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.
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