Both European and Asian civs have access to reliably recruiting mercenaries through the Saloon and Monastery respectively.
With the DE changes, the devs rightfully gave European civs the option to access Age V mercenaries through The Mercenary Contractor age up politician to keep them relevant late-game.
I propose that Asian civs get this opportunity as well through a TC upgrade similar to the natives one, or putting it behind a wall (similar to picking a politician for Euros), which can be by sending the “Atonement” card, which is currently underused.
The jat lancer fulfills a role that doesn’t exist for India and are certainly more pop effective than mahout. I would do anything to see something other than ashigaru musk spam from Japan, this gives them more variety. I noticed you didn’t mention China, what what do you think about them in terms of this upgrade?
I really like mercenaries, as they offer a surprise and fill gaps in unit rosters.
So I was quite disappointed when I found out asian civs miss out on imperial mercs upgrade.
My suggestion would be to add imperial mercs upgrade to the saloon/monastery, and the mercenary contractor age V politician would grant this tech immediately upon aging up.
Indians and japanese already have stronger units than Euro civs, and China can spam forever, so they do not actually need stronger Mercenaries.
Euro civs are the ones that actually do need Mercs, from time to time, and even without Imperial Politician for Mercs, Asian civs can still use them very effectively, it is just that they often do not need them.
I would prefer that asian civ have more consistent access to anti merc units like spies.
native civ can go advanced scouts now to counter mercs but asian civs have no good way to do that, japan atleast have ninjas in consulate, but they are costly.
china and india only get 4 spies from the brit consulate as a shipment.
When they are in close combat, they use a weapon called “Horse Chopper”
Specialize in attacking horseshoes or knights’ waists. They should adjust to not be afraid of cavalry
I hope that outlaws-unit has more room for performance.
Maybe can add advanced outlaws-unit to Asian countries.
Outlaws need a full rework as it is. They are not usefull even after Repentance/Dance hall is shipped, because they still take too muh pop, and you need 2 Houses for every 2 of them, in most cases.
Blind Monks and Wokou Ronin can be reduced to 1 pop each, but while Wokou Ronin are actually good after Dance Hall (basically double HP Halbs but without the damage multipliers, but also benefit a lot more from Infantry Breastplate and Infantry cards), Blind Monks still suck even at 1 pop.
The western outlaws-unit should be reduced by more population.
In addition, I hope that there will be new countries that are good at outlaws-unit and unique ways to use treasures.
(For example, the establishment of a black market on the treasure point, you can repeatedly receive resources or have resource power generation.)
Even belongs to the mechanism of African civilization.
Native American countries recruited European rebels to replace mercenaries.
The new African civilization recruits outlaws-units rebels to replace mercenaries.
Western Outlaws are the worst of them. They need a big reduction to pop, and increase in cost.
No way will anyone ever train Renegados, even with Dance Hall, when they get outperformed by the same pop-cost as regular Musketeers.
Even Comancheros have nothing on Early Dragoons.
They cost too much pop and Gold, which inhibits a timely Fortress Age. They need to be reworked from the ground up.
Renegados cost 90 Gold and 6 Food, while Thugees cost 150 Gold and the same pop, but are WAY stronger.
Just double their Gold cost, and bring down their pop (3 for Renegado, 4 for Thugee), for example.
And can someone actually explain to me while the Pirate costs 6 pop, but the much stronger Barbary Corsair cost 2?
By that logic no civ actually needs mercenaries, same could be said of native allies (putting aside the pop space). However, they are a part of the game in order to give you more options to your playstyle (aoe3 is all about variety), so it makes no sense to restrict the fun to just Europeans, specially when devs originally gave Asian civs mercs as well, even personalized ones through attornment card, unlike the generic ronin for all Europeans.
Which is good logic, because Euro civs are the only ones that share units, while all Asian and American civs have fully unique rosters.
Therefore, Euros get to have stronger Mercs, in compensation of all of them having basically the same units.
Pikemen and Hussars are the most common units in the game. There are only 2 “Euro” civs in the game without either of them, and only one of those civs lacks both.
