Hello all! I was just checking the effects of Mercenary Loyalty to add more details to the wiki, and I noticed that it currently reduces the price of Wallenstein’s Contracts by 50%.
Does anyone know which patch changed this so I can add it to the changelog?
(P.S. No one seems to be discussing this, so I hope it turns out to be useful for any German players out there!)
Didnt it always work like this? Certainly with the DE.
It is still a pretty bad tech that could do with a rework. Contender for worst unique tech atm.
I used to try to use it, but it takes a shipment, so I prefer to invest 1500 more gold in order to have the mercs faster. It isn´t easy to survive until you have the opportunity to have a decent merc army. However it is still a fun strat.
And yes, it would be nice a rework, perhaps have the tech in the church without having to invest in a shipment or may be, make the tech cheaper.
I believe the German royal decree set to be the worst of all in the game!
Wallenstein’s contracts come at a very high price.
Tilly’s discipline makes the Germans’ expensive army even more expensive.
And the Zeinhander technology instead of providing a unit that the Germans cannot train, as with other European civs, it gives him Doppelsoldners that the Germans already train.
This isn’t entirely true: both Portuguese and Legacy Ottomans send units that both can train: Crossbowmen for the Portuguese (Besteiros) and Janissaries (Tofanci Corps) and Great Bombards (Topcu Corps) for the Ottomans.
I agree with your other points. Although, I do believe that the Portuguese Royal Decree is a very close second.
It is true that Portuguese and Ottomans also have technologies that deliver units that already train. I don’t play with the Ottomans so I remember the technologies of their royal decree well. But the Portuguese royal decree is also bad, it gives you crossbowmen (since you have cassadores) and Black Riders (the Portuguese didn’t need them, they already have one of the best dragoons in the game). Portuguese economic technology is even interesting in certain contexts.
I don’t know if I agree with Tilly’s discipline being bad. Movement speed might just be the best stat in the game. In late game when your eco is up and running it’s a great boon. And unit shipments don’t get more expensive 
Church card in general come with a tech with a downside and 2 unit shipments. There are variations on this but that is the general design of the church cards. Only the Ottomans lack a tech but they have their own thing going on with the mosque (still Ottoman church card tech when?).
Germans lack a second unit shipment and in return get Wallenstein’s… I’d rather see it changed to a unit shipment than keep altering a bad card any further. Say it ships Highlanders or Irish Brigadeers and enables them in the tavern. That’d be a good reason to research the tech and fills in the hole of the missing age III merc contractor for the Germans. It’s modeled after Wallenstein even, what gives?
It would even be a good option for Wallenstein’s contracts to deliver a musketeer-type mercenary unit to fill the missing gap in his army.
