Mercenary Idea
 

Im new to the forums, so I don't know if this idea has been posted. (My Posts go with stories usually.) I was playing as Man, with AI opponents Marignon, Jotunheim, Ermor and Pangaea. They all started some world war, and excluded me... I was running low on cash because I was beefing up my army, incase they all decided they needed new meat to pick on, but they never declared... at turt 33 I had a huge army and squat for income because of upkeep, so I got this idea 'bout mercs.

The idea is sending out you're exess military units for mercenary duty, like... erm, making them available to other nation's use. I also think a portion of the regiments' income should/would come back to the nation who put them up for service. (And have them come back after maybe a year's work, all with experience and some long tales to tell the children. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

I think Ermor Soul-Gate might abuse this, though, since money is extremely valuable during the Soul-Gate dominion. Making forts with limmited income (Most I've ever gotten is 490 a turn) and temples is extremely hard. Having 70 units and a great leader that you can ship off for 1000 net income would be insane.

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

Tack some expenses onto the renting of mercenaries (expenses billed to the "seller" of the mercs), and it might work and be less abusable; a per-unit cost of shipping them to the designated province (size dependant?), upkeep for the time away, a flat announcement fee, and perhaps a few other restirctions - e.g., the contract is for 3 months, but they are gone for 4-7 months (initial month to announce, stay available for 3 months if not hired, contract for three months = 4-7 months), and restrict the AI's so they don't hire player's mercs. Charge these expenses up front, regardless of whether or not the mercs get hired (they still had to announce themselves, arrange potential travel, get paid while they were away, et cetera). You can then set the price based on how much it costs you to hire them out. It wouldn't be very abuseable; few people are going to hire troops for much more than their upkeep costs would be if they could make them themselves (unless they are desperate); no-upkeep units, while not having the assossiated mantenence costs, still cost the full amount to transport - and they are usually either disposeable cannon fodder or have an expensive initial cost - cannon fodder nobody will pay much for, and something with a high initial cost is expensive to replace if your opponent sends them on a suicide mission the Last month of the contract. Moreover, running a mercenary company becomes risky buisness; if nobody hires your mercs, you lose money.

Of course, this is probably way too involved to be implemented for Dom II - III maybe.

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

I really like the idea, as this would open up much more options for diplomacy:

Your friend is under attack? Make some of your troops serve as mercs for him under his command. (One should be able to restrict the allowed bidders.) If he is your friend, he will certainly give you the troops back... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I'm not sure if payment has to be made as much complicated as described below, though, but paying upkeep for your troops while they are away is certainly a necessity...

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Why? If the AI never lends mercs nor hire mercs from human players, then I dont see that much problems:

To clear things: I assume that you can only lend a single commander per bid with the troops under his current command, which cannot be altered by the employer as usual for mercs, so mixing up national troops within squads is still not possible. I would also assume that routing mercs are killed as usual, regardless where they come from. They are in foreign lands, with a foreign tongue and their trusted leader is gone, so they wont be able to return home, bla.
So, for short, I assume that all merc-band are usabel for the employer in exactly the same way, regardless whether they are independent mercs or human sent.

I agree that access to foreign mages is certainly a big boon, but so is sending masses of money, gems and items, which is already allowed. After all, players have to agree upon a price and the lender of the mercs still has to pay their upkeep (maybe increased by some percentage)!

Maybe one should place a limit on the number of bands a player may lend, and prohibit the lending of sacred troops, but otherwise I dream of the diplomatic options this would bring: Sending mercs to aid someone else; or to encourage someone to threaten your current opressor, sending them for fame & money; suddenly not sending them again after their 3 month contract is over; etc.! Fun!

PS: I guess returning mercs should always return to the captial, no matter what, for simplicity.

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

PS: I think that using the merc-mechanism as it is already implemented offers a quick way to enable all the allied-diplomacy whishes that have been discussed here on this forum!

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

It's a neat idea. I'm not sure what all the uses and abuses might be that might need considering.

So the company would be offered to a single foreign nation, rather than appearing on the international merc market?

If available to all, or even if not, I would expect to see some players making some sub-par Groups: "Bubba's Cripple Corps" (I can see people using this to get their crippled units killed off more easily), or "Zokko's Boobytrapped Brigade" (with Bane Venom Charm and plague aura troops). Still sounds rather amusing. A lot of potential fun.

