Hippus Mercs

[wicshade]

I think we should give the hippus the ability to sell their untis off to the guild of the nine. Then we could make it so any city with the guild of the nine can buy/hire the unit from the guild of the nine.(maybe give this unit a guild of nine promotion wich could maybe gernerate gold in the guild of nine headquarters.) Of course there are all kinds of fun things that can be implemented around this. and guild of the nine will have to spread more efficently.

 

[Shatner]

Making the Hippus Provide essentially the Guild of the Nine (Preferably offering Mounted units so as not to makethe Guild obsolete) works decently well except that the Hippus get only , not any XP. Be nice if combined with Hippus being able to spend gold to buy XP on units.

If you really want gold AND xp to flow to the Hippus Civ as a result of Hippus Mercs being hired then how about adding a Spirit Guide effect as well. Civ A hires four Hippus Mercs and uses them for whatever. Mercs 1 and 2 die in their first battle so nothing special happens (aside from the Hippus Civ getting gold when they were first hired). Merc 3 earns 25xp before being killed so a random Hippus Civ unit suddenly gains some portion of that XP, along with an informative pop-up saying "Veteran Mercenaries have returned from contracts abroad and joined this combat unit". Merc 4 earns 30xp before the contract duration ends resulting in the same pop-up and effect.

A unit which survives through it's contract should return with a portion of it's XP to bestow on some Hippus unit. It can be argued that a unit which dies during it's contract won't result in transferred xp. That actually makes more thematic sense but I honestly don't expect many Hippus Mercs to survive however many turns working for an AI. Heck, if I hired Hippus Mercs and was in a tight military position I'd make darn sure they were the cannon fodder before my own units were sacrificed. If it isn't too difficult maybe have the Hippus Merc that survives it's contract offer 1/2 it's XP to some unit while the merc that dies only grants 1/4 it's XP (fewer surviving veterans).

One last thought is, instead of just manifesting as XP for a random Hippus Unit (especially since I've seen the Spirit Guide transfer XP to workers) you could have a weaker version of the Great General (called a Veteran or something) spawn in your capital. A veteran can be assigned to a unit, granting it some amount of xp and maybe giving the unit the veteran promotion to prevent you from feeding your uber-unit a steady diet of veterans to make it uber-er. If you really want, you can also make the veteran promotion do something else like half-cost upgrades or a heal-rate increase but I don't see those effects as being strictly necessary for the desired mechanic.

And yes, Hippus Mercs should be mounted units with the Horselord promotion.

In a simple effort to simulate hiring higher caliber, veteran Hippus units you can give a recently hired Hippus Merc the "Undeployed" promotion which goes away after their first combat. A unit with said promotion has an ability where the hiring Civ can spend gold to grant the unit XP (up to some cap, maybe 30 or 50xp). All money spent goes to the Hippus Civ and the ability is only possible in town (so an undeployed Hippus Merc in the field doesn't suddenly sprout mobility promotions and escape a combat or some anti-unit type promotions like Shock when it spots enemy troops). This way it's as though the recently hired Hippus Merc was always an awesome level 5 unit with a smattering of promotions without making the actual hiring process more complicated.

How does that sound?

 

[xienwolf]

I like the undeployed idea so that the civ can basically pay more money to get a more experienced unit. And I think that the idea of having a "Returned Veteran" unit of some kind spawn in the nearest Hippus city upon the death of any Hippus merc > Level X (probably 3 or 4) could be pretty easily done.

So then, any unit that reaches end of contract or dies in battle which has managed to get up to Level 4 (or whatever) will cause a "Returned Veteran" to spawn in the Hippus lands, much like how Angels & Manes spawn, and the only use of this unit is that you can sacrafice it to grant 10 XP split amongst the stack of units it is in (like one of the options with a Great General).

Not entirely sure if you can have the gold that other Civs spend on Hippus Mercenaries transfer to the Hippus player though. But even without that influx of gold, the XP gains could be quite worthwhile to the Hippus.

