Mercenary Units.

[Ignoramus]

Post here the definate mercenary units as well as suggestions for them.


My Suggestions:

Note: These are, to my knowledge, reasonably historical, if you see some which have the wrong location etc., then please tell me and I will correct it.

Name: Swiss Mercenaries.
Location: Switzerland, Papal States.
Quality: Good disciplined pikemen.
Cost: Expensive.

Name: Mercenary Arquebusiers.
Location: Everywhere.
Quality: Sub-standard gunpowder infantry.
Cost: Mid-Range.

Name: Serbian Infantry.
Location: Serbia, Croatia, northern Greece, Bulgaria
Quality: Low quality disciplined spearmen.
Cost: Cheap.

Name: Turcoman Mercenaries.
Location: Turkey/Asia Minor/Anatolia.
Quality: Good, reliable, and swift horse archers.
Cost: Mid-Range.

Name: Holibars.
Location: Ireland.
Quality: Lightly armoured Irish horsemen.
Cost: Cheap.

Name: Highland Mercenaries
Location: Scotland
Quality: Weaker version of the main Scottish Highland unit.
Cost: Mid-Range.

What do you think so far?

[Ranika]

Hobilars in this period are not lightly armored, not cheap, and definitely not mercenaries. They were in the earlier middle ages, but by this period, they were the isolated remains of Irish aristocrats and Normano-Irish nobility; they fought for the French and Spaniards, but not as mercenaries. They were given lands and used to replace disloyal nobles; they were transferred nobility, and brought their armies, as well as recieved local soldiers. They fought for the English as well, but those were Normano-Irish nobles, in English controlled regions of Ireland (making them regionals).

Instead, there are Galloglaich/Galloglaidh (Anglicized as 'Gallowglass', exist from about 1250 onward) in all of Britain and Ireland. They fought for everyone who had the money to afford their rather high price, the Irish just happened to hire them in huge number.

[Narayanese]

I see stradioti are listed by yggdrasill as mercenaries, but I got the impression after reading about them that they fought for venice alone.

Swiss should be availible to at least the HRE highland states, i've read about them being used as garrison in some cities there. A pope (from the Borgia family) used swiss mercenaries in a war against the northern italian states, but milan used swiss mercs too, all in the 16th century.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Thanks for continuing to keep us on track with the Irish units Ranika!

Other than the one main iossue it looks fine to me, I had no idea the Swiss were used by the HRE...

[Yggdrasill]

Stradioti fought for other Italian city states, for France etc.
If you had the cash, they wouldn't ask you were you came from. Venice was their primary employer because of their extensive overseas possessions, they had an easy access to the Stradiot's primary recruiting grounds.

The Swiss and the HRE kind of hated each other. They were mercenaries and they would, in theory, fight for anybody, but they mainly fought for France which was their primary employer. They were found in other armies as well (Papal and other Italian statelets) but generally not in the armies of the HRE and the various German princes and bishops. If some did find themselves in there, they were usually the dregs of the Swiss war machine, and very inefficient, not worthy of their counterparts fighting for other nations.

The hatred began during the BAvarian wars, but they especially hated the HAbsburgs that had tried to conquer the Fedration at one point. Swiss confederation was very liberal and democratic republic and the generally disliked the feudal overlords.

[GodsPetMonkey]

Of course, it's not like there is a shortage of top notch mercs hanging arround southern Germany/northern Italy. It's a pretty merc'd up region!

[Narayanese]

Random thoughts on unit stats:
I don't like the phalanx formation. The spear attribute makes such a great difference that it shouldn't be used for ordinary spears, even quite long ones, (they're good against infantry too after all) but instead for pikes rather then having those have phalanx ability.
Perhaps lance cavalry could have spear attribute too (and raise the attack a little so they don't fair too bad agaist infantry). Lances ought to be more useful against cavalry since they're in quite loose formation (polish cavalry fared very well against swedish because of their lances, till they broke those and had to fight with sabres), whereas infantry is so packed that the lance isn't good for very long. That might also introduce a little more tactics in using cavalry.
I was also thinking of changing what armour stats they get. Since plate armour was thicker at the front those units should have some shield stat. Buckler units on the other hand should have more defense as a result of the buckler, as a buckler is much better against h2h-weapons then bullets and arrows.
I was thinking of restricting armpour piercing to arquebus, musket, cannon, hammer and pollaxe, as weapons like arrows, axes and handgun shouln't be as good at piercing. Not sure about pistol, it's fired close up after all.
For the speed of the horses of balkan cav there is fs_fast_horse, all other can have fs_horse, as armour weigh so little compared to a horse that western light cav shouldn't be faster then heavy cav, mayby the barded ones could have lower stamina. The quality of the non-balkan destrier would be shown as additions to the attack and defense of the unit (easier to steer the horse in battle if it's not some cheap packhorse).
With barbarian invation we'll get the shieldwall and shiltron formations, the latter will be good for scotland.

Edit:probably best to ignore the above --Narayanese

[Uesugi Kenshin]

What is the shiltron?

I think we could give high quality horses the excellent stamina or whatnot attribute so that the other cavalry are about as fast, but tire much faster. (I think I am just agreeing with you here...)

Also I think axes should get either armor piercing or high attack and I think pistols should definately get armor piercing because their close range would make their lower firepower negligible.

I think soldiers with heavy armor should not get shield bonuses because the shield bonus also affects only one side, not the whole front.