I loved StratOcastle's suggestion but fear it will get lost in the other debate so I think it warrants its own thread to explore this idea. Hope you don't mind StratOcastle?
My thoughts so far, just throwing ideas about to get the ball rolling:
They can be recruited to fill a non-25 kd to participate in any upcoming war.
Role: Whatever race/personality the merc prov chooses when creating prov.
Bonuses: 50% of their military wages paid by recruiting kd evenly split between all provinces - they are hired help after all.
50% cheaper mercs.
Restrictions: Cannot join existing wars to turn the tide.
Recruitment: I'm not sure how this would work? After eowcf ends what happens to the merc prov? I guess they can remain in the kd, but how to ID merc provs?
Is it a good idea to tag them with a symbol by their prov name and have them stick out like a sore thumb? Maybe a different colour? Maybe recruitment can be in game like normal recruitment campaign only add a seperate one for merc provs, when a kd starts a merc prov recruitment all merc provs get alerted, sounds simple enough but I imagine will not be easy to code.
I love the idea but it clearly needs some honing, I think this would spice the game up tremendously also WILL help ghettos who are getting bashed...maybe they can recruit some merc provs to help them defend/stave off a feeding barrage by stronger bully kds who refuse to accept CF?!
Obviously they should have the freedom to defect and random into another kd like any other player with same restrictions on defecting.