Wha is your Merc policy ?

[Pile_O_Gunz]

It used to be a no-brainer to supplement the numbers with mercs during wars or even to try to turn the tide by throwing loans at the problem. But now that the mercs hit your professionalism how has that effected your battles ?

Have you gone professional ? Would you rather white peace than turn to dastardly mercs ?
Is professionalism a luxury only for the large and rich ?

Personally I'm trying to get by on manpower alone but haven't yet gained a feel for how much of a hit mercs have on professionalIs yet.

Do you try to get by on manpower alone or merc as before ?

 

[Reman]

I've been wondering about this myself as well. So far I've found drilling pretty lackluster since it evaporates so quickly. The bonuses it provides are nice, but it disappears before you know it from attrition + battle. Professionalism on the other hand is great for the 20% siege ability and other bonuses, and the fact it sticks with you. I still merc up heavily in the late game, but I try to keep my professionalism high. My late game stacks are typically 10 merc infantry, 10 regular infantry, and 16 artillery. This helps stem manpower losses significantly, especially since mercs have priority deployment since a few patches ago. It only costs 1.5% professionalism to make this stack, so I don't have to worry about the negative effects too much.

The benefits mercs provide are still too important not to use them.

 

[Rikissa]

Drill evaporates very quickly on infantry, but that's somewhat balanced by the fact it doesn't cost much to drill infantry

Drilling cavalry and cannons is where the real benefit lies

 

[CoolSpin]

In my current observer game, ottos come last on everything and is just as normal as ottomans were(are?). Some backcountry nobody plays has max on all.

It seems if you are large enough its kind of useless as you can zerg your way forward.

Im playing English Prussia (take ideas that maximize Prussia but as england) so as island nation I should be able to pick my wars and utilize drill+prof. to a good extent.

 

[El_Cid_]

I'm in the early 1500s of my Karaman -> Rum campaign.

I've been drilling full forcelimit whenever possible. It's not so much the drilling that floats my boat, but the effect it has on your professionalism. I'm at 50 professionalism already and I'm really looking forward to that delicious 20% siege ability.

I took quantity ideas first and haven't hired a single merc. I took religious ideas second so I can pickup the 10% morale policy if needs be.

All going well I'll have max professionalism by the time absolutism is a thing.

 

[Mr. G]

Does professionalism affect mercs too?

 

[creativitypersonified]

Drill Is a lot more usefull than people give it credits for. Yes infantry loses all of its drill quickly but canons can hold on to those buffs for a long time and it's really beneficial. I try not to use mercs for roleplaying purposes but the proffesionalism bonuses are great to have too.

 

[PhoenixG]

imo the time you need to drill vs losing drill is inbalanced. It takes too long to drill and you lose the bonus even faster.

 

[Don_Leon]

I have to agree you lose drill way too fast, as for mercs. in start i often let my merc stack of say 6 or so do the sieges while my drilled stacks do the killing.

As time goes on and my income improves i remove mercs and just go with normal not mercs, i think in start if you can afford mercs are a good way to not go into 0 manpower and blob a bit so you can increase said manpower.

 

[indika_tates]

imo the time you need to drill vs losing drill is inbalanced. It takes too long to drill and you lose the bonus even faster.

Drilling decay too fast. It should be something like 0.05 instead of 0.2.

 

[pedrito_elcabra]

Personally what bugs me is that drill decays quickly with reinforcements even after your army has won a few battles. So an army of drilled recruits that have never seen battle should be stronger than another army that has been equally drilled and is battle proven? Absurd.

IMO regiments should GAIN drill from battles, kinda like experience, to offset the drill lost from reinforcing. So if a regiment takes little damage it comes away stronger from a battle, whereas a decimated regiment would lose a lot of drill...

Right now I find drill useless in the early game. The money is better spent mercing and blobbing. Mid and late game might be a different story.

 

[makaramus]

depands actually
on countries like commonwealth/persia I drilling cavalary and artilarry while training infintry mercs(wich means for cav based armies)

at countries like sweden prussia and france I drilling primarilly infintry and artilarry and if economy hand drilling cav too... if short on money tring to avoid drilling cavalary or not even have any cav too

must say: cav and art drilling very effective since they die late... so merc infintry and everyting else drilled is really strong... I think winged hussars gonna arrive really strong this time

 

[Vulkandrache]

There should be no passive decay for drill. Having it go down if Units reinforce is fine.

Have you gone professional ?

F professionalism. Maybe you can pull it with the largest few nations but everyone else still has to go mercs if they want to get anything done with their puny manpower.
Later on you just hire those 400 merc Inf and maybe try to get it up afterwards, for the siege ability, but the rest is whatever.

 

[Kipsta]

Drill is fine as it is. A drilled infantry frontline will have an advantage against mercenary frontline for 1-3 battles depending on losses, but if the drill would last longer it would force manpower to be all important which would be stupid. Just drill your cavalry and cannons. Quantity armies are not supposed to be drilled all the time how unfair would that be?

 

[True_Heir_of_Rome]

I've been avoiding mercs in almost all situations to preserve professionalism. I've been fighting a lot of war on multiple front so I have had to use mercs a couple times to insure that I wouldn't be flanked.

I'm honestly at war too often to drill as much as I'd like, but it has been nice to open a war with a good first battle. I've had some ugly starts when facing opponents who had been drilling for years. Looking at you Ottomans.

 

[Sfan]

Tbh, Drilling is only viable when you play tall, or in MP. Being at war all the time means you lose all the drill from battles and attrition, and you probably lack manpower if you don't use mercs. And drilling means you have an inactive army for far too long. Why on earth would I spend 2 years doing nothing and lose half my drill in 6 months of war? Not valuable in SP wide game. Maybe early on inside the HRE? Professionalism is nice, but still hard to get if you rely on mercs.

 

[PhoenixG]

imo having high professionalism is really nice. Although to get there, you really need to slow down your early expansion. And use like 50% of your forces when you can.
When you reach to the point where your generals cost half, you might consider to use mil points to boost your professionalism instead just drilling.

 

[artemis667]

People could see drilling as an alternative to army tradition for countries that are primarily peaceful rather than warring. I don't think it's going to be practical to have high levels of both.

 

[PhoenixG]

If you pick defensive, quality, aristocratic and espionage; you have a resting point of 80 army tradition.

 

[makaramus]

Tbh, Drilling is only viable when you play tall, or in MP. Being at war all the time means you lose all the drill from battles and attrition, and you probably lack manpower if you don't use mercs. And drilling means you have an inactive army for far too long. Why on earth would I spend 2 years doing nothing and lose half my drill in 6 months of war? Not valuable in SP wide game. Maybe early on inside the HRE? Professionalism is nice, but still hard to get if you rely on mercs.

well actually there are times you need to stop conquering unless you are doing world conquest
1)Colonizing
2)Waiting for aggresive expansion
3)cathing up admin tech or unlocking ideas
4)preparing for league war
5)Bordering huge rival
6)Playing tall?

Also you can prevent losing your men if you act carefully
also if you drill your arti + cav only and use merc infintry (like usual) you can prevent losing trained men in war