PvK

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The actual independent Mercs also demand different prices from different employers (ever tried to hire Orion for Marignon? - thats the one I noticed for sure so far), so I guess players should be able to define price multipliers for each other nation as well - or simply a switch allowing or disallowing a nation in the bidding contest.

The more I think about it, the more I like this idea! PvK's Bobbytrapped Brigade is pretty cool! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

Well, that one you can already create by giving to one of your mercs leader the item ... and don't hire them anymore and hope someone else will recruit them.

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The problem with the only expense being upkeep, or some multiple of upkeep, is that Ashen Empire or Soul Gate Eremor(sp?) (not sure if pangea's Carrion Woods gets free commanders) gets free 0-upkeep units and commanders - it wouldn't be a gamble for them; it would be pure revenue to a nation that is designed around not having much revenue available at all (due to pop-killing dominion). Other expenses are necessary to keep the change from forcing SG and AE Eremor from needing rebalancing.

As for boobytrapped brigades, the fix would be to flag what nation the mercs are from - that way, you could only do so *once* (perhaps per player and/or per game, but still, a sharply limited number of times) after which the other players would simply refuse to hire your mercs (would you shop again at a store that deliberately sold you flawed merchandise?). Added to additional expenses for hiring out troops, it makes boobytrapped brigades a bad idea most of the time - they cost you money in the long run (can't hire them out more than a couple times, and you don't necessarilly find out about not being able to hire them out anymore until after you have gone to the expense of trying a few times).

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

If we accept the suggestion that the AI won't ever hire other nations' mercenaries, it seems like this would just give Ermor something else to trade other humans for gold, besides gems, items, info, and diplomatic deals. If the other players don't want to buy Ermorian mercenaries, they wouldn't have to. Meanwhile, they would offer unique value to other players (e.g. Nergash can currently sweep indie aquatics if given water-breathing).

Some additional fee probably does make sense though.

So far I don't see any real or new problems with Boobytrap Brigades.

How about the "free teleportation" issue? It would allow an alliance to rapidly deploy forces faster than they otherwise could, because of the usual need to march to a location. Cost to the provider could be based on distance travelled... or there could be a delay for them actually arrive based on the actual travel time it would have required, during which maintenance is still paid. Hmm.

PvK

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

It's not free teleportation - it's fee teleportation (or at least, it is with my suggestion). Some fee per unit (counting the commander as a unit) - perhaps 1/2 gold per size per unit - would deal with it - that brigade of 50 machaka spiders, led by a spider (size 6, weren't they?) is going to cost (51 * 6 * 1/2) = 153 gold (plus other expenses - the announcement fee and maintenence times some factor) - if you assume there is some amount of a magic economy hiding in the game (somebody is training those mages most nations hire, after all), it isn't unreasonable to assume that there is a teleportation section of the mercenaries' guild that is willing to teleport your units around for a fee when you hire them out as mercs - it would explain the default merc's ability to do so, and be somewhat thematic.

For living nations, a movement fee of 1/2 per size (similar to supply) is likely to be negligable compared to the maintenence over the designated time frame - 50 cost-10 archers cost 50 gold to move, but (10 * 1/15 * 7 * 50) = 233.33333333333 gold to maintain for 7 turns (and 500 to replace). For SG or AE Ermor, with no maintenence costs but little in the way of revenue, that same 50 gold transportation is expensive, even without the maintenence - and is moving nothing but cheap cannon fodder. Yeah, it could make alliances much stronger - but it isn't free teleportation - just gem free teleportation.

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

The more amusing thing with booby-trapped brigades is doing it in REVERSE:

Instead of trying to get your booby-trapped brigade hired, hire somebody else's....and then let it take home a booby-trapped bonus prize. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

I believe this could mess up National balance a lot.

But if Diplomacy is enhanced, it should be a good idea to be able to dispatch troops (moving in map however) in the ally territory without occupying them, and fighting alongside you ally armies, but they're always in your command.

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

Nice.

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

Heh, perhaps it would be smart to disable the mercenarie's ability to gain items etc while hes working. That would solve alot of the booby problems, though I would love to use them before they get patched over. Were it to actually be impletemented.

