EU4 - Development Diary - 26th of March 2019

[Dasmani]

You can call it 'manpower pool' or 'merc unit pool' or whatever - the point is that there needs to be some tracking of availability, I think, for these reasons:

1) It's a shared resource. If one state hires the mercs, they aren't available to anyone else. (There is a slight issue here in that the AI would need to be taught how to exploit it).

2) The resource should change with time and events. In order to be most interesting, choices and conditions should change the pool size. Nearby wars should increase the mercenary availability; peacetime should deplete it. You could almost say that the mercenary pool should work almost opposite to the country ones: it has a "manpower minimum" that it replenishes to if it drops too low, but disbandments and casualties nearby should feed it above this "cap" and it should then decay to the cap over time.

3) The resource should maybe accrue some other traits that come and go as it changes - see below.

What I was trying to say is that this system is functionally the same as simply distributing extra manpower into a nation's regular manpower pool, except that in the case of distributing real manpower a lot of exploits are avoided.

For instance, in the case of a manpower pool in a trade node that can be hired from, a player could just buy out all the available mercenaries in a region before declaring a war to prevent an AI from reinforcing.

There's also the problem of the mercenary units reinforcing at no manpower costs which keeps a lot of the existing problems of mercenaries and only changes the time frame you need to change your army composition. For instance, right now, you pause the game at about tech 16-18, disband your cavalry, build a bunch of merc infantry and cannons, and start consolidating out your regular infantry. If we simply restrict the mercenaries with a mercenary pool cap, a nation would still be able to field full merc infantry formations if they started hiring the mercs earlier and did not disband them.

And, if the mercenary regiments did require manpower from the mercenary manpower pool to reinforce, this is again may be abused by rich players, but more importantly isn't any different from regular manpower. For instance, if two nations at war both had mercenary regiments recruited from the same node, the game would need to have some system in place to decide how many reinforcements to allocate to each player from the manpower and manpower recovery of the pool. This is exactly the same as the game generating and dividing real national manpower.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I'm just saying that it's more development and coding than is really necessary to achieve those goals.

So let's look at something like hiring mercenaries from a rich node like Genoa. In the system I propose, the game would look at the trade value of the Genoa node and use it to calculate a maximum manpower and a manpower per month value. Let's say for example that 10 ducats is worth 1,000 max manpower and 100 manpower per month, and Genoa has 100 ducats in value. The game then looks at the trade power of every nation with a merchant in the node, modifies it by some percent based on a ducats-for-mercs slider, and divides it up. So if you have 50% control of the Genoa node, you get an extra 5,000 max manpower and 500 manpower per month from your mercenary contacts in Genoa (assuming you pay the mercenary contract maintenance slider fee thing), which is essentially the same as a mercenary pool, but less prone to abuse. Then, if your regulars are getting thrashed about, you could press a button in the trade node to spawn a stack of special merc units that reinforce with your national manpower with a cap on how many total regiments you can have capped like the Rajputs based on trade power or development or something.

I think the strongest draw to such a system is that it meets all of @DDRJake's design goals using mechanics that are already present in the game somewhere, so it gives developers more time to work on the regional mercenary differences (for the special mercs you spawn) rather than coding and testing new systems.

It would also be cool if fired generals or disinherited princes or defeated pretenders triggered events could spawn a mercenary group that acted as Condottieri for whichever nation got the event and chose to pay.

 

[Jakobus]

I'd like to see a mechanic where, if you have too many mercenaries in proportion to your regulars, you start rundning the risk of a condottiere coup, replacing your dynasty or even creating a republic. Happened quite a lot in Italy during late medieval and rennaisance eras.

 

[Sulphuric_Glue]

In my opinion mercs should be cheap and plentiful at the start of the game and marginally rise in price while not rising in quality and dwindling in number. This would encourage players to act out what happened irl - standing professional armies were adopted over mercenaries and levies because they were worth the cost and states were able to support them, and the lack of demand for mercenaries resulted in far less people becoming mercs. The pool of available mercenaries should be directly tied to how many mercenaries are being hired in that region; more demand encourages more supply.
Early on, states should have some sort of levy system - e.g. making standing professional armies more expensive but providing access to lots of lower quality troops in war time, like with CK2 - until they transition to a more modern centralised government that can support a standing army. EU4 is designed around modern warfare but the first couple of centuries of the game are still essentially medieval and war should reflect that. Standing armies did get cheaper on average because the cost of equipment went down as tech progressed - a gun and a uniform is much cheaper than a suit of armour, so the cost of a standing army should start high compared to mercs but then become much cheaper than mercs as tech progresses.

 

[Esteban F]

Good day and welcome to this week's Dev Diary for EUIV. I'm sure it comes at an unforgivable late hour for many, but I have not long returned from a short trip to Lithuania. The country is a bit smaller than I remember, but Vilnius was a delightful place to spend the long weekend.

I'm returning as forewarned by last week's Dev Diary to talk about ambitions for game mechanics in the upcoming European Expansion, slated for Q4 this year. As neondt has been discussing with maps and missions, I too will be sharing thoughts and ideas that we have regarding certain game mechanics. What is mentioned here are not changes that are currently in the game, nor are they promises of things to come, but more to share our thought process and ideas we have for the upcoming expansion and update.

