Using Mercenaries

[Legorreto]

I am planning to invade one province in Spain, but have not that much troops to do so, How reliable is it to get mercenaries? Are there some ones more loyal than others in terms of types of units? What is your general opinion on them?

[Knight Templar]

They're quite useful in lack of your troops, but keep some things in mind:

1. they're usually less loyal than trained troops. However, if your other troops are loyal, it's not big problem. You can even train spies on them.
2. when hired, they're twice cheaper than same trained units
3. their upkeep is twice more expensive than upkeep of same trained units (for ex, upkeep of trained FMAA is 45 florins per turn, upkeep of merc FMAA is 90 florins per turn)

I use them when I don't have enough troops to attack someone, especially in the begining of the campaign.

[.:vVv:.Monkey]

Mercs are great if you have the money for them. However, make sure you're getting Mercs for the types of units you can't train, i.e don't get Merc Crossbowmen if you can train Crossbowmen.

They're always loyal (as long as they get their money) :) Make sure you put them under a high command/high valor general so they don't rout easily

[Knight Templar]

I forgot to add, it's somehow great to have merc Khawarezmian cav around 1092

[Weebeast]

I don't use them unless someone is knocking on my door cus I'm a neat freak. I can't tidy up mercs. I hire 'unique' units though. I just like using units that I don't have.

They're loyal the most when your king/empire is at his best shape. When a new king gets elected their loyalty goes down right away.

[Roark]

As the Byzantines, I use mercs a great deal for my invasion forces. The Byz just can't field good spearmen or polearms otherwise.

Playing as Catholic factions, I usually shop around for the best available horse archers and siege equipment (Merc Mangonels). For some reason, I'm always a little bit behind in my development of artillery.

[Martok]

Playing as Catholic factions, I usually shop around for the best available horse archers and siege equipment (Merc Mangonels). For some reason, I'm always a little bit behind in my development of artillery.

I also hire out artillery crews--particularly mangonels and trebuchets, since of course it takes a while before can train them myself. Aside from that, however, I don't use mercenaries very much. I'll hire out the occasional heavy infantry/cavalry unit, depending on my needs, but that's pretty much it. It's not that I don't like mercs; but they're generally too expensive to be worth it. I'll hire them as needed, but for no longer than is necessary. I always replace mercenaries in my employ with my "home-grown" versions as soon as I'm able.

[Cowhead418]

I use them when I'm getting ready for a large invasion of a province where the enemy has lots of troops. I usually have a few provinces with inns and I wait for a turn with plenty of mercenaries for hire. On that turn I hire as much as I can afford and attack. The mercs take the brunt of the enemy fire and therefore will take most of the casualties so I can keep my "home-bred" troops safe. They will also stay to take some of the casualties in sieges. After I conquer the province fully I usually disband unless the mercenarie unit(s) can still be useful.

[el_slapper]

As others. Plus this detail : they cost much to stay alive. So they are used as cannon fodder, while regulars must get most of the kills.

[matteus the inbred]

they cost much to stay alive. So they are used as cannon fodder, while regulars must get most of the kills.

couldn't agree more. they're there to get killed, not paid!

except merc artillery, as Martok and Roark said. very handy to whip up a couple of mangonels for that tricky siege.

my favourites are Rus and Italian spears instead of the rubbish ones you get early on. and Arab swordsmen, although it's amazing any would want to be hired by me, their survival chances are...low

[Loucipher]

Couldn't agree more with what was said.
For me, mercenaries are good for:
1. Quickly mounting a diversion attack somewhere, so that enemy uses up his resources before I commit my national armed forces.
2. Leading the suicidal and sacrificial attacks during battles or assaults (a unit of mercenary men-at-arms getting shot to pieces or ridden down by enemy knights saddens me far less than a unit of my own troops in such situation).
3. Keeping an eye on besieged castles (and suffering losses in such cases) while my own troops are out winning field battles.
4. Training my spies on low-loyalty generals and my assassins on low-command generals (most of mercenary units aren't really good at either).
5. Supplementing my own armies with units I can't train normally, but would like to have for some mysterious reason (e.g. Armenian Heavies, Khwarazmians, various siege equipment crews, Vikings (in early) an so on).
All uses except 5. lead to one corollary, ingeniously pointed out by Matt:

they're there to get killed, not paid!

