mercenary army

[Franconicus]

Mercenaries are good to give your army more diversity. But do you have experience with merc armies only. What are the pros and cons?

[The Stranger]

theyre not retrainable. not cheap to produce and are extremely restricted. also you need a general to get them.

pros are you can get them fast. you can get units you otherwise could never get.

[Watchman]

And there are certain advantages in fighting the Romans in the deserts Carthage with stacks of various Arab and Bedouin mercs (yes, hauled all the way from the Middle East; with top-level roads and an all-cavalry army it doesn't actually take too long) when you're the Seleucids. Goes a long way towards nullifying the "home ground" advantage of the Numidians too...

[Deus ret.]

I like to use merc-only armies as kind of suicide squads: Take a useless family member, hire all required troops on the way to the front and send him deep into enemy territory to wreck some havoc on them, far away from your own empire. If you capture cities, destroy them, but the goal is to lure their forces away from the main front and weaken them through a kind of guerilla war.
This is really entertaining because although your army will gradually diminish, you can hire new troops on the way, which makes up for a highly diverse and interesting-to-play army.

[Watchman]

Hee, that starts sounding very Thirty Years' War...

[Franconicus]

Mercs armies pros:
- You do not have to care about casualities, just abandon them after the battle,
- You can recruit quite a lot
- It does not decrease your population (playing very large recruitments can ruin your best towns)
- If you delete them after the battle you can even increase your pop!
- You do not have to protect all your borders with a steady army. Just buy one when you need it
cons
- It takes a lot of money
- You cannot retrain them

[Al Khalifah]

In my crusaders campaign as Britannia I made extensive use of mercenaries because I find the British armies to be severely lacking many areas and the generally nomadic nature of any faction trying to perform such a scenario. I had to use mercenaries to replace fallen troops because I was only allowed to hold certain settlements. While my ships sailed around Spain I picked up mercenaries from Southern France, Iberia, Numidia and Africa so that by the time my fleet reached Sicily, I had an unstoppable horde of an army with excellent troop variety. In Sicily I was able to recruit hoplites. I decided the destruction of the SPQR faction would help my cause by breaking the Roman factions apart so I captured Rome and gave it to the Greek Cities as a gift, which allowed me to recruit Samnite mercenaries (with the huge cash boost this gave).

I often found myself left with armies that were more mercenary than regular or totally mercenary save for the general. A truly multi-national Britannic Empire it was.

[Mahrabals apprentice]

Using mercenaries alos allows for a 'change of pace'.

PLaying brutii I had armies that were packed with heavy infantry, which is perfect for smacking down barbarians, but not so hot for rfighting scythians and pontus. So i took the crimea and hired all the cavalry mercs i could get, giving me a very differant army to my others. PLus I got a fuzzy feeling in my stomach with all those samatians

And hordes of horse archers are fun in their own unique way (for a rome-aholic)

Mercs can just broaden your options

[bubbanator]

I use merc armies if I want to cripple or destroy a faction, but do not want/need their settlements. I send in one family member that has some potential, take the enemy settlements, exterminate their populations and give them as a gift to an ally (or just let them go rebel)

Al Kalhlifia, I like your stratagy of taking out Rome just so the other Romans kill each other. Taking out the Senate army with all mercs is an impressive feat.

[LestaT]

Prior to RTR I seldom use merc but now I use it extensively as a means to fill up my armies since now have to wait until u get the right building before retraining units.

One full stack army conquering the Dacians is consist of about 4 units of Principees (most depleted/half unit strenght) , 3 Triariss a General (so many stars now) and the rest are all Illyrian skirmishers and one Cretan archer. So much fun to 'bully' those Dacian armies consist of 10 units of onagers and the rest warbands.. Har.. Har. Har...

[Cheater]

Mercs are interesting to use, most of the time, anyway. But being the bastard cheater that I am, I modded the Descr_Mercinaries.txt to have the ability to hire ANY mercenary ANYWHERE on the map! Not only that, I also modded them to have max experiance (3 gold chevrons) and they are locked at 99 units available. Also the actually have a replenishment rate of 30 units per turn.

