Conscripts vs Mercenaries and general stat growth?

[CapitánDesastre]

Hi, first of all i must say i'm really enjoying this game, i come as a fire emblem/advance wars/ff tactics/suikoden (the tactic battles were awesome) fan and this game really feels like a nice breeze of love in the srpg genre that many modern titles fail to accomplish. That said, i'm the kind of guy that needs to know how everything works in order to not feel like i'm "ignoring a mechanic", In that sense i have a couple questions:

First of all, conscripts against mercenaries.
Mercenaries have more stats than conscripts? also, is the colour (green, blue, purple, etc) representative of how much more stats they have against others? as in i should purchase blue mercenaries before green ones and such. I get the special named ones and mages are great buys but i'm having trouble deciding on the others without knowing this. Also i love the tech that gives +3 lvls to the conscripts and full Tier 1 Class and i prefer to use conscripts than mercenaries for personal reasons (i like the fantasy of training troops and whatnot) but if mercenaries are better i would simply buy them.

Another question is about stat growth. Outside of affinity, what determines stat growth? As far as i know outside of some rng variance, it's the type of the class (light infantry, heavy infantry, archer, cavalry, etc) that determines the stat growth of a unit. Is that right? Also, is that fixed or ita changes everytime i change classes? I can, for example, have a fighter and train him as soldier some more lvls to up their hp more (assuming heavy infantry has more hp growth) then retrain him to skirmisher to end up having a rogue with more hp. Or the opposite, training him early lvls as a skirmisher to then retrain him as a spearman and have a spearman with more skill than usual (again assuming light infantry boosts skill growth).

If that thinking is correct, the only thing that matters are unit type? and then, which units make a difference and how? as in, does cavalry affect differently for example and what boosts what.
Do tiers matter then? a tier 1 light infantry will give me the same stat growth boost in determined stats as a tier 3 light infantry.

I don't know if that questions have been exactly answered, tried to search a little but didn't found concrete info and maybe it's useful to condense it here for newcomers.

All that said, this looks like a pretty nice game and i want to thank developers for making such a clear lovepiece to a genre that's probably niche.

[Dancing Dragon Games]

Mercs tend to roll with higher stat mods than conscripts (stat mods are not growth)

Growth is almost entirely based on your class with a tiny amount of RNG, and affinity is "growth" in a sense but can be changed retroactively, and has no RNG anymore

Tier doesn't matter for growth

[Corka]

Okay, so heres how it goes as far as I can tell. Firstly, the level of recruits increases as you go through the game (possibly based on chapter, or highest levelled character?) So an early game blue Merc will have a lower level than a late game conscript.

Conscripts are the cheapest, have the lowest level, are always tier 1, are at neutral loyalty (unless you have the max loyal conscript tech) and usually don't start with a trait (but sometimes do!).

Mercs start with the lowest loyalty (+2 cap cost) but which can improve over time. As far as I can tell, there are four tiers- green, blue, purple, and orange. Green mercs are the lowest level mercs but at a higher level than conscripts , can be tier 1 or 2 classes, may have a single trait (or none at all) and as far as I can tell are never unique characters. Blue is higher levelled, is tier 2-3, highly likely to have a trait, and there are several decent unique blue mercs available. Purple is higher leveled again, is always tier 3, always has a trait, and there are several excellent unique purple mercs. I have only encountered a single orange, who is a unique Merc who is a tier 4 silver dragonrider starting at a higher level than purple mercs.

Regarding traits, all the non-unique mercs I have seen only come with one, but I believe the random trait they get is more likely to be a higher tier with rarer mercs. Unique mercs meanwhile always have fixed traits across playthroughs, but they can have more than one.

In terms of stat growth as far as I can tell conscripts aren't really worse than mercs in that regard. Since stat growth is a bit random it's hard to compare without dev input. It's also not clear whether homegrown and leveled units have better stats than ones recruited at a higher level. Also on multiple playthroughs you might notice that unique mercs can have noticeably different stats from run to run- i suspect they are also levelled up in the background and the difference (aside from level) is the random differences in stats when you level.

[bighotpuff]

Mercs should in general have better stats and traits than homegrown talent. It makes sense, since typically mercs should have more experience per se, and game wise a more incentive to use mercs for their higher costs.

[Corka]

Personally I don't think mercs should have better base stats or stat growth because then you are punished for using conscripts in general. I think there are plenty of reason to use mercs already without making things so lop sided that you end up firing all non mercs from the army. Even without a bonus trait they can get you a tier 3 unit straight away without costing you special resources and without grinding class mastery.

[glenn3e]

Yeah one should not be better than the other. Mercs have extra traits for the cost of gold and time to earn their loyalty. Conscripts need more experience and have less traits but eventually having better stats.

[Jackfuego226]

Originally posted by Corka:

Personally I don't think mercs should have better base stats or stat growth because then you are punished for using conscripts in general. I think there are plenty of reason to use mercs already without making things so lop sided that you end up firing all non mercs from the army. Even without a bonus trait they can get you a tier 3 unit straight away without costing you special resources and without grinding class mastery.

The balance to mercs is that not only do they cost several times more than conscripts, they also start with low loyalty, which means they need an extra +2 capacity just to be put in a squad. It might not sound like much, but it can be a hassle at some points to have to squeeze out those extra points just for 1 unit.

