Revert the mercenary nerf, let me recruit multiple separate stacks of inf mercs.

[Ylang]

I haven't used mercenaries since the update. I never really used them to be honest. I pretty much only used single infantry stacks, just for safety of my vassals/allies capping, since we know how stupid they are, and often for no reason, they just decide to move somewhere, for no reason, abandoning their progress. If I place my units there, then even it the dumb ai decides to stop sieging, the siege status remains, so I can either move my units there, or just get more mercenaries to do it.

Now, I can't. Not only price is not worth, sizes, types, and everything else is fixed, but I can't even recruit single stacks of infantry, but that's not all, they can't even be divided.

I recently played Hungary, and if you ever get to a point [multiple times] where you have black army event [mercenaries], just ignore it, it's not worth it, not worth to use, to chose, to have, not worth to even be in the game.

Luckily I always play on normal, so I can somehow evade this stupidity of ai, and just tag along the countries, save/load and send my own infantry stacks to safe the siege of castles etc.

It's poorly done. All I want is to be able to recruit 1k infantry merc, and then 1k infantry merc again, and again, and as long as the manpower pool of theirs allows me.

Unless there's a mod for, so that would be good to know.

 

[Jordedude1234]

I don't think going back to the old system exactly is the best solution. Mercenary manpower is trying to fix what was a legimate problem in merc sustainability in 1.29, but there are many, many problems with the current merc system (can't merge with main army, tedious to use, AI can't handle it). Something definitely needs to be done about it.

 

[Eruth]

Just because the new mechanic makes the game harder doesn't mean the mechanic is worse. It just forces you to think harder about whether you use it. I've actually used mercenaries slightly more (as in, at all) since 1.3, so I guess we cancel out.

 

[Big Bad France]

I honestly don't understand the people who claim to never use mercs in the current system. Most countries start out with barely enough manpower to build up to force limit in 1444, if they even have enough to do that. Do you just sit around for 40 years or so for manpower to build up enough to fight a war? Mercs are dirt cheap in 1444 and some of the companies are of higher quality than your armies. In every campaign I have played so far on the current patch, mercs make up about 25% of my army until the reformation, which is around the time I disband them for good.

 

[Jordedude1234]

My main problem with the current merc system is how tedious it is to manage the separate unmergeable stacks. Fix that and I'll be pretty happy with it honestly.

 

[Big Bad France]

My main problem with the current merc system is how tedious it is to manage the separate unmergeable stacks. Fix that and I'll be pretty happy with it honestly.

I agree with this. I do like how the merc company sticks together and how the companies are regional, as that adds to the flavor of the game. It just should be possible to attach them to other armies. Also, you should be able to recruit mercs within your subject countries' lands. Part of the appeal of them to me is the ability to raise a large army of local soldiers so I don't have to transport half of my army to the New World or India. India isn't such a big deal because I almost always have land there, but it gets hairy when I want to raise an army in Mexico to expand my colonial nation. If I can recruit non-merc soldiers within a province, I should also be able to recruit mercs there.

 

[Cancerofthehead]

Just because the new mechanic makes the game harder doesn't mean the mechanic is worse. It just forces you to think harder about whether you use it. I've actually used mercenaries slightly more (as in, at all) since 1.3, so I guess we cancel out.

I think the mechanics are a solid foundation, but there is some balancing needed (in particular, let us recruit smaller merc armies later in the game). Also some mechanism to allow you to better manage stacks would be a massive improvement.

And I like that you can just build your sacrificial merc one stacks to unsiege stuff or siege down random provinces.

I do actually use Merc’s almost every game now after never using them in most games before, but that is just buying the free company early and using it as a siege stack to conserve manpower.

 

[Alyosha]

I like the new system for the most part. My issue is that the scaling happens incredibly rapidly - a merc company that maxes at 7 at the start is rapidly up to 52 in the mid-16th century. This rapid scaling in many ways runs counter to one of the devs’ stated philosophies, namely to discourage merc use later in the game. If one can hire a full combat width army it doesn’t discourage that usage later in game (although the price rapidly becomes unsustainable). Additionally, where are these 60k mercenaries residing? How is it possible to recruit that many people from one area? Where is all this manpower generated?

