Roman mercenaries

[JMRC]

Can someone from the EB Team tell me why the following units are marked as mercenaries in EDU?

- Roman Infantry Evocatae
- Roman Infantry Principes (Polybian)
- Roman Cavalry Polybian Equites

This makes them recruitable as mercenaries, which doesn't make much sense to me.

On the other hand, IMO, roman auxilia units should be marked as mercenaries:

- Roman Missile Archer Auxilia
- Roman Infantry Auxilia Pedites Extraordinarii
- Roman Infantry Eastern Auxilia
(Roman Infantry Western Auxilia is already marked as mercenaries, I don't understand why the Eastern type is not)
- Roman Cavalry Auxilia Equites Extraordinarii
- Roman Cavalry Auxilia Equites Germanorum
- Roman Cavalry Auxilia Equites Hispanorum
- Roman Cavalry Auxilia Equites Thracum
- Roman Cavalry Auxilia Equites Gallorum

[bovi]

A lot of units are marked as mercenaries so that they can share graphics models with other units, AFAIK. Whether a unit is recruitable as mercenary depends on the mercenary pools definition, not this attribute alone.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Yeah, it's a trick to get more units into the game...

[JMRC]

Yeah, it's a trick to get more units into the game...

I'm sorry, but I didn't understand. I don't have access to the descr_mercenaries.txt file right now, but why this trick gets more units into the game?

I'm really thinking on making the changes that I wrote in my original post, so I would like to know if those changes will destroy something in the process.

Just to check: units marked with mercenary_unit in the EDU won't be recruited if they aren't declared in the descr_mercenaries.txt file. Correct?

[Foot]

I'm sorry, but I didn't understand. I don't have access to the descr_mercenaries.txt file right now, but why this trick gets more units into the game?

I'm really thinking on making the changes that I wrote in my original post, so I would like to know if those changes will destroy something in the process.

Just to check: units marked with mercenary_unit in the EDU won't be recruited if they aren't declared in the descr_mercenaries.txt file. Correct?

There are no roman units in descr_mercenaries.txt as far as I am aware. We use the merc trick, because on some models we want the same faction to use two different units on the same model. In most cases we wouldnt be able to do this, but if we make one of those units a merc, then whenever it is recruited it will use the merc skin and not the faction skin. Thus we can have two units on the same model appear with different skins when recruited by the same faction.

If a unit appears in descr_merc it is meant to be in there, roman units are not meant to be in there, but some roman units are meant to have the mercenary_unit attribute.

Foot

[cunctator]

About the auxilia:
The augustan auxilia are regular units of the imperial army, equipped and trained by the romans. The marian auxilia represent units either raised in roman provinces or serving Rome for prolonged period of time so that they are already romanized to some decree.
In most cases there are real mercenary variants of the not romanized versions available. The Pedites Extraordinarii are the best part of the allied infantry of a pre marian consular army, picked for special duty. The model is shared with the samnite heavy infatry that is a real mercenary unit.

So neither of them should be mercenaries available to all factions, in most cases it would also be impossible for the technical reasons described above.

Just to check: units marked with mercenary_unit in the EDU won't be recruited if they aren't declared in the descr_mercenaries.txt file. Correct?

Correct.

[Watchman]

Just to check: units marked with mercenary_unit in the EDU won't be recruited if they aren't declared in the descr_mercenaries.txt file. Correct?

Aye. The "mercenary_unit" tag just makes the unit use the "merc" skin designated for the relevant model in descr_model_battle.txt, and in potentia recruitable as mercs if so defined in descr_mercenaries.txt.

However, their actual recruitement or lack thereof is still determined by export_descr_buildings.txt and dexcr_mercenaries.txt, so by itself the tag has no other effect than the skin trick.

For example, both the Marian-era Auxilia units use the same model and are only recruitable by the Romani, but the Western ones are tagged as a "mercenary_unit" so they don't use the same skin as the Easterns.

More or less ditto with the Pedites Extraordinarii and Samnitici Milites, save that the latter are defined as hireable mercs in descr_mercenaries and thus appear in the appropriate pools in-game (besides being recruitable through the appropriate MICs for most factions in the same regions) whereas (AFAIK) only the Romani can recruit the Extraordinarii through their factional MICs, and that only before the appereance of certain reforms.

Edit: Eh, cunctator beat me to it.

[JMRC]

Thanks a lot for your answers. I think I'll leave descr_mercenaries.txt as it is, as well as the mercenary_unit indicators in EDU.