Hippus Mercs

[orangelex44]

I was playing a Hippus game a while back (I know, I must be the only person who EVER plays as them) and I was wondering: How come the Hippus aren't actually able to act as the mercs the Civilopedia makes them out to be?

They can't "hire out" specific units. They are punished just as much as anyone else when someone asks them to go to war. The only relationship between the Hippus and mercs is that they can HIRE them more easily, which seems a little backward.

 

[Darksaber1]

There is a modmod based on this, and this has been a point of pondering for quite some time. I my self sometimes wonder on this.

 

[Grey Fox]

It would be nice if they could sell their units in diplomacy. Another mod has already proven this is possible. Only problem is the AI can't handle it unless you write some AI code for it, but that might be easier than I think. (Although, I could see this being exploited by creating cheap mercs and selling them full price, but maybe they should be able to do that?)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I concur.

There is a lot of stuff from Dom Pedro II's Conquerors' Delight modcomp that I think we should borrow.

If nothing else, you could just program the AI not to accept trades for units, only accept them as gifts. (That would be much better than how it is now, where a Furious AI will gladly gift you his entire army.) The unit brokering would be left mostly to the humans.

 

[orangelex44]

How about if the Hippus only had half the negative diplomacy for going to war? I mean, if they fight everyone, everyone knows its not personal. Its just a job.

Doesn't Rhye's have some kind of mercenary deal? Or am I just hallucinating? (I haven't played it in a year or so)

Would it be possible to set a turn limit per unit? So that after 20 turns or something, control returns to the Hippus - with the unit possibly dead, but with more exp. That would be cool, even if its impossible to execute.

 

[westamastaflash]

I'm working on a "mercenary" mod, but it's closer to just changing how mercenaries are hired. I looked at Rhye's changes (it's actually TheLopez' merc modcomp) but my thinking was that hiring units out takes too much micromanagement. Instead I'm just making a screen that appears when you want to hire a mercenary and poof, there it is. I think my plan is to give the Hippus cheaper mercenaries.

 

[orangelex44]

But see, that's the point. Why should the Hippus GET mercs cheaper when, in reality, they ARE mercs.

 

[westamastaflash]

But see, that's the point. Why should the Hippus GET mercs cheaper when, in reality, they ARE mercs.

True. But Tasunke is incredibly easy to bribe into a war :-D

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Way I figure it based on Rhoanna's story, Rhoanna and Tasunke want to lead a full fledged nation instead of leaving the Hippus as a bunch of scattered, nomadic mercenary tribes. You play as the fruits of their labor. What they can buy from the guild of the nine is Hippus riders attached to the old ways. Old school, badass mounted mercenaries, only with modern equipment.

 

[Darksaber1]

Well, I think it was actually Rhoanna who suggested they hire themselves out as Mercinaries, so as to give the Hippus an export everyone wants, while letting Tasunke and the other major cheifs keep their warrior ways.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

My thoughts on a merc mechanic: An ability any hippus unit can cast in another civs lands that gives them a promotion causing all other players to treat them as if they belonged to that player. So Hippus could participate in any wars in which they were friendly enough with one side to have open borders, without getting the penalty for declaring war with either side. Any cities those units captured would go to the civ they were working as, and they could only lose this promotion (and thus be immune from counter attack) in their own lands.

I don't think this would actually be good because it would be easy to exploit--work both sides, eliminating every unit in two civs without declaring war, then declare war and roll in to take over.

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

Or set it up where they will alway accept a call to war (though diplomacy) with another civ for a price (this price can increase based on their current status but never redded *is that a word* / commented out (we have our hands full). And only apply a diplo penalty for razing cities (no penalty for war or bringing ally into war). The biggest issue with this is if they are vassals of another empire, but I think this would already taken care of because only the master empire can declare or accept war proposals.

 

[orangelex44]

My thoughts on a merc mechanic: An ability any hippus unit can cast in another civs lands that gives them a promotion causing all other players to treat them as if they belonged to that player. So Hippus could participate in any wars in which they were friendly enough with one side to have open borders, without getting the penalty for declaring war with either side. Any cities those units captured would go to the civ they were working as, and they could only lose this promotion (and thus be immune from counter attack) in their own lands.

I like this... although I do see your point about the exploit. What if you couldn't attack cities directly while using that promotion? Somehow, I don't see the Hippus hiring out for long seige battles.

The promotion could add a $$$ bonus per unit destroyed, like Pirates have.

 

[Skitters]

One issue - if hiring the hippus as mercenaries and one of their units captures a city, then presumably it would become a hippus city (or upto the Hippus civ if it is raised).

