buy cavalry.)

And anyway, one of the most popular mercenary type was pikemen.

I wouldn't mind if you could get merc artillery some levels earlier than you could build it.

Exactly - mercs should be made more realistic so that people would use them!
When someone has enough money, but not enough centralization (monarch points, anyone?) to create a good/big enough standing army, but doesn't want to (or cannot) rely on nobles and levies (*) or wants a hard-hitting force, one would have to use mercenaries.

*: levies should be the principial fighting force of the early game, but should grow increasingly obsolete in face of the advances of weapons technology and centralization.

 

[Avrelianvs]

What do you consider infantry if neither halberdiers, gunners or crossbowmen aren't? What would you call a landsknecht?

I was talking about specialized, professional infantry (and, btw, gunners are artillery), which was different form your normal infantry. Landsknechts too were a specialized infantry. I'd like Mercs to be better and capable of regenerating, anyway. Merc units recluted, so I don't undestand why Paradox has put that limit on them. So early in the game you'd prefer them because more effective that the infantry you'd reclut otherwise, while latter, when your military tech goes up, the standing army would be better and the merc regiments would be dismissed. This is somewhat historical.