Does presence of the Brothel line buildings affect the Merc respawn rate?

[rvg]

If it doesn't, it should.

[HoreTore]

It doesn't, and I don't think it should either.

The way mercenaries were hired wasn't by going to the local pub... Some mercs were little but brigands and thieves, but most of them were nobles(their commanders, that is).

[Furious Mental]

FYI the knights and squires that led mercenary companies were as much thieves as the pillars under their command who actually stole livestock and extorted patis from hapless peasants. The fact that the leaders merely organised such armed criminality but did not carry it out themselves didn't make them any less thieves.

[Whacker]

It doesn't, and I don't think it should either.

The way mercenaries were hired wasn't by going to the local pub... Some mercs were little but brigands and thieves, but most of them were nobles(their commanders, that is).

Disagree, and incorrect about most of them being nobles.

About the medieval mercs, a few were of the nobility, but most were simply professionals who decided to lend their services to the highest bidder. Also, they were historically linked to areas that were often troubled and in conflict. France during the 100 years war and Flanders in general come to mind as merc hotspots. The italian city-states also would often hire out chunks of their then-superior navies to other nations or individuals for the right price as well.

Disagree that the brothels shouldn't affect respawn rates, I actually think that's a kewl idea. The old MTW system wasn't that good IMO, I think RTW and M2TW do a much better job of it. Don't know exactly how it'd be implemented, but I still think it's not a bad idea at all, if implemented in a sane manner.

[Kobal2fr]

Also, they were historically linked to areas that were often troubled and in conflict.

That's kinda like saying a mortician is historically linked to tragedies isn't it ? Mercenaries go where they're gonna get paid, what use is a merc in peacetime ? So of course, they would flock to wherever there was constant strife.

But I'll grant you that most mercenary companies were troublemakers, cutthroats etc..., comes with the territory. It's probably one of the meanest and most cynical business I could think of, that and prostitution... Oh, and marketing, of course .

[Foz]

But I'll grant you that most mercenary companies were troublemakers, cutthroats etc..., comes with the territory. It's probably one of the meanest and most cynical business I could think of, that and prostitution... Oh, and marketing, of course .

Don't forget game development. Man, those game developers are some of the meanest, most cynical S.O.B.'s you're ever likely to meet! I keep expecting Caliban to show up in one of these threads and start slitting throats and hoisting the jolly roger.

[HoreTore]

Disagree, and incorrect about most of them being nobles.

About the medieval mercs, a few were of the nobility, but most were simply professionals who decided to lend their services to the highest bidder. Also, they were historically linked to areas that were often troubled and in conflict. France during the 100 years war and Flanders in general come to mind as merc hotspots. The italian city-states also would often hire out chunks of their then-superior navies to other nations or individuals for the right price as well.

Disagree that the brothels shouldn't affect respawn rates, I actually think that's a kewl idea. The old MTW system wasn't that good IMO, I think RTW and M2TW do a much better job of it. Don't know exactly how it'd be implemented, but I still think it's not a bad idea at all, if implemented in a sane manner.

Well, we seem to focus on different areas of europe :P

In Spain, lords(like El Cid) frequently hired out their services both to the spanish kings and moorish sultans.
The Varangian Guard was composed of nobles, even a king.
The various tribes the Byzantines hired were usually led by their chieftain, a noble of some sort.
In Italy, the condottiere were usually nobles, even princes.

But whether noble or not, mercenaries weren't recruited at a tavern.

[fenir]

In historical texts, it is true that most Mercenary groups, certinaly a very high percentage, where leed by nobles.

For several reasons.

In the Age, not everyone could read and write. Contracts needed sometimes, to be between people of note and status. Something to do with honour, and of equal birth.

Also, most 2nd or 3rd or 4th sons' left home in this fashion to see their future in far away lands. or near lands.
Being younger son's of nobles, they could fight, had (as the age dictated) been trained from a young age to fight.
Therefore made perfect mercenaries.

The pronaioi of the Comensus era, were a large part of this.
The Wests and easts, Younger son's, settled in the frontier regions with the right to tax, and duty to protect; And be ready to provide Knight's fees, to the Emporer, just as the west did.
Sounds like a win win to me. Also has down sides.

