Mercenaries

searcheagle said:

Thanks!



I think they should prefer to work as mercenaries. But if they don't work, they still have to make money to eat. And thus they try to loot neighboring towns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRSkCIx_-Qo

I want to have the addition of mercs add a moral dilemma. Strong advantage to using them. But giving you a negative consequence from using them. Side note: Not to mention that it would be historically accurate. Read up on the Vandals that sacked Rome. Very interesting story.)



Hmmm... Lots of different options. Maybe each additional merc unit by a civ would cost more. I don't like hard limits in games.

Or mercs located further away would cost more?

Or City State Penalties for having too many mercs?



Keep talking- We'll get something the developers will like.

Click to expand...

Cheers.

Maybe barbarian wouldn't be the best description for them as Vandals like the Seljuk (turkish) mercenaries came to conquer lands for themselves as the Byzantines refused to re-hire them and couldn't protect all of their borders as occured in history. In this way, mercenaries could form a city state or a small state of 2-3 cities (depending on how many they capture).

Perhaps there should be a larger dilemma for hiring mercenaries than just the moral issue, how about the economic and military reality of the Ancient-Renaissance era's?

Consider there's a limit of how many regular units a player could have based on their total population (not number of cities) and that cities could either produce 2 buildings or a unit and a building rather than just one or the other. Then as technologies advance (lets say industrial era)

Until then, players are more dependent on mercs with advantages given to civilizations who were famous for using large merc armies (eg Carthage) and other nations with powerful early professional armies (eg Rome, Greece, Persia). In contrast other nations can get either larger limits (eg russia) or more powerful forces (germany) in the later-tech part of the game.

Supporting this could even be new social policy systems. Rather than for example just picking everything of the 'Honor' tree there could be different options the player has too choose between. (eg, do I go for larger force limit 'conscription,' more elite 'professional armies or 'volunteer army' with its boost to happiness).'
Just another social policy example for liberty (eg, choose between 'colonization' which half costs of settlers, 'representation' increasing production and trade or 'independent-thinkers' which boost great person and science output)

What do you think?

Note: you wouldn't be able to choose both conscription and professional armies, you'd only be able to pick one

NJC said:

Maybe barbarian wouldn't be the best description for them as Vandals like the Seljuk (turkish) mercenaries came to conquer lands for themselves as the Byzantines refused to re-hire them and couldn't protect all of their borders as occured in history. In this way, mercenaries could form a city state or a small state of 2-3 cities (depending on how many they capture).

Click to expand...

Well, that is more or less what I was getting at. You bring an army into your country and pay them for killing other troops. When you stop paying them, they will get upset!

Now, if you they can find another gig, fine. But if not, it's hard to adjust back into normal life. That's why I like having them turn into barbarians at the end.


Link to video.

Perhaps there should be a larger dilemma for hiring mercenaries than just the moral issue, how about the economic and military reality of the Ancient-Renaissance era's?

Consider there's a limit of how many regular units a player could have based on their total population (not number of cities) and that cities could either produce 2 buildings or a unit and a building rather than just one or the other. Then as technologies advance (lets say industrial era)

Until then, players are more dependent on mercs with advantages given to civilizations who were famous for using large merc armies (eg Carthage) and other nations with powerful early professional armies (eg Rome, Greece, Persia). In contrast other nations can get either larger limits (eg russia) or more powerful forces (germany) in the later-tech part of the game.

Click to expand...

I don't think that Mercs should be limited to a certain time period. Massive armies were made in the ancient era and there are modern nations that hire military support from other nations.

To me, the size of the military should be driven by the player's wishes, not some limit in the game's code.

(Now, if the game designers want to introduce other things in the game to nudge the player away from a huge military, that's good: economic, political, international)

Mercs should be saved saved for when a player is screwed or when wants to rent a military instead of owning one.

Supporting this could even be new social policy systems. Rather than for example just picking everything of the 'Honor' tree there could be different options the player has too choose between. (eg, do I go for larger force limit 'conscription,' more elite 'professional armies or 'volunteer army' with its boost to happiness).'
Just another social policy example for liberty (eg, choose between 'colonization' which half costs of settlers, 'representation' increasing production and trade or 'independent-thinkers' which boost great person and science output)

Click to expand...

None of those are bad options. But we need to get the social policies faster.

Note: you wouldn't be able to choose both conscription and professional armies, you'd only be able to pick one

Click to expand...

I think the Civ 4(?) method of conscription is better. Keep both professional and a conscription military- just make the conscription one weaker.

searcheagle said:

W
I don't think that Mercs should be limited to a certain time period. Massive armies were made in the ancient era and there are modern nations that hire military support from other nations.

To me, the size of the military should be driven by the player's wishes, not some limit in the game's code.

(Now, if the game designers want to introduce other things in the game to nudge the player away from a huge military, that's good: economic, political, international)

Mercs should be saved saved for when a player is screwed or when wants to rent a military instead of owning one.

None of those are bad options. But we need to get the social policies faster.

I think the Civ 4(?) method of conscription is better. Keep both professional and a conscription military- just make the conscription one weaker.

Click to expand...

I wasn't saying Mercs would be limited to a specific era, just that the players more dependent on them in the early stages of the game where large armies are hard to comeby.
Agreed, Social policies/culture should pump out faster and with more variety in social policy tree's that force you to choose between specific tenets (like the later ideology tree's of freedom, order, autocracy).

Otherwise, it makes sense for unit limits to exist based on population as its entirely unrealistic for a small civ to completely outnumber larger civs. Naturally though as you mentioned it needs to be balanced with other factors, in particular economics.

So... what if along with unit limits based on pop size there where various buildings that could increase unit limits (eg recruitment grounds) along with existing buildings which make them more professional (eg barrakcs). This ofcourse would be accompanied by expanding the variety of science, production, food, culture and gold producing buildings, forcing the players to balance their civilizations objective based on the circumstances their in.

(this ofcourse would be accompanied by the 2 building slots for units and buildings in each city and a faster rate of production because honestly, production was too slow in Civ V)