How to deal with mercs?

[CruOzer]

I lost severals games now due to mercs. E.g. last game my opponent overrun me with elmetis mixed into an army of mainly arkebusier and changdao+muscs. How do you deal vs them since spies are not really viable (so few hitpoints)

[[Armag] diarouga]

Well spies
Otherwise keep map control and don't let him gathering gold^^

[CruOzer]

But this is quite hard if they have mines in their base and put a village/tc next to the mines

[deleted_user0]

Well going mercs like that is usually hit or miss. Get mams or elmeti can win u games, otherwise its usually last ditch effort to still get army out when u are out of food or cant gather it.

Just making normal units is usually better

[Hazza54321]

Just make strelets , OP unit

[Marco1698]

On water map make mercs = Op because you take a lot of gold from the sea. When ur opponent is making mercs just send spies ye, they have got a huge bonus vs merc in general

[Papist]

Mercs are expensive so a player who goes for them is likely going to have a weak economy behind them. Because they drain one's gold economy so quickly, killing them will leave your opponent very vulnerable to a timing push.

Deal with them the same way you would deal with their respective conventional unit (e.g. elmeti=lancer, jaegar=skirm). Try to kite them in a fight and kill them as soon as possible, as they will only give you more problems as their count grows. Realistically, the only mercenary that will give you an insanely difficult time in the mameluke, and those can only be trained in age 4 anyways.

If you want more specific information, tell us what civ you are using.

[pecelot]

Realistically, the only mercenary that will give you an insanely difficult time in the mameluke, and those can only be trained in age 4 anyways.

Elmeti is quite hard to kill as well, 1000HP and 40 or so attack and you get 6 of them in one shipment.
Mamelukes can be a thread of course in the third age, when sent from HC.

[momuuu]

Cant mams be trained in fortress? Didnt that happen in that tournement china mirror?

[Wuangaga]

Cant mams be trained in fortress? Didnt that happen in that tournement china mirror?

I think that only works for asian civs, not sure though.

[CruOzer]

@jerom yes. but for eurocivs they are available in age 4 (like elmetis)
Yeah and Elmetis have a 3* multiplier vs inf ...

I play 70% France. Sometimes I sometimes play India, Aztecs and China.

But maybe I am just too nooby to handle them properly (the games were mostly vs China)

[momuuu]

China OP then. Trainable mams is seriously broken :p

[Durokan]

If you consistently lose to it drop assassins in your deck.

[bobabu]

I lost severals games now due to mercs. E.g. last game my opponent overrun me with elmetis mixed into an army of mainly arkebusier and changdao+muscs. How do you deal vs them since spies are not really viable (so few hitpoints)

Make mercs yourself.

[momuuu]

If you consistently lose to it drop assassins in your deck.

I dont consistently lose to it, as they dont consistently get it.

Just wondering, how big is the chance that you get mams in the monastery? Because if its like 10%, you should always drop the monastery imo since that means instantly winning 10% of your games.

[Rikikipu]

Cant mams be trained in fortress? Didnt that happen in that tournement china mirror?

I think that only works for asian civs, not sure though.

Nope, you can get mams from the saloon with euro civs. Ive tested it, you can get instant mams on great plains

[Mr_Bramboy]

I think that only works for asian civs, not sure though.

Nope, you can get mams from the saloon with euro civs. Ive tested it, you can get instant mams on great plains

TAD civs (Japan, India, China) can train IV mercs in III.

[Durokan]

Out of 17 games (terrible sample size, isnt conclusive, but i can't get a large sample size alone in a reasonable amount of time for a forum post) (standard map pool, fortress start, fast, lvl 41 china home city) standard maps simulate QS


Here is the tally
Barbary Corsair: [strike]IIII[/strike]
Stradiot: IIII
Highlander: IIII
Landshneckt: III
Arsonist: III
Ninja: III
Lil' Bombard: II
Fusilier: II
Swiss Pike: II
Manchu: II
Hackapell: I
Black Rider: I
Elmeti: I
Jaeger: I
Mameluke:

Note: All of the above mercs were able to train in age three, even with the small sample size if i wanted to build mams/elmeti I would have been out of luck for 16/17 games

[CruOzer]

I think that only works for asian civs, not sure though.

Nope, you can get mams from the saloon with euro civs. Ive tested it, you can get instant mams on great plains

Well, you can train them in age 4 .... which seems balanced to me. Instant sounds very funny

I have the feeling, that the droprate depends on the map. I testet like 20 games on indochina and didnt have 1 time mams (but every 2nd to 3rd game Elmetis). 5 games on great plains and I got them 2 times.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Imo when you start a game, it should tell you which mercs you have in age 3 in the map description, would be more fair. That's so dumb to get surprised by 10 mams...

[iNcog]

Gotta scout I guess. Not always easy

[momuuu]

Out of 17 games (terrible sample size, isnt conclusive, but i can''t get a large sample size alone in a reasonable amount of time for a forum post) (standard map pool, fortress start, fast, lvl 41 china home city) standard maps simulate QS


Here is the tally
Barbary Corsair: [strike]IIII[/strike]
Stradiot: IIII
Highlander: IIII
Landshneckt: III
Arsonist: III
Ninja: III
Lil'' Bombard: II
Fusilier: II
Swiss Pike: II
Manchu: II
Hackapell: I
Black Rider: I
Elmeti: I
Jaeger: I
Mameluke:

Note: All of the above mercs were able to train in age three, even with the small sample size if i wanted to build mams/elmeti I would have been out of luck for 16/17 games

is that all the mercs? Because then the chances of mams or elmeti are actually pretty high if it were to be randomly assigned to any of them.

Its a question whether it is actually random or not though.

[Durokan]

Out of 17 games (terrible sample size, isnt conclusive, but i cant get a large sample size alone in a reasonable amount of time for a forum post) (standard map pool, fortress start, fast, lvl 41 china home city) standard maps simulate QS


Here is the tally
Barbary Corsair: [strike]IIII[/strike]
Stradiot: IIII
Highlander: IIII
Landshneckt: III
Arsonist: III
Ninja: III
Lil Bombard: II
Fusilier: II
Swiss Pike: II
Manchu: II
Hackapell: I
Black Rider: I
Elmeti: I
Jaeger: I
Mameluke:

Note: All of the above mercs were able to train in age three, even with the small sample size if i wanted to build mams/elmeti I would have been out of luck for 16/17 games

is that all the mercs? Because then the chances of mams or elmeti are actually pretty high if it were to be randomly assigned to any of them.

Its a question whether it is actually random or not though.

i loaded up sagueny 5 times to check if it was preset. I dont know how random it actually is, but I didnt get the same mercs during those 5 reloads. I dont know if it is even all the mercs, I had to add mams onto the end off the top of my head because they didnt ever spawn

[Durokan]

when each map is loaded it runs this function "chooseMercs()'" if i found that function somewhere i could see how it works probably. Some maps also have "include mercanaries.xs" which probably just defines the mercs, but both could help


Edit 1: Haven't found the stuff yet but it turns out the TAD maps are 50% more likely to show up then other maps when using random maps!

[Garja]

Mercs in age3 and on are random. Monastery is bugged and therefore asian civs cna train industrial mercs in fortress.
Mercs are not that good but they're ocasionally. The better quality of mercs is that they require a big number of counter units to be killed. And that's not always possible for the opponent.