If any of you are interested in knowing how, just ask and I'll be more than happy to tell!

[Gaius Magnus]

Cheater!

[Ciaran]

So his name says

However, if playing with a Roman faction you can easily come into the situation of needing a good anti-cav force, as the Romans are very weak in that particular field. Two or three mercenary phalanxes might save your day, especially when fighting some horse-heavy factions.

[Mahrabals apprentice]

I have to confess to being a semi-cheater
I altered the file alos to make cretain archers available in lkarger numbers over a bigger area and with more experience (but 2 as opposed to 9!). And i made elephants a littler more common

Like i said in my earlier post, Mercs give a little variety to your armies, and therefore your battles, and make the game more enjoyable.

PLus i need to add they are great when u find your self outnumbered badly. When i sent 1 stack of brutii to take all spain I 'bit off more then i could chew' so I hired a full stack of mercs from spain and north africa and kicked some ass

[Cheater]

Cheater!

You have no idea how much that made me laugh! Almost like the catch phrases from the TV shows!

Anyhow, the whole purpose of the cheat is just to have the ability for my Roman factions to have some Phalax and Elephant units, seeing that they can't train them themselves. However, because of the nagging fact that you need a general to hire them, I sometimes simply mod the buildings of the factions and make them able to train the said units themselves. I've noted that the Romans don't seem to have a light cavalry, so I gave them the Arab cavalry to train at one time.

Also, when I was playing as Macedon, I made it possible for them to train Bastarne (misspelt) units. I did this because they had no other infantry unit than phalaxes and I generally don't like phalaxes a lot other than pinning troops and... well... that's it! :P

Anyway, my cheating also means that it is practically impossible for my enemies to have much of a fighting chance as I blitz through the world... fighting nutured enemies who are struggling to pay off a -999999999 debt!

I really AM a bastard Cheater! ~:JOKER: :CLOWN: :WISEGUY:

[edyzmedieval]

Cheater!

I use mercenaries for instant troops, and I have won a battle because of a single unit of mercs, the Illyrian mercs....

[pezhetairoi]

I use mercenary armies when I need (or feel like) opening a new theatre of operations, am far from my troop producing centres, and happen to have access to enemy generals bribable by my diplomatic shock troops. E.g. I raised an entire full stack from 3 ex-germanic factioners, 4 barb cav mercs, 2 Sarmatians and barb/thracian/bastarnae mercs for the rest to fight Germania, as Macedon. apart from getting drastically different tactical possibilities from my phalanx style, it also enables you to conquer the world faster, especially in a theatre that does not have a major importance, and does not require speed.

Con: not retrainable. But who cares? They aren't made to last, and with that army you can already last through perhaps 3 or 4 settlements, by which time you should have begun replacing them with your buildable units. Expensive, but instant. Useful for emergency defences, or take-at-all-costs-before-the-enemy-does.

[The Stranger]

You have no idea how much that made me laugh! Almost like the catch phrases from the TV shows!

Anyhow, the whole purpose of the cheat is just to have the ability for my Roman factions to have some Phalax and Elephant units, seeing that they can't train them themselves. However, because of the nagging fact that you need a general to hire them, I sometimes simply mod the buildings of the factions and make them able to train the said units themselves. I've noted that the Romans don't seem to have a light cavalry, so I gave them the Arab cavalry to train at one time.

Also, when I was playing as Macedon, I made it possible for them to train Bastarne (misspelt) units. I did this because they had no other infantry unit than phalaxes and I generally don't like phalaxes a lot other than pinning troops and... well... that's it! :P

Anyway, my cheating also means that it is practically impossible for my enemies to have much of a fighting chance as I blitz through the world... fighting nutured enemies who are struggling to pay off a -999999999 debt!

I really AM a bastard Cheater! ~:JOKER: :CLOWN: :WISEGUY:

while everyone is wining that the ai is to weak and the game is to easy....this guy makes it even worse. i dont see the fun here.

