Swedish mercenaries

Its just first of all ridiculous that when playing as Dutch, having max banks and factories and almost all settlers on estates with all possible upgrades do not outproduce the Swedes. That is just a flaw that shouldnt even be possible.

Second the fact Swedes have cards enabling them to hire at ALL military buildings mercenaries is just ridiculous. Saloon, okay, but even at barracks it makes it so easy to mass produce mercenaries. There is a reason why they are only available to saloons and there is a saloon limit. If they were required to be mass produced the saloon would have had no build limit. Mercenaries are too strong to be mass produced. Either remove the fact it is for all military buildings or give the other Europeans the same. And no the argument that Swedes have weak early units is bs. Their Caroleans and arty combined reck everything.

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Dutch really need a second Saloon, to be honest.
I think all civs, except the Sweeds, should get a second Saloon with the Dance Hall card.

Why would you want to outproduce mercs.
Dutch has really good and upgradable skirms and very pop efficient ranged cav.
I had no major issues so far playing this MU since they removed the carolean multiplier vs ranged cav.

Because Mercs are outright better version of other units (even Royal Guard ones) throughout the Fortress and Industrial Ages, which is when games tend to end.

Yep, but they cost a lot more pop and loads of gold.
Sweden tends to run out of steam eventually. Specially when mines run out and they need to start transitioning into plantations

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Gold is actually super easy to get in this game, way more than Wood, which you spend loads on in normal unit upgrades.

Seriously, costing only Gold is a plus, not a minus, in a unit’s viability.
Specially when you have your Factories, and even more when you are playing Dutch.

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Yep, for dutch is easy since you probably only need like 1 plantation if you have all banks+factories.
But for other civs, having to do that transition can be akward.
I personally rarely go mercs as dutch and never really felt they are necessary.
Maybe i might include the infinite fusileer card on my deck in the future to complement the blue guards since these guys are insanely strong but that is probably about it, since Dutch units are really good. Specially their skirms once carded.
I do think their early game could use a small buff though but I guess that is for another topic

One of my best decks with Dutch is with Mercs. I would love it if they made Mercs more accessible to non-Swedes civs.

Well, 11 bank with tulip is equal to 2 to 3 fully worked estates with all upgrade and card to reach 200% bonus gather rate. So with that 80ish settler economy there is no way for Dutch to outproduce coin, unless the enemy didn’t fully upgrade their estate or use fewer estate.

That makes it bs, seeing coin should be the Dutch speciality due to their banks and just emphasize on the usage of coin.

Fusilier costs 2 pop and 300 coin, its a really cost effective and price effective unit, seeing the Swedish can even build them out of any military building makes it ridicoulus. A fusilier does 70 base range damage and has a multiplier on range against cav and light infantry + bonus damage against both in melee with about a 40-50 melee damage.

Not gonna lie, fusileers are ridiculously good to be fair.
One of my friends plays sweden on teams, and his fusilrers get up to 100+attack, insane hp and 6 speed with the military drummers from arsenal.
These guys are pretty much old sweden caroleans on steroids.

They cost 300 Gold and 2 pop, they better be good!

Fusiliers are much better than old Caroleans, they are a perfect hybrid of Musketeer and Skirmisher.

Imagine being the Germans, they used to be the mercenary faction.
-More mercenaries per shipment.
-age 3 improved mercs card. +20%
-Wallensteins Contracts makes merc shipments free! (useless lol)
-All 3 army shipments infinite with the DE (Wallensteins doesnt work on those ofc)
-Thats it lol… They dont even have the mercenary contractor to get assured mercs in the saloon.

compared to the new toy Sweden
-Black Rider and Jaeger always in the Saloon
-Cheaper merc shipments
-merc shipments unlock them in regular military buildings.
-They arrive faster
-age IV merc contracts that give +25% and gives all 3 german mercenaries in military buildings.
-Infinite Mameluke mercs in age IV, and the highlander army I guess.
-the mercenary contractor that allows jaeger and black rider in regular military buildings.

