EU4 - Development Diary - 26th of March 2019

[AndrasX]

Here's my suggestion for a new mercenary system:

1. Each country has their own pool of mercenaries based on a % of their manpower or forcelimit. These are pretty much soldiers who are not fighting for their state.
2. The country and anybody nearby (i have no idea for the criteria for this, maybe neighbor is too much, neighboring regions perhaps?) can hire these soldiers. They will have the stats of that country's army, so mercenaries from higher army quality countries will be more desirable, but they are also finite, so there will be some arms race around getting them.
3. Mercenaries cost you manpower, draining a % of your manpower gain. This % is reduced based on your army professionalism. However, mercenaries also give you money to represent the injection of money that the paid soldiers receive when they return home. Maybe you can also manipulate part of the % yourself, i don't know.

This system would give the players a bigger choice when thinking about professionalism. If your army is professional, you will also earn less money due to less mercenary income. Maybe there should also be ways to bribe mercenaries, though that could give a too large advantage to rich countries...

 

[Rocketskates]

*slams agree button*
i dont quite know how you can fix it, i mean, it does work? it just feels like its not how its supposed to work
and how will you teach the AI to use the changed system, because lets be honest here, a large part of huge empires rolling in debt and bankrupcy is due to spamming mercs now

maybe something like colonial maintaince and the above mentioned mercenary companies, you can get X and if you go over your "mercenary company forcelimit" you pay chizillion ducats the more you have, maybe you can tie this to the ages, although the game is kinda backwards in that regard since standing armies were rare in the 15th centuries while it was common in the 19th and we have the exact opposite in eu4

 

[Ixal]

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.

And is this the kind of fun you are setting as a goal for the merc rework? The ability to still be constantly at war as not being at war is boring?
How about instead of providing workarounds for everything preventing you to wage war you add mechanics that make the "not war" time fun, too?

 

[Lichoniespi]

@DDRJake

What about end game tags? Could we have them finally removed or at least optional?

 

[KarlReich]

This is by far the most important point, and one I agree with wholeheartedly.
HOWEVER, there should be caution in addressing this issue. If we use a system in which there are a finite amount of mercs to purchase within a given region/area/term for land that doesn't have an in-game context, we must be cautious of supremely wealthy nations that purchase all of the mercs from the pool before backstabbing their unwitting neighbor and depriving them of any possible means of merc-ing up themselves. I don't have an answer to how this could be accomplished, but I trust that within the next few months the team might have come up with a few ideas.

If theres a seperate mercenary manpower pool and mercenary companies form based on this, if theres an excess of manpower maybe having all mercenaries hired would make it more likely for new mercenary companies to rise up to try to get a piece of the pie? Also definitely should be a punishment for buying mercenaries just for the sake of buying them, but if youre at a point where you can starve out an entire regions mercenary pool without economic collapse I dont think the mercenaries are going to be the main problem

 

[Ain-Soph Aur]

So I can expect the Chinese emperor to regain the right to recruit the tributary army?
By the way, I think the mechanism for adding a conscription policy is very good.

 

[Dakka]

• The system should respect geopolitics: Mercs in India should be functionally different from Germanic ones.

Would it be possible to make it so the mercenaries use the unit models of the culture/region they are pulled from?
Would make the unit models more immersive instead of my Rajput mercs looking like Redcoats from Wessex.

 

[diablopl4]

How about setting mercs per region like you have mentioned in the diary ? So have different type of mercs per region with different power. For example have some OP mercs in Prussia region and bit less of a trouble mercs in like Australia. But also while doing this tie the available mercs per region to a pool of manpower of combined nations for those regions. So for example if you looking at French region at the start of the game you have Burgundy / Provence / Brittany and France there. You could then calculate their combined manpower and use that as a pool for mercs. This would also go down while nations are at war with each other however it won't go down if someone will recruit mercs. This way you have a large pool of Mercs still available for recruitment at start of the wars but once the nations destroy each other a bit you start to run out of mercs. This gets rid of the problem of Mercs magically appearing out of their caves deep below sea of dead bodies. Also you could easy buff or lower the amount of mercs available for recruitment as required by balancing by easily doing the Combined Manpower / 0.5 and so on.

I know this could cause issue of if both nations only use mercs they won't lower their manpower so mercs never run out. However this could be tackled by restricting a nation to only being able to recruit certain % of their base military units amount. This way people would need to have their own armies too and so will be running out of the manpower.

Again if they do this and hide the units so not to lose the manpower you can always do a monthly tick of -0.05% or something similar to the possible manpower pool for mercs while a war is on.