 

[Shatner]

If it proves difficult to automatically add money to the Hippus treasury whenever a Hippus Merc is hired then you can have a "Contract Payment" unit spawn in the Hippus capital instead. This unit would have zero movement and no combat stats (and probably use the same skin as the Dragon Horde) and have an ability like the Great Merchent to be sacrificed to add gold to your treasury. While I'd prefer direct payment, it is a functional work around.

Aside from sacrificing itself to add XP or promotions to units, Another possible use for the Veteran unit is to have it rush build units. If the Hippus Mercs are meant to be the equivalent to Horse Archers (6 str, 120 hammers) then the Veteran could add 30 hammers to unit production (1/4 the Hippus Merc's supposed hammer value). I see no problem with having a level requirement for Hippus Mercs to spawn Veterans provided it doesn't over-complicate the actual implementation.

As a bit of an aside, I'd like it if there was a Mercenary event that'd trigger whenever a war started (perhaps after the Guild of Nine was founded but not requiring the Guild of Nine in the Civ's cities). The event would go something like this and should have a chance to be offered to all warring civs (mercenaries aren't picky, after all):

In response to the recent call to war, a band of mercenaries are offering their services for a price:
Option 1: "Fah, we have no need for their kind." Nothing happens
Option 2: "We can use a sell-sword. Do you take cash or check?" Subtracts 120 gold from the treasury, a Mercenary unit spawns in the Civ's capital.
Option 3: "We'll take two. I hope you're worth the price." Subtracts 240 gold from the treasury, two Mercenary units spawn in the Civ's capital.
Option 4: "Is there a discount for buying in bulk because we'll take the whole lot!" Subtracts 480 gold from the treasury, four Mercenary units spawn in the civ's capital.

This would serve as a way to get the Guild of Nine spread to your cities if you didn't manage to found it (a sorely needed mechanic, in my opinion). A slightly reworded version of the event could instead offer Hippus Mercenaries; just make sure it isn't offered to a Civ that should be unable to hire Hippus Mercs in the first place. Since the event is random and since Hippus Mercs would already be available to the Civ anyway, I'd have the event offer the units at a discount (20% cheaper or something) to make it better than simply hiring the Hippus Mercs manually.

 

[it-ogo]

The general problem of most easy-to-implement modifications is that they don't worth even those small efforts.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Spawning a unit in the Hippus Capital would probably be more complicated than changing the amount of gold, not less.

One complication I do see is what would happen if there are 2 Hippus civs in the game at once.

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

And this brings us back to making it just a resource that only the Hippus have. One they would be willing to sell at a reasonably high price granting the other civ a Cheep unit with unique abilities. Though I like many of the other ideas here MUCH more than my own...

Spawning a unit in the Hippus Capital would probably be more complicated than changing the amount of gold, not less.

One complication I do see is what would happen if there are 2 Hippus civs in the game at once.

 

[it-ogo]

And this brings us back to making it just a resource that only the Hippus have. One they would be willing to sell at a reasonably high price granting the other civ a Cheep unit with unique abilities. Though I like many of the other ideas here MUCH more than my own...

Yours one is the best easily implementable one. Special unit with special resource.

I like it as following: rather weak but very cheap national unit (number is considered) with only prereq of resource. Nice to make it disbanded when resource is lost. But at least we can make str 0+4 resource affinity. Or can not?

 

[Shatner]

Yeah, I don't have any ideas on how to handle multiple Hippus Civs when you have cash and/or units flowing their way. Is it possible to have two Mercurian or Infernal civs (with unlocked leaders so you can have Cardith of the Mercurians AND Sabathiel of the Mercurians simultaneously)? If so, what happens when Manes and Angels are spawned? I'm inclined to call that an unlikely edge case and hope for the best.

Near as I can tell, the mercenary resource has 3 inherent advantages over other implementations:
1) It has a very clear conditional indicating whether Civ A can hire mercs from Hippus. Either the Hippus civ has traded Civ A the mercenary resource or it hasn't; it allows the Hippus Civ to explicitly pick who is contracting their mercs. It also makes removing that privilege easy because you can just cancel the deal and it's automatically revoked if Civ A declares war on Hippus.

