The Black Army Use?

[Soommor]

I've been messing around with the new 'Black Army' modifier for Hungary, which gives you reduced troop cap and higher merc maintenance in return for 10% merc combat ability, but I find Hungary is too poor a country to take advantage of merc armies in the early stages of the game. Any suggestions on how best to use this feature?

[Doomed World]

Had the same thoughs as you

[Bird the III]

if only there was a goldmine you could invest in ....

[chazla20]

hmm there's only the 1 that Hungary has, right? Develop that puppy up and worry about the depletion later. lol

[Bird the III]

theres also the one in the very hard to defeat and non natural expansion path in serbia
(well there is also austrias and bohemias but that could mean a bit of aggressive expansion)

[Mundy]

Originally posted by chazla20:

hmm there's only the 1 that Hungary has, right? Develop that puppy up and worry about the depletion later. lol

Is depletion actually a thing? I have never seen it happen.

[Glokenpop]

Inflation gets quite brutal when you get over 10 production dev on that goldmine because it's your only real source of income. If it gets over 5 you will get some nasty events that will cost you adm points.

[Mr.M]

That modifier is bs

Will only last about 40-50 years anyway... not really worth it.

Of course maybe with deving up the goldmine to roflstomp the Ottomans, gotta try that. But it still wont last that long

[HoridMatec]

Serbia have one gold mine also, and mixing mercs with normal is kinda affordable if you eat wallachia and parts of poland early, just ally Austria and Muscovy and promise territory. you can take some land from venice when they are at war with ottomans,

[Bird the III]

well it might only last for 50 years but than you can take the age policy for merc combat thats now 5% disp with full army size . if you focus your ideas on a merc route you should be golden and as an catholic its not hard to fight inflation anyway

[Phoenix VII]

Black Army is useless right now, hopefully Paradox will balance it in a future patch.

[luckymarine]

0 use for it, not at that stage of the game and not with how expensive mercs have become.

It's almost as if it was thought up pre Mandate of Heaven and they've not realised that increased merc costs makes the event fairly silly.

Who in their right mind is going to go for rampant inflation and focus merc ideas based on something so brief in the game?

If you want extra discipline vassalise Wallachia, turn him into a March, enable 'send officers' and get him to group up with you in fights. He'll give your army 20% more morale and 10% more discipline due to his national ideas.

[Bird the III]

Originally posted by Phoenix VII:

Black Army is useless right now, hopefully Paradox will balance it in a future patch.

add years of income -0.75

Discipline +10% mercenary discipline
Army tradition +40 army tradition
Mercenary maintenance +30% mercenary maintenance modifier
Land force limit modifier -15% land forcelimit modifier

it gives you a small elite merc army which is affordable when you prepare for it/ plan ahead with early on godlike generals

yeah it surely is a bad thing to pick

[Soommor]

@Bird the Ill

I get that it gives me a small elite army, but I haven't found a way yet to make it even vaguely affordable. Even if I cripple myself with goldmine inflation and grab the Serbs and Wallachians as early as possible, I can't generate a big enough army to really fight. I've had few good runs since posting, but even then I only manage to get a mixed merc and troop force going after about 1485, and even then, it's not enough to take on a Turkish invasion (especially when my French and Polish allies prioritize an invasion of Tunis over defending the front line against the Ottomans. Seriously France, one 30 stack to take out a 7 province minor and another 30 stack to defend your tiny southern coast is not effective when the largest army in the world is sieging down all my border forts).

[Bird the III]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=914859702
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=914860777

as you can see i crushed all natural hungarian enemies (poland, venice, ottoderp, muskovy and Bohemia) i dont even own the serbian goldmine directly.

noone said take the decission and build a 100% merc army asap. but replaceing fallen soldiers with manpower you dont have anymore with mercs which will even fight better than your own men and replacing your normal footsoldiers piece by piece when your economies allows it changes alot.

no polend had the PU over lithuania but after a crushing war agains teuto and me rebells popped lithuania free. and i was at war with bohemia venice poland/lith and muscovy at the same time. defending the mountain forts with mercs and aiming for white piece only made all the difference and ended venice.

since i allied france otto wasn't allowed to and all is well in hungary

[Cpt. Blondebeard]

in the process of playing a hungary campaign without black army, managed to eat half of Serbia, vassalise venice, wallachia, and serbia, and eat half of the ottomans european territory without help from any allies. (allied to austria and papal state)

I find the 10% increase in combat ability doesnt offset the cut in army size unless you also take a decent military idea. the 40 army tradition in regards to generals is still a roll of the dice.