A question that had answered itself

Under what circumstances do the mercenaries appear in a province? I'm playing as Bizantium, early, vanilla MTW, unpatched. I know that the lesser buildings you have in a province - the greater the chance of mercs appearing there, but I haven't had any for 10 turns or so now and I'm getting worried... it's about 1120 or something in-game... and I've built the faulty Inn in Georgia province.

I've noticed the same thing happening in my HRE campaign, I've built an inn in two undeveloped provinces on two different sides of the map and both of them went dry for ten turns in a row or so (as long as I could tolerate them being useless) - I just scrapped them.

I think that mercs add a lot of flavour to the game and really like using them - specially the Mounted Xbows if my current faction can't build any and the hybrid archer types (I like using my Bulgarian Brigs as additional flankers after I withdraw them behind the spear wall and the initial clash). I managed to get some of my armored Bulg Brigs to valour 2 and 3 and suddenly found myself unable to reinforce them anymore...

So, what gives? Is this some kind of bug?

Jesus! I've typed up this message at home to post over a public comp (don't have net access at home). After typing it up, I fired up MTW, loaded my last save and went to chek if there were any mercs for hire in Georgia - and this time there were about TEN diferent kinds of them... and when I was last playing it, there weren't any, in fact there was no "Hire Mercenaries" tab in the Train Units window of Georgia province at all... dry merc season for over ten years.

I guess that kinda answeres my question - exit MTW, fire it up again, chek province et voila!


Btw:
I've finally managed to drive the whole four stacks of the Egyptian army from Antioch all the way back to where tey came from (THEY had started it), razed all the buildings in newely conquered Sinai, lowered taxes then left it as a buffer zone between us, hoping to get them to invade it while I built up some basic troop producing facilities in Palestine in order to update my beat-up troops.

But what I wanted to tell you guys was that they've left me an intact Border Fort in Arabia, so while we were hanging around that part of the world I could see the opposing army's V&V's...

And it would seem that by managing to rout the Eggyes off the map annualy I've graced their royal line (Praise be to Allah, the Compassionate!) with some interesting Vices...

So:

After having to deal for over a decade with the Byzantine army that was three times smaller than his own, Sultan Baybars the First has become (by the grace of Allah, the merciful, the wise) somewhat Eager to Retreat, Hesitant and widely known as a Weak Defender (and is probably wetting his bed at night, every night, secretly asking around trying to find some good psychiatric help)...

His poor son Khalil is now known throughout the Sultanate as an outright Coward and if you ask some of his more damaged troops, those boys'll tell you that they consider him being quite a Weak Attacker...

Ilghazi, his trusty Urban Millitia general has managed to disgrace himself before Allah and his Sultan by showing those (positively amazed) Byzantine barbarians just how much of a Good Runner he can be with a unit of screaming, ax-wielding, armoured Viking mercenaries at his back...

And prince Manuel of the Byzantines has (in the process of steadily deconstructing the Egyptian army) become a Skilled Attacker, has shown Scant Mercy to the unwashed hordes opposing him, but has, regretfully, become a Blackmailer and has started enyoing himself in an incestous relationship with his daughter (albeit Secretly) - his soul finally swayed to the Dark Side (being a Natural Born Killer already didn't help) by all the riches and decadence Antioch and Tripoli had to offer...

I think there´s something random about mercenary appearance, but an active war going on close to the inns location seems to increase the chance of mercs´ availability.

Yep, thats right. War in nearby provinces increase the chance for mercs availability. Also, when you disband some of your units, then they will be available also(at least in the province, that you disband that unit, and you have also inn).

I think mercenaries are randomly generated where and when you would expect them based on the unit file (e.g. Alans around the black sea; gunpowder units in high), but disbanded units also join the merc pool. Mercenaries are constantly on the move and appear where there are few law-related buildings (palaces and title-related buildings, town watch, perhaps the border forts); if a war is waged nearby and where mercenaries have been hired before.

The more developed (advanced/more buildings) a province becomes, the less likely mercenaries are to appear. Build your Inns in frontier provinces, with minimal buildings.

Interesting point geezer, I've never noticed. One thing I know with a good bit of certainty is that inns get many more mercs when they are border neutral or esepcially hostile forces. Inns in your centre provinces get next to nothing.