Too many units in custom battles.....

[AqD]

As you may have known, there are already too many mercenary units to fit in the unit selection screen for custom battles. I have disabled many of the old ones since version 2, but now even the newly-added merc units are going to reach the limit (100 per faction?). Some of them must be taken out as well, perhaps a completely re-organization... So..... Any suggestions?

[Hakomar]

I don't have time to check, but do you mean worldwide mercenaries, or local mercenaries? I havn't played a custom/multiplayer battle yet.

[AqD]

all mercenaries are local mercenaries. Also a lot of local units (such as gallic archer) have been made mercenaries so they may be shared between factions ... that's the problem

[Hakomar]

Again, I am confused. Do you mean all factions get to use the gallic archer in custom battles, or only nearby units such as possibly the romans, gauls, germanics, and iberians?

[AqD]

Yeah all factions. For mercenaries it's either all or none...

[Hakomar]

type merc cretan archers
dictionary merc_cretan_archers ; Cretan Archers
category infantry
class missile
voice_type Light_1
soldier greek_archer_merc, 40, 0, 0.8
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, can_sap, hardy, mercenary_unit
formation 1.6, 2, 3.2, 4, 3, square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 11, 3, arrow, 170, 30, missile, archery, piercing, none, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr no
stat_sec 6, 3, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, knife, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 0, 4, 0, flesh
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 1
stat_ground 2, 0, 3, 0
stat_mental 8, normal, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 550, 200, 60, 90, 550
ownership slave, greek_cities, macedon

From Vanilla.

Notice the ownership on it. It is a mercenary unit, yes?
I have no idea whatsoever about modding, limited knowledge.
From what I know, and you probably can confirm/deny this, there is a file that says what buildings recruit what, like where urbans come from urban barracks. I would presume mercenaries are not included in this, because they cannot be recruited from a building.

These factions own them, but cannot recruit them via ingame, so it would be specifically for custom/multiplayer, I would presume.

This is with my pathetic knowledge of modding, so please do not shoot me down.

[Sir Walter]

That's probably how it worked in Vanilla, yes, because you only got mercenaries that were near your starting point...

[Hakomar]

Possibly. This is just the way I thought it worked, not knew it worked. I don't know about modding, I was taking a bad educated guess.

[Caligula Caesar]

Units with "mercenary_unit" are recruitable by anyone as mercenaries regardless of their ownership so long as they are defined in the merc recruitment file. Thats how it works on RTW and BI. I'm not sure about Alex or recruitability in custom battles, though.

[Hakomar]

Indeed, mercenaries can be recruited by anyone, a mercenary from Britannia by someone from Baktria, in the campaign guide. I would like to say that in Alexander: Total War, you can restrict availibility of mercenaries to specific factions. I did a test with Vanilla (I know, it's not a mod, but I think it would have the same effect) with the Cretans, and gave the faction Carthage to it. Ingame, custom battle, it came up.

[Quinn Inuit]

Why not just no_custom a few of the less useful or redundant ones?

[mochi]

Also I think availablility of all mercenaries is not necessary in custom battle, it should be adequate for near by factions.

[AqD]

Also I think availablility of all mercenaries is not necessary in custom battle, it should be adequate for near by factions.

well the problem is that it cannot be made available for some factions but not others in custom battle.... it's all or none

[Kylan271]

Hmm I thought you can make mercs custom to only be used for certain factions,geez i thought I saw a thread refering to this,if i find i will get back to you..^_* .

But why all or none???? Normally I see Mods have mercs region specific..which can apply to all..but in mods I also see Mercs absent from faction rosters-custom,but in others,so there has to be a work around????

Yeah,updating..no_custom as shown below also can help.

[AqD]

@Quinn: because most of them are useful and necessary to complete the unit rosters of certain factions

[Quinn Inuit]

Oh, I see.

I think you can affect ownership in custom battles. In the ExRM, mercenary hoplites have the following ownership:
ownership macedon, greek_cities, egyptian, slave, carthage

And I noticed that, while I was testing out my new Dacians, they couldn't recruit the mercenary hoplites.

[Hakomar]

Are your problems AoR units, and not mercenaries?

[AqD]

@Hakomar: AOR and mercenaries are basically the same in the mod.
@Quinn Inuit: yeah but I need them to be available to all factions on campaign.....