Why are mercenary contracts treated like vassals without the benefits?

[lazereye57]

So i noticed that mercenary contracts is basically a more ****ty version of vassalage.

In warband merc contracts was a great way to not only to earn money, but it also let you test out and fight for different factions early without having to hard commit to a single one, since the merc contract was just a job. You could either wait for the contract to run out and then renew it if you wanted, if you didn't it would not have negative repercussions and if you wanted out early it didn't make people hate you.

In Bannerlord you are basically sweating fealty to a lord when entering a merc contract, there is no time limit on the contract and if you try to get out of it the faction will react the same way as if a vassal left.

So currently you might as well just become a vassal to a lord if you are already in a merc contract. Since you are already treated like a vassal but without the benefits of getting fiefs, allowed to vote, etc.

The only benefit a merc gets over a vassal is that you get extra money from each battle and influence points are converted to money. But that money is so miniscule that it is really not worth it in the long run.

 

[Mjornian]

I agree that Mercenary contracts need work. They should serve as a bridge between the early game and the mid game (considering joining a faction is locked behind a clan level). Right now I only use it to join a faction before I have enough clan level to become a Lord.

Possible improvements:

1. Much like Warband, contracts need to be a fixed length of time. If the contract finishes you can renew.
2. Ending a contract early should only decrease relationship with the Lord that hired you.
3. The Kingdom should pay for (or at least heavily subsidise) the wages of your party. In the early game this would allow you to recruit higher tier units without money worries.
4. Turning in a enemy Lord should give huge monetary rewards well over the price of selling the Lords

I could say more such as a way to negotiate contracts but these four should be easy to implement and would make Mercenary Contracts worth taking

 

[Herbiie]

Being a mecenary in Bannerlord as it is is pointless. You get paid nothing and are tied into a permanent contract taht makes the faction hate you if you break it.

Bring back the warband style where you get more depending on the size of your party and what you do, and have fixed term contracts!

 

[JaffalAllaYourMum]

well if youre a vassal and leave, people hate you as a traitor lol. Good luck hiring them into your kingdom later down the line.

As a mercenary...well youre just a hired sword.

So yeah dont really see an issue. Just pick who you want to be a vassal wisely, in my case I chose a kingdom i will invade later anyway. Can only ever get more hate

 

[Herbiie]

well if youre a vassal and leave, people hate you as a traitor lol. Good luck hiring them into your kingdom later down the line.

As a mercenary...well youre just a hired sword.

So yeah dont really see an issue. Just pick who you want to be a vassal wisely, in my case I chose a kingdom i will invade later anyway. Can only ever get more hate

Are you agreeing or disagreeing with the OP? Because you highlight the OP's point then say you don't see an issue?

 

[JaffalAllaYourMum]

I dont see an issue with the benefits/relationship penalties, but adjusting the gold you get as a mercenary would make more sense.

1. Much like Warband, contracts need to be a fixed length of time. If the contract finishes you can renew.
2. Ending a contract early should only decrease relationship with the Lord that hired you.
3. The Kingdom should pay for (or at least heavily subsidise) the wages of your party. In the early game this would allow you to recruit higher tier units without money worries.
4. Turning in a enemy Lord should give huge monetary rewards well over the price of selling the Lords

I agree with the most except 3. Managing your own finances makes sense, you're paid to deliver results.
4. Just needs more options like the gold for capturing a castle etc.

 

[Herbiie]

I dont see an issue with the benefits/relationship penalties, but adjusting the gold you get as a mercenary would make more sense.

1. Much like Warband, contracts need to be a fixed length of time. If the contract finishes you can renew.
2. Ending a contract early should only decrease relationship with the Lord that hired you.
3. The Kingdom should pay for (or at least heavily subsidise) the wages of your party. In the early game this would allow you to recruit higher tier units without money worries.
4. Turning in a enemy Lord should give huge monetary rewards well over the price of selling the Lords

I agree with the most except 3. Managing your own finances makes sense, you're paid to deliver results.
4. Just needs more options like the gold for capturing a castle etc.

But as you say, as a mercenary you're just a sword for hire, so why are you suffering the same penalities as a vassal for leaving?

