Unlikely mercenaries

[edyzmedieval]

Swiss units should be available as mercs, I found it as a lapse why they did not include those.

[gollum]

If they were there would be little point in taking over Swissland. Its either one or the other in gameplay terms ie have the unit as recruited in few areas like the Armenian heavies and teh Swiss or have them mercs. One defeats the other as it makes it redundant.

[Gilrandir]

I had armenian heavies as mercenaries a couple of times (as well as Byzantine infantry), therefore I don't see why the swiss or varangians shouldn't be available. So redundancy does not explain it all.

[gollum]

Hello Girlandir, you are free to make your game as you like - no doubt about that. From a gameplay perspective if you make a unit that has strict homelands available as mercs, the strict homeland feature is not much use - you can get them as mercs anytime. So i understand why certain units were not put forth as mercs by the developer - to get them instead one needs to have the areas they come from. But, yes in practice you are free to setas mercs whichever you like. No arguing with personal preferences

edit Mistaken you for Girlandir! Where are my spectacles...
edit2 It was not a mistake... Forget it, i need to sleep more...:)

[caravel]

When it comes to unit recruitment there are only a few types that make good gameplay sense IMHO:

1) generic recruitable everywhere, maybe dependent on culture type (the majority)

2) More specialised, only recruitable in one or a few provinces by certain culture types ( a minority)

3) Mercenaries, only recruitable in certain provinces, maybe dependent on culture type - only usable by the player - not the AI ( select few)


If you blur the boundaries of these the advantages of certain factions and regions are lessened. I'm against mercs as a principle, but I think they can have a place if they're restricted to a few very specific and expensive, units that cannot be acquired in any other fashion. Having tons of merc spearmen, UM, AHC, horse archers, etc, available to the player to be simply bought and disbanded on demand is a huge exploit.

These merc units could also be made available to train by the rebel faction and could feature in revolts, this would give a small chance of them being used by the AI factions who would gain them through bribes or through provinces joining loyalist revolts.

[gollum]

Originally posted by Asai Nagamasa
These merc units could also be made available to train by the rebel faction, this would give a small chance of them being used by the AI factions who would gain them through bribes or through provinces joining loyalist revolts.

Interesting idea. I'll try to implement it in the next Caravel Mod version...

[Trapped in Samsara]

Hi

I once recruited a four-star merc general. Has anyone else encountered this? Presumably that must have come about by the AI disbanding him.

Also, I've deffo hired merc Genoese sailors.

Regards
Victor

Sapere aude
Horace

[Gilrandir]

Hello Girlandir, you are free to make your game as you like - no doubt about that. From a gameplay perspective if you make a unit that has strict homelands available as mercs, the strict homeland feature is not much use - you can get them as mercs anytime. So i understand why certain units were not put forth as mercs by the developer - to get them instead one needs to have the areas they come from. But, yes in practice you are free to setas mercs whichever you like. No arguing with personal preferences

edit Mistaken you for Girlandir! Where are my spectacles...
edit2 It was not a mistake... Forget it, i need to sleep more...:)

You shouldn't play MTW all night long, then you will need no spectacles (Ha-HA!!)
Well, I can't set as mercs whichever I like. As I have explained in other threads my motto is "No modding & no cheatcoding". It comes partly from the code "fair and square" which I try to follow playing MTW (an attempt to ape Knighthood principles that were an ostensible hallmark of Medieval ethics - when in rome do as romans do, you know), and partly from my being a computer imbecile, as a colleague of mine put it (speaking of herself, though). If something goes wrong with the game (or with my computer) I panic through not being able to mend it, so I don't risk anything like modding or cheatcoding. Moreover, (I mentioned that, again) I have a translated into Russian version of the game, so the chances of something going wrong when I try to interfere with the software are fairly high. To sum it up: I will have to do with what I have (just wondered if someonenew secrets I don't).

[gollum]

You can always save the original files you mod, and so if things go wrong you can replace them. But yeah, i see what you mean with wanting to play vanilla as is. Its probably a good idea if one is new to the game.

[Gilrandir]

Its probably a good idea if one is new to the game.

Well, I'm not that new. I've been playing for 7-8 years. For the first 3 years or so I did only battles (all kinds - quick, custom, historical), until I reached the expert level. I can't say I win all battles on expert since while doing customs I bought troops fair and square (meaning the same sum of money both for me and for the enemy). But only after having reached that mastery I moved on to playing campaigns (starting with normal difficulty). Now I play campaigns on expert and don't get tired so as to mod them (may be because I'm on and off - playing one campaign and taking a two-three months off to get hungry for the game). I still anticipate a lot of fun to have - right now I'm going to play the French (high, expert). Somewhere ahead are the Danish (early expert), sicialians (high, expert) and, most thrilling of all, Turks (high, expert) - pitched against multi-star Byz and the Horde looming on the horizon.

[cogre]

iirc on vanilla the farm system didn't pan out very well. to make ones faction viable economically one had to rely too much on trade. the first mod i ever tried, xl, fixed this. made farming payout well.

[edyzmedieval]

If they were there would be little point in taking over Swissland. Its either one or the other in gameplay terms ie have the unit as recruited in few areas like the Armenian heavies and teh Swiss or have them mercs. One defeats the other as it makes it redundant.

I still found Armenian heavies as mercenaries. Swiss Halbediers never, only normal Halbediers.

I like it when Arquebusiers are mercenaries before 1260, you get the firepower advantage.