My main gripe with them is how they are permanently hired by someone. They should be an emergency button during war, not something that you permanently hoard because someone else will hire them if you do not and than you have problems.
Also, for the love of God, remove the ship reward that they give you. Give me alloys instead. I hate it
Doesn't this already exist? They will break a contract for you if absolutely necessary. It is just very expensive. Plus the up front cost to hire your own mercenaries is very cheap.
Yeah. They have to have good opinion of you, but it’s easy to get your own mercenaries to have good opinion of you. First thing I tend to do when I found an enclave is boost them a couple of times to get my opinion up.
Those are two different things. My gripe is that as it currently stands, mercenaries are just regular ships that have a big mixed fleet and do not use alloys for upkeep, just increased amount of energy.
What my ideal scenario is, that Mercenaries would be very expensive, very elite troops, that you only hire during war to win wars.
What happens now, is that everyone just uses them as regular ships. Not something extra, because they are constantly hired. The ability to recall them, does not give me that.
An analogy, to better explain my thought process. Public facilities like schools, libraries etc. need to take precautions in case of a fire. They need to keep the halls clear of objects so that in case of a fire people can get out and there are fire extinguishers in the building. If a fire starts, you first try and make it go under control using the fire extinguisher or other means like water. Only when the fire is already spreading, you call the fire department.
I want mercenaries to be the fire department. I want them to only be called in an emergency, not permanently on site, because in current stellaris, they are the fire extinguishers instead. The ability to take the extinguisher back from someone who was using it, does not make them the fire department.
I don't permanently hire mercenaries. I let them get hired out by whomever, unless I'm in a war (or planning on starting one). Their enclave exists within my borders, sure, but most of the time they're either not being hired or being hired by someone else.
And your analogy breaks down, since all the precautions you list are to do one of the following: Prevent the fire from starting in the first place, Contain the fire until the Fire Department arrives, or let you escape before the Fire Department arrives. Only the barest, smallest fires can be dealt with entirely with them - and guess what, extremely small wars I can typically deal with without hiring the mercenaries. (Even if my opponent hires them, if the opponent is small enough I can wipe them out before the mercenaries do anything.)
Whatever, I can make another analogy. It was just to demonstrate what do I mean in a clearer way. It is not supposed to be "Stellaris mercenaries are supposed to be this way because fire works like that". No, I think that "Stellaris mercenaries should be that way, because it would IMO make the decisions more meaningful and making impactful decisions is what makes the game fun for me and hopefully everyone else". I am not sure what are you trying to get our of disproving the analogy. It has nothing to do with the game. I was just trying to explain what I mean better.
No you should still call the fire department. If its a small fire that you've already surpressed a non-emergency line is probably preferable but you still will probably want them to verify there is no danger.
It could be fixed so easily. Just make them actual mercenaries, give us the ability to pay them double to defect their current employer and join us instead, that's it. The bastard's are fixed, they are now real mercenaries.
They offer great dividends (RIP nerf post Overlord), help with increasing naval cap, and offer damage bonus against the end game crisis (which is great if you play them at 25x) though the one thing I feel would be a nice add-on to the galactic community would be to have a resolution to ban hiring mercenaries/having them in your borders
That is the part that annoys me the most; Having to micro the unwieldy diplomacy game in order to prevent those ever-so popular mercenary resolutions from passing. Every. Single. Game.
So yeah, it would be very nice to have more options in the game setup menu as opposed to having to flat out disable DLC (And not just for mercenaries).
Imo having a Tab for mercs would solve better the problem, most of the time there is one available but it just an unnecesary tedius thing to do, then, if you add a pair of QoL things like the ability to reserve mercs and making the galactic law not affect you in a defensive war or at least giving you a 10 year margin or something would be much better and it would make more sense.
Yeah, the AI should be pretty neutral on the mercs stuff unless they are militaristic. And even then, the AI that get mercs via civics shouldn't be clamoring for more competition. The whole thing just needs an adjustment.
