SP - UI Mercenary Recruitment UI

[scarface52]

Current way of recruiting mercenary soldiers through UI looks like this:

As you would agree current implementation is not on par with quality of UI in rest of the game has. You can't see the soldier you are recruiting and you can't get any info about it without typing to the encyclopedia which is a hassle. Since the button is not appealing, players tend to not use this feature. Even misclicking while trying to sell prisoners is possible.

I have 2 different solutions to this problem that I have tried to illustrate poorly but you should get the idea.

1) Recruit mercenaries through general recruitment menu

Spoiler: Illustration

First of all you can see who you are recruiting this way and if you want more information about him you can simply right click to get his encyclopedia page. You would be able see campaign speed and wage changes too. You can also select how many you want recruit this way and I don't think this qualifies as a balance change because if you are low on funds or don't have enough space for all of them, game lets you recruit less.

Spoiler

This might require some changes regarding to the how this screen works to be able to support high number of mercenaries but you would now this better.

2) Recruit them through tavern UI character portraits

Spoiler: Illustration

If first solution doesn't fit your agenda then consider this one. At least we would be able to see who we are recruiting and we can simply right click to get more info this way. Always putting mercenaries at first place in the UI should make them more easily accessible in a case of too many wanderers.

 

[MRay]

First one; recruitment has specific mechanics in place. Players know and assume those "sponsors" are notables that supply those troops, if you have better relations with them you'll get more troops available, troop quality depends on the sponsors' power etc etc. Adding mercenaries there would break the flow of the window and make things complicated. Unless we change the the tavern mercenary recruitment mechanic and add those relation/power based recruitment to mercenaries(which is not in the plans atm), it wouldn't jell.

Second one; I think this is also not ideal but certainly better than the recruitment window. We're repurposing the character or party tab on the settlement overlay for something that was not intended for it to be there. As in, showing a group of men, not a mobile party or a character. So now we cannot say, "in character tab you'll see characters in that location and in the party tab you'll see parties in that location in the settlement", it becomes "in character tab you'll see characters in that location OR you'll see mercenaries available if you're in a tavern and if they're available and in the party tab you'll see parties in that location in the settlement"

Overall though, I understand your frustration. I'll bring this up internally and see what we can come up with.

Thank you for your suggestion.

 

[scarface52]

I can see how radical these changes that I proposed can be and how it can affect overall consistency. I am confident that you are able to find a much better solution than I can think of and thank you for your detailed explanation.