Mercenaries - can someone explain...?

[RJV]

Hi,

Has anyone done any research into Mercenaries?

Specifically I'm interested in their availability - what governs the type of unit that becomes available, and what governs the frequency?

Are available mercs restricted to the type of unit that my faction could normally hire?

An example... Playing as the Armenians, I am about to capture the Parthian capital (Arkasias? sp???). The province this city is in has elephants as a 'resource' on the strat map. Does this mean merc elephants are a possibility here? Or does that have no relevance on the merc side of things?

A second example... as above, my faction leader is currently able to hire two Eastern Infantry units. A second general (in a neighbouring province) is also able to hire two EI units. Both sets of mercs became available at the same time (and have been available for 3 turns now) - is this coincidence or is merc availability tied to a regional level as opposed to a provincial one???

Any clarification on this gratefully received.

Cheers,

Rob.

[Akka]

It's very simple : each province has a certain pool of mercenaries you can recruit. Once you've recruited them, they take a certain time to "regenerate".
That's it :)

[RJV]

It's very simple : each province has a certain pool of mercenaries you can recruit. Once you've recruited them, they take a certain time to "regenerate".
That's it :)

Well, yes that would just about explain it. It doesn't explain the mechanic though does it? I was hoping for a bit more of a scientific answer to be honest...

How is the pool comprised?
Are some provinces more likely to yield mercs than others?
How are the units for each province decided upon?

Cheers,

Rob.

[Arkatreides]

Ok, think of it this way:

A pool is just a set of provinces, like, for example, the North of Italy or Gaul.

In each pool there are certain mercenaries you can recruit. The type is set and will never change. The maximum amout of mercenaries available is also set. So for example in Gaul you will only be able to recruit Mercenary Warbands (a maximum of 4) and Barbarian Cavalry (a maximum of 1). Once you recruited all of them, the pool is empty, so in all the provinces belonging to the pool the mercenary count will now be zero.

Now each turn that passes there is a certain probablility that mercenaries appear in the pool again, so after a number of turns you will again see the above units available to be recruited.

Hote that it does not matter what faction you are, you can always recruit mercenaries. This is especially useful if you play a faction that is lacking in some area, e.g. the Carthigineans not having archers.

Hope this helps.

[Akka]

Well, yes that would just about explain it. It doesn't explain the mechanic though does it? I was hoping for a bit more of a scientific answer to be honest...

Sorry, but I can't really make a more scientific answer, because it's just that there is no mechanic as of speaking.
There is just a certain number of regional pools that have been set from the start and won't ever change, regardless of the owner of the region, of the army recruiting or of the time passed.

[RJV]

OK, the replies above suggest what I'd thought. For any province (or given set of provinces) there is a given set of units that may or may not become available. Once hired, there is then a probability that one or other of the set units may become available (and there may be more than one type available at any one time)

Not exactly scientific, but at least it reflects my own experience.

So, to the modder types - is this info held in one of the text files somewhere? I seem to remember from MTW that merc probability was something that could be modded (or have I made that up?)

Cheers,

Rob.

[Sinner]

The file you're looking for is descr_mercenaries.txt found in the Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign subdirectory under your RTw installation directory. Unlike many of the other data files there isn't any description included, but the format is fairly self-explanatory.