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Hard Power for Hire - a Speculative Piece on Mercenaries

ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
in Ashes Of Creation General Discussion
A couple months ago, I wrote an article on how players may organize themselves in Ashes, serving as a foundation to build on for future think pieces. It took me a while to figure what to work on next, and it's finally done!

Hard Power for Hire: Management and Employment of Mercenaries in Ashes of Creation

Please let me know what you think of it.

Comments

  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited November 2017
    Very interesting good read!

    I'm confused on the difference between hiring mercenaries as opposed to NPC's. 

    Once a random person sees's a caravan, they have three options. To join/fight/leave. 

    Once they click join, does the caravan owner have to approve? Since it is in fact there resources/money that the other user will be working for. 

    Also, why hire mercenaries in the first place if you can hire NPC's?
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  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited November 2017
    Jewel said:
    Very interesting good read!

    I'm confused on the difference between hiring mercenaries as opposed to NPC's. 

    Once a random person sees's a caravan, they have three options. To join/fight/leave. 

    Once they click join, does the caravan owner have to approve? Since it is in fact there resources/money that the other user will be working for. 

    Also, why hire mercenaries in the first place if you can hire NPC's?
    If we're speaking strictly about the mechanics of caravan escort, the difference would be having NPCs with "dumb" AI simply sticking to your caravan and reacting to anything within an aggro range, versus players who may send forward scouts to alert you of any threats ahead. Of course, we have no idea about how effective NPC escorts can be. If the top tier of NPC guard is so deadly that it takes a 10-person group to take one guard down, and that top tier is affordable to your average trader, then there's not much of a point in hiring player mercenaries to guard your caravan.

    As I outlined in the article, they can perform a lot more services which are beyond the scope of caravan escort. Let's say you don't trust mercenaries to do the fighting for you, but still need someone to deliver supplies to where you are. Hiring someone to do part of your wartime work for you is still covered under my broad definition of mercenary work.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    Interesting read.
    I myself love the idea of having guilds that are actually paid mercenaries. Would love to see this system in game. 
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