EU4 - Development Diary - 26th of March 2019

[holyvigil]

Can we also have some flavor to the Mercs?

Flags, names, titles, troop type and more so that mercenary companies feel like a company rather than peasants you pay more than the peasants you hired out first.

 

[Skyfus]

If you're busy focusing on Europe, how about a nerf as well as the buffs and reworks? Remove the silly 50% development limit on moving capital across continents OR make trade companies ineligible by region rather than continent so Asia isn't at a disadvantage.

 

[onlybradparker]

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.

 

[BaronIronmaggot]

Exiting change. Will I be able to now land my armies in Spain as Kong and recruit western mercs with my slave and ivory money to beat up western powers.

 

[rimworld inbox]

I think this thread demonstrates its far easier to suggest sweeping changes instead of simple elegant ones. Because the former doesn't require realizing what's wrong with the system you want to uproot, and its easy to disregard their potential interactions with other systems.

Changes in one place have a big effect elsewhere! As one example, just look at how changes to game mechanics greatly changed religious vs humanist favorability, even when the idea group bonuses were unaffected.

You have that expertise in this thread, but you have to comb through a lot of dross to find it unfortunately. And most of it is downvoted by people that have no idea what the core problems are but demand something must done regardless.

 

[B3ndolf]

i would just like to add please avoid over complicating things too much, depth is good, complexity for its own sake isnt.

a lot of the suggestions so far whilst great in theory, sound like they would be ridiculously overcomplicated in practice.

things like what bonuses mercs get is one example. sure mercs in india should be different to those in europe but try to avoid all the mercs having different bonuses to each other and the recruiters army, that just gets overly complicated to evaluate relative troop quality of yours and your opponents army.

 

[Arinsar]

I would personally really like a mercenary manpower pool per region (France, Iberia etc).

Some battlefield losses from regular manpower could also contribute to the mercenary manpower pool, what with desertions and such.

Maybe with something similar to Ck2 where there are different mercenary companies, but they draw from this regional pool of mercenaries instead. Allows for different bonuses to different regional companies.

This would also allow for interesting decisions and trade companies/colonies to be used to invest into overseas mercenary companies.

In time frame which is covered by EU4 countries were using mercenaries from way farther than just their region unless you are speaking about continent. In example Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was using infantry from Scotland.

 

[Sledjer]

perhaps reigning in how easily they adapt to all of your country's military traditions, fostered for centuries, within a few days.

Perhaps there could be some way of creating mercenary units based on the countries active in a region, and maybe the size of a mercenary region could expand later into the game to reflect globalization? As others have already said, mercenaries were often derived from veterans of previous wars. While it might seem like military traditions would be something that a country would have to force upon undisciplined mercenaries, the opposite could also be the case. It makes sense that a small country with few military traditions would benefit from hiring mercenaries that were once Prussian soldiers, or something like that. If they could all go into some kind of pool, it might create some kind of balancing effect where a country with space marine traditions will find that mercenaries are on average subpar, but other countries with no military traditions (those that would have historically used lots of mercenaries) see a clear benefit.

 

[purplephoton]

Anyway money was in war also short. Maybe some kind of slider for manpower vs eco.

Such as slider exists in a non-slider form; it's called the Manpower Edict.

 

[Balesir]

A thought; why not tie mercs to, instead of the geographic region bit thrown around (which would make France unlikely to hire German mercs which is odd) tie them to trade nodes? And perhaps have the quantity of trade power in a node determine how many mercs can be hired there and have countries with trade power there benefit from hired mercs? For example, this would mean that end nodes like Venice would have high merc counts (which is historically pretty accurate) and that hiring mercs would help the economy of those with power there; IE venice. Mercs essentially bring in money from foreign powers.

And restrict where you can buy mercs to where you have trade power and have hiring mercs from that region penalize your trade power there, so you're effectively paying trade power for mercs? That can help curb the "build massive stacks and ignore everything else" while making sure that merc amounts are variable and reflect the relationship of mercs to economies. It would also mean devastation would lower the merc pool

Basing mercenaries on trade nodes is genius - love it! They are essentially a "trade" item, after all. Having a manpower pool for them still seems like a good idea, I would say, but replenishment could be linked to trade power, plus contributions from disbanded units in provinces linked to the node, maybe? Definitely have mercenaries hired from a node increase the trade value there, giving some of the economic effect of the trade and repatriated pay.

I'll Just counter this slightly if I may. I can give you some primary sources if you like but the wiki has a good summary of it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_logistics . The EUIV time-frame represents when military logistics became a really significant factor in warfare. Large parts of military campaigns involved manoeuvring of armies to avoid getting cut off from supply lines, and pitched battles were relatively rare. The "being in contact with your capital" part would just allow some sort of abstraction mechanic to allow a basic representation of supply lines. Maybe it could be more like, being in contact with one of your unoccupied forts (which would add incentive to strategically build forts).