During the large end of year Dev Diary I mentioned various wishlist items that we would like to tackle in EUIV and on the list, right at the top, which with a degree of imagination is in bold, flashing colours and on fire, is that the current state of mercenaries in the game is long overdue for a shakeup. That's what we're here to talk about today.

Firstly, why are we even talking about Mercenaries at all? Well Europa Universalis is a game about building Empires, and the business end of your stick are your armies. While regular armies are cost-effective for ducats, they can and likely will run dry of manpower in prolonged wars. Mercenaries exist for you to supplement your fighting force at an inflated ducat cost, allowing you to extend your own fighting capacity so long as your coffers can handle it. In the past, there was a limit to how many mercenaries were available to hire due to a 1% daily chance of mercs becoming available. This was removed in the interest of expunging the random element to available armies, and now your number of available mercs are tied to your forcelimit. Mechanically it's all very functional, but not without its issues

View attachment 465835

Look familiar? Once one's economy is in good shape, the go-to for a nation is to flesh out their army mercenary infantry and, should they feel decadent, mercenary artillery and keep that as a permanent solution for all aspects of warfare. They are the ultimate siege weapon due to reinforcing without need for manpower, so attrition is seldom a concern, while also being an entirely effective battle force as they take your nation's bonuses to battle, and any losses are very quickly recovered in exchange for money.

Even in the event of your mercenary armies being wiped out, so long as you have the money, you are able to swiftly recruit as far as your force limit allows courtesy of their quick recruitment time, and within a few months, your armies march once more with renewed vigour and no impact on your manpower pool.

Now to its credit, the way mercenaries work currently allows for a nation to always keep their momentum going. It can be no fun to simply sit on your thumb for manpower to recover for a war you want to fight if you find no other options available to you, and I'm sure most of us have found ourselves in a war which would have been all but lost if a few loans and an eager band of mercenaries had not been available to save the day.

So what are our thoughts from here? Well, there is certainly no end to the balance tweaking that could be done here, as the variables involved are plenty and could be adjusted: rising cost of mercs, restricting their availability, perhaps reigning in how easily they adapt to all of your country's military traditions, fostered for centuries, within a few days. This could be done, and indeed it wasn't too long ago that we did increase mercenary costs across the board, but I believe the solution should be grander in ambition, to be fitting for the gravity of the Expansion we're planning for this year.

@Groogy and I have hashed out thoughts on mercs with very much a "back to the drawing board" approach on the system. What has become more and more apparent is that the system as it exists is ripe for a full makeover.

The European Expansion and its update will, in all likelihood, feature a completely different mercenary mechanic from what we know today. We have established several key aspects of how we want to handle mercenaries:

• We still want them to exist as a way to supplement one's army strength for ducats.
• Province-level recruitment will probably have to go. Reducing click-fatigue while we're at it should be a priority.
• The system should respect geopolitics: Mercs in India should be functionally different from Germanic ones.
• Mercs must be finite to some degree. As an example, a prolonged 30 years war should drain Central Europe of available mercenaries, and said merc units should find themselves no longer able to reinforce.
• Player involvement in the system must be greater than it is today
• Late game multiplayer must be diversified from all out merc-on-merc warfare.
• The system should be robust, feel alive, and enjoyable

In addition to this, we want to make the fundamental changes to the merc system part of the update. All players who get the planned Q4 update should enjoy a new merc system to explore.

The Dev Diary may end up raising more questions than it answers regarding mercs, but this is not the last we'll be talking on the matter. This and various other DDs to follow are to shed light on our internal thoughts regarding development, rather than showing off what we have added to the game. I'm sure you're growing tired of hearing it by now, but we continue to iron out tech-debt issues (which really deserve a dev diary of their own) and gearing ourselves up for developing this large European Expansion.

What are your thoughts on the existing mercenary system and what would you like to see in a new update? Let us know in this thread, and we'll be back next week to talk more on our plans for the upcoming Q4 Expansion and Update

Hey mate!
I don't know if it has been asked before but, could there be a continental pool where each mercenary that you buy is "province & country referenced". Thus if you buy it from that province & country, it takes time to arrive and if gives the money to the estate it was taken from?
Could there also be a system of offer/demand?

 

[Balesir]

What I was trying to say is that this system is functionally the same as simply distributing extra manpower into a nation's regular manpower pool, except that in the case of distributing real manpower a lot of exploits are avoided.

For instance, in the case of a manpower pool in a trade node that can be hired from, a player could just buy out all the available mercenaries in a region before declaring a war to prevent an AI from reinforcing.

Yes, buying up all the availability is a risk (and happened IRL, too), but one of the benefits of linking to trade node is that enemies will often have power in nodes you don't, and are thus able to call on sources you can't reach. The problem with the manpower boost is that you don't have mercenaries - you just have a manpower boost for cash. That's going to make "building a war chest" a fairly moot point and make "mercenaries" flavourless - no different to regular troops.

There's also the problem of the mercenary units reinforcing at no manpower costs which keeps a lot of the existing problems of mercenaries and only changes the time frame you need to change your army composition. For instance, right now, you pause the game at about tech 16-18, disband your cavalry, build a bunch of merc infantry and cannons, and start consolidating out your regular infantry. If we simply restrict the mercenaries with a mercenary pool cap, a nation would still be able to field full merc infantry formations if they started hiring the mercs earlier and did not disband them.