[Mr Frost]

I typically build all Mercenary armies in Asia Minor untill I'm well established enough to produce advanced units there .
The generally consist of a line of Mercenary Hopolites with a Barbarian Infantry unit on each flank , some Mercenary Peltasts {good roadblocks , good firepower to disrupt a charge and can chase routers} , a few Barbarian Cavalry and plenty of Cretan Archers and Rhodian Slingers {as many as four units of each ... firepower !} . Sometimes I'll add a couple of Thracians , but they aren't really neccessary . Such an army can handle any other army quite well if sensibly used .

On the Steppes , if not playing as Scythia/Samartia or Pathians , I'll build all Mercenary armies of Sythian Horse Archers and Samatian Lancers which can beat any army sensless except an advanced Scythian or Pathian army ofcourse , which they can still handle given the A.I.s' limitation verses a human foe .

I imagine that an Army built from the best Mercenaries accross the map {Hoplite line + Cretan + Rhodian/Baleric +Illyrian + Numidian Cavalry + Scythian + Samartian + Bastarnae + Mercenary Elephants} would be very effective , but not worth the effort unless building ones population was absolutely imperative at the time and one had the naval assets and spare Family to do it {and nothing better to do with said assets , though Numidian Cavalry is often worth the effort :)} .

[The Hun]

Mercenaries featured much in my Scythia campaign. My faction leader ( the one who eventually was Supreme ruler ) when he was heir and starting his career as a general had 9 units of mercenaries. They served him well.

[bubbanator]

In my recent Brutii campaign, the British were getting out of hand. They were expanding and were on my doorstep, they had taken out what was left of Gaul, and all of Germainia. I didn't really want to build up armies and beat them back so I decided to plunder their lightly defended homeland. I took a young general that had just come of age. A 16 year old with 3 stars to start out with. I built up a fleet for him and sent him around collecting mercs. I stopped by sparta, crete, Carthage, and made several stops along the Gallic coast. When I finally arrived in Brittian, I had a full stack of mercs. I sacked Londinum and the other cities in the mainland. I exterminated them and destroyed every building that I could, trained one unit of whatever I could recruit their (Roman Cavalry or Early Legionary Cohorts ususaly) and then moved on. I had brought along a diplomat and I bribed the one general that was walking around. 4 stars but more importantly, he could hire me more mercs. So now I have a full stack and a half stack army. I put them on the boats and send them to pilliage Sambrovia and the surrounding settlements. I let all of them rebel. Some went back to British control, some didn't. But it didn't matter, all of their buildings had been leveled and the population was decimated. Their economy was in shambles and they could no longer support the many full stack armies that they had. They also had no ports to rebuild their once powerful navy. Their expansion stopped and I had accomplished my goal. I could now resume my military opperations without interuption in all areas of the world. All this thanks to my mercenary army.

[Mahrabals apprentice]

I had brought along a diplomat and I bribed the one general that was walking around. 4 stars but more importantly, he could hire me more mercs. So now I have a full stack and a half stack army. .

I may be stating the obvious but you could have just taken your own general out of his merc stack and start a new one. You can get as many stacks as you want as long as you have 1 FM, you don't need 1 per stack

[Withmyspearandmagichelmet!!!]

Mercs are interesting to use, most of the time, anyway. But being the bastard cheater that I am, I modded the Descr_Mercinaries.txt to have the ability to hire ANY mercenary ANYWHERE on the map! Not only that, I also modded them to have max experiance (3 gold chevrons) and they are locked at 99 units available. Also the actually have a replenishment rate of 30 units per turn.

If any of you are interested in knowing how, just ask and I'll be more than happy to tell!

I'd quite like to know how you did that. I won't cheat to the same extent but maybe i can improve the merc recruitment system to give more variety.
Wokimotto

[bubbanator]

I may be stating the obvious but you could have just taken your own general out of his merc stack and start a new one. You can get as many stacks as you want as long as you have 1 FM, you don't need 1 per stack

You misunderstand. I sent my newly aquired general to go raid different settlements. I needed him to hire more mercs on the way which is the whole reason I bought him.

[pezhetairoi]

I'd quite like to know how you did that. I won't cheat to the same extent but maybe i can improve the merc recruitment system to give more variety.
Wokimotto

edit it in /world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_mercenaries.txt

It should be self-explanatory once you get in there. Cheers!