I'd just note that the specific examples in that article are more highlighting the exceptions than illuminating the general rule. Napoleon certainly professionalised his commissariat, but their job remained largely purchasing or otherwise acquiring ("requisitioning") supplies locally and transporting them to the troops nearby. The main advantages were from the removal of a personal profit motive and having regulations and standards for the business, not from building long "supply lines" (in general).

Supply lines were used for siege situations - whether for the besiegers or the besieged, assuming some way in (such as by water) was available. The British in the US independence war and the French army in Portugal both provide instances of this.

Another aspect is that part of the issue is with using the term "supply lines". Supply was usually local, but replacements and communications came from "home" depots. This might tie well to reinforcement and morale, rather than supply.

 

[Dasmani]

Basing mercenaries on trade nodes is genius - love it! They are essentially a "trade" item, after all. Having a manpower pool for them still seems like a good idea, I would say, but replenishment could be linked to trade power, plus contributions from disbanded units in provinces linked to the node, maybe? Definitely have mercenaries hired from a node increase the trade value there, giving some of the economic effect of the trade and repatriated pay.

Huh, I had the same idea to use trade nodes, so I guess there's three of us now. How many do we need to pass the issue through parliament?

I think that tracking disbanded units might make the game too crunch intensive and/or allow exploits of "banking" huge sums of manpower by disbanding regulars into the Merc pool then rehiring the disbanded units as mercs, especially combined with the professionalism bonus that returns the manpower of disbanded units to the nations manpower pool, which would basically give the player the advantages of the current merc system while taking those advantages away from the AI.

I also think that mercenary regiments that only cost gold and reinforce without manpower, no matter how it's limited, will be unable to address the problem of trivializing manpower. A new mercenary system should allow a nation to use their income to supplement their manpower, not replace it. Additionally, the ability to use mercenaries as an emergency force to repel invaders should be retained, but should require an investment other than gold to prevent it from being overused.

So, to be clear, the reason that mercenaries are necessary (but also problematic) is that manpower recovery is too slow to maintain a standard army of regulars and keep momentum through multiple wars, as a single large battle can wipe out your manpower pool entirely. The current mercenary system solves this problem, but a sufficient increase to manpower recovery would likewise suffice to solve the problem without the problems caused by manpower-free units, and so I personally support a system where mercenary contracts with companies (via trade interactions?) in each trade node allow you to pay ducats for a passive bonus to manpower recovery and allow a certain number of "emergency" units to be recruited instantly in exchange for money and monarch points (I feel this is the simplest design).

But I'm being repetitive. I also really wanted to mention the concept of supply lines and reinforcements. Some of the other complaints in the game are the relative uselessness of naval superiority and cavalry, which were very important during the time period. So, in addition to a change in the mercenary system, I would like to see the implementation of a system that allow armies and light/transport ships to project a supply line through a territory (beginning at the capital of your nation or a coastal center of trade), reducing attrition and increasing reinforce rate. Cavalry could have a bonus to this and to rebel suppression, while maritime ideas could increase the effectiveness of naval supply.

 

[The Iron and Golden King]

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

If this is going to be a thing can the Alpine nations get Swiss Mercenaries events? I mean if the Swiss are going to be peaceful chocolate makers,than they need money for their factories.Also,can there be a Ricola event?

 

[Kronos_lord_of_the_titans]

Mabye you could use the system from ck2 i quite liked it
And change it so that if one nation paid for a group that the other nations cant get that group until they are removed as soon as your at peace for say 10 years

 

[Romeww]

I have two suggestions.

First, system of mercenaries could be similar to CK2, with mercenary companies. For example, there could be two mercenary companies per region. First mercenary company has 5 000 soldiers and second 10 000 soldiers. Those companies have its own manpower pool, while manpower recovery could be 5 000 (10 000) * 0.01 per month. Manpower limit could be 5 000 (10 000) * 2. For bigger company, type of units is determined by type of units of country with the biggest development in region. For second company (5 000) type of units is determined by type of units of country which has the most advanced military technology (country- pioneer in embracing military technology).

Second, mercenary mechanics could be based on cultures (historically, cultures are associated with regions). Formula for total number of mercenary regiments of particular culture = ∑ of provincial (development * 0.2)*((local autonomy+10)*0.02)*((110- value of Absolutism of country which controls a province)*0.02). So that if ∑ of development of provinces of particular cultures = 100 and all provinces of particular cultures are controlled by countries with 0% autonomy and 0 Absolutism, we would have 20*0.2*2.2 = 8.8 regiments (per 100 development). Mercenaries can be recruited in every province of particular culture. The type of unites is determined by type of units of country which has this particular culture as primary culture and which has the most advanced military technology (country - pioneer in embracing military technology). If no country has this particular culture as primary culture then we look on countries which accept this particular culture. If no country has this particular culture nor as primary culture nor as accepted culture then we look on countries which controls the biggest number of development of provinces of this particular culture. Each culture has its own manpower pool. Manpower limit could be = number of mercenary regiments of particular culture * 2 and manpower recovery could be = Manpower limit * 0.01 per month. Some cultures (e.g. Swiss) could have modifiers, or countries with particular primary cultures could have national ideas on changing some variables of its cultural mercenaries. I think this suggestion would reflect differences in mercenaries between India and Germany. The suggested system is also dynamic and would reflect the development of modern states and professional armies (according to this suggestion there would be more mercenaries in early game and more mercenaries in peripheral territory with high autonomy).

