Mercenary use in the punic and successor factions

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

As of now , i am a new player to the game but one would think mercenaries would have better stats than citizen soldiers, as one is a professional and the other a conscript . My experience with this was with the seleucids were i trained the mercenary spear cav, " the something something hetairos" and its stats seemed to equal of the citizen spear cav of makedonia , the " sarissaphoros" . Now this isn't really a very important thing since i think the idea with mercs is to give certain civs more options at an increased resource cost. With that said some mercs available seem redundant , carthage can build the italian and iberian embassies and has little need for celtic one , again the spear cav and sword inf for seleucids makes sense since their own spear cav and sword inf  are champs. I haven't touched the other successor kingdom but perhaps the ptolomies should also have to rely on greek mercs because native troops were of lesser quality , but i think making mercs better would skrew the balance. I also take the liberty to ask why does spear cav have 2 dmg types ? Doesn't having 2 dmg types mean their dmg has to go through 2 types of defense which will lower the real dmg ( after subtracting the defense percentage of the target) when compared to sword cav who has only one type of dmg? 

Edited April 27, 2021 by PyrrhicVictoryGuy
forgot to have a conclusion

[Yekaterina]

On 27/04/2021 at 10:36 AM, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:

I haven't touched the other successor kingdom but perhaps the ptolomies should also have to rely on greek mercs because native troops were of lesser quality , but i think making mercs better would skrew the balance.

Ptolemies, Seleucids, Carthage and Macedon all have the same problem of useless but expensive mercenaries. This will surely be improved in A25. If you happen to play these civs I recommend just using native troops: spam archers with Carthage, Spam pikemen for Macedon and Ptolemies, for Seleucids use javelineers and a mixture of spear and pike to counter enemy ranged infantry. They all have decent siege and champion cavalry so use them instead. 

On 27/04/2021 at 10:36 AM, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:

I also take the liberty to ask why does spear cav have 2 dmg types ? Doesn't having 2 dmg types mean their dmg has to go through 2 types of defense which will lower the real dmg ( after subtracting the defense percentage of the target) when compared to sword cav who has only one type of dmg? 

The hack damage of spearmen allow them to destroy siege weapons and pikemen more effectively. Pikes have insane pierce armour but little hack armour.

[Lion.Kanzen]

50 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

Ptolemies, Seleucids, Carthage and Macedon all have the same problem of useless

sorry but Carthage have swordman as mercenary, I don't see useless, at least that unit.

[Player of 0AD]

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

Pikes have insane pierce armour but little hack armour.

Yeah, only 10 (65%), really low. Just the highest hack armour of any citizen in the game ; )

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

Currently, the only situation where mercenaries would be advantageous as an overall army composition (rather than just anti-ram) is trading. Since traders get all resources at the same speed and mercenaries costs less total resources, then a player with mercenaries will beat a player without mercenaries if both are using trade as primary resource gathering method. Most games of 0ad do not see significant amounts of trade.

I am not sure about the specific value changes that are needed for mercenaries, but I think keeping their inability to gather res is ok. If mercenaries costed the same in total resources as regular citizen soldiers, and with an increase from their current cost of wood and food and a mild reduction of metal cost maybe to a value between 25-50 (not sure). Example cost: 30f 40w 30m for infantry and 70f 40w 40m for cavalry. 

 

Also, maybe the "good mercenaries" (expertise in war?) upgrade should increase mercenaries rank to veteran rather than just advanced, but increase the training time of mercenaries and still cost some resources.

Edited April 30, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

On 30/04/2021 at 7:54 PM, Yekaterina said:

Ptolemies, Seleucids, Carthage and Macedon all have the same problem of useless but expensive mercenaries. This will surely be improved in A25. If you happen to play these civs I recommend just using native troops: spam archers with Carthage, Spam pikemen for Macedon and Ptolemies, for Seleucids use javelineers and a mixture of spear and pike to counter enemy ranged infantry. They all have decent siege and champion cavalry so use them instead. 

The hack damage of spearmen allow them to destroy siege weapons and pikemen more effectively. Pikes have insane pierce armour but little hack armour.

Shouldn't one use the swordsman champ coupled with antiochus III as seleucids to counter  infantry ? 

Edited May 1, 2021 by PyrrhicVictoryGuy

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

Rnaged infantry is that bit bloated , recently i've been trying out army compositions without any ranged units but i tell you it's  really hard to win but satisfying although only the civs with a lot of options like seleucids can do it. i just love the look of the catphracts and the thessalian cav

[Yekaterina]

Cataphracts are pretty strong against infantry archers. You get 30 of them and charge at a line of archers or raid farms with them.

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

31 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

Cataphracts are pretty strong against infantry archers. You get 30 of them and charge at a line of archers or raid farms with them.

I'd wager that   a dozen or so would the job