But yes it is true, so to speak ...90% of the time, Nobles leed bonded groups of merc's, and it is not un-usual for them to discipline their men for offense as they did pride themselves on being professionals.
More often than not, it was the actually titled nobles troops that are the worsted offenders of wrongs.
Tho, not all the time some nobles were not always noble shall we say.


fenir

[Kobal2fr]

Exactly. Anyone who owned land, or whose family had at some point, was a "nobleman". Doesn't mean he can't be a drunk murderous whoremonger as well :)

In fact, these days I'm reading the semi-historical serie of novels called "The Accursed Kings", books dealing with the events in France which led up to the 100 yrs War ; and they paint a very dismal portrait of the French nobility (that is, real nobility, not merc's : the King's own court) at the time... And they were written by a French historian who'd become Ministre de la Culture down the road, so you can't really blame nationalistic/historical bias there

[Furious Mental]

Simply owning land did not make someone "noble". One could go quite some distance up the social ladder and not be noble. People often refer to knights and squires as "noble"- they weren't. Knights and squires were gentle. No doubt pedantic to non-historians but there was a difference. For example, in the English Parliament, knights were part of the commons. The "nobility" refers to the baronage. If someone was just "Sir" and not "lord" or "earl" or "duke" of some place, they were not noble. And on the subject of mercenaries, the vast majority of mercenary commanders were not noble. Barons usually did not need to bother with that kind of thing- they had land and tenants to support them. Of course, late in the Middle Ages it became commonplace for noblemen to contract with those above them, up to the king, to serve with their retinue in war, but that did not make them mercenaries. Generally speaking it was those without such means- such as the younger sons of gentle families- that led mercenary companies. Take a look at the Hundred Years War- knights and squires were a dime a dozen among mercenary leaders but you will have a hard time finding a nobleman among them (though there were some, especially Gascons). And as far as literacy goes, you'd also find that most mercenary leaders, having spent their life learning how to kill people, were illiterate. Mercenary companies got around this by employing clerks to administer their finances and such.

[IrishArmenian]

I'd say general conflict would affect mercenary respawn if it is possible.

[WhiskeyGhost]

Or, at the very least, disbanding your mercs. I mean its not like they disappear from existence the second you disband em........

[HoreTore]

I'd say general conflict would affect mercenary respawn if it is possible.

That would be a very good solution. Each battle fought in a province adds to the spawn rate in a certain province, for example. Lack of battles reduce it...

[Whacker]

Or, at the very least, disbanding your mercs. I mean its not like they disappear from existence the second you disband em........

This is a good idea. Logically they don't all disappear. Having a randomized portion of them (depending on valor?) re-enter the pool immediately on disbandment would be logical. Also, if disbanded in an area they don't belong to, maybe something would be done whereby it'd calculate what the closest possible match would be, unit-wise, and increase that by an amount...

[sapi]

Your forces that "melt away" after a defeat should also be avaliable for recruitment as mercs if there are enough of them to make a full unit, imo

[Didz]

Well I would throw a complete spanner in the works and argue that in reality the vast majority of men fighting in wars over this period were mercenaries. They fought for money, plunder or pledges of reward, not for national honour or pride.

It would be interesting to imagine how this could be modelled in the game.

Doing away with all the troops buildings and training and replacing it with some sort of bartering system where men have to be seduced into accepting service in your army by promises of reward and then wander off or change sides if they don't receive the expected benefits.

Castle and City garrisons would be really awkward to maintain as the only reliable garrison would be made up from local men recruited to protect their homes and families. Mercenaries hired to defend a city would be liable to become frustrated, particularly if others are reaping huge rewards on the field of battle and so you could get the reverse of the current scenario where rather than the peasants being revolting and the army keeping them down. It is the army that suffers from unrest and the city burgers who have to placate them with better rewards for their service.

Under such a system the existence of brothels and inns would have an interesting role. It would mean for example that a city could pay its garrison or mercenaries a decent fee for their services and then claw back a significant portion of that in entertainment fee's. Likewise, a proliferation of accepted leisure facilities would reduce the risk of the mercenaries becoming restless of troublesome. A city with no inns or brothels would be hard pressed to keep its garrison entertained and happy.

