Recruitment/hiring
New units, soldiers, or heroes are added to the player's roster through an in-game recruitment process — a barracks, a tavern, a random applicant pool — rather than being fixed from the start. XCOM 2's rookie recruitment and Darkest Dungeon's stagecoach of randomized hero applicants both make roster-building an ongoing management activity distinct from combat or base-building. Designers use recruitment systems to create attrition-replacement gameplay (losing a veteran hurts, but recruitment lets you rebuild), to add variance and personality to the roster (randomized names, stats, or traits per recruit), and to gate roster growth behind resources as a pacing lever. Key decisions: recruitment cost and cadence (currency, resources, or narrative unlocks), how much randomization applies to new recruits (stats, classes, traits), whether recruits start weak and must be trained up (creating investment in new hires) or arrive combat-ready, and roster size caps. Pitfall: recruitment that's purely a currency sink with no meaningful individuality between hires makes losing a unit feel inconsequential — giving recruits distinct names, portraits, or traits (even minor ones) is what makes attrition emotionally resonant.
- Dev effort: Medium
- Timing: Real-time or turn-based
- Common in: tactics, roguelike