Modelling recruitment (the "mercenary" alternative)

[mrtwisties]

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.

[konny]

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.

[mrtwisties]

Slingers could be thus restricted.

[LorDBulA]

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.

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.

[konny]

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

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.

Plus EB mercenary pools now consist of many provinces.

That can be easyly changed.

[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.

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).

[bovi]

Plus EB mercenary pools now consist of many provinces.

That can be easyly changed.

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.

[konny]

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.

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.