Mercenary Warships: Merc Enough?

Short and sweet thread. Basically, Mercenary Warships (Privateers, Wokou Junks, Battleships, Xebecs, & War Dhows) aren’t affected by cards that target Mercs specifically (Germany, Sweden, Hausa) or by the age 5 Mercenary Contractor.

Should they be? Do these units need the buff or are they fine as is? Or does it not matter and the themeing, the flavor is more important here? Keep in mind allowing these units to be affected by such techs would also make them weak to units that deal bonus damage vs mercs (Spies, Native Scouts, Ninja, Maigadi). Also consider Privateers and War Junks are much easier to acquire and mass than the other ships.

Personally I lean more toward them being buffed by such cards, but am overall ambivalent. What are your thoughts?

1 Like

I think it wouldn’t even matter in 99% of games. I also think they’re fine as they are and it probably shouldn’t effect them.

I agree it’s pretty niche. I also understand why it might not make sense: merc ups are meant just for land units, water is balanced separately, etc. Plus, they’ve made it this far from Vanilla, thru TWC, TAD, then EP and into DE without this change, meaning the og devs decided Mercenary Warships shouldn’t be affected by merc cards, and all the subsequent dev teams agreed.

On the other hand, because this situation would arise so infrequently, it feels like this change would matter a small amount in the grand scheme. It’s also kinda weird to me how little the Mercenary Warship does as a tag. Does it change any gameplay at all, or is it basically just flavor text?

Not that I was expecting the devs to make such a change, but it’s probably safer on their part to leave it the same.