It would be cool if a future DLC included a civilization with a special building to recruit Mercenaries in the Imperial Age.
Mercenaries could be expensive units, costing a lot of gold, but with strong stats readily available. For example, you could buy expensive “Mercenary Knights” in Imperial Age, which are a bit stronger than a Cavaliers and immediately available. However, they are still weaker than Fully Upgraded units, and they cost a lot of gold.
Alternatively, Mercenaries could be massively strong units (say equal or a bit stronger than Paladin), but they cost FAR MORE gold. This could be interesting, as they could make heroic contributions, but if you are not careful they would bankrupt you. Relying on them for the long term shouldn’t be viable.
Yeah, to be honest I had wealthy Italian city-states like the Republic of Venice in mind. They were fairly powerful, and hired large Mercenary armies to deal with their enemies.
However, since Sicily was already added to the new DLC, it’s unlikely that we will see further Italian civs.(and I think it would be too much from one geographical area).
Perhaps another civilization could get mercenaries. I don’t know as much history as other people in the forums. Ideas are welcome.
swiss do fit the timeline well but they were the mercenaries and did not employee mercenaries.
Burgundians would be the ideal candidate but they are also taken now.
you can order them as shipments or build a saloon with a build limit of 1 and each age has different mercenaries but which ones are available depend on the map
Hapsburg/austria might be a good fit for a civi like this.
Burgundians in Realms does something similar by enabling the creation of 3 uus of other civis.
Not in a historical sense but in regards to the original post.
Hand cannoneers become instantly available after researching just one tech instead of needing a whole upgrade path. The also cost more resources. However, an army of fully upgraded Arbalests is still better in many situations…
Yeah, I agree that Condottieros fulfill the role of a mercenary unit.
However, I think that the Hand-Cannoneer is just a regular unit game-wise, because it requires the research of a very slow technology (Chemistry). The only exception are Turks, who get Chemistry for free, so perhaps they get Hand-Cannoneers fulfilling the role of mercenaries (expensive units, immediately available).
But the main idea of discussing Mercenaries is to think about the inclusion of highly expensive units that fit new roles. For example, you could hire Mercenary Cavalry units (in Imperial Age) to perform an heroic attack, with the risk of becoming bankrupt if these super-expensive units don’t make an impact.
You could also think about adding other fun mercenaries, specialized in other niches.
Many ideas are possible when we consider adding expensive units, who can be a large impact, but aren’t cost-effective as the bulk of your army. They can create fun opportunities for brilliant attacks, but nothing else.
And mercenaries should also have some amazing properties to make them worth their gold cost (in the right conditions, with great management).
If their price is rather high, the objections to include them in the game will be lower, as they will not be a mainstream unit. The standard balance will be hardly affected.
I hope one day we can see mercenary units with incredible properties.
I recently post a topic about an old civ concept of mine (because you know, new civs so…).
Basically, for this civ (the venetians) I suggest that their UU should be the stradiot, a mercenary unit.
Now without entering on the new civ concept, this unit would be trained at the castle (like most UU) and it have 2 peculiar characteristics:
it cost only gold (80)
it’s not affect by any tech or upgrade (except for its elite upgrade), not at the stable, not at the blacksmith
Despite this, the unit has the same (or similar stats of a FU knights (cavalier for the elite version), so basically 4/4 (5/6) armor, 120 (140) HP, 12 (16) atk, 1.49 speed and so on…
The idea is that you can train it in a pickle to support your other unit, without the need to waiting for any tech.