Mercenary Units

[Horatius]

Every single turn that I can hire merc units I like (sarmations, cretans, and war elephants) I hire them and place them in a "replacement depot", most probably a city near the front. Everytime my merc units serving in my armies take casualties, I merge one of these new merc units with it to "retrain". I've been able to do this with full units, so I don't know maybe they changed this in the patch because I'm still playing vanilla RTW.

Playing as Carthage, my main battle line was also spanish mercs until I could tech up to at least libyan spearmen. Even then I liked them for their javelins. So, for some factions, hiring mercs at specific points of the game is useful.

No it wasn't changed, I just didn't know about ability to merge mercenary units.

[nameless]

Mercs are just last minute troops needed. There were times when I assaulted a city or needed to defend areas when I was short on manpower so I hired Mercs, put them on the frontline and let them waste to pieces while my legions watch

[cruix]

cretean archers and ranged units in general make better mercs than grunt units, since by their very role their losses are more limited per battle. heck most of the time my casualties come from the flanking equities and the fodder hastati/early legionary cohort line.

which is probably why i only ever use cretean archers for mercs. and sometimes merc elephants if i'm bored enough with egypt.

[cruix]

<<append to prior post
cretean archers being much better ranged attackers than the best roman post marian archers.

[bubbanator]

^^
whats with the blank post

o well, mercs are also useful if you are trying to get a protectorate. Hire some mercs and send them to attack a city and kill most of the garison (and hopefully the general).

[pezhetairoi]

Hmm. All of you don't treasure mercs quite as much as you should. If you were playing Macedon as I was, and needed melee flank guards in a hurry, hell you'd treasure mercenaries. Peasants = cannon fodder, fine, but mercenaries are only worth using as fodder for their purposes. E.g. Cretans = long distance destruction of phalanxes, Bastarnae + Barbarian Mercenaries + Thracians = cavalry chargestoppers + melee flankers, Sarmatians = heavy mobility and decisive strike power and emergency reserves, Scythians + Numidians = mobile firesupport, Peltasts = practically useless and I never ever recruit them, Illyrians = same as peltasts except that they are excellent mixed-arms troops, Barbcav = A striking force in its own right, Hoplitai = chargestoppers, breach contestors, manoeuvre base. Eastern Infantry = garrisons, ram-manners for cav factions, Elephants = self-explanatory, and so on. All of them have their particular roles. None of them should ever be thrown away in battle as fodder just because you feel like it. It's not easy to get good mercenaries. Don't squander them.

[player1]

Well, using mercenaries as Span (Spanish and Barbarian Mercenaries), I avoided poor Iberian Infantry altogether (until I got proper buildings to build Naked Fanatics, and later Bull Warriors).