Well, disbanding the cavalry might give a boost to let you hire a number of regiments, but part of what I envisage is that the "cap" should be low - but be boosted by disbanding and casualties. Imagine it as mercenaries amounting to maybe 10% of regular forces in a node in extended peace - but that would expand a lot in war or if someone disbands an army, and then decay back slowly to the "status quo ante". That would make hiring in the middle of a war (or just after one) quite feasible, but hiring in advance more difficult.

And, if the mercenary regiments did require manpower from the mercenary manpower pool to reinforce, this is again may be abused by rich players, but more importantly isn't any different from regular manpower. For instance, if two nations at war both had mercenary regiments recruited from the same node, the game would need to have some system in place to decide how many reinforcements to allocate to each player from the manpower and manpower recovery of the pool. This is exactly the same as the game generating and dividing real national manpower.

It wouldn't be the same if most of the mercenary manpower comes from war casualties and disbanding. And the division of reinforcement manpower would (I assume) be scaled by trade power in the node, making the choice of node to hire from an important choice in several ways.

Throwing a few numbers in for discussion, think of it this way:

- The "norm" (or "cap", except that it's not really a cap) for MP in a node is 0.15 times the total manpower in the trade area.

- Replenishment to this, if the pool falls below it, is similar to national pools, and maybe reduces the trade value in the node as it recovers.

- 20% of all war casualties in the trade area, and 20% of all disbandments, go to the mercenary pool. 40% of all casualties return to the national pools, normally, to reduce the current issues there.

- If the mercenary pool is above the "norm", it decays to the norm with a half-life of, say, 5 years.

The mercenary pool, needless to say, replenishes only mercenary units, so it is different from national manpower in that respect. It can also come from more than one source and trade power has a role in deciding who gets it.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I'm just saying that it's more development and coding than is really necessary to achieve those goals.

What I outlined here doesn't appear to me to be much more complex than the management of national manpower pools, which already exist.

So let's look at something like hiring mercenaries from a rich node like Genoa. In the system I propose, the game would look at the trade value of the Genoa node and use it to calculate a maximum manpower and a manpower per month value. Let's say for example that 10 ducats is worth 1,000 max manpower and 100 manpower per month, and Genoa has 100 ducats in value. The game then looks at the trade power of every nation with a merchant in the node, modifies it by some percent based on a ducats-for-mercs slider, and divides it up. So if you have 50% control of the Genoa node, you get an extra 5,000 max manpower and 500 manpower per month from your mercenary contacts in Genoa (assuming you pay the mercenary contract maintenance slider fee thing), which is essentially the same as a mercenary pool, but less prone to abuse. Then, if your regulars are getting thrashed about, you could press a button in the trade node to spawn a stack of special merc units that reinforce with your national manpower with a cap on how many total regiments you can have capped like the Rajputs based on trade power or development or something.

Maybe so, but the goals it doesn't help are these:

- Mercenaries don't change in availability according to the political "temperature". The lack of readily available mercenaries in peaceful times/areas should make acquiring an overwhelming army harder, while war destabilises regions.

- By having mercenaries tied to specific nations, you don't really have "mercenaries", you just have extra (and different) national troop pools. If the "buying up all available mercenaries" is an issue, then an "outbidding your enemy" option might be necessary...

Incidentally, with unit total caps, could you not consolidate regiments and then hire more in order to buy manpower fast?

I think the strongest draw to such a system is that it meets all of @DDRJake's design goals using mechanics that are already present in the game somewhere, so it gives developers more time to work on the regional mercenary differences (for the special mercs you spawn) rather than coding and testing new systems.

I agree that this is a useful aim, but I think all the systems for the manpower pool already exist (for countries).

It would also be cool if fired generals or disinherited princes or defeated pretenders triggered events could spawn a mercenary group that acted as Condottieri for whichever nation got the event and chose to pay.

This is a superficially attractive idea, but then I think (a) Condottieri are a separate thing, and already in the game, and (b) how would hiring a fired general as a mercenary differ from just hiring a new general normally?

Supplementary thought - should mercenary light ships and transports be available? (Privateers and merchantmen...) Probably not, but it's maybe worth a thought.

 

[Canute VII]

I'm going to expand on my very basic earlier post and explain it better.

I feel like the issue that is breaking the way mercenaries work is that EU4 lacks one of the key components that made up military forces during this time period; militia.

Currently, both the player and AI have the choice between a regular standing army or hiring mercenaries. The reality is that during this time period they also had the choice of training/using militia.

Here is a website that explains the differences between a Mercenary Army, a Militia, and a Regular Army:

https://science.howstuffworks.com/mercenary1.htm

The omission of militia in EU4 is ahistorical. This is especially true in Colonial Nations, for example, where militias were much more common than mercenaries. Think about the USA and how ""A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" is still called upon today. People may argue that this is late game, from the independence of the USA onwards, but that's simply not true.

