Exactly. Turns only need to be "fun gameplay" not anything else. To me a child should take about 35 turns to reach "Of Age" and become a Champion. Then he should live "forever."
Equally, there should be no Menopause. Having a ticking biological clock for various characters just doesn't add a lot to the game. Its too "sim."
As far as unit-costs go .... individual 0.1 gold, party 0.3 gold, company 0.7 gold, platoon 6 gold, Brigade 12.5 gold, and legion 40 gold.
That is upkeep for within borders. Upkeep for any unit outside of borders is double. Champion upkeep is ALWAYS 1 gold, whether inside borders or outside borders. Researching Logistics reduces total Military Maintenance by 1. Researching Refined Logistics reduces total Military Maintenance by 2 (repeatable) and increases speed on roads by 10% (or by 1).
Each tech that "unlocks" a new Unit-size also decreases total Military Upkeep by 1, except for Legions. Researching legions decreases total Military Upkeep by 5.
negative values of Upkeep are stored, yet always give 0 as a response. Meaning, that if you have -5 military upkeep, you aren't paid money, but your military expenses are 0. If your military upkeep increases by 5, expenses will still be 0. If, however, your at -5 and your expenses increase by 6, then your total military expenses will be 1.
If a Champion becomes the Governor of a City, his/her upkeep is reduced to 0.
Researching "Bribery" in Diplomacy will also unlock recruit-able mercenaries. Mercenaries will be more likely to show up near your city if it has Taverns, Brothels, and Pubs. (maybe even theaters). While a city's prestige + gold income per turn gives a base value for Mercenaries showing up ... Taverns, Brothels, and Pubs each give +100% modifier to the base value.
N x ( Prestige x (1 + 2 ( income/ 100 ) ) ) is the value that Mercenary appearance uses (Merc Value). N starts at 1. For every Pub, Tavern, and Brothel, N is increased by 1. There is a separate value for each city ... although income would be the same throughout the empire, so income is always important for attracting Mercenaries. Some mercenaries require a minimum level of "Merc Value" to even have a chance to show up. Other mercenary groups will show up once X number of cities have appeared, or when X world-wide civilized population is reached. Other mercs will only appear once the first Pub, Tavern, or Brothel is built. All mercs, however, will have a higher chance of initially appearing nearest the city with the highest merc value, and almost all mercs will slowly gravitate towards cities with high merc values. Different Mercs will have different attraction values. The lower the attraction value, the more likely the merc is to simply go for the nearest town. Attraction value is the number of tiles it takes for a distant merc value to be reduced. Lets say that the city with the highest merc value is 100 tiles away, with a merc value of 50. You take the distance, and divide it by the Attraction value. In this case 100/20 is 5. This is your "distance penalty". In this case, its 5. So you take the Merc Value, and divide it by 5. A Mercenary group with an attraction value of 20, 100 tiles away from a city with a Merc value of 50, will see that city as having a merc value of 10. If there is a city within 20 tiles of that Mercenary group with a higher Merc value than 10, the Mercs will drift in that direction instead. Lets say that the Merc value of a city 15 tiles in the opposite direction is 14. The Mercs will head in that direction.
Different Mercs have different requirements to appear on the map, and also have different Attraction values. In this way, its hard to guarantee that you will get all the mercs simply by having the city with the highest Merc value, but having a higher merc value is always useful for recruiting Mercs. For every 20 Merc value, Mercenaries recruited nearest that city cost 10% less. A Sovereign can attempt to buy mercs that are near a rival's city. However, the percieved difference between the Rival City's Merc value, and the nearest friendly city's merc value (precieved by the Mercenary group, dependant on Attraction value) .... needs to be paid up-front in gold. So if the opponent's percieved merc value is 40, and your nearest city's percieved merc value is 25, then you would need to pay enough gold to make up for a difference of 15 merc points. How much 15 merc points cost depends on the strength of the Mercenary group. Lets say that this is a strong mercenary group. Each merc point would cost 10 gold ... so buying them off would cost an extra 150 gold per turn ... however since your Merc Value is 25 (Above 20) you get a 10% discount over total price. Lets say their base price was 300 ... so total cost is 450, and discount is 10% so actual cost is 405 gold.
If your city had been the one with 40 merc points, and they had drifted to your city ... then you could buy them at 20% discount (300 times 0.8) which would have been 240 gold. Mercenaries always cost double maintenance, however luckily they don't cost extra when you send them to foreign lands.
This Mercenary party could be either 6 parties of regular units (50 gold each), or 5 champions (60 gold each).
