The Uber-loyal Mercenaries

[MrFlibble]

When you play as Ordos in single-player, it is heavily implied in the missions where you're allied with mercenaries that they will turn on you if taken too much casualties. Like this:

Edric O: "They are unreliable. They come and go. When the casualty count goes high, they will go!"

Edric O: "We see our mercenaries are restless. They will just as soon kill us as kill for us!"

Sometimes during the game, I recieve a message: "Mercenary Captain: We're taking heavy casualties!"

However, I've never seen the mercenaries revolt or turn on me. Even in mission 9, when all of their base except a starport was destroyed, and they lost more that 150 units! What's wrong?

[GUNWOUNDS]

perhaps its just part of the storyline and not a real game mechanic.

[Reactor]

Well, the trigger which controls the Mercenaries' loyalty is very "un-sensitive". Got what I said? 8 cases from 10 cases, the Mercenaries will stay on your side, no matter what happens to'em.

They're counting the INFANTRY's loss, not vehicles or structures. So if many of their Troopers' head rolls, they'll become neutral, but will still fight 'gainst the enemy forces. At most cases, y'shall get a warning from them: "Mercenary leader: We're losing too many men!", but not ALL the time. So this means the Mercenaries can turn neutral w'thout a warning. Once they break up wit' you, y'shall get a message: "Mercenary leader: We've lost too many man. We must withdraw our support".

When you see this - KILL THE TRAITORS!!! Do not show the SLIGHTEST mercy towards them! Capture the important facilities, and SET THE REST TO BURST! No prisoners, no survivors!

All in all: If they loose too many troopers, they'll become neutral, and if y'shoot'em, they'll be hostile. It's a rare case when this happens alright, but DOES happen.

[MrFlibble]

I heard the rumor that if they break alliance, they turn on the player and try to wipe him out...

Also, the "Mercenary leader: We're losing too many men!" message appeared one right after the game (mission 9) started (after less than a minute). But they remained my allies never the less fro the rest of the mission.

[Reactor]

If the Mercenaries desert in mission 9, it could be really painful. However, a few well-organized troopers and light infantrymen may bring'em down quickly. If they turn 'gainst you - just DESTROY them all!

[MrFlibble]

I wish I could - but they don't want to! ;D

[Reactor]

Well, then don't help them. Just let'em die under the hostile bases, and when ya get the warnin', just ignore them. Save your mission at the tactical map though, as this loyalty-trigger is very randomized, it will remain unoperational at most cases.

I obliterated all Mercenaries, 'twas fun! Death to traitors!

[Xana]

lol those fucking merceneries better ot try to turn on me for i hve my engineers to capture their buldings a.s.a.p :) :) :D ;)and deviators to control their vehciles and crush their infantrys

[Cm_blast]

Because this is far to considered a "research", I don't want to open a new post.

But, I discovered something interesting about the "casualties" condition type: (this is based from the klofack editor, since the old MVI editor do it in another way).

First, I'm setting the "Flag?" to 0 (eight zeros), and the treshold to 1 this happen:
after 2 of your units died, the event defined trigger. In this case is a "message" (which repeats since I only use "message" and "casualties").

Now, if the first number (there are eight) is set to 1,2 or 3 (10000000, 20000000, 30000000), the same happens.
2 of your units died, the event trigger.

But then, the interesting thing that is making the game being a bit "inconsisted".
When the first valour is set to 4 (40000000). first, there are needed 3 deads instead two (the treshold still is "1").
But that's not all. If you get killed 3 of your units (if your kill your own units doesn't count), and then you kill 2 enemies, suddenly my repeate message stop repeating itself.

Doing the opposite: first killing 2 enemy units and then I need to send 5 of my units to get killed for the message to trigger infinitely.
for Killing 3 enemies then until 7 of your guys don't die the message doesn't trigger.
killing 4 requires 9.

This explain this quote:

On 23/10/2005 at 1:52 PM, MrFlibble said:

However, I've never seen the mercenaries revolt or turn on me. Even in mission 9, when all of their base except a starport was destroyed, and they lost more that 150 units! What's wrong?

With my litte research, in this specific case (the valor set to 40000000), for every unit you kill, that house need to loose two more units.

Now some notes:
with 50000000 the message never triggers (in my test map I have 3 trikes for killing some eengineers and 18 quads, so dieing my 21 units don't trigger anything. This valor set to 8 (80...), after dieing 2 of my quads then doesn't matter if I kill 20 eengineers.

Since the original game use 4 (or 3FE00000 ) I would recommend, (in case of testing) sticking near this number).

Also, I tried the 3FE00000 valor from the original Ordos 9 campaign. With this, if I kill 2 eengineers, 4 quads (and not 5 like with the 400...) is when the message trigger.

Summarizing:
With a treshold of 1 --> For trigger X event you need:
Flag? = 10000000 --> die 2 (doesn't matter if you kill or not) / also, here killing your own units trigger the event.
Flag? = 40000000 --> kill 2 enemies, die 5
Flag? = 3FE00000 --> kill 2 enemies, die 4
Flag? = 50000000 --> Doesn't matter, there is no way to trigger the event.

that's all for now. this is far to be acknowledge as a "full research", but I thing that I got how work in a general point of view. Also, buildings doesn't count, at least in the "400..." example.

 

Edited June 12, 2016 by Cm_blast

[Mustafa Alperen Seki]

It happened to me sometimes they don't became enemy but neutral, you can atack and make them enemy tho. Also you don't need to make them enemy to capture their buildings, you can force capture with CTRL.

[Cm_blast]

5 hours ago, Mustafa Alperen Seki said:

It happened to me sometimes they don't became enemy but neutral, you can atack and make them enemy tho. Also you don't need to make them enemy to capture their buildings, you can force capture with CTRL.

They always became neutral. Is just that any collateral damage (A siege tank shooting an enemy, but the proyectile hit mercs by mistake) is what makes them to turn of you. In fact, they became ally with all your enemies (so the IA collateral damage don't affect them).