Here's a passage from Wikipedia, "As successful English settlement of North America began to take place in 1607 in the face of the hostile intentions of the powerful Spanish, and of the native populations, it became immediately necessary to raise militia amongst the settlers. The militia in Jamestown saw constant action against the Powhatan Federation and other native polities. In the Virginia Company's other outpost, Bermuda, fortification began immediately in 1612. A Spanish attack in 1614 was repulsed by two shots fired from the incomplete Castle Islands Fortifications manned by Bermudian Militiamen. In the Nineteenth century, Fortress Bermuda would become Britain's Gibraltar of the West, heavily fortified by a Regular Army garrison to protect the Royal Navy's headquarters and dockyard in the Western Atlantic."

This passage comes from here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia and there is more information pertaining specifically to the American militia here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_(United_States)#Early-mid_Colonial_era_(1607–1754),. Note this sentence - "The early colonists of America considered the militia an important social institution, necessary to provide defence and public safety."

However, militia were just as important in many European nations and their colonies. Here are a selection of relevant quotes:

Australia - "In the Colony of New South Wales Governor Lachlan Macquarie proposed a colonial militia but the idea was rejected. Governor Ralph Darling felt a mounted police force was more efficient than a militia."

Canada - "In Canada the title "Militia" historically referred to the land component of the armed forces, both regular (full-time) and reserve. The earliest Canadian militias date from the beginning of the French colonial period. In New France, King Louis XIV created a compulsory militia of settlers in every parish that supported French authorities in the defence and expansion of the colony."

Denmark - "The Danish Militia played a major role in repelling the Swedish attackers during the assault on Copenhagen in 1659."

France - "Centuries later, Joan of Arc organised and led a militia until her capture and execution in 1431. This settled the succession to the French crown and laid the basis for the formation of the modern nation of France."

Mexico - "Free-colored militias were an important and at times critical organisation in Colonial Mexico. Prior to the eighteenth century, Spain's territories in the Americas were mainly defended through a series of Spanish military units being based in strategic coastal port cities and important economic centres. But as European rivals began to challenge the Spanish crown and their dominance in the new world, the Bourbon dynasty initiated a series of reforms, allowing people from their colonies to serve in the regular armies, as well as permitting local militias in their territories."

Portugal - "After 60 years of foreign domination (1580–1640), the Ordenanças were reorganised for the Portuguese Restoration War. The Portuguese Army was then organised in three lines, with the 2nd and 3rd being militia forces."

Sri Lanka - "The first militias formed in Sri Lanka were by Lankan Kings, who raised militia armies for their military campaigns both within and outside the island. This was due to the reason that the Kings never maintained a standing army instead had a Royal Guard during peacetime and formed a militia in wartime.

When the Portuguese who were the first colonial power to dominate the island raised local militias under the command of local leaders known as Mudaliyars. These militias took part in the many Portuguese campaigns against the Lankan Kings. The Dutch continued to employ these militias but due to their unreliability tended to favour employing Swiss and Malay mercenaries in their campaigns in the island."

Switzerland - "One of the best known and ancient militias is the Swiss Armed Forces. Switzerland has long maintained, proportionally, the second largest military force in the world, with about half the proportional amount of reserve forces of the Israeli Defense Forces, a militia of some 33% of the total population."

United Kingdom - "With the decay of the feudal system and the military revolution of the 16th century, the militia began to become an important institution in English life." and "The militia was supposed to be mustered for training purposes from time to time, but this was rarely done. The militia regiments were consequently ill-prepared for an emergency, and could not be relied upon to serve outside their own counties. This state of affairs concerned many people. Consequently, an elite force was created, composed of members of the militia who were prepared to meet regularly for military training and exercise. These were formed into trained band regiments, particularly in the City of London, where the Artillery Ground was used for training. The trained bands performed an important role in the English Civil War on the side of parliament, in marching to raise the siege of Gloucester (5 September 1643)." and, on the British in Ireland, "The Parliament of Ireland passed an act in 1715 raising regiments of militia in each county and county corporate. Membership was restricted to Protestants between the ages of 16 and 60."

I've deliberately included examples where militia were rejected in favour of other systems to show that countries often chose between using them or another system (i.e., mercs, regular armies).

This choice between militia or mercenary could be reflected in Idea Groups. Personally I would argue that replacing the mercenary ideas in the Administrative Idea Group with militia ideas would make much more sense. If the developers wanted to keep the ideas related to mercenaries then they could be moved to a military idea group (replacing National Conscripts, for example. National Conscripts would become more associated with militia). The inclusion of militia related ideas would/could reflect the advancement of knight service (pre-EU4 period) to militia to national service and conscription. Additionally, militia ideas could be included within the Defensive Idea Group and mercenary ideas in the Offensive Idea Group.

Here are some links for those interested in knight service, militia, national service and conscription for those interested in seeing a linear development:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/knight-service
https://www.britannica.com/topic/militia
https://www.phmc.pa.gov/Archives/Research-Online/Pages/Militia-Resource-Guide-1682-1815.aspx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_service
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription

I also included a quote about the British only recruiting Protestant militia in Ireland. Again, this could be important; powerful militia ideas could work really well for people who want to play tall and/or defensively. Perhaps you should only be able to raise militia in provinces with your own culture. This may sound counter intuitive when it comes to trying to cut down on mercenary spamming because we want to encourage players to go for militia over mercs... but wait; what if some nations had cool militia? Like the Ottoman Akinji [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akinji ] that had cool abilities like being able to raid neighbouring provinces like pirates can raid coastal provinces? I quote, "Because of their mobility akinji were also used for reconnaissance and as a vanguard force to terrorize the local population before the advance of the main Ottoman forces. Since they were irregular militia, they were not bound by peace treaties, so they could raid border villages and attack enemy garrisons, fortresses and border posts during peacetime, constantly harassing the enemy and checking the weak spots on the rival country's defences."

