Modelling recruitment (the "mercenary" alternative)

This being my first post, I'd like to thank the EB team for crafting such an excellent mod. I've spent countless hours playing it in the weeks since downloading it, and I really appreciate all the effort and planning that's gone into this project. It's a brilliant piece of work.

I guess one of the only things I'm not completely happy with is the recruitment system. It's much better than vanilla RTW, but it still can't model the raising of legions to throw against Hannibal, or a horde suddenly emerging from the steppes.

I'd like to share an idea that I had for a mini-mod.

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The "mercenary" recruitment model

In a nutshell:

1. Do away with the MIC system.

2. Use the mercenary system to model the raising of an army:
a) units available only in appropriate provinces (or regions*);
b) faction-specific units hireable only by that faction;
c) appropriate costing for the unit-type**;
d) unit availability that reflects traditional army composition and historical manpower reserves.

* I don't know whether mercenary recruitment pools can overlap, but it'd be great if they could. You could have one pool for the whole of Italy (which would contain regular troops), and another for each of the provinces within it (which would contain levies).

** Levies would be very cheap to raise but ruinously expensive to maintain (to reflect damage to crops, etc). You might need to script the disbanding of levies for the AI. Regular soldiers would have a lower ongoing cost, but a higher initial one (to reflect training, etc). Mercenaries would probably fall in-between these two extremes.

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If my Pahlav campaign against the Seleukids has taught me nothing else, it's that the AI is not shy about recruiting through the mercenary system - this might just work. I'm not sure whether the AI is as keen on disbanding units, but scripting might be a way out of that problem.

What do people think?

Oh, and a couple of historical examples:

Example: you maintain an army of experienced, regular Qarthadast soldiers in your homelands. A few turns later, war begins with Rome. You augment your armies with mercenaries and embark for Italy. You defeat army after army, but the Romans just keep throwing legions at you (cf. Hannibal).

Example: you raise a horde and sweep down into Babylonia. The cheap maintenance costs of nomad troops means that the plunder makes you rich, but the manpower reserves at home are not extensive and one costly defeat could end your marauding. So you use local levies as cannon fodder (cf. Subotai).

Example: you invade settled lands with a nomad army and move your capital there. The old homeland rebels and becomes independent. Over time, attrition reduces your numbers of nomad soldiers, and you are forced to adopt a more sedentary style of warfare using local troops (cf. Jin empire).

Example: your vast Eastern empire is invaded by an experienced Greek army. You summon troops from all over the empire, are defeated, then summon the troops you hadn't summoned the last time (because it'd cost too much to maintain all of them), and are defeated again (cf. Darius III).

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** Levies would be very cheap to raise but ruinously expensive to maintain (to reflect damage to crops, etc). You might need to script the disbanding of levies for the AI. Regular soldiers would have a lower ongoing cost, but a higher initial one (to reflect training, etc). Mercenaries would probably fall in-between these two extremes.

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Exactly what I thought a few weeks ago, but didn't dare to say. Perhaps the MIC system shouldn't be totally abandoned (I really like it) but there should be some cheap one-season-levies available. Levies should be incredibly expensive to maintain, have the same bad value on the field, but should be ridiculously cheap. Regular troops the other way around (I can't really believe that the food of professional troops of a nation are it's main expense) If one raises an army, on the contrary, it would be devastating for a nation to upkeep it more than one year. It's not mainly the enemy armies that were historically devastating in war.
It would be a little unfortunate that the descriptions of the levies, written with so much attention and care, are disregarded by garissoning your towns by 240-men-units of Akontistai...

It's funny that you thought exactly of the same system like I did :smile: I don't think the EB team will change though, too much work done already on the current system...

Except we can't make them avaliable on buildings. Say you enter into a new province, you haven't conquered it yet, but still you are able to recruit regionals. What would be the point of the government system then? I don't like this idea, and in fact this idea basically (and in my opinion badly) tries to emulate the system that MTW2 will allow us to do. It is true that our current system does not truly represent what we would like to do, but we have explored other possibilities and feel that our current system is better than the alternatives. Even the above is not fully satisfiable, as you would agree, and in fact I believe that its pros do not fully cross out its cons. Getting rid of the MICs is not really an option as we lose a very important part of EB: the government system.