In MTW2 the closest thing we have to this sort of mechanism is the behaviour of crusading armies, which rapidly begin to melt away if not focussed on the goal that their troops were promised. However, whats missing is the fall-out form that process in terms of dispossessed, mercenary bands wandering the countryside looking for loot, food and alternative employment. Perhaps some link could be used between unemployed mercenaries and rebels, and of course rebels and potential mercenaries. There is a basic relationship already but I'm not convinced it is directly affected by the players actions.

Dismissing large numbers of troops ought to create a significant number of rebel units in the area they were released, as well as increasing the number of men looking for military service.

[Kobal2fr]

Well I would throw a complete spanner in the works and argue that in reality the vast majority of men fighting in wars over this period were mercenaries. They fought for money, plunder or pledges of reward, not for national honour or pride.

By that rationale, most of the US Army (well, any modern standing army) is composed of mercenaries :)

If I'm not mistaken (or if I'm not relying on historical simplifications taught in school, what Pratchett calls "lies to children" : it's not the truth, but it's close and simple enough) in France every lord and land owner was supposed, as part of the feudal oath, to keep a retinue of soldiers at all times, paid with his own money, to protect his peasantry and to be made available for the king should he call for your help.
So, while these men didn't fight for national honour but for money/promise of loot/prospect of not having to carry heavy loads of manure all day long, they weren't mercenaries per se, as they were members of a proto national defense force.

Of course, many lords shirked from such duties to use their money on other, more important/immediate stuff, or used their forces to fight their neighbouring lords, and had to rely on mercs when the King finally called the "ost" (dunno the English word for this, sorry). But that's the principle.

Although I agree with you that most huge armies should have significant desertion rates, even worse when their country is on the losing side of the war or if a given unit is moved too far from where they were created. But then again, that would probably make the game require too much micro when its focus has always been on the battles themselves...

EDIT : oh, and mercs should have horrible morale values - they usually didn't stick around when the battle turned sour, forcing their "owners" to pay them AFTER the battle, but even then they would merely have to switch sides to get paid...

[Furious Mental]

"They fought for money, plunder or pledges of reward, not for national honour or pride."

That definition of "mercenary" is a bit simple. Most historians would consider mercenaries to be men whose only means of support was war. This automatically excludes, for example, most soldiers in the medieval Latin Christendom because even after it became standard practice to pay soldiers wages on campaign, the majority of them did not live off war- they lived off land they owned, or by doing wage labour, and whatnot.

Also, you underestimate the extent to which pride and honour operated in the minds of alot of mercenaries. Winning renown was a major motivation for going to war in the military classes, no less so among mercenary leaders, who were, after all, generally men-at-arms brought up in the same militaristic environment as others. And even among the average soldiery, there were alot of men who aspired to become squires or even knights, some of whom had themselves knighted by their own followers when they had taken command of a company, for example Robert Knolles or John Hawkwood. They were generally indifferent to what we would now call "national interest" but winning respect from others did matter to them. Some men even took up service as mercenaries solely for this purpose.

"oh, and mercs should have horrible morale values - they usually didn't stick around when the battle turned sour, forcing their "owners" to pay them AFTER the battle, but even then they would merely have to switch sides to get paid..."

Not true. As I said above, mercenaries depended on war to live, and if people believed that they were always going to turn and flee no one would employ them. Often they were eager for battle since their survival depended on taking prisoners for ransom, the bonuses which the victors handed out in land and money, the pillage which took place upon conquering new land- e.g. in the Battle of Auray it was the mercenary captains on both sides that forced the leaders to stop negotiations and fight. Similarly, in Robert of Curthose's invasion of 1101 one of Robert of Belleme's major castles was surrendered by his knights and sergeants over the objections of the mercenary component of its garrison, which marched out lamenting their betrayal in front of Henry I's army. Mercenaries were, first and foremost, disloyal to those who did not pay them on time and in full. If they were paid properly they were often brutally effective- one only needs to look at groups like the Anglo-German White Company to know this. It fought so hard in the Italian peninsula for its various employers that within a few years almost the whole of its English component had died, and most probably most of its original German members too (the presence of many German mercenaries in Italy meant that replacements were easy enough to find).

[Didz]

By that rationale, most of the US Army (well, any modern standing army) is composed of mercenaries :)

I would say that's a valid point.

Most young men join the British Army primarily to learn a trade, or for the money. Very few actually join out of patriotism or in the hope of fighting for king and country. Although, service overseas does involve additional inducements and bonuses.