 

[JaffalAllaYourMum]

But as you say, as a mercenary you're just a sword for hire, so why are you suffering the same penalities as a vassal for leaving?

Thats true, dont need 2 then. was reading point 3 so point 2 at the time made sense haha

 

[Hagbard]

The reason you would want to do a mercenary contract currently, is that you can do it at Clan Level 1, compared to needing Clan Level 2 to be a vassal.
It allows you to begin doing stuff like raiding farms while still under a particular kingdoms protection. Granted, there should be no penalties of leaving as a mercenary.

You can upgrade from Mercenary to Vassal by talking to the ruler of the Kingdom when you are at least Clan Level 2.

 

[GetAssista]

The whole point of a merc contract in this game is for a player to get acquainted with different factions, with collective play, with waging larger scale wars, and with no overcommitment to one particular faction. Thus it is necessary for the contract to be with limited term and with no grave consequences if you switch factions.

Current game version of merc service obviously does not fulfill the purpose and should be fixed

 

[kalarhan]

the only major issue with mercs, right now, is the lack of a contract time limit. Probably a bug. And so easy to mod in that ... there are already mods for that lol

mercs make money by: selling influence, getting battle loot, selling prisoners, raiding, caravan attacks, etc. Its the difference between being a bandit and having the support of a nation.

there is plenty of room for improvements tho. One is how you cant control your own troops in battle. I rather be limited on what I do (receive orders from the commander) while still having my own troops with me, than be free while watching my troops die lol. Give me the worst orders like: charge the wall, break the gate, etc, but let me lead my own soldiers ... I am the one recruiting and paying their wages lol.

 

[Baalzie]

the only major issue with mercs, right now, is the lack of a contract time limit. Probably a bug. And so easy to mod in that ... there are already mods for that lol

mercs make money by: selling influence, getting battle loot, selling prisoners, raiding, caravan attacks, etc. Its the difference between being a bandit and having the support of a nation.

there is plenty of room for improvements tho. One is how you cant control your own troops in battle. I rather be limited on what I do (receive orders from the commander) while still having my own troops with me, than be free while watching my troops die lol. Give me the worst orders like: charge the wall, break the gate, etc, but let me lead my own soldiers ... I am the one recruiting and paying their wages lol.

That last point...
In all the previews I've seen from battle (Single player) from the game up to launch, it was exactly as you describe it SHOULD be, but isn't...
You got orders on what to do, and led your men in fulfilling those objectives...

Why is that suddenly NOT in the game?
Am I missing something here?

 

[kalarhan]

Why is that suddenly NOT in the game?
Am I missing something here?

its sort of in. When you are part of a army the game chooses a commander and captains.

Commander leads the entire army
Captains lead a division (#1 infantry, #2 archers, etc). Those stacks of troops.

Depending on your stats/influence/whatever you can be selected/ask for a position. If you are accepted as a captain, you will then get commands like
"protect the left flank"
"charge"
"we are still defending, stay back"
"stay in reserve"
and so on

but you cant do what I suggested above, as in, lead your own troops. At most you will lead a random stack.

 

[Blyatt08]

I dont see an issue with the benefits/relationship penalties, but adjusting the gold you get as a mercenary would make more sense.

1. Much like Warband, contracts need to be a fixed length of time. If the contract finishes you can renew.
2. Ending a contract early should only decrease relationship with the Lord that hired you.
3. The Kingdom should pay for (or at least heavily subsidise) the wages of your party. In the early game this would allow you to recruit higher tier units without money worries.
4. Turning in a enemy Lord should give huge monetary rewards well over the price of selling the Lords

I agree with the most except 3. Managing your own finances makes sense, you're paid to deliver results.
4. Just needs more options like the gold for capturing a castle etc.

I agree they shouldn't completely pay for your troops. But they should probably subsidize you based on army size like in warband. Merc troops were paid to fight so that's fine. The rest should be based on the spoils you get. A true commander wins booty for his troops!

 

[Obliviousjd]

I like the current idea the mercenary system is going for but it does need some teaks, like already stated there should be some way out of the contract after it expires, I imagine this is already planed but due to the game being in early access isn't completed yet.

