The vague and somewhat problematic definition of mercenaries — thoughts?

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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In vanilla most mercenary units are historically real mercenaries hired by multiple Europeans. There were also non-mercenaries like Ninja, Ronin and Manchu (and later fusiliers added in TWC) which were likely remnants of scrapped civ plans at that time.

Then this definition progressively becomes blurred:
In TAD Asians can also hire these mercenaries. And each Asian civ has its “unique mercenary” (now also in the random pool).

In TAR a bunch of African units that represent nations that are not included in the African civs and natives are added to the pool. Most of these units are not mercenaries historically and I don’t see why they are mercenaries while some other African units are natives, except zouave and askeri.

In KoTM many “royal guard units” are added to the pool. Again I can’t see how they thematically stand out more than the “royal” units of native European houses. And many of them such as mounted rifleman (chasseur) and giant grenadiers were not really mercenaries but very nation-specific.

This leads to a problem in consistency:
If mercenaries mean actual mercenaries that can be hired by anyone, then many units should not be included. African or Asian civs hiring French chasseurs or Prussian grenadiers, etc. makes little sense. And I don’t think they were records of nations hiring Sennar horsemen either (correct me if I’m wrong)
If we go down the path and re-define the concept as “elite units”, then them being mostly European becomes odd. There need to be more Asian, African and American units in the pool too.

Edit: I counted and found the number of Asian and African mercenaries are similar. The impression may come from that Asian mercenaries were added separately (vanilla, TAD and unique mercenaries going into the pool) while Africans in a batch.

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To add more complications allow me to further stratify the definition of “mercenaries”:

  1. Mercenaries that were hired by multiple nations: Swiss pikemen, Irish brigadier, highlanders, etc.
  2. Mercenaries but were actually hired by a specific nation: landsknechts (mostly hired by German states from German populations), Hessians (mostly by British in North America), Manchu (Ming Chinese hired Manchu auxiliaries before its conquest by the latter), iron trooper (Koxinga’s private army so somewhat a mercenary), Ronin and Ninja (obviously no one hired them except Japanese), the old Hackapell (Swedes; this is somewhat not very much a mercenary because Finland was part of the Swedish Empire) etc.

And units that are represented in the game as regular/outlaw/native units but were actually mercenaries:
Dopplesoldner, gurkha, keshik (if it represents the Mongol auxiliaries), crabat, etc.

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Making widespread usage a requirement is a bit too restrictive in my opinion. It’s fun to have a chance at using some exotic and wacky units. Asian and African countries regularly hired European advisors so mercs can be conceptualized as a proxy for that.

I’m totally fine with expensive novelty units being included as mercenary units. That totally fits with their role as strong units with a high coin and population cost. Stuff like Giant Grenadiers are too cool not to include and fit in best as mercs. The only other way to have them would be some kind of limited elite unit like Sipahi available to either a reworked German or Prussian civ and I don’t see that as likely.

That being said, the line between what constitutes a mercenary and what doesn’t is way too blurry. Some of them are dubious or completely wrong.

Worst Offenders:

Arsonist - This is by far the worst categorized merc. It is unequivocally an outlaw, not a mercenary. If there needs to be a merc in this role, Mysorean Rocketeers would work great (the Brits copied their rockets so that could be how to explain them being mercs).

Crabat - The opposite counterpart to the Arsonist. Crabats are totally a mercenary, not an outlaw. Their promotion mechanic is also not compatible with being an outlaw, since cheap early units that have incredible scaling can’t not be busted.

Royal Horseman - Half the royal house units are lazily named “royal ____” and they seriously thought it necessary to add another “royal ____” that’s a merc? Not only is the name unnecessarily confusing, the function also doesn’t fit at all. Why is a unit that’s supposed to be a bodyguard stampede around like a rampaging elephant stomping on everything nearby? Some kind of elephant merc would have been a way cooler way to have this mechanic (or applying it to all elephant units).

Questionable KoM Mercs:

Giant Grenadier - Discussed above.

Mounted Rifleman - This is kind of a generic unit, but I’m not really sure where it could be fit in if not as a merc. It’s kind of like Fusiliers where it’s very generic, but conflicts with the standard roster too much to really fit in. What they should at least do is use it to show off the dismounting mechanic. They literally functioned as light infantry and heavy cavalry so a dismounting merc would be a perfect way to implement it. And lastly, why on God’s green earth is it not called Chasseur?

Pandour - Really should be a standard skrim unit for an Austrian civ or at least a unit for the Habsburg royal house. Counter-skirms are just not well implemented in general so they aren’t a great unit in the first place.

For the rest, the Irish fought all over the continent, Bosniaks served as mercs for Prussia, and Armored Pistoleers use very expensive gear, so they all make perfect sense.

Questionable TAR Mercs:

Sennar Horseman - Not a mercenary as far as I can tell. Would be a good unit for a Sudanese civ in the unlikely event they are ever added. Swapping places with Dervishes could also make sense.

Kanuri Guard - On the surface these guys seem like just a way to represent Bornu. But they could also be reasonably justified as hired guards to protect the trans-Saharan trade routes, so I’m fine with them.

Zenata Rider - They’re actually a reasonable fit for a merc. They served overseas in Granada and inspired the Jinetes.

The rest are all expensive, elite, or hired widely so they fit well as mercs.

Standard Units as Mercs:

Sepoy - Basically the Indian equivalent of Askari. They should clearly become a merc if anything is ever done about reworking the British Raj abomination.

Gurkha - All the same issues as Sepoys.

Keshik - It would make a lot of sense to swap them with Manchus. China is very heavily Qing, so Manchus would fit right in their standard roster. Keshiks were elite Mongol guards so being a weak standard unit is not a great fit. They were also used more widely given the size and legacy of the Mongol empire.