Excellent words! To that extent, I use mercenaries only when at least one of these conditions are met, and have no second thoughts about sending them into potentially catastrophic positions. For example: as far as I'd never order a unit of my own missile troops to charge into the fray after their missiles are spent, I'd give such an order to mercenaries without even batting an eyelid, just to provide more bodies to throw at an enemy. On the other hand, I try not to put them in positions where their rout might affect morale of my national troops - after all, they still wear my colours, at least for a while...

[matteus the inbred]

as the saying goes, soldiers are there to make a living, generals are there to make a killing...

even the very best merc regiment will take enough casualties to make it not worth fielding sooner or later (sooner... ), and you can't replace the casualties, so never get attached to them.

inns are something i now build almost everywhere, as they improve loyalty as well. for factions with crappy starting troops or big gaps in what they can field (Byz, HRE, French) and a serious need to kick butt from the start, mercs are the answer.
good in VI too, you can hire nasty Viking stuff and crossbows!

[Ciaran]

There´s only one kind of unit I´ve been hiring as much as I could in vanilla MTW, and that´s Druzina cavalry. Why? Because they dismout to 80 Feudal Foot Knights anytime and those make a hell of a killer unit in early (when the Chivalrics arrive the FFKs loose some of their shine but still are excellent swordsmen). Anytime else, I´ve only hired mercs if I needed to boost my ranks quickly.

[The Darkhorn]

There´s only one kind of unit I´ve been hiring as much as I could in vanilla MTW, and that´s Druzina cavalry. Why? Because they dismout to 80 Feudal Foot Knights anytime and those make a hell of a killer unit in early (when the Chivalrics arrive the FFKs loose some of their shine but still are excellent swordsmen). Anytime else, I´ve only hired mercs if I needed to boost my ranks quickly.

Now that, I definately do also. Jump on Druzina's any time you can as they're great with a sword....and if you're a man....just hire them.

[gunslinger]

In my campaigns as the danes and the english, I have made good use of merc mounted crossbows. I basically only use them to kill the byz katanks. If the byz attack with katanks on their flank, one unit of mounted crossbows can severely diminish one or two units of katanks before they get to my lines.

Of course, now my English billmen with valor upgrades from Mercia and weapon and armor upgrades from the Iberian are WAY more than a match for any cavalry that they can latch onto, making the mounted crossbows much less important in my armies.

[Foreign Devil]

I don't think that anyone has mentioned that merc artillery is generally very cheap, upkeep-wise, which is another good reason to keep some around. I almost always use merc artillery instead of teching up, at least in the first 50 or so years of my campaigns, and often much longer.

[ajaxfetish]

I'd reply, but everything I can think of to say about mercs has already been covered. They have their uses. They have their limitations. Good synopsis, folks.

Ajax

[gaijinalways]

I also use some merc troops for defense. Sometimes you can't bring regular troops fast enough to a province far away and the mercs might give pause to an attack or help in repelling enemy troops. And since more often than not they might get killed enough to disband them after the battle, their upkeep is not high once your regular troops arrive.

[_Aetius_]

I probably hire to many mercenaries than is healthy, as the Byzantines I have sometimes half stacks of mercenaries, of course only if I can afford them, I use them similar to the Romans used other nationalities as auxillaries.

I hire Billmen, Longbowmen, Templars, sometimes Vikings, CMAA, Halberdiers, Italian infantry, Lancers, anything that will supplement my army. Mainly anti-cav units, but special units like nearly full Templar units are to rare to miss.

I use mercenaries also as fodder for far flung garrison duty, i'd rather a load of mercenaries perish than Byzantines like Varangians who can only be trained in a few places.

