Over powered mercs

[soibean]

I've been playing as the Asagi (sp?) faction and have been slowly upgrading my samurai army. I have built the 3rd level barracks and can now train the heavy samurai unit, I forgot name it starts with an N I believe.

While on campaign I wanted to recruit some random mercs to use as cannon fodder when I storm the rebel walls, but I noticed that units such as the Ronin and Red ... bearded samurai (I think) had much better stats than my 2nd and 3rd level samurai with only a slight increase in cost.

I purchased 4 units of ronin, who with their 18 attack and high defense, completely massacred just about all units the AI sent at them. I feel that these mercs are a little super powered, unless that was their intention to be in which case I apologize.

[moreb_benhk]

Yes. That is a bit of a dissapointment- to be one of the 2 'samuri' factions, but still to have most of your samuri units completely outclassed by freely available merc. units which don't cost very much extra, and are, on the whole a tad bit cooler. Perhaps making them a bit rarer on availability and a bit more expensive upfront/upkeep would help adress that. It shouldnt be very viable to stock up a whole army of such solid mercs.

Alternately, those red-beared-samuri would look pretty sweet as part of the Japanese factions too............

[big_feef]

You think mercs are bad? Try assaulting the Monks with one full stack.

When you do, come back and tell me how it went.

[Moros]

yeah, the monks now are overpowered. I think they shoiuld be strong and the monk masters should be overpowered. But the other shouldn't be.

I also think the akagi sumarai units (infantry) are underpowered, using mercenaries you can easily make an army wich is much stronger and just a little more expensive.

[Opie]

I like the way mercs are atm. Its realistic to have lots of mercs, and adds to the variety in the game. Also really helps the AI out ,especially the ones with smaller amounts of provinces at the start.

Try playing the zensen , right off the bat would be tough without mercs.
And as for them being more powerfull that your samurai, consider there are various levels. The No dachi samurai are better than 99% of the mercs out there, and have a third the upkeep.

[moreb_benhk]

Indeed I agree that mercs in general need to be affordable and common enough to provide a solid army suppliment, especially in a pinch. However when merc dominated armies become more viable, both in the short and long term, rather than using armies principally of your own units, then things are a bit out of whack.

Deffinately, the run-of-the-mill mercs (cannon fodder, basic soldiers, etc) need to be freely and cheapishly available, but those really really strong ones (such as Merc Ronin and those Red Bearded Samurai (im only familiar with Japanese-region mercs)) shouldn't. They should be of an expense and rarity to make them the solid tip of your army, that 1-3 units of super-dudes that tip the battle in your favor, rather than just a super-powerfull mainline unit. Hence I would be keen for the strong mercs to be availability/costwise to be tweaked a tad, so that they are a really cool and valuable addition to an army without being a cool and valuable and viable army all by themselves (too costly etc). That way those faction-unique units will have a greater part to play in your armies.


By the way, I am having an absolutely mint time as the northern Japanese team (name forgotten), blitzing down my southern counterparts, with fun battles and actually reasonable losses (nothing greater than 4:1 to me) thanks to that morale/battle speed mod.

This is a great game.