Additionally, returning to the first link about the differences between mercenaries, militia and a regular army, mercenaries should not be recruitable from a nation's own provinces. They were not residents or citizens of the nation hiring them. They absolutely should not arrive in Constantinople from Hamburg two weeks after the outbreak of war! How did they arrive so fast? Not only does the Sultan have to send someone to Hamburg to hire them, they have to organise and then march or sail to wherever they're needed. Across an entire continent. Militia on the other hand should be able to arrive almost instantly. A three way system would allow mercenaries to be recruitable from foreign or occupied provinces (exempt from military access rules, but given the black exile flag until they can be moved to the territory of the nation hiring them or united with an army already in existence) and militia only from home provinces. It would make sense that mercenaries are only recruitable from nations you have a good relationship with too.

As Axe99 said, the use of mercenaries declined over this time period, so Idea Groups with militia ideas should be powerful enough that they're the natural choice over Idea Groups that have mercenary ideas.

All in all I think that my proposed three way system would mean:

1) more historical realism
2) more customisation of your nation
3) less mercenary swarms
4) more flexibility to solve issues for the developers

Sorry for being late and long.

I believe the way to recruit mercenaries via spy action as I outlined in an earlier post would reasonably well approximate what you say about mercenaries.

Now, let's focus on militia. I believe this is interesting and could very well complement a rework of the mercenary system to make those happy (or at least less unhappy) that see benefits in the current merc system. We should bear in mind that the current system has developped up to its current state for reasons that seemed worth the effort to do so.

So, well, militia could be recruitable from the province interface (and in that regard replace mercs). They would have certain advantages and disadvantages.

advantages:

• do not cost ducats nor manpower when recruited (but will draw manpower when reinforced and reinforcements will also cost ducats?) or there is some -50% reduction on ducat and manpower cost, not sure, -- in the end they should just be cheaper in every aspect
• will be quickly recruitable (like currently mercs)
• maybe: can raid different religion border provinces during peace (a new button in the army stack, similar to "raid coasts", - also see the various suggestions in the subforum on overland raiding for hordes)

disadvantages:

• (only infantry?, maybe dependent on culture etc.)
• is always one unit type behind the regular army (i.e. if regulars are landsknecht infantry, then militia will be only longbow etc.), because they use outdated equipment and do not really have a lot of military training
• only as many militia can be recruited as there is military development in a province (i.e. if we have a 4-5-3 province, then we can recruit 3 militia)
• each time a militia is recruited, this will increase local autonomy in the province by 10%, so you would normally try not to raise too many of them, at least not in your highly developped provinces, probably really only when in a bad situation

Hence, militia will be able to bolster the army, but should only fight in advantegeous terrain and not let itself be catched during a fort siege. However, it will be good to un/siege provinces and to harrass smaller enemy stacks. Especially, when manpower is low and the goal is to draw out the war, they can be useful.

 

[FREETHEODORO]

I think there should still be a massive late-game merc spam, but maybe reflavor it. Think about napoleon's army of citizens. Maybe at admin 20 you get a decision that drastically increases manpower, to make up for the lack of merc armies?

 

[Dasmani]

Yes, buying up all the availability is a risk (and happened IRL, too), but one of the benefits of linking to trade node is that enemies will often have power in nodes you don't, and are thus able to call on sources you can't reach. The problem with the manpower boost is that you don't have mercenaries - you just have a manpower boost for cash. That's going to make "building a war chest" a fairly moot point and make "mercenaries" flavourless - no different to regular troops.

In the system I suggest, there would still be special mercenary units; they would be spawned like Streltsy or Banners or Rajputs. Having a war chest to spawn these units or go into a deficit paying for manpower would still be important.

Another idea I had is having a regional bonus for controlling 75% of the mercenary contracts in a node. Are you hiring almost every soldier of fortune that ever steps off the Emerald Isles? Well your Wild Irish Geese have brought some wonderful new distillery technology and something called "Jameson". National unrest -1. This way the differences don't have to be strictly militaristic.

Well, disbanding the cavalry might give a boost to let you hire a number of regiments, but part of what I envisage is that the "cap" should be low - but be boosted by disbanding and casualties. Imagine it as mercenaries amounting to maybe 10% of regular forces in a node in extended peace - but that would expand a lot in war or if someone disbands an army, and then decay back slowly to the "status quo ante". That would make hiring in the middle of a war (or just after one) quite feasible, but hiring in advance more difficult.

So what if I hire just a single regiment from the pool every year and never disband them? If they reinforce using magic money, it's exactly the same as the all merc armies we have now, but you have to plan ahead and buy the regiments a few at a time as the merc pool replenishes. If they draw manpower from the regional mercenary pool to reinforce, you cold still accrue a lot of units over time, but then you (or, let's be honest, the AI) could (let's be honest, definitely will) just park them on a jungle during a monsoon so that the attrition drains the mercenary pool and no one has mercenaries from the node anymore.

