TOTW #24: It can be Bad to not take advantage of good Merceneries

Bhutan jgals
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Re: TOTW #24: It can be Bad to not take advantage of good Merceneries

Post by jgals »

Amsel_ wrote:Is there some way to see what mercenaries are available without building a saloon?

im wondering the same. no one is mentioning outlast units which you do know by the map. fusiliers rek bow rider probably 1 shot
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Re: TOTW #24: It can be Bad to not take advantage of good Merceneries

Post by jgals »

gibson wrote:
fei123456 wrote:Swiss pike are bad?! I can't understand this. They perform better than landskecht most of the times.
Also you forgot arsonist/ninja/the 300 gold musk (I forgot its name lol).
arsonists and fusiliers are horrible, ninjas can be good if you use them right, but costing 4 pop sucks

why do ninja cost 4 they live in the forest not in houses.on the topic of asian merc iron troop op also age3 elmeti
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Re: TOTW #24: It can be Bad to not take advantage of good Merceneries

Post by Hazza54321 »

Ive won many games with swiss pike vs german, hardly bad at all
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Re: TOTW #24: It can be Bad to not take advantage of good Merceneries

Post by Papist »

jgals wrote:
gibson wrote:
fei123456 wrote:Swiss pike are bad?! I can't understand this. They perform better than landskecht most of the times.
Also you forgot arsonist/ninja/the 300 gold musk (I forgot its name lol).
arsonists and fusiliers are horrible, ninjas can be good if you use them right, but costing 4 pop sucks

why do ninja cost 4 they live in the forest not in houses.on the topic of asian merc iron troop op also age3 elmeti


Age 4 mercs in age 3 is broken for sure. IIRC, it was removed on EP. Iron troops are indeed good; I wonder if shipping the card that makes them trainable at the monastery would make a good troll strat.
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Re: TOTW #24: It can be Bad to not take advantage of good Merceneries

Post by Kaiserklein »

Swiss pikes are situational. They do have pretty good stats compared to regular pikes, but they're still pikes. So they're pretty much useless against civs with strong infantry (like jap, india, iro...), or vs strong goons (sioux, ports at some point). On the other hand, they do fine vs civs that don't make musks and/or don't have good goons (ger, azzy, china...).

Usually when I get swiss pikes in the saloon, I ship hackapells quite early (usually 2nd card, sometimes 3rd) because they synergize well, and opponent won't have a ton of goons early on, especially if you didn't reveal the swiss pikes.
If that doesn't win the game or at least give enough of a lead, I go for a second timing a couple cards later, with the church card. It will make swiss pikes 20% faster (rod speed) so they will catch stuff much more easily, maybe even gonna catch goons if opponent doesn't hit and run perfectly (try to snare goons with free uhlans too). But gotta research the speed upgrade at the last second after having queued as many pikes as possible, since it will apply for free on all the swiss pikes on the field/in queue, but all the pikes queued after it's researched will cost 10% extra.
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LoOk_tOm wrote:I have something in particular against Kaisar (GERMANY NOOB mercenary LAMME FOREVER) And the other people (noobs) like suck kaiser ... just this ..
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Re: TOTW #24: It can be Bad to not take advantage of good Merceneries

Post by jgals »

fusilier hackapelll sounds like a pretty epic combo. the question has always been to me, why would I ever pay to ship a unit when I could ship free ones and make more myself. For example, if I can pay to ship hackapells 1000 G, why not just ship 5 huss, and make what 5 or 6 more for the same amount of VS? isn't that better?
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Re: TOTW #24: It can be Bad to not take advantage of good Merceneries

Post by Kaiserklein »

Well yeah, shipping mercs is not great overall, because the shipment takes 20 extra seconds to come, so you're idling 1000g for 1 min. It's just very risky, and not super rewarding most of the time.

