Mercenary Units

Where would one hire the mercenaries? From another civ?

It would certainly be an interesting option.. though if you have that kind of finance, you could very well just purchase a ship for defense.

Hmmmm. What would be cool though, is being able to rent out (or rent) units to other civilizations.

Where would one hire the mercenaries?

I suggest that they have their own bases in deep Space, and you contact them from there. Or better yet, they're pirates that you can to (not) attack a race. Don't know how hard that would be to code.

hmm perhaps hiring a ship that doesnt have your civ's colors? i am allies with the drengin but i would like to pick off their freighters or just harass their fleets without them knowing its me because i know eventually they will turn on me. would be a good use for mercs.

I like this idea. Mercs that act as privateers, thus don't invoke war with other civs when they attack (they'd appear as pirates to the other civ). Make them reasonably expensive and it could add a decent element to the game in it's rather sparse diplomacy aspect.

Jebus

Mercs, from minor races, maybe?

I think it's wrong to think that when a civilization is defeated, they stop to exists - rather, they'd become part of another empire but the species itself would still be around, thus you could forever have mercenaries from minor Civs.

Besides, I'd totally pay for a squadron of snathi heavy fighters, gotta love me some combat squirrels

I would think that fully fleshing out a Mercenary feature for this game would be a non trivial undertaking. There are all sorts of potential gameplay ramifications to this.

- Should mercenary fleets be independent of your own logistics abilities?
- Does the choice of which mercenaries to hire interact with alignment?
- How loyal should the mercenary units be?
- What are the diplomatic ramifications of using mercenaries (IE, should Torians be able to hire Drengin mercenaries?)
- What are the espionage ramificatons of using mercenaries (IE, can you pay a mercenary company to tell you who they have worked for? Can you get a mercenary to falsly tie themselves to an enemy)?

Mercenaries could be an intresting new facet to gameplay, or they could just be the equivalent of rapidly built instant units that carry a huge price tag.

END COMMUNICATION

good point, lord zardoz.

If they are expensive, just purchase ships on your own part.

If they are expensive, no one would use their own ships.

i am allies with the drengin but i would like to pick off their freighters or just harass their fleets without them knowing its me because i know eventually they will turn on me. would be a good use for mercs.

that's.. really nice of you. I would think it's hard for the AI to respond and that will just be exploited by the human players.

What I would do is make it as a BC per turn thing - sort of like trade freighters... there entry cost would be rather high and then they'd take credits from your credit pool on a per turn bases -- you'd do it like when you finace a buy ship you'd get 4 options one with an extremely high entry fee but a very low per turn cost (something that would be LESS then your maitnece fess for a smiliar ship) and then you can figure out how the other end of the spectrum would work...

Basicly these "mercenary ships" would be benefical beacuse they have a 0 maitnence ... yeah... something like that...

My proposal would be zero maitenence per turn, you purchase the mercs as a fleet and the fleet can not be split up or joined with your native ships. Obviously the more powerful the fleet, the more money they cost. They would sport your own colors, but could be distinguishable as mercenary with a high espionage status...

As for who they would come from, any empire. You build a fleet. You click on the fleet and you push the "Convert to mercenary" button and then a price value is automagicly assigned to the fleet. The fleet is then listed on a "mercenary pool" page where people can buy them. The price is adjusted by your evil/good modifier. (if you are evil it costs more money to hire good mercs and vice-versa) Maybe modified by the relative diplomacy skills of the two empires involved...

If you have a fleet listed on the merc pool page, you can still use it, but it may disappear at any time becuase it can be purchased.

You can not purchase mercs from empires you are at war with, and if you declare war on an empire you purchased mercs from they revert back to the origional empire. They would appear in the origional empires territory after X number of weeks, depending on how far away they were at the time war was declared.

The amount of money per turn you spend on a merc fleet does not equal the amount of money the origional owner gets per turn. The mercs themselves get a cut. (i.e. the money disappears) added costs of the mercs taking damage/dieing does not go back to the origional owner. The added cost goes into the mercs pockets (to supposedly pay for repairs/burial costs respectively) The origional owner WOULD get extra cash due to evil/good alignment and diplomatic skill differences.

I believe adding a mercenary system would add a great deal of economic and diplomatic depth to this game for a relatively low amount of input required to actually create the mercenary system. (figuring the right amount of money to use for the whole thing is another thing entirely).

As an added bonus, this would really spice things up if multiplayer ever gets put in.

Now with the system you propose, it sounds a lot better than random galactic priates offering their service. Not that galactic pirates can't exist, but it would be game unbalancing and no one would build their own ships.


The system sounds quite interesting and would add economic and diplomatic depth.. so much I don't think it'll be possible for an update. Perhaps some sort of expansion. It fits in right well with multiplayer but as single player, it would be too hard to get the details just right and for AI to utilize them properly.

Like what you said yourself, figuring the right amount of money to use.
The AI might have trouble actually picking a useful ship. Human players might find exploit by loading a ship with defense and sell it to AI to rip them off and such.
Multiplayer, yes, it will be a very interesting addition.


btw, what would the original creator have to do to get the mercenary back?

declare war on them and the mercs come back
if your that kinda guy...
or i assume you wouldn't get them back since you decided to give them up when you put them in the merc. pool

You couldn't directly get them back, they are after all under the control of the other empire. When the other empire dismisses them or war breaks out, your mercenaries auto pilot to the nearest military starbase or planet with a starport. While enroute they ARE vulnerable to attack.

As for declaring war to get your mercs back, thats part of the gamble. If the Yor decide to buy mercs exclusively from me, and my mercs make up a significant portion of their forces then they could be in a VERY bad position if i declare war. Its a dirty underhanded scheme, which would be nice to have since this game is lacking in dirty underhanded schemes.

The AI would have difficulty in picking ships to complement their fleet with. But it might not be too much of a strech. They already have responsive tactics in war. If you go after them with nothing but beams, they will research and implement shields. If the AI had access to shield equipped ships without having to reasearch the tech, it would just make the game that much more challenging. You would obviously not let the AI purchase ships with nothing but engines, or sensors or something. The ships would have to have some tangible use to it. (Although i usually DO have a class of ship with lots of engines and good sensors but no weapons. Kind of a U2 in space.)

To Agent of Zion:
So.. how would the devs or AI deal with this situation. The majority of space has good defense tech against laser. You build a ship with nothing but laser and put it up for mercenary. The computer would most likely go for it due to the sheer power on paper it possesss. The ship will be ineffective but the player will still get big bucks out of it.

I would think it's hard for the AI to adopt using mercenary..

Heck if you want to rent an army.. just buy your ships and finance them for 200+ turns.

Or get the minors (or another major) to declare war on your enemy.

Voila.. same effect, no need to change game mechanics.

As for the Ai's making intelligent decisions.... i honestly dont have a system to make that happen. Im sorry.

Imagiro: I mercs would be a whole new game strategy. You could play an arms dealer without giving your ships up for forever, and you could rent a defense force for 5 - 10 turns while you replenish your forces without going bankrupt. The problem with buying a ship is that you (sometimes) pay for it long after its gone, obsolete or upgraded. By pushing ahead in tech you no longer have a viable use for technologies that may not be your best, but they are better than someone elses. Its a way to make some cash on old tech. And as a buyer, it gives you a way to diversify your fleets without having to hold off on researching say... habitat improvements while you try to get something better than miniballs.