And the division of reinforcement manpower would (I assume) be scaled by trade power in the node, making the choice of node to hire from an important choice in several ways.

The mercenary pool, needless to say, replenishes only mercenary units, so it is different from national manpower in that respect. It can also come from more than one source and trade power has a role in deciding who gets it.

It is different from national manpower on the design end, but on the player's end the only difference is having to look at multiple different screens instead of one number to know how many potential units they have or how much they're able to reinforce. The only scenarios where a large difference is felt is when one manpower pool reaches 0 while the others are still above 0, and then you have some units reinforcing and others not, which is an annoying thing to keep looking at during the early life-or-death wars and causes tedious micromanagement.

It's also not historical. Reinforcing standard regiments with mercenaries and mixing mercenaries and regulars was common in early modern armies, so that should be represented.

- Mercenaries don't change in availability according to the political "temperature". The lack of readily available mercenaries in peaceful times/areas should make acquiring an overwhelming army harder, while war destabilises regions.

The availability would change as a result of changes to trade. Generally, mercenaries were hired *from* peaceful regions and sent to warring regions, and since devastation, occupations, naval losses, etc. all effect the trade value in a region, mercenaries would be easier to find in peaceful, prosperous areas.

I agree that this is a useful aim, but I think all the systems for the manpower pool already exist (for countries).

Right, but adding manpower for things that aren't countries and don't own provinces is different and difficult. Or, at least, significantly more difficult.

This is a superficially attractive idea, but then I think (a) Condottieri are a separate thing, and already in the game, and (b) how would hiring a fired general as a mercenary differ from just hiring a new general normally?

So how the event would work as I imagine it is that someone either disinherits an heir with a certain level of military skill or fires a general with a certain tradition, and then a nearby country gets an event saying that this general has raised a free company of mercenaries and offers their service, then the country has the opportunity to pay, and then the army appears with the general. The army would act like condottieri in the sense they aren't actually controlled by the nation that hired them, so if the player got the event the army would be under the AI, would not count against force limit, would not count against leader limit, and will definitely waste time occupying Siberia.

 

[onlybradparker]

Now, let's focus on militia. I believe this is interesting and could very well complement a rework of the mercenary system to make those happy (or at least less unhappy) that see benefits in the current merc system. We should bear in mind that the current system has developped up to its current state for reasons that seemed worth the effort to do so.

Militia would 100% compliment mercenaries. Currently EU4 is trying to do three things (regular army, and militia and mercs) with two systems (regular army and mercs). It's ahistorical and isn't working. Militia would give the developers a way to fix mercs because they could actually make mercs mercs and then have militia being militia.

 

[bobsickle]

I would like mercs to not be the "I'm losing a war but might as well throw all my money at more troops" button. If one side is losing a war, why the hell would mercenaries want to fight for them? Especially if it's losing by a lot, you might as well hand a will and testament to every merc along with their upfront pay. I would like cost and availability of mercs to change depending on the conditions of the people hiring them. You might be able to convince mercenaries to fight a -50% warscore war, but it's going to cost you and you're not going to have many takers.

 

[AlleyTheToaster]

I always assumed regiments were abstractions. That we have them at all is somewhat annoying.


3) Mercenaries ought to come from somewhere. You hire mercenaries, you should be paying other countries for the right to drain their manpower. This could be opinion based, say, and empires generating a lot of AE may find themselves without a mercenary supply, while taller, rich nations might be able to rely on them almost exclusively.

.

I love stuff you say. I jsut wanna say, the Condottieri is that, basically, it jsut needs to be expanded, overhauled, and the current "merc" spam should be cut out of the game. Feels like the more game progresses the less accessable mercs should be, so that simulates that by the end of the game you get this professional army a la pre-WW1. Also should encourage you to use your manpower pull more, cuz you get so much more manpower by the end game that mercs are pretty much overkill.

Also system that Imperator has sounds interesting too, for Cossacks adn stuff, like having these companies of free-armies you can hire and they have their own relations with different nations. Cossacks in reality in what is early game of Eu4 were pretty much independent armies, but fought for anybody who payed enough. Later they became kinda more like parts of other nation's armies.

 

[Lutheine]

I'd love to not use mercs at all, but manpower pool is too low. Even for countries like Russia with quantity ideas it's really easy to quickly run out of manpower.
Second stuff is 'broken' enemy AI which I'd say fights too fierce. They simply can ruin their own economy for ages with dozens of loans and merc spam. And AI as an ally isn't eager to fight if it's not wealthy enough to sustain an army. I understand it's a 'feature' that's ment to prevent from abusing AI, but this is a problem very closely related to current regular army/merc system.

In my opinion a decent rework of manpower issues and merc problem would be to completely merge force limit and manpower mechanics into one - if you have total of 10k manpower = you're able to recruit basically unlimited army, but only able to maintain 10k troops without consequences. If you try go over that limit it increases your cost of upkeep/corruption and reduces army tradition/professionalism and some other penalty with some nasty events for getting too much army like we have with over extension. And with that changes, reduce a lot speed with armies reinforce, which can be increased over time with better tech and some reworked ideas. Also finally we would get a decent use of supply depot with it having bonuses to reinforce speed. Also consider adding garrison crew into that manpower pool and instead of paying for forts just pay upkeep for garrison crew like a regular army - with new system of mothballing single armies we probably can stay on 100% slider with important garrisons being paid and large unused armies mothballed instead of sitting on 0% slider.