The real test of course would be to stop paying the army and see how long it continues to do its duty.

If I'm not mistaken (or if I'm not relying on historical simplifications taught in school, what Pratchett calls "lies to children" : it's not the truth, but it's close and simple enough) in France every lord and land owner was supposed, as part of the feudal oath, to keep a retinue of soldiers at all times, paid with his own money, to protect his peasantry and to be made available for the king should he call for your help.

Yes, but once again. The agreement is effectively a deal not a charitable or patriotic gesture. The Lords were required to pledge these troops in return for the granting of their rights to hold the land by their Lord. Thus the rewards have been paid up front and the Lord is required to honour his part of the deal or risk losing the privileges already granted.

What is more interesting is how the Lord then raised the troops required to honour his part of the bargain. The most likely arrangement and certainly the one used in Scotland was a cascading arrangement where land was parcelled out in ever smaller divisions to successive class levels of clansmen each of which was in turn pledged to provide a potion of the overall manpower pledged by his lord. The bottom of the heap being the poor sod who was required to march with his Laird in return for continued ownership of a potato patch.

This might not be classed as mercenary recruitment but essentially it is fighting for a reward, in so far as if you don’t fight you lose your rights to the privileges granted and if you do fight there is a chance that a grateful Lord might be prepared to increase your privileges.

The obvious negative point being that this system only works, so long as your Lord can deliver and maintain the reward you are receiving or hoping to receive. If your Lord is killed in battle, or if his lands are over run by the enemy, or if he is ousted of banished from his privileges then your reason and obligation to fight disappears along with your home and livelihood.

Interestingly, this would even be true if the Army itself was successful, because your personal future is literally tied to the fate of one man, not the country. And that man is unlikely to be the King and could be nothing more than a captain.

"They fought for money, plunder or pledges of reward, not for national honour or pride."
That definition of "mercenary" is a bit simple. Most historians would consider mercenaries to be men whose only means of support was war.

I don’t place much faith in anything historians say, most of it is ‘bollocks’, and they change their story to suit the current trend, as proven by the current controversy over whether feudalism existed or not.

As far as I am concerned a mercenary is anyone who provides his service in the hope of/or in return for receiving a reward from the person they are serving. The test being whether the person would continue to provide that service if circumstances arose which clearly meant that they would not receive/or would lose the expected reward.

In a modern army the soldiers rewards are essentially safeguarded as long as his national government remains in power and able to pay his salary. Therefore, desertion and defection are pretty rare except in situations where a country is on the brink of collapse, revolt or civil war and soldiers are no longer certain who holds the purse strings.

In the period, of MTW2 security of income for soldiering was much less stable or predictable and might literally depend upon the life and whims of a single man. Whether that man was your feudal lord, or your Captain.

This automatically excludes, for example, most soldiers in the medieval Latin Christendom because even after it became standard practice to pay soldiers wages on campaign, the majority of them did not live off war- they lived off land they owned, or by doing wage labour, and whatnot.

That would depend upon the conditions under which these men owned their land or were provided with labour. If they were given those rights in return for military service then they are affected in exactly the same way as a mercenary if those benefits are lost or can no longer be delivered.

Also, you underestimate the extent to which pride and honour operated in the minds of a lot of mercenaries. Winning renown was a major motivation for going to war in the military classes, no less so among mercenary leaders, who were, after all, generally men-at-arms brought up in the same militaristic environment as others.

Not at all, in fact I consider this to be a major factor in the process.

What I don’t accept is that this necessarily ties the individual to the service of a specific lord. In other words a company of Welsh Longbowmen might well consider themselves to be the elite or the elite, and that would no doubt be reflected in the price they demanded for their services. But, if their expectation was that they would be paid this money upon the successful captured of Calais by the King, and six months later they were still kicking their heels in Dover because the King couldn’t afford the ships to get his army across the channel. Or if, two months into a protracted siege the King gets a arrow through his eye and dies, then I suspect these Welshmen would be considering how much revenue they were losing by hanging about and start looking for other sources of income. They might draw the line at crossing over and joining the French, but they might well decide to take to banditry or grab the first ferry home.