2) It is very, very simple to implement, more so than any other suggestion I've read so far. The AI innately understand how to handle resource trading and unit building, meaning the AI will actually build Mercenary units without any special AI tweaks. I especially like It-Ogo's affinity idea to prevent any legacy mercs from being effective.

3) It actually has an answer to MagisterCultuum "multiple Hippus civs" concern


However, I see several shortcomings to this implementation:
1) I've never been happy with the AI's willingness to trade strategic resources, or the monetary value the AI places on imported strategic resources. If Hippus is AI controlled I imagine the player would have to badger the mercenary resource out of them. It would also make trading this resource more influenced by diplomacy than I think is accurate; a lot of the flavor text shows the Hippus to be very willing to deal with just about anyone but the AI is reluctant to trade strategic resources to anyone but close allies. If the player was Hippus and offered to trade the resource to the AI I don't imagine they'd get much for it (a small lump of gold or a tiny trickle of gold/turn).

2) Once Civ A had the resource they'd have to BUILD the mercenaries. That undercuts the primary advantage to mercenaries: instantly converting cash into units without disrupting your city build-queue.

3) Either the Hippus only have one instance of the Mercenary Resource or they don't. If they only have one then they can only offer mercs to one civ at a time, meaning less money and you can't play both sides or do any of the other role-playing behavior we associate with a mercenary civ. If they have many then the Mercs need to not have affinity. Otherwise the Hippus would just build their own super-affinitied mercs instead of trading any of it away. Even if you made the Hippus Mercs unbuildable to for Hippus, if you vassalized Hippus you can demand all their Mercenary resources, allowing you to have super-mercs.


I think there is room for some feasible hybrid implementations between the Mercenary Resource schema and the "Hire Hippus Merc Button" schema. You could have the "Hire Hippus Mercenary" ability require the Mercenary resource in the same way the Fire 1 promotion requires Fire mana. You could have recently built Mercenary units have the "Undeployed" promotion allowing them to gain XP for gold. Or not.

If someone can propose solid solutions to the Mercenary Resource problems then I'd get behind it. As it stands now, I'm not sold on it.

 

[xienwolf]

Using it as a resource, I suppose you could create a unit buildable by anyone with no pre-req EXCEPT the Merc resource, with a build cost of 1 (and make it a National Unit, or otherwise limited access number), that way it only minimally interrupts the production of other things. Or make a spell which is only castable in a town with access to the Merc resource which will hire a Hippus Merc. And of course Hippus themselves would not be able to access this unit.


I think that having the Hippus able to build a UB at a fairly early tech (Stirrups or Horseback Riding) which provides them with a single Merc resource is a good approach. Then they can trade off 1 for each city they have built, so it is limited, but not TOO limited, and they will be able to always have access to the resource without having to find it on the map.

Leaders are set to a certain threshold for when they will be willing to trade with you based off the Pleased/Annoyed/whatever attitude marks. I am not sure if you could use Python to hard-code around this since that is all established only in XML, but it sounds possible. In that case, you allow the AI to trade Merc resource at ANY attitude level (as long as they are willing to communicate of course), AND you hard code it so that they value the merc resource at 5 gold per turn (or some appropriate value).

Then, the AI will offer you 5 Gold per Turn to grant them Merc's if you are playing as Hippus, but if you counter offer with almost anything else they will consider the Merc resource equal to you offering 5 GPT.

I do believe that having the Merc units be STR 0 + X Merc Affinity is the perfect solution, because then you cannot just build your Merc units and then cancel the trade (and thus stop paying for them) without loss of the units. And that way if you manage to acquire multiple merc Resources, you get better Mercs.

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

I couldnt stand it any longer so i went and did my lil mod mod so that the big baby that I am could stop crying and get my way


http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=281524

 

[smusebaer]

What about a spell "Hire Merc" for other civics units that share the same space with an Hippus merc. Cast spell, pay money and get merc. Hippus gains the money, and Hippus units don´t have the spell...

