Mercenaries - anyone use them?

[econ21]

I wonder what people's experience with mercenaries is? I tend to play rather pacific building games, so they seldom seem worth their increased (doubled?) support cost. When, if at all, do others use them?

In envisage the folling situations:

(1) quick mobilisation - you need units and need them now

(2) leap-frogging the tech ladder - eg hiring knights before you have the pre-requisite buildings

(3) filling out gaps in your army - eg Byzantines are a little lacking in good late units; the Almohads in heavy cav etc

(4) snagging a high valour unit or good command leader from the pool

Which of the above cases do people employ them in? Are there other uses?

The reason I ask is I am toying with making a "more historical units" and wonder to what extent I can rely on players being able to use the merc pool to offset gaps in the line-ups historically provided by domestic troops.

[Knight_Yellow]

ill buy sorta reasonably good mercs to guard all my "toublesome" provinces like scotland and portugal etc.

[Lord Of Storms]

They can come in handy in a pinch but watch the support costs.http://www.smilies-world.de/Smilies/Smilies_klein_1/Smilies_klein_1_1/rhoodaa.gif

[Dr_No]

Really handing for out tech jumping the AI and getting siege weapons qiuckly....

and if you only use an inn for one thing make sure that one thing is the Alan Merc Cavalry- major back side kickers i buy them whenever i can.... even more use if you play elmoheads as they have no real cavalry options...

[Bob the Insane]

I like mercs both for the early avilability of Seige Engines and for the fast mobilization.

It makes a realy difference in early game seige busting to have a decent seige weapon which is capable of completely trashing a fort or keep.

The fast mobilization to useful in 2 situations. Firstly is when you find yourself seriously out gunned by an enemy (a life saver for the Byz against the Egyptians). Second is the disposable army, if you want to serverly harrass an enemy and get some good virtues for your heirs (and have a lot of spare cash) try building a huge merc army and putting an heir or two in it, then send it rampaging through the enemies lands. At first you should find that the army practically pays for itself in loot, but the idea is you can tie up the enemy in battle and destroy his infrastructure without comprisiming your own defences. And if all it all goes horribly wrong you can just disband the mercs with no problems.

[rasoforos]

i use mercs quite a lot as well , especially when i am fighting against the mongols and need good archers fast. I believe they are worth their money , especially in battles when casualties are expected to be heavy.

[A.Saturnus]

They are especially handy when you play with huge units or when you have very few provinces that can produce units but the money for it.
About (4), did someone get a high star general that way ?? Never happened to me.

[NateEngle]

> (1) quick mobilisation - you need units and need them now

I have definitely hired them in this circumstance. Especially very early in the game before production centers have had a chance to ramp up, this can give an attacker a valuable edge.

> (2) leap-frogging the tech ladder - eg hiring knights before you have the pre-requisite buildings

Or hiring units that you'd otherwise be unable to build due to nationality restrictions. In my current game as the Italians I've got a couple of mercenary longbowmen that helped with my push across Africa.

> (3) filling out gaps in your army - eg Byzantines are a little lacking in good late units; the Almohads in heavy cav etc

It depends on the size/scale/type of the gap. I'm not sure it's realistic to expect mercenaries to fill some gaps. My experience with them is that while the missile troops will dutifully tromp into position and let loose their arrows, melee-oriented mercenaries have worse morale than their regular counterparts, so as a rule I just don't bother with them (which makes the heavy cav for Almohads problematic, along with Byzantine late-era spearmen or halberdiers).

> (4) snagging a high valour unit or good command leader from the pool

Hmmm, to be honest I've never tried right-clicking any mercenaries to see what sort of numbers they have. After having struggled through 4 generations of inept Italian princes I can see why it would be attractive to snag a good 6-star mercenary general. I may have to check that out sometime.

> Which of the above cases do people employ them in? Are there other uses?

> The reason I ask is I am toying with making a "more historical units" and wonder to what extent I can rely on players being able to use the merc pool to offset gaps in the line-ups historically provided by domestic troops.

I wouldn't think that being able to hire mercenaries is so much the question as whether those units would be an adequate alternative. Maybe I've just been unlucky but my impression has been that when it comes to melee they're a bunch of little girls. I'm thinking in particular of a couple of halberdiers I was really counting on to hold my left center one time, but who instead started running away long before the militia sergeants I had holding the right flank. I lost a lot of good arbalesters because of those cowards.

[Oberiko]

The way I generally play is to have an adequate defensive force on my borders, and then just a couple peasants in the remainder of the provinces to maintain order. This allows me to amass a considerably large stash in my coffers.

When I go on the attack I hire as many mercenaries as possible, while I start to build up my forces. The mercenaries are sent en masse against the enemy in almost suicidial attacks. This ties up his army, both softening them up and giving me time to get mine up to scratch.

Once my forces are ready, I continue to hire mercenaries to bolster them, in battle I will often send them out first to act as fodder and let my forces come in on the flank.

Once hostilities have ceased I then can the mercenaries and use my newly created forces to garrison the gained territories until the populace has been broken.

