Mercenaries rebalancing

[Atomiswave]

Does ep team plan to reabalance mercenaries? In current state some are GREAT, and some are total crap.

[Durokan]

Judging by their current policies of minimal changes; no. This is not an official statement of course, but it seems a little far out for how conservative the team has been so far.

I agree that it would be cool for the game but it doesn't seem very high up on the priority list for the team.

[lesllamas]

I think it would be kind of cool if they buffed units like corsairs, arsonists, landsknechts maybe, and elmetis. I'm of the opinion that pieces of the game that are never used should absolutely be looked at as opportunities to add variety to the competitive landscape.

[lesllamas]

I think giving Fusiliers a cost and range buff, for example, would make them extremely decent options for civs like Dutch. 5.5 speed, 70 ranged x 1.5 vs ranged cav, but they only have 12 range and cost 300 coin (while highlanders cost 200) from the saloon. I would definitely buy a 14 range version of that unit for 200 coin. The limiting factor would be the amount of coin on the map, which is a very real concern.

[zoom]

Apart from Elmeti not needing a buff. I completely agree with you lesllamer, but unfortunately it's not within the scope of the patch at this time. Hopefully it will be in the future.

[Atomiswave]

I think it would be kind of cool if they buffed units like corsairs, arsonists, landsknechts maybe, and elmetis. I'm of the opinion that pieces of the game that are never used should absolutely be looked at as opportunities to add variety to the competitive landscape.

My thoughts exactly, especially when it comes to card mercs. Some civs have great options, some bad or not so good.

[forgrin]

There are some mercs that are good already, like Black Riders/Jaegars/Manchu/Mams. The main issue is that some mercs are just bad unit types in Fortress, like Ronin, but are quite decent stat-wise. These just need some buffs to make them more viable, like higher speed. Other units like highlanders are really good, just lose to skirms. Others, like corsair's etc, just have crap stats for their cost on top of the unit type issues.

Remedy: make some smaller merc cards available in Colonial (like 4-5 highlanders for 500g etc). Improve the speed of the halb-like mercs to make them more viable in Fortress.

BTW, play around with Ronin in scenario vs sowars, it's hilarious (spoiler, 5 Ronin beat like 70-80 sowar handily).

[momuuu]

Viable mercenaries are nothing but problematic. Civs are designed in a way that they are balanced with the tools at their proposal. If you give them acces to better tools that might completely destroy any existing balance. For example, germany is designed around having shitty anticav (ww are really meh). Itd be quite gamebreaking if they could consistently get a good anticav unit in the saloon.

[Kaiserklein]

Does ep team plan to reabalance mercenaries? In current state some are GREAT, and some are total crap.

Let's make children together plz. You can even be the male

I think it would be kind of cool if they buffed units like corsairs, arsonists, landsknechts maybe, and elmetis. I'm of the opinion that pieces of the game that are never used should absolutely be looked at as opportunities to add variety to the competitive landscape.

Elmetis are really good stats wise, just useless because available only in industrial. If I can choose between elmetis and mams, I would prod elmetis all day, seeing their stats.
Corsairs are also really good as a rodelero, they shouldn't be better than that. The problem is just hand infantry being crap overall because of musks, skirms and goons (with proper kiting) being really strong units.

Viable mercenaries are nothing but problematic. Civs are designed in a way that they are balanced with the tools at their proposal. If you give them acces to better tools that might completely destroy any existing balance. For example, germany is designed around having shitty anticav (ww are really meh). Itd be quite gamebreaking if they could consistently get a good anticav unit in the saloon.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Nobody said we had to get fixed mercs in the saloon in this thread right ? They just want bad mercs to be buffed. There is absolutely no way germany gets better anti cav than right now from saloon : manchus are OP and black riders are almost as good, so they won't be buffed ; highlanders are very good too so they won't be buffed either. The only anti cav units from saloon that could (very) arguably be buffed are corsairs and swiss pikes, but realistically people still wouldn't make them because they are hand infantry in fortress. So I can't see germany getting op anti cav for example.