 

[DirtyFinger]

How about this:

Hippus get a couple of new traits:
* New missionary unit that can found Hippus Mercenary Guild in foreign cities. Works like spreading religions.
* New promotion: Mercenary. Mercenary units can be sold/rented to buying civilization. If that unit dies, it's XP (or a certain percentage) will be distributed amongst all other mercenary units. This represents surviving members of a mercenary unit finding new employment.
* New ability: Accept contract, Mercenary units may use this ability to sell it's services to a bidder of their choice. If no one wants a merc, the spell is greyed out.
- or -
* Trade item: Mercs can be traded like any other resources for a minimum of 10 rounds.

 

[rocklikeafool]

Can't you do that in Rhye's? I don't see why it wouldn't work for FFH. Besides, it would give those lazy soldiers something to do when I'm not smiting my foes, or chasing away endless waves of barbarians.......

In Dragonia 2, we have a mercenary system available to all civs. It's certainly doable.

 

[rocklikeafool]

How about this:

Hippus get a couple of new traits:
* New missionary unit that can found Hippus Mercenary Guild in foreign cities. Works like spreading religions.
* New promotion: Mercenary. Mercenary units can be sold/rented to buying civilization. If that unit dies, it's XP (or a certain percentage) will be distributed amongst all other mercenary units. This represents surviving members of a mercenary unit finding new employment.
* New ability: Accept contract, Mercenary units may use this ability to sell it's services to a bidder of their choice. If no one wants a merc, the spell is greyed out.
- or -
* Trade item: Mercs can be traded like any other resources for a minimum of 10 rounds.

I think the trade item or the Dragonia 2 system is a better idea than your first idea. DL D2 here, http://diabolicstudios.net/default.aspx, to see wat I mean by the D2 merc system.

 

[Crazy_Ivan]

I have a suggestion.

The Hippus recieve a missionary-like unit after they research currency. It spreads the Guild of the Nine. Any Hippus unit in a non-hippus city with the GotN gets an ability that gifts it over to the civ that owns the city for a random number of turns (ex. a table of 5-25). The hippus player recieves an ammount of gold per turn that is randomly determined when the power is cast.

When the turns run out or the unit is disbanded, the hippus player gets the unit back at their capitol, plus any xp and promotions it earned while abroad. However, if the Merc dies, it dies. (I suppose, if there isnt any differance between disbanding and dieing, then just replace the disband order with a 'fire' order, like how unit disbanding is disabled during Gibbon Goetia's spell.)

To prevent something along the lines of a Hippus player raising a massive army and pawning off masses of cheap/useless fodderc in a friendly city, cities that recruit hippus mercenaries suffer a maintnence increase, and a crime increase (or culture decrease), possibly cumulative per active merc. To prevent a Human Hippus player from simply beating the hell out of the AI with this, attach a random % chance that ever time a city recruits a Hippus merc a relations damaging event occurs.

I can't say how hard this would be to code, but from what I know, it seems like it would be possible.

 

[rocklikeafool]

Well, ya know, there is a modmod (created by Avahz_Darkwood) now for this. So, I think this discussion has lost of a lot of its punch. The merc problem now has a solution. If y'll don't like it, make your own modmod. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=281524. It's a Hippus flavor mod that uses mercs as a resource.

 

[Crazy_Ivan]

Just because someone creates a modmod doesn't mean that all discussion of ideas must cease.

(unless it's Magister Cultuum's modmod)

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Just a thought, regarding how hiring mercs could work. This might have been suggested before or obsoleted by some other post that I missed, but it's an extension of the 'Available for hire' mechanic proposed earlier.

Hippus units get a spell that grants an 'Available for hire' promotion, which allows other units belonging to any player on the same tile to cast a 'Hire Hippus Mercenary' spell that costs some gold and converts one available unit to them. Once hired, the unit gets a 'Hippus Mercenary' spell that allows it to cast 'Dissolve contract' or whatever to return the unit to the Hippus, as well as allowing any Hippus units on the tile to cast it. That way, Hippus make the decision to make a unit available, hiring civ makes the decision to hire, and either civ can make the decision to return the unit to the Hippus.

 

[rocklikeafool]

Just because someone creates a modmod doesn't mean that all discussion of ideas must cease.

(unless it's Magister Cultuum's modmod)

I didn't say it should cease. I was jus pointin out there was one solution. But there certainly could be more.