[CapitánDesastre]

Thanks for all the responses, i love to see a game where devs are this active in the discussions, it's greatly appreciated.
So then as far as we know the examples of stats and class changes that i wrote are doable right?
That said, do we know what are the class types and the stats they up more? does cavalry affect this for example?

As for the stat mods i guess that means just more "base stats" right? And that ups with rarity?

For the discussion about conscripts vs mercenaries i also think that conscripts should be more of a "you start slow but it pays off" or if you want to quickly mass some units, and mercenaries be more of a "i put 2 elite units" but if the stat difference is too much and hand leveling conscripts doesn't gives more stats as a return i guess with gold being the only limitant and mercenaries opening up resources, the loyalty penalty is not enough to justify conscripts in general, which is a shame for the middle tech tree. That said, i do not have enough experience in the game yet for this to be a valuable opinion xD.

[BoogieMan]

Originally posted by Hikiomaru:

Thanks for all the responses, i love to see a game where devs are this active in the discussions, it's greatly appreciated.
So then as far as we know the examples of stats and class changes that i wrote are doable right?
That said, do we know what are the class types and the stats they up more? does cavalry affect this for example?

As for the stat mods i guess that means just more "base stats" right? And that ups with rarity?

For the discussion about conscripts vs mercenaries i also think that conscripts should be more of a "you start slow but it pays off" or if you want to quickly mass some units, and mercenaries be more of a "i put 2 elite units" but if the stat difference is too much and hand leveling conscripts doesn't gives more stats as a return i guess with gold being the only limitant and mercenaries opening up resources, the loyalty penalty is not enough to justify conscripts in general, which is a shame for the middle tech tree. That said, i do not have enough experience in the game yet for this to be a valuable opinion xD.

I've been mostly using conscripts myself, a few hires of expectionals here and there, but I don't think the difference is significant. Mercs are expensive and if you want to buy the best items at the marketplace and on a few maps with the shop tents, then you probably can't afford that many high tier mercs.

Also, later on you unlock a tech that starts your raw recruits as a few levels higher and fully loyal which lowers their squad cost by 2. If you have a squad full of fully loyal soldiers you can field bigger squads without have to slowly level the loyalty of mercs.

[Jackfuego226]

Originally posted by BoogieMan:

Originally posted by Hikiomaru:

Thanks for all the responses, i love to see a game where devs are this active in the discussions, it's greatly appreciated.
So then as far as we know the examples of stats and class changes that i wrote are doable right?
That said, do we know what are the class types and the stats they up more? does cavalry affect this for example?

As for the stat mods i guess that means just more "base stats" right? And that ups with rarity?

For the discussion about conscripts vs mercenaries i also think that conscripts should be more of a "you start slow but it pays off" or if you want to quickly mass some units, and mercenaries be more of a "i put 2 elite units" but if the stat difference is too much and hand leveling conscripts doesn't gives more stats as a return i guess with gold being the only limitant and mercenaries opening up resources, the loyalty penalty is not enough to justify conscripts in general, which is a shame for the middle tech tree. That said, i do not have enough experience in the game yet for this to be a valuable opinion xD.

I've been mostly using conscripts myself, a few hires of expectionals here and there, but I don't think the difference is significant. Mercs are expensive and if you want to buy the best items at the marketplace and on a few maps with the shop tents, then you probably can't afford that many high tier mercs.

Also, later on you unlock a tech that starts your raw recruits as a few levels higher and fully loyal which lowers their squad cost by 2. If you have a squad full of fully loyal soldiers you can field bigger squads without have to slowly level the loyalty of mercs.

I also think that conscripts aren't able to lead squads right away, but I have to test this more. It's mostly an issue for the early game, anyway.

[bighotpuff]

The whole point in the theory of Mercs is that they are more experienced and trained than conscripts since their lives depends on that as a career. Game wise they cost 2 pts more to field which is already a big hinderance in using them unless they are squad leaders. Mercs in general should be a bit better units since they are professionals, while conscripts are not. It makes sense Mercs have lower loyalties as they are tied to payouts instead of causes. Mercs should statistically be a bit higher and have better traits since they are experienced folks who have faced a wider variety of conflicts.

It really doesn't take that much in game to level and CP a toon. It also is tougher to hire mercs early on since you are more in a budget crunch. Eventually I have more money than i really need. I mean you literally dont have to invest in any artifacts and anything else money wise other than to hire folks to beat this game.

[Simple Kind of Man]

Originally posted by bighotpuff:

The whole point in the theory of Mercs is that they are more experienced and trained than conscripts since their lives depends on that as a career. Game wise they cost 2 pts more to field which is already a big hinderance in using them unless they are squad leaders. Mercs in general should be a bit better units since they are professionals, while conscripts are not. It makes sense Mercs have lower loyalties as they are tied to payouts instead of causes. Mercs should statistically be a bit higher and have better traits since they are experienced folks who have faced a wider variety of conflicts.

It really doesn't take that much in game to level and CP a toon. It also is tougher to hire mercs early on since you are more in a budget crunch. Eventually I have more money than i really need. I mean you literally dont have to invest in any artifacts and anything else money wise other than to hire folks to beat this game.

its already like that tho?