As such, I think hiring them should be on a per unit basis rather than as a nation, with the unit switching allegiance to the hiring nation for a given number of turns.

If it would be possible to have a turn timer on a unit, perhaps you could have the following process;

Diplomacy with Hippus
Merc(s) for hire
We'd like to hire [x] number of Mercs for [5/10/20] turns (perhaps cost decreases for each unit hired, the number of turns. There may be a slight discount if good relations with Hippus, but a heavy extra cost if there are bad relations with the Hippus)
Select (own) city the Mercs are to arrive at.

Would presumably would need a selection of units that are available for hire.

The counter then begins the turn after it has arrived and fully healed at the selected city (unit cannot be activated by the receiving player until it reaches the destination city)

Once the counter has ticked to selected number of turns, there would be an option to hire again for 5/10/15/20 turns. This would be at a premium.

Hippus mercs would have no maintenance costs (that has been paid up front), but if a unit dies in an attack where it's chances to win are perhaps below 50% there could be a compensation cost?

By having a by unit mechanic it would allow two (or more) nations at war with each other to both use Hippus mercs - so perhaps the units would refuse to engage another Hippus merc.

 

[Darksaber1]

I tend to imagine the Hippus fallowing 17-18 century mercanary laws, whereby you can fight anyone exept your home nation.

 

[avalonnn]

My thoughts on a merc mechanic: An ability any hippus unit can cast in another civs lands that gives them a promotion causing all other players to treat them as if they belonged to that player. So Hippus could participate in any wars in which they were friendly enough with one side to have open borders, without getting the penalty for declaring war with either side. Any cities those units captured would go to the civ they were working as, and they could only lose this promotion (and thus be immune from counter attack) in their own lands.

I don't think this would actually be good because it would be easy to exploit--work both sides, eliminating every unit in two civs without declaring war, then declare war and roll in to take over.

It's my impression that, historically, mercenaries drew the most dangerous tasks, so why not make a "on loan" promotion that adds the ability you describe here plus, say, the defender promotion so that in any stack with a merc in it, the merc gets attacked first, or any of several other penalties.

Would it be possible to transfer control of a unit for, say, 10 turns and then have control revert back? Could be a temporary promotion. This, too, could be exploited. Unless you somehow cast the "escape" spell when the loan ends, the temporarily loaned units might end up somewhere that the Hippus otherwise could not reach. Instead, it would be ideal that mercs returning from service show up at the capital, I think.

Even more complex -- have Hippus "deliver" mercs to the hiring nation's territory (or capital) within x turns or contract expires.

[tangent -- as to playing Hippus, they are very good as an AV civ with raiders, and have a great late game hero. I played a game where I got the AC to c. 90 -- the first three avatars landed near Basium, but the Avatar of Wrath landed adjacent to my Nexus and spawned 30 - 50 units in my territory. Luckily I was able to build Meshabber with a lot of saved gold -- I would never have tried to save that much gold had I never played Khazad -- in summary, Hippus provide an interesting warmonger alternative style of play.]

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I really think that someone should implement something like in Dom Pedro II's Conqueror's Delight Modcomp, where each unit has a nationality and a city or origin. Them, you could add spells that would let you trade them away (or maybe go ahead and implement that modcomp's unit trading ability) and get it back latter, and make it so that units can be "contracted out," i.e., given a limited duration and made to revert back to their original owner when the duration runs out. (Using the duration mechanism would also mean tat these mercenary units would cause no war weariness.) A spell like Loyalty then could be made to make units return to their original civ rather than giving a promotion that kills those that are captured.

It would also be nice if units were set to be unable to attack their original civ, even when under another civ's control.

 

[orangelex44]

[tangent -- as to playing Hippus, they are very good as an AV civ with raiders, and have a great late game hero. I played a game where I got the AC to c. 90 -- the first three avatars landed near Basium, but the Avatar of Wrath landed adjacent to my Nexus and spawned 30 - 50 units in my territory. Luckily I was able to build Meshabber with a lot of saved gold -- I would never have tried to save that much gold had I never played Khazad -- in summary, Hippus provide an interesting warmonger alternative style of play.]

Oh, I know - I just switched to Khazad for my last game. I started out thinking "oh, they must suck, you lose too much research"... but boy, was I wrong. They are really fun to play... plus, having 5 Earth mana is awesome beyond belief. I had TWO Gunpowder spawn in one city, and two turns after I discover Mithril Working I get a Mithril spawn.

More to the point on hand, it seems that I started more of a discussion than I expected. My two cents: I think it'd be a lot easier to work out a good merc system with spells/promotions, but having unit ownership seems like a cooler idea.