And even among the average soldiery, there were alot of men who aspired to become squires or even knights, some of whom had themselves knighted by their own followers when they had taken command of a company, for example Robert Knolles or John Hawkwood. They were generally indifferent to what we would now call "national interest" but winning respect from others did matter to them. Some men even took up service as mercenaries solely for this purpose.

Exactly, so if Knolles or Hawkwood suddenly realised that they weren’t going to get these rewards in the service of their current Lord, their motivations to remain loyally in his service would evaporate pretty quickly.

A classic example being the defection of most of the English Barons to Prince Louis of France, and their subsequent decision to switch back again when King John died and Henry III agreed to deliver on the terms of the Magna Carta.

All I’m saying is that it would be interesting to consider the effects of abandoning the modern ‘standing professional army’ concepts used in MTW2 and adopt a more appropriate recruitment system based upon the mercenary principle. It would certainly make it much harder for passive players to maintain a reasonable military strength but would also pose particular problems for aggressive players who later find themselves unable to fulfil the promises they made to their men.

[Furious Mental]

"As far as I am concerned a mercenary is anyone who provides his service in the hope of/or in return for receiving a reward from the person they are serving."

Well with the exception of a tiny number of genuine fanatics almost every soldier in history is a "mercenary" by your definition, which effectively turns it into a useless and nebulous concept. Very few people ever do something for nothing and even smaller proportion of people fight and die without at least some incentive of material reward. By the way the word "mercenary" is commonly used in the English language it is fairly clear your definition is not accepted, consciously or not, by historians or people in general.

"If they were given those rights in return for military service then they are affected in exactly the same way as a mercenary if those benefits are lost or can no longer be delivered."

It is very rare in the Middle Ages to find that the whole noble and gentle classes were wiped off the map by anything short of an invasion by an alien culture. For example, in England the only time it ever came close was when William I invaded, and even then a significant portion of the Anglo-Saxon thegnage remained to continue providing fyrd service into the 12th century. This was, of course, because most of the thegnage hadn't been present at the Battle of Hastings and submitted to William I soon after his victory, providing fyrd service to him as early as the siege of Exeter. A landholder who owed some sort of military obligation but who refrained from fighting for their nominal lord had a good chance of being accepted into the new political order- it is commonsense not to uselessly persecute those who are disloyal to one's enemies and this was not lost on medieval leaders. The security of tenure of a knight who deserted was far better than the security of livelihood of a mercenary who did not fight- a knight generally kept his land although he might have to do homage for it again, a mercenary who didn't stay until the end of the campaign often got nothing which meant, since he often had no land, that he went broke. And this was simply when a knight was supposedly defending their land. When kings tried to use knight service to raise armies for campaigns overseas they frequently got nothing. Even a man with as much personal authority as Edward I got such a pathetic response to his attempts to force various grades of English landholders to fight in France that he had to abandon expeditions (or hire mercenaries). And when the person in charge was unpopular like Edward II what he got was huge portions of the military classes staying at home even when an expedition was mounted to relieve an important bastion on the borders of their own kingdom (Stirling Castle).

The proof of the pudding is in the eating and you'll find it in the practice of, for example, 12th and 13th century English kings often not bothering to raise troops by "feudal" means at all but simply getting those who owed "knight service" to pay scutage with which the kings hired mercenaries who, having no alternative means of support and no patrimony to worry about, were prepared to fight where, when and for however long their employer wanted. Military service, or more often, paying money to commute it, was an incident of landholding for the "military classes" but the fact is that these classes did not depend on war to survive- they depended on title to land and the labour their tenants did on it. A knight could survive without war- if they were never summoned to serve in one all the better, more time to lie around and let their tenants do the work. As the various examples above show, they could often fail to fulfil military obligations, in person or at all, and yet still keep their title. By contrast a mercenary had no land or skills to support them (aside from knowing how to kill people) and if they didn't have a war or at least a threat of war to provide them with employment they were buggered, and the fact that they were betrothen to the purse of their employer meant that they had a powerful incentive to see wars through to the end.

"A classic example being the defection of most of the English Barons to Prince Louis of France, and their subsequent decision to switch back again when King John died and Henry III agreed to deliver on the terms of the Magna Carta."

Well it's a classic example of political manouevring, but not social climbing, which is essentially the sort of thing I'm referring to in relation to types like Hawkwood and Knolles. I never said that social climbing would necessarily tie mercenaries to a particular employer, only that it was something they cared about. Obviously they didn't care about it enough that they would work for nothing.