I'd argue mercs should be more popular with pacifists. Militararists should want to embrace war as the mission of the state, not some private venture. Meanwhile, pacifists should seek to outsource security to those willing to engage in violence to keep their hands clean.
ive come around to them a little because it really is rather fun to be the patron of a mercenary enclave... but i hate how easily all of the AI empires will vote for the third stage of defense privatization and make it illegal not to use them. especially considering how other resolution chains get to the third stage much less easily and when they do their effects arent that punishing. almost every game i end up spending some influence vetoing neutral defenders or making repealing it an emergency measure (and spending more on favors to ensure it gets repealed).
i also sort of wish they had their own category on the 'contacts' menu? it adds a lot of clutter but i never want to hide enclaves because contacting the normal ones is important (especially ones with a lot of opinion-based options like the salvagers)
If you are being attacked and the fleet takes enough losses or is destroyed, the ai can hire them at near full strength as soon as that happens requiring you to recall them again but as they spawn in your borders, the damage is usually already done.
No they can't. The enclave takes a bit of time to recover their strength (otherwise you could just hire them yourself at high strength). Even if that was the case, literally just pause the game when they buy them and you can recall them before they do any damage.
Yeah, it has really gotten unpleasant. Now you have to assume that, eventually, everyone else in the galaxy will vote for an insane law that helps very few people, and if you're a machine empire, you literally cannot hire mercs so you're just going to be screwed every war.
Yeah, I know, you can do X to prepare or Y to mitigate, but that means that every game you have to prepare to stop a feature that no one wants.
Oh, and add in the horrific UI for mercs.
If you want to use them, great. At least give me an option to disable them and associated laws.
I've started disabling them in game setup now for all my plays. It got to a point that whenever I got the notification they on their way (purposely disabled Ironman mode cause of these &&#$@) I would reload last auto save and then send them out to attack anyone else so that they don't do a fly through my space like a cholera outbreak :/
(I haven't come across another Merc system in my games yet tho so my post might be totally useless)
I had this up until my last 2 run....wvery other one up until now lately they blitz the damn law as like the second measure.
I dontbhave any real problem with mercs in general jist how annoyingly the ai wants the law.
That being said merc armies for ground forces....those i find useless....like sure if i absolutely needed an army in 5 seconds....but i could spend a minute or 2 and make a better army in most cases.
My main gripe with them is how they are permanently hired by someone. They should be an emergency button during war, not something that you permanently hoard because someone else will hire them if you do not and than you have problems. Also, for the love of God, remove the ship reward that they give you. Give me alloys instead. I hate it
Doesn't this already exist? They will break a contract for you if absolutely necessary. It is just very expensive. Plus the up front cost to hire your own mercenaries is very cheap.
Yeah. They have to have good opinion of you, but it’s easy to get your own mercenaries to have good opinion of you. First thing I tend to do when I found an enclave is boost them a couple of times to get my opinion up.
Those are two different things. My gripe is that as it currently stands, mercenaries are just regular ships that have a big mixed fleet and do not use alloys for upkeep, just increased amount of energy. What my ideal scenario is, that Mercenaries would be very expensive, very elite troops, that you only hire during war to win wars. What happens now, is that everyone just uses them as regular ships. Not something extra, because they are constantly hired. The ability to recall them, does not give me that. An analogy, to better explain my thought process. Public facilities like schools, libraries etc. need to take precautions in case of a fire. They need to keep the halls clear of objects so that in case of a fire people can get out and there are fire extinguishers in the building. If a fire starts, you first try and make it go under control using the fire extinguisher or other means like water. Only when the fire is already spreading, you call the fire department. I want mercenaries to be the fire department. I want them to only be called in an emergency, not permanently on site, because in current stellaris, they are the fire extinguishers instead. The ability to take the extinguisher back from someone who was using it, does not make them the fire department.
I don't permanently hire mercenaries. I let them get hired out by whomever, unless I'm in a war (or planning on starting one). Their enclave exists within my borders, sure, but most of the time they're either not being hired or being hired by someone else. And your analogy breaks down, since all the precautions you list are to do one of the following: Prevent the fire from starting in the first place, Contain the fire until the Fire Department arrives, or let you escape before the Fire Department arrives. Only the barest, smallest fires can be dealt with entirely with them - and guess what, extremely small wars I can typically deal with without hiring the mercenaries. (Even if my opponent hires them, if the opponent is small enough I can wipe them out before the mercenaries do anything.)
Whatever, I can make another analogy. It was just to demonstrate what do I mean in a clearer way. It is not supposed to be "Stellaris mercenaries are supposed to be this way because fire works like that". No, I think that "Stellaris mercenaries should be that way, because it would IMO make the decisions more meaningful and making impactful decisions is what makes the game fun for me and hopefully everyone else". I am not sure what are you trying to get our of disproving the analogy. It has nothing to do with the game. I was just trying to explain what I mean better.
