Wallenstein's Contracts
Wallenstein's Contracts is a German Fortress Age Church technology unlocked by the Treaty of Westphalia Home City Card. It reduces Mercenary cost and training time, and can discount Coin costs for eligible German Mercenary shipments. Its value depends on how many of those units and shipments the player will actually use.
Research profile
- Age
- Fortress Age
- Civilization
- Germans
- Research location
- Church
- Home City Card
- Treaty of Westphalia
- Research time
- 15 seconds
- Coin cost
- 1,500
- Effect
- [[Mercenary (Age of Empires III)
Effect & research conditions
Research costs 1,500 Coin and takes 15 seconds. Mercenary cost falls by 15%, training time by 10%, and eligible German Mercenary shipment Coin costs by 50%; infinite and team shipments are excluded. The shipment discount is a current Definitive Edition rule. Older versions did not apply the same Coin discount, and the technology's base Coin cost has also changed between releases and updates.
Research condition
Germans; Church; Fortress Age; requires the Treaty of Westphalia Home City Card. Infinite and team Mercenary shipments are excluded from the 50% shipment Coin discount.
When to research
Research before a sustained Mercenary plan, not simply because the card is in the deck. Compare the 1,500-Coin investment with the savings from the Mercenaries you will train or ship, then check that each planned shipment is eligible. If the army will use only one small Mercenary group, direct production or another technology may be more useful.
Separate training savings from shipment savings
The 15% cost reduction and 10% shorter training time apply to Mercenary production, while the 50% reduction applies to Coin charged by eligible German Home City Mercenary shipments. These are separate parts of the effect. The shipment rule does not make every Mercenary card free: infinite and team shipments are excluded, and the player still needs a deck containing cards that qualify. For a Saloon or Mercenary Camp army, estimate the training savings across the planned queue; for a shipment-led force, check each card's eligibility before relying on the discount.
Version history changes the calculation
The Wiki records a 1,500-Coin cost for the current technology, compared with 3,000 before update 15.30007 and 4,000 before the Definitive Edition. The shipment discount also changed: Mercenary shipments did not cost Coin before update 15.30007, so a 50% reduction had no equivalent effect in those versions. Older guides may therefore describe a different investment and payoff. Use the current Definitive Edition numbers for current play and label the older values when comparing historical patches.