Mercenary Idea

[UberPenguin]

Im new to the forums, so I don't know if this idea has been posted. (My Posts go with stories usually.) I was playing as Man, with AI opponents Marignon, Jotunheim, Ermor and Pangaea. They all started some world war, and excluded me... I was running low on cash because I was beefing up my army, incase they all decided they needed new meat to pick on, but they never declared... at turt 33 I had a huge army and squat for income because of upkeep, so I got this idea 'bout mercs.

The idea is sending out you're exess military units for mercenary duty, like... erm, making them available to other nation's use. I also think a portion of the regiments' income should/would come back to the nation who put them up for service. (And have them come back after maybe a year's work, all with experience and some long tales to tell the children. )

[UberPenguin]

I think Ermor Soul-Gate might abuse this, though, since money is extremely valuable during the Soul-Gate dominion. Making forts with limmited income (Most I've ever gotten is 490 a turn) and temples is extremely hard. Having 70 units and a great leader that you can ship off for 1000 net income would be insane.

[Jack Simth]

Tack some expenses onto the renting of mercenaries (expenses billed to the "seller" of the mercs), and it might work and be less abusable; a per-unit cost of shipping them to the designated province (size dependant?), upkeep for the time away, a flat announcement fee, and perhaps a few other restirctions - e.g., the contract is for 3 months, but they are gone for 4-7 months (initial month to announce, stay available for 3 months if not hired, contract for three months = 4-7 months), and restrict the AI's so they don't hire player's mercs. Charge these expenses up front, regardless of whether or not the mercs get hired (they still had to announce themselves, arrange potential travel, get paid while they were away, et cetera). You can then set the price based on how much it costs you to hire them out. It wouldn't be very abuseable; few people are going to hire troops for much more than their upkeep costs would be if they could make them themselves (unless they are desperate); no-upkeep units, while not having the assossiated mantenence costs, still cost the full amount to transport - and they are usually either disposeable cannon fodder or have an expensive initial cost - cannon fodder nobody will pay much for, and something with a high initial cost is expensive to replace if your opponent sends them on a suicide mission the Last month of the contract. Moreover, running a mercenary company becomes risky buisness; if nobody hires your mercs, you lose money.

Of course, this is probably way too involved to be implemented for Dom II - III maybe.

[Chazar]

I really like the idea, as this would open up much more options for diplomacy:

Your friend is under attack? Make some of your troops serve as mercs for him under his command. (One should be able to restrict the allowed bidders.) If he is your friend, he will certainly give you the troops back...

I'm not sure if payment has to be made as much complicated as described below, though, but paying upkeep for your troops while they are away is certainly a necessity...

[Chazar]

Originally posted by Cohen:
I believe this could mess up National balance a lot.

Why? If the AI never lends mercs nor hire mercs from human players, then I dont see that much problems:

To clear things: I assume that you can only lend a single commander per bid with the troops under his current command, which cannot be altered by the employer as usual for mercs, so mixing up national troops within squads is still not possible. I would also assume that routing mercs are killed as usual, regardless where they come from. They are in foreign lands, with a foreign tongue and their trusted leader is gone, so they wont be able to return home, bla.
So, for short, I assume that all merc-band are usabel for the employer in exactly the same way, regardless whether they are independent mercs or human sent.

I agree that access to foreign mages is certainly a big boon, but so is sending masses of money, gems and items, which is already allowed. After all, players have to agree upon a price and the lender of the mercs still has to pay their upkeep (maybe increased by some percentage)!

Maybe one should place a limit on the number of bands a player may lend, and prohibit the lending of sacred troops, but otherwise I dream of the diplomatic options this would bring: Sending mercs to aid someone else; or to encourage someone to threaten your current opressor, sending them for fame & money; suddenly not sending them again after their 3 month contract is over; etc.! Fun!

PS: I guess returning mercs should always return to the captial, no matter what, for simplicity.

[Chazar]

PS: I think that using the merc-mechanism as it is already implemented offers a quick way to enable all the allied-diplomacy whishes that have been discussed here on this forum!

[PvK]

It's a neat idea. I'm not sure what all the uses and abuses might be that might need considering.

So the company would be offered to a single foreign nation, rather than appearing on the international merc market?

If available to all, or even if not, I would expect to see some players making some sub-par Groups: "Bubba's Cripple Corps" (I can see people using this to get their crippled units killed off more easily), or "Zokko's Boobytrapped Brigade" (with Bane Venom Charm and plague aura troops). Still sounds rather amusing. A lot of potential fun.

PvK

[Chazar]

Originally posted by PvK:

So the company would be offered to a single foreign nation, rather than appearing on the international merc market?

The actual independent Mercs also demand different prices from different employers (ever tried to hire Orion for Marignon? - thats the one I noticed for sure so far), so I guess players should be able to define price multipliers for each other nation as well - or simply a switch allowing or disallowing a nation in the bidding contest.

The more I think about it, the more I like this idea! PvK's Bobbytrapped Brigade is pretty cool!

[Cohen]

Well, that one you can already create by giving to one of your mercs leader the item ... and don't hire them anymore and hope someone else will recruit them.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Chazar:
I'm not sure if payment has to be made as much complicated as described below, though, but paying upkeep for your troops while they are away is certainly a necessity...

The problem with the only expense being upkeep, or some multiple of upkeep, is that Ashen Empire or Soul Gate Eremor(sp?) (not sure if pangea's Carrion Woods gets free commanders) gets free 0-upkeep units and commanders - it wouldn't be a gamble for them; it would be pure revenue to a nation that is designed around not having much revenue available at all (due to pop-killing dominion). Other expenses are necessary to keep the change from forcing SG and AE Eremor from needing rebalancing.

As for boobytrapped brigades, the fix would be to flag what nation the mercs are from - that way, you could only do so *once* (perhaps per player and/or per game, but still, a sharply limited number of times) after which the other players would simply refuse to hire your mercs (would you shop again at a store that deliberately sold you flawed merchandise?). Added to additional expenses for hiring out troops, it makes boobytrapped brigades a bad idea most of the time - they cost you money in the long run (can't hire them out more than a couple times, and you don't necessarilly find out about not being able to hire them out anymore until after you have gone to the expense of trying a few times).