The current mercenary system rewards you based on how much influence you have, the formula seems to be

(Influence//10) * Contract Pay

Additionally influence decays at a rate of 10% per day

This means if you have a Contract pay of 25 then at 0-9 influence you get nothing, 10-19 you get 25, 20-29 you get 50 and 30-39 you get 75 and so on.

I don't think there needs to be a radical change to the current system, but a changing of the formula to be

(Influence//10 + 1) * Contract Pay

This way from 0-9 you get 25, 10-19 you get 50, and so on.

Additionally Contract pay could scale with renown, using a lerp from 15 denar at 75 renown to 30 denar at 200, The contract pay would go into effect each time a new contract is signed, giving the player a gradual increase in daily revenue.

 

[mangalore]

...

but you cant do what I suggested above, as in, lead your own troops. At most you will lead a random stack.

That part makes sense and is how it would have been done. You are a sub commander of the army, e.g. of the cavalry and lead all cavalry. You do not get to deploy your infantry somewhere else where the battle line is supposed to be. That is beside mercenaries though.

 

[Goliath118]

anybody have information if this will be addressed soon? extremely annoying bug.

 

[TheWitchIzalith]

I sent a list of bugs in to a Moderator, who then forwarded them to the team.

They Clarified one of my issues about Skolder Troops being unrecruitable -- Which they said was intended. (minor faction only. So therefore can only rescue/enslave)

They did not mention "Working as intended" about the Mercenary issue, so I believe that it is a bug at this point and the Team is aware of it and potentially working on a fix. I'm sure there are probably a lot more glaring issues like Performance that might be higher priority.

Also in my brief experience as a Mercenary --- The pay (25g for me) was quite poor -- but the opportunity to vulture off the dead is great.

I brought 20 Random Aserai units I recruited specifically to work as a merc, to the Army. The Army of 500+ did a few field battles. I made about 7.5k in Loot, and 5k in Prisoners.

Which is pretty realistic. Mercenary work didn't historically pay well. It was the spoils of war that you got claim to as a mercenary that made it worth it.

Join up with the Army -- Or Raid enemy caravans. Players have reported that you can make 2-10k per Caravan depending on the loot they have and where you sell it.

 

[BattanianDruid]

Which is pretty realistic. Mercenary work didn't historically pay well. It was the spoils of war that you got claim to as a mercenary that made it worth it.

While this may be true it should still be more, in my opinion. We can profit greatly off the war and that can be worth it on its own but it is a huge immersion breaker to me that my contract pays 10 gold per battle. That is WAY too low. If the contract pays for that much they may as well not pay me at all. I'm basically fighting for them as a charity at that point.

The contract still has to pay decently well to consider fighting for a nation. The potential loot and captives is more of a massive bonus you get for doing really, really well that will catapult you beyond the means of a simple merc. But the contract pay still needs to be its own incentive. Otherwise why have contracts pay you at all?

 

[TheWitchIzalith]

While this may be true it should still be more, in my opinion. We can profit greatly off the war and that can be worth it on its own but it is a huge immersion breaker to me that my contract pays 10 gold per battle. That is WAY too low. If the contract pays for that much they may as well not pay me at all. I'm basically fighting for them as a charity at that point.

The contract still has to pay decently well to consider fighting for a nation. The potential loot and captives is more of a massive bonus you get for doing really, really well that will catapult you beyond the means of a simple merc. But the contract pay still needs to be its own incentive. Otherwise why have contracts pay you at all?

Think of the Contract as a means to legally assault and raid people. You are being given the right (and protection) from a Nation to ransack, maraude, raid and so forth. e
You can essentially commit legal banditry in the name of X Kingdom, with no relation loss to most of the world (You will probably get Rep loss with the faction you attack) that otherwise, you would not be able to attack with out fear of heavy retaliation.

Also from a realism point 10g is a lot in medieval standards, though yes with the in game economy not so much.

I'm not against a raise in the pay, just saying that to me, the pay (even in warband) was always the spoils of war. Most of Warbands pay just covered the cost of a small warband, it wasn't very profitable, and it was much harder in Warband in my opinion to group with the AI. As they were always feasting or running around solo.

I personally find the Mercenary work more lucrative now.