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Mercenaries you are sponsoring and giving a place to live don't just turn around and attack you. That's bad business. Unless you're specifically doing them wrong, there would be little reason for such a betrayal. Mercenaries are in the business of war, and they'd know full well a Khanate will destroy their business in the long run.
The Marauders also aren't mercenaries because all they do is raid. You can't hire the Marauders to fight in a war with you, all you can do is give them a bribe to raid your rival. Closest you can get is hiring an admiral, and they never leave, so you didn't pay for mercenaries you just straight up hired an admiral.
That does however gives me an idea which would spice up the game. A loyalty mechanic for Mercenary Enclaves would be an interesting dynamic. As it stands though I don't feel the default behavior should be them turning around against their sponsor at the drop of a hat.
It's really not if they take your system and then it belongs to the Khan. Makes perfect sense.
If they do accept something like that, typically the agreement isn't to fight for the enemy but instead not fight at all. After all, the enemy doesn't 'need' the mercenaries, they just need you not to have them.
On top of this I highly doubt a Khanate would bother. They're space steep people. They don't pay people to fight for them, they force people to pay them to avoid a fight.
That being said, I'm not saying it shouldn't be possible, but there is severe lack of player intervention from their own enclave. You should be given the ability to prevent it in some manner not sitting on a liability for mid-game. The Swiss certainly didn't murder themselves with their mercenaries after all, and I doubt you could have paid them to do so.
This has happened in real history. For example, Greek mercenaries hastened the fall of ancient Egypt. They not only betrayed the pharaoh, but also gave the Persians schemes for fortifications, so that Egypt was conquered. They did it because the Persians had more money.
“Mercenaries and auxiliaries are at once useless and dangerous, and he who holds his State by means of mercenary troops can never be solidly or securely seated. For such troops are disunited, ambitious, insubordinate, treacherous … And this because they have no tie or motive to keep them in the field beyond their paltry pay, in return for which it would be too much to expect them to give their lives.” Italian philosopher Machiavelli, 16th century
They do, even other empires can hire them for that very purpose and it has happened in reality as well.
Ingame you are their patron and that gives you certain advantages, but they aren't part of your forces anymore nor have they made a agreement not to attack you. They are mercenaries at the end of the day, loyal to whoever pays them. You can however have them end their current contract for influence and cash (perhaps the very reason they joined the Khan against you, to force your hand to make you end the contract).
That said, i agree that its unlikely that a mercenary company within the boarders of a country that is their benefactor would fight against them. But again its hardly impossible or even unrealistic, just unlikely.
I think that looking at the more notorious modern-day state-sponsored contractor or private military groups, there's an argument to be made that they're not likely to oppose the interests of the state that formed them. One can't exactly imagine Blackwater supporting an invasion of the USA, or Wagner Group switching sides because NATO gives them spare cash.
I'm mostly just slightly salty because this has been happening consistently in my past run thoroughs, and if you have been investing into your Enclaves it pretty much constitutes a near-endgame fleet spontaneously appearing in your backline. And since they count as the Khan's forces, you lose the system and anything in it. God forbid your enclave was next to a large space station or over a planet.
In gameplay terms...I can see it sticking, mostly because Mercenary Enclaves are horrifyingly overpowered to begin with and there needs to be a balancing act. But the ability to backline people is not particularly conducive to fun gameplay. In my opinion, at least.
Yes, I absolutely can imagine that. We might even see it in our lifetimes.
I think people are always people and everyone wants not only money, but also to be on the winning side. Also, other countries have no intentions to buy the services of those mercenaries whom they consider war criminals and want to judge for crimes in their territories.