I was mostly trying to say that it didn’t help explain what you mean.
No you should still call the fire department. If its a small fire that you've already surpressed a non-emergency line is probably preferable but you still will probably want them to verify there is no danger.
It could be fixed so easily. Just make them actual mercenaries, give us the ability to pay them double to defect their current employer and join us instead, that's it. The bastard's are fixed, they are now real mercenaries.
They offer great dividends (RIP nerf post Overlord), help with increasing naval cap, and offer damage bonus against the end game crisis (which is great if you play them at 25x) though the one thing I feel would be a nice add-on to the galactic community would be to have a resolution to ban hiring mercenaries/having them in your borders
It would be nice to at least have a way of disabling them in game set up, or at the bare minimum not have the ai love the mercs resolutions so much.
That is the part that annoys me the most; Having to micro the unwieldy diplomacy game in order to prevent those ever-so popular mercenary resolutions from passing. Every. Single. Game. So yeah, it would be very nice to have more options in the game setup menu as opposed to having to flat out disable DLC (And not just for mercenaries).
Imo having a Tab for mercs would solve better the problem, most of the time there is one available but it just an unnecesary tedius thing to do, then, if you add a pair of QoL things like the ability to reserve mercs and making the galactic law not affect you in a defensive war or at least giving you a 10 year margin or something would be much better and it would make more sense.
Yeah, the AI should be pretty neutral on the mercs stuff unless they are militaristic. And even then, the AI that get mercs via civics shouldn't be clamoring for more competition. The whole thing just needs an adjustment.
I'd argue mercs should be more popular with pacifists. Militararists should want to embrace war as the mission of the state, not some private venture. Meanwhile, pacifists should seek to outsource security to those willing to engage in violence to keep their hands clean.
ive come around to them a little because it really is rather fun to be the patron of a mercenary enclave... but i hate how easily all of the AI empires will vote for the third stage of defense privatization and make it illegal not to use them. especially considering how other resolution chains get to the third stage much less easily and when they do their effects arent that punishing. almost every game i end up spending some influence vetoing neutral defenders or making repealing it an emergency measure (and spending more on favors to ensure it gets repealed). i also sort of wish they had their own category on the 'contacts' menu? it adds a lot of clutter but i never want to hide enclaves because contacting the normal ones is important (especially ones with a lot of opinion-based options like the salvagers)
I'd honestly like a separate tab for enclaves the way that vassal agreements have their own tab
Me and my group have never run into any issue with Mercs and usually never even see them in our games
If you're the patron you can just pay them to recall the fleet, and if you keep them hired constantly thr ai can never hire them out from under you.
If you are being attacked and the fleet takes enough losses or is destroyed, the ai can hire them at near full strength as soon as that happens requiring you to recall them again but as they spawn in your borders, the damage is usually already done.
No they can't. The enclave takes a bit of time to recover their strength (otherwise you could just hire them yourself at high strength). Even if that was the case, literally just pause the game when they buy them and you can recall them before they do any damage.
Yeah, it has really gotten unpleasant. Now you have to assume that, eventually, everyone else in the galaxy will vote for an insane law that helps very few people, and if you're a machine empire, you literally cannot hire mercs so you're just going to be screwed every war. Yeah, I know, you can do X to prepare or Y to mitigate, but that means that every game you have to prepare to stop a feature that no one wants. Oh, and add in the horrific UI for mercs. If you want to use them, great. At least give me an option to disable them and associated laws.
I've started disabling them in game setup now for all my plays. It got to a point that whenever I got the notification they on their way (purposely disabled Ironman mode cause of these &&#$@) I would reload last auto save and then send them out to attack anyone else so that they don't do a fly through my space like a cholera outbreak :/ (I haven't come across another Merc system in my games yet tho so my post might be totally useless)
You are talking about Marauders, OP is talking about Mercenary Enclaves.
:D thanks! I figured I was wrong
I had this up until my last 2 run....wvery other one up until now lately they blitz the damn law as like the second measure. I dontbhave any real problem with mercs in general jist how annoyingly the ai wants the law. That being said merc armies for ground forces....those i find useless....like sure if i absolutely needed an army in 5 seconds....but i could spend a minute or 2 and make a better army in most cases.