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Deus Vult! - Mercenary Rules

Contracts

Mercenary Contracts are handled differently in Deus Vult! than in the standard rulebooks. The main difference is that any mercenaries contracted by a nation report for service on the following turn, rather than immediately. Large contracts of mercenaries generally became public information, neighboring kings and princes taking note. The standard rules of immediate contracts in LOTE instead allows hundred of units to suddenly appear in a battle with no forewarning. In Deus Vult! the onus for hiding a contract is on the nation taking out the contract. Like any fact reported in the newsfax, it can be modified and hidden by the appropriate Intel actions. If the contracts are not hidden, neighbors and enemies will get word and have a bit of time to react to the contracts.

Mercenary Pools are separate for each geozone. Generally, one-third of all units lost in battles will wind up as mercenaries. Geozones which see more combat have a higher pool of mercenaries to draw upon. In addition, the more contracts completed in a certain geozone, the more mercenaries flock to that zone hoping for employment. On the flip side, mercenaries lost in combat subtract from the pool, as do unfulfilled contracts. Mercenaries who cannot find employ soon abandon the zone.

Each Geozone section in the newsfax will have mercenary information like so:

Troops: These are the number of mercenaries in the current geozone, broken down by type. In the above example, their are eighty-six infantry, seventy-one cavalry, fourteen siege engineers, twenty-two warships and five transports all available for hiring.

AQRs: This lists the quality of the mercenaries in the particular geozone. Mercenary quality is equal to two above the average of all nations within the geozone.

Leader: This field lists any Mercenary Leaders available for hire. Mercenary leaders may only perform movement and combat actions. Diplomacy and Charisma actions, such as Espionage, are not allowed. Following the leader name is the Mercenary's stats. Finally, each leader has a minimum bid rating that must be offered to contact the particular leader.

Bidding on Contracts

Each Contract should be written up as a separate build item like so:

The contract bid must include all necessary information, this includes:

The number and type of mercenaries being hired (limited by the amount eligible in the specific geozone).
Which geozone the contract is taking place in.
The number of GP per unit being offered in the contract (Bids must be in increments of full GP per unit).
The city within the geozone the contract is being offered.
The total GP cost of the contract.

Different unit types of mercenaries may be folded into one contract:

If the player wishes to spend different amounts on different types of mercenary units, the contracts must be listed separately:

If the player wishes to hire mercenaries in different locations, they must again be listed as separate contracts:

To make a mercenary bid, you must control a city within the specific geozone of the pool you are offering the contract to. Nations which share Mercenary Brokerage marriage may use each other's controlled cities. Mercenary contracts may not be extended over multiple turns (as allowed by the standard rules.) Instead, new contracts must be taken each turn in an eligible city within their geozone.

A nation may not offer different contract amounts to the same type of units during a given turn. Meaning, one cannot bid for 25mi @ 1.0 GP, then bid on a second batch of 25mi @ 2.0 GP. This is purely a program database issue, I can currently only assign one contract cost to each unit type (i, c, s, w, t). Hopefully this will be resolved in the future.

Mercenaries may only be led by national leaders of the nation who contracted them. This includes all standard leader types (K, H, P, L, F, etc), mercenary leaders contracted by the nation, and auto-generated garrison leaders. Mercenaries may not be granted to leaders of other nations. Unled mercenaries will avoid combat and march to the nearest controlled location of the contracting nation.

Contract Competition

There are only a finite amount of mercenary troops in each geozone, and there will be occasions when there are not enough units to meet each contract. In the case of competition, the high bid trumps all. Tied contracts are proportionally split. If any part of your contract is not accepted, any GP you spent on the bid is returned to your saved gold. Below are example scenarios:

Mercenary Bribery

Because Mercenaries go where the money is, they are not the most loyal of troops to your cause. They are particularly susceptible to bribery from other nations. Your enemies may wish to throw money at the units in hopes they will violate their contract, or even worse, switch sides during the campaign. If a mercenary unit is offered a bribe, it automatically takes the money. The results of the bribe are as follows:

Each separate bribe attempt is checked vs. the above chart. This means that if five different nations use 1.0 GP in an attempt to bribe the same group of mercenaries who were contracted through a 2.0 GP Bid, none of them will be successful.

Note that the Bid Amounts in contracts are not public information. This means orders such as "Bribe 20mi with enough GP to get them to switch sides" is only viable if you have also run Reveal Fact intelligence to determine the Bid Amounts. Otherwise, you have to use guesswork. And if you guess wrong, your money could very well be wasted. Bribery GP will only be returned to you if no mercenaries are encountered, of if conditional Bribery orders are not triggered.

Each Bribery Attempt must be listed as a build item:

The bribery item must include all necessary information, this includes:

The number of mercenaries being bribed.
The number of GP per unit being offered in the bribe (Bribes must be in increments of full GP per unit).
The location/leader the bribe is being offered at/by.
The total GP cost of the bribery attempt.

If the player has not specified the unit types of mercenaries to be bribed (as the above example) it will default in order to Infantry then Cavalry then Siege then Warships then Transports.

Because the bribery location can be such a variable, it is wise to include additional details in the general notes section, or, as below, with a given leader:

Remember, like all resource expenditures, you must be able to trace a Line of Communication (LoC) to the location in which the bribery occurs. If you cannot trace the LoC, then the gold must be carried via leader to the location. In the above example, most likely Vespucco of Apulia will be within his nation's borders, and so LoC would be in effect. But just in case the Venetian mercenaries invade Tuscany and Vespucco honors a Defensive Pact, moving beyond his own borders, the gold will still be on hand.

Counter-Bribery

After a group of mercenaries has been contracted, the hiring nation may wish to make sure it retains the loyalty, fickle as it may be, of its employed forces. This is done with pure gold. The contracting nation may set aside additional funds for his retained mercenaries. When a bribery attempt occurs, these 'Counter-Bribery funds' are used to increase the effective Bid Amount of the mercenaries in question. Mercenaries with an original Bid Amount of 1.0 GP, and a Counter-Bribery Amount of 2.0 GP, now operate as if they had a Bid Amount of 3.0 GP. This means the Bribery must equal the new Bid Amount (3.0 GP per Unit) to force a contract violation, or double the new amount (6.0 GP per Unit) to force a defection. Anything less than the new Bid Amount (3.0 GP) is wasted.

Counter-Bribery is listed almost exactly the same as Bribery entries:

As with Bribery attempts, additional information in the general notes or leader sections is wise:

Counter-Bribery is only spent if the mercenaries being 'protected' face a bribery attempt. If no bribery attempts occur, the resources are returned to saved (Or retained in the Leader Treasury). If only some of the mercenaries face a bribe attempt, counter-bribery only engages on those particular units directly being bribed. Note that, as with bid amounts, bribery amounts are not public information. Thus, counter-bribery funds will be spent even if they are not enough to prevent violation or defection. Though, as with bribery, Reveal Fact intelligence can be used in an attempt to divine incoming bribery amounts.

Mercenaries and Plunder

Any army which includes mercenaries may not attempt to keep all the resources gained from raids, looting, pirating or sacked cities. Leaders may only attempt to keep all the plunder from armies containing all national or allied troops.