I’d rather have merc companies max out at, for argument’s sake, 24 units. I have no problem with merc costs getting a little inflation even for the same troop size.

 

[Atlanteax]

The new mercenary system is a vast improvement. My only complaint is how severely your professionalism drops as you (repeatedly) fire/hire companies as they run out of their manpower; but it seems ‘fair’.

 

[Josar]

I will say mercs are very useful early game, mainly because you can often get a fantastic general that way.

 

[Laurent1944]

I will be a fan of the mercenary system if there was a far bigger range of companies size. I think that historically there were small companies of some thousand men and the biggest should be around 20k men, allowing the player (and the AI) far more flexibility. You need 60k men ? You raise 4-5 companies and can keep them together in a doomstack or scatter them a little. You plan to carpet siege ? Rather than hire a huge company, you hire several small ones.

Also the professionalism hit for using mercs is far too high, from my limited experience in 1.30 it is around 2.5 times higher than before (recruting a 40k stack costs men 15 pts of professionalism, while it was 6 pts in 1.29). Also if you want to play overseas, the new rule of attrition over ship makes it difficult without raising troops locally (first time I sent an army oversea, from Spain to Kilwa, I lost 75% of it, meaning 15k manpower), so either you have to keep an army in all places you want to conquer, or you hire local mercenaries. Or ship mercenaries from place to place, because they have more manpower than the player, but you need a transport fleet able to carry the whole company at the same time. In any case, in my experience, if you use mercenaries you're stuck at 0 professionalism.

I would prefer to no more have professionalism hit when raising mercenaries, but rather to have it decreasing when you suffer heavy losses (so needing to replace trained officers and soldiers with rookies). Maybe reduce the professionalism hit to when you hire mercenaries in your own country, and have no hit when you hire strangers, especially overseas. After all it seems to me that when another country proposes you one of its armies, they are mercenaries and don't decrease your professionalism.

 

[iClipse]

I would prefer to no more have professionalism hit when raising mercenaries, but rather to have it decreasing when you suffer heavy losses (so needing to replace trained officers and soldiers with rookies). Maybe reduce the professionalism hit to when you hire mercenaries in your own country, and have no hit when you hire strangers, especially overseas. After all it seems to me that when another country proposes you one of its armies, they are mercenaries and don't decrease your professionalism.

That or some sort of monthy hit to professionalism as long as the company is deployed (maybe related to your force limit, just like drilling is). If you can pay for it, in current form it's often better to keep the company around even during peace time, especially if you know you'll need the company in a close future war.

 

[Meglok]

Completely disagree. While I don't like how fast and ridiculous the size and cost of mercs scales up, the new system is much better than the previous one.

 

[LukasYork]

It is much better but the professionalism hit is waaay to high. Especially that one recruited mercs size won't update so even if you want to hire the same company, just bigger you have to eat a stupid amount of professionalism loss.

I only use mercs at the start of the game when I have next to no professionalism.

As I mentioned in one of the other threads some time ago. I'd love the new mercs if they gave you a passive decline of professionalism instead of upfront hit. Let's say 0.1 a year for each company (or maybe tie it somehow to % of your forcelimit).

That way you'd be discouraged from keeping them around forever but you could use them way more often, making them much more fun.

Also their amount per company later in the game are ridiculously oversized, making them virtually useless due to attrition. Maybe their stack sizes could scale with technology improving supply limit?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The closest thing we had to a good merc system was the first one that shipped with the game (similar to stabhit peace offers). Using that system but allowing to upgrade mercs with tech would be fine. Or some combination of that + what we have now (recruiting fractions of the merc companies available).

Or at minimum, don't offer mercs that instantly self-attrition. They don't have to be perfect compositions, but they shouldn't be suicidal.