Foot

You make strong points, Foot. It's just an idea for a mini-mod, though, I'm not suggesting EB itself should change!

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Originally Posted by Foot

Say you enter into a new province, you haven't conquered it yet, but still you are able to recruit regionals.

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I think I've got a workaround for this problem.

There are two things to do:

1. Define a homeland region (incorporating several provinces) for each faction, and make available large numbers of faction-specific troops. Our conqueror cannot recruit these, only the relevant faction can (is this possible?).

2. Define a small number of province-specific troops, recruitable by anyone.

This way your homeland regions would provide all of your core troops, whilst the periphery would provide mainly garrison and specialist units. When an invader hires provincials, it'd be a good way of modelling treachery.

Hey the MIC system is pretty cool, i think we all have are issues with it (i cant recruit this unit here, holes, etc) but all in all i think the way it is pretty d*mn good. I would like to see how they go on with this before they(EB) make any more changes. I am sure they got an idea where to go with this, I mean this is the best mod i have ever seen:beam:

An alternative idea that solves the problem (and quite easier IMO), is to emulate a sistem similar to the "Campus Martius" used in the Res Gestae mod (may it rest in peace now).

Check this post:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...42&postcount=2

Basically, it`s about scripting that the recruitment of a determined unit (IE a recruitable general) spawns an entire pre-defined army in a place near the city (the place is called "campus martius" by the developer, represented by a permanent fort).

That way, in one turn, you can spawn an entire camilian, polybian, marian or augustan legion, or why not, a massive barbarian army, a full steppe horde, a mass levy of pantodapoi, etc.

It requieres some scripting, and an unit slot...

...and making the entire recruitment sistem, which the EB people have invested blood-sweat-tears during months, kinda useless in the practical sense...

It also has the counterindications that the AI, if not properly limited, could use the script to create humongous armies which taken together can match the size the romans at cannae, and will undoubtely deplete their cities.

But it`s an idea. Perhaps a minimod integrating the script of Res Gestae into EB, with the proper permissions of course, might do the trick.

Cheers!!!!!

The main problem, as you pointed out, is that the population you levy isn't removed from the settlement. The second main problem is that this trick depends on a separate building... The third main problem is that this doesn't work with Government systems. The fourth main problem is that the triggers of the script will become hideously complicated: IIRC this script contained only the proper triggers for generals coming of age in your original capital. Wouldn't really do for factions like AS for example. And it doesn't cover adoptions/ man of the hour (IIRC) which makes it nearly impossible for factions such as KH. The fifth main problem is that this script will demand excessive resources of your PC if combined with the EBBS. Only covering the original 3 RES GESTAE factions, it already took quite an amount of space...

Up to you to decide what the real main problem is here... :juggle:

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Originally Posted by temenid

** Levies would be very cheap to raise but ruinously expensive to maintain (to reflect damage to crops, etc). You might need to script the disbanding of levies for the AI. Regular soldiers would have a lower ongoing cost, but a higher initial one (to reflect training, etc). Mercenaries would probably fall in-between these two extremes.

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The problem with this is the AI is stupid. It would look at these units and go Oh lookly very cheap! and recruit all it can. But then the cheap large unit levies *which the ai seems to love to build* with large costs bankrupt the little factions. While this might not be a big problem for some factions like Seleucids or Carthage, the factions that already take a long time to expand *basicly all the barbarians, steppe tribes, and pontus* or hardly do at all, would be hurt even more by this.

Using Mercenaries as recruitment system would be great especially for "barbarian " factions.

But its not up to the task. Its just to simple.
You cant define recruitment based on development level of province (buildings).
You cant restrict units on per faction basis.
Hell even given unit in all faction will have the same skin.

This is how I understand how Merc recruitment work.
Correct me if i am mistaken since this is not really my area.

RTW scripting also wont do the trick. Its just to simple for this job.

The biggest problem is you jus cant limit recruitment of merc's - they are available to everybody under every condition.

also AI do not handle units with low cost/high upkeep well, as it cant disband them.