And it's true for more or less any civ, because the mercs that could be buffed are lansknechts / swiss pikes / corsairs (hand inf), arsonists (grens), ninjas (spy), fusiliers / Lil bombard (age 4 mercs) => all useless units anyway. So buffing those shitty mercs wouldn't really matter tbh

[lemmings121]

Just let the player know at the start of every game witch mercs are in the saloon in this specif game... that would already be huge, since you could do a build order/game plan, intending on going for saloon/monastery mercs as part of that...

the way it is now is just "fuck, I have no hunts, better build a saloon and do whatever is there.."

[Einfein]

Viable mercenaries are nothing but problematic. Civs are designed in a way that they are balanced with the tools at their proposal. If you give them acces to better tools that might completely destroy any existing balance. For example, germany is designed around having shitty anticav (ww are really meh). Itd be quite gamebreaking if they could consistently get a good anticav unit in the saloon.

I agree with most of this, but was thinking that perhaps instead of buffing certain mercs, just adjusting their coin cost (I'm speaking about card mercs) might make them a more intriguing option? I realize that mercs cost 1000g for a reason, but some are clearly not worth that much. Bringing the cost down on specific mercenary card might make them viable despite having the same stats. Their cost/benefit would be increased.

[thebritish]

Giving merc imperial upgrade could give chance for civs without certain units to compete with other civs.
For example, Highlanders for Dutch and Germany...

[forgrin]

Giving merc imperial upgrade could give chance for civs without certain units to compete with other civs.
For example, Highlanders for Dutch and Germany...

Do you mean in NR40?

[Kaiserklein]

Giving merc imperial upgrade could give chance for civs without certain units to compete with other civs.
For example, Highlanders for Dutch and Germany...

Do you mean in NR40?

If you never go imperial age it just means you don't play people of your level... Try to play people of your rank and you will see you go imperial every game, and then you can see how useful it is to have imperial highlanders.

[forgrin]

Giving merc imperial upgrade could give chance for civs without certain units to compete with other civs.
For example, Highlanders for Dutch and Germany...

Do you mean in NR40?

If you never go imperial age it just means you don't play people of your level... Try to play people of your rank and you will see you go imperial every game, and then you can see how useful it is to have imperial highlanders.

I play ports, obviously I go to imperial every game :/ sheesh. What's the point if you don't get genitours?

[Kaiserklein]

Show hidden quotes

Giving merc imperial upgrade could give chance for civs without certain units to compete with other civs.
For example, Highlanders for Dutch and Germany...

Do you mean in NR40?

If you never go imperial age it just means you don't play people of your level... Try to play people of your rank and you will see you go imperial every game, and then you can see how useful it is to have imperial highlanders.

I play ports, obviously I go to imperial every game :/ sheesh. What's the point if you don't get genitours?

Who needs genitours if you can get imperial black riders ?

[momuuu]

Kaiser is trolling btw, just in case you havent noticed.

[Hazza54321]

tbh some mercs are too strong, particularly with the merc combat card from germany, and better merc shipments

[thebritish]

tbh some mercs are too strong, particularly with the merc combat card from germany, and better merc shipments

Jaegers arent cost effective to be used in Imperial age.
They have roughly 25% better stats than skirms and cost atleast 50% more resources

[Kaiserklein]

tbh some mercs are too strong, particularly with the merc combat card from germany, and better merc shipments

Jaegers arent cost effective to be used in Imperial age.
They have roughly 25% better stats than skirms and cost atleast 50% more resources

That's why we need imperial jaegers

[[Armag] diarouga]

You are not meant to train mercenaries in late game lol.

[thebritish]

You are not meant to train mercenaries in late game lol.

Then why they arent disabled when i hit Imperial age?

[iCourt]

Ronin should at least upgrade so they can fight against Hatamotos, especially since one takes a card just to train them and the other is just free export...

Besides banished Ronin Samurai are way cooler than loyal ones according to every anime I've seen.

[Kaiserklein]

You are not meant to train mercenaries in late game lol.

Then why they arent disabled when i hit Imperial age?

Do you train veteran pikes in imperial age ? Are they disabled ?
Use your brain sometimes

[thebritish]

You are not meant to train mercenaries in late game lol.

Then why they arent disabled when i hit Imperial age?

Do you train veteran pikes in imperial age ? Are they disabled ?
Use your brain sometimes

Whenever i play with Spain, i always make pikes (imperial).
Also, musketeers are better anticav than pikes.