Should I still be using mercs in 1.23?

[superscunk]

Hey,
I just finished my third campaign in 1.23, gathering Basileus, Jihad and some achievements with Mamluks.

In those campaigns I did not use any mercs...not once.
With drilling and professionalism mechanics I thought mercs are now probably inferior.

But I'm not sure anymore after thinking about it:
In mid-late game, when money is no issue, when cannons become more important and deal most damage, perhaps it is still beneficial to use merc inf and try to keep professionalism high by just drilling cannons.
The lack of professionalism/drill with mercs will not be that much of a problem, probably. But I'm no numbers cruncher, this is just a feeling.
Also, since there is so much money in the game now, fielding 100% merc inf is easy.

On the other hand, I did not have any manpower issues ever. So I never gave mercs a thought anyway. Perhaps drilled armies suffer less casualties?

I also noticed in 1.23 that some idea groups seem more interesting now:
1. Quantity: with all the money in game now it is a must have, imo. It is easy for any nation to fill the force limit.
Also, since/if not using mercs, the manpower increase is great.
2. Aristocratic: again manpower, and with the drilling mechanic I really like the +1 general.

So I was wondering if you still use mercs?
In a WC mercs probably are still needed due to constant wars, but other than that, are mercs still a thing?

 

[Kergan]

Personally I still merc spam early in the game when fighting a war against an opponent that is theoretically much stronger than I am (e.g. to trash Aragon, France, or Austria as an Italian minor).

The dust settles eventually, at which point I'll replace the mercs with normal troops. But I don't actually fire the mercs as I do so. Rather, I keep them around: as my troop limit grows I dispatch them so as to keep 8 mercs per stack. This is mostly because I find it convenient to detach mercs, and then use split on the mercs to carpet siege with 2-unit merc stacks while the rest of the stack stands guard.

That being said, I also played a run to 1700-ish without any mercs at all except during one brutal war against the Ottomans 2-3 times my strength. No mercs except for emergencies works, if you're fine with a leisurely pace.

 

[SKOTy]

Yes, because there's no better thing as having cannonfodder which costs just money to replenish, however it all depends on the situation.

For example when I am going for a WC they're still invaluable and being spammed up to the mercenary forcelimit. Depending on the situation and starting position (e.g. as Ottomans I am able to always drill some troops but with Ryukyu I am not) it's still possible to reach quite decent levels of professionalism.

In taller playthrough I usually use them to replace casualties taken after battle where I consolidate my infantry, then I add mercenaries so the stack conforms my usual template. I am doing this usually after my professionalism reaches reasonable levels (80+) and by this I am slowly switching to mercenary cannonfodder as regarding to drilling only thing that is viable are drilled cannons.

Then there are cases where mercs can win you early game war which will propel your campaign - that's when it's nobrainer to use them.

 

[herrhals]

They only cost professionalism to train, not to upkeep. train a bunch of them early, then keep them around for the rest of the campaign.

 

[superscunk]

I understand the need for mercs in certain situations, like emergencies, going against stronger opponents, WC, etc.

Prior to 1.23 I always shifted to merc inf in my stacks, no matter what. They were in every template/composition.
I'm not sure if my game play changed or game mechanics changed. But I'm having no problems at all ignoring mercs.

Perhaps I'm just a slow player that I'm not having manpower issues and can favor drilled inf over merc inf in my usual stacks.

 

[raikaria]

There is no real reason to not use Mercenaries still; regulars are just actually an option now as well.

Whereas before Mercenaries in the lategame basically has no downside because they magically inherited all your nation's bonuses from their ideas and such; and usually lategame you can afford to just spam them; now they actually have a downside; in that Regulars fight better. But the downside of regulars and a professional army is that manpower is finite; and without drilling; which is lasts a battle at best and takes a long time to set up; the bonuses from Professionalism are actually marginal; and while useful, are the trade-off for relying on a finite manpower pool, and needing it to recover between wars.

And this marginal bonus will become even smaller next patch; since the 'Get to 75 Professionalism -> Spam half price generals -> Slacken' loop is being removed; since 1/2 price Generals is moving to 100 Professionalism.

In fact; one could argue Mercenaries are even stronger now. Low Professionalism gives a 15% Discount and 15% more available. This means a country built around mercspam can... well... spam more.

There's also some other side-effects of Professionalism. Quantity Ideas is weaker; since Professionalism gain and Pip chance are based on the % of your force limit drilling. This means Quantity nations have to pay through the nose for Professionalism. Aristocratic is actually noticeably stronger because it gives a significant boost to manpower while not increasing your Force Limit; allowing you to fight for longer without relying on Mercs; and getting more manpower from Slacken.

 

[bbqftw]

I use professionalism as a slacken battery and the real trick is to burn all your incidental prof before spamming mercs.

Its possible you could micro merc stacks so they can reinforce and you don't need to retrain, but it is too much hassle.

If you want to proceed fast post 1650 you need to be prepared to burn 30k+ mercs assaulting forts, not something that even 500k manpower pool keeps up with.

 

[superscunk]

Thanks for your insights.
Then it must be my slow game play and/or lack of WC ambitions.
I thought perhaps highly drilled stacks + professionalism are the reason for no manpower issues (= less casualties).

 

[Kergan]

Thanks for your insights.
Then it must be my slow game play and/or lack of WC ambitions.
I thought perhaps highly drilled stacks + professionalism are the reason for no manpower issues (= less casualties).

Oh totally. If you've a decent manpower base, high professionalism, well drilled troops, high discipline and morale, and constantly fight opponents with low professionalism (from merc spam), non-drilled troops, with bad discipline and low morale, you won't run out of manpower.

 

[bbqftw]

Yes, but army quality is not just professionalism.

You can often stackwipe when not having any mil ideas or prof due to morale leads from prestige / max PP / AT / dotf. For a 40 AT lead that is around 35% potential extra morale.

And if you can't stackwipe the first time you can just stack retreat shuffle using 1k stacks to kill morale regeneration and wipe them the 2nd battle.

 

[Less2]

As long as you don't lose whole regiments to being stack wiped you'll still build up decent amounts of professionalism just from events and the odd few years drilling between wars. 100 regiments of mercs is only a one time cost of 15% professionalism. That's recouped by 750 MP worth of generals, or two mil idea groups. And Mil power tends to be in excess. Unless I'm trying to spawn institutions I'm way more inclined to constantly roll generals now than develop.

So unless you are going for a WC and need 1000s of mercs quickly, you'll probably be able to be both professional and mercenary-based. If you're OK with a leisurely pace you can probably be professional even in a WC, you don't need that many mercs before Absolutism and if you reach 25 MP generals before then you are set for the easy life of 100% professionalism and an infinite supply of generals.

 

[True_Heir_of_Rome]

As stated, Mercs still have a place in the game. Depending on your goals and pace, they are just as vital as ever. Even with a hard focus on professionalism they are worth using from time to time.