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

Good point, but rather than disabling mercs aquiring items, just tell the player renting them out who rented them - it could go something like:

Turn X: you (Pangea) set commander Jimbob's orders to "Turn Merc", don't accept from Ermor or Machaka (at war with them); for an immediate cost of 300 gold.

Turn X+1:you get a message: "Jimbob has contacted the mercenaries guild, and his availablility has been posted."

Turn X+2: you get a message: "Jimbob was hired by Abyssa for 450 gold" at which point you get the money (for a 150 net profit, so far - combat losses not yet tallied).

Turn X+6: Jimbob returns and you get a message "Jimbob has returned to the capitol after fighting for Abyssa"
You check Jimbob - he now has a bane venom charm, and is consequently diseased (and diseasing your capital!) (you maybe got a virulent disease message too).
Turn X+7: Everbody (except Abyssa (did the trapping), Machaka, Ermor (at war with them - let them find out about Abyssa's betrayl the hard way), and Pangea(you)) gets a message from you: "Abyssa just stuck my merc Jimbob with a bane venom charm while he was renting him!"
Turn X+12: Abyssa realizes that nobody except Machaka and Ermor has been offering him mercs for the past several turns....

Of course - heaven forbid - if this kind of thing happened reasonably often, someone might lie to gain advantage over another player who didn't do any such thing.

Likewise, only commanders from living nations can be so boobytrapped.

With such a measure, it would be a trick you could get away with a few times before nobody would offer you mercs anymore. After which you would be at a disadvantage if ever you need a bunch of troops fast, as you can't hire player-mercs. A little display of who is involved to the involved parties (quite reasonable, no?), and you get a "prisoner's dilemma" situation that renders trapping mercs a strategy that isn't long-term beneficial.

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

The other catch: It is in no way PROFITABLE to *EVER* rent out most mercenary units!

If you look over the prices of most mercenary companies, for instance, you'd quickly notice that the rate at which they are priced is actually UNPROFITABLE: Their basic cost is far below what the actual units tend to be worth.

Given that the fate of most mercenary units is to return either with only the commander, or not return at all, it is very difficult to explain how any but a few select nations with free troops can possibly stand to benefit from offering an actual mercenary company up for sale (other than Bubba's Cripple Corps).

If nations that the merc will be offered to can then be restricted, then what we have here is actually a far simpler arrangement: Now that we've divorced ourselves of any real concept of this being a PROFITABLE line of work, the real reason manifests itself: To give specific commanders, usually mages, to the service of a presumably allied nation.

So isn't this what we *REALLY* want, and what this feature would be abused for, if implemented?

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Depens upon the price, doesnt it?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sure! Either give them away to allies or to the neighbors of your enemies, so that your mages can attack him where your enemy doesnt expect them to do.

I guess this would truly make it into a global war scenario, requirering much more diplomacy to win a game...

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Why should you already give up if you see that a competitor is stonger than you are? Use diplomacy and try to make someonelse wage war first and then, when both combatants are weak, wreak havoc upon both...

I guess only Ermor might win entierly on its own. Everybody else has to make some alliances. The questions is when the right time has come to quit this alliances (and I dont necessarily mean by foul treason).

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

Situational alliance is one thing. Another in which you send your elite units and/or your best mages to work for another nation, so that they will both be stronger when you finally are ready to take on him and their weaknesses in magic are patched with booster items or the actual mage is totally different.

edited the end, added some words.

[ June 18, 2004, 14:50: Message edited by: Endoperez ]

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

Ive had MP Dom2 games where giving commanders to each other has been an important thing in the way the game went. And even some games where the selling of commanders to everyone in the game was a money-market for one player.

Ive also seen games where people mercenaried their armys.

So Im not sure what the mercenary thing suggested here is supposed to add. Renting your commanders/troops then getting them back doesnt seem to add to the game. It only seems to provide free transport, full control of your troops under the other player, and free transport back. And everyone seems to be pointing out the problems those things would cause

Re: Mercenary Idea
 

How diplomatic can rivals be? This is a game about GODS (well, almost) going around to kill all other beings strong enough to claim for godhood, and in what situation would they make an alliance? I haven't seen anyone give a reason that would be big enough to change this and allow alliances in the game.