Professionalism should lower by reinforcing mercenaries

[durbal]

Having it tied to only recruitment is silly. Recruit a frontline of mercs, then get your cav and artillery to max professionalism. And everyone saw it coming too...

 

[Ironside121]

This will leave almost no professionalism on almost any nation that can afford mercs.

I see where you're coming from, but merc spams by the AI already ruin their AP. They struggle to keep it up as it is. Reinforcing will just make it worse.

 

[Badesumofu]

I think it is better the way it works now. It makes it an interesting decision how many mercs to mix in if you're going for professionalism. Spending professionalism on slacken gives you more immediate manpower, but mercs give you more over time due to reinforcing. There would be no meaningful choice if reinforcing mercs cost professionalism since slacken would become strictly superior once you got a decent manpower pool.

 

[durbal]

This will leave almost no professionalism on almost any nation that can afford mercs.

I see where you're coming from, but merc spams by the AI already ruin their AP. They struggle to keep it up as it is. Reinforcing will just make it worse.

It will put players that use mercs as combat shields on equal ground with the AI. The AI doesn't know that it should recruit infantry mercs and drill cav/cannons. Plus where are these magical reinforcements coming from? If I combine two 500-man merc units and recruit another merc unit I lose AP but simply letting them reinforce I don't? Hurr durr design right there.

 

[Badesumofu]

It will put players that use mercs as combat shields on equal ground with the AI. The AI doesn't know that it should recruit infantry mercs and drill cav/cannons. Plus where are these magical reinforcements coming from? If I combine two 500-man merc units and recruit another merc unit I lose AP but simply letting them reinforce I don't? Hurr durr design right there.

It's good design, because as mentioned above it makes whether and how many mercs to use a more interesting choice when you aren't going all out mercspam. When you consolidate and re-recruit you get back to full-strength faster, it's a different process with different mechanics and different results.

 

[Slavv]

Army Professionalism isn't good enough to overtake mercing anyways. It gives small bonuses overall that, once you reach max to fully enjoy the benefit, probably don't need the bonuses anymore unless you're purposefully fighting coalitions.

 

[Ironside121]

It will put players that use mercs as combat shields on equal ground with the AI. The AI doesn't know that it should recruit infantry mercs and drill cav/cannons. Plus where are these magical reinforcements coming from? If I combine two 500-man merc units and recruit another merc unit I lose AP but simply letting them reinforce I don't? Hurr durr design right there.

Players don't even do that as much lately. It won't put us on even grounds with the AI because the AI will ALWAYS spam mercs now, due to their much larger stockpile of money.