However in some cases, it grants you a kind of unit that you can't get otherwise (for example manchus for china or jaegers for brits). Plus, some mercs are more cost efficient than regular units (like the said jaegers and manchus, for example, or the mams), so it's good to ship them.

And as germany, you get extra mercs instead of free uhlans, which is why merc shipments are so strong. 13 jaegers instead of 10 means you get 3 free jaegers instead of 3 uhlans... And if you also happen to train mercs from the saloon, mercs shipments become even stronger because of the advanced mercenaries card.
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LoOk_tOm wrote:I have something in particular against Kaisar (GERMANY NOOB mercenary LAMME FOREVER) And the other people (noobs) like suck kaiser ... just this ..
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Re: TOTW #24: It can be Bad to not take advantage of good Merceneries

Post by jgals »

Kaiserklein wrote:Well yeah, shipping mercs is not great overall, because the shipment takes 20 extra seconds to come, so you're idling 1000g for 1 min. It's just very risky, and not super rewarding most of the time.

However in some cases, it grants you a kind of unit that you can't get otherwise (for example manchus for china or jaegers for brits). Plus, some mercs are more cost efficient than regular units (like the said jaegers and manchus, for example, or the mams), so it's good to ship them.

And as germany, you get extra mercs instead of free uhlans, which is why merc shipments are so strong. 13 jaegers instead of 10 means you get 3 free jaegers instead of 3 uhlans... And if you also happen to train mercs from the saloon, mercs shipments become even stronger because of the advanced mercenaries card.


germans gets 9 BR right? Does the advanced merc card only affect trained merc or shipped as well?
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Re: TOTW #24: It can be Bad to not take advantage of good Merceneries

Post by aligator92 »

it effects all mercs
Also the german church card for speed + Fusseliers/Corsairs is one of the most entertaining things to play with. Sadly you can never plan for it
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Re: TOTW #24: It can be Bad to not take advantage of good Merceneries

Post by supahons »

I think the lower the skill level the better mercenaries are, especially heavy inf. Anyone with an average micro skill can make mercenaries cost-inefficient.
Another main problem with mercenaries is the availability on the maps and the saloon only training

Bandits - high dmg but the reload time and population cost ...

Suprise units or if the opponent isn't paying attention:
Highlander, Ronin, Landsknecht, Fusilier (easy to snipe with the right units)
Hackapell (low hp), Swiss Pikeman (good but pike), ninja (aizamk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbwwW4Z3vJw), corsair (rodelero+)

Best mercs:
Jaeger, Black Riders, Manchu
Mameluke, Stradiot, Elmeti (tanks)

different thread? merc-shipments?
2000c shipments = full troll in every supremacy game

500c shipments in age2?
Privateer for TWC civs on water, Rattan shield, Tigerclaws - quite good/ok
the rest is probably more a troll unit

What about the age2 skirms eg. in a brit mirror or 11 rods in an aztec mirror? has anyone tried this in high rank games or are these just situational units like the other?

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Re: TOTW #24: It can be Bad to not take advantage of good Merceneries

Post by aligator92 »

8 cherokee are worth 960 res. paying 500g and a shipment for that sounds depressing
and the rods would kick ass in a pure coyote fight but as soon as there are some maces, they will drop like flies and I would not want to miss any age 2 card as aztec
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Re: TOTW #24: It can be Bad to not take advantage of good Merceneries

Post by supahons »

aligator92 wrote:8 cherokee are worth 960 res. paying 500g and a shipment for that sounds depressing
and the rods would kick ass in a pure coyote fight but as soon as there are some maces, they will drop like flies and I would not want to miss any age 2 card as aztec


Yes, ik that's a problem, maybe ESOC could reduce the mercenary cost a bit. (for more deck-diversity). *edit: my idea was to snipe some musk in a musk-mirror ;), but maybe it just isn't cost-efficient enough
The conclusion otherwise is probably: Only play Jaeger/Blackrider/Manchu/Tank-cav merc if you want or troll for fun/send the merc at the right moment to win a battle.

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