A more realistic system would be interesting but even a history nut like myself finds the complexity of such a system somewhat daunting.

[Kobal2fr]

Not true. As I said above, mercenaries depended on war to live, and if people believed that they were always going to turn and flee no one would employ them. Often they were eager for battle since their survival depended on taking prisoners for ransom, the bonuses which the victors handed out in land and money, the pillage which took place upon conquering new land- e.g. in the Battle of Auray it was the mercenary captains on both sides that forced the leaders to stop negotiations and fight. Similarly, in Robert of Curthose's invasion of 1101 one of Robert of Belleme's major castles was surrendered by his knights and sergeants over the objections of the mercenary component of its garrison, which marched out lamenting their betrayal in front of Henry I's army. Mercenaries were, first and foremost, disloyal to those who did not pay them on time and in full. If they were paid properly they were often brutally effective- one only needs to look at groups like the Anglo-German White Company to know this. It fought so hard in the Italian peninsula for its various employers that within a few years almost the whole of its English component had died, and most probably most of its original German members too (the presence of many German mercenaries in Italy meant that replacements were easy enough to find).

That's true I suppose, and shame on me for ignoring the pride factor (which reminds me of the Black Company series of novels - the men of the Company are die hard cynics and utterly don't care wether they fight for the good or the bad guys, but they take pride in honoring their contracts to the bitter end, and in disposing of the employers in the worst ways should they fail to pay them). But even if it's an important factor, I'd say that while it would influence the behavior of merc companies in general, there are always times when their leaders have to face the facts and decide wether it's better to live or struggle for a given price, which should make them less reliable than standard troops.

A lord would not easily switch sides, because most of his money doesn't come from the war, but from his lands, and the same goes for his individual soldiers who have family and/or financial ties to their faction. By comparison, a mercenary company is a free electron, and to them it doesn't matter who wins or lose. And while pride and honor are fine things, they pale in comparison with survival instinct...

Now, I'm no historian, but considering that even in the (supposedly) honor-heavy Japan regular soldiers switched sides when convenient (as in Sekigahara, where some lords agreed in advance to switch during the battle in exchange for lands), I'd say that it's not much of a stretch to assume that the same happened in Europe, and mercenaries would be even more subject to this tactic because they have no ties to either side and fight for the highest bidder. Should the bids change mid-course...

[HoreTore]

The definition of mercenaries by, well, the world, as stated in the Geneva conventions:

Art 47. Mercenaries

1. A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war.
2. A mercenary is any person who:

(a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;
(c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party;
(d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;
(e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and
(f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.

[Furious Mental]

Certainly mercenaries changed sides, but unless someone had specifically made a point of bribing they were no more likely to switch sides mid-battle. The political intrigues which caused nobles and whatnot to melt away in the middle of things generally did not apply to them. If mercenaries were going to change sides, their had a strong motivation to wait until they had at least gotten all of their money. Obviously they didn't wait forever.

[Didz]

The issue of whether X can be called a mercenary or not is a matter of semantic's and not really helping this debate.

What I was hoping to discuss was a more interesting, appropriate and challenging system for recruiting troops into armies. At the moment we only have two options neither of which is particularly accurate or challenging in that troops are far too easy to recruit and far to easy to retain.

What I'd find interesting is a system which reflects the need to offer rewards and inducements to retain loyalty and the potential at least for dissaffected troops (mercenary or feudal) to betray you if you don't deliver on your promises. I suspect that this system would essentially become a 'game within a game' as it would need to rest heavily on leader traits and involve some sort of bartering system where deals can be struck and monitored in a similar way to the mission system.

There would also need to be a better relationship tracked between troops, population, rebels and mercenary companies. Troops leaving service whether voluntarily or through dismissal will either return to the general population (go back to their farms) or take up their swords and become brigands and mercenaries. Therefore, area's where armies have been active would naturally tend to suffer from higher levels banditry and have higher numbers of mercenaries for hire. More importantly, stationing large garrisons in homeland cities and castles would also pose a risk unless those troops and their commanders were totally loyal, something which used to be a consideration in STW but doesn't really feature much in MTW2.

