mercenary wages

[Scathe]

ok, now I'm about 40 hours into my first game, I wanted to say, this is a great game and I'm having a lot of fun. I don't know if I can phrase this any way to not sound like I'm just whining about my swamp shaman's wage, but here goes.

When I hired a mercenary scavenger hammerman in the first map from a fortress, his initial hiring fee was like 74 trillium at least, so when he asked for like a 26 trillium per week wage, and that was my first encounter with a wage measured in trillium, I wasn't too surprised. fast forward to map 2, I take a fortress from swampers, it was extremely exciting to see swamp floater for 13 trillium and swamp shaman for 11 trillium. I thought, if these guys have a dirt cheap hiring fee, hopefully their wage will be dirt cheap as well. it would really be a nice reward for taking a tough fortress fight if the mercenaries that you hired from the fortress gave you a discounted wage. it was a big disappointment when my swamp shaman asked for the exact same 30 trillium wage as my scavenger hammerman. I think it would be cool, if different mercenaries, from different hiring places, had a different idea of how much wage they want, and if the initial hiring fee was more of an indicator of how expensive they are going to be in the long run.

this is an area battle brothers, another game I like and which I have over 900 hours in, does well. they have the initial wage listed in the hiring menu, and different guys have different wages.

[Dogtown1]

if you can save scum at a town battle that gives you a free merc if you keep him alive till battles end, then why pay wages?
some towns will have a merc that has been shanghai taken into service, and if you defeat these enemies, he will join you "no wages needed"
if you save before entering the town, you can back out, reload till you get the merc you want
so in my opinion ... to make paying wages for mercs, there needs to be a reason
if you want to pay very little wages, take a first level merc and then build him up to your party level, if you wish to attack a high end fortress and need a merc with high numbers, hire an expensive one
have town and fortress mercs change every 7 days similar to the markets
maybe also have the more expensive mercs carry some decent gear, vs. low level carry junk

[Scathe]

in my case, in my game, the only reason I was paying a scavenger hammerman mercenary was because he had started with monster heart, and I thought that was a better start than another scavenger hammerman I got that had immobilizing criticals.

while I agree that save scumming can be a solution, I haven't yet hit a town that had swampers possible in the ones hoping you kill their allies so they can join you, so the swamper shaman I got as a mercenary has not been possible to replace with another better swamper shaman yet.