On loyalty they can be very disloyal, during a Byzantine civil war many mercenaries sided with the rebels and I lost Italy because of it. But another time I had a civil war with Byzantium mercenaries who had served for a long time with the Emperor rallied to his cause and I doubt i'd of won the war if it had not been for them.

The rules are, hire only what is useful, affordable and make sure you keep them in check, don't allow to high a percentage of the army to be mercenaries and disband what is no longer useful.

[Cowhead418]

Mercenaries just helped me keep Prussia. I hadn't been checking my provinces when suddenly Prussia revolted with an army of 1300 rebels (I'm the Portuguese so Prussia is far off from the rest of my empire). My troops held off that rebellion but with significant casualties. My army consisted of Russian troops that had rebelled in a Russian civil war so I cannot replace any casualties. The turn after I fought off the rebellion the Lithuanians reappeared with 4000 troops.

As I had only 212, it did not look good. I considered just retreating and ransoming them but I checked what mercenaries were available and decided instead to have a major last stand. I trained some Slav Warriors and hired all the mercenaries available. It was my 592 troops versus 4000 Lithuanian savages. My troops were just a bit better in quality but vastly superior in valour. My men fought valiantly and crushed wave after wave. I defeated the last wave just in time because I don't think I would have survived another. My troops were exhausted and depleted but I won with just over 300 casualties. My general of this battle received some very nice traits and also went up from four stars to six. The mercenaries helped to kill nearly all the enemy troops. The only downside is that I didn't get the Butcher trait. I ended up with about 970 prisoners and just missed the mark.

[ajaxfetish]

I probably hire to many mercenaries than is healthy, as the Byzantines I have sometimes half stacks of mercenaries.

Well, at least you're being historically accurate .

Ajax

[RemusAvenged]

Mercs can be enough to change the whole game from the start.

One way to use them, works well in VI, is to buy a bunch early in the game before any neighbors have big armies, and to keep them from getting them. Since they are cheap you can buy enough to make a big difference in stomping the surrondings. Make sure that in any attrition they are up first to save your real armies for down the stretch.

If you conquer enough quickly you can keep them, but if things go poorly you may have to ditch some. At the very least they will have hopefully been successful in taking your enemies down several notches.

Not to say this is really an ethical approach..

[_Aetius_]

Well, at least you're being historically accurate .

Ajax

hell yes!

[Alexios]

I will use a merc if its a unique unit and it may be of some use to me at the time (I esp. like Katanks if I don't have the ability to build one myself). I will usually buy them in early, when my back is up against the wall and I'm being attacked by an aggressive neighbor. But I usually use them only on a temporary basis, and after they've been cut down to only a handful of men or so, I'll disband them.

Which leads me to a question: Is it possible to rebuild a merc unit in one of your provinces? I have tried to do this, and although I have the proper tech. advs. it still comes up saying I don't have the right facilities, or something to that affect anyway. What facilities are they referring to? An Inn? I know you need one of those to buy a merc initially, but I didn't think you would need one to rebuild. It may or may not be wise to rebuild a merc unit, but my question is more out of curiousity then anything else.

[Martok]

Which leads me to a question: Is it possible to rebuild a merc unit in one of your provinces? I have tried to do this, and although I have the proper tech. advs. it still comes up saying I don't have the right facilities, or something to that affect anyway.

Mercenaries cannot be "retrained" to replenish their numbers, nor can they be merged with another merc unit, even if it's of the same type. You can only do these things with your regular army units.

[Zain]

I never use Mercenaries, It just feels like cheating to me... and I never have enough money anyway.