I think the idea of retinues and feudal loyalty would also be interesting to model. The idea that a large portion of your army is not actually fighting for you but for Lord Stanley, who just happens to be supporting you at the moment puts a significant twist on the challenge of the game particularly if Stanley has been having secret negotiations with your opponent over night and isn't quite sure which horse to back in the forthcoming battle. Likewise, internal rivalry and animosity could have a significant impact on both battles and pre-battle politic's. The fact that the Macdonald Clan always has to form on the right of Mackenzies, or that Vivien and Vandleur hate each others guts might make a big difference to deployment of your army.

At the moment we are able to just raise armies with all the easy of a 20th Century government, and station them in Timbuktu to rot together with their lords and not really worry about whether they're plotting against us or happy. To me it all seems a bit too easy and predictable.

[Furious Mental]

Well such a system would be interesting but unimaginably complex. The number of artificial intelligences would run into the thousands.

[Vladimir]

Oh dear, what are the odds that someone from Paris would call US soldiers mercenaries and not the French Foreign Legion ( ) ? I think you’re just trying to poke people in the ribs so I’ll take it as that.

But no, seriously; one needs to place the term in the proper historical context. Medieval Europe lacked the infrastructure, administration, and resources to maintain, train, and equip an effective fighting force. They therefore, in times of need, had to rely on men that *chose* to follow the martial path.

I believe that the big taboo on mercs is how often they were foreign soldiers, most notably Germanic. Our culture in the US is more Anglo-centric so we still identify mercenaries as “outsiders.” In fact companies like Blackwater et al (deemed “mercenaries” by more left of center people) are comprised primarily of prior service domestic soldiers. Quite often they’re nothing more than highly trained and heavily equipped security guards.

Games set in the Medieval period should rely more on mercenary troops and be developed with this in mind. Buildings like the brothel and inn should affect the number and type of troops available for hire. I shouldn’t be able to use my spear militia troops recruited in Cordoba to lay siege to Frankfurt. I find this very unrealistic and your domestic economy should take more of a hit when you hire militia/levy troops. You can’t hire mercs to till their fields for them.

[Didz]

Well such a system would be interesting but unimaginably complex. The number of artificial intelligences would run into the thousands.

I agree it would add to the complexity of the playing experience for players. It would after all be yet another factor to have to consider. e.g. Where can I obtain some more men to fight for me? and Can I rely on the ones I already have?

However, I don't think its impossible to acheive. I've played several other games where this process has been modelled in various ways and with various degree's of detail. Kingmaker being the obvious one to spring to mind. In that game it was pretty simplistic but basically involved recruiting Lords to your cause who came with their retinues. So basically you persuaded the lord to join you and his feudal levy came as part of the deal.

Crown and Glory also touches on the concept of feudal levies in a very abstract fashion, but as its a Napoleonic game it puts more emphasis on modelling the draft system. Nevertheless, I can influence the number of cossacks that rally to my army by adjusting the feudal levy.

The biggest problem that MTW2 would have is the absence of a feudal model. We have the family tree, but beyond that our generals are basically free-floaters, whereas in reality they would be feudal-lords or Mercenary Captains (or both/if they were foreigners)' Likewise the relationship between these lords and the land they own is not represented, they work in effect like 20thC professional Generals.

However, Hearts of Iron actually provides an example of a system where you can select your general from a list of potential applicants which could easily be a list of men who owe you feudal service. Something similar in a future MTW could allow you to select the nobles you wish to recruit based upon their skills, loyalty and rentinues and then lead you into the negotiation screen where you sort out how much their service is going to cost you before finding out how keen they are to actually turn out, and the impact their selection will have on your other nobles.

'Feels Unappreciated' would take on a whole new meaning if the reason Stanley was upset was that you had just selected his bitterest rival to command your army in France, particulary if the deal struck also promised him the city and port of Calais to add to his estates.

[HoreTore]

Probably a job for Medieval 4 or 5....

[Didz]

Probably a job for Medieval 4 or 5....

If at all. But some aspects of it could possibly be introduced such as the influence of Inns and Brothels and the relationship between conflict and the level of brigandry and mercenary activity in a specifc area.

Introducing the concept of happiness for armies as well as cities would also be a step in the right direction and would make it harder for people like me to keep large inactive garrisons idling away in remote locations.