 

[MaxAnkum]

Great that you are changing up the merc system. I am am reminded of a song of ice and fire, where they complain that sellswords can be bought. It would be really cool, especially as a tall nation, if you could buy or bribe the enemies mercs. Buy to just desert or even attack when a battle happens. If I were a mercenary, I would also disfavor being stuck in the himalaya for a 3 year siege, so mercs could have a higher desert rate. (historically, they kind of kidnaped people and semi-forced them to join their band. So wouldn't they leave devastation where they went, even when only reinforcing. Also they stole a lot) They were quite rather unsavory types, so losing a lot of prestige when relying on mercs could be a thing. Imagine the horror when your capital falls to mercenaries! there would be rape and plunder all around!!

Another similar thing to mercenaries where the italian condottiere. These condottiere are already included in game, but because they are affected by truces, you can't really use them optimally. Maybe if you can create a mercenary band like the condottiere, and hire them to everyone, then there might be an more interesting arms market.

I am also reminded of the Landsknecht mercenaries. Although there are Landsknecht infantry in the game, they don't look as interesting as the historical Landsknecht, given that these had 1 meter long slongs from from which they drank booze while being garbed in colorful garments. They where apparently a sight to behold. Colorful slongs fighting it out in the league war would be amazing, and might even be historically accurate!

 

[Rickterr]

Maybe take a few Leads from the merc system in ck2, which i, for one, find pretty endearing
maybe make "mercenary bands/companies" as whole collections of troops with specific army compositions, their own army leaders and their own unique set of bonuses (ofc, they should not be able to be merged with other armies, nor their leaders detached or consume a leader slot)
Tie them to specific provinces and give the owner of said province get certain events (like manpower pool reductions every now and then from the mercs recruiting, and them paying "base" rights to the owner and such)
Make them available only to countries within a certain distance from their base (range could very well vary from company to company) and some maybe only available to the same religion/religion group

 

[randomgamer71]

they can't change the mercenary system.

Mercenaries are the way they are for two reasons, 1) manpower is burned too fast (and the AI simply can't handle it), and 2) anything that s not war in EU4 is boring or non existent, so you need an infinite supply of mercenaries to keep fighting wars/keep the game fun. They can't really change how mercenaries works without fixing the other two problems. They will fiddle the numbers or put a patch here and there but the infinite mercenaries horde will always be there.

 

[Kane_hun]

I think there should still be a massive late-game merc spam, but maybe reflavor it. Think about napoleon's army of citizens. Maybe at admin 20 you get a decision that drastically increases manpower, to make up for the lack of merc armies?

One could argue that Napoleon lead a Rev. Empire (in-game terms) and both the gov. form and the revolution target already receives a manpower boost.

 

[Tavior]

they can't change the mercenary system.

Mercenaries are the way they are for two reasons, 1) manpower is burned too fast (and the AI simply can't handle it), and 2) anything that s not war in EU4 is boring or non existent, so you need an infinite supply of mercenaries to keep fighting wars/keep the game fun. They can't really change how mercenaries works without fixing the other two problems. They will fiddle the numbers or put a patch here and there but the infinite mercenaries horde will always be there.

The least they can do is to tune down how often AI goes "all into war" despite overwhelming adversarial strength.

Currently as soon AI goes heavy merc-spam their "strength/willinginess" to keep fighting will just stay absurd high and forcing you to spend 20/30 years siege down forts, especially late-game with level 8 everywhere, to just get a reasonable peace deal.

 

[Stepkick]

Are you not already paying mercenaries an obscene amount of money to use them? Why would anyone ever use mercenaries after 1500 if those were the rules? The early game and the late game are the best times for mercenaries. You need to win your first few wars without running out of manpower and at the end you need to conduct many wars without running out of manpower. The problem with mercenaries is manpower is awful. I don't really want to take 10 loans to use 3 mercenaries in 1446 but what choice do I have? 10k manpower is gone in a flash and recovers very slowly.

Sure, you could reduce their availability. I would be more than fine with that if manpower weren't horribly broken. Then your AI Ottomans or Ming can lay down after you defeat them in a few battles. The war is over any way if you can defeat them in 1 or 2 battles.

Conserving manpower is not a difficult thing to do. Manpower isn't horribly broken. Allow me to help you, don't take offense. You need to try to play the game on a slower speed and ensure you do everything in your power to preserve manpower. I have played campaigns without hiring a single mercenary, and better players have done World Conquests without a single mercenary hired. These are a few tips I learnt to conserve manpower, mistakes I used to make earlier without realising the impact of it.