Germany has 7 non-infinite merc shipments, all 3 infinite army shipments and 1 team/infinite 5 jeager shipment.
Sweden had 6 non-infinite merc shipments, only the highlander army and the infinite mamelukes card.

However Sweden ofc get them cheaper and faster AND unlocks them in their regular buildings. Germany can improve them one age earlier and gets a few more mercs and has too wait much longer ofc to get them.

more mercs though? in age 2 Germany has 1 shipment… 4 landsknecht for 400 gold. Sweden gets… 4 landsknecht for 360 gold? Germans dont get more and Sweden’s is cheaper? In addition Sweden gets the 3 Fusilier shipment for 360 gold in age 2. Remember that Sweden gets them faster and unlocks them. Where is the German advantage here?

In age 3 both get 4 shipments and Germany can send the mercenary contracts (+2Uhlan I guess).
for Germans:
-10 Landsknecht
-9 Black Rider
-12 Jaeger
-8 Harqebusiers
all cost 1000 gold.

For Sweden:
-9 Highlander
-7 Black Rider
-10 Jaeger
-12 Swiss Pikes
all cost 900 gold.

Germans look better here, but Sweden still has the speed advantage and unlocks them ofc.

In age IV Sweden gets their own and better mercenary contracts and their Mameluke and highlander army cards. Please note that these dont unlock mamelukes or the highlander units in the stables and barracks.
Germany gets 2 one time shipments (10 fusilier and 7 Elmeti 1000g each). All three armies and the TEAM 5 Jaegers shipment. At this point Sweden has better mercenaries and can replenish them more easily, while the Germans only really have army shipments that cost a ton of pop and might send units you don’t even want. And as a bonus take forever to arrive, very nice holding 45 pop while waiting for that shipment.
side note: the German mercenaries (Landsknecht, Black Rider, Jaeger) make up 4 of the 7 standard German merc shipments. These units are basically variants of the standard German units (Doppelsoldner, War Wagon, Needle Gunner) Making them less usefull for filling up holes in your army. Where these same units have no counterpart in the Swedish army, making them even more usefull for them.

I get that Sweden is the shiny new thing, but the OG merc civ feels like it has been left in the dust quite hard.
There is room to improve the German merc game ofc, Wallensteins contracts could do with a rework, the Saloon build limit could be upped (for everyone pls) and Germans could actually get the mercenary contractor unlocking usefull mercs for them, a musk like the Highlander for example.

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I think one can argue that the original design of Sweden included the reliance on mercenaries as they lacked xbows and caroleans were the jack of all trades, and the developers tried to compensate the massive economy of Sweden with the huge prices of mercs. But that ended up with caroleans murdering everything in their path, which led to the puny nerf to ranged cav bonus damage. People complained, and they got the xbow.

Basically, I hope sweden gets a massive rework and rebalance.

Not puny nerf at all.
That changed a the way a lot more match ups are played.
Dutch is apparently one of the few civs that do really well against sweden after the last patch just because of that nerf.

8Xbows, 3 hussar, 2LC, auto work HP 1949 houses, ranged cav kill musk

Why the hell do they think this is not an OP?

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Where does even the historical background for the Swedish reliance on mercenaries come from? I only remember them having a well disciplined standing army al be it small?

Germany and Sweden are based on the 30 years war where a lot of mercenaries were used.

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As stated above the Swedes in the thirty years’ war used a lot of mercenaries. But then again most states used a lot of mercenaries in that period.

from wikipedia:
As a result of this, as his campaign progressed in Germany, he came to increasingly rely on German mercenaries. Although these German mercenaries were well known for their atrocious conduct towards the local population, under the Swedish military system they were later brought to the Swedish standard of discipline.
and:
Ambitious mercenaries everywhere enlisted in the Swedish army, when the king’s (Gustavus Adolphus) military prowess started to become well known throughout Europe.

Von Wallenstein and the count of Tilly were 2 other well known mercenary commanders that were in the service of the Holy Roman Emperor at the time. 2 of the German church techs are named after them.

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