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EU4 - Development Diary - 17th March 2016

Hi everyone and welcome to another development diary for Europa Univeralis IV.


Today we will be covering a much-anticipated mechanic. For times where a nation you love is being attacked and you are unable or unwilling to sign an alliance or when you simply want to make your idle standing army work for their bread, we introduce Condottieri.

Condottieri DD 01.jpg


Condottieri are armies which you have rented out to other nations in exchange for money. Condottieri armies will remain in control of the nation who has offered them but they will fight and die for their recipient country marking their recipient’s enemies as their own.


When renting out your army as Condottieri, you are able to negotiate the fee for your services, which is set as a multiple of their monthly maintenance, from 0x all the way up to 5x, with the first 18 months paid upfront. If you are confident that you are leaving behind enough of a garrison, you can send out a sizable amount of your army, up to 20 units (increased by +available mercenary ideas) to earn money for you on the battlefield.


Once rented out, Condottieri will be hostile to the recipient’s enemies and will be able to fight and siege in the name of the paying nation. They will also have the military access which their recipient country has but these enemies will have access to the Condottieri’s homelands too, so they cannot simply seek refuge at home. In addition to the fee that you have charged your recipient country, your units will also gain 50% more prestige and army tradition for fighting as Condottieri.

Condottieri DD 02.jpg


After 18 months have passed, either side may cancel the arrangement and the troops will go back to being a regular army. The agreement can remain for as long as both parties are satisfied. Naturally, should a nation find themselves at war with a nation who is renting their Condottieri, the contract will be cancelled. Furthermore, if the paying country finds themselves at peace, they can end the contract before the 18 months are up.

More to come next week!
 
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Any real world example for this idea? I know that Eu4 isn't very historical accurate (and most of his mechanics even less...), but I think that using other name instead if condotteri (who were basically mercenaries) would be more appropriate


Venice and Genoa sending troops with the later also sending Ships to defend Byzantium.

Great Britain buying troops from Hesse to aid their side in the American Revolution.

Just to name two.
 
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Cheers for the DD DDRJake (totally not enough 'D's in that sentence....) :). It sounds like an intriguing mechanic, and very interesting - is the 'tendency to use condotierri' moddable (not that I'm intending to mod it in the near future or at all - HoI4 is where my efforts are aimed - just curious for the distant future)?

It sounds like early-game Portugal will be able to look after itself better in the future now as well - or do AI restrictions mean that Portugal doesn't use its mountains of early-game cash that it often has to rampage wherever it likes?
 
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Can we have the option to allow AI take control of the loaned troops? I know there is attached command but that occasionally breaks and thus you'll find your troops derping in some province because it lost the army it was following.
 
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Good. As if it wouldn't have been enough that AI stockpiles gold like crazy, now they can also rent the army of the whole world against you...

We have no idea how this is going to affect the game yet in practice. It's going to depend on the AI's willingness to lend troops out, and they'll have to tweak this carefully. I'm reserving judgement until I see how it's going to play out.
 
@DDRJake What happens when a new war opens up for the person that hired your troops? Do your condotierri become part of it?
If that is true, you could have a situation where two nations hire your condotierri individually while at peace, but then go at war with each other. What then, do both contracts end prematurely?
 
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Venice and Genoa sending troops with the later also sending Ships to defend Byzantium.

Great Britain buying troops from Hesse to aid their side in the American Revolution.

Just to name two.
My original post was misleading, sorry. I didn't mean that the practice of mercenary armies wasn't done (as you and others had pointed out with the hessian mercenaries) but that the condottieri were just mercenaries and that using the term is inaccurate, and that a better term should be found.
 
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So can I hire a load of mercenaries and then dispatch them as a Condottieri? This would have no downside - no manpower used by you, and you'd be generating money from nothing as you effectively hire mercs for someone else as a middle-man. Or is this meant to completely replace mercs (I doubt it) or are mercs simply forbidden?

Also, not a fan of the name, Condottieri being a particular type of renaissance italian mercenaries, rather than this type of contracted or rented soldiers. "Hired Auxiliaries" is probably the phrase I'd use.
 
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That is, unless perhaps Paradox put in malus modifier where nations are unlikely to rent out armies to them based on the size of leasing countries' current army size. Great Britain was a great power in Europe and yet it still hired mercenaries from German states. Clearly, there need to be a way to better approximate the historical reality or at least historical plausibility without sacrificing the balance.

Also, there should be distance modifier and maybe culture modifier. I find it highly implausible that Indian states should be allowed to rent out armies to European states if said states does not have any presence near them or in India. Also, I am not aware of Muslim countries having rented out armies to any European armies but I believe there has been instances of the reverse, for example, with Hungarians being present at the Fall of Constantinople.

Even better, it may really come down to how adequate they are to the needs of the employer. A country with highly advanced tech might be more reluctant to hire armies from nations of much lower tech who may not be up to the tasks that the potential employer expects.
Mercs are absolutelly historical. But the game already has mercs. If the Condottieri mechanic was replacing the current merc mechanic, i'd agree with it. Has it is, it only gives a third manpool for money swimming nations.
 
Mercs are absolutelly historical. But the game already has mercs. If the Condottieri mechanic was replacing the current merc mechanic, i'd agree with it. Has it is, it only gives a third manpool for money swimming nations.

Well, I think mercenaries in history tends to be a mix of private companies and the regular regiments from the states. I wouldn't rule out the mercs as we currently have at this point yet. I would imagine that private companies made up majority of mercenaries employed by the European states so perhaps it should be implemented in a way that mercs make up most of the "mercenary" portion of any given nation's armies with lower cap on the number of regiments you can have from another state. It could be the other way around in actual history but I have no idea.
 
Terrible post, preorder canceled.

How was that a bad post? It explained the features simply and quickly and gave us more to look forward to.
 
Will your army always get exiled when contract ends? I suggest that it does, otherwise it could get trapped, because it might be somewhere you have MA to, but have no path home now that it isn't hired out.
 
How was that a bad post? It explained the features simply and quickly and gave us more to look forward to.

Sarcasm and joking around clearly doesn't communicate over the Internet well...
 
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you cannot hire out Condottieri to a nation who is at war with a nation you have a truce with

Can you make an exception when it comes to the religious league war? Otherwise it would be nigh impossible to hire Condottieri for the league war? Especially since you probably missed it because of a truce with the emperor or something of similar fashion.