[Nelson]

When you need desert troops, mercs are the way to go. I get Arab mercs whenever they're available and save them for the African campaign that is bound to come sooner or later.

[Gaius Julius]

IMHO, only use them if, and when you need them.
Then disband them.
They are expensive, and have large support costs.
Also, little or no loyalty, adds to threat of rebellion.

[LordKhaine]

I use them a lot. If you can afford them.... they're great. So flexable, and so quick to muster an army. I generally like to keep buying merc units throughout the game, so my provinces are full with mercs. This way if I ever need an army fast I can be sure to have several merc units ready to get.

Most usefull time for mercs? A civil war. In such a time its important to quickly kill the rebels before other factions take advantage.

[ichi]

Simon:

I use mercs a lot, but under specific conditions. I build an Inn for every other province I control.

1 Never buy a merc that I can build, unless its a crisis. If Im in serious trouble or see an worthwhile opportunity, these guys can really fill in the gaps.

2 Buy high quality units that I cannot make (like if Im Danes and I see a Kataphraktoi, Alan Mercs, or maybe longbowmen), snap em up as soon as they are available.

3 But em on the sharp end and let em die in battle, the faster the better (and yes, I agree with Patton that a soldiers job is not to die for his master, but to kill the other poor SOB. My point is that I don't keep them in reserve, but use them in my fighting forces)

4 Buy desert troops for Africa/MiddleEast fights

5 Disband em when they get below 20, 25, 30 depending on the situation and type of unit.

ichi

[Sainika]

I use mercs a lot. But not all kinds of mercs. I never buy camels, murabitin infantry, kerns, all javelinn-like units and all low level units. My favourite mercs which I like to use are arbs (when playing Turks, Almos and everytime I need to increase my missile troops before the important battle), then italian light infantry and swiss pikemen of all kinds.
I buy mercs when assaulting sieged castle. They're a kind of cannon fodder: I send them to break through the walls or to open gate. Never use them as garrisson, cause they are not so reliable as ordinary troops.
And in many cases beyond the said.

[andrewt]

I use them sometimes. When I was Egyptians, I used them to conquer either Kiev and Khazar from the Byzantines. I wanted to get them quickly but realized I didn't have enough units to garrison the province and didn't want to wait. I hired mercs to conquer and defend the province while keeping my real units out of harms' way. The mercs were eventually slaughtered almost to the last man while I only had around 3 losses for my real troops.

[DonCoyote]

Quote[/b] (Simon Appleton @ Mar. 05 2003,09:17)](4) snagging a high valour unit or good command leader from the pool

I often hire mercs, but not once have i seen a unit with command stars & "high" valour units are a rarety as well.

There is no doubt that mercs can play an important role in campaigns, as mentioned above, Alans are an almost must buy - especially early.

And to disagree slightly with Sainika, if you are playing as a catholic faction & you crusade to the holy land, if you want to hold these provinces: BUY camels.

Don Coyote

[Longshanks]

Mercs have come in handy for me after launching a succesful crusade. Usually the army that captured the province has had to fight it's way there and has taken some losses. It also finds itself surrounded by enemies.

Mercs have come in handy for me at that point if I haven't got shipping lanes in place yet. I can quickly bolster my outnumbered forces against the inevitable counterattacks and jihads.

[Sainika]

Quote[/b] (DonCoyote @ Mar. 07 2003,03:26)][quote=Simon Appleton,Mar. 05 2003,09:17]

And to disagree slightly with Sainika, if you are playing as a catholic faction & you crusade to the holy land, if you want to hold these provinces: BUY camels.

Don Coyote
Well it's a tough question. If you have a high-star general to increase morale of your troops then maybe it's worth buying camels in a desert. Camels and berber camels are low morale troops even as ordinary ones and when they are represented as mercs - the penalty to morale becomes the factor of possible defeat. Also, every time I use alan cavalry in a desert it loses even against archer units.
When I play as Catholic faction and fight in desert I prefer to use only ordinary troops and missile mercs (arbs) - light infantry and cavalry.

[DonCoyote]

Yes, there are always proviso's, there are a lot of units with low/poor morale - that doesn't mean they are unusable. I have had to defend tripoli etc against very large forces, in these situations you need desert-specific forces to some degree (eg turcoman horse, or turcopoles). In addition, i have taken xbows into these battles - & if there are multiple waves of nme reinforcements - they are almost useless. As they are armoured they tire quickly, once they are exhausted they seem not to fire hardly at all.

In these battles the nme general often has a LOT of camel units - believe me they are not useless. In desert they get a combat bonus (i think) and they cause fear to horses which gives them another bonus vs horse cav.

At the end of the day which units to use is entirely up to the individual player, nearly all the units in the game have some utility. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Don Coyote

[PoLsKa_HuSaRiA]

I like to hire loads of mercanaries and use them in the front lines of and invasion so that they are teh first ones to die. That way i have loads of units in a very short space of time that die before the support costs accumulate to high.