Mercenary Units

[Horatius]

I think there should be a fick so you could hire replacements for fsllen soldiers in a mercenary unit.

The thing is it seems like Mercenaries are a one battle then finish with them unit no matter what experience they get because you can't retrain them, which is a shame becauseit is fun to supplement your army with the locals, so when a mercenary unit is available for hire you should have the option of hiring or retraining the unit.

[Deus ret.]

That's the price you have to pay for hiring troops fast.

Often it pays to keep the units somewhere since sooner or later another one of the same kind will show up, enabling you to compensate further losses better. Sarmatian mercenaries for instance are far too valueable to waste, either by disbanding or let alone by using them as quick cannon fodder...

[Dutch_guy]

well you can always merge your merc. units.
not as good as retraining but still..

[Productivity]

I think there should be a fick so you could hire replacements for fsllen soldiers in a mercenary unit.

The thing is it seems like Mercenaries are a one battle then finish with them unit no matter what experience they get because you can't retrain them, which is a shame becauseit is fun to supplement your army with the locals, so when a mercenary unit is available for hire you should have the option of hiring or retraining the unit.

]

That's not true. I've had a couple of mercenary groups that over the time have taken a prized place in my armies. You can retrain by hiring and merging.

[Horatius]

]
You can retrain by hiring and merging.

Can you tell me how to do that?

[CMcMahon]

Hire a new group, and merge it with the old one. That way, the larger group has more experience than the smaller one, rather than the other way around.

edit: It is kind of dumb that you can't retrain them normally, though. One would assume that a mercenary hoplite unit hired by the Greeks would be able to reequip as a normal hoplite unit.

[sapi]

just in case you meant how, select the army and press 'm' to merge all units in it.

[LestaT]

just in case you meant how, select the army and press 'm' to merge all units in it.

You have to add though that the unit that you're merging with is depleted also. You cannot mix with a full units. Would be glad if you can mix a half depleted merc with a newly full hired merc and kinda mix between the vets and the greenies.

It's I think coded that when you mix one unit get to full strenght and the balance is all that left. Cannot mix and give even unit numbers..

[Marcellus]

Welcome to the Org, Horatius

I think there should be a fick so you could hire replacements for fsllen soldiers in a mercenary unit.

The thing is it seems like Mercenaries are a one battle then finish with them unit no matter what experience they get because you can't retrain them, which is a shame becauseit is fun to supplement your army with the locals, so when a mercenary unit is available for hire you should have the option of hiring or retraining the unit.

You can't retrain them in cities because you don't have the facilities to train them in the first place (if you had then you would just train these units, not hire them).

You can't repair them all the time by hiring more soldiers because often there are no units of that type available to hire.

And you can't repair them by taking some of the soldiers from a passing mercenary unit becuase the members of that unit would want to stick together and not break up into small, useless units.

So you're stuck with either hiring a whole new unit or merging damaged units, I'm afraid.

[Spartiate]

Ah yes.The old emotional attachment to a treasured and valued unit raises it's head again.In a Brutii campaign i once had an army with 6 units of gold chevroned Merc Hoplites and 4 units of silver chevroned Merc Cretan Archers with full armour and weapon upgrades from Sparta.I had been hiring and merging them all during my invasion of Greece and Asia Minor.Then when i was tired (dumb) enough one evening to use auto-calc and had an army of my finest Legionary Cohorts slaughtered in Egypt i sent down my trusted Mercs to reinforce the survivors and they slowly but surely conquered the Eggys and the Seleucids with the occasional merging unit being supplied from Greece.Hate it when i get sentimental about Mercs.The swine are only in it for the money.

[bubbanator]

The only mercs that I ever get "attached to" (try hard to keep safe) are Cretan Archers because they are excellent archers and Sarmation mercs because they are just so cool. Almost all other mercs are used to gaurd my flanks.

Barbarian mercs I use to fill the role of cavalry when I have none. They can run around to the rear of the enemy line and pin them against your line. Their weight of numbers helps greatly.

I also use them to quell riots.