[SelfishGene]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
Are you sure about this? I've found the AI to bid rather aggressively on merc contracts, and most of them are already hired before the price drops to a range that's reasonable. Not so in any of the MP games I've found: Most of the time, the mercs go unhired for a few turns, which drops their prices into bargain-basement levels.

I hire mercs as soon as they come on the market whatever their initial asking price, partly because if you wait the AI will indeed hire them up. AI tends to bid, as far as i can tell, about 1 over the current bid. So if a Merc company wants 400, and you bid 400, you'll almost always lose the bid (and likewise for rehiring). But the AI never really competes with you for a contract, thus my comment. If rampaging an AI with merc armies it won't bid 500-600$ for a 400$ contract to steal them from your service, something a human player is likely to do.

As long as your bid is 3-5% over asking price, you always seem to take the bid. In my current PBeM game mercs tend to have been bid upon rather competitively; one bid i made that was 100 over asking failed. Bidding is harsh in multi because your money may not be working for you if the bid fails, where instead you could be more dependably hiring casters or units, and the whole games' pace feels more pressing. Whereas with the AI your bid is assured if a bid is within the range above (at least at Normal and below).

[ March 12, 2004, 00:50: Message edited by: SelfishGene ]