The cheapness of mercs is 99% of the reason why this game is going downhill. Lets list the effects of mercs:
1. attacking for not much naq is cheap (you know, 5 bil naq.. 100 bil def)
2. this means turns are being used up
3. this means the market price of turns goes up, cos everyone wants them, which is exactly whats happening.
4. this means there is a constant 'war' to get mercs, consquently every turn the mercs are gone before it says 29 minutes, and often there is -200k mercs, even more.
Basically, mercs have become the army for alot of people, instead of adding to it. I don't know whats been posted elsewhere, but Arashi has the right idea. Make the merc control tech more expensive, for a start, and then make the merc control be taken individually from attack and defence, instead of both together. this means you can't have 4 mil super defenders and 8 mil merc attackers (i've seen this, and its absurd).
This means people will have to have 1 mil supers for 2 mil mercs, and this will be good. no more attacking for 3-5 bil naq, causing the defender to loose at LEAST 5 bil worth of supers, while the attacker looses 50 mil worth of mercs.
However, in an attempt to not lock the smaller players out of getting them, the price will need to stay the same, but with a twist. Mercs cost percentage of naq income. Means those bigger players can'tjust buy up the mercs every turn, and have them sitting there, or attacking players for 3 bil naq profit, while they cause billions more damage to defence etc. And this will mean the smaller players can still afford them. Oh, and make merc amount either unlimited, or set a limit to the number of mercs you can buy a day. Maybe this can be another technology..
The net result of making mercs less effective, is both players are able to grow more, as they are not raped for 3 bil naq, and the price of turns will go down, because people won't attack so much, as well as they will run out of mercs.
EDIT:
Sleipnir wrote:I think the system is fine the way it is. Using mercs for your strike is just good business. Remember, because of the merc limits, people need normal soldiers in order to have mercs. If they're not on offense, that means they're on defense. So they can be massed. If you don't like the fact that someone is losing only mercs on your defense of supers, pay a visit to their defense.
If people were forced to use supers on offense, we'd soon hit the point again where attacking is not profitable. Attacks need to remain profitable to keep the game interesting.
Err, no. You can just train 1 mil defence basic units, buy mercs, and then untrain the defence units, and you have 30 minutes to attack before any of you mercs run away. Your idea might work if the game checks merc numbers every minute, but that will be a huge performance hit. Basically, im sorry, but you've got it a tad wrong >_<