-ZainDustin

[matteus the inbred]

Mercs can be enough to change the whole game from the start.
One way to use them, works well in VI, is to buy a bunch early in the game before any neighbors have big armies, and to keep them from getting them. Since they are cheap you can buy enough to make a big difference in stomping the surrondings. Make sure that in any attrition they are up first to save your real armies for down the stretch.

couldn't agree more...in my Mercian campaign i have two whole armies comprised of mercs with regular Mercian generals, cos i got attacked by Picts whilst still being embroiled with Wales, which is revolting (heheh, of course it is) and also full of raiding Viking warbands...i needed about 1,500 men in a hurry, and cos i always build inns, bingo, there they are. it helps that Mercia is a very wealthy faction, but without i'd have a few hundred fyrd facing berserks and crossbows and god knows what. in this case i don't want to use them to fight with, cos they haven't made a very balanced army (i just hired everything regardless), just to keep the Picts where they are until my regular and very experienced main armies have finished up with Wales. i also don't want to get them all killed as i might need them again; going against my own previous argument here, thanks to VI for the learning curve!

[Loucipher]

Oh yes... beefing-up the numbers of your own troops performing a "threat-in-being" mission somewhere... maybe I shall add a Reason No.6 to what I had written above...
Still, IMHO the mercs only pay their rent fighting, not standing idly. Therefore, they should be somewhere beating the nine rings of hell out of some wretches. Besides, continual putting them in harm's way let you cut on their salary in the process.
Oh well, playing Mercia in VI you are probably swimming in florins already, so what the heck...

[matteus the inbred]

Oh yes... beefing-up the numbers of your own troops performing a "threat-in-being" mission somewhere... maybe I shall add a Reason No.6 to what I had written above...
Still, IMHO the mercs only pay their rent fighting, not standing idly. Therefore, they should be somewhere beating the nine rings of hell out of some wretches. Besides, continual putting them in harm's way let you cut on their salary in the process.
Oh well, playing Mercia in VI you are probably swimming in florins already, so what the heck...

you're not kidding! my King regularly lights his fire with large bundles of fifty florin notes instead of using damp peat like everyone else...
I'm only in that kind of trouble cos I never have enough military provinces, a weakness I have exhibited throughout my entire Total War career. I'm filthy rich but can only produce about four units per turn, which means I occasionally get caught with my pants down but backstabbing AI factions...and one of the reasons I am filthy rich is cos I skimp on troop numbers! I will probably send most of the mercs in as a first wave to thin out the quite decent Pictish armies before i use my own shiny proper troops, so the main 'ethic' of using mercs still applies really.

[Loucipher]

you're not kidding! my King regularly lights his fire with large bundles of fifty florin notes instead of using damp peat like everyone else...

You made me laugh heartily with that
I'll share an offtopic story with you: a colleague of mine, who is now working in Ireland, told me that he had visited one of those funnies shops and bought a pack of handkerchiefs. The handkerchiefs were quite normal, with one exception: they were resembling printed 50 pound notes. He made me laugh describing the face expressions of the patrons of some bar, where he sat down and began to make joints out of them... They were really thinking he was smoking real money...

I'm only in that kind of trouble cos I never have enough military provinces, a weakness I have exhibited throughout my entire Total War career. I'm filthy rich but can only produce about four units per turn, which means I occasionally get caught with my pants down but backstabbing AI factions...and one of the reasons I am filthy rich is cos I skimp on troop numbers!

I share the same deficiency too. In the beginning I tend to invest just in one or two troop producing provinces, concentrating on economical upgrades of the other. This leaves me up (sometimes) with as little as 4-5 castles per 40 provinces. The rest gets a fort and an inn (just to produce peasantry and ocassionally spawn some mercenaries), and all the economics I can think of (trading structures, ports, farmlands up to max, mines). These are my milk cows, and with added ability to create fleets and trade routes allow to accumulate prodigious amounts of gold. On the other hand, the troops that come out of the "training centres" are really beefed-up: all the best valour, armour and weapon upgrades, the best generals, the cutting-edge roster. I aim at being able to field a full stack (16 units) every 3-4 years. In nearly all my games it is just enough.

I will probably send most of the mercs in as a first wave to thin out the quite decent Pictish armies before i use my own shiny proper troops, so the main 'ethic' of using mercs still applies really.

Sound as a viable strategy, especially against the dreaded Pictish crossbowmen Just allow them to make some target practice on some paid wretches, then let your bloodhounds out to pick them off Cruel , but perfectly medieval