1. Take favourable terrain battles only - this is obvious if you want to win, but also more obvious if you want to conserve manpower. Stacking bonuses to stack wipe the enemy is crucial to saving your manpower, you take far less losses wiping the AI regiments, than you would if you were to fight an entire duration battle.
2. Use the minimum stack + 1 regiment requirement for sieges. Keeping an entire army over a siege can lead to unnecessary draining of manpower. You can further ease the pressure on your manpower pool by making vassals perform the sieges for you.
3. While carpet sieging requires heavy micro, it is worth the effort than moving a stack from province to province and taking them one by one. Attrition ticks at the end of the month. Having 30 regiments on 30 provinces (1 each) means they take the 30 provinces in 1 month for 1 tick of attrition. Rather than having a stack of 30 move and take each individual province for 30 ticks overall. (This was my main mistake, which is often the case when playing on high speeds).
4. Use the supply limit mapmode to determine the size of your stacks. You do not want to be taking unnecessary attrition. I often found out that my attrition equaled or in some campaigns even surpassed the casualties I incurred. This is where I realised that I am being callous with my manpower.
5. When fighting small wars, "Train to offset the drain." I usually realise the more I implement the above 4 points, the less I have to actually offer to acquire my objectives, and the more I have armies sitting in my own territory doing nothing during a war. This is where I train (drill) them to build up that professionalism. Professionalism can be traded in for manpower, but more importantly professionalism gives you a better army, which in turn also serves to conserve your manpower, as your troops hit harder and take less losses.
6. End wars early. It is often an easy habit to want that 100 War Score in every possible war. But the truth is, to allow yourself to slowly increase the War Score requirement in your campaign. This allows for faster expansion, shorter truces, and easier truce cycling to avoid coalitions, and steady growth. Take what you need in a war, and don't over commit to the war. It makes no sense to siege down all of a country for reparations and ducats, and two provinces, when you can just as easily get the same peace deal for far less War Score.

My only quarrel with the whole mercenary system is that it is too overpowered at the moment. Yes I can implement the top 6 points and enjoy micro managing my armies, but it is far, FAR easier spam entire mercenary armies and never have to worry about the manpower resource in game (rendering the whole mechanic pointless). If you play your cards right and built a solid economy, you can build entire mercenary armies at the end game and never have to worry about manpower, and wage endless wars.

 

[Vulkandrache]

Your 6 points are all well and good on paper. It doenst work like that ingame.
Assuming we ever get a patch to fix the AI headless chicken behavior and make them actually fight wars rather then running away, thus turning almost every war into a baserace
there will be no more wars if we take away mercs in their current abundance.

A single real battle will deplete the manpower pool of almost any nation in the game because of its pathetic size compared to the forcelimit.
If that one battle could end a war it would be all good.
But you can wipe some OPM army and sit on their capital while outnumbering thir entire side of the war 2:1 and they will go:

"Haha, length of war, Haha ally in war, Haha f you. Take a years worth of attrition to siege down my level 3 fort and then peace me out for 25 ducats."

As long as these wars are elongated by artificial modifiers and absurd siege times we either need mercs or we need 5-10 times the current manpower.
We could also start by uncapping siege progress or reducing siege basetime to 25 days and halving all sources of fort defense.
Or fixing and reworking assault to be not bugged and useable again.

Ontop of that your first 3 points have nothing to do with conserving manpower.
Thats just what should be nessecary to win wars in the first place. No one in their right mind will eat more attrition than needed.
And the carpet sieging and heavy micro is just one more example of this games heavy input low impact controls.

You also dont seem to mention that most of the legwork in a war is frontloaded. Against a big nation, once the first forts fall the war becomes easier

And how exactly is having shorter truces with everyone making truce cycling easier to handle?

Mercs in their current form werent introduced to allow the player infinite wars.
They were meant to allow the AI infinite wars. The AI couldnt handle 15% attrition, including attrition for every province walked.
So attrition was nerfed and clone troopers got introduced, changed from the old monthly refill chance.
Its just that, as usual, the player is better at using a system meant to help the AI.

 

[Lutheine]

The least they can do is to tune down how often AI goes "all into war" despite overwhelming adversarial strength.

Currently as soon AI goes heavy merc-spam their "strength/willinginess" to keep fighting will just stay absurd high and forcing you to spend 20/30 years siege down forts, especially late-game with level 8 everywhere, to just get a reasonable peace deal.

I just saw a screen on reddit with massive Ottoman AI fighting for 40 years with over 32M causalities. And they were not a target of war, but ally to one side. Problem is simple: AI is too fierce towards human player and cannot evaluate how much should it contribute to the war like it does against other AI, but goes all-in with constant 0 manpower and merc spam.

Conserving manpower is not a difficult thing to do. Manpower isn't horribly broken. Allow me to help you, don't take offense. You need to try to play the game on a slower speed and ensure you do everything in your power to preserve manpower. I have played campaigns without hiring a single mercenary, and better players have done World Conquests without a single mercenary hired. These are a few tips I learnt to conserve manpower, mistakes I used to make earlier without realising the impact of it.
[...]

It's not a difficult thing to do, but it's a thing to do. Annoying mid-late micromanagement with all you said for regular armies can be changed to simple extra payment and you don't need to care about mercenary army. It's especially annoying when you're trying to close game and you are fighting in a few theaters at once. And even with reduced income we had a few patches ago it's still pretty easy to swim in money, but not in manpower.
Another thing is playing on slower speed takes more time, in which we could do way more useful stuff instead of microing armies. Go watch on twitch some RTS games played by pros where you won't experience stuff that takes more time than it's worth it, like healing/repairing unit instead of losing it and producing next one.