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Originally Posted by O'ETAIPOS

The biggest problem is you jus cant limit recruitment of merc's - they are available to everybody under every condition.

also AI do not handle units with low cost/high upkeep well, as it cant disband them.

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mayby were a force-disband entry into the script a solution? it should be possible to make such entry into the script that make a auto-disband of AI-units if AI upkeep costs goes over income...beginning with Ship´s and than with worst land Units and those in field army´s first (to avoid rebelions of AI Cities).

After that it were mayby a idea to force the AI (once more over script) to use the financial or balanced Citygoverment (like a human player has as option if he uses auto-gov.) so the income and infrastructure of AI Cities go more balanced.

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Originally Posted by Schatten

mayby were a force-disband entry into the script a solution? it should be possible to make such entry into the script that make a auto-disband of AI-units if AI upkeep costs goes over income...beginning with Ship´s and than with worst land Units and those in field army´s first (to avoid rebelions of AI Cities).

After that it were mayby a idea to force the AI (once more over script) to use the financial or balanced Citygoverment (like a human player has as option if he uses auto-gov.) so the income and infrastructure of AI Cities go more balanced.

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Neither of those options are open to us via scripting. There is no option to disband or destroy troops via the script, nor is there any way to change how the ai balances its economy (we would have used it by now if there was).

Foot

ALX.exe lets you specify mercenaries as being recruitable only by a given faction (per Maksimus). You couldn't do levies or historical reforms, but you could certainly create pools of manpower that were exhausted and then gradually replenished.

Yes, the ALX.exe is the only way to make it work. Because of the named problem with the governmental system it would not be wise to change completely to the merc pool and drop the MICs all together. An idea could be to move selected elite units that should be limited but are spammed by the AI, like Gaesatae, to the merc pool and assign them to the respective factions. Another idea could be to drop the regional MICs and move all these units to the merc pool, again assigned to their factions per region.

Slingers could be thus restricted.

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Another idea could be to drop the regional MICs and move all these units to the merc pool, again assigned to their factions per region.

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I really like this idea.

Edited:

But can it be tied to building (government type), I guess not.
Plus EB mercenary pools now consist of many provinces.

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Originally Posted by LorDBulA

But can it be tied to building (government type), I guess not.

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That's the problem.

It is not so much an issue with outlying provinces where the player can chose between a level 4 government inclusive client king or a level 3 one representing a part of his kingdom. Recruitement wise level 3 or 4 doesn't make a difference in most provinces for most factions. The few units that are now level 5 regional MIC might then have a very low replentish rate to repesent their rare status.

What gives me a headache (in fact I had been thinking of this since using the ALX.exe) is the matter with expansion regions that might offer good regional units if you use a level 3 or 4 government. With this system you could have a level 1 or 2 government and all regionals.

But may be, we should check which provinces for what factions are affected (usually you can have three levels of regional MICs under a level 2 gov anyways) before dissmissing it all together.

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Plus EB mercenary pools now consist of many provinces.

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That can be easyly changed.

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Originally Posted by konny

But may be, we should check which provinces for what factions are affected (usually you can have three levels of regional MICs under a level 2 gov anyways) before dissmissing it all together.

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It seems to be a problem of the Greek factions first of all who often have huge expansion zones in regions with much local units; for example Makedonia having homelands in provinces where she cannot recruite much factionals.

First of all we should take a look at the mercs the factions can recruite anyways. It doesn't do for example complaining on that Pontos would be able to recruite Klerouchoi from the pool under a level 2 government when she now allready can hire Mercenary Pezhetairoi under any government.

Then we have governments placed for the AI by script. In all cases where the script places a level 3 gov. in an expansion zone we might move those level 4+ regionals to the pool because the AI would get access to them soon or later via MIC. In all cases where the script places a level 2 or 1 government we can might make the higher ranking regionals available by the gov 3 or 4 building itself. That way the AI cannot get them and the player cannot exploit the MIC system. That would be for all regionals that are not allready in the pool (for example, where Curepos are part of the pool now we don't need to talk about Leuce Epos).