 

[Balesir]

Huh, I had the same idea to use trade nodes, so I guess there's three of us now. How many do we need to pass the issue through parliament?

Just one, but it has to be @DDRJake

I think that tracking disbanded units might make the game too crunch intensive and/or allow exploits of "banking" huge sums of manpower by disbanding regulars into the Merc pool then rehiring the disbanded units as mercs, especially combined with the professionalism bonus that returns the manpower of disbanded units to the nations manpower pool, which would basically give the player the advantages of the current merc system while taking those advantages away from the AI.

Given a fractional efficiency, I don't think that this should be too much of an issue. Actually, you could argue that recruitment of non-mercenary units in the provinces linked to a trade node should reduce the mercenary manpower pool in the node as well as the national one, and vice versa, since many potential soldiers will be ready for either type of employment - and this would scupper the "feed the merc pool" wheeze.

For the "professionalism" effect, this would route the manpower from disbanded units to the national pool instead of the mercenary one, I assume. It represents the loyalty of the trained and disbanded men, surely?

I also think that mercenary regiments that only cost gold and reinforce without manpower, no matter how it's limited, will be unable to address the problem of trivializing manpower. A new mercenary system should allow a nation to use their income to supplement their manpower, not replace it. Additionally, the ability to use mercenaries as an emergency force to repel invaders should be retained, but should require an investment other than gold to prevent it from being overused.

The system contemplated draws on a different (and at least partly foreign) manpower pool that can also be depleted. If trade value is slightly boosted by the payments for mercenaries, it also routes wealth to other states that have power in the trade node; raising mercenaries in your "home" trade node would reduce, but not eliminate this. There are certainly lots of "secondary effects" to consider, but I think they should all be soluble.

But I'm being repetitive. I also really wanted to mention the concept of supply lines and reinforcements. Some of the other complaints in the game are the relative uselessness of naval superiority and cavalry, which were very important during the time period. So, in addition to a change in the mercenary system, I would like to see the implementation of a system that allow armies and light/transport ships to project a supply line through a territory (beginning at the capital of your nation or a coastal center of trade), reducing attrition and increasing reinforce rate. Cavalry could have a bonus to this and to rebel suppression, while maritime ideas could increase the effectiveness of naval supply.

For the (relatively few) situations where "supply trains" were used over long distances, I think the current system with some mechanism for "supply cap sharing" should suffice. In the case of cavalry, for instance, perhaps they could draw on extra supply cap from adjacent provinces that are not occupied by or adjacent to enemy forces or forts? Similarly, perhaps "supply train" units could connect adjacent province caps, and transport ships could link ports in the same way, if assigned to a route? X amount of cap per ship or train unit, maybe?

 

[lolada]

Province-level recruitment will probably have to go. Reducing click-fatigue while we're at it should be a priority.

I have issue with this. I am all for reducing micro, but its often very important where units are built. I really DON'T want them being built all over the state so that AI can overrun them.. and even worse that i have to click "recruit" and then cancel them because they'll get killed by wondering AI. Recruiting 10 mercs in a row in single province is working just fine.

 

[BartonPOL]

just came out to this idea, make mercenaries somewhat like banners, where you recruit them from this region thing, but, you dont recruit one by one merc but whole companies (few or so regiments) where this companies cant be splitted or so, and they also use like a special mercenaries manpower from this region, so if it's depleted you cant merc or reinforce from this region till the manpower regains and now, the number of regiments in these mercs companies depends on total dev of this region and manpower recovery for mercs depends on devastation (more devastated, more mercs) and the cost for them to recruit and possibly the upkeep for them is also increased as the region is more devastated

 

[Xdevo]

If we're going to make mercs more sparse, can we at least get back the old manpower pools or do something about the absurd amount of causalities relative to history? Between battles killing faaaaar more people than they ever should and forts taking ~2.5x longer than they ever should to siege, manpower drains far too fast to create a very restrictive merc system and allow the game to still be fun.

I'd love a more engaging system for mercenaries, but not at the cost of slowing down early game and turning the game into more of a slog than the last few patches have already turned the game into.

 

[BlackPrince]

• 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.

I suggested these in @Florryworry_ stream and everyone, including Florry, were like:

 

[BoomKidneyShot]

If you're busy focusing on Europe, how about a nerf as well as the buffs and reworks? Remove the silly 50% development limit on moving capital across continents OR make trade companies ineligible by region rather than continent so Asia isn't at a disadvantage.

Hell, why not let us to set any province as a trade company? You would have to change a few things about how they work (say, fixed 100% autonomy) but that would add some interesting play, IMO.