 

[Grand_Strategy_Gamer]

make like imperator style mercs

Finally! You just have to go for the I:R system. Problem solve. No more magic endless mercspam wars, manpower becomes relevant again and you have to take it into consideration again before going to war!

Can't wait to hear your thoughts on the estates. I hope you make them fun and relevant finally.

It looks like this isn’t an uncommon idea. Surely it can’t be too hard to adapt Imperator: Rome’s mercenary system to EU4? It looks like it’s an improvement on EU4’s system. If it’s been heavily developed and tested, why not build on it in EU4? No need to reinvent the wheel!

 

[noldorin]

I think the mercenary must have a limit. mercenaries should not benefit from country bonuses ( Moral, discipline etc. ) According to the level of technology, the powers of mercenaries may increase. the subject of professionalism remained weak. this is only my think

 

[Ole122]

Is one of your goals to make mercenaries be more useful in early game, to be superseded by standing armies while the game progresses as it was done historically?

 

[Serenade]

I'm all for proposing a merc rework, but I just would like to point out that MP warfare at the moment is completely enabled by mercs. Given that countries lose their entire manpower pools in 1-2 battles, without a limited number of regiments that do not cost manpower players cannot fight any meaningful wars.

Interesting wars in MP are based on many things:
1. Army movements. Intercepting enemy reinforcements to the main battle while protecting your own.
2. Logistics. Reinforcing on multiple engagements. Regrouping and repositioning your army after every engagement.
3. Strategy. Stalling out the war because I have more manpower recovery / better economy, or should pushing immediately because I have some advantage that I lose in the long run.

Mercs enable all these subtleties, and it is a mistake to think that late game MP warfare is revolved around just slamming merc armies into each other. That is only the tip of the iceberg.

 

[Foefaller]

I'd like to see mercenaries to be almost like landless nations, with their own nationality and religion (which can play a role in who they will work for and what their asking price will be based on your war opponents), and their own manpower pool to draw from for reinforcements. Each belongs to a region of the world, and their prices goes up of they are deployed outside that region and balloons if they are taken outside the continent.

Interacting isn't just based on hiring them, but also how well you treat them and your relationship with them over the years. Be a steady customer over the centuries and give them lots of victories and you'll get better prices and more of their available manpower, as well as possibly exclusive contracts to go outside their region or never agree to a contract with your war enemy. Use them as cannon fodder on the other hand and they'll demand higher prices and eventually refuse to work with you altogether, maybe even offer to work for an enemy for a discount, and start spreading the word about how terrible of a boss you are.

Finally, history is abound with stories of mercenaries being bought out by the enemy, or renowned for never switching sides no matter how much is offered. Though it would be difficult to do right, something like that could be a part of the new merc system.

 

[OldmansHQ]

I once read about this notorious Polish mercenary group called Lisowczycy that formed during one of the Polish legal rebellions. When the rebellion settled they would not disperse. They were so vicious and caused so much damage wherever they went that they would be ping ponged between employers and stations all over Europe. They would casually siege and pillage on the way, enabling them to earn all sorts of infamy before they were refused employment everywhere and turned to banditry.

Perhaps there could be a mechanic where a country’s rebels, or even regular armies during peace time, turn into a sort of a Condotieri group that has no country. So long as they are paid, they fight for whoever is paying, but when payments stop they become international rebels that siege not just adjacent provinces but across counties, so that they walk a lot and cause chaos on their way until someone starts paying them again.

They could each have their own small internal politics where they can grow, join each other and disperse, and have infamous leaders with incredible stats. Countries could also support them secretly by donating money or manpower, so they wouldn’t get to control them directly, but the mercs become stronger, maybe the supporting counties could select a broad agenda like “siege in ‘this’ region”.

What do you guys think?

 

[Jimmyfeellucky]

In my opinion, merc recruitment should be restrained .i.e. can't recruit mercs when having loan, and remaining mercs in the army before will have penalties in moral.
This will make reserving a nation's treasury much more important just like in real life. You should not go to war with an empty treasury. But in the current state of the game, people keep spaming loans after loans. Of course, you can use war to get money but mercs should be affected. So if you have loan and an empty manpower pool you basically lose the war just in real life.
I kinda like the idea of cultural mercs but this will make western eu mercs the most favored mercs. So an increasing in upkeep between different cultural mercs would be nice. Also if i have land belong to a particular culture I should be able to recruit more mercs of this culture than other nations don't have or have fewer one.
Wish we could have many culture in one province though.

