Patch Improvements

[JaydedOne]

Cainehill said:
One improvement that would really be nice : An option to _not_ have any mercenaries show up for the first 10 (or X) turns. An awful lot of Dom2 games had to use "no hiring mercenaries the first 10 turns" as a house rule, just because early game mercs could be so imbalancing.

And it's looking just the same with Dom3 : the nation that gets the first mercenaries is often getting the first three or four mercs, because of the leg up on expansion & thus gold income it gives.

The mercs are wonderful for SP games, but can add too much of a luck factor to MP : getting a full 20-60 temporary troops in place of 3-10 regular troops is a huge boost.

I can readily understand your point and might even agree. I do tend to find that the mercs really -do- make a huge difference in early expansion. That said, one balancing factor might be that the bidding system helps check this somewhat. If I put half of my starting gold towards a mercenary, I'm necessarily also gutting my magic research or my early expansion if I -don't- win the bid. Even though I get the money back, that's a turn of research I've lost or, worse, I have the cash to buy soldiers but not the resources. So that makes it less of a no-brainer to buy mercs as you may have to overpay just to be sure you don't get the shaft of not only not getting the mercs, but slowing down your growth even further by not winning.

I'm not convinced that this is -enough- balance, mind you. But it's a thought.