Papal Lancers - They are based on the exact same thing as Elmeti and could replaced by Elmeti.

Organ Guns - There’s always complaints about them not being Portuguese and they are a niche artillery unit that could make sense as a merc.

Conflicting Roles

As for mercs being too similar, I think organizing them into mercenary companies could be a way to address that. Batching them together in like groups would let you have similar variants without the risk of your entire merc roster being the same because of bad luck.

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“Sepoy (/ˈsiːpɔɪ/), related to sipahi, is a term denoting professional Indian infantryman, traditionally armed with a musket, in the armies of the Mughal Empire and the Maratha Army.”

They originated from the local Indian Empires and did serve the local Indian Empires too, so they are completely fine in the Indian civ as regular units.
Just saying.

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They could be either, but they are most prominent in the employ of European armies. Presumably if India is split up or reworked, there would be other better alternatives for their musket infantry units. Banduqchis would be the obvious choice for a Mughal faction.

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I believe I also heard that the Polish made some more substantial use something like this, though I had some difficulty finding sources online.

Lipka Tatars/Organ Guns could be a fun unit comp in the future!

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https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/native-americans-and-mercenaries/234068

Just wanted to take a moment to link this, as I find it relevant. Native American mercs need to be a thing.

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Pandours as mercs is fine. They were mostly used by Hungary (and other countries in that area). If anything they just need more representation in the Hungarian revolt. If Austria is made they could make a big appearance tho.

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It’s not terrible as a merc, there are just far better places it could have been included. They would have been so much better in the Habsburg royal house than the forced units like Dismounted Infantry.

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That’s kind of the opposite of what this post is suggesting. Adding North American native “mercenaries” just causes more confusion with native units and makes the concept of mercenaries even more unfocused.

Making mercenaries a catch all term for any potential people group that doesn’t have other representation is a problematic approach. All the suggested “native mercs” seem to be in that catch all category rather than being actual soldiers of fortune.

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No, that whats natives are for, same for european Royal mercs and african ones

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I may be going off topic, but I think any unit can be a Mercenary if they are trained from a tavern and cost only coin.

The tavern could, for example, train sell-sword janissaries for 150 coin, which anyone could train.

I think the mercenary system in AoE4 is like this. And while the Byzantines in AoE4 are not really well designed, this mercenary mechanic isn’t bad (except it is also their consulate mechanic).

I am of course not worrying about balance.

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After the Gurkhas become the mercenaries they are supposed to be, the Indians will need new skirmishers.
This means that changes to the Indian civ’s unit roster will theoretically not affect the civ’s requirement for two firearm infantry.
Sepoys (musketeers) and Banduqchis (skirmishers) will both be on the new roster.
This is exactly the idea I have in my indian units concept.

Truth.
For me, mercenaries are a very convenient mechanic to introduce new things that cannot be used as units in existing civs and minor civs, such as the Swedish Fusiliers and the Italian Elmeti in the past.

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That’s also a valid approach. Realistically Sepoys and Banduqchis are essentially synonymous and could both be either.

Banduqchi means “gun bearer” and although they mostly used muskets, it’s not wrong to give them rifles. Apparently they were rather low ranking soldiers so they could work kinda like Strelets where they’re a weak but cheap skirm that uses outdated weapons.

Sepoy just means “soldier” so technically it could refer to precolonial troops, but it’s almost exclusively used to refer to European trained local troops so that’s why I suggested it to be a mercenary. Indian countries did use them such as Mysore using French trained Sepoys so it is fine to have them as a standard unit too.

There are other options that could work for an India split. Toradar Musketeers could serve as a generic musket infantry if Sepoys became a merc. Prangi could be an alternate Mughal light infantry that could function like an Abus Gunner.

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Please no. Abus are borderline an abomination, let’s not have more.

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To other posters: sorry for a slight derail.

History-wise, the Abus Gun is very dubious too.

1.) The in-game concept of the unit seems to be simply a jingal, or “wall gun”, just not called such.

abus

2.) Its in-game appearance is directly based on a “trench mortar” grenade launcher from the Osprey book Elite 058 The Janissaries, but getting its design literally backwards.

image
image644×859 93 KB

If you look at the original art, you can see the metal part on the “wider end” is the actual barrel of the launcher, while the rest is a (narrower) wooden handle.

The modeler of the Abus Gun mistook the wooden part to be the barrel, and the metal part to be a bottom “padding”.

The book’s description of the grenade launcher:
image

3.) On the historical abus gun (with a name obviously derived from obus - howitzer), details are sketchy. There’s this discussion from 2000:

A poster consulted a Turkish military history expert, and received this result:

Ali Kozanoğlu is of the opinion that Abus is no more then a typo error for howitzer. I have not found it in any other work on Turkish artillery.

The poster promised further research into the topic, but they had not materialized.

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The problem with Abus Gunners is that they’re an Ottoman exclusive unit so they obviously have to be overtuned so that Ottomans only have strengths, not weaknesses. If it was a similar unit for a different civ then they could actually nerf it without weakening Ottomans.

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Thank you. Now I also have a historical reason to get rid of abus.

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I think most issues with Abus Guns could be solved if they have a setup delay (sort of like Longbowman). Setting up tripods takes time…

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I mean, that’s kinda the point - there should be “mercs” from every continent, not just a handful. Part of this thread should be figuring out what the purpose of mercs is, and one thing I was thinking is that there needs to be more than just Mercs and Outlaws - other types of roaming bands of soldiers for hire or soldiers that would otherwise help are a thing.

In the Americas, the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers (as an example) would have joined in any battle that happened in their territory. Being able to recruit them when out on the prairie would make sense.

There’s other examples like this, but the point remains the same - they could easily fit into the same “niche” as the mercs, even if they get called something else.

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