Mercspam

[Less2]

Give mercs a global (or continental/regional) manpower pool (itself based on total development) and then scale the price to build/reinforce based on supply and demand. Lots of merc manpower available? They're cheap. Middle of the 30 years war? Gonna pay a pretty penny. Maybe even have a sort of Merc Professionalism system, where Mercs start more professional than ordinary soldiers but slip downward the more demand there is for them.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Once upon a time, manpower figures were more decent and you were limited in how much you could merc because these units would not update when you switched units and the pool replenished slowly.

Later, Pdox nerfed base manpower gain then bizarrely introduced the infinite manpower pool. Instantly gone were the days where it was possible to exhaust a nation of recruitable resources entirely pre-bankruptcy. I still don't see why this change was either necessary or good for gameplay.

Now you can either run 0 professionalism and use mercs with good income or run 80+ professionalism and use slacken --> hire generals to keep manpower decent. The professionalism will give you enough siege ability and if you have -attrition stuff you can probably make enough MIL to cover this while still teching late game, especially if not going revolutionary and stuffing that MIL into RT for more re-elections.

Anyway, you see more mercs from the AI since it builds less garbage buildings. With more viable choices and less dock spam, it makes more money. This is a good thing regardless of surrounding mechanics otherwise; less AI throwing is an improvement in the general sense.

Global merc pools might be more historical, but they're a bad idea. It'd be pretty easy to corner the market in game terms, effectively making it so that only the leading nations have mercs.

 

[Efgrafich]

EU4 merc concept looks even more nonsense when you see CK2 mercs, contract-based indvidual fixed armies in a common pool. So, why Pdx does not consider using this?

Global merc pools might be more historical, but they're a bad idea. It'd be pretty easy to corner the market in game terms, effectively making it so that only the leading nations have mercs.

- most of them also cultural and/or religion aligned, so christian mercs won't serve for muslims, etc.

 

[darth254]

Once upon a time, manpower figures were more decent and you were limited in how much you could merc because these units would not update when you switched units and the pool replenished slowly.

Later, Pdox nerfed base manpower gain then bizarrely introduced the infinite manpower pool. Instantly gone were the days where it was possible to exhaust a nation of recruitable resources entirely pre-bankruptcy. I still don't see why this change was either necessary or good for gameplay.

Now you can either run 0 professionalism and use mercs with good income or run 80+ professionalism and use slacken --> hire generals to keep manpower decent. The professionalism will give you enough siege ability and if you have -attrition stuff you can probably make enough MIL to cover this while still teching late game, especially if not going revolutionary and stuffing that MIL into RT for more re-elections.

Anyway, you see more mercs from the AI since it builds less garbage buildings. With more viable choices and less dock spam, it makes more money. This is a good thing regardless of surrounding mechanics otherwise; less AI throwing is an improvement in the general sense.

Global merc pools might be more historical, but they're a bad idea. It'd be pretty easy to corner the market in game terms, effectively making it so that only the leading nations have mercs.

yeah, slacken spamming after hitting 80 professionalism also does not seem healthy for gameplay. I don't know if AI is really using it, but definitely something a human player will abuse. whether it's deriving infinite manpower from ducats or military points, it's still the same fundamental issue that countries are no longer becoming vulnerable and don't really need to recover, that attrition and manpower management become meaningless.

 

[Amadeu of Savoy]

EU4 merc concept looks even more nonsense when you see CK2 mercs, contract-based indvidual fixed armies in a common pool. So, why Pdx does not consider using this?
- most of them also cultural and/or religion aligned, so christian mercs won't serve for muslims, etc.

Maybe "not serve" is too harsh, but a cost/morale penalty for hiring mercs outside culture/religion/region.

 

[Nostalgium]

I wonder if it could be solved - or at least the prominence reduced - by reducing the available mercs through techs, perhaps with a simultaneous boost to MP recovery, from say the 1650s onwards, when professional armies became more commonplace. Kind of like how in Diplo Tech you get increased naval maintenance as the tech slogs along.

 

[Ixal]

You don't though. You can WC without hiring a single merc. You can over-run a merced up enemy by actually putting some thought into how you prosecute the war. They can't hire mercs from occupied provinces, for example.

You can do anything against the AI.
Try to play multiplayer without using mercs. Lets see how long your manpower lasts when his entire inf frontline is mercs and yours is not.