There can also be some selected factionals available by pool only. That would be in provinces where the script plants a level 1 or 2 governement and a player would stick to it too (for example Pedites Extraordinarii in Rome).

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Originally Posted by konny

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Plus EB mercenary pools now consist of many provinces.

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That can be easyly changed.

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Hmm? It would certainly not be just to go back to pre-1.0 levels, if that's your idea. You may not have played 0.8x and seen the masses of mercenaries the AI would throw at you.

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Originally Posted by bovi

Hmm? It would certainly not be just to go back to pre-1.0 levels, if that's your idea. You may not have played 0.8x and seen the masses of mercenaries the AI would throw at you.

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Yes, I am around since 0.8 something. I think this problem can be solved without much problems, save testing, by adjusting the recruitement pools we allready have (simple things like moving Etruria and Umbria in the same pool like the rest of Italy, and make Sicily a seperate pool).

The problem now is that the AI can draft from the pool and the MICs. Having 5 cities under control means it can throw a full stack of high end elites at you every year. That is plus mercenaries. Using only the pool, and defining what and how many each faction can draft from it, we can define how many units it can have in a given time and dictate how these armies are composed.

I have a different opinion on this matter...

I'm for the MIC system all the way. Every unit needs time to be recruited, to be trained (at least the most professional units). It wouldn't be good for the game, to be possible to recruit a huge army at the spot, without training time. But I agree that recruiting one unit for turn (3 months) is a slow way to form an army and not very historical accurate. A good way to counter this is to let multiple units to be recruited in one turn (maybe the construction of a "training grounds" to control this) though I think this is impossible to be done in RTW engine and I don't know how M2TW works.


:portugal:Raiuga:2thumbsup:

thats one of the few good things the m2tw engine has to offer D= tho i have to bid good luck to the team to implement other stuff like a proper pike phalanx into the game...not to mention waiting for various stuff to get cracked...

Never played M2TW (don't think it works in my PC) but I will try to find what differences/extras it has

:portugal:Raiuga:2thumbsup:

strange, M2TW takes LESS system resource to run than EB...=/

Really? WoooooooooW

:shame:Didn't know really :wall:

thanks :thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by satalexton

strange, M2TW takes LESS system resource to run than EB...=/

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yes but it's a graphic cards killer <.<

my ******* attached card can't handle M2TW , it just lags as hell :wall:

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Originally Posted by konny

Yes, I am around since 0.8 something. I think this problem can be solved without much problems, save testing, by adjusting the recruitement pools we allready have (simple things like moving Etruria and Umbria in the same pool like the rest of Italy, and make Sicily a seperate pool).

The problem now is that the AI can draft from the pool and the MICs. Having 5 cities under control means it can throw a full stack of high end elites at you every year. That is plus mercenaries. Using only the pool, and defining what and how many each faction can draft from it, we can define how many units it can have in a given time and dictate how these armies are composed.

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While necessary due to historical realism, i am positive that mercenaries in general are more burden for AI, then help. AI is to dumb to recognize long term benefit and will buy expensive merc unit over building something useful. It ruins AI economy in long run , specially for small factions.

This doesn't meant that i suggest them being removed or something like that , but it's just merely an example.

In one of my campaigns , i played without any mercenaries available(removed them all as a test), and AI Epeiros still sent 8 stacks ( they had 6 cities) against me, while still having secured their cities. Armies were proportionate with pha/inf/cav/ski ratio T3 and up quality.
And for all being T3,T4 and T5 units , well, it was 200BC and it should give you at least some small challenge to get you bruised little bit. I don't see why AI shouldn't have them in 200BC, if Human player can develop them earlier then that(no i don't field all Elite armies myself).

You can only fight Pantodapoi and such for so long before it gets repetitive, since it's way to easy(even 3 basic HA's can do it for whole stack of them). But i play to have fun , not to win necessarily.If i have to fight stacks of predominantly Iovamann and such(nothing wrong with them), or mercs, deep in game, i wouldn't play at all.

Ultimately , i would rather have MIC's then Merc's , if i have to choose between those 2.