Hello everyone and welcome to another Tinto Talks. This is the Happy Wednesday where we tell you about what is going on with our entirely 100% secret game with the codename Project Caesar.
This week we will talk about how mercenaries and prisoners of war will work in this game..
As we mentioned in previous Tinto Talks, we have 3 types of regiments. Levies, Regulars and Mercenaries. You can at any point rearrange any army and move regiments freely between them, no matter the status of the regiment.
This Teuton Army has 1440 men in the left flank, 545 in the center, 2567 in the rightflank and 373 in the reserves. Why so few in the center, I'd expect that is where the bulk of the regulars knights are. In total the army has 6 cavalry levy regiments, 2 regular, and 9 mercenaries, for a total of 634 men.
Hiring Mercenaries
When you hire a mercenary company, you will first need to find a commander that can raise the company for you. This is not a simple choice, as a more competent commander will cost more gold, but the amount of regiments you can raise under the mercenary depends both on the administrative ability of the commander, and the amount of possible mercenaries the pops of that area has.
Mercenary regiments rely on having their soldiers come from pops, and if there is not enough soldiers for them in an area, that will limit the amount of regiments
Negative Stability in the country together with devastation and low control in the location determines how many pops are willing to leave home and become mercenaries.
The type of regiments that a mercenary can raise depends on what regiments are commonly available in the area the mercenary is recruited from. Some types of regiments may be more common than others in an area, and just because you have found a nice 99 admin commander, he may not be able to raise enough of a certain type of regiment that you want.
This is a pretty good commander which can lead a pretty big army..
Contracts and Extensions
When you hire a mercenary you set a default contract length, and at the end of that contract the mercenaries will stop their service. However, if you are still at war, the contract will be extended for another year. If you wish to terminate a contract in advance you need to pay the remaining contracted fee.
You can also have auto extension on contracts and manually extend a contract for another 24 months for an individual mercenary company at any time.
Each new contract signed or extended has a signing fee that heavily depends on the type of troops you wish to hire, and the skill of commander.
Bribing Mercenaries
However, just because a contract is signed does not mean that the mercenary will stay loyal for the entire contract. Another country may come around and just offer more money to buy their loyalty. This is not exactly cheap, but it can be rather useful at times.
Renting out your Armies
One alternative to paying gold every month to your regular regiments at peace is to rent them out as mercenaries. You can select any unit you have and put them on the market for a given percentage of your costs, usually above your own costs as you need to turn a profit after all. If all goes well, you earn gold, and your regiments get some nice experience.
These armies are then listed as possible armies to contract for any country within range.
The Aragonese army is available fore hire for a cheap price..
Prisoners
Sometimes when you win a battle by overrunning the enemy, you can capture regiments of the defeated side. Overrun is what players refer to as stackwipe which happens when you have 10 to 1 odds, or when the other side has 0 morale you have a larger army.
There are multiple ways to deal with prisoners, if you don’t want to keep them around and feed them. No matter what though, the prisoners will die off slowly over time, as this is not the age of the Geneva Convention.
Through various unit abilities, you have ways to deal with the prisoners.
First of all, you can attempt to ransom them back to their owners, which will net you some gold, and return the regiments to their owner.
Secondly, you can recruit them to fight as mercenaries for you, but that means you have to pay them. The advantage of that, is that they won’t fight for your enemy though.
Thirdly, you can just execute them. That is a bit frowned upon, so it will impact your Aggressive Expansion, but sometimes it might be worth it.
The Fourth option you will know more about when we talk about the Nahuatl faith in a future Tinto Talks.
However, if you overrun an enemy army with prisoners, you will of course free them and take them back.
Now we have gone through the core mechanics we have for Project Caesar. The next few weeks we will go through all the changes that have happened during this year, thanks both to your great feedback and from internal and external testing. After that it's time to go through the mechanics of the different religions, the different situations and the different international organizations we have!
This week we will talk about how mercenaries and prisoners of war will work in this game..
As we mentioned in previous Tinto Talks, we have 3 types of regiments. Levies, Regulars and Mercenaries. You can at any point rearrange any army and move regiments freely between them, no matter the status of the regiment.
This Teuton Army has 1440 men in the left flank, 545 in the center, 2567 in the rightflank and 373 in the reserves. Why so few in the center, I'd expect that is where the bulk of the regulars knights are. In total the army has 6 cavalry levy regiments, 2 regular, and 9 mercenaries, for a total of 634 men.
Hiring Mercenaries
When you hire a mercenary company, you will first need to find a commander that can raise the company for you. This is not a simple choice, as a more competent commander will cost more gold, but the amount of regiments you can raise under the mercenary depends both on the administrative ability of the commander, and the amount of possible mercenaries the pops of that area has.
Mercenary regiments rely on having their soldiers come from pops, and if there is not enough soldiers for them in an area, that will limit the amount of regiments
Negative Stability in the country together with devastation and low control in the location determines how many pops are willing to leave home and become mercenaries.
The type of regiments that a mercenary can raise depends on what regiments are commonly available in the area the mercenary is recruited from. Some types of regiments may be more common than others in an area, and just because you have found a nice 99 admin commander, he may not be able to raise enough of a certain type of regiment that you want.
This is a pretty good commander which can lead a pretty big army..
Contracts and Extensions
When you hire a mercenary you set a default contract length, and at the end of that contract the mercenaries will stop their service. However, if you are still at war, the contract will be extended for another year. If you wish to terminate a contract in advance you need to pay the remaining contracted fee.
You can also have auto extension on contracts and manually extend a contract for another 24 months for an individual mercenary company at any time.
Each new contract signed or extended has a signing fee that heavily depends on the type of troops you wish to hire, and the skill of commander.
Bribing Mercenaries
However, just because a contract is signed does not mean that the mercenary will stay loyal for the entire contract. Another country may come around and just offer more money to buy their loyalty. This is not exactly cheap, but it can be rather useful at times.
Renting out your Armies
One alternative to paying gold every month to your regular regiments at peace is to rent them out as mercenaries. You can select any unit you have and put them on the market for a given percentage of your costs, usually above your own costs as you need to turn a profit after all. If all goes well, you earn gold, and your regiments get some nice experience.
These armies are then listed as possible armies to contract for any country within range.
The Aragonese army is available fore hire for a cheap price..
Prisoners
Sometimes when you win a battle by overrunning the enemy, you can capture regiments of the defeated side. Overrun is what players refer to as stackwipe which happens when you have 10 to 1 odds, or when the other side has 0 morale you have a larger army.
There are multiple ways to deal with prisoners, if you don’t want to keep them around and feed them. No matter what though, the prisoners will die off slowly over time, as this is not the age of the Geneva Convention.
Through various unit abilities, you have ways to deal with the prisoners.
First of all, you can attempt to ransom them back to their owners, which will net you some gold, and return the regiments to their owner.
Secondly, you can recruit them to fight as mercenaries for you, but that means you have to pay them. The advantage of that, is that they won’t fight for your enemy though.
Thirdly, you can just execute them. That is a bit frowned upon, so it will impact your Aggressive Expansion, but sometimes it might be worth it.
The Fourth option you will know more about when we talk about the Nahuatl faith in a future Tinto Talks.
However, if you overrun an enemy army with prisoners, you will of course free them and take them back.
Now we have gone through the core mechanics we have for Project Caesar. The next few weeks we will go through all the changes that have happened during this year, thanks both to your great feedback and from internal and external testing. After that it's time to go through the mechanics of the different religions, the different situations and the different international organizations we have!
