Mercenary Armies

[Pedders]

I've been reading a few books recently on medieval England and an idea for a fun experiment sprung to mind. Once the feudal levy fell out of favour (due to the 40 day limit on service), when the king wanted to got to war he would call parliament to extort some cash. Then, appointing a great noble (if he wasn't going himself) would hire mainly mercenaries for the duration of the campaign.

Has anyone tried to restrict themselves to this type of offensive operation?

I would imagine in game terms you could try the following:

Only awarding titles to nobles/knights. The bodyguard unit itself would then represent the nobles personal retinue.

The only permanent troops in the pay of the kingdom (other than personal retinues) would be castle garrisons. If they don't all fit in the castle then build a bigger one or disband.

If you want to go on an offensive campaign, hire some mercenaries to add to the core force of your noble cavalry.

This is going to leave your borders very thinly defended unless you are about to go on the attack yourself. However, if invaded, the troops retreat to the castle (if they're not in there already)which gives you time to organise a noble led mercenary force to relieve the siege.

The money saved on maintaining large standing armies goes into the treasury for funding mercenaries when required.

This appears to me to be a very medieval way of doing things. I'm going to give it a go to see how it works. I'm not pretending this is a dynamite strategy, merely one that would make for an interesting and fun game.

Any thoughts?

[rafiki]

Sounds like a different (and therefore fun) approach to the campaign. I imagine you'll need to emphasize trade and florin production in order to finance it.

Let us know how it develops, and which strengths and weaknesses that manifest themselves http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

Rafiki

PS: Mwa-hahahaha I can post in the main hall Mwa-hahaha http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Pedders]

Just had another thought. You could also "pay off" i.e. bribe attacking armies and then have them disband. Another very common medieval solution.

Have I got the nerve to only spend money on buildings that produce garrison-type troops?

[el_slapper]

Commentaire[/b] (Pedders @ Aout 20 2003,11:53)]Just had another thought. You could also "pay off" i.e. bribe attacking armies and then have them disband. Another very common medieval solution.

Have I got the nerve to only spend money on buildings that produce garrison-type troops?
Medieval??? The US troops did nothing else with several Taliban leaders, who smoothly switched sides..... That required some diplomacy, but really hastened the war. Less than 2 years ago that was...

But, of course, that is an elegant & efficient way to wage war. As long as you've got the edge in financial terms.

[Crash]

Quote[/b] (Pedders @ Aug. 20 2003,05:43)]Has anyone tried to restrict themselves to this type of offensive operation?
Yes, this is now my standard way of playing. I try to conserve my money in order to build up my provinces, so I try to keep minimum garrisons and armies. But I save up a lot of florins and always build inns in my border provinces, so that if war should break out I immediately hire an army of mercenaries and put the best general available in charge of it. I will sometimes add 2 or 3 of my regular units to plug any weaknesses in the unit mix.

I play this way precisely because I feel that it is somewhat more historically realistic than always building huge standing armies. My mercenary armies generally do all of my offensive operations in my games. When the mercenary units start getting depleted, I use them as temporary garrisons and then disband them.

My primary modus operandi is to try to build up my treasury as much as possible and bribe rebel and enemy armies whenever possible, hire mercenaries for counterattacks ore emergency defense, use my regular troops only for defensive battles. Instead of conquering with armies, I try to use agents as much as possible, and try to stay out of the way of other powerful factions so that they will fight each other instead of me. I feel that this really a more Medieval way to play the game. Needless to say, I am not concerned with total domination victories, because I like to keep my trading partners in the game. It's easy enough to get the 60% victory before the game ends once your provinces are all improved to the max.

[Oaty]

Sounds great but 1 thing I noticed is with a small front the A.I. will sometimes see you as being week and attack and potentially causing a war at all fronts. What has happened to me on more than 1 occasion is I take troops away from 1 front and place them on the other front and I get attacked

Then again it sounds like you guys used it with success so maybe its the A.I. mainly cares about equalizing its borders as its main objective

[Simovek]

I was acctually thinking about this earlier today while playing a VI campaign. I needed troops quick for a delaying action against the Welsh. (Turns out my "delaying action" ended up slaying the Welsh King in battle, and the kingdom then fell apart leaving only rebels http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif )

So I hired a bunch of Mercs for that job. That got me to thinking about something like your idea. It sounds very intresting and very fun. I think I will try your idea after I finish my Irish Campaign.

[Simovek]

Oh yes, I forgot to ask this...

I noticed that when I hire merc's that their loyalty is around 3-4. Will Merc's start a civil war if their loyalty is low? It seems kind of silly if they do, because why would they care about how the country is going...as long as they are getting paid.


Is there anything I need to watch out for with Merc's other than the high upkeep costs? I haven't used them much.
Anyway thanks.

[rafiki]

Another disadvantage with merc's is that you can reinforce them or upgrade them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif . But then you need not plan on building province buildings that allow you to upgrade either http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Rafiki

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

Quote[/b] (Crash @ Aug. 20 2003,12:33)]
Quote[/b] (Pedders @ Aug. 20 2003,05:43)]Has anyone tried to restrict themselves to this type of offensive operation?
Yes, this is now my standard way of playing. I try to conserve my money in order to build up my provinces, so I try to keep minimum garrisons and armies. But I save up a lot of florins and always build inns in my border provinces, so that if war should break out I immediately hire an army of mercenaries and put the best general available in charge of it. I will sometimes add 2 or 3 of my regular units to plug any weaknesses in the unit mix.

I play this way precisely because I feel that it is somewhat more historically realistic than always building huge standing armies. My mercenary armies generally do all of my offensive operations in my games. When the mercenary units start getting depleted, I use them as temporary garrisons and then disband them.

My primary modus operandi is to try to build up my treasury as much as possible and bribe rebel and enemy armies whenever possible, hire mercenaries for counterattacks ore emergency defense, use my regular troops only for defensive battles. Instead of conquering with armies, I try to use agents as much as possible, and try to stay out of the way of other powerful factions so that they will fight each other instead of me. I feel that this really a more Medieval way to play the game. Needless to say, I am not concerned with total domination victories, because I like to keep my trading partners in the game. It's easy enough to get the 60% victory before the game ends once your provinces are all improved to the max.
ISnt this kind of difficult - I understood that the more developed your provinces are the less likely you are to get mercenaries in them?

[Crash]

Yes, mercs have a lot of disadvantages, that's why you only want to use them occasionally and temporarily. I play a very slow, conservative game, so I can't afford mercenaries for at least the first 100 years. I spend the first 100 to 200 years just trying to build up trade, so that I have enough florin to hire mercenaries whenever necessary. In the meantime I only war with rebels so that I can have as many trading partners and allies as possible. This is a very patient and deliberate style of playing so it's not for everyone. I'm not concerned with getting a victory in record time, I'd rather enjoy a long campaign game where my provinces get fully developed, and the AI factions are not all broken up by rebellions and civil war. That's why I don't play Expert or Hard.

Near the end of the game, when my provinces are highly developed there may not be as many mercenaries at my inns, but at that point I don't really need them anymore. You can always keep some provinces less developed in order to keep attracting mercenaries, if you want.