Does the AI hire mercenaries?

[Duke John]

I have made a test campaign where all troops have no building requirement. This means that you can't train units. However I made all units mercenaries so that you could hire them from Inns.
I then gave most provinces an Inn and all the factions loads of florins. All the starting units were erased.

The game was set on autorun, and after checking several factions, not even 1 mercenary was hired

Did anybody ever saw the AI hire mercenaries (no guessing, I need to be sure)? Sometimes the AI does have exotic troops but this probably done by bribing armies.
Has someone discovered a way to make the AI hire mercenaries?

It seems to me that mercenaries are just another advantage for the player. I wanted to try out wether I can erase the normal training procedure and make unit creation dependable on random factors: the "mercenaries". But if the AI doesn't even hire them, then that is out of the question.

Cheers,
Duke John

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

I have seen a few mercenaries for A.I factions but that is a rare thing. I remember seeing an Egyptian army having SAP in the viking invasion game which was a sight i didn't like seeing and evetually turned the tide for the Egyptians in the proceeding battle http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

It would be interesting to see if we could increase the a.i use of mercenaries.

[Xiphias]

I've seen AI units with the mercenary icon too. It is very rare though.

[Frodo Lives]

A mercenary only mod, what a great idea. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif


I have seen the AI use mercenaries a lot in the Viking Campaigns. I think the problem is that the AI usually doesn't build INNS or gets past the point where mercs are available.

[tombom]

I've seen them hire mercenaries once, in a High campaign. I saw two mercenary units of the Alomohads (i think).

[VikingHorde]

I have never seen any, pretty odd I think.

[Duke John]

Ok thanks for the replies. I think we can be pretty sure that the AI uses the mercenaries very poorly. I've been looking at the files and I can't see any entry that could influence the choice for the AI to buy mercenaries.

If anyone gets an idea I would be glad to hear it, but I think that we can conclude that if you want to provide the player with tough challenge then eliminate all mercenaries. They only give the player another advantage.

Cheer, Duke John http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/barrel.gif