 

[Skenderbeu]

Especially in the renaissance and early modern period available mercenaries depended on several factors. Medieval mercenary companies tended to be based on the free company model (Flemings, White and Catalan Companies) and were used to supplement national resources, or provide expertise that the country did not have, in some cases for example Italy they did most of the fighting on behalf of their paymasters. This forces had their own way of fighting and equipping and did not reflect their employers military traditions. In the renaissance the Ottoman conquests in the Balkans caused migrations of experienced fighters from the losing countries, some of these (Greek, Albanian and Serbian) became Stradioti. These brought with them a set of skills and tactics that were not available in most European armies and changed the face of light cavalry doctrine for years to come. The Swiss who had fought several fierce wars against the Austrians, ended the wars with much devastation and a lot of companies that had been become very effective at using pikes to take on much better equipped opponents. As a result they easily found work as very effective mercenaries. In the early modern period, several countries (Spain, France and Britain) used foreign mercenary regiments almost permanently to supplement their national forces, like the British Hessian and Kings German Legion.

It would be good to be able to model some of the factors that cause mercenaries to be available. Should the number of available mercenaries be affected by the number of states that have been annexed. Or should high devastation of provinces increase the supply of mercenaries. It would also be interesting to have different types of mercenary companies over time, to reflect the differences over the period.

 

[Vince75]

I hope that battles can have as much importance on wars as they had in real life ! Example : Austerlitz

 

[Iferius]

The available mercs in a region could scale with high autonomy -> high autonomy means the troops stay with their local lords, and can be hired.

 

[C.N.]

I'm happy by the points raised by the diary, but there is one missing IMO:

• The game need to reflect more clearly the tendency that the mercenary percentage of most armies became smaller as the years progressed toward the age of revolutions. The number of available mercenaries should increase slower than the available manpower as development and tech increases. Drilling was supposed to solve this, but it didn't.

 

[AlexandruRadu]

The Mercenary System in general should be one that is developed in parallel to the more "normal" armies a nation can field. Mercenaries should be an expensive but effective force of greater competence than the average soldier, which would provide states especially richer, smaller ones (See Italy and the HRE) with a way to hold their own militarily but be more difficult to reign in and thus pose a potential danger for a nation that does not use them effectively or (God forbid) doesn't pay them.

There should thus be an incentive to rely on mercenary forces or equivalent till late in the game, especially for wealthy small states and mercenaries should only become less useful starting with the Age of Absolutism where players would be incentivized to pursue the creation of a standing and professional army subordinate to the ruler. Mercenaries should thus become a smaller part of a nation's forces or even obsolete due to their disloyalty and lack of professionalism in favor of mass armies following a standardized drill. Preferably mercenaries should (As others have suggested) be tied to the state of larger states, disbanding of older regiments and unrest in the periphery of other nations.

Mechanically, I would suggest some of the following to improve mercs and the army system as a whole:
-Make Professionalism available to all players and better integrate it with Army Tradition to reflect the experience and discipline of feudal and later state armies.
-As a contrast to this, create another system which would be tied to Mercenaries. This could would govern their loyalty (Morale?), discipline, the amount one spends on mercs, how many a nation can field etc. which would be most effective for rich, tall states and especially (Merchant) republics.
-Potentially create a loyalty system tied into unrest where individual divisions or entire armies would have a certain loyalty to their commanders and ruler and should the conditions present themselves or the resentment against the ruler be too great, these troops can revolt. Besides allowing for the representation of mercenaries and feudal armies going rogue, this would also allow for the representation of private armies to a certain degree, model the increased influence and eventual disloyalty of special troops like Jannisaries and Stretsly and even allow for rebels to have certain troops join their side.
-In tandem with this loyalty system, troops should be of a certain culture and possibly even faith, something which would contribute to their loyalty to the state. While Cossacks or mercenaries of a different faith may not identify with the masses or the nobility, should their brethern in faith or culture be oppressed, they may yet reconsider their loyalty to the ruler.
-Develop Generals, Admirals further. A general or admiral shouldn't just be someone you stick on a stack to go kill some stuff. They should have their own beliefs culture and religion all of which would play into their loyalty. Add some representation of their influence and suddenly there will be a much better method of representing a charismatic and successful general going into revolt and taking many of their troops into revolt with them.

These are just some ideas of the ways mercenaries and the army system as a whole could be better represented, but the core concept is clear. The ways in which a ruler deals with their troops and the men who lead them should be more than just building some stacks and sticking generals on them. It should be a continuous game of tug of war for influence, especially one the model of absolute rule comes into play, where if one does not take action against the troops (Or indeed takes too much of it) then grievous things indeed may happen to the realm.