Mercenary

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A Mercenary

A mercenary is a unit from Age of Empires sharing the appearance of the heavy cavalry, unique because it has no line of sight. The mercenary is a editor only unit that cannot be trained in random maps, and as such its purpose is mainly in custom scenarios. It cannot be assigned to the Gaia player, though due to its invisible nature it may appear as though it were found like a Gaia unit. It should also be noted that the unit does not change ownership like an artifact, and remains in the players possession when off-screen. The only unit that shares this property is the blind lame priest, which is an immobile priest unit.

Background

A mercenary is a soldier who fights or engages in warfare primarily for private gain, usually with little regard for ideological, national, or political considerations. However, when the term "mercenary" is used to refer to a soldier of a national, regular army, it usually is an insult.

Mechanics

Because the mercenary has 0 LOS, it becomes invisible whenever it is covered by fog of war. This will mean the player cannot see or therefore select the unit. The player will likely be unaware of the existence of a mercenary unit in their possession unless they use visibility cheats or deduce the existence of other units from their population.

The mercenary is a passive aggressive unit much like an elephant that will not attack nearby enemy units unless provoked. When covered by fog of war an ambushed mercenary will be unable to respond to an attacking melee unit, though may be able to retaliate against a ranged unit due to flares dropped as they attack. They will retaliate only against units they can see - when attacked by a melee unit under fog of war they will not respond, even if the fog is removed briefly after. It will also fail to respond to additional melee attackers joining the first attacker in this situation, including ranged units, unless tasked again. In addition, if the mercenary falls under fog of war again once attacking, its attack will be rendered ineffective against normal units immediately. However, against buildings, the mercenary can continue to attack and deal damage even if they disappear under a blanket of fog.

The mercenary's attack can also be buggy though, where it will continue to attack thin air after the unit has moved away. They can then be attacked from another angle as they continue to attack nothing, and will not deal any damage even if a unit moves into the area they are 'attacking'. This is especially the case for CPU mercenaries. For this reason use of mercenaries may be considered slightly unappealing.

When reveal map/no fog is used, the mercenary unit still cannot attack enemy units that would under normal circumstances be invisible. This is not the same for shared ally line of sight, which is treated as equivalent to normal line of sight (where the mercanary can be tasked normally and responds to attacks).

While they cannot be seen when covered by fog of war, a pre-selected mercenary remains selected under the fog, meaning the hitpoints and location (using spacebar key) can be determined. By assigning the unit a team number they can be monitored while having the freedom to do other things as well.

Because they have no line of sight mercenaries can not discover Gaia units, and given ally LOS or visibility cheats, they can even attack Gaia units. They can however discover ruins, artifacts and discoveries. By placing Gaia units beside the ruin or artifact, mercenaries can indirectly discover Gaia units as well.

Another way to gain ownership of Gaia units is with flares. Flares are made every time a ranged unit attacks. If Gaia units are placed next to the ranged unit, they can be discoverd via the flare created when it attacks the mercenary. This can be used to create a timed appearance, often on another part of the map. Blind lame priests are even more popular for this trick, as they are easily destroyed as evidence and cannot move away anyway.

Gaia towers will attack all units, including the mercenary. A Gaia tower is a good way to help light up a mercenaries path, firing upon them as they go by then changing ownership as the flare is dropped beneath them. They may act as a "light house" for the unit in negotiating a party , but remember if you place CPU units near, it will attack them too.

Due to their civilization bonus, the Macedonians have mercenaries with 2 LOS, meaning they are no longer 'blind'. This is also the case for converted Macedonian mercenaries, as converted units maintain unit specific attributes like speed and line of sight.

Use in scenario design

The ability to track a mercenary through an invisible field could employ obstacles (e.g. mirror towers, bring object to area loss conditions etc) to create a certain path the unit must go through. This path could also be determined by finding a certain clue in the level - e.g. using the instruction map, story and some rocks found by a temple in a puzzle explaining which route to take.

The mercenary units lack of line of sight could be explained as either blindness or being blindfolded, or could represent their treacherous nature of running away when not watched carefully. Alternatively, it may simply be night time.

One interesting variation on the timed appearance suggested by The Dark Archer at Age of Empires Heaven is to have an artifact moved by a CPU player to cause the appearance of the unit. This could represent the CPU player paying you to do a task for them, and the scenario could begin with a small delay. Because artifact movement by CPU players can be unreliable, a backup method may be a good idea.

Detecting an alliance between two players can be difficult - the mercenary offers a way to detect the existence of an alliance - all it requires is the player tasking the mercenary in some way. For example a group of mercenaries could be bought from a player by tributing them some gold, which causes them to change diplomacy and reveal the mercenaries. Appropriately, allies granting you a line of sight cannot be turned upon, as the mercenaries themselves will disappear immediately, and will be unable to attack the player in the fog.